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diff --git a/30896-8.txt b/30896-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a312f27 --- /dev/null +++ b/30896-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,40338 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, When Ghost Meets Ghost, by William Frend De +Morgan + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: When Ghost Meets Ghost + + +Author: William Frend De Morgan + + + +Release Date: January 9, 2010 [eBook #30896] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's note: | + | | + | Inconsistent and missing punctuation have been corrected | + | without comment. | + | | + | The 'oe' and 'ae' ligatures have been changed to 'oe' and | + | 'ae'. | + | | + | Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected. A list of | + | corrections from the original is included at the end of | + | the book | + | | + | Text enclosed between equal signs was in bold face in the | + | original (=bold=). | + | | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST + + ++------------------------------------------------------------- + +| BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN | ++--------------------------------------------------------------+ +| | +| | +| JOSEPH VANCE | +| | +| An intensely human and humorous novel of life near London in | +| the '50s. $1.75. | +| | +| ALICE-FOR-SHORT | +| | +| The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends | +| and family. $1.75. | +| | +| SOMEHOW GOOD | +| | +| A lovable, humorous romance of modern England. $1.75. | +| | +| IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN | +| | +| A strange story of certain marital complications. Notable | +| for the beautiful Judith Arkroyd with stage ambitions, Blind | +| Jim, and his daughter Lizarann. $1.75. | +| | +| AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR | +| | +| Perhaps the author's most dramatic novel. It deals with the | +| events that followed a duel in Restoration days in England. | +| $1.75. | +| | +| A LIKELY STORY | +| | +| Begins comfortably enough with a little domestic quarrel in | +| a studio. The story shifts suddenly, however, to a | +| brilliantly told tragedy of the Italian Renaissance embodied | +| in a girl's portrait. $1.35 _net._ | +| | +| WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST | +| | +| A long, genial tale of old mysteries and young lovers in | +| England in the '50s. $1.60 _net._ | +| | ++--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + +WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST + +by + +WILLIAM DE MORGAN + +Author of "Joseph Vance," "Alice-for-Short," Etc. + + + + + + + +New York + +Copyright, 1914, +by +Henry Holt and Company + +Published February, 1914 + + + + +Dedicated to The Spirit of Fiction + + + + +CONTENTS + +PART I + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + 0. SAPPS COURT 3 + I. DAVE AND HIS FAMILY 6 + II. A SHORTAGE OF MUD 16 + III. DAVE'S ACCIDENT 24 + IV. BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL 30 + V. MRS. PRICHARD 40 + VI. THE STORY OF THE TWINS 45 + VII. DAVE'S CONVALESCENT HAVEN 60 + VIII. DAVE'S RETURN TO SAPPS COURT 72 + IX. A VERDICT OF DEATH BY DROWNING 84 + X. AT THE TOWERS 93 + XI. MR. PELLEW AND MISS DICKENSON 110 + XII. THE MAN WHO WAS SHOT 117 + XIII. AN INQUIRY FOR A WIDOW 127 + XIV. A SUCCESSFUL CAPTURE 134 + XV. WHAT AUNT M'RIAR OVERHEARD 150 + XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF SAPPS COURT 156 + XVII. HOW ADRIAN WAS NURSED AT THE TOWERS 171 + XVIII. HOW GWEN AND THE COUNTESS VISITED ADRIAN 185 + XIX. GWEN'S VERY BAD NIGHT 200 + XX. SLOW AND FAST APPROXIMATION 208 + XXI. A RAPID ARRIVAL 220 + XXII. A CONFESSION AND ITS EFFECTS 239 + XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO MRS. MARRABLE 258 + XXIV. THE SLOW APPROXIMATION GOES SLOWLY ON 272 + XXV. A GAME OF WHIST 282 + XXVI. HOW AUNT M'RIAR'S STORY CAME OUT 293 + XXVII. HOW SAPPS HEARD A VISITOR WAS COMING 312 + XXVIII. GWEN'S VISIT, AND WHAT ENDED IT 320 + XXIX. HOW THE SLOW COUPLE BECAME ENGAGED 331 + XXX. GWEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CRASH 351 + XXXI. MRS. PRICHARD AT CAVENDISH SQUARE 364 + XXXII. AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS 379 + + +PART II + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. AUNT M'RIAR'S HUSBAND 389 + II. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM 412 + III. HOW THE TWINS SAW EACH OTHER 429 + IV. MAISIE AT THE TOWERS 444 + V. MOTHERWARDS IN THE DARK 461 + VI. HOW MAISIE LOVED POMONA 474 + VII. GWEN'S NIGHT-FLIGHT TO LONDON 491 + VIII. MAISIE AT STRIDES COTTAGE 498 + IX. THE DUTIFUL SON 511 + X. GWEN'S SECOND VISIT TO SAPPS COURT 528 + XI. IN PARK LANE 543 + XII. AN ENLIGHTENMENT 563 + XIII. HOW GWEN TOLD SAPPS COURT 576 + XIV. GWEN'S RETURN, AND THE TASK BEFORE HER 591 + XV. GWEN FACES THE MUSIC 607 + XVI. DR. NASH TELLS GRANNY MARRABLE 626 + XVII. THE COUNTESS CALLS AT PENSHAM 646 + XVIII. WHAT FOLLOWED AT CHORLTON 665 + XIX. THE MEETING 677 + XX. THE NIGHT AFTER THEY KNEW IT 686 + XXI. SAPPS COURT AGAIN 703 + XXII. STRIDES COTTAGE AGAIN 721 + XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM 734 + XXIV. PENSHAM AT STRIDES COTTAGE 751 + XXV. A FESTIVITY AT THE TOWERS 764 + XXVI. ANOTHER NIGHT WATCH 776 + XXVII. HOW SHE SAW THE MODEL AGAIN 793 +XXVIII. HOW HER SON CAME TOO LATE 807 + XXIX. A RIGHT CROSS-COUNTER THAT LANDED 826 + A BELATED PENDRIFT 853 + + + + +WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER 0 + + A CONNECTING-LINK BETWEEN THE WRITER AND THE STORY, AMOUNTING TO + VERY LITTLE. THERE WAS A COURT SOME FIFTY YEARS SINCE IN LONDON, + SOMEWHERE, THAT IS NOW NOWHERE. THAT'S ALL! + + +Some fifty years ago there still remained, in a street reachable after +inquiry by turning to the left out of Tottenham Court Road, a rather +picturesque Court with an archway; which I, the writer of this story, +could not find when I tried to locate it the other day. I hunted for it +a good deal, and ended by coming away in despair and going for rest and +refreshment to a new-born teashop, where a number of young ladies had +lost their individuality, and the one who brought my tea was callous to +me and mine because you pay at the desk. But she had an orderly soul, +for she turned over the lump of sugar that had a little butter on it, so +as to lie on the buttery side and look more tidy-like. + +If the tea had been China tea, fresh-made, it might have helped me to +recollecting the name of that Court, which I am sorry to say I have +forgotten. But it was Ceylon and had stood. However, it was hot. Only +you will never convince me that it was fresh-made, not even if you have +me dragged asunder by wild horses. Its upshot was, for the purpose of +this story, that it did not help me to recollect the name of that Court. + +I have to confess with shame that I have written the whole of what +follows under a false pretence; having called it out of its name, to the +best of my belief, throughout. I know it had a name. It does not matter; +the story can do without accuracy--commonplace matter of fact! + +But do what I will, I keep on recollecting new names for it, and each +seems more plausible than the other. Coltsfoot Court, Barretts Court, +Chesterfield Court, Sapps Court! Any one of these, if I add +seventeen-hundred-and-much, or eighteen-hundred-and-nothing-to-speak-of, +seems to fit this Court to a nicety. Suppose we make it Sapps Court, and +let it go at that! + +Oh, the little old corners of the world that were homes and are gone! +Years hence the Court we will call Sapps will still dwell in some old +mind that knew its every brick, and be portrayed to credulous hearers +yet unborn as an unpretentious Eden, by some _laudator_ of its _tempus +actum_--some forgotten soul waiting for emancipation in an infirmary or +almshouse. + +Anyhow, _I_ can remember this Court, and can tell a tale it plays a part +in, only not very quick. + +Anybody might have passed down the main street and never noticed it, +because its arched entry didn't give on the street, but on a bay or +_cul-de-sac_ just long enough for a hansom to drive into but not to turn +round in. There was nothing to arrest the attention of the passer-by, +self-absorbed or professionally engaged; simultaneous possibilities, in +his case. + +But if the passer-by forgot himself and neglected his proper function in +life at the moment that he came abreast of this _cul-de-sac_, he may +have thereby come to the knowledge of Sapps Court; and, if a Londoner, +may have wondered why he never knew of it before. For there was nothing +in the external appearance of its arched entry to induce him to face the +difficulties incidental to entering it. He may even have nursed +intentions of saying to a friend who prided himself on his knowledge of +town:--"I say, Old Cock, you think yourself mighty clever and all that, +but I bet you can't tell me where Sapps Court is." If, however, he never +went down Sapps Court at all--merely looked at his inscription and, +recollecting his own place in nature, passed on--I shouldn't be +surprised. + +It went downhill under the archway when you did go in, and you came to a +step. If you did not tumble owing to the suddenness and depth of this +step, you came to another; and were stupefied by reaching the ground +four inches sooner than you expected, and made conscious that your +skeleton had been driven an equal distance upwards through your system. +Then you could see Sapps Court, but under provocation, from its entry. +When you recovered your temper you admitted that it was a better Court +than you had anticipated. + +All the residences were in a row on the left, and there was a dead wall +on the right with an inscription on a stone in it that said the ground +twelve inches beyond belonged to somebody else. This wall was in the +confidence of the main street, lending itself to a fiction that the +houses therein had gardens or yards behind them. They hadn't; but the +tenants believed they had, and hung out chemises and nightgowns and +shirts to dry in the areas they built up their faith on; and really, if +they were properly wrung out afore hung up there was nothing to complain +of, because the blacks didn't hold on, not to crock, but got shook off +or blew away of theirselves. We put this in the language of our +informant. + +However, the story has no business on the other side of this wall. What +concerns it is the row of houses on the left. + +If ever a row of houses bore upon them the stamp of having been +overtaken and surrounded by an unexpected city, these did. The wooden +palings that still skirted the breathing-room in front of them almost +said aloud to every newcomer:--"Where is the strip of land gone that we +could see beyond, day by day; that belonged to God-knows-who; whose +further boundary was the road the haycarts brought their loads on, drawn +by deliberate horses that had bells?" The persistent sunflowers that +still struggled into being behind them told tales of how big they were +in youth, years ago, when they could turn to the sun and hope to catch +his eye. The stray wallflowers murmured to all who had ears to +hear:--"This is how we smelt in days gone by--but oh!--so much +stronger!" The wooden shutters, outside the ground-floors that really +stood upon the ground, told, if you chose to listen, of how they kept +the houses safe from thieves in moonlit nights a century ago; and the +doors between them--for each house was three windows wide--opened +straight into the kitchen. So they were, or had been, cottages. But the +miscreant in possession twenty years ago, instigated by a jerry-builder, +had added a storey and removed the tiled roofs whose garrets were every +bit as good as the jerry-built rooms that took their place. Sapp himself +may have done it--one knows nothing of his principles--and at the same +time in a burst of overweening vanity called his cottages his Court. But +one rather likes to think that Sapp was with his forbears when this came +about, when the wall was built up opposite, and the cottages could no +longer throw their dust everywhere, but had to resort to a common +dustbin at the end of the Court, which smelt so you could smell it quite +plain across the wall when the lid was off. That dustbin was the outward +and visible sign of the decadence of Sapp. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + OF DAVE AND DOLLY WARDLE AND THEIR UNCLE MOSES, WHO HAD BEEN A + PRIZEFIGHTER, AND THEIR AUNT M'RIAR, WHO KEPT AN EYE ON THEM. OF + DAVE'S SERVICES TO THE PUBLIC, AND OF ANOTHER PUBLIC THAT NEARLY + MADE UNCLE MO BANKRUPT. OF HIS PAST BATTLES, NOTABLY ONE WITH A + SWEEP. OF MRS. PRICHARD AND MRS. BURR, WHO LIVED UPSTAIRS. OF A BAD + ACCIDENT THAT BEFELL DAVE, AND OF SIMEON STYLITES. HOW UNCLE MO + STRAPPED UP DAVE'S HEAD WITH DIACHYLUM BOUGHT BY A VERY BAD BOY, + MICHAEL RAGSTROAR, THE LIKE OF WHOM YOU NEVER! OF THE JUDGEMENT OF + SOLOMON, AND DAVE'S CAT + + +In the last house down the Court, the one that was so handy to the +dustbin, lived a very small boy and a still smaller sister. There were +other members of the household--to wit, their Uncle Moses and their Aunt +M'riar, who were not husband and wife, but respectively brother and +sister of Dave's father and mother. Uncle Moses' name was Wardle, Aunt +M'riar's that of a deceased or vanished husband. But Sapps Court was +never prepared to say offhand what this name was, and "Aunt M'riar" was +universal. So indeed was "Uncle Mo"; but, as No. 7 had been spoken of as +"Wardle's" since his brother took the lower half of the house for +himself and his first wife, with whom he had lived there fifteen years, +the name Wardle had come to be the name of the house. This brother had +been some ten years younger than Moses, and had had apparently more than +his fair share of the family weddings; as "old Mo," if he ever was +married, had kept the lady secret; from his brother's family certainly, +and presumably from the rest of the world. + +Our little boy was the sort of boy you were sorry was ever going to be +eleven, because at five years and ten months he was that square and +compact, that chunky and yet that tender, that no right-minded person +could desire him to be changed to an impudent young scaramouch like +young Michael Ragstroar four doors higher up, who was eleven and a +regular handful. + +His name was Dave Wardle, after his father; and his sister's Dorothea, +after her mother. Both names appeared on a tombstone in the parish +churchyard, and you might have thought they was anybody, said Public +Opinion; which showed that Dave and his sister were orphans. Both had +recollections of their father, but the funeral he indulged in three +years since had elbowed other memories out of court. Of their mother +they only knew by hearsay, as Dave was only three years old when his +sister committed matricide, quite unconsciously, and you could hear her +all the way up the Court. Pardon the story's way of introducing +attestations to some fact of interest or importance in the language in +which its compiler has received it. + +They were good children to do with, said their Aunt M'riar, so long as +you kep' an eye. And a good job they were, because who was to do her +work if she was every minute prancing round after a couple of young +monkeys? This was a strained way of indicating the case; but there can +be no doubt of its substantial truth. So Aunt M'riar felt at rest so +long as Dave was content to set up atop of the dustbin-lid and shout +till he was hoarse; all the while using a shovel, that was public +property, as a gong. + +Perhaps Dave took his sister Dolly into his confidence about the nature +of the trust he conceived himself to hold in connection with this +dustbin. To others of the inhabitants he was reticent, merely referring +to an emolument he was entitled to. "The man on the lid," he said, "has +a farden." He said this with such conviction that few had the heart to +deny the justice of the claim outright, resorting to subterfuges to +evade a cash settlement. One had left his change on the piano; another +was looking forward to an early liquidation of small liabilities on the +return of his ship to port; another would see about it next time Sunday +come of a Friday, and so on. But only his Uncle Moses ever gave him an +actual farthing, and Dave deposited it in a cat on the mantelshelf, who +was hollow by nature, and provided by art with a slot in the dorsal +vertebrae. It could be shook out if you wanted it, and Dave occasionally +took it out of deposit in connection with a course of experiments he was +interested in. He wished to determine how far he could spit it out. + +This inquiry was a resource against ennui on rainy days and foggy days +and days that were going to clear up later. All these sorts were devised +by the malignity of Providence for the confusion of small boys yearning +to be on active service, redistributing property, obstructing traffic, +or calling attention to personal peculiarities of harmless passers-by. +But it was not so inexhaustible but that cases occurred when those +children got that unsettled and masterful there was no abiding their +racket; and as for Dolly, her brother was making her every bit as bad as +himself. At such times a great resource was to induce Uncle Moses to +tell some experiences of a glorious past, his own. For he had been a +member of the Prize Ring, and had been slapped on the back by Dukes, and +had even been privileged to grasp a Royal hand. He was now an unwieldy +giant, able to get about with a stick when the day was fine, but every +six months less inclined for the effort. + +Uncle Moses, when he retired from public life, had put all his winnings, +which were considerable, into a long lease of a pot-house near Golden +Square, where he was well-known and very popular. If, however, there had +been a rock on the premises and he had had all the powers of his +namesake, four-half would have had to run as fast from it as ever did +water from the rock in Horeb, to keep down the thirst of Golden Square. +For Uncle Moses not only refused to take money from old friends who +dwelt in his memory, but weakly gave way to constructive allegations of +long years of comradeship in a happy past, which his powers of +recollection did not enable him to contradict. "Wot, old Moses!--you'll +never come for to go for to say you've forgot old Swipey Sam, jist along +in the Old Kent Road--Easy Shavin' one 'apenny or an arrangement come to +by the week!" Or merely, "Seein' you's as good as old times come alive +again, mate." Suchlike appeals were almost invariable from any customer +who got fair speech of Uncle Moses in his own bar. In his absence these +claims were snuffed out roughly by a prosaic barman--even the most +pathetic ones, such as that of an extinct thimblerigger for whom three +small thimbles and one little pea had ceased for ever, years ago, when +he got his fingers in a sausage-machine. But Uncle Moses was so much his +own barman that this generosity told heavily against his credit; and he +would certainly have been left a pauper but for the earnest counsels of +an old friend known in his circle of Society as Affability Bob, although +his real name was Jeremiah Alibone. By him he was persuaded to dispose +of the lease of the "Marquess of Montrose" while it still had some +value, and to retire on a pound a week. This might have been more had he +invested all the proceeds in an annuity. "But, put it I do!" said he. "I +don't see my way to no advantage for David and Dorothy, and this here +young newcome, if I was to hop the twig." For this was at the time of +the birth of little Dave, nearly six years before the date of this +story. + +Affability Bob applauded his friend's course of action in view of its +motive. "But," said he, "I tell you this, Moses. If you'd 'a' gone on +standin' Sam to every narrycove round about Soho much longer, 'No +effects' would have been _your_ vardict, sir." To which Uncle Moses +replied, "Right you are, old friend," and changed the subject. + +However, there you have plenty to show what a rich mine of past +experience Uncle Moses had to dig in. The wonder was that Dave and Dolly +refused to avail themselves of its wealth, always preferring a +monotonous repetition of an encounter their uncle had had with a Sweep. +He could butt, this Sweep could, like a battering-ram, ketching hold +upon you symultaneous round the gaiters. He was irresistible by ordinary +means, his head being unimpressionable by direct impact. But Uncle Moses +had been one too many for him, having put a lot of thinking into the +right way of dealing with his system. + +He had perceived that the hardest head, struck evenly on both sides at +the same moment, must suffer approximately as much as if jammed against +the door-post and catched full with a fair round swing. Whereas had +these blows followed one another on a yielding head, the injury it +inflicted as a battering-ram might have outweighed the damage it +received in inflicting it. As it was, Peter--so Uncle Moses called the +Sweep--was for one moment defenceless, being preoccupied in seizing his +opponent by the ankles; and although his cranium had no sinuses, and was +so thick it could crush a quart-pot like an opera-hat, it did not court +a fourth double concussion, and this time he was destined to disappoint +his backers. + +His opponent, who in those days was known as the Hanley Linnet, suffered +very little in the encounter. No doubt you know that a man in fine +training can take an amazing number of back-falls on fair ground, clear +of snags and brickbats; and, of course, the Linnet's seconds made a +special point of this, examining careful and keeping an eye to prevent +the introduction of broke-up rubbish inside the ropes by parties having +an interest, or viciously disposed. + +"There you are again, Uncle Mo, a-tellin' and a-tellin' and a-tellin'!" +So Aunt M'riar would say when she heard this narrative going over +well-known ground for the thousandth time. "And them children not +lettin' you turn round in bed, I call it!" This was in reference to Dave +and Dolly's severity about the text. The smallest departure from the +earlier version led to both them children pouncing at once. Dave would +exclaim reproachfully:--"You _did_ say a Sweep with one blind eye, Uncle +Mo!" and Dolly would confirm his words with as much emphasis as her +powers of speech allowed. "Essoodid, a 'Weep with one b'ind eye!"--also +reproachfully. Then Uncle Moses would supply a corrected version of +whatever was defective, in this case an eye not quite blind, but nearly, +owing to a young nipper, no older than Dave, aiming a broken bottle at +him as the orficers was conducting of him to the Station, after a fight +Wandsworth way, the other party being took off to the Horspital for +dead. + +The Jews, I am told, won't stand any nonsense when they have their +sacred writings copied, always destroying every inaccurate MS. the +moment an error is spotted in it. Dave and Dolly were not the Jews, but +they were as intolerant of variation in the text of this almost sacred +legend of the Sweep. "S'ow me how you punched him, wiv Dave's head," +Dolly would say; and she would be most exacting over the dramatic +rendering of this ancient fight. "Percisely this way like I'm showing +you--only harder," was Uncle Moses' voucher for his own accuracy. "Muss +harder?" inquired Dolly. "Well--a tidy bit harder!" said the veteran +with truth. The head of the Sweep's understudy, Dave, was not equal to a +full-dress rehearsal. So Dolly had to be content with the promise of a +closer reading of the part when her brother was growed up. + +But it was rather like Aunt M'riar said, for Uncle Moses. Those two +young Turks didn't allow their uncle no latitude, in the manner of +speaking. He couldn't turn round in bed. + +These rainy days, when the children could not possibly be allowed out, +taxed their guardians' patience just to the point of making +them--suppose we say--not ungrateful to Providence when old Mrs. +Prichard upstairs giv' leave for the children to come and play up in her +room. She was the only other in-dweller in the house, living in the +front and back attics with Mrs. Burr, who took jobs out in the +dressmaking, and very moderate charges. When Mrs. Burr worked at home, +Mrs. Prichard enjoyed her society and knitted, while Mrs. Burr cut out +and basted. Very few remarks were passed; for though Mrs. Burr was +snappish now and again, company was company, and Mrs. Prichard she put +up with a little temper at times, because we all had our trials; and +Mrs. Burr was considered good at heart, though short with you now and +again. Hence when loneliness became irksome, Mrs. Prichard found Dave +and Dolly a satisfaction, so long as nothing was broke. It was a +pleasant extension of the experience of their early youth to play at +monarchs, military celebrities, professional assassins, and so on, in +old Mrs. Prichard's room upstairs. And sometimes nothing _was_ broke. +Otherwise one day at No. 7, Sapps Court, was much the same as another. + +Uncle Mo's residence in Sapps Court dated many years before the coming +of Aunt M'riar; in fact, as far back as the time he was deprived of his +anchorage in Soho. He was then taken in by his brother, recently a +widower; and no question had ever arisen of his quitting the haven he +had been, as it were, towed into as a derelict; until, some years later, +David announced that he was thinking of Dolly Tarver at Ealing. Moses +smoked through a pipe in silence, so as to give full consideration; then +said, like an easy-going old boy as he was:--"You might do worse, Dave. +I can clear out, any minute. You've only got to sing out." To which his +brother had replied:--"Don't you talk of clearing out, not till Miss +Tarver she tells you." Moses' answer was:--"I'm agreeable, Dave"; and +the matter dropped until some time after, when he had made Dolly +Tarver's acquaintance. She, on hearing that her union with David would +send Mo again adrift, had threatened to declare off if such a thing was +so much as spoke of. So Moses had remained on, in the character of a +permanency saturated with temporariness; and, when the little boy Dave +began to take his place in Society, proceeded to appropriate--so said +the child's parents--more than an uncle's fair share of him. + +Then came the tragedy of his mother's death, causing the Court to go +into mourning, and leaving Dave with a sister, too young to be conscious +of responsibility for it. Not too young, however, to make her case +heard--the case all living things have against the Power that creates +them without so much as asking leave. The riot she made being +interpreted by both father and uncle as protest against Mrs. Twiggins, a +midwife who made herself disagreeable--or, strictly speaking, more +disagreeable; being normally unpleasant, and apt to snap when spoke to, +however civil--it was thought desirable to call in the help of her Aunt +M'riar, who was living with her family at Ealing as a widow without +incumbrance. Dolly junior appeared to calm down under Aunt M'riar's +auspices, though every now and then her natural indignation got the +better of her self-restraint. Dave junior was disgusted with his sister +at first, but softened gradually towards her as she matured. + +His father did not long survive the death of his young wife. Even an +omnibus-driver is not exempt from inflammation of the lungs, although +the complaint is not so fatal among persons exposed to all weathers as +among leaders of indoor lives. A violent double pneumonia carried off +Uncle Mo's brother, six months after he became a widower, and about +three years before the date of this story. + +Whether in some other class of life a marriageable uncle and aunt--sixty +and forty respectively--would have accepted their condominium of the +household that was left, it is not for the story to discuss. Uncle Moses +refused to give up the two babies, and Aunt M'riar refused to leave +them, and--as was remarked by both--there you were! It was an _impasse_. +The only effect it had on the position was that Uncle Mo's temporariness +got a little boastful, and slighted his permanency. The latter, however, +paid absolutely no attention to the insult, and the only change that +took place in the three following years at No. 7, Sapps Court, had +nothing to do with the downstairs tenants. Some months before the first +date of the story, a variation came about in the occupancy upstairs, +Mrs. Prichard and Mrs. Burr taking the place of some parties who, if the +truth was told, were rather a riddance. The fact is merely recorded as +received; nothing further has transpired regarding these persons. + +Mrs. Prichard was a very old lady who seldom showed herself outside of +her own room--so the Court testified--but who, when she did so, +impressed the downstairs tenants as of unfathomable antiquity and a +certain pictorial appearance, causing Uncle Mo to speak of her as an old +picter, and Dave to misapprehend her name. For he always spoke of her as +old Mrs. Picture. Mrs. Burr dawned upon the Court as a civil-spoken +person who was away most part of the day, and who did not develope her +identity vigorously during the first year of her tenancy. One is +terribly handicapped by one's own absence, as a member of any Society. + + * * * * * + +As time went on, Dave and Dolly, who began life with an idea that Sapps +Court was the Universe, became curious about what was going on outside. +They grew less contented with the dustbin, and ambition dictated to Dave +an enthronement on an iron post at the entrance, under the archway. The +delight of sitting on this post was so great that Dave willingly faced +the fact that he could not get down, and whenever he could persuade +anyone to put him up ran a risk of remaining there _sine die_. When he +could not induce a native of the Court to do this, he endeavoured to +influence the outer public, not without success. For when it came to +understand--that public--that the grubby little tenant of Dave's grubby +little shirt and trousers was not asking the time nor for a hoyp'ny, but +was murmuring shyly:--"I soy, mawster, put me up atop," at the same +time slapping the post on either side with two grubby little, fat hands, +it would unbend and comply, telling Dave to hold on tight, and never +asking no questions how ever the child was to be got off of it when the +time came. Because people are that selfish and inconsiderate. + +The difficulty of getting down off of it all by himself, without a +friendly supporting hand in the waistband of his trousers, was connected +with the form of this post's head. It was not a disused twenty-four +pounder with a shot in its muzzle, as so many posts are, but a real +architectural post, cast from a pattern at the foundry. Its capital +expanded at the top, and its projecting rim made its negotiation +difficult to climbers, if small; hard to get round from below, and +perilous to leave hold of all of a sudden-like, in order to grasp the +shaft in descent. But then, it was this very expansion that provided a +seat for Dave, which the other sort of post would hardly have afforded. + +How did Simeon Stylites manage to scrat on? One prefers to think that an +angel put him on his column, carrying him somewhat as one carries a cat; +and called for him to be taken down at convenient intervals by +appointment. The mind revolts at the idea that he really never came +down, quite never! But then, when the starving man is on at the +Aquarium, we--that is to say, the humane public--are apt to give way to +mere maudlin sentimentalism, and hope he is cheating. And when a person +at a Music Hall folds backwards and looks through his legs at us +forwards, we always hope he feels no strain--nothing but a great and +justifiable professional pride. It is not a pleasant feeling that any of +these good people are suffering on our behalf. However, in the case of +Simeon Stylites there was a mixture of motives, no doubt. + +Dave Wardle was too young to have motives, and had none, unless the +desire to surprise and impress Dolly had weight with him. But he had the +longing on him which that young gentleman in the poem expressed by +writing the Latin for _taller_ on a flag; and to gratify it had scaled +the dustbin as the merest infant. It was an Alpine record. But the iron +post was no mere Matterhorn. It was like Peter Bot's Mountain; and once +you was up, there you were, and no getting down! + +The occasional phrases for which I am indebted to Aunt M'riar which have +crept into the text recently--not, as I think, to its detriment--were +used by her after a mishap which befell her nephew owing to the child's +impatience. If he'd only a had the sense to set still a half a minute +longer, she would have done them frills and could have run up the Court +a'most as soon as look at you. But she hoped what had happened would +prove a warning, not only to Dave, but to all little boys in a driving +hurry to get off posts. And not only to them either, but to Youth +generally, to pay attention to what was said to it by Age and +Experience, neither of which ever climb up posts without some safe +guarantee of being able to climb down again. + +What had happened was that Dave had cut his head on the ornate plinth of +that cast-iron post, his hands missing their grip as his legs caught the +shaft, so that he turned over backwards and his occiput suffered. He +showed a splendid spirit--quite Spartan, in fact--bearing in mind his +uncle's frequent homilies on the subject of crying; a thing no little +boy, however young, should dream of. Dolly was under no such obligation, +according to Uncle Moses, being a female or the rudiment of one, and on +this occasion she roared for herself and her brother, too. Aunt M'riar +was in favour of taking the child to Mr. Ekins, the apothecary, for +skilled surgery to deal with the case, but Uncle Moses scouted the idea. + +"Twopenn'orth o' stroppin' and a basin o' warm water," said he, "and +I'll patch him up equal to Guy's Hospital.... Got no diacklum? Then send +one of those young varmints outside for it.... You've no call to go +yourself." For a various crowd of various ages under twelve had come +from nowhere to enjoy the tragic incident. + +"Twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary?" +said that young Michael Ragstroar, thrusting himself forward and others +backward; because, you see, he was such a cheeky, precocious young +vagabond. "Mean to say I can't buy twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off +of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary? Mean to say my aunt that orkupies a +'ouse in Chiswick clost to high-water mark don't send me to the +'poarthecaries just as often as not? For the mixture to be taken regular +... Ah!--where's the twopence? 'And over!" + +Whereupon, such is the power of self-confidence over everyone else, that +Aunt M'riar entrusted twopence to this youth, quite forgetting that he +was only eleven. Yet her faith in him was not ill-founded, for he +returned like an echo as to promptitude. Only, unlike the echo, he came +back louder than he went, and more positive. + +"There's the quorntity and no cheatin'," said he. "You can medger it up +with a rule if you like. It'll medger, you find if it don't! Like I +told you! And a 'apenny returned on the transaction." The tension of the +situation did not admit of the measuring test--nor indeed had Aunt +M'riar data to go upon--and as for the halfpenny, it stood over. + +Uncle Moses had not laid false claim to surgical skill, and was able to +strap the wound a'most as if he'd been brought up to it. By the time it +was done Dave's courage was on the wane, and he wasn't sorry to lie his +head down and shut to his eyes. Because the lids thereof were like the +lids of plate-chests. + +However, before he went off very sound asleep--so sound you might have +took him for a image--he heard what passed between Uncle Moses and +Michael, whose name has been spelt herein so that you should think of it +as Sapps Court did; but its correct form is Rackstraw. + +"Now, young potato-peelin's, how much money did the doctor hand you back +for that diacklum?" + +"Penny. Said he'd charge it up to the next Dook that come to his shop." + +Thereupon Aunt M'riar taxed the speaker with perfidy. "Why, you little +untrue, lyin', deceitful story," she said. "To think you should say it +was only a ha'penny!" + +"I never said no such a thing. S'elp me!" + +"''Apenny returned on the transaction' was the very identical selfsame +words." Thus Aunt M'riar testified. "And what is more," she added +inconsecutively, "I do not believe you've any such an aunt, nor yet ever +been to Chiswick." + +But young potato-peelings, so called from his father's vocation of +costermonger, defended himself with indignation. "Warn't that square?" +said he. "He never said I warn't to keep it all, didn't that doctor!" +Then he took a high position as of injured virtue. "There's your +'apenny! There's both your 'apennies! Mean to say I 'aven't kep' 'em +safe for yer?" Uncle Moses allowed the position of bailee, but disposed +of the penny as Solomon suggested in the case of the baby, giving one +halfpenny to Michael, and putting the other in Dave's cat on the +mantelshelf. + +He justified this course afterwards on the ground that the doctor's +refund was made to the actual negotiator, and that Aunt M'riar had in +any case received full value for her money. Who could say that the +doctor, if referred to, would not have repudiated Aunt M'riar's claim +_in toto_? + +Warnings, cautions, and moral lessons derived from this incident had due +weight with Dave for several days; in fact, until his cut healed over. +Then he forgot them and became as bad as ever. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + HOW DAVE FAILED TO PROFIT BY HIS EXPERIENCE. OF PAOLO TOSCANELLI + AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. OF A NEW SHORE DAVE AND DOLLY REACHED BY + EXPLORATION, ROUND THE CORNER; AND OF OTHER NAVIGATORS WHO HAD, IN + THIS CASE, MADE IT FOR THEMSELVES. OF THE PUBLIC SPIRIT OF DAVE AND + DOLLY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A _BARRAGE_. HOW MRS. TAPPING AND + MRS. RILEY HEARD THE ENGINES. OF A SHORTAGE OF MUD, AND A GREAT + RESOLVE OF DAVE'S. WHY NOT SOME NEW MUD FROM THE NEW SHORE? + + +The interest of Dave's accident told in the last chapter is merely +collateral. It shows how narrow an escape the story that follows had not +only of never being finished, but even of never being written. For if +its events had never happened, it goes near to certainty that they would +never have been narrated. Near, but not quite. For even if Dave had +profited by these warnings, cautions, and moral lessons to the extent of +averting what now appears to have been Destiny, some imaginative author +might have woven a history showing exactly what might have happened to +him if he had not been a good boy. And that history, in the hands of a +master--one who had the organ of the conditional praeterpluperfect tense +very large--might have worked out the same as this. + +The story may be thankful that no such task has fallen to its author's +lot. It is so much easier to tell something that actually did happen +than to make up as you go. + +Dave was soon as bad as ever--no doubt of it. Only he kept clear of that +post. The burnt child dreads the fire, and the chances are that +admonitions not to climb up on posts had less to do with his abstention +from this one than the lesson the post itself had hammered into the back +of his head. Exploration of the outer world--of the regions imperfectly +known beyond that post--had so far produced no fatal consequences; so +that Aunt M'riar's and Uncle Mo's warnings to the children to keep +within bounds had not the same convincing character. + +But a time was at hand for the passion of exploration to seize upon +these two very young people, and to become an excitement as absorbing to +them as the discovery of America to Paolo Toscanelli and Christopher +Columbus. At first it was satisfied by the _cul-de-sac_ recess on which +Sapps Court opened. But this palled, and no wonder! How could it compete +with the public highway out of which it branched, especially when there +was a new shore--that is to say, sewer--in course of construction? + +To stand on the edge of a chasm which certainly reached to the bowels of +the earth, and to see them shovelled up from platform to platform by +agencies that spat upon their hands for some professional reason +whenever there came a lull in the supply from below, was to find life +worth living indeed. These agencies conversed continually about an +injury that had been inflicted on them by the Will of God, the selfish +caprice of their employers, or the cupidity of the rich. They appeared +to be capable of shovelling in any space, however narrow, almost to the +extent of surrendering one dimension and occupying only a plane surface. +But it hadn't come to that yet. The battens that kept the trench-sides +vertical were wider apart than what you'd have thought, when you come to +try 'em with a two-fut rule. And the short lengths of quartering that +kep' 'em apart were not really intersecting the diggers' anatomies as +the weaver's shuttle passes through the warp. That was only the +impression of the unconcerned spectator as he walked above them over the +plank bridge that acknowledged his right of way across the road. His +sympathies remained unentangled. If people navigated, it was their own +look out. You see, these people were navvies, or navigators, although it +strains one's sense of language to describe them so. + +The best of it was to come. For in time the lowest navvy was threatened +with death by misadventure, unless he come up time enough to avoid the +water. The small pump the job had been making shift with was obliged to +acknowledge itself beaten, and to make way for one with two handles, +each with room for two pumpers; and this in turn was discarded in favour +of a noisy affair with a donkey-engine, which brought up the yellow +stream as fast as ever a gutter of nine-inch plank, nailed up to a =V=, +would carry it away. And it really was a most extraordinary thing that +of all those navigators there was not one that had not predicted in +detail exactly the course of events that had come about. Mr. Bloxam, the +foreman, had told the governor that there would be no harm in having the +pump handy, seeing they would go below the clay. And each of the others +had--so they themselves said--spoken in the same sense, in some cases +using a most inappropriate adjective to qualify the expected flood. +Why, even Sleepy Joe had seen that! Sleepy Joe was this same foreman, +and he lived in a wooden hutch on the job, called The Office. + +But the watershed of any engine--whatever may be its donkey-power, and +whatever that name implies--slops back where a closed spout changes +suddenly to an open gutter, and sets up independent lakes and rivers. +This one sent its overflow towards Sapps Court, the incline favouring +its distribution along the gutter of the _cul-de-sac_, which lay a +little lower than the main street it opened out of. Its rich, ochrous +rivulets--containing no visible trace of haemorrhage, in spite of that +abuse of an adjective--were creeping slowly along the interstices of +cobblestone paving that still outlived the incoming of Macadam, when +Dave and Dolly Wardle ventured out of their archway to renew a survey, +begun the previous day, of the fascinating excavation in the main +street. + +Here was an opportunity for active and useful service not to be lost. +Dave immediately cast about to scrape up and collect such mud as came +ready to hand, and with it began to build up an intercepting embankment +to stop the foremost current, that was winding slowly, like Vesuvian +lava, on the line of least resistance. Dolly followed his example, +filling a garment she called her pinafore with whatever mould or +_débris_ was attainable, and bringing it with much gravity and some +pride to help on the structure of the dyke. A fiction, rather felt than +spoken, got in the air that Sapps Court and its inhabitants would be +overwhelmed as by Noah's flood, except for the exertions of Dave and his +sister. It appealed to some friends of the same age, also inhabitants of +the Court, and with their assistance and sympathy it really seemed--in +this fiction--that a catastrophe might be averted. You may imagine what +a drove of little grubs those children looked in the course of half an +hour. Not that any of them were particularly spruce to begin with. + +However, there was the embankment holding back the dirty yellow water; +and now the pump was running on steady-like, there didn't so much come +slopping over to add to the deluge that threatened Sapps Court. The +policeman--the only one supposed to exist, although in form he varied +slightly--made an inquiry as to what was going on, to be beforehand with +Anarchy. He said:--"What are you young customers about, taking the +Company's water?" That seemed to embody an indictment without committing +the accuser to particulars. But he took no active steps, and a very old +man with a fur cap, and no teeth, and big bones in his cheeks, +said:--"It don't make no odds to we, I take it." He was a prehistoric +navvy, who had become a watchman, and was responsible for red lanterns +hooked to posts on the edge of chasms to warn carts off. He was going to +sleep in half a tent, soothed or otherwise by the unflagging piston of +that donkey-engine, which had made up its mind to go till further +notice. + +The men were knocking off work, and it was getting on for time for those +children to have their suppers and be put to bed. But as Aunt M'riar had +some trimming to finish, and it was a very fine evening, there was no +harm in leaving them alone a few minutes longer. As for any attractive +influences of supper, those children never come in of theirselves, and +always had to be fetched. + +An early lamplighter--for this was in September, 1853--passed along the +street with a ladder, dropping stars as he went. There are no +lamplighters now, no real ones that run up ladders. Their ladders +vanished first, leaving them with a magic wand that lighted the gas as +soon as you got the tap turned; only that was ever so long, as often as +not. Perhaps things are better now that lamps light themselves +instinctively at the official hour of sunset. At any rate, one has the +satisfaction of occasionally seeing one that won't go out, but burns on +into the daylight to spite the Authorities. + +They were cold stars, almost green, that this lamplighter dropped; but +this was because the sun had left a flood of orange-gold behind it, +enough to make the tune from "Rigoletto" an organ was playing think it +was being composed in Italy again. The world was a peaceful world, +because Opulence, inflated and moderate, had gone out of town: the +former to its country-house, or a foreign hotel; the latter to lodgings +at the seaside to bathe out of machines and prey on shrimps. The lull +that reigned in and about Sapps Court was no doubt a sort of recoil or +backwater from other neighbourhoods, with high salaries or real and +personal estate, whose dwellings were closed and not being properly +ventilated by their caretakers. It reacted on business there, every bit +as much as in Oxford Street; and that was how Tapping's the +tallow-chandler's--where you got tallow candles and dips, as well as +composites; for in those days they still chandled tallow--didn't have a +single customer in for ten whole minutes by the clock. In that interval +Mrs. Tapping seized the opportunity to come out in the street and +breathe the air. So did Mrs. Riley next door, and they stood conversing +on the topics of the day, looking at the sunset over the roofs of the +_cul-de-sac_ this story has reference to. For Mrs. Tapping's shop was in +the main road, opposite to where the embankment operations were in hand. + +"Ye never will be tellin' me now, Mrs. Tapping, that ye've not hur-r-rd +thim calling 'Fire!' in the sthrate behind? Fy-urr, fy-urr, fy-urr!" +This is hard to write as Mrs. Riley spoke it, so great was her command +of the letter _r_. + +"Now you name it, Mrs. Riley, deny it I can't. But to the point of +taking notice to bear in mind--why no! It was on my ears, but only to be +let slip that minute. Small amounts and accommodations frequent, owing +to reductions on quantity took, distrack attention. I was a-sayin' to my +stepdaughter only the other day that hearin' is one thing and listenin' +is another. And she says to me, she says, I was talking like a book, she +says. Her very expression and far from respectful! So I says to her, not +to be put upon, 'Lethear,' I says, 'books ain't similar all through but +to seleck from, and I go accordin'....'" Mrs. Tapping, whose system was +always to turn the conversation to some incident in which she had been +prominent, might have developed this one further, but Mrs. Riley +interrupted her with Celtic _naïveté_. + +"D'ye mane to say, me dyurr, that ye can't hearr 'em now? Kape your +tongue silent and listen!" A good, full brogue permits speech that would +offend in colourless Saxon; and Mrs. Tapping made no protest, but +listened. Sure enough the rousing, maddening "Fire, fire, fire, fire, +fire!" was on its way at speed somewhere close at hand. It grew and +lessened and died. And Mrs. Riley was triumphant. "That's a larrudge +fire, shure!" said she, transposing her impression of the enthusiasm of +the engine to the area of the conflagration. Cold logic perceives that +an engine may be just as keen to pump on a cottage as on a palace, +before it knows which. Mrs. Riley had come from Tipperary, and had +brought a sympathetic imagination with her, leaving any logic she +possessed behind. + +A few minutes before the lamplighter passed--saying to the old +watchman:--"Goin' to bed, Sam?" and on receiving the reply, "Time enough +yet!" rejoining sarcastically:--"Time enough for a quart!"--the +labourers at the dyke had recognised the fact that unless new material +could be obtained, the pent-up waters would burst the curb and bound, +rejoicing to be free, and rush headlong to the nearest drain. All the +work would be lost unless a fresh supply could be obtained; the ruling +fiction of a new Noachian deluge might prove a deadly reality instead +of, as now, a theoretical contingency under conditions which engineering +skill might avert. The Sappers and Miners who were roused from their +beds to make good a dynamited embankment and block the relentless Thames +did not work with a more untiring zeal to baffle a real enemy than did +Dave and Dolly to keep out a fictitious one, and hypothetically save +Uncle Moses and Aunt M'riar from drowning. But all efforts would be +useless if there was to be a shortage of mud. + +The faces of our little friends, and their little friends, were +earnestness itself as they concentrated on the great work in the glow of +the sunset. They had no eyes for its glories. The lamplighter even, +dropping jewels as he went, passed them by unheeded. The organ +interpreted Donizetti in vain. Despair seemed imminent when Dolly, who, +though small, was as keen as the keenest of the diggers, came back after +a special effort with no more than the merest handful of +gutter-scrapings, saying with a most pathetic wail:--"I tan't det no +more!" + +Then it was that a great resolve took shape in the heart of Dave. It +found utterance in the words:--"Oy wants some of the New Mud the Men +spoyded up with their spoyds," and pointed to an ambitious scheme for +securing some of the fine rich clay that lay in a tempting heap beyond +the wooden bridge across the sewer-trench. The bridge that Dave had +never even stood upon, much less crossed! + +The daring, reckless courage of the enterprise! Dolly gasped with awe +and terror. She was too small to find at a moment's notice any terms in +which she could dissuade Dave from so venturesome a project. Besides, +her faith in her brother amounted to superstition. Dave _must_ know what +was practicable and righteous. Was he not nearly six years old? She +stood speechless and motionless, her heart in her mouth as she watched +him go furtively across that awful bridge of planks and get nearer and +nearer to his prize. + +There were lions in his path, as there used to be in the path of +knights-errant when they came near the castles of necromancers who held +beautiful princesses captive--to say nothing of full-blown dragons and +alluring syrens. These lions took in one case, the form of a +butcher-boy, who said untruthfully:--"Now, young hobstacle, clear out o' +this! Boys ain't allowed on bridges;" and in another that of Michael +Ragstroar, who said, "Don't you let the Company see you carryin' off +their property. They'll rip you open as soon as look at you. You'll be +took afore the Beak." Dave was not yet old enough to see what a very +perverted view of legal process these words contained, but his blue eyes +looked mistrustfully at the speaker as he watched him pass up the street +towards the Wheatsheaf, swinging a yellow jug with ridges round its neck +and a full corporation. Michael had been sent to fetch the beer. + +If the blue eyes had not remained fixed on that yellow jug and its +bearer till both vanished through the swing-door of the Wheatsheaf--if +their owner's mistrust of his informant had been strong enough to cancel +the misgivings that crossed his baby mind, only a few seconds sooner, +would things have gone otherwise with Dave? Would he have used that +beautiful lump of clay, as big as a man of his age could carry, on the +works that were to avert Noah's flood from Sapps Court? Would he and +Dolly not probably have been caught at their escapade by an indignant +Aunt M'riar, corrected, duly washed and fed, and sent to bed sadder and +wiser babies? So few seconds might have made the whole difference. + +Or, if that heap of clay had been thrown on the other side of the +trench, on the pavement instead of towards the traffic--why then the +children might have taken all they could carry, and Old Sam would have +countenanced them, in reason, as like as not. But how little one gains +by thinking what might have been! The tale is to tell, and tells that +these things were not otherwise, but thus. + + * * * * * + +Uncle Moses was in the room on the right of the door, called the +parlour, smoking a pipe with the old friend whose advice had probably +kept him from coming on the parish. + +"Aunt M'riar!" said he, tapping his pipe out on the hob, and taking care +the ashes didn't get in the inflammable stove-ornament, "I don't hear +them young customers outside. What's got 'em?" + +"Don't you begin to fret and werrit till I tell you to it, Moses. The +children's safe and not in any mischief--no more than usual. Mr. Alibone +seen 'em." For although the world called this friend Affability Bob and +Uncle Moses gave him his christened name, Aunt M'riar always spoke of +him, quite civil-like, thus. + +"You see the young nippers, Jerry?" said the old prizefighter; who +always got narvous, as you might say, though scarcely alarmed, when they +got out of sight and hearing; even if it was for no more time than what +an egg takes. + +"Jist a step beyond the archway, Mosey," said Mr. Alibone. "Paddlin' +and sloppin' about with the water off o' the shore-pump. It's all clean +water, Mrs. Catchpole, only for a little clay." Aunt M'riar, whose +surname was an intrinsic improbability in the eyes of Public Opinion, +and who was scarcely ever called by it, except by Mr. Jerry, expressed +doubts. So he continued:--"You see, they're sinking for a new shore +clear of the old one. So nothing's been opened into." + +"Well," said Aunt M'riar, "I certainly did think the flaviour was being +kep' under wonderful. But now you put it so, I understand. What I say +is--if dirt, then clean dirt; and above all no chemicals!... What's that +you're saying, Uncle Mo?" + +"Why, I was a-thinking," said Uncle Moses, who seemed restless, "I _was_ +a-thinking, Bob, that you and me might have our pipes outside, being dry +underfoot." For Uncle Moses, being gouty, was ill-shod for wet weather. +He was slippered, though not lean. And though Mrs. Burr, coming in just +then, added her testimony that the children were quite safe and happy, +only making a great mess, Uncle Moses would not be content to remain +indoors, but must needs be going out. "These here young juveniles," said +he, outside in the Court, "where was it you took stock of 'em, did you +say?" + +"Close to hand," said Affability Bob. "One step out of the archway. +There you'll find 'em, old man. Don't you fret your kidneys. _They're_ +all right. Hear the engines?" + +"Whereabouts is the fire?" + +"Somewhere down by Walworth. I saw the smoke, crossing Hungerford +Bridge. This engine's coming down our road outside." + +"I reckon she may be, by the sound. She'll be half-way to Blackfriars +before we're out of this here Court. If she gets by where the road's up! +Maybe she'll have to go back." + +"There she stops! What's the popilation shoutin' at?" For the tramp of +the engine's horses, heard plain enough on the main road, came to an end +abruptly, and sounds ensued--men's shouts, women's cries--not +reconcilable with the mere stoppage of a fire-engine by unexpected +narrows or an irregular coal-cart. + +"Couldn't say, I'm sure. They're a nizy lot in these parts." So said +Uncle Moses, and walked slowly up the Court, stopping for breath +half-way. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + WHY THAT ENGINE STOPPED. BUT THE WHEELS HAD NOT GONE OVER DAVE. HOW + PETER JACKSON CARRIED HIM AWAY TO THE HOSPITAL. OF DOLLY'S DESPAIR + AT THE COLLAPSE OF THE _BARRAGE_, AND OF AN OLD COCK, NAMED SAM. + MRS. TAPPING'S EXPERIENCES, AND HER DAUGHTER, ALETHEA. OF THE + VICISSITUDES OF THE PUBLIC, AND ITS AMAZING RECUPERATIVE POWERS. + HOW UNCLE MOSES AND MR. ALIBONE WENT TO THE HOSPITAL + + +So few seconds would have made the whole difference. But so engrossing +had Dave found the contemplation of Michael Ragstroar and his yellow +jug, so exciting particularly was its disappearance into the swing-door +of the Wheatsheaf, that he forgot even the new mud that the men had +spaded up with their spades. And these seconds slipped by never to +return. Then when Michael had vanished, the little man stooped to secure +his cargo. It was slippery and yet tenacious; had been detachable with +difficulty from the spade that wrenched it from the virgin soil of its +immemorial home, and was now difficult to carry. But Dave grappled +bravely with it and turned to go back across the bridge. + +A coming whirlwind, surely, in the distance of the street--somewhere now +where all the gas-lamps' cold green stars are merged in one--now nearer, +nearer still; and with it, bringing folk to doors and windows to see +them pass, the war-cry of the men that fight the flames. Charioteers +behind blood-horses bathed in foam; heads helmeted in flashing +splendour; eyes all intent upon the track ahead, keen to anticipate the +risks of headlong speed and warn the dilatory straggler from its path. +Nearer and nearer--in a moment it will pass and take some road unknown +to us, to say to fires that even now are climbing up through roof and +floor, clasping each timber in a sly embrace fatal as the caress of +Death itself:--"Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!" Close upon us +now, to be stayed with a sudden cry--something in the path! Too late! + +Too late, though the strong hand that held the reins brought back the +foaming steeds upon their haunches, with startled eyes and quivering +nostrils all agape. Too late, though the helmeted men on the engine's +flank were down, almost before its swerve had ceased, to drag at every +risk from beneath the plunging hoofs the insensible body of the child +that had slipped from a clay heap by the roadside, on which it stood to +gaze upon the coming wonder, and gone headlong down quite suddenly upon +the open road. + +You who read this, has it ever fallen to your lot to guide two swift +horses at a daring speed through the narrow ways, the ill-driven +vehicles, the careless crowds and frequent drunkards of the slum of a +great city? If so, you have earned some right to sit in judgment on the +fire-engine that ran our little friend down. But you will be the last of +all men to condemn that fire-engine. + +"Dead, mate?" One of the helmeted men asks this of the other as they +escape from the plunging hoofs. They are used to this sort of thing--to +every sort of thing. + +"Insensible," says the other, who holds in his arms the rescued child, a +mere scrap of dust and clay and pallor and a little blood. + +A fire-engine calculates its rights to pause in fractions of a minute. +The unused portion of twenty seconds the above conversation leaves, +serves for a glance round in search of some claimant of the child, or a +responsible police-officer to take over the case. Nothing presents +itself but Mrs. Tapping, too much upset to be coherent, and not able to +identify the child; Mrs. Riley, little better, but asking:--"Did the +whales go overr it, thin?" The old man Sam, the watchman, is working +round from his half-tent, where he sleeps in the traffic, but cannot +possibly negotiate the full extent of trench and bridge for fifty +seconds more. Time cannot be lavished waiting for him. The man at the +reins, with seeming authority, clinches the matter. + +"You stop, Peter Jackson. _Hospital!_ Don't you let the child out of +your hands before you get there. Understand?--All clear in front?" Two +men, who have taken the horses' heads, to soothe their shaken nerves +with slaps and suitable exclamations, now give them back to their +owners, leaving them free to rear high once or twice to relieve feeling; +while they themselves go back, each to his own place on the engine. A +word of remonstrance from the driver about that rearing, and they are +off again, the renewed fire-cry scarcely audible in the distance by the +time Old Sam gets across the wooden bridge. + +To him, as to a responsible person, says Peter Jackson:--"Know where he +belongs?"--and to Mrs. Riley, as to one not responsible, but deserving +of sympathy:--"No--the wheels haven't been over him." + +"Down yonder Court, I take it. Couldn't say for sartin." So says Sam; +and Mrs. Tapping discerns with pious fervour the Mercy of God in this +occurrence, He not having flattened the child out on the road outright. + +But Peter Jackson's question implied no intention to communicate with +the little victim's family. To do so would be a clear dereliction of +duty; an offence against discipline. He has his instructions, and in +pursuance of them strides away to the Hospital without another word, +bearing in his arms a light burden so motionless that it is hard to +credit it with life. So quickly has the whole thing passed, that the +drift of idlers hard on his heels is a fraction of what a couple more +minutes would have made it. It will have grown before they reach the +Middlesex, short as the distance is. Then a police-sergeant, who joins +them half-way, will take notes and probably go to find the child's +parents; while Peter Jackson, chagrined at this hitch in his day's +fire-eating, will go off Walworth way at the best speed he may, after +handing over his charge to an indisputable House-Surgeon. + +One can picture to oneself how the whole thing might pass as it did, +between the abrupt check of the engine's career, heard by Uncle Moses +and his friend, and the two or three minutes later when they emerged +through the archway to find Dolly in despair; not from any knowledge of +the accident to Dave, for intense preoccupation and a rampart of clay +had kept her in happy ignorance of it, but because the water had broken +bounds and Noah's flood had come with a vengeance. Questioned as to +Dave's whereabouts, she embarked on a lengthy stuttered explanation of +how Dave had dode round there--pointing to the clay heap--to det some of +the new mud the men had spoyded up with their spoyds. She reproduced his +words, of course. Uncle Moses was trying to detect her meaning without +much success, when he became aware that the old man in the fur cap who +had shouted more than once, "I say, master!" was addressing him. + +"Is that old cock singing out to one of we, Jerry?" said Uncle Moses. +And then replied to the old cock:--"Say what you've got to say, mate! +Come a bit nigher." + +Thereupon Old Sam crossed the bridge, slowly, as Uncle Moses moved to +meet him. "Might you happen to know anything of this little boy?" said +old Sam. + +Uncle Moses caught the sound of disaster in his accent, before his words +came to an end. "What's the little boy?" said he. "Where have you got +him?" And Dolly, startled by the strange sound in her uncle's voice, +forgot Noah's flood, and stood dumb and terrified with outstretched +muddy hands. + +"I may be in the wrong of it, master"--thus Old Sam in his slow way, a +trial to impatience--"but maybe this little maid's brother. They've took +him across to the Hospital." Old Sam did not like to have to say this. +He softened it as much as he could. Do you not see how? Omit the word +"across," and see how relentless it makes the message. Do you ask why? +Impossible to say--but it _does_! + +Then Uncle Moses shouted out hoarsely, not like himself: "The +Hospital--the Hospital--hear that, Bob! Our boy Dave in the Hospital!" +and, catching his friend's arm, "Ask him--ask more!" His voice dropped +and his breath caught. He was a bad subject for sudden emotions. + +"Tell it out, friend--any word that comes first!" says Mr. Alibone. And +then Old Sam, tongue-freed, gives the facts as known to him. He ends +with:--"Th' young child could never have been there above a minute, all +told, before the engine come along, and might have took no warning at +twice his age for the vairy sudden coming of it." He dwells upon the +shortness of the time Dave had been on the spot as though this minimised +the evil. "I shouldn't care to fix the blame, for my own part," says he, +shaking his head in venerable refusal of judicial functions not assigned +to him so far. + +"Is the child killed, man? Say what you know!" Thus Mr. Alibone +brusquely. For he has caught a question Uncle Moses just found voice +for:--"Killed or not?" + +The old watchman is beginning slowly:--"That I would not undertake to +say, sir...." when he is cut off short by Mrs. Riley, anxious to attest +any pleasant thing, truly if possible; but if otherwise, anyhow!--"Kilt +is it? No, shure thin! Insinsible." And then adds an absolutely +gratuitous statement from sheer optimism:--"Shure, I hur-r-d thim say so +mesilf, and I wouldn't mislade ye, me dyurr. Will I go and till his +mother so for ye down the Court? To till her not to alarrum hersilf!" + +But by this time Uncle Moses had rallied. The momentary qualm had been +purely physical, connected with something that a year since had caused a +medical examination of his heart with a stethoscope. He had been too +great an adept in the art of rallying after knock-down blows in his +youth to go off in a faint over this. He had felt queer, for all that. +Still, he declined Mrs. Riley's kindly meant offer. "Maybe I'll make the +best job of it myself," said he. "Thanking you very kindly all the +same, ma'am!" After which he and his friend vanished back into Sapps +Court, deciding as they went that it would be best to persuade Aunt +M'riar to remain at home, while they themselves went to the Hospital, to +learn the worst. It would never do to leave Dolly alone, or even in +charge of neighbours. + +Mrs. Riley's optimism lasted till Uncle Moses and Mr. Alibone +disappeared, taking with them Dolly, aware of something terrible afoot; +too small to understand the truth, whatever it was; panic-stricken and +wailing provisionally to be even with the worst. Then, all reason for +well-meaning falsehood being at an end, the Irishwoman looked facts in +the face with the resolution that never flinches before the mishaps of +one's fellow-man, especially when he is a total stranger. + +"The power man!" said she. "He'll have sane the last of his little boy +alive, only shure one hasn't the harrut to say the worrd. Throubles make +thimsilves fast enough without the tilling of thim, and there'll be +manes and to spare for the power payple to come to the knowledge without +a worrd from you or me, Mrs. Tapping." + +Then said Mrs. Tapping, on the watch for an opening through which she +could thrust herself into the conversation; as a topic, you +understand:--"Now there, Mrs. Riley, you name the very reason why I +always stand by like, not to introduce my word. Not but that I will +confess to the temptation undergone this very time to say that by God's +will the child was took away from us, undeniable. Against that +temptation I kep' my lips shut. Only I will say this much, and no +concealment, that if my husband had been spared, being now a widow +fourteen years, and heard me keep silence many a time, he might have +said it again and again, like he said it a hundred times if he said it +once when alive and able to it:--'Mary Ann Tapping, you do yourself no +justice settin' still and list'nin', with your tongue in your mouth God +gave you, and you there to use it!' And I says to Tapping, fifty times +if I said it once, 'Tapping,' says I, 'you better know things twiced +before you say 'em for every onced you say 'em before you know 'em.' +Then Tapping, he says, was that to point at 'Lethear? And I says yes, +though the girl was then young and so excusable. But she may learn +better, I says, and made allowance though mistaken...." This is just as +good a point for Mrs. Tapping to cease at as any other in the story. In +reality Heaven only knows when she ceased. + +A very miscellaneous public gathered round and formed false ideas of +what had happened from misinformants. The most popular erroneous report +ran towards connecting it somehow with the sewer-trench, influencing +people to look down into its depths and watch for the reappearance of +something supposed to be expected back. So much so that more than one +inoffensive person asked the man in charge of the pumping engine--which +went honourably on without a pause--whether "it" was down there. He was +a morose and embittered man--had been crossed in love, perhaps--for he +met all inquiries by another:--"Who are you a-speaking to?" and, on +being told, added:--"Then why couldn't you say so?" Humble apology had +then to be content with, "No, it ain't down there and never has been, if +you ask me,"--in answer to the previous question. + +Old Sam endeavoured more than once to point out that the accident need +not necessarily end fatally. He invented tales of goods-trains that had +passed over him early in life, and the surgical skill that had left him +whole and sound. Trains were really unknown in his boyhood, but there +was no one to contradict him. The public, stimulated to hopefulness, +produced analogous experiences. It had had a hay-cart over it, with a +harvest-home on the top, such as we see in pictures. It had had the +Bangor coach over it, going down hill, and got caught in the skid. It +had been under an artillery corps and field-guns at a gallop, when the +Queen revoo'd the troops in Hyde Park. And look at it now! Horse-kicks +and wheel-crushing really had a bracing tendency; gave the constitution +tone, and seldom left any ill effects. + +Only their consequences must be took in time. Well!--hadn't the child +gone to the Hospital? Dissentients who endeavoured to suggest that +broken bones and dislocations were unknown before the invention of +surgeons, were rebuked by the citation of instances of neglected +compound fractures whose crippled owners became athletes after their +bones had been scientifically reset, having previously been rebroken in +the largest number of places the narrator thought he could get credence +for. Hope told her flattering tale very quickly, for when Dave's uncle +and Jerry Alibone reappeared on their way to find the truth at the +Hospital, her hearers were ready with encouragement, whether they knew +anything about the matter or not. "I don't believe they do," said Uncle +Moses, and Mr. Alibone replied--"Not they, bless your heart!" But it was +refreshing for all that. + +They met the police-sergeant on the way, coming from the Hospital to +bring the report and make inquiry about the child's belongings. They +credited him with superhuman insight when he addressed them +with:--"Either of you the father of a child knocked down by Fire-engine +67A in this street--taken into accident ward?" He spoke just as though +Engine 68B had knocked another child down in the next street, and so on +all over London. + +But his sharpness was merely human. For scarcely a soul had passed but +paused to look round after them, wondering at the set jaw and pallid +face of the huge man who limped on a stick, seeming put to it to keep +the speed. Uncle Moses, you see, was a fine man in his own way of the +prizefighter type; and now, in his old age, worked out a little like Dr. +Samuel Johnson. + +The report, as originally received by the police-officer, was that the +child was not killed but still unconscious. A good string of injuries +were credited to the poor little man, including a dislocated femur and +concussion of the brain. Quite enough, alone!--for the patient, his +friends and relations. The House-Surgeon, speaking professionally, spoke +also hopefully of undetected complications in the background. We might +pull him through for all that. This report was materially softened for +the child's family. Better not say too much to the parents at present, +either way! + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + HOW UNCLE MO AND HIS FRIEND COULD NOT GET MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT. + DOLLY'S ATTITUDE. ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, AND DOLLY'S PUDDING. + HOW UNCLE MO'S SPIRITS WENT DOWN INTO HIS BOOTS. HOW PETER JACKSON + THE FIREMAN INTERVIEWED MICHAEL RAGSTROAR, UPSIDE DOWN, AND BROUGHT + AUNT M'RIAR'S HEART INTO HER MOUTH. HOW DAVE CAME HOME IN A CAB, + AND MICHAEL RAGSTROAR GOT A RIDE FOR NOTHING. OF SISTER NORA, WHO + GOT ON THE COURT'S VISITING LIST BEFORE IT CAME OUT THAT SHE WAS + MIXED UP WITH ARISTOCRATS + + +The present writer, half a century since--he was then neither _we_ nor a +writer--trod upon a tiny sapling in the garden of the house then +occupied by his kith and kin. It was broken off an inch from the ground, +and he distinctly remembers living a disgraced life thereafter because +of the beautiful tree that sapling might have become but for his +inconsiderate awkwardness. If the censorious spirit that he aroused +could have foreseen the tree that was to grow from the forgotten +residuum of the accident, the root that it left in the ground, it would +not perhaps have passed such a sweeping judgment. Any chance wayfarer in +St. John's Wood may see that tree now--from the end of the street, for +that matter. + +So perhaps the old prizefighter might have mustered more hope in +response to Aunt M'riar's plucky rally against despair. The tiny, white, +motionless figure on the bed in the accident ward, that had uttered no +sound since he saw it on first arriving at the Hospital, might have been +destined to become that of a young engineer on a Dreadnought, or an +unfledged dragoon, for any authenticated standard of Impossibility. + +The House-Surgeon and his Senior, one of the heads of the +Institution,--interviewed by Uncle Moses and Aunt M'riar when they came +late by special permission and appointment, hoping to hear the child's +voice once more, and found him still insensible and white--testified +that the action of the heart was good. The little man had no intention +of dying if he could live. But both his medical attendants knew that the +tremulous inquiry whether there was any hope of a recovery--within a +reasonable time understood, of course--was really a petition for a +favourable verdict at any cost. And they could not give one, for all +they would have been glad to do so. They have to damn so many hopes in a +day's work, these Accident Warders! + +"It's no use asking us," said they, somehow conjointly. "There's not a +surgeon in all England that could tell you whether it will be life or +death. _We_ can only say the patient is making a good fight for it." +They seemed very much interested in the case, though, and in the queer +old broken-hearted giant that sobbed over the half-killed baby that +could not hear nor answer, speak to it as he might. + +"What did you say your name was?" said the Senior Surgeon to Uncle +Moses. + +"Moses Wardle of Hanley, called the Linnet. Ye see, I was a Member of +the Prize Ring, many years. Fighting Man, you might say." + +"I had an idea I knew the name, too. When I was a youngster thirty odd +years ago I took an interest in that sort of thing. You fought Bob +Brettle, and the umpires couldn't agree." + +"That was it, master. Well, I had many a turn up--turn up and turn down, +either way as might be. But I had a good name. I never sold a backer. I +did my best by them that put their money on me." For the moneychanger, +the wagermonger, creeps in and degrades the noble science of damaging +one's fellow-man effectively; even as in old years he brought discredit +on cock-fighting, in which at least--you cannot deny it--the bird cuts a +better figure than he does in his native farmyard. + +"Come round after twelve to-morrow, and we may know more," said the +House-Surgeon. "It's not regular--but ask for me." And then the older +Surgeon shook Uncle Moses by the hand, quite respectful-like--so Mr. +Jerry said to Aunt M'riar later--and the two went back, sad and +discouraged, to Sapps Court. + +What made it all harder to bear was the difficulty of dealing with +Dolly. Dolly knew, of course, that Dave had been took to the +Horsetickle--that was the nearest she could get to the word, after +frequent repetitions--and that he was to be made well, humanly speaking, +past a doubt. The little maid had to be content with assurances to this +effect, inserting into the treaty a stipulation as to time. + +"Dave's doin' to tum home after dinner," said she, when that meal seemed +near at hand. And Uncle Moses never had the heart to say no. + +Then when no Dave had come, and Dolly had wept for him in vain, and a +cloth laid announced supper, Dolly said--moved only by that landmark of +passing time--"Dave _is_ a-doin' to tum home after supper; he _is_ +a-doin', Uncle Mo, he _is_ a-doin'!" And what could her aunt and uncle +do but renew the bill, as it were; the promise to pay that could only be +fulfilled by the production of Dave, whole and sound. + +She refused food except on condition that an exactly similar helping +should be conveyed to Dave in the Horsetickle. She withdrew the +condition that Uncle Moses and herself should forthwith convey Dave's +share of the repast to him, in consideration of a verbal guarantee that +little girls were not allowed in such Institutions. Why she accepted +this so readily is a mystery. Possibly the common form of instruction to +little girls, dwelling on their exclusion by statute or usage from +advantages enjoyed by little boys, may have had its weight. Little +girls, _exempli gratia_, may not lie on their backs and kick their legs +up. Little boys are at liberty to do so, subject to unimportant +reservations, limiting the area at their disposal for the practice. It +is needless--and might be thought indelicate--to instance the numerous +expressions that no little girl should use under any circumstances, +which are regarded as venial sin in little boys, except of course on +Sunday. Society does not absolutely countenance the practices of +spitting and sniffing in little boys, but it closes its eyes and passes +hypocritically by on the other side of the road; while, on the other +hand, little girls indulging in these vices would either be cast out +into the wilderness, or have to accept the _rôle_ of penitent Magdalens. +Therefore when Dolly was told that little girls were not allowed in +Hospitals, it may only have presented itself to her as another item in a +code of limitations already familiar. + +The adhibition in visible form of a pendant to her own allowance of +pudding or bread-and-milk, to be carried to the Horsetickle by Uncle +Moses on his next visit, had a sedative effect, and she was contented +with it, without insisting on seeing the pledge carried out. Her +imagination was satisfied, as a child's usually is, with any objective +transaction. Moreover, a dexterous manipulation of the position improved +matters. The portion allotted to Dave was removed, ostensibly to keep it +warm for him, but reproduced to do duty as a second helping for Dolly. +Of course, it had to be halved again for Dave's sake, and an ancient +puzzle solved itself in practice. The third halving was not worth +sending to the Hospital. Even so a step too small to take was left for +Achilles when the tortoise had only just started. "Solvitur ambulando," +said Philosophy, and _a priori_ reasoning took a back place. + +Her constant inquiries about the date of Dave's cure and return were an +added and grievous pain to her aunt and uncle. It was easy for the +moment to procrastinate, but how if the time should come for telling her +that Dave would never come back--no, never? + +But the time was not to come yet. For a few days Life showed indecision, +and Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar had a thumping heart apiece each time they +stood by the little, still, white figure on the bed and thought the +breath was surely gone. They were allowed in the ward every day, +contrary to visitor-rule, apparently because of Uncle Mo's professional +eminence in years gone by--an odd reason when one thinks of it! It was +along of that good gentleman, God bless him!--said Aunt M'riar--that +knew Uncle Mo's name in the Ring. In fact, the good gentleman had said +to the House-Surgeon in private converse: "You see, there's no doubt the +old chap ended sixteen rounds with Brettle in a draw, and Jem Mace had a +near touch with Brettle. No, no--we must let him see the case day by +day." So Uncle Mo saw the case each day, and each day went away to +transact such business with Hope as might be practicable. And each day, +on his return, there was a voice heard in Sapps Court, Dolly weeping for +her elder brother, and would not be comforted. "Oo _did_ said oo would +fess Dave back from the Horsetickle, oo know oo did, Uncle Mo"; and +similar reproaches, mixed themselves with her sobs. But for many days +she got no consolation beyond assurance that Dave would come to-morrow, +discharged cured. + +Then, one windy morning, a punctual equinoctial gale, gathering up its +energies to keep inoffensive persons awake all night and, if possible, +knock some chimney-stacks down, blew Uncle Mo's pipelight out, and +caused him to make use of an expression. And Aunt M'riar reproved that +expression, saying:--"Not with that blessed boy lying there in the +Hospital should you say such language, Moses, more like profane +swearing, I call it, than a Christian household." + +"He's an old Heathen, ma'am, is Moses," said Mr. Alibone, who was +succeeding in lighting his own pipe, in spite of the wind in at the +street door. Because, as we have seen, in this Court--unlike the Courts +of Law or Her Majesty's Court of St. James's--the kitchens opened right +on the street. Not but what, for all that, there was the number where +you would expect, on a shiny boss you could rub clean and give an +appearance. Aunt M'riar said so, and must have known. + +Uncle Moses shook his head gravely over his own delinquency, as if he +truly felt it just as much as anybody. But when he got his pipe lighted, +instead of being cheerful and making the most of what the doctor had +said that very day, his spirits went down into his boots, which was a +way they had. + +"'Tain't any good to make believe," said he. "Supposin' our boy never +comes back, M'riar!" + +"There, now!" said Aunt M'riar. "To hear you talk, Mo, wouldn't anybody +think! And after what Dr. Prime said only this afternoon! I should be +ashamed." + +"What was it Dr. Prime said, Mo?" asked Mr. Alibone, quite +cheerful-like. "Tell us again, old man." For you see, Uncle Moses he'd +brought back quite an encouraging report, whatever anyone see fit to +say, when he come back from the Hospital. Dr. Prime was the +House-Surgeon. + +"I don't take much account of him," said Uncle Mo. "A well-meanin' man, +but too easy by half. One o' your good-natured beggars. Says a thing to +stuff you up like! For all I could see, my boy was as white as that bit +of trimmin' in your hand, M'riar." + +"But won't you tell us what the doctor _said_, Mo?" said Mr. Alibone. "I +haven't above half heard the evening's noose." He'd just come in to put +a little heart into Moses. + +"Said the little child had a better colour. But I don't set any store by +that." And then what does Uncle Moses do but reg'lar give away and go +off sobbing like a baby. "Oh, M'riar, M'riar, we shall never have our +boy back--no, never!" + +And then Aunt M'riar, who was a good woman if ever Mr. Alibone come +across one--this is what that gentleman could and did tell a friend +after, incorporated verbatim in the text--she up and she says:--"For +shame of yourself, Mo, for to go and forget yourself like that before +Mr. Alibone! I tell you I believe we shall have the boy back in a week, +all along o' what Dr. Prime said." On which, and a further +representation that he would wake Dolly if he went on like that, Uncle +Mo he pulled himself together and smoked quiet. Whereupon Aunt M'riar +dwelt upon the depressing effect a high wind in autumn has on the +spirits, with the singular result referred to above, of their +retractation into their owner's boots, like quicksilver in a thermometer +discouraged by the cold. After which professional experience was allowed +some weight, and calmer counsels prevailed. + +About this time an individual in a sort of undress uniform, beginning at +the top in an equivocal Tam-o'-Shanter hat, sauntered into the +_cul-de-sac_ to which Sapps Court was an appendix. He appeared to be +unconcerned in human affairs, and indeed independent of Time, Space, and +Circumstance. He addressed a creature that was hanging upside down on +some railings, apparently by choice. + +"What sort of a name does this here archway go by?" said he, without +acute curiosity. + +"That's Sappses Court," said the creature, remaining inverted. "Say it +ain't?" He appeared to identify the uniform he was addressing, and +added:--"There ain't a fire down that Court, 'cos I knows and I'm a +telling of yer. You'd best hook it." The uniform hooked nothing. Then, +in spite of the creature--who proved, right-side-up, to be Michael +Ragstroar--shouting after him--"You ain't wanted down that Court!" he +entered it deliberately, whistling a song then popular, whose singer +wished he was with Nancy, he did, he did, in a second floor, with a +small back-door, to live and die with Nancy. + +Having identified Sapps, he seemed to know quite well which house he +wanted, for he went straight to the end and knocked at No. 7. + +"Sakes alive!" said Aunt M'riar, responsive to the knock. "There's no +fire here." + +"I'm off duty," said the fireman briefly. "I've come to tell you about +your young customer at the Hospital." + +Aunt M'riar behaved heroically. There was only, to her thinking, one +chance in ten that this strange, inexplicable messenger should have +brought any other news to their house than that of its darling's death; +but that one chance was enough to make her choke back a scream, lest +Uncle Mo should have one moment of needless despair. And else--it shot +across her mind in a second--might not a sudden escape from despair even +be fatal to that weak heart of his? So Aunt M'riar pulled to the door +behind her to say, with an effort:--"Is he dead?" The universe swam +about outside while she stood still, and something hummed in her head. +But through it she heard the fireman say:--"Not he!" as of one endowed +with a great vitality, one who would take a deal of killing. When he +added:--"He's spoke," though she believed her ears certainly, for she +ran back into the kitchen crying out:--"He's spoke, Mo, he's spoke!" she +did it with a misgiving that the only interpretation she could see her +way to _must_ be wrong--was altogether too good to be true. + +Uncle Mo fairly shouted with joy, and this time woke Dolly, who thought +it was a calamity, and wept. Fully five minutes of incoherent rejoicing +followed, and then details might be rounded off. The fireman had to +stand by his engine on the night-shift in an hour's time, but he saw his +way to a pipe, and lit it. + +"They're always interested to hear the ending-up of things at the +Station," said he, to account for himself and his presence, "and I made +it convenient to call round at the Ward. The party that took the child +from me happened to be there, and knew me again." He, of course--but you +would guess this--was Peter Jackson of Engine 67A. He continued:--"The +party was so obliging as to take me into the Ward to the bedside. And it +was while I was there the little chap began talking. The party asked me +to step in and mention it to you, ma'am, or his uncle, seeing it was in +my road to the Station." Then Peter Jackson seemed to feel his words +needed extenuation or revision. "Not but I would have gone a bit out of +the way, for that matter!" said he. + +"'Twouldn't be any use my looking round now, I suppose?" said Uncle Mo. +Because he always was that restless and fidgety. + +"Wait till to-morrow, they said, the party and the nurse. By reason the +child might talk a bit and then get some healthy sleep. What he's had +these few days latterly don't seem to count." Thus Peter Jackson, and +Uncle Moses said he had seen the like. And then all three of them made +the place smokier and smokier you could hardly make out across the room. + +"Mo's an impatient old cock, you see!" said Mr. Alibone, who seemed to +understand Peter Jackson, and _vice versa_. And Uncle Mo said:--"I +suppose I shall have to mark time." To which the others replied that was +about it. + +"Only whatever did the young child say, mister?" said Aunt M'riar; like +a woman's curiosity, to know. But those other two, they was curious +underneath-like; only denied it. + +"I couldn't charge my memory for certain, ma'am," said Peter Jackson, +"and might very easy be wrong." He appeared to shrink from the +responsibility of making a report, but all his hearers were agreed that +there was no call to cut things so very fine as all that. A rough +outline would meet the case. + +"If it ran to nonsense in a child," said Uncle Mo--"after all, what +odds?" And Aunt M'riar said:--"Meanin' slips through the words +sometimes, and no fault to find." She had not read "Rabbi Ben Ezra," so +this was original. + +Peter Jackson endeavoured to charge his memory, or perhaps more +properly, to discharge it. Dave had said first thing when he opened his +eyes:--"The worty will be all over the hedge. Let me go to stop the +worty." Of course, this had been quite unintelligible to his hearers. +However, Mr. Alibone and Uncle Mo were _au fait_ enough of the +engineering scheme that had led to the accident, to supply the +explanation. Dave's responsibility as head engineer had been on his +conscience all through his spell of insensibility, and had been the +earliest roused matter of thought when the light began to break. + +Besides, it so chanced that testimony was forthcoming to support this +view and confirm Dave's sanity. Dolly, who had been awakened by the +noise, had heard enough to convey to her small mind that something +pleasant had transpired in relation to Dave. Though young, she had a +certain decision of character. Her behaviour was lawless, but not +unnatural. She climbed out of her wooden crib in Aunt M'riar's bedroom, +and slipping furtively down the stair which led direct to the kitchen, +succeeded in bounding on to the lap of her uncle; from which, once +established, she knew it would be difficult for her aunt to dislodge +her. She crowed with delight at the success of this escapade, and had +the satisfaction of being, as it were, confirmed in her delinquency by +her aunt wrapping a shawl round her. This was partly on the score of the +cold draughts in such a high wind, partly as a measure of public +decency. She was in time to endorse her uncle's explanation of Dave's +speech intelligibly enough, with a due allowance of interpretation. + +Closely reported, the substance of her commentary ran as follows--"Dave +tooktited the mud when I fessed him the mud in my flock"--this was +illustrated in a way that threatened to outrage a sensitive propriety, +the speaker's aunt's--"and spooshed up the worty and spooshed up the +worty"--this repetition had great value--"and spooshtited the worty +back, and then there wasn't no more mud ... it was all fessed away in my +flock ... All dorn!--ass, it was--_all_ dorn!"--this was in a minor key, +and thrilled with pathos--"and Dave dode to fess more where the new mud +was, and was took to the Horsetickle and never come back no more ..." At +this point it seemed best to lay stress upon the probable return of +Dave, much to Dolly's satisfaction; though she would have been better +pleased if a date had been fixed. + +Our own belief is that Dolly thought the Horsetickle was an institution +for the relief of sufferers from accidents occasioned by horses, and +that no subsequent experience ever entirely dissipated this impression. +The chances are that nine or ten of the small people one sees daily and +thinks of as "the children," are laying up, even at this moment, some +similar fancy that will last a lifetime. But this is neither here nor +there. + +What is more to the purpose is that a fortnight later Dave was brought +home in a cab--the only cab that is recorded in History as having ever +deliberately stood at the entrance to Sapps Court, with intent. Cabs may +have stood there in connection with other doorways in the _cul-de-sac_, +but ignoring proudly the archway with the iron post. Dave was carried +down the Court by his uncle with great joy, and Michael Ragstroar seized +the opportunity to tie himself somehow round the axle of the cab's +backwheels, and get driven some distance free of charge. + +Dave, as seen by Dolly on his return, was still painfully white, and +could not walk. And Dolly might not come banging and smashing down on +him like a little elephant, because it would hurt him; so she had to be +good. The elephant simile was due to a lady--no doubt well-meaning--who +accompanied Dave from the Hospital, and came more than once to see him +afterwards. But it was taking a good deal on herself to decide what +Dolly ought or ought not to do to Dave. + +In those days slumming proper had not set in, and the East End was only +known geographically, except, no doubt, to a few enthusiasts--the sort +that antedates first discovery after the fact, and takes a vicious +pleasure in precursing its successors. But unassuming benefactresses +occurred at intervals whom outsiders knew broadly as Sisters of Charity. +Such a one was this lady, between whom and Aunt M'riar a sympathetic +friendship grew up before the latter discovered that Dave's hospital +friend was an Earl's niece, which not unnaturally made her rather +standoffish for a time. However, a remark of Mr. Alibone's--who seemed +to know--that the lady's uncle was a belted Earl, and no mistake, +palliated the Earldom and abated class prejudice. The Earl naturally +went up in the esteem of the old prizefighter when it transpired that he +was belted. What more could the most exacting ask? + +But it was in the days when this lady was only "that party from the +Hospital," that she took root at No. 7, Sapps Court. No. 7 was content +that she should remain nameless; but when she said, in some affair of a +message to be given at the Hospital, that its bearer was to ask for +Sister Nora, it became impossible to ignore the name, although certainly +it was a name that complicated matters. She remained, however, plain +Sister Nora, without suspicion of any doubtful connections, until a +scheme of a daring character took form--nothing less than that Dave +should be taken into the country for change of air. + +Uncle Mo was uneasy at the idea of Dave going away. Besides, he had +always cherished the idea that the air of Sapps Court was equal to that +of San Moritz, for instance. Look at what it was only a few years before +Dave's father and mother first moved in, when it was all fields along +the New Road--which has since been absurdly named Euston and Marylebone +Road! Nothing ever come to change the air in Sapps Court that Uncle Mo +knew of. And look at the wallflowers growing out in front the same as +ever! + +Uncle Mo, however, was not the man to allow his old-fashioned prejudices +to stand in the way of the patient's convalescence, and an arrangement +was made by Sister Nora that Dave should be taken charge of, for a +while, by an old and trustworthy inhabitant of the Rocestershire village +of which her uncle, the belted Earl, was the feudal lord and master, or +slave and servant, according as you look at it. It was during the +arrangement of this plan that his Earldom leaked out, creating serious +misgivings in the minds of Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar that they would be +ill-advised if they allowed themselves to get mixed up with that sort of +people. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + OF DOLLY'S CRACKNELL BISCUIT, THAT SHE MISTOOK FOR DAVE. OF HER + UNSEAWORTHY BOX, AND HER VISITS TO MRS. PRICHARD UPSTAIRS. HOW SHE + HAD NEVER TOLD MRS. BURR A WORD ABOUT VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. CONCERNING + IDOLATRY, AND THE LIABILITY OF TRYING ON TO TEMPER. UNCLE MO'S + IDEAS OF PENAL SETTLEMENTS + + +They were sad days in Sapps Court after Sister Nora bore Dave away to +Chorlton-under-Bradbury; particularly for Dolly, whose tears bathed her +pillow at night, and diluted her bread-and-milk in the morning. There +was something very touching about this little maid's weeping in her +sleep, causing Aunt M'riar to give her a cracknell biscuit--to consume +if possible; to hold in her sleeping hand as a rapture of possession, +anyhow. Dolly accepted it, and contrived to enjoy it slowly without +waking. What is more, she stopped crying; and my belief is, if you ask +me, that sleep having deprived her of the power of drawing fine +distinctions, she mistook this biscuit for Dave. Its _caput mortuum_ was +still clasped to her bosom when, deep unconsciousness merging all +distinctions in unqualified existence, she was having her sleep out next +day. + +Dolly may have felt indignant and hurt at the audacious false promises +of her uncle and aunt as to Dave's return. He had come home, certainly, +but badly damaged. It was a sad disappointment; the little woman's first +experience of perfidy. Her betrayers made a very poor show of their +attempts at compensation--toys and suchlike. There was a great dignity +in Dolly's attitude towards these contemptible offerings of a penitent +conscience. She accepted them, certainly, but put them away in her bots +to keep for Dave. Her box--if one has to spell it right--was an +overgrown cardboard box with "Silk Twill" written on one end, and blue +paper doors to fold over inside. It had been used as a boat, but +condemned as unseaworthy as soon as Dolly could not sit in it to be +pushed about, the gunwale having split open amidships. Let us hope this +is right, nautically. + +Considered as a safe for the storage of valuables, Dolly's box would +have acquitted itself better if fair play had been shown to it. Its lid +should have been left on long enough to produce an impression, and not +pulled off at frequent intervals to exhibit its contents. No sooner was +an addition made to these than Dolly would say, for instance, that she +must s'ow Mrs. Picture upstairs the most recent acquisitions. Then she +would insist on trying to carry it upstairs, but was not long enough in +the arms, and Aunt M'riar had to do it for her in the end. Not, however, +unwillingly, because it enabled her to give her mind to pinking or +gauffering, or whatever other craft was then engaging her attention. We +do not ourself know what pinking is, or gauffering; we have only heard +them referred to. A vague impression haunts us that they fray out if not +done careful. But this is probably valueless. + +No doubt Dolly's visits upstairs in connection with this box were +answerable for Aunt M'riar's having come to know a good deal +about old Mrs. Prichard's--or, according to Dave and Dolly, +Picture's--antecedents. A good deal, that is, when it came to be put +together and liberally helped by inferences; but made up of very small +deals--disjointed deals--in the form in which they were received by Aunt +M'riar. As, for instance, on the occasion just referred to, shortly +after Dave had gone on a visit to the tenant of the belted Earl, Uncle +Mo having gone away for an hour, to spend it in the parlour of The +Rising Sun, a truly respectable house where there were Skittles, and +Knurr and Spell. He might, you see, be more than an hour: there was no +saying for certain. + +"I do take it most kind of you, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar for the +fiftieth time, with departure in sight, "to keep an eye on the child. +Some children nourishes a kind of ap'thy, not due to themselves, but +constitutional in their systems, and one can leave alone without fear by +reason of it. But Dolly is that busy and attentive, and will be up and +doing, so one may easy spoil a tuck or stand down an iron too hot if +called away sudden to see after the child." + +The old woman seemed to Aunt M'riar to respond vaguely. She loved to +have the little thing anigh her, and hear her clacket. "All my own +family are dead and gone, barring one son," said she. And then added, +without any consciousness of jarring ideas:--"He would be forty-five." +Aunt M'riar tried in vain to think of some way of sympathizing, but was +relieved from her self-imposed duty by the speaker continuing--"He was +my youngest. Born at Macquarie Harbour in the old days. The boy was born +up-country--yes, forty-five years agone." + +"Not in England now, ma'am, I suppose," said Aunt M'riar, who could not +see her way to anything else. The thought crossed her mind that, so far +as _she_ knew, no male visitor for the old tenant of the attics had so +far entered the house. + +The old woman shook her head slowly. "I could not say," she said. "I +cannot tell you now if he be alive or dead." Then she became drowsy, as +old age does when it has talked enough; so, as Aunt M'riar had plenty to +see to, she took her leave, Dolly remaining in charge as per contract. + +Aunt M'riar passed on these stray fragments of old Mrs. Prichard's +autobiography to Uncle Mo when he came in from The Rising Sun. The old +boy seemed roused to interest by the mention of Van Diemen's Land. "I +call to mind," said he, "when I was a youngster, hearing tell of the +convicts out in those parts, and how no decent man could live in the +place. Hell on Earth, they did say, those that knew." Thereupon old Mrs. +Prichard straightway became a problem to Aunt M'riar. If there were none +but convicts in Van Diemen's Land, and all Mrs. Prichard's boys were +born there, the only chance of the old woman not having been the mother +of a convict's children lay in her having been possibly the wife of a +gaoler, at the best. And yet--she was such a nice, pretty old thing! Was +it conceivable? + +Then in subsequent similar interviews Aunt M'riar, inquisitive-like, +tried to get further information. But very little was forthcoming beyond +the fact that Mrs. Prichard's husband was dead. What supported the +convict theory was that his widow never referred to any relatives of his +or her own. Mrs. Burr, her companion or concomitant--or at least +fellow-lodger--was not uncommunicative, but knew "less than you might +expect" about her. Aunt M'riar cultivated this good woman with an eye to +information, holding her up--as the phrase is now--at the stairfoot and +inveigling her to tea and gossip. She was a garrulous party when you +come to know her, was Mrs. Burr; and indeed, short of intimacy, she +might have produced the same impression on any person well within +hearing. + +"Times and again," said she in the course of one such conversation, +which had turned on the mystery of Mrs. Prichard's antecedents, "have I +thought she was going to let on about her belongings, and never so much +as a word! Times and again have I felt my tongue in the roof of my +mouth, for curiosity to think what she would say next. And there, will +you believe me, missis?--it was no better than so much silence all said +and done! Nor it wasn't for want of words, like one sits meanin' a great +deal and when it comes to the describin' of it just nowhere! She was by +way of keeping something back, and there was I sat waiting for it, and +guess-working round like, speculating, you might say, to think what it +might be when it come. Thank you, ma'am--not another cup!" + +"There's more in the pot, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar, looking into it to +see, near the paraffin lamp which smelt: they all did in those days. But +Mrs. Burr had had three; and three does, mostly. If these excellent +women's little inflections of speech, introduced thus casually, are +puzzling, please supply inverted commas. Aunt M'riar organized the +tea-tray to take away and wash up at the sink, after emptying +saucer-superfluities into the slop-basin. Mrs. Burr referred to the +advantages we enjoy as compared with our forbears, instancing especially +our exemption from the worship of wooden images, Egyptian Idles--a +spelling accommodated to meet an impression Mrs. Burr had derived from a +Japanese Buddha--and suchlike, and Tea. + +"However they did without it I cannot think," said she. "On'y, of +course, not having to stitch, stitch, stitch from half-past six in the +morning till bedtime made a difference." Her ideas of our ancestors were +strongly affected by a copper-plate engraving in a print-shop window in +Soho, even as idolatry had been presented to her by a Tea-Man and Grocer +in Tottenham Court Road. It was Stothard's "Canterbury Pilgrims"--_you_ +know!--and consequently her _moyen age_ had a falcon on its wrist, and a +jester in attendance, invariably. "They was a good deal in the open air, +and it tells," was her tribute to the memory of this plate. She +developed the subject further, incidentally. "Tryin' on is a change, of +course, but liable to temper, and vexatious when the party insists on +letting out and no allowance of turn-over. The same if too short in +front. What was I a-sayin'?... Oh, Mrs. Prichard--yes! You was +inquiring, ma'am, about the length of time I had known her. Just four +years this Christmas, now I think of it. Time enough and to spare to +tell anything she liked--if she'd have liked. But you may take it from +me, ma'am, on'y to go no further on any account, that Mrs. Prichard is +not, as they say, free-spoke about her family, but on the contrary the +contrairy." Mrs. Burr was unconsciously extending the powers of the +English tongue, in varying one word's force by different accents. + +Uncle Moses he cut in, being at home that time:--"Was you saying, ma'am, +that the old widder-lady's husband had been a convict in Australia?" + +Oh no!--Mrs. Burr had never got that far. So she testified. Aunt M'riar, +speaking from the sink, where she was extracting out the tea-leaves from +the pot, was for calling Uncle Moses over the coals. Anybody might soon +be afraid to say anything, to have been running away with an idea like +that. No one had ever said any such a thing. Indeed, the convict was +entirely inferential, and had no foundation except in the fact that the +old woman's son had been born at Macquarie Harbour. Uncle Mo's +impression that Van Diemen's Land was a sort of plague-spot on the +planet--the _bacilli_ of the plague being convicted criminals--was no +doubt too well grounded. But it was only a hearsay of youth, and even +elderly men may now fail to grasp the way folk spoke and thought of +those remote horrors, the Penal Settlements, in the early days of last +century--a century with whose years those of Uncle Moses, after +babyhood, ran nearly neck and neck. That fellow-creatures, turned +t'other way up, were in Hell at the Antipodes, and that it was so far +off it didn't matter--that was the way the thing presented itself, and +supplied the excuse for forgetting all about it. Uncle Mo had "heard +tell" of their existence; but then they belonged to the criminal +classes, and he didn't. If people belonged to the criminal classes it +was their own look out, and they must take the consequences. + +So that when the old boy referred to this inferential convict as a +presumptive fact, the meaning of his own words had little force for +himself. Even if the old lady's husband had been a convicted felon, it +was now long enough ago to enable him to think of him as he thought of +the chain-gangs eight thousand miles off as the crow flies--or would fly +if he could go straight; the nearest way round mounts up to twelve. +Anyhow, there was no more in the story than would clothe the widowhood +of the upstairs tenant with a dramatic interest. + +So, as it appeared that Mrs. Prichard's few words to Aunt M'riar were +more illuminating than anything Mrs. Burr had to tell, and _they_ really +amounted to very little when all was said and done, there was at least +nothing in the convict story to cause misgivings of the fitness of the +upstairs attic to supply a haven of security for Dolly, while her aunt +went out foraging for provisions; or when, as we have seen sometimes +happened, Dolly became troublesome from want of change, and kep' up a +continual fidget for this or that, distrackin' your--that is, Aunt +M'riar's--attention. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + PHOEBE AND THE SQUIRE'S SON. HER RUNAWAY MARRIAGE WITH HIM. HOW + HE DABBLED IN FORGERY AND BURNED HIS FINGERS. OF A JUDGE WHO TOOK + AFTER THE PSALMIST. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, AND HOW PHOEBE GOT OUT + THERE. HOW BOTH TWINS WERE PROVED DEAD BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, + EACH TO EACH. HOW THORNTON FORGOT THAT PHOEBE COULD NEVER BE + LEGALLY HIS WIDOW. HOW HIS SON ACTED WELL UP TO HIS FATHER'S + STANDARD OF IMMORALITY. MARRIAGE A MEANS TO AN END, BUT ONLY ONCE. + AN ILL-STARRED BURGLARY. NORFOLK ISLAND. WHY BOTH MRS. DAVERILLS + CHANGED THEIR NAMES + + +If this story should ever be retold by a skilful teller, his power of +consecutive narrative and redisposition of crude facts in a better order +will be sure to add an interest it can scarcely command in its present +form. But it is best to make no pretence to niceties of construction, +when a mere presentation of events is the object in view. The following +circumstances in the life of old Mrs. Prichard constitute a case in +point. The story might, so to speak, ask its reader's forgiveness for so +sudden a break into the narrative. Consider that it has done so, and +amend the tale should you ever retell it. + +Maisie Runciman, born in the seventies of the previous century, and +close upon eighty years of age at the time of this story, was the +daughter of an Essex miller, who became a widower when she and her twin +sister Phoebe were still quite children. His only other child, a son +many years their senior, died not long after his mother, leaving them to +the sole companionship of their father. He seems to have been a +quarrelsome man, who had estranged himself from both his wife's +relatives and his own. He also had that most unfortunate quality of +holding his head high, as it is called; so high, in fact, that his twin +girls found it difficult to associate with their village neighbours, and +were driven back very much on their own resources for society. Their +father's morose isolation was of his own choosing. He was, however, +affectionate in a rough way to them, and their small household was +peaceful and contented enough. The sisters, wrapped up in one another, +as twins so often are, had no experience of any other condition of life, +and thought it all right and the thing that should be. + +All went well enough--without discord anyhow, however +monotonously--until Maisie and Phoebe began to look a little like women; +which happened, to say the truth, at least a year before their father +consented to recognise the fact, and permit them to appear in the robes +of maturity. About that time the young males of the neighbourhood became +aware, each in his private heart, of an adoration cherished for one or +other of the beautiful twins from early boyhood. Would-be lovers began +to buzz about like flies when fruit ripens. If any one of these youths +had any doubt about the intensity and immutability of his passion, it +vanished when the girls announced official womanhood by appearing at +church in the costume of their seniors. Some students of the mysterious +phenomena of Love have held that man is the slave of millinery, and that +women are to all intents and purposes their skirts. It is too delicate a +question for hurried discussion in a narrative which is neither +speculative nor philosophical, but historical. All that concerns its +writer is that no sooner did the costume of the miller's daughters +suggest that they would be eligible for the altar, than they grew so +dear, so dear, that everything masculine and unattached was ambitious to +be the jewel that trembled at their ear, or the girdle about their +dainty, dainty waist. + +The worst of it for these girls was that their likeness to one another +outwent that of ordinary twinship. It resembled that of the stage where +the same actor personates both Dromios; and their life was one perpetual +Comedy of Errors. Current jest said that they themselves did not know +which was which. But they did know, perfectly well, and had no +misgivings whatever about becoming permanently confused; even when, +having been dressed in different colours to facilitate distinction, they +changed dresses and produced a climax of complication. Even this was not +so bad as when Phoebe had a tiff with Maisie--a rare thing between +twins--and Maisie avenged herself by pretending to be Phoebe, affecting +that all the latter's protests of identity were malicious +misrepresentation. Who could decide when they themselves were not of a +tale? What settled the matter in the end was that Phoebe cried bitterly +at being misrepresented, while Maisie was so ill-advised as not to do +the same, and even made some parade of triumph. "Yow are Maisie. I heerd +yow a-crowun'," said an old stone-dresser, who, with other mill-hands, +was referred to for an opinion. + +This was when they were quite young, before slight variations of +experience had altered appearance and character to the point of making +them distinguishable when seen side by side. Not, however, to the point +of rendering impossible a trick each had played more than once on too +importunate male acquaintances. What could be more disconcerting to the +protestations of a rustic admirer than "Happen you fancy you are +speaking to my sister Phoebe, sir?" from Maisie, or _vice versa_? It was +absolutely impossible to nail either of these girls to her own identity, +in the face of her denial of it in her sister's absence. Perhaps the +only real confidence on the point that ever existed was their mother's, +who knew the two babies apart--so she said--because one smelt of roses, +the other of marjoram. + +It may easily have been that the power of duping youth and shrewdness, +as to which sister she really was, weighed too heavily with each of +these girls in their assessment of the value of lovers' vows. And still +more easily that--some three years later than the girlish jest related a +page since--when Maisie, playing off this trick on a wild young son of +the Squire's, was met by an indignant reproach for her attempted +deception, she should have been touched by his earnestness and seeming +insight into her inner soul, and that the incident should have become +the cornerstone of a fatal passion for a damned scoundrel. "Oh, +Maisie--Maisie!"--thus ran his protestation--"Dearest, best, sweetest of +girls, how can you think to dupe me when your voice goes to my heart as +no other voice ever can--ever will? How, when I know you for mine--mine +alone--by touch, by sight, by hearing?" The poor child's innocent little +fraud had been tried on a past-master in deception, and her own arrow +glanced back to wound her, beyond cure perhaps. His duplicity was proved +afterwards by the confession of his elder brother Ralph, a young man +little better than himself, that the two girls had been the subject of a +wager between them, which he had lost. This wager turned on which of the +two should be first "successful" with one of the beautiful twins; and +whether it showed only doubtful taste or infamous bad feeling depended +on what interpretation was put on the word "success" by its +perpetrators. A lenient one was possible so long as no worse came of it +than that Thornton Daverill, the younger brother, became the accepted +suitor of Maisie, and Ralph, the elder, the rejected one of Phoebe. +Thornton's success was no doubt due in a great measure to Maisie's +failure to mislead him about her identity, and Ralph's rejection +possibly to the poor figure he cut when Phoebe played fast and loose +with hers. That there was no truth or honour in Thornton's protestations +to Maisie, or even honest loss of self-control under strong feeling, is +evident from the fact that he told his brother as a good joke that his +power of distinguishing between the girls was due to nothing more +profound than that Maisie always gave him her hand to shake and Phoebe +only her fingers. Possibly this test would only have held good in the +case of men outside the family. It was connected with some minute +sensitiveness of feeling towards that class, not perceptible by any +other. + +But in whatever sense Thornton and Maisie were trothplight, her father +opposed their marriage, although it would no doubt have been a social +elevation for the miller's daughter. It must be admitted that for once +the inexorable parent may have been in the right. Tales had reached him, +unhappily too late to prevent the formation of an acquaintance between +the young squires and his daughters, of the profligacies--dissoluteness +with women and at the gaming-table--of both these young men. And it is +little wonder that he resolutely opposed the union of Thornton and +Maisie--she a girl of nineteen!--at least until there was some sign of +reform in the youth, some turning from his evil ways. + +It was a sad thing for Maisie that her father's exclusiveness had +created so many obstacles to the associations of his daughters with +older women. No one had ever taken the place of a mother to them. It is +rare enough for even a mother to speak explicitly to her daughter of +what folk mean when they tell of the risks a girl runs who weds with a +man like Thornton Daverill. But she may do so in such a way as to excite +suspicion of the reality, and it is hard on motherless girls that they +should not have this slender chance. A father can do nothing, and old +fulminations of well-worn Scriptural jargon--hers was an adept in +texts--had not even the force of their brutal plain speech. For to these +girls the speech was not plain--it was only what Parson read in Church. +That described and exhausted it. + +The rest of the story follows naturally--too naturally--from the +position shown in the above hasty sketch. Old Isaac Runciman's +ill-temper, combined with an almost ludicrous want of tact, took the +form of forbidding Thornton Daverill the house. The student of the art +of dragging lovers asunder cannot be too mindful of the fact that the +more they see of each other, the sooner they will be ripe for +separation. If Maisie had been difficult to influence when her father +contented himself with saying that he forbade the marriage _ex cathedra +paternae auctoritatis_, she became absolutely intractable when, some time +after, this authority went the length of interdicting communications. +Secret interviews, about double the length of the public ones they +supplanted, gave the indignant parent an excuse for locking the girl +into her own room. All worked well for the purpose of a thoroughly +unprincipled scoundrel. Thornton, who would probably have married Maisie +if nothing but legal possession had been open to him, saw his way to the +same advantages without the responsibilities of marriage, and jumped at +them. Do not blame Maisie overmuch for her share of what came about. The +step she consented to was one of which the _full_ meaning could only be +half known to a girl of her age and experience. And the man into whose +hands it threw her past recovery was in her eyes the soul of honour and +chivalry--ill-judging, if at all, from the influence of a too passionate +adoration for herself. Conception of the degree and nature of his +wickedness was probably impossible to her; and, indeed, may have been so +still--however strange it may seem--to the very old lady whom, under the +name of Mrs. Prichard, Dolly Wardle used to visit in Sapps Court, "Mrs. +Picture in the topackest" being the nearest shot she was able to make at +her description. + +Whether it was so or not, this old, old woman was the very selfsame +Maisie that sixty odd years before lent a too willing ear to the +importunities of a traitor, masquerading with a purpose; and ultimately +consented to a runaway marriage with him, he being alone responsible for +the arrangement of it and the legality of the wedding. The most flimsy +_mise en scène_ of a mock ceremony was sufficient to dupe a simplicity +like hers; and therein was enacted the wicked old tragedy possible only +in a world like ours, which ignores the pledge of the strong to the +weak, however clearly that pledge may be attested, unless the wording of +it jumps with the formularies of a sanctioned legalism. A grievous wrong +was perpetrated, which only the dishonesty of Themis permits; for an +honest lawgiver's aim should be to find means of enforcing a sham +marriage, all the more relentlessly in proportion to the victim's +innocence and the audacity of the imposture. + +The story of Maisie's after-life need hardly have been so terrible, on +the supposition that the prayer "God, have mercy upon us!" is ever +granted. Surely some of the stabs in store for her need not have gone to +the knife-hilt. Much information is lacking to make the tale complete, +but what follows is enough. Listen to it and fill in the blanks if you +can--with surmise of alleviation, with interstices of hypothetical +happiness--however little warrant the known facts of the case may carry +with them. + +Thornton Daverill was destined to bring down Nemesis on his head by +touching Themis on a sensitive point--monetary integrity. Within five +years, a curious skill which he possessed of simulating the handwriting +of others, combined with a pressing want of ready money, led him to the +commission of an act which turned out a great error in tactics, whatever +place we assign it in morality. Morally, the forgery of a signature, +especially if it be to bring about a diminution of cash in a well-filled +pocket, is a mere peccadillo compared with the malversation of a young +girl's life. Legally it is felony, and he who commits it may get as long +a term of penal servitude as the murderer of whose guilt the jury is not +confident up to hanging point. + +The severity of the penal laws in the reign of George III. was due no +doubt to a vindictiveness against the culprit which--in theory at any +rate--is nowadays obsolete, legislation having for its object rather the +discouragement of crime on the _tapis_ than the meting out of their +deserts to malefactors. In those days the indignation of a jury would +rise to boiling-point in dealing with an offence against sacred +Property, while its blood-heat would remain normal over the deception +and ruin of a mere woman. Therefore the jury that tried Thornton +Daverill for forging the signature of Isaac Runciman on the back of a +promissory note found the accused guilty, and the judge inflicted the +severest penalty but one that Law allows. For Thornton might have been +hanged. + +But neither judge nor jury seemed much interested in the convict's +behaviour to the daughter of the man he had tried to swindle out of +money. On the contrary, they jumped to the conclusion that his wife was +morally his accomplice; and, indeed, if it had not been for her great +beauty she would very likely have gone to the galleys too. There was, +however, this difference between their positions, that the prosecution +was dependent on her father's affidavit to prove that the signature was +a forgery, and so long as only the man he hated was legally involved, +he was to be relied on to adhere to his first disclaimer of it. Had +Maisie been placed beside her husband in the dock, how easily her +father might have procured the liberation of both by accepting his +liability--changing his mind about the signature and discharging the +amount claimed! If the continuance of the prosecution had depended on +either payer or payee, this would have been the end of it. What the +creditor--a usurer--wanted was his money, not revenge. Indeed, Thornton +would never have been made the subject of a criminal indictment at his +instance, except to put pressure on Isaac Runciman for payment for his +daughter's sake. + +The bringing of the case into Court created a new position. An +accommodation that would have been easy enough at first--an excusable +compounding of a felony--became impossible under the eyes of the Bench. +And this more especially because one of the Judges of Assize who tried +the case acquired an interest in Maisie analogous to the one King David +took in the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and perceived the advantages he +would derive if this forger and gambler was packed off to a life far +worse than the death the astute monarch schemed for the great-hearted +soldier who was serving him. Whether the two were lawfully man and wife +made no difference to this Judge. Maisie's devotion to her scoundrel was +the point his lordship's legal acumen was alive to, and he himself was +scarcely King of Israel. One wonders sometimes--at least, the present +writer has done so--what Bathsheba's feelings were on the occasion +referred to. We can only surmise, and can do little more in the case of +Maisie. The materials for the retelling of this story are very slight. +Their source may be referred to later. For the moment it must be content +with the bare facts. + +This Bathsheba was able to say "Hands off!" to _her_ King David, and +also able--but Heaven knows how!--to keep up a correspondence with the +worthless parallel of the Hittite throughout the period of his detention +in an English gaol, or, it may be, on the river hulks, until his +deportation in a convict ship to Sydney, from which place occasional +letters reached her, which were probably as frequent as his +opportunities of sending them, until, a considerable time later--perhaps +as much as five years; dates are not easy to fix--one came saying that +he expected shortly to be transferred to the new penal settlement in Van +Diemen's Land. + +At the beginning of last century the black hulks on the Thames and +elsewhere were known and spoken of truly as "floating Hells." Any penal +colony was in one point worse; he who went there left Hope behind, so +far as his hopes were centred in his native land. For to return was +Death. + +After his transfer to Van Diemen's Land, no letter reached her for some +months. Then came news that Thornton had benefited by the extraordinary +fulness of the powers granted to the Governors of these penal +settlements, who practically received the convicts on lease for the term +of their service. They were, in fact, slaves. But this told well for +Maisie's husband, whose father had been at school with the then supreme +authority at Macquarie Harbour. This got him almost on his arrival a +ticket-of-leave, by virtue of which he was free within the island during +good behaviour. He soon contrived, by his superior education and +manners, to get a foothold in a rough community, and saw his way to +rising in the world, even to prosperity. In a very short time, said a +later letter, he would save enough to pay Maisie's passage out, and then +she could join him. The only redeeming trait the story shows of this man +is his strange confidence that this girl, whom he had cruelly betrayed, +would face all the terrors of a three-months' sea-voyage and travel, +alone in a strange land, to become the slave and helpless dependent of a +convict on ticket-of-leave. + +She had returned to her father's house a year after the trial, her +sister having threatened to leave it unless her father permitted her to +do so, taking with her her two children; a very delicate little boy, +born in the first year of her marriage, and a girl baby only four months +old, which had come into the world eight months after its wretched +parent's conviction. During this life at her father's the little boy +died. He had been christened, after his father and uncle, Phoebe's +rejected suitor--Ralph Thornton Daverill. The little girl she had +baptized by the name of Ruth. This little Ruth she took with her, when, +on Phoebe's marriage two years later, she went to live at the house of +the new-married couple; and one would have said that the twins lived in +even closer union than before, and that nothing could part them again. + +It would have been a mistake. Within three years Maisie received a +letter enclosing a draft on a London bank for more than her +passage-money, naming an agent who would arrange for her in everything, +and ending with a postscript:--"Come out at once." Shortly after, no +change having been noticeable in her deportment, except, perhaps, an +increased tenderness to her child and her sister, she vanished suddenly; +leaving only a letter to Phoebe, full of contrition for her behaviour, +but saying that her first duty was towards her husband. She had not +dared to take with her her child, and it had been a bitter grief to her +to forsake it, but she knew well that it would have been as great a +bitterness to Phoebe to lose it, as she was herself childless at the +time; and, indeed, her only consolation was that Phoebe would still +continue to be, as it were, a second mother to "their child," which was +the light in which each had always looked upon it. + +Both of them seemed to have been under an impression that only one of +two twins can ever become a mother. Whether there is any foundation for +this, or whether it is a version of a not uncommon belief that twins are +always childless, the story need not stop to inquire. It was falsified +in this case by the birth of a son to Phoebe, _en secondes noces_, many +years later. But this hardly touches the story, as this son died in his +childhood. All that is needed to be known at present is that, as the +result of Maisie's sudden disappearance, Phoebe was left in sole +possession of her four-year-old daughter, to whose young mind it was a +matter of indifference which of two almost indistinguishable identities +she called by the name of mother. With a little encouragement she +accepted the plenary title for the then childless woman to whom the name +gave pleasure, and gradually forgot the mother who had deserted her; +who, in the course of very little time, became the shadow of a name. All +she knew then was that this mother had gone away in a ship; and, indeed, +for months after little more was known to her aunt. + +However, a brief letter did come from the ship, just starting for +Sydney, and the next long-delayed one announced her arrival there, and +how she had been met at the port by an agent who would make all +arrangements for her further voyage. How this agency managed to get her +through to Hobart Town in those days is a mystery, for there was no free +immigration to the island till many years after, only transports from +New South Wales being permitted to enter the port. She got there +certainly, and was met by her husband at the ship. And well for her that +it was so, for in those days no woman was safe by herself for an hour in +that country. + +It may seem wonderful that so vile a man should have set himself to +consult the happiness of a woman towards whom he was under no +obligation. But her letters to her sister showed that he did so; and +those who have any experience of womanless lands men have to dwell in, +whether or no, know that in such lands the market-value of a good sample +is so far above rubies, that he who has one, and could not afford +another if he lost the first, will be quite kind and nice and +considerate to his treasure, in case King Solomon should come round, +with all the crown-jewels to back him and his mother's valuation to +encourage a high bid. Phoebe had for four or five years the satisfaction +of receiving letters assuring her of her sister's happiness and of the +extraordinary good fortune that had come to the reformed gambler and +forger, whose prison-life had given him a distaste for crimes actively +condemned by Society. + +Among the items of news that these letters contained were the births of +two boys. The elder was called Isaac after his grandfather at the urgent +request of Maisie; but on condition that if another boy came he should +be called Ralph Thornton, a repetition of the name of her first baby, +which died in England. This is done commonly enough with a single name, +but the duplication is exceptional. Whether the name was actually used +for the younger child Phoebe never knew. Probably a letter was lost +containing the information. + +When Isaac Runciman died Phoebe wrote the news of his death to Maisie +and received no reply from her. In its stead--that is to say, at about +the time it would have been due--came a letter from Thornton Daverill +announcing her sister's death in Australia. It was a brief, unsatisfying +letter. Still, she hoped to receive more details, especially as she had +followed her first letter, telling of her father's death, with another a +fortnight later, giving fuller particulars of the occurrence. In due +course came a second letter from her brother-in-law, professing +contrition for the abruptness of his first, but excusing it on the +ground that he was prostrated with grief at the time, and quite unable +to write. He added very full and even dramatic particulars of her +sister's death, giving her last message to her English relatives, and so +forth. + +But that sister was _not_ dead. And herein follow the facts that have +come to light of the means her husband employed to make her seem so, and +of his motives for employing them. + +To see these clearly you must keep in mind that Thornton was tied for +life within the limits of the penal settlements. Maisie was free to go; +with her it was merely a question of money. As time went on, her +yearning to see her child and her twin-sister again grew and grew, and +her appeals to her husband to allow her sometime to revisit England in +accordance with his promise became every year more and more urgent. He +would be quite a rich man soon--why should she not? Well--simply that +she might not come back! That was his view, and we have to bear in mind +that it would have been impossible for him to replace her, except from +among female convicts assigned to settlers; nominally as servants, but +actually as mates on hire--suppose we call them. One need not say much +of this unhappy class; it is only mentioned to show that Thornton could +have found no woman to take the place of the beautiful and devoted +helpmeet whose constancy to him had survived every trial. No wonder he +was ill at ease with the idea of her adventuring back to England alone. +But it took a mind as wicked as his to conceive and execute the means by +which he prevented it. It seems to have been suggested by the fact that +the distribution of letters in his district had been assigned to him by +the Governor. This made it easy to deliver them or keep them back, when +it was in his interest to do so, without fear of detection. The letters +coming from England were few indeed, so he was able to examine them at +leisure. + +At first he was content to withhold Phoebe's letters, hoping that +Maisie would be satisfied with negative evidence of her death, which he +himself suggested as the probable cause of their suspension. But when +this only increased her anxiety to return to her native land, he cast +about for something he could present as direct proof. The death of her +father supplied the opportunity. A black-edged sheet came, thickly +written with Phoebe's account of his last illness, in ink which, as the +event showed, did not defy obliteration. Probably Thornton had learned, +among malefactors convicted of his own offence, secrets of forgery that +would seem incredible to you or me. He contrived to obliterate this +sheet all but the date-stamps outside, and then--the more readily that +he had been informed that only fraud for gain made forgery +felony--elaborated as a palimpsest a most careful letter in the +handwriting of the father announcing Phoebe's own death, and also that +of the daughter whom Maisie had bequeathed to her care. He must have +been inspired and upborne in this difficult task by the spirit of a true +artist. No doubt all _faussure_, to any person with an accommodating +moral sense, is an unmixed delight. This letter remains, and has been +seen by the present writer and others. The dexterity of the thing almost +passes belief, only a few scarcely perceptible traces of the old writing +being visible, the length of the new words being so chosen as to hide +most of the old ones. What is even more incredible is that the original +letter from Phoebe was deciphered at the British Museum by the courtesy +of the gentlemen engaged in the deciphering and explanation of obscure +inscriptions. + +The elaborate fiction the forger devised may have been in part due to a +true artist's pleasure in the use of a splendid opportunity, such as +might never occur again. But on close examination one sees that it was +little more than a skilful recognition of the exigencies of the case. +The object of the letter was to remove once and for ever all temptation +to Maisie to return to her native land. Now, so long as either her +sister or her little girl were living in England the old inducement +would be always at work. Why not kill them both, while he had the +choice? It would be more troublesome to produce proof of the death of +either, later. But he mistrusted his skill in dealing with fatal +illness. A blunder might destroy everything. Stop!--he knew something +better than that. Had not the transport that brought him out passed a +drowned body afloat, and wreckage, even in the English Channel? +Shipwreck was the thing! He decided on sending Nicholas Cropredy, his +wife's brother-in-law, across the Channel on business--to Antwerp, +say--and making Phoebe and little Ruth go out to nurse him through a +fever. Their ship could go to the bottom, with a stroke of his pen. +Only, while he was about it, why not clear away the brother-in-law--send +them all out in the same ship? No--_that_ would not do! Where would the +motive be, for all those three to leave England? A commercial mission +for the man alone would be quite another thing. Very perplexing!... +Yes--no--yes!... There--he had got it! Let them go out and nurse him +through a fever, and all be drowned together, returning to England. + +That was a triumph. And the finishing touch to the narrative he based on +it was really genius. Little hope was entertained of the recovery of the +remains, but it was not impossible. The writer's daughter might rest +assured that if any came to the surface, and were identified, they +should be interred in the family grave where her mother reposed in the +Lord, in the sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection. + +Was it to be wondered at that so skilful a contrivance duped an +unsuspicious mind like Maisie's? The only thing that could have excited +suspicion was that the letter had been delayed a post--time, you see, +was needed for the delicate work of forgery--and the date of despatch +from London was in consequence some two months too old. But then the +letter was of the same date; indeed, the forgery was a repeat of the +letter it effaced, wherever this was possible. Besides, the delay of a +letter from England could never occasion surprise. + +She took the sealed paper from her husband, breaking the seals with +feverish haste, and destroying the only proof that it had been opened on +the way. For the wax, of course, broke, as her husband had foreseen, on +its old fractures, where he had parted them carefully and reattached +them with some similar wax dissolved in spirit. He watched her reading +the letter, not without an artist's pride at her absolute unsuspicion, +and then had to undergo a pang of fear lest the news should kill her. +For she fell insensible, only to remain for a long time prostrate with +grief, after a slow and painful revival. + +There was little need for Thornton to reply to Phoebe's letter that he +had effaced. Nevertheless, he did so; partly, perhaps, from the pleasure +he naturally took in playing out the false _rôle_ he had assigned +himself. Yes--he was a widower. But the poignancy of his grief had +prevented him writing all the particulars of his wife's death. He now +gave the story of the death of a woman on a farm near, with changed +names and some clever addenda, the composition of which amused his +leisure and gratified a spirit of falsehood which might, more +fortunately employed, have found an outlet in literary fiction. The +effect of this letter on Phoebe was to satisfy her so completely of her +sister's death that, had it ever been called in question, she would have +been the hardest to convert to a belief in the contrary. On the other +hand, Maisie's belief in _her_ death was equally assured, and her +quasi-husband rested secure in his confidence that nothing would now +induce her to leave him. Should he ever wish to be rid of her, he had +only to confess his deception, and pack her off to seek her sister. That +no news ever came of her father's death was not a matter of great +surprise to Maisie. She had no surviving correspondent in England who +would have written about it. Her husband may have practised some +_finesse_ later to convince her of it, but its details are not known to +the writer of the story. + +They, however, were never parted until, twenty years later, his death +left Maisie a widow, as she believed. It would have been well for her +had it been so, for he died after making that very common testamentary +mistake--a too ingenious will. It left to "my third son Ralph Thornton +Daverill," on coming of age, all his property after "my wife Maisie, +_née_ Runciman," had received the share she was "legally entitled to." +But she was unable to produce proof of her marriage when called on to do +so, and was, of course, legally entitled to nothing. Thornton had been +so well off that "widow's thirds" would have placed her in comfortable +circumstances. As it was, the whole of his property went to her only +surviving son, a youth who had inherited, with some of his father's good +looks, all his bad principles; and in addition a taint--we may +suppose--of the penal atmosphere in which he was born. But there was not +a shadow of doubt about his being the person named in the will. Perhaps, +if it had been worded "my lawful son," Themis would have jibbed. + +The young man, on coming of age, acquired control of the whole of his +father's property, and soon started on a career of extravagance and +debauchery. His mother, however, retained some influence over him, and +persuaded him, a year later, before he had had time to dissipate the +whole of his inheritance, to return with her to England, hoping that the +moral effect of a change from the gaol-bird atmosphere of felony that +hung over the whole land of his birth would develop whatever germ of +honour or right feeling he possessed. + +She was not very sanguine, for his boyhood had been a cruel affliction +to her. And the results showed that whatever hopes she had entertained +were ill-founded. Arrived in London, with money still at command, he +plunged at once into all the dissipations of the town, and it became +evident that in the course of a year or so he would run through the +remainder of his patrimony. + +About this time he met with an experience which now and then happens to +men of his class. He fell violently in love--or in what he called +love--with a girl who had very distinct ideas on the subject of +marriage. One was that the first arrangement of their relations which +suggested themselves to her lover were not to be entertained, and +therefore she refused to entertain them. He tried ridicule, indignation, +and protestation--all in vain! She appeared not to object to +persecution--rather liked it. But she held out no hopes except +legitimate ones. At last, when the young man was in a sense +desperate--not in a very noble sense, but desperate for all that--she +intimated to him that, unless he was prepared to accept her scheme of +life, she knew a very respectable young man who was; a young man in +Smithfield Market with whom she had walked out, and you could never have +told. Which means that this young man disguised himself so subtly on +Sunday to go into Society, that none would have guessed that he passed +the week in contact with grease and blood, and dared to twist the tails +of bullocks in revolt against their fate, shrinking naturally from the +axe. His intentions were, nevertheless, honourable, and Polly, the +barmaid at the One Tun Inn, honoured them, while her affections were +disposed towards her Australian suitor whose intentions were not. The +young reprobate, however, had to climb down; but he made his surrender +conditional on one thing--that his marriage with Polly should remain a +secret. No doubt parallel enterprises would have been interrupted by its +publication. Anyhow, his mother never knew of his marriage, nor set eyes +on her daughter-in-law. + +His marriage was, in fact, merely a means to an end, and was a most +reluctant concession to circumstances on his part. It was true he +deprived himself of all chance of offering the same terms again for the +same goods, unless, indeed, he ran the risks of a bigamist. But what can +a man do under such circumstances? He is what he is, and it does seem a +pity sometimes that he was made in the image of God, whether for God's +sake or his own. Young Daverill's end attained, he flung away his prize +almost without a term of intermediate neglect to save his face. She, +poor soul, who had lived under the impression that all men were "like +that" but that honourable marriage "reformed" them, was desperate at +first when she found her mistake. Her "lawful husband," having attained +his end, announced his weariness of lawful marriage with a candour even +coarser than that of Browning's less lawful possessor of Love--he who +"half sighed a smile in a yawn, as 'twere." He replied, to all Polly's +passionate claims to him as a legal right, and hints that she could and +would enforce her position:--"Try it on, Poll--you and your lawyers!" +And, indeed, we have never been able to learn how the strong arm of the +Law enforces marital obligations; barring mere cash payments, of which +Polly's attitude was quite oblivious. Moreover, he was at that time +prepared with money, and did actually maintain his wife up to the point +of every possible legal compulsion until the end of his solvency, not a +very long period. + +For his life-drama, or the first act of it, was soon played out. It was +substantially his father's over again. He ran through what was left of +his money in a little over a year--so splendid were the gambler's +opportunities in these days; for the Georgian era had still a short +lease of years to run, and folly dies hard. His attempts to reinstate +himself at the expense of a Bank, by a simple process of burglary, in +partnership with a professional hand whose acquaintance he had made at +"The Tun," led to disastrous failure and the summary conviction of both +partners. + +None of this came to the knowledge of his wife, as how should it? He +wrote no news of it to her, and their relation was known to very few. +Moreover, the burglary was in Bristol and Polly was at a farmhouse in +Lincolnshire, awaiting a birth which only added another grief to her +life, for her child was born dead. She recovered from a long illness +which swallowed up the remains of the money her husband had given her, +to find herself destitute and minus most of the good looks which had +obtained for her her previous situation. She succeeded thereafter in +maintaining herself by needlework--she was an adept in that--and so +avoided becoming an incumbrance on her family, which she could no longer +help now as she had done in her prosperity. But of her worthless +husband's fate she never knew anything, the trial having taken place +during an illness which nearly ended all her miseries for her. By the +time she was on the way to recovery it would have been difficult to +trace her husband, even had she had any motive for doing so. + +As for him--a convict and the son of a convict--his period of detention +in the hulks on the Thames was followed by the usual voyage to the +Antipodes; but this time the vessel into which he was transhipped at +Sydney sailed for Norfolk Island, not Hobart Town nor Macquarie Harbour. +Maisie's son was not destined to revisit the land of his birth. The +early deliverance from actual bondage to a condition free in all but +the name, which had led to his father's successful later career, was +impossible in an island half the size of the Isle of Wight, and the man +grew to his surroundings. A soul ready to accept the impress of every +stamp of depravity in the mint of vice was soon well beyond the reach of +any possible redemption in contact with the moral vileness of the +prisons on what was, but for their contamination, one of the loveliest +islands in the Pacific. + +After his departure his mother may have been influenced by a wish to +obliterate her whole past, and this wish may have been the cause of her +adoption of a name not her own. Some lingering reluctance to make her +severance from her own belongings absolute may have dictated the choice +of the name of Prichard, which was that of an old nurse of her +childhood, who had stood by her mother's dying bed. It would serve every +reasonable purpose of disguise without grating on memories of bygone +times. A shred of identity was left to cling to. It is less clear why +the quasi-daughter whom she had never seen should have repudiated her +married name. Polly was under no obligation not to call herself Mrs. +Daverill, unless it were compliance with her promise to keep the +marriage secret. She, however, acquiesced in the Mrs., and supplied a +name as a passport to a respectable widowhood. But she did not dress the +part very vigorously, and report soon accepted the husband as a bad lot +and a riddance. Nothing very uncommon in that! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + OF DAVE WARDLE'S CONVALESCENCE. OF MRS. RUTH THRALE, WIDOW AND + OGRESS, WHO APPRECIATED HIM. HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS HOSPITAL + EXPERIENCE. HOW HE MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A COUNTESS, AND TOLD + HER ABOUT WIDOW THRALE'S GRANDFATHER'S WATER-MILL. CONCERNING JUNO + LUCINA. THESEUS AND ARIADNE. HOW DAVE DETECTED A FAMILY LIKENESS, + AND NEARLY RUBBED HIS EYES OUT. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE SHOWED HIM THE + MILL AT WORK AND MR. MUGGERIDGE + + +If the daylight were not so short in October at Chorlton-under-Bradbury, +in Rocestershire, that month would quite do for summer in as many +autumns as not. As it is, from ten till five, the sun that comes to say +goodbye to the apples, that will all be plucked by the end of the +month, is so strong that forest trees are duped, and are ready to do +their part towards a green Yule if only the midday warmth will linger on +to those deadly small hours of the morning, when hoarfrost gets the thin +end of its wedge into the almanack, and sleepers go the length of coming +out of bed for something to put over their feet, and end by putting it +over most of their total. From ten till five, at least, the last +swallows seem to be reconsidering their departure, and the skylarks to +be taking heart, and thinking they can go on ever so much longer. Then, +not unfrequently, day falls in love with night for the sake of the +moonrise, and dies of its passion in a blaze of golden splendour. But +the memory of her does not live long into the heart of the night, as it +did in the long summer twilights. Love cools and the dews fall, and the +winds sing dirges in the elms through the leaves they will so soon +scatter about the world without remorse; and then one morning the grass +is crisp with frost beneath the early riser's feet, and he finds the +leaves of the ash all fallen since the dawn, a green, still heap below +their old boughs stript and cold. And he goes home and has all sorts of +things for breakfast, being in England. + +But no early riser had had this experience at Chorlton-under-Bradbury on +that October afternoon when Dave Wardle, personally conducted by Sister +Nora, and very tired with travelling from a distant railway-station--the +local line was not there in the fifties--descended from the coach or +omnibus at the garden gate of Widow Thrale, the good woman who was going +to feed him, sleep him, and enjoy his society during convalescence. + +The coach or omnibus touched its hat and accepted something from Sister +Nora, and went on to the Six Bells in High Street, where the something +took the form of something else to drink, which got into its head. The +High Street was very wide, and had more water-troughs for horses than +recommended themselves to the understanding. But they might have +succeeded in doing so before the railway came in these parts, turning +everything to the rightabout, as Trufitt phrased it at the Bells. There +were six such troughs within a hundred yards; and, as their contents +never got into the horses' heads, what odds if there were? When the +world was reasonable and four or five horns were heard blowing at once, +often enough, in the high road, no one ever complained, that old Trufitt +ever heard tell of. So presumably there were no odds. + +Widow Thrale lived with an old lady of eighty, who was also a widow; +or, one might have said, even more so, seeing that her widowhood was a +double one, her surname, Marrable, being the third she had borne. She +was, however, never called Widow Marrable, but always Granny Marrable; +and Dave's hostess, who was to take charge of him, was not her daughter, +as might have seemed most probable, but a niece who had filled the place +of a daughter to her and was always so spoken of. What an active and +vigorous octogenarian she was may be judged from the fact that, at the +moment of the story, she was taking on herself the task of ushering into +the world her first great-grandchild, the son or daughter--as might turn +out--of her granddaughter, Maisie Costrell, the only daughter of Widow +Thrale. For this young woman had ordained that "Granny" should officiate +as high-priestess on this occasion, and we know it is just as well to +give way to ladies under such circumstances. + +So when Dave and Sister Nora were deposited by the coach at Strides +Cottage, it was Widow Thrale who received them. She did not produce on +the lady the effect of a _bona-fide_ widow of fifty-five--this +description had been given of her--not so much because of the +non-viduity of her costume, for that was temperate and negative, as +because Time seemed to have let his ravages stand over for the present. +Very few casual observers would have guessed that she was over +forty-five. Ruth Thrale--that was her name in full--had two sons +surviving of her own family, both at sea, and one daughter, Maisie +Costrell aforesaid. So she was practically now without incumbrances, and +terribly wanting some to kiss, had hit upon the expedient of taking +charge of invalid children and fostering them up to kissing-point. They +were often poor, wasted little articles enough at the first go off, but +Mrs. Ruth usually succeeded in making them succulent in a month or so. +It was exasperating, though, to have them go away just as they were +beginning to pay for fattening. The case was analogous to that of an +ogress balked of her meal, after going to no end of expense in humanised +cream and such-like. + +All the ogress rose in her heart when she saw our little friend Dave +Wardle. But she was very careful about his stiff leg. Her eyes gleamed +at the opportunities he would present for injudicious overfeeding--or +suppose we say stuffing at once and have done with it. A banquet was +ready prepared for him, to which he was adapted in a chair of suitable +height, and which he began absorbing into his system without apparently +registering any date of completion. You must not imagine he had been +stinted of food on the journey: indeed, he may be said to have been +taking refreshment more or less all the way from London. But he was one +of the sort that can go steadily on, converting helpings into small boy, +apparently without intermediate scientific events--gastric juice and +blood-corpuscles, and so forth. He was able to converse affably the +while, accepting suggestions as to method in the spirit in which they +were given. In reporting his remarks the spelling cannot be too +phonetical; if unintelligible at first, read them literally aloud to a +hearer who does not see the letterpress. The conversation had turned on +Dave's accident. + +"Oy sawed the firing gin coming, and oy said to stoarp, and the firing +gin didn't stoarpt, and it said whoy--whoy--whoy!" This was an attempt +to render the expressive cry of the brigade; now replaced, we believe, +by a tame bell. "Oy sawed free men shoyning like scandles, and Dolly +sawed nuffink--no, nuffink!" The little man's voice got quite sad here. +Think what he had seen and Dolly had missed! + +Mrs. Ruth was harrowed by what the child must have suffered. She +expressed her feelings to Sister Nora. Not, however, without Dave +catching their meaning. He was very sharp. + +"It hurted at the Hospital," said he. That is, the accident itself had +been too sudden and overwhelming to admit of any estimate of the pain it +caused; the suffering came with the return of consciousness. Then he +added, rather inexplicably:--"It didn't hurted Dolly." + +Sister Nora, looking with an amused, puzzled face at the small +absurdity, assimilating suitable nourishment and wrestling with his +mother-tongue at its outset, said:--"Why didn't it hurted Dolly, I +wonder?" and them illuminated:--"Oh--I see! It balances Dolly's account. +Dolly was the loser by not seeing the fire-engine, but she escaped the +accident. Of course!" Whereupon the ogress said with gravity, after due +reflection: "I think you are right, ma'am." She then pointed out to Dave +that well-regulated circles sit still at their suppers, whereas he had +allowed his feelings, on hearing his intelligibility confirmed, to break +out in his legs and kick those of the table. He appeared to believe his +informant, and to determine to frame his behaviour for the future on the +practices of those circles. But he should have taken his spoon out of +his mouth while forming this resolution. + +He then, as one wishing to entertain in Society, went on to detail his +experiences in the Hospital, giving first--as it is always well to begin +at the beginning--the names of the staff as he had mastered them. There +was Dr. Dabtinkle, or it might have been Damned Tinker, a doubtful name; +and Drs. Inkstraw, Jarbottle, and Toby. His hearers were able to +identify the names of Dalrymple, Inglethorpe, and Harborough. They were +at work on Toby, who defied detection, when it became evident that sleep +was overwhelming their informant. He was half roused to be put in a +clean nightgown that smelt of lavender, and then curled round his hands +and forgot the whole Universe. + +"What a nice little man he is!" said Sister Nora. "He's quite a baby +still, though he's more than six. Some of the London children are so +old. But this child's people seem nice and old-fashioned, although his +uncle was a prizefighter." + +"Laws-a-me!" said Mrs. Ruth. "To think of that now! A prizefighter!" And +she had to turn back to Dave's crib, which they were just leaving, to +see whether this degraded profession had set its stamp on her prey.... +No, it was all right! She could gloat over that sleeping creature +without misgiving. + +"I've just thought who Toby is," said Sister Nora. "Of course, it's Dr. +Trowbridge, the head surgeon. I fancy, now I come to think of it, the +juniors are apt to speak of him without any Dr. I don't know why. I +shall tell Dr. Damned Tinker his name.... Oh no--he won't be offended." + +Sister Nora was driven away to the mansion of her noble relative, three +miles off, in a magnificent carriage that was sent for her, in which she +must have felt insignificant. Perhaps she got there in time to dress for +dinner, perhaps not. Wearers of uniforms wash and brush up: they don't +dress. + +She reappeared at Mrs. Marrable's cottage two days later, in the same +vehicle, accompanied by the Countess her aunt, who remained therein. +Dave was brought out to make her acquaintance, but not to be taken for a +long drive--only a very short one, just up and down and round, because +Sister Nora wouldn't be more than five minutes. He was relieved when he +found himself safe inside the carriage with her, out of the way of her +haughty and overdressed serving-men, whom he mistrusted. The coachman, +Blencorn, was too high up in the air for human intercourse. Dave found +the lady in the carriage more his sort, and told her, in Sister Nora's +absence--she having vanished into the house--many interesting +experiences of country life. The ogress had taken off his clean shirt, +which he had felt proud of, and looked forward to a long acquaintance +with; substituting another, equally good, perhaps, but premature. She +had fed him well; he gave close particulars of the diet, laying especial +stress on the fact that he had requisitioned the outside piece, +presumably of the loaf, but possibly of some cake. Her ladyship seemed +to think its provenance less important than its destination. She was +able to identity from her own experience a liquid called scream, of +which Dave had bespoken a large jug full, to be taken to Dolly on his +return home. He went on to relate how he had been shown bees, a calf, +and a fool with long legs; about which last the lady was for a moment at +fault, having pictured to herself a Shakespearean one with a bauble. It +proved to be a young horse, a very young one, whose greedy habits Dave +described with a simple but effective directness. But he was destined to +puzzle his audience by his keen interest in something that was on the +mantleshelf, his description of which seemed to relate to nothing this +lady's recollection of Strides interior supplied. + +"What on earth does the little man mean by a water-cart on the +mantelshelf, Mrs. Thrale?" said the Countess on leavetaking. The widow +had come out to reclaim her young charge, who seemed not exactly +indignant but perceptibly disappointed, at her ladyship's slowness of +apprehension. He plunged afresh into his elucidation of the subject. +There _was_ a water-cart with four horses, to grind the flour to make +the bread, behind a glast on the chimley-shelf. He knew he was right, +and appealed to Europe for confirmation, more to reinstate his character +for veracity than to bring the details of the topic into prominence. + +"That is entirely right, my lady," said Widow Thrale, apologetic for +contradiction from her duty to conscience on the one hand, and her +reluctance to correct her superiors on the other, but under compulsion +from the former. "Quite correct. He's chattering about my grandfather's +model of his mill. He doesn't mean water-cart. He means water-mill. Only +there's a cart with horses in the yard. It's a hundred years old. It's +quite got between the child's mind and his reason, and he wants to see +it work like I've told him." + +"Yes," said Dave emphatically, "with water in the cistern." He stopped +suddenly--you may believe it or not--because of a misgiving crossing his +mind that he was using some of Sister Nora's name too freely. Find out +where for yourself. + +However, nothing of the sort seemed to cross anyone else's mind, so Dave +hoped he was mistaken. His hostess proceeded to explain why she could +not gratify his anxiety to see this contrivance at work. "I could show +it to him perfectly well," she said, "only to humour a fancy of +Granny's. She never would have anyone touch it but herself, so we shall +have to have patience, some of us." Dave wondered who the other +spectators would be when the time came--would the Countess be one of +them? And would she get down and come into the house, or have it +brought out for her to see in the carriage? + +Mrs. Thrale continued:--"I should say it hadn't been set a-going now for +twenty years.... No, more! It was for the pleasuring and amusement of my +little half-brother Robert she made it work, and we buried him more +years ago than that." And then they talked about something else, which +Dave did not closely follow, because he was so sorry for Mrs. Thrale. He +could not resist the conviction that her little half-brother Robert was +dead. Because, if not, they surely never would have buried him. He was +unable to work this out to a satisfactory conclusion, because Sister +Nora was waiting to resume her place in the carriage, and he had no +sooner surrendered it to her than the lateness of the hour was +recognised, and the distinguished visitors drove away in a hurry. + + * * * * * + +Although Mrs. Marrable had gone away from home ostensibly to welcome +into the world a great-grandchild, the announcement that one had arrived +preceded her return nearly a week. Other instances might be adduced of +very old matriarchs who have imagined themselves Juno, as she certainly +did. Juno, one may reasonably suppose, did not feel free to depart until +matters had been put on a comfortable footing. Of course, the goddess +had advantages; omnipresence, for instance, or at least presence at +choice. One official visit did not monopolize her. Old Mrs. +Marrable--Granny Marrable _par excellence_--had but one available +personality, and had to be either here or there, never everywhere! So +Dave and another convalescent had Strides Cottage all to themselves and +their ogress, for awhile. + +The country air did wonders for the London child. This is always the +case, and contains the truth that only strong children outlive their +babyhood in London, and these become normal when they are removed to +normal human conditions. Dave began becoming the robust little character +Nature had intended him to be, and evidently would soon throw off the +ill-effects of his accident, with perhaps a doubt about how long the leg +would be stiff. + +So by the time Granny Marrable returned into residence she was not +confronted with an invalid still plausibly convalescent, but an eatable +little boy, from the ogress point of view, who used a crutch when +reminded of his undertaking to do so. Otherwise he preferred to neglect +it; leaving it on chairs or on the settle by the fireplace, like Ariadne +on Naxos; evidently feeling, when he was recalled to his duty towards +it, as Theseus might have felt if remonstrated with by Minos for his +desertion of his daughter. In reinstating it he would be acting for the +crutch's sake. And why should he trouble to do this, when the other +little boy, Marmaduke, who had nothing whatever the matter with _his_ +leg, was always ambitious to use this crutch, or scrutch. He was the +Dionysos of the metaphor. + +However, the crutch was not in question when Dave first set eyes on +Granny Marrable. It was at half-past seven o'clock on a cold morning, +when the last swallow had departed, and the skylarks were flagging, and +the tragedy of the ash-leaves was close at hand, that Dave awoke +reluctantly from a remote dream-world with Dolly in it, and Uncle Mo, +and Aunt M'riar, and Mrs. Picture upstairs, to hear a voice, that at +first seemed Mrs. Picture's in the dream, saying: "Well, my little +gentleman, you _do_ sleep sound!" + +But it wasn't Mrs. Prichard's, or Picture's, voice; it was Granny +Marrable's. For all her eighty years, she had walked from Costrell's +farm, her great-grandson's birthplace, three miles off, or thereabouts; +and had arrived at her own door, ten minutes since, quite fresh after an +hour's walk. She was that sort of old woman. + +Dave was almost as disconcerted as when he woke at the Hospital and saw +no signs of his home, and no old familiar faces. He sat up in bed and +wrestled with his difficulties, his eyelids being among the chief. If he +rubbed them hard enough, no doubt the figure before him would cease to +be Mrs. Picture, even as the other figure the dream had left had ceased +to be Aunt M'riar, and had become Widow Thrale. Not but that he would +have accepted her as Mrs. Picture, being prepared for almost anything +since his accident, if it had not been for the expression, "My little +gentleman," which quarrelled with her seeming identity. Oh no!--if he +rubbed away hard enough at those eyes with his nightgown-sleeve, this +little matter would right itself. Of course, Mrs. Picture would have +called him Doyvy, or the name he gave that inflection to. + +"Child!--you'll rub your pretty eyes out that fashion," said Granny +Marrable. And she uncrumpled Dave's small nightgown-sleeve the eyes were +in collision with, and disentangled their owner from the recesses of his +bedclothes. Then Dave was quite convinced it was not Mrs. Picture, who +was not so nearly strong as this dream-image, or waking reality. + +"He'll come awake directly," said the younger widow. "He do sleep, +Granny!" For Widow Thrale often called her aunt "Granny" as a tribute to +her own offspring. Otherwise she thought of her as "Mother." Her own +mother was only a half-forgotten fact, a sort of duplicate mother, who +vanished when she was almost a baby. She continued:--"He goes nigh to +eating up his pillow he does. There never was a little boy sounder; all +night long not a move! Such a little slugabed I never!" And then this +ogress--for she really was no better--was heartless enough to tickle +Dave and kiss him, with an affectation of devouring him. And he, being +tickled, had to laugh; and then was quite awake, for all the world as if +he could never go to sleep again. + +"I fought," said he, feeling some apology was due for his +misapprehension, "I fought it was old Mrs. Picture on the top-landing in +the hackicks." + +"He's asleep still," said the ogress. "Come along, and I'll wash your +sleep out, young man!" And she paid no attention at all to Dave's +attempted explanations of his reference to old Mrs. Picture or Prichard. +He may be said to have lectured on the subject throughout his ablutions, +and really Widow Thrale was not to blame, properly speaking, when he got +the soap in his mouth. + +Dave lost no time in mooting the subject of the water-mill, and it was +decided that as soon as he had finished dictating a letter he had begun +to Dolly, Granny Marrable--whom he addressed as "Granny +Marrowbone"--would exhibit this ingenious contrivance. + +He stuck to his letter conscientiously; and it was creditable to him, +because it took a long time. Yet the ground gone over was not extensive. +He expressed his affection for Dolly herself, for Uncle Mo and Aunt +M'riar, and subordinately for Mrs. Picture, and even Mrs. Burr. He added +that there was ducks in the pond. That was all; but it was not till late +in the morning that the letter was completed. Then Dave claimed his +promise. He was to see the wheel go round, and the sacks go up into the +granary above the millstones. It was a pledge even an old lady of eighty +could not go back on. + +Nor had she any such treacherous intention. So soon as ever the +dinner-things were cleared away, Granny Marrable with her own hands +lifted down the model off of the mantelshelf, and removing the glass +from the front of the case, brought the contents out on the oak table +the cloth no longer covered, so that you might see all round. Then the +cistern--which after all had nothing to do with Sister Nora--was +carefully filled with water so that none should spill and make marks, +neither on the table nor yet on the mill itself, and then it was wound +up like a clock till you couldn't wind no further and it went click. And +then the water in the cistern was let run, and the wheels went round; +and Dave knew exactly what a water-mill was like, and was assured--only +this was a pious fiction--that the water made the wheels go round. The +truth was that the clockwork worked the wheels and made them pump back +the water as fast as ever it came down. And this is much better than in +real mills, because the same water does over and over again, and the +power never fails. But you have to wind it up. You can't expect +everything! + +Granny Marrable gave a brief description of the model. Her brother, who +died young, made it because he was lame of one leg; which meant that +enforced inactivity had found a sedentary employment in mechanisms, not +that all lame folk make mills. Those two horses were Mr. Pitt and Mr. +Fox. That was her father standing at the window, with his pipe in his +mouth, a miracle of delicate workmanship. And that was the carman, Mr. +Muggeridge, who used to see to loading up the cart. + +Children are very perverse in their perception of the relative +importance of things they are told, and Dave was enormously impressed +with Mr. Muggeridge. Silent analysis of the model was visible on his +face for awhile, and then he broke out into catechism:--"Whoy doesn't +the wheel-sacks come down emptied out?" said he. He had not got the +expression "wheat-sacks" right. + +"Well, my dear," said Granny Marrable, who felt perhaps that this +question attacked a weak point, "if it was the mill itself, they would. +But now it's only done in small, we have to pretend." Dave lent himself +willingly to the admission of a transparent fiction, and it was +creditable to his liberality that he did so. For though the sacks were +ingeniously taken into the mill-roof under a projecting hood, they +reappeared instantly to go up again through a hole under the cart. Any +other arrangement would have been too complex; and, indeed, a pretence +that they took grain up and brought flour down might have seemed +affectation. A conventional treatment was necessary. It had one great +advantage, too: it liberated the carman for active service elsewhere. It +was entirely his own fault, or his employer's, that he stood bolt +upright, raising one hand up and down in time with the movement of the +wheels. The miller did not seem to mind; for he only kept on looking out +of window, smoking. + +But the miller and the carman were not the only portraitures this model +showed. Two very little girls were watching the rising grain-sacks, each +with her arm round the other. The miller may have been looking at them +affectionately from the window; but really he was so very +unimpressive--quite inscrutable! Dave inquired about these little girls, +after professing a satisfaction he only partly felt about the +arrangements for receiving the raw material and delivering it ground. + +"Whoy was they bofe of a size?" said he, for indeed they were exactly +alike. + +"Because, my dear, that is the size God made them. Both at the same +time!" + +"Who worze they?" asked Dave, clinching the matter abruptly--much too +interested for circumlocution. + +"Myself, my dear, and my little sister, born the same time. With our +lilac frocks on and white bonnets to shade the sun off our eyes. And +each a nosegay of garden flowers." There was no more sorrow in the old +woman's voice than belongs to any old voice speaking thoughtfully and +gently. Her old hand caressed the crisp locks of the little, interested +boy, and felt his chin appreciatively, as she added:--"Three or four +years older than yourself, my dear! Seventy years ago!" with just the +ring of sadness--no more--that always sounds when great age speaks of +its days long past. + +The other convalescent boy here struck in, raising a vital question. +"Which is you, and which is her?" said he. He had come in as a new +spectator; surrendering Dave's crutch, borrowed as needless to its +owner, in compliance with a strange fascination, now waning in charm as +the working model asserted its powers. Dionysos had deserted Ariadne +again. + +"This is me," said Granny Marrable. "And this is Maisie." And now you +who read probably know, as clearly as he who writes, who she was, this +octogenarian with such a good prospect of making up the hundred. She was +Phoebe, the sister of old Mrs. Prichard, whose story was told in the +last chapter. But most likely you guessed that pages ago. + + * * * * * + +I, who write, have no aim in telling this story beyond that of repeating +as clearly and briefly as may be the bare facts that make it up--of +communicating them to whoever has a few hours to spare for the purpose, +with the smallest trouble to himself in its perusal. I feel often that +my lack of skill is spoiling what might be a good story. That I cannot +help; and I write with the firm conviction that any effort on my part to +arrange these facts in such order that the tale should show dramatic +force, or startle him with unexpected issues of event, would only +procure derision for its writer, and might even obscure the only end he +has at heart, that of giving a complete grasp of the facts, as nearly as +may be in the order of their occurrence. + +There is one feature in the story which the most skilful narrator might +easily fail to present as probable--the separation of these twin sisters +throughout a long lifetime, a separation contrary to nature; so much so, +indeed, that tales are told of twins living apart, the death or illness +of one of whom has brought about the death or similar illness of the +other. One would at least say that neither could die without knowledge +of the other; might even infer that either would go on thinking the +other living, without some direct evidence of death, some seeming +communication from the departed. But the separation of Phoebe from +Maisie did not come under these conditions; each was the victim of a +wicked fraud, carried out with a subtlety that might have deceived +Scotland Yard. There can be no doubt that it would have had the force to +obscure any phenomenon of a so-called telepathic nature, however vivid, +as proof that either twin was still alive; as the percipient, in the +belief that her sister's death was established beyond a doubt, would +unhesitatingly conclude that the departed had revisited earth, or had +made her presence felt by some process hard to understand from our side. + +To see the story in its right light we must always keep in view the +extraordinary isolation of the penal settlement. All convict life is cut +off from the world, but in Van Diemen's Land even the freest of men out +on ticket-of-leave--free sometimes so long that the renewal of their +licence at its expiration became the merest form--was separated from the +land of his birth, even from the mainland of Australia, by a barrier for +him almost as impassable as the atmosphere that lies between us and the +visible land of the moon. Keep in mind the hundred-and-odd miles of +sea--are you sure you thought of it as so much?--that parts Tasmania +from the nearest point of New South Wales, and picture to yourself the +few slow sailing-ships upon their voyages from Sydney, five times as +distant. To go and come on such a journey was little else to the +stay-at-home in those days, than that he should venture beyond the grave +and return. + +No!--the wonder to my mind is not that the two sisters should have been +parted so utterly, and each been so completely duped about the other's +death, but that Maisie should have returned less than five-and-twenty +years later, and that, so returning, she should not have come to the +knowledge that her sister was still living. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + MICHAEL RAGSTROAR'S SLIDE, AND THE MILK. CONCERNING DAVE'S RETURN + TO SAPPS COURT, WHICH HAD SHRUNK IN HIS ABSENCE. OF THE PHYSICAL + IMPOSSIBILITY OF A WIDOW'S GRANDMOTHER. DAVE'S TALE OF THE + WATER-MILL. SISTER NORA'S EXACTING FATHER. HOW DAVE WENT TO SCHOOL, + AND UNCLE MO SOUGHT CONSOLATION IN SOCIETY, WHILE DOLLY TOOK + STRUVVEL PETER TO VISIT MRS. PRICHARD. HOW THAT OLD LADY KNITTED A + COMFORTER, AND TOLD AUNT M'RIAR OF HER CONVICT LOVER'S DEPARTURE + + +The heart of the ancient prizefighter in Sapps Court swelled with joy +when the day of Dave's return was officially announced. He was, said +Aunt M'riar, in and out all the afternoon, fidgeting-like, when it +actually came. And the frost was that hard that ashes out of the dustbin +had to be strewed over the paving to prevent your slipping. It might not +have been any so bad though, only for that young Michael Ragstroar's +having risen from his couch at an early hour, and with diabolical +foresight made a slide right down the middle of the Court. He had chosen +this hour so early, that he was actually before the Milk, which was +always agreeable to serve the Court when the tenantry could do--taken +collectively--with eightpennyworth. It often mounted up to thrice that +amount, as a matter of fact. On this occasion it sat down abruptly, the +Milk did, and gave a piece of its mind to Michael's family later, +pointing out that it was no mere question of physical pain or +ill-convenience to itself, but that its principal constituent might +easily have been spilled, and would have had to be charged for all the +same. The incident led to a collision between Michael and his father, +the coster; who, however, remitted one-half of his son's deserts and let +him off easy on condition of his reinstating the footway. Michael would +have left all intact, he said, had he only been told that his +thoughtfulness would provoke the Court's ingratitude. "Why couldn't they +say aforehand they didn't want no slide?" said he. "I could just as easy +have left it alone." It was rather difficult to be quite even with +Michael Ragstroar. + +However, the ground was all steady underfoot when Dave, in charge of +Sister Nora, reappeared, looking quite rosy again, and only limping very +slightly. He had deserted Ariadne altogether by now, and Dionysos may +have done so, too, for anything the story knows. Anyhow, the instability +of the planet that had resulted from local frost did not affect Dave at +all, now that Michael had spilt them hashes over the ground. Dave was +bubbling over with valuable information about the provinces, which had +never reached the Metropolis before, and he was in such a hurry to tell +about a recent family of kittens, that he scamped his greetings to his +own family in order to get on to the description of it. + +But neither this, nor public indignation against the turpitude of +slide-makers generally and that young Micky in particular, could avert +his relatives' acknowledgments of their gratitude--what a plague thanks +are!--from a benefactress who was merely consulting a personal +dilettantism in her attitude towards her species, and who regarded Dave +as her most remunerative investment for some time past. + +"We shall never know how to be grateful enough, ma'am, for your kindness +to Dave," said Aunt M'riar. "No--never!" + +"Not if we was to live for ever," said Uncle Mo. And he seemed to mean +it, for he went on:--"It's a poor way of thanks to be redooced to at the +best, just to be grateful and stop it off at that. But 'tis in the right +of it as far as it goes. You take me, missis? I'm a bad hand to speak my +mind; but you'll count it up for hearty thanks, anyhow." + +"Of course I will, Mr. Wardle," said Sister Nora. "But, oh dear!--what a +fuss one does make about nothing! Why, he's such a ducky little chap, +anybody would be glad to." + +Dave struck into the conversation perceiving an opportunity to say +something appropriate: "There was sisk duskses in the pong in the field, +and one of the duskses was a droyk with green like ribbings, and Mrs. +Thrale she said a little boy stumbled in the pong and was took out +green, and some day I should show Dolly the droyk and I should show +Uncle Mo the droyk and I should show Aunt M'riar the droyk. And there +was a bool." At which point the speaker suddenly became shyly silent, +perhaps feeling that he was premature in referring thus early to a visit +of his family to Chorlton-under-Bradbury. It would have been better +taste to wait, he thought. + +However, no offence seemed to be taken. Uncle Mo said: "Oh, _that_ was +it--was it? I hope the bull had a ring on his nose." Dave appeared +doubtful, with a wish to assent. Then Aunt M'riar, who--however good she +was--certainly had a commonplace mind, must needs say she hoped Dave had +been a very good little boy. The banality of it! + +Dave felt that an effort should be made to save the conversation. The +bull's nose and its ring suggested a line to go on. "The lady," said he +decisively, "had rings on her fingers. Dimings and pearls and +scrapphires"--he took this very striking word by storm--"and she giv' +'em me for to hold one at a time.... Yorce she did!" He felt sure of his +facts, and that the lady's rings on her fingers made her a legitimate +and natural corollary to a bull with one on its nose. + +"The lady would be my Cousin Philippa," said Sister Nora. "She's always +figged up to the nines. Dave took her for a drive in the +carriage--didn't you, Dave?" There was misrepresentation in this, but a +way grown-up people have of understanding each other over the heads of +little boys prevented the growth of false impressions. Uncle Mo and Aunt +M'riar quite understood, somehow, that it was the lady that had taken +Dave for a drive. Dave allowed this convention to pass without notice, +merely nodding. He reserved criticism for the days to come, when he +should have a wider vocabulary at command. + +Then Sister Nora had gone, and Dave was having his first experience of +the shattered ideal. Sapps Court was neither so large nor so +distinguished as the conception of it that he had carried away into the +country with him; with the details of which he had endeavoured to +impress Granny Marrable and the ogress. Dolly was not so large as he had +expected to find her; but then he had had that expectation owing to a +message, which had reached him in his absence, that she was growing out +of all knowledge. His visit was inside three months; so this was absurd. +One really should be careful what one says to six-year-olds. The image +of Dolly that Dave brought back from the provinces nearly filled up the +Sapps Court memory supplied. It was just the same shape as Dolly, but on +a much larger scale. The reality he came back to was small and compact, +but not so influential. + +Dolly's happiness at his return was great and unfeigned, but its +expression was handicapped by her desire that a doll Sister Nora brought +her should be allowed to sleep off the effects of an exhausting journey. +Only Shakespearean dramatic power could have ascribed sleep to this +doll, who was a similitude of Struvvel Peter in the collected poems of +that name just published. Still, Dolly gave all of herself that this +matronly preoccupation could spare to Dave. She very soon suggested that +they should make a joint visit to old Mrs. Picture upstairs. She could +carry Struvvel Peter in her arms all the time, so that his sleep should +not be disturbed. + +This was only restless love of change on Dolly's part, and Uncle Mo +protested. Was his boy to be carried off from him when only just this +minute he got him back? Who was Mrs. Prichard that such an exaggerated +consideration should be shown to her? Dave expressed himself in the same +sense, but with a less critical view of Mrs. Prichard's pretensions. + +Aunt M'riar pointed out that there was no call to be in a driving hurry. +Presently, when Mr. Alibone come in for a pipe, like he said he would, +then Dave and Dolly might go up and knock at Mrs. Prichard's door, and +if they were good they might be let in. Aunt M'riar seized so many +opportunities to influence the young towards purity and holiness that +her injunctions lost force through the frequency of their recurrence, +always dangling rewards and punishments before their eyes. In the +present case her suggestions worked in with the general feeling, and +Dave and Dolly sat one on each knee of Uncle Mo, and made intelligent +remarks. At least, Dave did; Dolly's were sometimes confused, and very +frequently uncompleted. + +Uncle Mo asked questions about Dave's sojourn with Widow Thrale. Who was +there lived in the house over and above the Widow? Well--said +Dave--there was her Granny. Uncle Mo derided the idea of a Widow's +Granny. Such a thing was against Nature. Her mother was possible but +uncommon. But as for her Granny!--draw it mild, said Uncle Mo. + +"But my dear Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "Just you give consideration. You're +always for sayin' such a many things. Why, there was our upstairs old +lady she says to me she was plenty old enough to be my grandmother. Only +this very morning, if you'll believe me, she said that very selfsame +thing. 'I'm plenty old enough to be your grandmother,' she says." + +"As for the being old enough, M'riar," said Uncle Mo, "there's enough +and to spare old enough for most anything if you come to that. But this +partick'lar sort don't come off. Just you ask anybody. Why, I'll give ye +all England to hunt 'em up. Can't say about foreigners, they're a queer +lot; but England's a Christian country, and you may rely upon it, and so +I tell you, you won't light on any one or two widders' Grannies in the +whole show. You try it!" Uncle Moses was not the first nor the only +person in the world that ever proposed an impracticable test to be +carried out at other people's expense, or by their exertions. It was, +however, a mere _façon de parler_, and Aunt M'riar did not show any +disposition to start on a search for widows' grandmothers. + +The discussion was altogether too deep for Dave. So after a moment of +grave perplexity he started a new topic, dashing into it without +apology, as was his practice. "Granny Marrowbone's box on the +chimley-piece is got glast you can see in, and she's got two horses in a +wagging, and the wheels goes round and round and round like a clock, and +there was her daddy stood at the window and there was saskses was took +up froo a hole, and come back froo a hole, and there was Muggeridge that +see to loading up the cart, and there was her and her sister bofe alike +of one size, and there was the water run over...." Here Dave flagged a +little after so much eloquence, and no wonder. But he managed to wind +up:--"And then Granny Marrowbone put it back on the mankleshelf for next +time." + +This narrative was, of course, quite unintelligible to its hearers; but +we understand it, and its mention of the carman's name. A child that has +to repeat a story will often confuse incidents limitlessly, and +nevertheless hold on with the tenacity of a bull-pup to some saving +phrase heard distinctly once and for ever. Even so, Dave held on to +Muggeridge, that see to loading up the cart, as a great fact rooted in +History. + +"H'm!" said Uncle Mo. "I don't make all that out. Who's Muggeridge in +it?" + +"He sees to the sacks," said Dave. + +"Counting of 'em out, I reckon." Uncle Mo was thinking of coal-sacks, +and the suggestions of a suspicious Company. Dave said nothing. Probably +Uncle Mo knew. But he was all wrong, perhaps because the association of +holes with coals misled him. + +"Was it Mrs. Marrable and her sister?" asked Aunt M'riar. "Why was they +both of a size?" + +Dave jumped at the opportunity of showing that he had profited by +_résumés_ of this subject with his hostess. "Because they were the soyme +oyge," said he. "Loyke me and Dolly. We aren't the soyme oyge, me and +Dolly." That is to say, he and Dolly were an example of persons whose +relative ages came into court. Their classification differed, but that +was a detail. + +Aunt M'riar was alive to the possibility that the sister of Granny +Marrable was her twin, and said so. But Uncle Mo took her up short for +this opinion. "What!" said he, "the same as the old party two pair up? +No, no!--you won't convince me there's two old parties at once with twin +sisters. One at a time's plenty on the way-bill." Because, you see, Aunt +M'riar had had a good many conversations with Mrs. Prichard lately, and +had repeated words of hers to Uncle Moses. "I was a twin myself," she +had said; and added that she had lost her sister near upon fifty years +ago. + +The truth was too strange to occur to even the most observant bystander; +_videlicet_, on the whole, Mr. Alibone; who, coming in and talking over +the matter anew, only said it struck him as a queer start. This +expression has somehow a sort of flavour of its user's intention to +conduct inquiry no farther. Anyhow, the subject simply dropped for that +time being, out of sight and out of mind. + +It was very unfair to Dave, who was, after all, a model of veracity, +that he should be treated as a romancer, and never confronted with +witnesses to confirm or contradict his statements. Even Uncle Mo, who +took him most seriously, continued to doubt the existence of widows' +grandmothers, and to accept with too many reservations his account of +the mill-model. Sister Nora, as it chanced, did not revisit Sapps Court +for a very long time, for she was called away to Scotland by the sudden +illness of her father, who showed an equivocal affection for her by +refusing to let anyone else nurse him. + +So it came about that Dave, rather mortified at having doubt thrown on +narratives he knew to be true, discontinued his attempts to establish +them. And that the two old sisters, so long parted, still lived on +apart; each in the firm belief that the other was dead a lifetime since. +How near each had been to the knowledge that the other lived! Surely if +Dave had described that mill-model to old Mrs. Picture, suspicions would +have been excited. But Dave said little or nothing about it. + +It is nowise strange to think that the bitter, simultaneous grief in the +heart of either twin, now nearly fifty years ago, still survived in two +hearts that were not too old to love; for even those who think that love +can die, and be as though it had never been, may make concession to its +permanency in the case of twins--may even think concession scientific. +But it is strange--strange beyond expression--that at the time of this +story each should have had love in her heart for the same object, our +little Dave Wardle; that Master Dave's very kissable countenance had +supplied the lips of each with a message of solace to a tired soul. And +most of all that the tears of each, and the causes of them, had provoked +the inquisitiveness of the same pair of blue eyes and set their owner +questioning, and that through all this time the child had in his secret +consciousness a few words that would have fired the train. Never was a +spark so near to fuel, never an untold tale so near its hearer, never a +draught so near to lips athirst. + +But Dave's account of the mill was for the time forgotten. It happened +that old Mrs. Prichard was not receiving just at the time of his return, +so his visits upstairs had to be suspended. By the time they were +renewed the strange life in the country village had become a thing of +the past, and important events nearer home had absorbed the mill on the +mantelshelf, and the ducks in the pond and Widow Thrale and Granny +Marrable alike. One of the important events was that Dave was to be took +to school after Christmas. + +It was in this interim that old Mrs. Prichard became a very great +resource to Aunt M'riar, and when the time came for Dave to enter on his +curriculum of scholarship, the visiting upstairs had become a recognised +institution. Aunt M'riar being frequently forsaken by Uncle Mo, who +marked his objection to the scholastic innovation by showing himself +more in public, notably at The Rising Sun, whose proprietor set great +store by the patronage of so respectable a representative of an +Institution not so well thought of now as formerly, but whose traditions +were still cherished in the confidential interior of many an ancient +pot-house of a like type--Aunt M'riar, so forsaken, made these absences +of her brother-in-law a reason for conferring her own society and +Dolly's on the upstairs lodger, whenever the work she was engaged on +permitted it. She felt, perhaps, as Uncle Mo felt, that the house warn't +like itself without our boy; but if she shared his feeling that it was a +waste of early life to spend it in learning to read slowly, write +illegibly, and cypher incorrectly, she did so secretly. She deferred to +the popular prejudice, which may have had an inflated opinion of the +advantages of education; but she acknowledged its growth and the worldly +wisdom of giving way to it. + +Old Mrs. Prichard and Aunt M'riar naturally exchanged confidences more +and more; and in the end the old lady began to speak without reserve +about her past. It came about thus. After Christmas, Dave being +culture-bound, and work of a profitable nature for the moment at a low +ebb, Aunt M'riar had fallen back on some arrears of stocking-darning. +Dolly was engaged on the object to which she gave lifelong attention, +that of keeping her doll asleep. I do not fancy that Dolly was very +inventive; but then, you may be, at three-and-a-half, seductive without +being inventive. Besides, this monotonous fiction of the need of her +doll for sleep was only a _scenario_ for another incident--the fear of +disturbance by a pleace'n with two heads, a very terrible possibility. + +Old Mrs. Prichard, whom I call by that name because she was known by no +other in Sapps Court, was knitting a comforter for Dave. It went very +slowly, this comforter, but was invaluable as an expression of love and +goodwill. She couldn't get up and downstairs because of her back, and +she couldn't read, only a very little, because of her eyes, and she +couldn't hear--not to say _hear_--when read aloud to. This last may have +been no more than what many of us have experienced, for she heard very +plain when spoke to. That is Aunt M'riar's testimony. My impression is +that, as compared with her twin sister Phoebe, Maisie was at this date a +mere invalid. But she looked very like Phoebe for all that, when you +didn't see her hands. The veins were too blue, and their delicacy was +made more delicate by the aggressive scarlet she had chosen for the +comforter. + +"It makes a rest to do a little darning now and again." Aunt M'riar said +this, choosing a worsted carefully, so it shouldn't quarrel with its +surroundings. "I take a pleasure in it more than not. On'y as for +knowing when to stop--there!" + +"I mind what it was in my early days up-country," said the old woman. +"'Twas not above once in the year any trade would reach us, and suchlike +things as woollen socks were got at by the moth or the ants. They would +sell us things at a high price from the factory as a favour, but my +husband could not abide the sight of them. It was small wonder it was +so, Mrs. Wardle." That was the name that Aunt M'riar had come to be +called by, although it was not her own real name. Confusion of this sort +is not uncommon in the class she belonged to. Sapps Court was aware that +she was not Mrs. Wardle, but she had to be accounted for somehow, and +the name she bore was too serious a tax on the brain-power of its +inhabitants. + +She repeated Mrs. Prichard's words: "From the factory, ma'am? I see." +Because she did not understand them. + +"It was always called the factory," said Mrs. Prichard. But this made +Aunt M'riar none the wiser. _What_ was called the factory? The way in +which she again said that she _saw_ amounted to a request for +enlightenment. Mrs. Prichard gave it. "It was the Government quarters +with the Residence, and the prisons where the convicts were detained on +their arrival. They would not be there long, being told off to work in +gangs up-country, or assigned to the settlers as servants. But I've +never told you any of all this before, Mrs. Wardle." No more she had. +She had broached Van Diemen's Land suddenly, having gone no farther +before than the mere fact of her son's birth at Port Macquarie. + +Aunt M'riar couldn't make up her mind as to what was expected of her, +whether sympathy or mere interest or silent acquiescence. She decided on +a weak expression of the first, saying:--"To think of that now--all that +time ago!" + +"Fifty long years ago! But I knew of it before that, four years or +more," said the old lady. It did not seem to move her much--probably +felt to her like a previous state of existence. She went on talking +about the Convict Settlement, which she had outlived. Her hearer only +half understood most of it, not being a prompt enough catechist to ask +the right question at the right time. + +For Aunt M'riar, though good, was a slowcoach, backward in +cross-examination, and Mrs. Prichard's first depositions remained +unqualified, for discussion later with Uncle Mo. However, one inquiry +came to her tongue. "Was you born in those parts yourself, ma'am?" said +she. Then she felt a little sorry she had asked it, for a sound like +annoyance came in the answer. + +"Who--I? No, no--not I--dear me, no! My father was an Essex man. +Darenth, his place was called." Aunt M'riar repeated the name +wrongly:--"Durrant?" She ought to have asked something concerning his +status and employment. Who knows but Mrs. Prichard might have talked of +that mill and supplied a clue to speculation?--not Aunt M'riar's; +speculation was not her line. Others might have compared notes on her +report, literally given, with Dave's sporting account of the mill-model. +And yet--why should they? With no strong leading incident in common, +each story might have been discussed without any suspicion that the +flour-mill was the same in both. + +So that Mrs. Prichard's tale so far supplies nothing to link her with +old Granny Marrable, as unsuspicious as herself. What Aunt M'riar found +her talking of, half to herself, when her attention recovered from a +momentary fear that she might have hurt the old lady's feelings, was +even less likely to connect the two lives. + +"I followed my husband out. My child died--my eldest--here in England. I +went again to live at home. Then I followed him out. He wrote to me and +said that he was free. Free on the island, but not to come home. We had +been over four years parted then." She said nothing of the child she +left behind in England. Too much to explain perhaps? + +Aunt M'riar was struck by a painful thought; the same that had crossed +her mind before, and that she had discarded as somehow inconsistent with +this old woman. The convicts--the convicts? She had grasped the fact +that this couple had lived in Van Diemen's Land, and inferred that +children were born to them there. But--was the husband himself a +convict? She repeated the words, "Free on the island, but not to come +home?" as a question. + +She was quite taken aback with the reply, given with no visible emotion. +"Why should I not tell you? How will it hurt me that you should know? My +husband was convicted of forgery and transported." + +"God's mercy on us!" said Aunt M'riar, dropping her work dumfoundered. +Then it half entered her thought that the old woman was wandering, and +she nearly said:--"Are you sure?" + +The old woman answered the thought as though it had been audible. "Why +not?" she said. "I am all myself. Fifty years ago! Why should I begin to +doubt it because of the long time?" She had ceased her knitting and sat +gazing on the fire, looking very old. Her interlaced thin fingers on the +strain could grow no older now surely, come what might of time and +trouble. Both had done their worst. She went on speaking low, as one +talks to oneself when alone. "Yes, I saw him go that morning on the +river. They rowed me out at dawn--a pair of oars, from Chatham. For I +had learned the day he would go, and there was a sure time for the +leaving of the hulks; if not night, then in the early dawn before folk +were on the move. This was in the summer." + +"And did you see him?" said Aunt M'riar, hoping to hear more, and taking +much for granted that she did not understand, lest she should be the +loser by interruption. + +"I saw him. I saw him. I did not know then that _he_ saw _me_. They +dared not row me near the wicked longboat that was under the hulk's side +waiting--waiting to take my heart away. They dared not for the officers. +There was ten men packed in the stern of the boat, and he was in among +them. And, as they sat, each one's hand was handcuffed to his neighbour. +I saw him, but he could not raise his hand; and he dared not call to me +for the officers. I could not have known him in his prison dress--it was +too far--but I could read his number, 213M. I know it still--213M.... +How did I know it? Because he got a letter to me." She then told how a +man had followed her in the street, when she was waiting in London for +this chance of seeing her husband, and how she had been afraid of this +man and taken refuge in a shop. Then how the shopkeeper had gone out to +speak to him and come back, saying:--"He's a bad man to look at, but he +means no harm. He says he wants to give you a letter, miss." How she +then spoke with the man and received the letter, giving him a guinea +for the rolled-up pencil scrawl, and he said:--"It's worth more than +that for the risk I ran to bring it ye. But for my luck I might be on +the ship still." Whereupon, she gave him her watch. That was how she +came to know 213M. + +"But did you see your husband again?" asked Aunt M'riar, listening as +Dave might have done; and, like him, wanting each instalment of the tale +rounded off. + +"Yes. Climbing up the side of the great ship half-way to the Nore. It +was a four-hours' pull for the galley--six oars--each man wristlocked to +his oar; and each officer with a musket. But we had a little sail and +kept the pace, though the wind was easterly. Then, when we reached the +ship where she lay, we went as near as ever my men dared. And we saw +each one of them--the ten--unhandcuffed to climb the side, and a cord +over the side made fast to him to give him no chance of death in the +waters--no chance! And then I saw my husband and knew he saw me." + +"Did he speak?" + +"He tried to call out. But the ship's officer struck him a cruel blow +upon the mouth, and he was dragged to the upper deck and hidden from me. +We saw them all aboard, all the ten. It was the last boat-load from the +hulk, and all the yards were manned by now, and the white sails growing +on them. Oh, but she was beautiful, the great ship in the sunshine!" The +old woman, who had spoken tearlessly, as from a dead, tearless heart, of +the worst essentials of her tragedy, was caught by a sob at something in +this memory of the ship at the Nore--why, Heaven knows!--and her voice +broke over it. To Aunt M'riar, cockney to the core, a ship was only a +convention, necessary for character, in an offing with an orange-chrome +sunset claiming your attention rather noisily in the background. There +were pavement-artists in those days as now. This ship the old lady told +of was a new experience for her--this ship with hundreds of souls on +board, men and women who had all had a fair trial and been represented +by counsel, so had nothing to complain of even if innocent. But all +souls in Hell, for all that! + +The old voice seemed quite roused to animation--a sort of heart-broken +animation--by the recollection of this ship. "Oh, but she was +beautiful!" she said again. "I've dreamed of her many's the time since +then, with her three masts straight up against the blue; you could see +them in the water upside down. I could not find the heart to let my men +row away and leave her there. I had come to see her go, and it was a +long wait we had.... Yes, it was on towards evening before the breeze +came to move her; and all those hours we waited. It was money to my +men, and they had a good will to it." She stopped, and Aunt M'riar +waited for her to speak again, feeling that she too had a right to see +this ship's image move. Presently she looked up from her darning and got +a response. "Yes, she did move in the end. I saw the sails flap, and +there was the clink of the anchor-chain. I've dreamt it again many and +many a time, and seen her take the wind and move, till she was all a +mile away and more. We watched her away with all aboard of her. And when +the wind rose in the night I was mad to think of her out on the great +sea, and how I should never see him again. But the time went by, and I +did." + +This was the first time old Mrs. Prichard spoke so freely about her +former life to Aunt M'riar. It was quite spontaneous on the old lady's +part, and she stopped her tale as suddenly as it had begun. The +fragmentary revelations in which she disclosed much more of her story, +as already summarised, came at intervals; always dwelling on her +Australian experiences, never on her girlhood--never on her subsequent +life in England. The reason of this is not clear; one has to accept the +fact. The point to notice is that nothing she said could possibly +associate her with old Mrs. Marrable, as told about by Dave. There had +been mention of Australia certainly. Yet why should Granny Marrable's +sister having died there forty-odd years ago connect her with an old +woman of a different name, now living? Besides, Dave was not +intelligible on this point. + +Whatever she told to Aunt M'riar was repeated to Uncle Mo--be sure of +that! Still, fragmentary stories, unless dressed up and garnished by +their retailer, do not remain vividly in the mind of their hearer, and +Uncle Mo's impressions of the upstairs tenant's history continued very +mixed. For Aunt M'riar's style was unpolished, and she did not marshall +her ideas in an impressive or lucid manner. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + OF A WATERSIDE PUBLIC-HOUSE, AT CHISWICK, AND TWO MEN IN ITS BACK + GARDEN. HOW THE RIVER POLICE TOOK AN INTEREST IN THEM. A + TROUBLESOME LANDING AND A BAD SPILL. HOW FOUR MEN WENT UNDER WATER, + AND TWO WERE NOT DROWNED. OF THE INQUEST ONE OF THE OTHERS TOOK THE + STAR PART IN. A MODEL WITNESS, AND HIS GREAT-AUNT + + +Just off the Lower Mall at Hammersmith there still remains a scrap of +the waterside neighbourhood that, fifty years ago, believed itself +eternal; that still clung to the belief forty years ago; that had +misgivings thirty years ago; and that has suffered such inroads from +eligible residences, during the last quarter of a century, that its +residuum, in spite of a superficial appearance of duration, is really +only awaiting the expiration of leases to be given over to +housebreakers, to make way for flats. + +Fifty years ago this corner of the world was so self-reliant that it was +content--more than content--to be unpatrolled by police; in fact, felt +rather resentful when an occasional officer passed through, as was +inevitable from time to time. It would have been happier if its +law-abiding tendencies had always been taken for granted. Then you could +have drunk your half a pint, your quart, or your measurable fraction of +a hogshead, in peace and quiet at the bar of the microscopic pub called +The Pigeons, without fear of one of those enemies of Society--_your_ +Society--coming spying and prying round after you or any chance +acquaintance you might pick up, to help you towards making that fraction +a respectable one. If it was summer-time, and you sat in the little +back-garden that had a ladder down to the river, you might feel a +moment's uneasiness when the river-police rowed by, as sometimes +happened; only, on the other hand, you might feel soothed by their +appearance of unconcern in riparian matters, almost amounting to +affectation. If any human beings took no interest in your antecedents, +surely it would be these two leisurely rowers and the superior person in +the stern, with the oilskin cape? + +It was not summer-time--far from it--on the day that concerns this +story, when two men in the garden of The Pigeons looked out over the +river, and one said to the other:--"Right away over yonder it lies, +halfway to Barn Elms." They were so busy over the locating of it, +whatever it was, that they did not notice the police-wherry, oarless in +the swift-running tide, as it slipped down close inshore, and was +abreast of them before they knew it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was +not summer, and that these men must have left a warm fire in the parlour +of The Pigeons, to come out into a driving north-east wind bringing with +it needle-pricks of microscopic snow, hard and cold and dry, that made +the rowers drop their oars and hold back against the stream, to look at +them. + +Or was it that the man in the stern had an interest in one of them. An +abrupt exclamation that he uttered at this moment seemed, to the man +rowing stroke, who heard more than his mate, to apply to the thicker and +taller man of the two. This one, who seemed to treat his pal as an +inferior or subordinate, met his gaze, not flinching. His companion +seemed less at his ease, and to him the big man said, scarcely moving +his lips to say it:--"Steady, fool!--if you shy, we're done." On which +the other remained motionless. What they said was heard by a boy close +at hand; but for whose version, given afterwards, this story would have +been in the dark about it. + +The two rowers kept the boat stationary, backing water. The steersman's +left hand played with the tiller-rope, and the boat edged slowly to the +shore. There was a grating thrown out over the water from the parapet of +the river-wall, to the side of which was attached a boat-ladder, now +slung up, for no boat's crew ever stopped here at this season. The boat +was nearing this--all but close--when the bigger man spoke, on a sudden. +But he only said it was a rough night, sergeant! + +It was a rough night, or meant to be one in an hour or so. But it was +impossible for an Official to accept another person's opinion without +loss of dignity. Therefore the sergeant, always working the boat +edgewise towards the ladder, only responded, "Roughish!" qualifying the +night, and implying a wider experience of rough nights than his +hearer's. If impressions derived from appearance are to be relied on, +his experience must have been a wide one. For one thing, he himself +seemed a dozen years at least the younger of the two. He added, as the +boat touched the ladder, bringing each in full view of the other, and +making speech easy between them:--"A man don't make the voyage out to +Sydney without seeing some rough weather." + +A very attentive observer might have said that he watched the man he +addressed more closely than the talk warranted, and certainly would +have seen that the latter started. He half began "Who the Hell ...?" but +flagged on the last word--just stopped short of Sheol--and the growl +that accompanied it turned into "I've never been in those parts, +master." + +"Never said you had. _I_ have though." One might have thought, by his +tone, that this officer chuckled secretly over something. He was +pleased, at least. But he gave no clue to his thoughts. He seemed +disconcerted at the height above the water of the projecting grating and +slung-up ladder. An active man, unencumbered, might easily enough have +landed himself on it from the boat. Yet a boy might have made it +impossible, standing on the grating. A resolute kick on the first +hand-grip, or in the face of the climber, would have met the case, and +given him a back-fall into the boat or the water. A chilly thought that, +on a day like this. But why should such a thought cross the mind of this +man, now? It did, probably, and he gave up the idea of landing. + +Instead, he felt in his pocket, and drew out a spirit-flask. "Maybe," +said he, "your mate would oblige so far as to ask the young lady at the +bar to fill this up with Kinahan's LL? _She_ won't make any bones about +it if he says it's for me, Sergeant Ibbetson--_she'll_ know." He +inverted it to see that it was empty, and the man who had not spoken +accepted the mission at a nod from his companion, whose social headship +the speech of the policeman seemed somehow to have taken for granted. + +The sergeant watched him out of sight; then, the moment he had vanished, +said:--"Now I come to think of it, Cissy Tuttle that was here has +married a postman, and the young lady that's took it over may not know +my name." His speech had not the appearance of a sudden thought, and the +less so that he began to get rid of his oilskin incumbrance almost +before he had uttered it. + +The understanding of what then happened needs a clear picture of the +exact position of things at this moment. The boat, held back by the +dipped oars, but steadied now and again by the hand of the sergeant on +the grating or ladder, lay uneasily between the wind and the current. +The man on the grating showed some unwillingness to lend the hand-up +that was asked for; and took exception, it seemed, to the safety of the +landing on any terms. "Maybe you want a dip in the river, master?" said +he. "It's no concern of mine. Only I don't care to take your weight on +this greasy bit of old iron. I'm best out of the water." + +The sergeant paused, looked at the grating, which certainly sloped +outwards, then at the boat and at the ladder. "Catch hold!" said he. + +But the other held back. "Why can't your mate there hand me the end of +that painter, and slue her round? That's easy! Won't take above a half a +minute, and save somebody a wet shirt. Tie her nose to the ring +yonder!--just bring you up oppo_site_ to where I'm standing! Think it +out, master." + +The sergeant, however, seemed to have made up his mind in spite of the +reasonableness of this suggestion. For when the man rowing bow stooped +back and reached out for the painter--the course seemed the obvious and +natural one--he was stopped by his chief, who said rather tartly:--"You +take your orders from me, Cookson!" and then held out his hand as +before, saying:--"You're a tidy weight, my lad. _I_ shan't pull you +overboard." + +He did, nevertheless, and it came about thus. The two men at the oars +saw the whole thing, and were clear in their account of it after. +Ibbetson, their sergeant, did _not_ take the hand that was proffered +him, but seized its wrist. It seemed to them that he made no attempt to +lift himself up from the boat; and the nearer one, pulling stroke, would +have it that Ibbetson even hooked the seat with his foot, as though to +get a purchase on the man's wrist that he held. Anyhow, the result was +the same. The man lost his footing under the strain, and pitched sheer +forward on his assailant; for the aggressive intention of the latter may +be taken as established beyond a doubt. As he fell, he struck out with +his left hand, landing on Ibbetson's mouth, and cutting off his last +words, an order, shouted to the rowers:--"Sheer off, and row for the +bridge ... I can ..." Both of them believed he would have said:--"I can +manage him by myself." + +But nothing further passed. For the boat, not built to keep an even keel +with two strong men struggling together in the stern, lurched over, +shipping water the whole length of the counter. The rowers tried to obey +orders, the more readily--so they said after--that their chief seemed +quite a match for his man. There was a worse danger ahead, a barge +moored in the path, and they had to clear, one side or the other. The +best chance was outside, and they would have succeeded but for the cable +that held her. It just caught the bow oar, and the boat swung round, the +stroke being knocked down between the seats in his effort to back water +and keep her clear. Half-crippled already and at least one-third full of +water, she was in no trim to dodge the underdraw of the sloping bows of +an empty barge, at the worst hour of ebb-tide. The boy in the garden, +next door to The Pigeons, whom curiosity had kept on the watch, saw the +swerve off-shore; the men struggling in the stern; the collision with +the moorings; and the final wreck of the boat. Then she vanished behind +the barge, and was next seen, bottom-up, by children on the bridge over +the little creek three minutes lower down the stream, whose cries roused +those in hearing and brought help. When the man came back with the +whisky-flask, his mate had vanished, and the boat with its crew. If he +guessed what had passed, it was from the running and shouting on the +bank, and the boats that were putting off in haste; and then, well over +towards Hammersmith Bridge, that they reached their quarry and were +trying to right her on the water, possibly thinking to find some former +occupant shut in beneath. He did not wait to see the upshot; but, +pocketing the flask, got away unnoticed by anyone, all eyes being intent +upon the incident on the river. + +The sergeant, Ibbetson, was drowned, and the facts narrated are taken +literally, or inferred, from what came out at the inquest. The theory +that recommended itself to account for his conduct was that he had +recognised a culprit whom he had known formerly, for whose apprehension +a reward had been offered, and had, without hesitation, formed a plan of +separating him from his companion--or companions, for who could say they +were alone?--and securing him in the boat, when no escape would have +been possible, as they could have made straight for the floating station +at Westminster. It was a daring idea, and might have succeeded but for +that mooring-cable. + +The body of the sergeant showed marks of the severity of the struggle in +which he had been engaged. The two upper front teeth were loosened, +probably by the blow he received at the outset, and there were +finger-nail dents on the throat as from the grasp of a strangling hand. +That his opponent should have disengaged himself from his clutch was +matter of extreme surprise to all who had experienced submersion, and +knew its meaning. Even to those who have never been under water against +their will, the phrase "the grip of a drowning man" has a terribly +convincing sound. That this opponent rose to the surface alive, and +escaped, was barely entertained as a surmise, only to be dismissed as +incredible; and this improbability became even greater when his +companion was captured alone, a month later, in the commission of a +burglary at Castelnau, which--so it was supposed--the two had been +discussing just before the police-boat appeared. The two rowers were +rescued, one, a powerful swimmer, having kept the other afloat till the +arrival of help. At the inquest neither of these men seemed as much +concerned at Ibbetson's death as might have been expected, and both +condemned afterwards that officer's treacherous grip of the hand +extended to help him. Whatever he knew to his proposed prisoner's +disadvantage, there are niceties of honour in these matters--little +chivalries all should observe. + +The only evidence towards establishing the identity of the man who had +disappeared was that of the stroke-oar, Simeon Rowe, the rescuer of his +companion. This man's version of Ibbetson's exclamation was "Thorney +Davenant!--I know you, my man!" At the time of the inquest, no +identification was made with any name whose owner was being sought by +the Police, so no one caught the clue it furnished. There may have been +slowness or laxity of investigation, but a sufficient excuse may lie in +the fact that Ibbetson certainly spoke the name wrong, or that his +hearer caught it wrong. The name was not Davenant, but Daverill. He was +the son of old Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps Court, called after his father, +and inheriting all his worst qualities. If Sergeant Ibbetson spoke truly +when he said "I know you!" to him, he was certainly entitled to a +suspension of opinion by those who condemned his ruse for this man's +capture. + +Still, a code of honour is always respectable, and these two policemen +may have supposed that their mate knew no worse of this convict than +that he had redistributed some property--was what the first holder of +that property would have called a thief. One prefers to think that +Ibbetson knew of some less equivocal wickedness. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps this man, supposed to be drowned, would not have reappeared in +this story had it not been for one of the witnesses at the inquest, the +boy who overheard the conversation between him and his mate, before the +arrival of the police-boat. + +"This boy," said the Coroner's clerk, who seemed to have an impression +that this was a State Prosecution, and that he represented the Crown, +"can give evidence as to a conversation between the"--he wanted to say +"the accused"; it would have sounded so well, but he stopped himself in +time--"between the man whose body has not been found, and"--here he +would have liked to say "an accomplice"--"and another person who has +eluded the ... that is to say, whom the police have, so far, failed to +identify ..." + +"That's all right," said the Coroner. "That'll do. Boy's got something +he can tell us. What's your name, my man?" + +"Wot use are you a-going to make of it?" said the boy. He did not appear +to be over twelve years old, but his assurance could not have been +greater had he been twelve score. A reporter put a dot on his paper, +which meant "Laughter, in which the Coroner joined, in a parenthesis." + +An old woman who had accompanied the boy, as tutelary genius, held up a +warning finger at him. "Now, you Micky," said she, "you speak civil to +the gentleman and answer his questions accordin'." She then said to the +Coroner, as one qualified to explain the position:--"It's only his +manners, sir, and the boy has not a rebellious spirit being my +grandnephew." She utilised a lax structure of speech to introduce her +relationship to the witness. She was evidently proud of being related to +one, having probably met with few opportunities of distinction hitherto. + +The witness, under the pressure at once of family influence and +constituted authority, appeared to give up the point. "'Ave it your own +way!" said he. "Michael Ragstroar." + +"How am I to spell it?" said the clerk, without taking his pen out of +the ink, as though it would dry in the air. + +"This ain't school!" said our young friend from Sapps Court, whom you +probably remember. Michael had absconded from his home, and sought that +of his great-aunt; the only person, said contemporary opinion, that had +a hounce of influence with him. It was not clear why such a confirmed +reprobate should quail before the moral force of a small old woman in a +mysteriously clean print-dress, and tortoise-shell spectacles she would +gladly have kept on while charing, only they always come off in the +pail. But he did, and when reproached by her for his needlessly defiant +attitude, took up a more conciliatory tone. "Carn't recollect, or +p'r'aps I'd tell yer," said he. + +"Never mind the spelling!" said the Coroner, who had to preside at +another inquest at Kew very shortly. "Let's get the young man's +evidence." But Michael objected to giving evidence. Whereupon the +Coroner, perceiving his mistake, said: "Well, then, suppose we let it +alone for to-day. You may go home, Micky, and find out how your name's +spelt, against next time it's wanted. Where's the other boy that heard +what the men were saying? Call him." + +"There warn't any other boy within half a mile," exclaimed Michael +indignantly. "I should have seen him. Think I've got no eyes? There +warn't another blooming bloke in sight." + +"Didn't the other boy see several other men in the back-garden of the +ale-house?" said the Coroner. And the Inspector of Police had the +effrontery to reply: "Oh yes, three or four!" And then both of them +looked at Michael, and waited. + +Michael's indignation passed all bounds, and betrayed him into the use +of language of which his great-aunt would have deemed him incapable. She +was that shocked, she never! The expressions were not Michael's own +vocabulary at all, but corruptions that had crept into his phraseology +from associations with other boys, chance acquaintances, who had evolved +them among themselves, nourishing them from the corruption of their own +hearts. As soon as Michael--deceived by the mendacious dialogue of the +Coroner and the Inspector, and under the impression that the particulars +he was giving, whether true or false, were not evidence--had told with +some colouring about the two men in the garden and what they said, the +old lady made a powerful effort to detain the Coroner to give him +particulars of Michael's parentage and education, and to exculpate +herself from any possible charge of neglecting her grandnephew, to whom +she was a second parent. In fact, had her niece Ann never married Daniel +Rackstraw, she and her--Ann, that is--would have done much better by +Michael and his sisters. Which left a false impression on her hearers' +minds, that Michael was an illegitimate son; whereas really she was only +dealing with his existence as rooted in the nature of things, and +certain to have come about without the intrusion of a male parent in the +family. + +As for the details of his testimony, surrendered unconsciously as mere +facts, not evidence, there was little in them that has not been already +told. The conversation of the two men, as given in the text, was taken +from Michael's version, and he was the only hearer. But he only saw +their backs, except that when the struggle came off he caught sight of +the ex-convict's face for a moment. He would know him again if he saw +him any day of the week. Some days, he seemed to imply, were worse for +his powers of identification than others. It was unimportant, as both +the survivors of the accident had noted the man's face carefully enough, +considering that he was to them at first nothing beyond a chance +bystander. He wasn't a bad-looking man; that was clear. But he was +possibly not in very good drawing, as they agreed that he had a +peculiarity--his two halves didn't square. This no doubt referred to the +same thing Michael described by calling him "a sideways beggar." + +The Coroner's Jury had some trouble to agree upon a verdict. "Death by +Misadventure" seemed wrong somehow. How could drowning with the +finger-nails of an adversary in his throat be accounted misadventure? No +doubt Abel died by misadventure, in a sense. But no other verdict seemed +possible, except Manslaughter by the person whom Ibbetson supposed this +man to be when he laid hands on him. And how if he was mistaken? +"Manslaughter against some person unknown" sounded well. Only if the +person was unknown, why Manslaughter? If Brown is ever so much justified +in dragging Smith under water by the honest belief that he is Jones, is +Smith guilty of anything but self-defence when he does his best to get +out of Brown's clutches? Moreover, the annals of life-saving from +drowning show that the only chance of success for the rescuer often +depends on whether the drowning man can be made insensible or +overpowered. Otherwise, death for both. If this unknown man was _not_ +the object of Police interest he was supposed to have been taken for, he +might only have been doing his best to save the lives of both. In that +case, had the inquest been on both, the verdict must have been one that +would ascribe Justifiable Homicide to him and Manslaughter to Ibbetson. +For surely if the police-sergeant had been the survivor, and the other +man's body had been found to be that of some inoffensive citizen, +Ibbetson would have been tried for manslaughter. In the end a verdict +was agreed upon of Death by Drowning, which everybody knew as soon as it +was certain that Life was extinct. + +Somewhat later Ibbetson was supposed to have taken him for a returned +convict, whose name was variously given, but who had been advertised for +as Thornton, one of his aliases; and in consequence of this discovery +the vigilance of the Police for the apprehension of the missing man, +under this name, was increased and the reward doubled. And this, in +spite of a universal inference that he was dead, and that his body was +flavouring whitebait below bridge. This did not interfere with a belief +on the part of the crew of the patrolling boat--known to Michael--owing +to a popular chant of boys of his own age--as "two blackbeetles and one +water-rat," that his corpse would float up one day near the place of his +disappearance. But their eyes looked for it in vain; and though the +companion with whom he was discussing the burglary to be executed at +Barn Elms was caught _in flagrante delicto_ and sent to Portland Island, +nothing was heard of him or known of his whereabouts. + +Michael ended his stay with his great-aunt shortly afterwards, returning +home with a budget of legends founded on his waterside experience. As he +had a reputation for audacious falsehood without foundation, it is no +matter of surprise that the whole story of the water-rat's death and the +inquest were looked upon as exaggerations too outrageous for belief even +by the most credulous. Probably his version of the incidents, owing to +its rich substratum of the marvellous yet true, was much more accurate +than was usual with him when the marvellous depended on his ingenuity to +provide it. It was, however, roundly discredited in his own circle, and +nothing in it could have evoked recognition in Sapps Court even if the +name of the convict had reached the ears that knew it. For it was not +only wrongly reported but was still further distorted by Michael for +purposes of astonishment. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + OF THE EARLDOM OF ANCESTER, AND ITS EARL'S COUNTESS'S OPINION OF + HIM. HOW HER SECOND DAUGHTER CAME OUT IN THE GARDEN. HOW SHE SAW A + TRESPASSER, WITH SUCH A NICE DOG! HE MUSTN'T BE SHOT, _COUTE QUE + COUTE_! A LITTLE STONE BRIDGE. A SLIT IN A DOG'S COLLAR. OLD + MICHAEL'S OBSTINACY. HOW GWENDOLEN RAN AWAY TO DRESS, AND WAS + UNSOCIABLE AT DINNER. THE VOICE OF A DOG IN TROUBLE. ACHILLES, AND + HIS RECOGNITION. HOW THEY FOLLOWED ACHILLES, AT HIS OWN REQUEST, + AND WHAT HE SHOWED THE WAY TO. BUT THE MAN WAS NOT DEAD + + +If a stranger from America or Australia could have been shown at a +glance all that went to make up the Earldom of Ancester, he would have +been deeply impressed. All the leagues of parkland, woodland, moorland, +farmland that were its inheritance would have impressed him, not because +of their area--because Americans and Australians are accustomed to mere +crude area in their own departments of the planet--but because of the +amazing amount of old-world History transacted within its limits; the +way the antecedent Earls meddled in it; their magnificent record of +treachery and bloodshed and murder; wholesale in battle, retail in less +showy, but perhaps even more interesting, private assassination; +fascinating cruelties and horrors unspeakable! They might have been +impressed also, though, of course, in a less degree, by the Earldom's +very creditable show of forbears who, at the risk of being +uninteresting, behaved with common decency, and did their duty in the +station to which God or Debrett had called them; not drawing the sword +to decide a dispute until they had tried one or two of the less popular +expedients, and slighting their obligations to the Melodrama of the +future. Which rightly looks for its supplies of copy to persons of high +birth and low principles. + +The present Earl took after his less mediaeval ancestry; and though he +received the sanction of his wife, and of persons who knew about things, +it was always conceded to him with a certain tone of allowance made for +a simple and pastoral nature. In the vulgarest tongue it might have been +said that he would never cut a dash. In his wife's it was said that +really the Earl was one of the most admirable of men, only never +intended by Providence for the Lord-Lieutenancy of a County. He was +scarcely to blame, therefore, for his shortcomings in that position. It +could not rank as one to which God had called him, without imputing +instability, or an oversight, to his summoner. As a summons from +Debrett, there is no doubt he was not so attentive to it as he ought to +have been. + +His own opinion about the intentions of Providence was that they had +been frustrated--by Debrett chiefly. If they had fructified he would +have been the Librarian of the Bodleian. Providence also had in view for +him a marvellous collection of violins, unlimited Chinese porcelain, and +some very choice samples of Italian majolica. But he would have been +left to the undisturbed enjoyment of his treasures. He could have passed +a peaceful life gloating over Pynsons and Caxtons, and Wynkyn de Wordes, +and Grolier binding, and Stradivarius, and Guarnerius, and Ming, and +Maestro Giorgio of Gubbio. But Debrett got wind of the intentions of +Providence, and clapped a coronet upon the head of their intended +_bénéficiaire_ without so much as with your leave or by your leave, and +there he was--an Earl! He had all that mere possessions could bestow, +but always with a sense that Debrett, round the corner, was keeping an +eye on him. He had to assuage that gentleman--or principle, or lexicon, +or analysis, whatever he is!--and he did it, though rather grudgingly, +to please his Countess, and from a general sense that when a duty is a +bore, it ought to be complied with. His Countess was the handsome lady +with the rings whom Dave Wardle had taken for a drive in her own +carriage. + +This sidelight on the Earl is as much illumination as the story wants, +for the moment. The sidelight on the terrace of Ancester Towers, at the +end of a day in July following the winter of Dave's accident, was no +more than the Towers thought their due after standing out all day +against a grey sky, in a drift of warm, small rain that made oilskins +and mackintoshes an inevitable Purgatory inside; and beds of lakes, when +horizontal, outside. It was a rainbow-making gleam at the end of +thirty-six depressing hours, bursting through a cloud-rift in the South +with the exclamation--the Poet might have imagined--"Make the most of +me while you can; I shan't last." + +To make the most of it was the clear duty of the owner of a golden head +of hair like that of Lady Gwendolen, the Earl's second daughter. So she +brought the head out into the rainbow dazzle, with the hair on it, +almost before the rain stopped; and, indeed, braved a shower of jewels +the rosebush at the terrace window drenched her with, coming out. What +did it matter?--when it was so hot in spite of the rain. Besides, India +muslin dries so quick. It isn't like woollen stuff. + +If you could look back half a century and see Gwendolen on the terrace +then, you would not be grateful to any contemporary malicious enough to +murmur in your ear:--"Old Lady Blank, the octogenarian, who died last +week, was this girl then. So reflect upon what the conventions are quite +in earnest--for once--in calling your latter end." You would probably +dodge the subject, replying--for instance--"How funny! Why, it must have +taken twelve yards to make a skirt like that!" For these were the days +of crinolines; of hair in cabbage-nets, packed round rubber-inflations; +of what may be called proto-croquet, with hoops so large that no one +ever failed to get through, except you and me; the days when _Ah che la +morte_ was the last new tune, and Landseer and Mulready the last words +in Art. They were the days when there had been but one Great +Exhibition--think of it!--and the British Fleet could still get under +canvas. We, being an old fogy, would so much like to go back to those +days--to think of daguerreotypes as a stupendous triumph of Science, +balloons as indigenous to Cremorne, and table-turning as a nine-days' +wonder; in a word, to feel our biceps with satisfaction in an epoch when +wheels went slow, folk played tunes, and nobody had appendicitis. But we +can't! + +However, it is those very days into which the story looks back and sees +this girl with the golden hair, who has been waiting in that +rainbow-glory fifty years ago for it to go on and say what it may of +what followed. She comes out on the terrace through the high +middle-window that opens on it, and now she stands in the blinding +gleam, shading her eyes with her hand. It is late in July, and one may +listen for a blackbird's note in vain. That song in the ash that drips a +diamond-shower on the soaked lawn, whenever the wind breathes, may still +be a thrush; his last song, perhaps, about his second family, before he +retires for the season. The year we thought would last us out so well, +for all we wished to do in it, will fail us at our need, and we shall +find that the summer we thought was Spring's success will be Autumn, +much too soon, as usual. Over half a century of years have passed since +then, and each has played off its trick upon us. Each Spring has said to +us:--"Now is your time for life. Live!" and each Summer has jilted us +and left us to be consoled by Autumn, a Job's comforter who only +says:--"Make the best of me while you can, for close upon my heels is +Winter." + +You can still see the terrace much as this young woman, Lady Gwendolen +Rivers--that was her name--saw it on that July evening, provided always +that you choose one with such another rainbow. There is not much garden +between it and the Park, which goes on for miles, and begins at the sunk +fence over yonder. They are long miles too, and no stint; and it is an +hour's walk from the great gate to the house, unless you run; so says +the host of the Rivers Arms, which is ten minutes from the gate. You can +lose yourself in this park, and there are red-deer as well as +fallow-deer; and what is more, wild cattle who are dangerous, and who +have lived on as a race from the days of Welsh Home Rule, and know +nothing about London or English History. Even so in the Transvaal it is +said that some English scouts came upon a peaceful valley with a +settlement of Dutch farmers therein, who had to be told about the War to +check their embarrassing hospitality. The parallel fails, however, for +the wild white cattle of Ancester Park paw the earth up and charge, when +they see strangers. The railway had to go round another way to keep +their little scrap of ancient forest intact; for the family at the +Castle has always taken the part of the bulls against all comers. Little +does Urus know how superficial, how skin-deep, his loneliness has +become--that he is really under tutelage unawares, and even +surreptitiously helped to supplies of forage in seasons of dearth! Will +his race linger on and outlive the race of Man when that biped has +shelled and torpedoed and dynamited himself out of existence? And will +they then fill the newest New Forest that will have covered the +smokeless land, with the descendants of the herds that Caesar's troops +found in the Hercynian wilds? They are a fascinating subject for a +wandering pen, but the one that writes this must not be led away from +Lady Gwendolen on the terrace that looks across this cramped inheritance +of beech and bracken. If she could always look like what the level sun +makes her now, in the heart of a rainbow, few things the world can show +would outbid her right to a record, or make the penning of it harder. +For just at this moment she looks simply beautiful beyond belief. It is +not all the doing of the sunrays, for she is a fine sample of nineteen, +of a type which has kindled enthusiasm since the comparatively recent +incursion of William the Norman, and will continue to do so till finally +dynamited out of existence, _ut supra_. + +She is looking out under her hand--to make sight possible against the +blaze--at a man who is plodding across the nearest opening in the +woodland. How drenched he must be! What can possess him, to choose a day +like this to go afoot through an undergrowth of bracken a day's +raindrift has left water-charged? She knows well what a deluge meets him +at every step, and watches him, pressing through it as one who has felt +the worst pure water can do, and is reckless. She watches him into a +clear glade, with a sense of relief on his behalf. She does not feel +officially called upon to resent a stranger with a dog--in a territory +sacred to game!--for the half-overgrown track he seems to have followed +is a world of fallow-deer and pheasants. She is the daughter of the +house, and trespassers are the concern of Stephen Solmes the head +gamekeeper. + +The trespasser seems at a loss which way to go, and wavers this way and +that. His dog stands at his feet looking up at him, wagging a slow tail; +deferentially offering no suggestion, but ready with advice if called +upon. The young lady's thought is:--"Why can't he let that sweet dog +settle it for him? _He_ would find the way." Because she is sure of the +sweetness of that collie, even at this distance. Ultimately the +trespasser leaves the matter to the dog, who appears gratified and +starts straight for where she stands. Dogs always do, says she to +herself. But there is the haw-haw fence between them. + +The dog stops. Not because of the obstacle--what does he care for +obstacles?--but because of the courtesies of life. The man that made +this sunk fence did it to intercept any stray collie in the parkland +from scouring across into the terraced garden, even to inaugurate +communications between a strange young lady and the noblest of God's +creatures, his owner. That is the dog's view. So he stands where the +fence has stopped him, a beseeching explanatory look in his pathetic +eyes; and a silky tail, that is nearly dry already, marking time slowly. +A movement of permission would bring him across into the garden; but +then--is he not too wet? Young Lady Gwendolen says "No, dear!" +regretfully, and shakes her head as though he would understand the +negative. Perhaps he does, for he trots back to his master, who, +however--it must be admitted--has whistled for him. + +The pedestrian turns to go, but sees the lady well, though not very near +her yet. She knows he sees her, as he raises his hat. She has an +impression of his personality from the action; which, it may be, guides +her conduct in what follows. + +He seems to have made up his mind to avoid the house, taking a visible +path which skirts it, and possibly to strike away from it into the wider +parkland, over yonder where the great oaks are. He is soon lost in a +hazel coppice. + +Then she thinks. That dog will be shot if Solmes catches sight of it. +She knows old Stephen. Oh, for but one word with the dog's master! It +might just make the whole difference. + +She does not think long; in fact, there is no time to lose. The man and +the dog must pass over Arthur's Bridge if they follow the path. She can +intercept them there by taking a short cut through the Trings; a name +with a forgotten origin, which hugs the spot unaccountably. "I wonder +what a tring was, and when" says Gwendolen to herself, between those +unsolved riddles and the bridge. + +The bridge is a little stone bridge, just wide enough for a chaise to go +through gently. Gwendolen has soaked her shoes to reach it. Still, she +_must_ save that dog from the Ranger's gun at any cost. A fig for the +wet! She has to dress for dinner--indeed, her maid is waiting for her +now--and dry stockings will be a negligible factor in that great total. +There comes the pedestrian round by Swayne's Oak--another name whose +origin no man knows. + +The dog catches sight of her, and is off like a shot, his master trying +vainly to whistle him back. The young lady is quite at ease--_she_ is +not afraid of dogs! She even laughs at this one's demonstrative salute, +which leaves a paw-mark on either shoulder. For dogs do not scruple to +kiss those they love, without making compliments. + +His master is apologetic, coming up with a quickened pace. At a rebuke +from him the collie becomes apologetic too; would be glad to explain, +but is handicapped by language. He is, however, all repentance, and +falls back behind his master, leaving matters in his hands. At the +least--though the way of doing it may have been crude--he has brought +about an introduction, of a sort. + +There is no intrusive wish on the man's part to take undue advantage of +it. His speech, "Achilles means well; it is only his cordiality," seems +to express the speaker's feeling that somehow he is certain to be +understood. His addendum--"I am really as sorry as I can be, all the +same"--may be credited to ceremonial courtesy, flavoured with +contrition. His wind-up has a sort of laugh behind it:--"Particularly +because I have no business in this part of the Park at all. I can only +remedy that by my absence." + +"You will promise me one thing, if you please...." + +"Yes--whatever you wish." + +"Lead your dog till you are outside the Park. If he is seen he may be +shot. I could not bear that that dog should be shot." Something in the +man's tone and manner has made it safe for the girl to overstep the +boundaries of chance speech to an utter stranger. + +He has no right--that he feels--to presume upon this semi-confidence of +an impulsive girl, whoever she is. True, her beauty in that last glory +of the sunset puts resolution to the test. But he _has_ no right, and +there's an end on't! "I will tie Achilles up," he says. "I should not +like him to be shot." + +"Oh!--is he Achilles?" + +"His mother was Thetis." + +"Then, of course, he is Achilles." At this point the boundaries of +strangership seem insistent. After all, this man may be Tom or Dick or +Harry. "You will excuse my speaking to you," says the young lady. "I had +no one to send, and I saw you from the terrace. It was for the dog's +sake." + +In his chivalrous determination not to overdraw the blank cheque she has +signed for him unawares, the stranger conceives that a few words of dry +apology will meet the case, and leave him to go on his way. So, though +powerfully ignoring the fact that that outcome will be an unwelcome one, +he replies:--"I quite understand, and I am sincerely grateful for your +caution." He gets at a dog-chain in the pocket of his waterproof +overcoat, and at the click of it Achilles comes to be tied up. As he +fastens the clasp to its collar, he adds:--"I should not have let him +run loose like this, only that I am so sure of him. He is town-bred and +a stranger to the chase. He can collect sheep, owing to his ancestry; +but he never does it now, because he has been forbidden." While he +speaks these last words he is examining something in the dog's leather +collar. "It will hold, I think," says he. "A cut in the strap--it looks +like." Then this oddly befallen colloquy ends and each gives the other a +dry good-evening. The young lady's last sight of that acquaintance of +five minutes shows him endeavouring to persuade the dog not to drag on +his chain. For Achilles, for some dog-reason man will never know, is no +sooner leashed than he makes restraint necessary by pulling against it +with all his might. + +"I hope that collar won't break," says the young lady as she goes back +to dress for dinner. The sun's gleam is dead, and the black cloud-bank +that hides it now is the rain that is coming soon. See!--it has begun +already. + + * * * * * + +Old Mrs. Solmes at the Ranger's Lodge, a mile distant, said to her old +husband:--"Thou'rt a bad ma-an, Stephen, to leave thy goon about +lwoaded, and the vary yoong boy handy to any mischief. Can'st thou not +bide till there coom time for the lwoadin' of it?" + +Said old Stephen sharply, "Gwun, wench? There be no _gwun_. 'Tis a +roifle! And as fower the little Seth, yander staaple where it hangs is +well up beyond the reach of un. Let a' be, Granny!" + +The old woman, in whom grandmotherhood had overweighted all other +qualities, by reason of little Seth's numerous first cousins, made no +reply, but looked uneasily at the rifle on the wall. Little Seth--her +appropriated grandchild, both his parents being dead--was too small at +present to do any great harm to anyone but himself; but the time might +come. He was credited with having swallowed an inch-brad, without +visible inconvenience; and there was a threatening appearance in his eye +as of one who would very soon climb up everywhere, fall off everything, +appropriate the forbidden, break the frangible, and, in short, behave +as--according to his grandmother--his father had done before him. + +His old grandfather, who had a combative though not unamiable +disposition, took down the rifle as an act of self-assertion, and walked +out into the twilight with it on his shoulder. It was simply a +contradictious action, as there was no warranty for it in vert and +venison. But he had to garnish his action with an appearance of +plausibility, and nothing suggested itself. The only course open to him +was to get away out of sight, with implication of a purpose vaguely +involving fire-arms. A short turn in the oak-wood--as far, perhaps, as +Drews Thurrock--would fortify his position, without committing him to +details: he could make secrecy about them a point of discipline. He +walked away over the grassland, a fine, upright old figure; in whose +broad shoulders, seen from behind, an insight short of clairvoyance +might have detected what is called _temper_--meaning a want of it. He +vanished into the oak-wood, where the Druid's Stone attests the place of +sacrifice, human or otherwise. + +Some few minutes later the echoes of a rifle-shot, unmistakable alike +for that of shot-gun or revolver, circled the belt of hills that looks +on Ancester Towers, and died at Grantley Thorpe. Old Stephen, when he +reappeared at the Lodge half an hour later, could explain his share in +this with only a mixed satisfaction. For though his need of his +rifle--whether real or not--had justified its readiness for use, he had +failed as a marksman; the stray dog he fired at, after vanishing in a +copse for a few minutes, having scoured away in a long detour; as he +judged, making for the Castle. + +"And a rare good hap for thee, husband!" said the old woman when she +heard this. "Whatever has gotten thy wits, ma'an, to win out and draa' +trigger on a pet tyke of some visitor lady at the Too'ers?" + +"Will ye be tellun me this, and tellun me that, Keziah? I tell 'ee one +thing, wench, it be no consarn o' mine whose dog be run loose in th' +Park. Be they the Queen's own, my orders say shoot un! Do'ant thee know +next month be August?" Nevertheless, the old man was not altogether +sorry that he had missed. He might have been called over the coals for +killing a dog-visitor to the Towers. He chose to affect regret for +discipline's sake, and alleged that the dog had escaped into the wood +only because he had no second cartridge. This was absurd. In these days +of quick-shooters it might have been otherwise. In those, the only +abominations of the sort were Colonel Colt's revolvers; and _they_ were +a great novelty, opening up a new era in murder. + +The truth was that this view of the culprit's identity had dawned on him +as soon as he got a second view of the dog visibly making for the +Castle--almost too far in any case for a shot at anything smaller than a +doe--and he would probably have held his hand for both reasons even if a +reload had been possible. + + * * * * * + +Lady Gwendolen, treasuring in her heart a tale of adventure--however +trivial--to tell at the dinner-table in the evening, submitted herself +to be prepared for that function. She seemed absent in mind; and +Lutwyche her maid, observing this, skipped intermediate reasonings and +straightway hoped that the cause of this absence of mind had come over +with the Conqueror and had sixty thousand a year. Meanwhile she wanted +to know which dress, my lady, this evening?--and got no answer. Her +ladyship was listening to something at a distance; or, rather, having +heard something at a distance, was listening for a repetition of it. "I +wonder what that can have been?" said she. For fire-arms in July are +torpid mostly, and this was a gunshot somewhere. + +"They are firing at the Butts at Stamford Norton, my lady," said +Lutwyche; who always knew things, sometimes rightly--sometimes wrongly. +This time, the latter. + +"Then the wind must have gone round. Besides, it would come again. +Listen!" Thus her ladyship, and both listened. But nothing came again. + +Lady Gwendolen was as beautiful as usual that evening, but contrary to +custom silent and _distraite_. She did not tell the story of the Man in +the Park and his dog. She kept it to herself. She was unresponsive to +the visible devotion of a Duke's eldest son, who came up to Lutwyche's +standard in all particulars. She did not even rise to the enthusiasm of +a very old family friend, the great surgeon Sir Coupland Merridew, about +the view from his window across the Park, although each had seen the +same sunset effect. She only said:--"Oh--have they put you in the +Traveller's Room, Sir Coupland? Yes--the view is very fine!" and became +absent again. She retired early, asking to be excused on the score of +fatigue; not, however, seriously resenting her mother's passing +reference to a nursery rhyme about Sleepy-head, whose friends kept late +hours, nor her "Why, child, you've had nothing to tire you!" She was +asleep in time to avoid the sound of a dog whining, wailing, protesting +vainly, with a great wrong on his soul, not to be told for want of +language. + +She woke with a start very early, to identify this disturbance with +something she lost in a dream, past recovery, owing to this sudden +awakening. She had her hand on the bell-rope at her bed's head, and had +all but pulled it before she identified the blaze of light in her room +as the exordium of the new day. The joy of the swallows at the dawn was +musical in the ivy round her window, open through the warm night; and +the turtle-doves had much to say, and were saying it, in the world of +leafage out beyond. But there was no joy in the persistent voice of that +dog, and no surmise of its hearer explained it. + +She found her feet, and shoes to put them in, before she was clear about +her own intentions; then in all haste got herself into as much clothing +as would cover the risks of meeting the few early risers possible at +such an hour--it could but be some chance groom or that young +gardener--and, opening her door with thief-like stealth, stole out +through the stillness night had left behind, past the doors of sleepers +who were losing the sweetest of the day. So she thought--so we all +think--when some chance gives us precious hours that others are wasting +in stupid sleep. But even _she_ would not have risen but for that +plaintive intermittent wail and a growing construction of a cause for +it--all fanciful perhaps--that her uneasy mind would still be at work +upon. She _must_ find out the story of it. More sleep now was absurd. + +Two bolts and a chain--not insuperable obstacles--and she was free of +the side-garden. An early riser--the one she had foreseen, a young +gardener she knew--with an empty basket to hold flowers for the still +sleeping household to refresh the house with in an hour, and its +bed-bound sluggards in two or three, was astir and touched a respectful +cap with some inner misgiving that this unwonted vision was a ghost. But +he showed a fine discipline, and called it "My lady" with presence of +mind. Ghost or no, that was safe! "What _is_ that dog, Oliver?" said the +vision. + +The question made all clear. The answer was speculative. "Happen it +might be his lordship's dog that came yesterday--feeling strange in a +strange place belike?" + +"No dog came yesterday. Lord Cumberworld hasn't a dog. I _must_ know. +Where is it?" + +Oliver was not actor enough not to show that he was concealing +wonderment at the young lady's vehemence. His eyes remained wide open in +token thereof. + +"In the stables, by the sound of it, my lady," was his answer. + +His lady turned without a word, going straight for the stables; and he +followed when, recollecting him, she looked back to say, "Yes--come!" + +Grooms are early risers in a well-kept stable. There is always something +to be done, involving pails, or straps, or cloths, or barrows, or +brushes, even at five in the morning in July. When the young gardener, +running on ahead, jangled at the side-gate yard-bell, more than one pair +of feet was on the move within; and there was the cry of the dog, sure +enough, almost articulate with keen distress about some unknown wrong. + +"What _is_ the dog, Archibald?--what _is_ the dog?" The speaker was too +anxious for the answer to frame her question squarely. But the old +Scotch groom understood. "Wha can tell that?" says he. "He's just +stra'ad away from his home, or lost the track of a new maister. They do, +ye ken, even the collies on the hillsides. Will your ladyship see him?" + +"Yes--yes! That is what I came for. Let me." A younger groom, awaiting +this instruction, goes for the dog, whose clamour has increased tenfold, +becoming almost frenzy when he sees his friend of the day before; for he +is Achilles beyond a doubt. Achilles, mad with joy--or is it unendurable +distress?--or both? + +"Your leddyship will have seen him before, doubtless," says old +Archibald. He does not say, but means:--"We are puzzled, but submissive, +and look forward to enlightenment." + +"Let him go--yes, _I_ know him!--don't hold him. Oh, Achilles, you +darling dog--it _is_ you!... Yes--yes--let him go--he'll be all +right.... Yes, dear, you _shall_ kiss me as much as you like." Thia was +in response to a tremendous accolade, after which the dog crouched +humbly at his idol's feet; whimpering a little still, beneath his +breath, about something he could not say. She for her part caressed and +soothed the frightened creature, asking the while for information about +the manner of his appearance the night before. + +It seemed that on the previous evening about eight o'clock he had been +found in the Park just outside the door of the walled garden south of +the Castle, as though he was seeking to follow someone who had passed +through. That at least was the impression of Margery, a kitchen-maid, +whom inquiry showed to have been the source of the first person plural +in the narrative of Tom Kettering, the young groom, who had come upon +the dog crouched against this door; and, judging him to be in danger in +the open Park, had brought him home to the stables for security. + +How had the collie behaved when brought up to the stable? Well--he had +been fair quiet--only that he was always for going out after any who +were leaving, and always "wakeriff, panting, and watching like," till +he, Tom Kettering, tied him up for the night. And then he started crying +and kept on at it till they turned out, maybe half an hour since. + +"He has not got his own collar," said the young lady suddenly. "Where is +his own collar?" + +"He had ne'er a one on his neck when I coom upon him," says Tom. "So we +putten this one on for a makeshift." + +"It's mair than leekly, my lady,"--thus old Archibald--"that he will +have slipped from out his ain by reason of eempairfect workmanship of +the clasp. Ye'll ken there's a many cheap collars sold...." The old boy +is embarking on a lecture on collar-structure, which, however, he is not +allowed to finish. The young lady interrupts. + +"I saw his collar," says she, "and it was _not_ a collar like +this"--that is, a metal one with a hasp--"it was a strap with a buckle, +and his master said there was a cut in it. That was why it broke." Then, +seeing the curiosity on the faces of her hearers, who would have thought +it rather presumptuous to ask for an explanation, she volunteers a short +one ending with:--"The question is now, how can we get him back to his +master?" It never crossed her mind that any evil hap had come about. +After all, the dog's excitement and distress were no more than his +separation from his owner and his strange surroundings might have +brought about in any case. The whole thing was natural enough without +assuming disaster, especially as seen by the light of that cut in the +strap. The dog was a town-bred dog, and once out of his master's sight, +might get demoralised and all astray. + +No active step for restoring Achilles to his owner seeming practicable, +nothing was left but to await the action that gentleman was sure to +adopt to make his loss known. Obviously the only course open to us now +was to take good care of the wanderer, and keep an ear on the alert for +news of his owner's identity. All seemed to agree to this, except +Achilles. + +During the brief consultation the young lady had taken a seat on a clean +truss of hay, partly from an impulse most of us share, to sit or lie on +fresh hay whenever practicable; partly to promote communion with the +dog, who crouched at her feet worshipping, not quite with the +open-mouthed, loose-tongued joy one knows so well in a perfectly +contented dog, but now and again half-uttering a stifled sound--a sound +that might have ended in a wail. When, the point seeming established +that no further step could be taken at present, Lady Gwendolen rose to +depart, a sudden frenzy seized Achilles. There is nothing more pathetic +than a dog's effort to communicate his meaning--clear to him as to a +man--and his inability to do it for want of speech. + +"You darling dog!" said Gwendolen. "What can it be he wants? Leave him +alone and let us see.... No--don't touch his chain!" For Achilles, +crouched one moment at her feet, the next leaping suddenly away, seemed +like to go mad with distress. + +The young groom Tom said something with bated breath, as not presuming +to advise too loud. His mistress caught his meaning, if not his words. +"What!"--she spoke suddenly--"knows where he is--his master?" The +thought struck a cold chill to her heart. It could only mean some mishap +to the man of yesterday. What sort of mishap? + +Some understanding seems to pass between the four men--Archibald, the +two young grooms, and the gardener--something they will not speak of +direct to her ladyship. "What?--what's that?" says she, impatient of +their scrupulousness towards her sheltered inexperience of calamity. +"Tell me straight out!" + +Old Archibald takes upon himself, as senior, to answer her question. "I +wouldna' set up to judge, my lady, for my ain part. But the lads are all +of one mind--just to follow on the dog's lead, for what may come o't." +Then he is going on "Ye ken maybe the mon might fall and be ill able to +move...." when he is caught up sharp by the girl's "Or be killed. +Yes--follow the dog." Why should she be kept from the hearing of a +mishap to this stranger, even of his death? + +Old Stephen at the Lodge saw the party and came out in haste. He had his +story to tell, and told it as one who had no blame for his own share in +it. Why should he have any? He had only carried out his orders. +Yes--that was the dog he drew trigger on. He could not be mistaken on +that point. + +"And you fired on the dog to kill it," says the young lady, flashing out +into anger. + +The old man stands his ground. "I had my orders, my lady," says he. "If +I caught sight of e'er a dog unled--to shoot un." + +"The man he belonged to--did you not see him?" + +"No ma'an coom in my sight. Had I seen a ma'an, I would have wa'arned +and cautioned him to keep to the high road, not to bring his dog inside +o' the parkland. No--no--there was ne'er a ma'an, my lady." He goes on, +very slightly exaggerating the time that passed between his shot at the +dog and its reappearance, apparently going back to the Castle. He rather +makes a merit of not having fired again from a misgiving that the dog's +owner might be there on a visit. Drews Thurrock, he says, is where he +lost sight of the dog, and that is where Achilles seems bent on going. + +Drews Thurrock is a long half-mile beyond the Keeper's Lodge in Ancester +Park, and the Lodge is a long half-mile from the Towers. Still, if it +was reasonable to follow the dog at all, where would be the sense of +holding back or flagging till he should waver in what seemed assurance +of his purpose. No--no! What he was making for might be five miles off, +for all that the party that followed him knew. But trust in the +creature's instinct grew stronger each time he turned and waited for +their approach, then scoured on as soon as it amounted to a pledge that +he would not be deserted. There was no faltering on his part. + +The river, little more than a brook at Arthur's Bridge, is wide enough +here to deserve its name. The grove of oaks which one sees from the +Ranger's Lodge hides the water from view. But Gwendolen has it in her +mind, and with it a fear that the dog's owner will be found drowned. It +was there that her brother Frank died four years since, and was found in +the deep pool above the stepping-stones, caught in a tangle of weed and +hidden, after two days' search for him far and wide. If that is to be +the story we shall know, this time, by the dog's stopping there. +Therefore none would hint at an abandonment of the search having come +thus far, even were he of the mind to run counter to the wish of the +young lady from the Castle. None dares to do this, and the party +follows her across the stretch of gorse and bracken called the Warren to +the wood beyond. There the dog has stopped, waiting eagerly, showing by +half-starts and returns that he knows he would be lost to sight if he +were too quick afoot. For the wood is dark in front of him and the +boughs hang low. + +"Nigh enough to where I set my eye on him at the first of it, last +evening," says old Stephen. He makes no reference to the affair of the +gunshot. Better forgotten perhaps! + +But he is to remember that gunshot, many a wakeful night. For the +forecast of a mishap in that fatal pool is soon to be dissipated. As the +party draws nearer the dog runs back in his eagerness, then forward +again. And then Lady Gwendolen follows him into the wood, and the men +follow her in silence. Each has some anticipation in his mind--a thing +to be silent about. + +There is a dip in the ground ahead, behind which Achilles disappears. +Another moment and he is back again, crying wildly with excitement. The +girl quickens a pace that has flagged on the rising ground; for they +have come quickly. And now she stands on the edge of a buttress-wall +that was once the boundary--so says tradition--of an amphitheatre of +sacrifice. Twenty yards on yonder is the Druids' altar, or the top of +it. For the ground has climbed up stone and wall for fifteen hundred +years, and the moss is deep on both; rich with a green no dye can rival, +for the soaking of yesterday's rain is on it still. But she can see +nothing for the moment, for the dog has leapt the wall and vanished. + +"'Tis down below, my lady--beneath the wall." It is the young gardener +who speaks. The others have seen what he sees, but are shy of speech. He +has more claim than they to the position of a friend, after so many +conferences with her ladyship over roots and bulbs this year and last. +He repeats his speech lest she should not have understood him. + +"Then quick!" says she. And all make for the nearest way down the wall +and through the fern and bramble. + +What the young gardener spoke of is a man's body, seeming dead. No doubt +of his identity, for the dog sits by him motionless, waiting. _His_ part +is finished. + +Now that the thing is known and may be faced without disguise the men +are all activity. Knives are out cutting away rebellious thorny stems +that will not keep down for trampling, and a lane is made through the +bush that keeps us from the body, while minutes that seem hours elapse. +That will do now. Bring him out, gently. + +Shot through the head--is that it? Is there to be no hope? The girl's +heart stands still as old Stephen stoops down to examine the head, where +the blood is that has clotted all the hair and beard and run to a pool +in the bracken and leaked away--who can say how plentifully?--into a +cleft in the loose stones fallen from the wall. The old keeper is in no +trim for his task--one that calls for a cool eye and a steady +finger-touch. For it is he that has done this, and the white face and +lifeless eye are saying to him that he has slain a man. He has too much +at stake for us to accept his statement that the wound on the temple is +no bullet-hole in the skull, but good for profuse loss of blood for all +that. He has seen such a wound before, he says. But then his wish for a +wound still holding out some hope of life may have fathered this +thought, and even a false memory of his experience. Perhaps he is right, +though, in one thing. If the body is lifted and carried, even up to the +lodge, the blood may break out again. Leave him where he is till the +doctor comes. + +For, at the first sight of the body, the young groom was off like a shot +to harness up the grey in the dog-cart, a combination favouring speed, +and drive his hardest to Grantley Thorpe for Dr. Nash, the nearest +medical resource. He is gone before the young lady, who knows of one +still nearer, can be alive to his action, or to anything but the white +face and lifeless hand Achilles licks in vain. + +Then, a moment later, she is aware of what has been done, and +exclaims:--"Oh dear!--why did you send him? Dr. Merridew is at the +Castle." For she knew Sir Coupland before he had his knighthood. Thereon +the other groom is starting to summon him, but she stops him. She will +go herself; then the great man will be sure to come at once. + + * * * * * + +Sir Coupland Ellicott Merridew, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.P., etc.--a +whole alphabet of them--was enjoying this moment of the first unalloyed +holiday he had had for two years, by lying in bed till nine o'clock. If +it made him too late for the collective breakfast in the new +dining-room--late Jacobean--he had only to ring for a private subsection +for himself. He had had a small cup of coffee at eight, and was +congratulating himself on it, and was now absolutely in a position not +to give any consideration to anything whatever. + +But cruel Destiny said No!--he was not to round off his long night's +rest with a neat peroration. He was interrupted in the middle of it by +what seemed, in his dream-world, just reached, the loud crack of a bone +that disintegrated under pressure; but that when he woke was clearly a +stone flung at his window. What a capital instance of dream-celerity, +thought he! Fancy the first half of that sound having conjured up the +operating-theatre at University College Hospital, fifteen years ago, and +a room full of intent faces he knew well, and enough of the second half +being available for him to identify it as--probably--the _poltergeist_ +that infested that part of the house. Perhaps, if he took no notice, the +_poltergeist_ would be discouraged and subside. Anyhow, he wouldn't +encourage it. + +But the sound came again, and the voice surely of Gwendolen, his very +great friend, with panic in it, and breathlessness as of a voice-reft +runner. He was out of bed in twenty, dressing-gowned in forty, at the +window in fifty, seconds. Not a minute lost! + +"What's all that?... A man shot! All right, I'll come." + +"Oh, do! It's so dreadful. Stephen Solmes shot him by mistake for a dog +... at least, I'll tell you directly." + +"All right. I'll come now." And in less than half an hour the speaker is +kneeling by the body on the grass; and those who found it, with others +who have gathered round even in this solitude, are waiting for the first +authoritative word of possible hope. Not despair, with a look like that +on the face of a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. + +"There is a little blood coming still. Wait till I have stopped it and +I'll tell you." He stops it somehow with the aid of a miraculous little +morocco affair, scarcely bigger than a card-case. He never leaves home +without it. Then he looks up at the anxious, beautiful face of the girl +who stoops close by, holding a dog back. "He is not dead," says he. +"That is all I can say. He must be moved as little as possible, but got +to a bed--somewhere. Is that his dog?" + +"Yes. This is Achilles." + +"How do you know it is Achilles?" + +"I'll tell you directly. _He_ told me his name yesterday." She nods +towards the motionless figure on the turf. It is not a corpse yet; that +is all that can be said, so far. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + THE HON. PERCIVAL PELLEW AND MISS CONSTANCE SMITH-DICKENSON, WHOSE + BLOOM HAD GONE OFF. OLD MAIDS WERE TWENTY-EIGHT, THENADAYS. HOW THE + TRAGEDY CAME OUT, AND MR. PELLEW TALKED IT OVER WITH MISS + SMITH-DICKENSON, ALTHOUGH HER BLOOM REMAINED OFF. WHO THE SHOT MAN + WAS. OF MR. PELLEW's CAUTION, AND A DARK GREEN FRITILLARY. WHAT YOU + CAN DO AND CAN'T DO, WHEN YOU ARE A LADY AND GENTLEMAN + + +At the Towers, in those days, there was always breakfast, but very few +people came down to it. In saying this the story accepts the phraseology +of the household, which must have known. Norbury the butler, for +instance, who used the expression to the Hon. Percival Pellew, a guest +who at half-past nine o'clock that morning expressed surprise at finding +himself the only respondent to The Bell. It was the Mr. Pellew mentioned +before, a Member of Parliament whose humorous speeches always commanded +a hearing, even when he knew nothing about the subject under discussion; +which, indeed, was very frequently the case. + +Perhaps it was to keep his hand in that he adopted a tone of serious +chaff to Mr. Norbury, such as some people think a well-chosen one +towards children, to their great embarrassment. He replied to that most +responsible of butlers with some pomposity of manner. "The question +before the house," said he--and paused to enjoy a perversion of +speech--"the question before the house comes down to breakfast I take to +be this:--Is it breakfast at all till somebody has eaten it?" + +"I could not say, sir." Mr. Norbury's manner is dignified, deferential, +and dry. More serious than need be perhaps. + +The Hon. Percival is not good at insight, and sees nothing of this. "It +certainly appears to me," he says, taking his time over it, "that until +breakfast has broken someone's fast, or someone has broken his own at +the expense of breakfast.... What's that?" + +"One of the ladies coming down, sir." Mr. Norbury would not, in the +ordinary way of business, have mentioned this fact, but it had given him +a resource against a pleasantry he found distasteful. Of course, _he_ +knew the event of the morning. Yet he could not say to the +gentleman:--"A truce to jocularity. A man was shot dead half a mile off +last night, and the body has been taken to the Keeper's Lodge." + +The lady coming downstairs was Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson, also +uninformed about the tragedy. She had made her first appearance +yesterday afternoon, and had looked rather well in a pink-figured muslin +at dinner. The interchanges between this lady and the Hon. Percival, +referring chiefly to the fact that no one else was down, seemed to have +no interest for Mr. Norbury; who, however, noted that no new topic had +dawned upon the conversation when he returned from a revision of the +breakfast-table. The fact was that the Hon. Percival had detected in +Miss Dickenson a fossil, and was feeling ashamed of a transient interest +in her last night, when she had shown insight, under the +guidance--suppose we say--of champagne. Her bloom had gone off, too, in +a strange way, and bloom was a _sine qua non_ to this gentleman. She for +her part was conscious of a chill having come between them, she having +retired to rest the evening before with a refreshing sensation that all +was not over--could not be--when so agreeable a man could show her such +marked attention. That was all she would endorse of a very temperate +Vanity's suggestions, mentally crossing out an s at the end of +"attention." If you have studied the niceties of the subject, you will +know how much that letter would have meant. + +A single lady of a particular type gets used to this sort of thing. But +her proper pride has to be kept under steam, like a salvage-tug in +harbour when there is a full gale in the Channel. However, she is better +off than her great-great-aunts, who were exposed to what was described +as _satire_. Nowadays, presumably, Man is not the treasure he was, for a +good many women seem to scrat on cheerfully enough without him. Or is it +that in those days he was the only person employed on his own valuation? + +In the period of this story--that is to say, when our present veterans +were schoolboys--the air was clearing a little. But the smell of the +recent Georgian era hung about. There was still a fixed period in +women's lives when they suddenly assumed a new identity--became old +maids and were expected to dress the part. It was twenty-eight, to the +best of our recollection. Therefore Miss Smith-Dickenson, who was +thirty-eight if she was a minute, became a convicted impostor in the +eyes of the Hon. Percival, when, about ten hours after he had said to +himself that she was not a bad figure of a woman and that some of her +remarks were racy, he perceived that she was going off; that her +complexion didn't bear the daylight; that she wouldn't wash; that she +was probably a favourite with her own sex, and, broadly speaking, an +Intelligent Person. "Never do at all!" said the Hon. Percival to +himself. And Space may have asked "What for?" But nobody answered. + +On the other hand, the lady perceived, in time, that the gentleman +looked ten years older by daylight; that no one could call him corpulent +exactly; that he might be heavy on hand, only perhaps he wanted his +breakfast--men did; that the Pall Mall and Piccadilly type of man very +soon palled, and that, in short, that steam-tug would be quite +unnecessary this time. + +Therefore, when Lady Gwendolen appeared, _point-device_ for breakfast as +to dress, but looking dazed and preoccupied, she found this lady and +gentleman being well-bred, as shown by scanty, feelingless remarks about +the absence of morning papers as well as morning people. Her advent +opened a new era for them, in which they could cultivate ignorance of +one another on the bosom of a newcomer common to both. + +"Only you two!" said the newcomer; which Miss Dickenson thought scarcely +delicate, considering the respective sexes of the persons addressed. "I +knew I was late, but I couldn't help it. Good-morning, Aunt Constance." +She gave and got a kiss. The Hon. Percival would have liked the former +for himself. Why need he have slightly flouted its receiver by a mental +note that he would not have cared about its _riposte_? It had not been +offered. + +"How well you _are_ looking, dear!" said Aunt Constance, holding her +honorary niece at arms' length to visualise her robustness. She was not +a real Aunt at all, only an old friend of the family. + +"I'm not," said Gwendolen. "Norbury, is breakfast ready? Shall we go +in?... Oh no, nothing! Please don't talk to me about it. I mean I'm all +right. Ask Sir Coupland to tell you." For the great surgeon had come +into the room, and was talking in an undertone to the old butler. Lady +Gwendolen added an apology which she kept in stereotype for the +non-appearance of her mother at breakfast. The Earl's absence was a +usage, taken for granted. Some said he had a cup of coffee in his own +room at eight, and starved till lunch. + +Other guests appeared, and the usual English country-house breakfast +followed: a haphazard banquet, a decorous scrimmage for a surfeit of +eggs, and fish, and bacon, and tongue, and tea, and coffee, and +porridge, and even Heaven itself hardly knows what. Less than usual +vanished to become a vested interest of digestion; more than usual went +back to the kitchen for appreciation elsewhere. For Sir Coupland, +appealed to, had given a brief intelligent report of the occurrence of +the morning. Then followed undertones of conversation apart between him +and the Hon. Percival, who had not the heart for a pleasantry, and +groups of two or three aside. Lady Gwen alone was silent, leaving the +narration entirely to her medical friend, to whom she had told the +incident of last evening--her interview with the man now lying between +life and death, and the way his body was found by following the dog. She +left the room as early as courtesy allowed, and Sir Coupland did not +remain long. He had to go and tell the matter to the Earl, he said. +Gwendolen, no doubt, had to do the same to her mother the Countess. It +was an awful business. + +Said Miss Smith-Dickenson to the Hon. Percival, on the shady terrace, a +quarter of an hour afterwards, "He _did_ tell you who the man is, +though? Or perhaps I oughtn't to ask?" Other guests were scattered +otherwhere, talking of the tragedy. Not a smile to be seen; still, the +victim of the mishap was a stranger. It was a cloud under which a man +might enjoy a cigar, _quand même_. + +The Hon. Percival knocked an instalment of _caput mortuum_ off his; an +inch of ash which had begun on the terrace; so the interview was some +minutes old. "Yes," said he. "Yes, he knows who it is. That's the worst +of it." + +"The worst of it?" + +"I don't know of any reason myself why I should not tell you his name. +Sir Coupland only said he wanted it kept quiet till he could see his +father, whom he knows, of course. I understand that the family belongs +to this county--lives about twenty miles off." The lady felt so +confident that she would be told the name that she seized the +opportunity to show how discreet she was, and kept silence. _She_ was +quite incapable of mere vulgar inquisitiveness, you see. Her inmost core +had the satisfaction of feeling that its visible outer husk, Miss +Constance Smith-Dickenson, was killing two birds with one stone. The way +in which the gentleman continued justified it. "Besides, I know I may +rely upon _you_ to say nothing about it." Clearly the effect of her +visible, almost palpable, discretion! For really--said the core--this +good gentleman never set eyes on my husk till yesterday evening. And he +is a Man of the World and all that sort of thing. + +Miss Smith-Dickenson knew perfectly well how her sister Lilian--the one +with the rolling, liquid eyes, now Baroness Porchammer--would have +responded. But she herself mistrusting her powers of gushing right, did +not feel equal to "Oh, but how nice of you to say so, dear Mr. Pellew!" +And she felt that she was not cut out for a satirical puss neither, like +her sister Georgie, now Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, to whom a mental review +of possible responses assigned, "Oh dear, how complimentary we are, all +of a sudden!"--with possibly a heavy blow on the gentleman's fore-arm +with a fan, if she had one. So she decided on "Pray go on. You may rely +on my discretion." It was simple, and made her feel like Elizabeth in +"Pride and Prejudice"--a safe model, if a little old-fashioned. + +The gentleman pulled at his cigar in a considerative way, and said in a +perfunctory one:--"I am sure I may." Nevertheless, he postponed his +answer through a mouthful of smoke, dismissing it into the atmosphere +finally, to allow of speech determined on during its detention: "I'm +afraid it's Adrian Torrens--there can't be two of the name who write +poetry. Besides--the dog!" + +The lady said "Good Heavens!" in a frightened underbreath, and was +visibly shocked. For it is usually someone of whom one knows nothing at +all that gets shot accidentally. Now, Adrian Torrens was the name of a +man recently distinguished as the author of some remarkable verse. A man +of very good family too. So--altogether!... This was the expression used +by Miss Smith-Dickenson's core, almost unrebuked. "Of course, I remember +the poem about the collie-dog," she added aloud. + +"Can you remember the name of the dog? Wasn't it Aeneas?" + +"No--Achilles." + +"I meant Achilles. Well--his dog's Achilles." + +"I thought you said there was no name on the collar." + +"No more there was. But I understand that Gwen met him yesterday +evening--down by Arthur's Bridge, I believe--and had some conversation +with him, I gather." + +"Oh!" + +"But why? Why 'Oh!'--I mean?" + +"I didn't mean anything. Only that she was looking so scared and unhappy +at breakfast, and that would account for it." + +"Surely ..." + +"Surely what?" + +"Well--does it want accounting for? A man shot dead almost in sight of +the house, and by your own gamekeeper! Isn't that enough?" + +"Enough in all conscience. But it makes a difference. All the +difference. I can't exactly describe.... It is not as if she had never +met him in her life before. _Now_ do you see?..." + +"Never met him in her life before?..." The Hon. Percival stands waiting +for more, one-third of his cigar in abeyance between his finger-tips. +Getting no more, he continues:--"Why--you don't mean to say?..." + +"What?" + +"Well--it's something like this, if I can put the case. Take somebody +you've just met and spoken to...." But Mr. Pellew's prudence became +suddenly aware of a direction in which the conversation might drift, and +he pulled up short. If he pushed on rashly, how avoid an entanglement of +himself in a personal discussion? If his introduction to this lady had +been days old, instead of merely hours, there would have been no +quicksands ahead. He felt proud of his astuteness in dealing with a wily +sex. + +Only he shouldn't have been so transparent. All that the lady had to do +was to change the subject of the conversation with venomous decision, +and she did it. "What a beautiful dark green fritillary!" said she. "I +hope you care for butterflies, Mr. Pellew. I simply dote on them." She +was conscious of indebtedness for this to her sister Lilian. Never +mind!--Lilian was married now, and had no further occasion to be +enchanting. A sister might borrow a cast-off. Its effect was to make the +gentleman clearly alive to the fact that she knew exactly why he had +stopped short. + +But Miss Smith-Dickenson did _not_ say to Mr. Pellew:--"I am perfectly +well aware that you, sir, see danger ahead--danger of a delicate +discussion of the difference _our_ short acquaintance would have made to +me if I had heard this morning that _you_ were shot overnight. Pray +understand that I discern in this nothing but restless male vanity, +always on the alert to save its owner--or slave--from capture or +entanglement by dangerous single women with no property. You would have +been perfectly safe in my hands, even if your recommendations as an +Adonis had been less equivocal." She said no such thing. But something +or other--can it have been the jump to that butterfly?--made Mr. Pellew +conscious that if she _had_ worded a thought of the kind, it would have +been just like a female of her sort. Because he wasn't going to end up +that she wouldn't have been so very far wrong. + +A name ought to be invented for these little ripples of human +intercourse, that are hardly to be called embarrassments, seeing that +their _monde_ denies their existence. We do not believe it is only +nervous and imaginative folk that are affected by them. The most prosaic +of mankind keeps a sort of internal or subjective diary of contemporary +history, many of whose entries run on such events, and are so very +unlike what their author said at the time. + +The dark green fritillary did not stay long enough to make any +conversation worth the name, having an appointment with a friend in the +air. Mr. Pellew hummed _Non piu andrai farfallon amoroso_, producing +on the mind of Miss Dickenson vague impressions of the Opera, +Her Majesty's--not displaced by a Hotel in those days--tinctured +with a consciousness of Club-houses and Men of the World. This +gentleman, with his whiskers and monocular wrinkle responding to his +right-eye-glass-grip, who had as good as admitted last night that his +uncle was intimate with the late Prince Regent, was surely an example of +this singular class; which is really scarcely admissible on the domestic +hearth, owing to the purity of the latter. Possibly, however, these +impressions had nothing to do with the lady's discovery that perhaps she +ought to go in and find out what "they" were thinking of doing this +morning. It may be that it was only due to her consciousness that you +cannot--when female and single--stand alone with a live single gentleman +on a terrace, both speechless. You can walk up and down with him, +conversing vivaciously, but you mustn't come to an anchor beside him in +silence. There would be a suspicion about it of each valuing the other's +presence for its own sake, which would never do. + +"Goin' in?" said the Hon. Percival. "Well--it's been very jolly out +here." + +"Very pleasant, I am sure," said Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson. If +either made a diary entry out of this, it was of the slightest. She +moved away across the lawn, her skirt brushing it audibly, as the +cage-borne skirt of those days did, suggesting the advantages of +Jack-in-the-Green's costume. For Jack could leave his green on the +ground and move freely inside it. He did not stick out at the top. Mr. +Pellew remained on the shady terrace, to end up his cigar. He was a +little disquieted by the recollection of his very last words, which +remembered themselves on his tongue-tip as a key remembers itself in +one's hand, when one has forgotten if one really locked that box. Why, +though, should he not say to a maiden lady of a certain age--these are +the words he thought in--that it was very nice on this terrace? Why not +indeed? But that wasn't exactly the question. What he had really said +was that it _had been_ very nice on this terrace. All the difference! + +Miss Dickenson was soon aware what the "they" she had referred to was +going to do, and offered to accompany it. The Countess and her daughter +and others were the owners of the voices she could hear outside the +drawing-room door when at liberty to expand, after a crush in half a +French window that opened on the terrace. Her ladyship the Countess was +as completely upset as her husband's ancestry permitted--quite white +and almost crying, only not prepared to admit it. "Oh, Constance dear," +said she. "Are you there? You are always so sensible. But isn't this +awful?" + +Aunt Constance perceived the necessity for a sympathetic spurt. She had +been taking it too easily, evidently. She was equal to the occasion, +responding with effusion that it was "so dreadful that she could think +of nothing else!" Which wasn't true, for the moment before she had been +collating the Hon. Percival's remarks and analysing the last one. Not +that she was an unfeeling person--only more like everyone else than +everyone else may be inclined to admit. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER DAUGHTER WALKED OVER TO THE VERDERER'S + HALL. HOW ACHILLES KNEW BETTER THAN THE DOCTORS. THE ACCIDENT WAS + NOT A FATAL ACCIDENT. AN OLD GENERAL WHO MADE A POOR FIGURE AS A + CORPSE. HOW THE WOUNDED MAN'S FATHER AND SISTER CAME, AND HOW HE + HIMSELF WAS TO BE CARRIED TO THE TOWERS + + +There was no need for a reason why Lady Gwendolen and her mother should +take the first opportunity of walking over to the Lodge, where this man +lay either dead or dying; but one presented itself to the Countess, as +an addendum to others less defined. "We ought to go," said she, "if only +for poor old Stephen's sake. The old man will be quite off his head with +grief. And it was such an absolute accident." + +This was on the way, walking over the grassland. Aunt Constance felt a +little unconvinced. He who sends a bullet abroad at random may hear +later that it had its billet all along, though it was so silent about +it. As for the girl, she was in a fever of excitement; to reach the +scene of disaster, anyhow--to hear some news of respite, possibly. No +one had vouched for Death so far. + +Sir Coupland was already on the spot, having only stayed long enough to +give particulars of the catastrophe to the Earl; but he was not by the +bedside. He was outside the cottage, speaking with Dr. Nash, the local +doctor from Grantley Thorpe, who had passed most of the night there. +There was a sort of conclusiveness about their conference, even as seen +from a distance, which promised ill. As the three ladies approached, he +came to meet them. + +"Is there a chance?" said the Countess, as he came within hearing. + +Only a shake of the head in reply. It quenches all the eagerness to hear +in the three faces, each in its own degree. Aunt Constance's gives place +to "Oh dear!" and solicitude. Lady Ancester's to a gasp like sudden +pain, and "Oh, Sir Coupland! are you quite, _quite_ sure?" Her +daughter's to a sharp cry, or the first of one cut short, and "Oh, +mamma!" Then a bitten lip, and a face shrinking from the others' view as +she turns and looks out across the Park. That is Arthur's Bridge over +yonder, where last evening she spoke with this man that now lies dead, +and took some note of his great dark eyes in the living glory of the +sunset. + +As the world and sky swim about her for a moment, even she herself +wonders why she should be so hard hit. A perfect stranger! A man she had +never before in her life spoken to. And then, for such a moment! But the +great dark eyes of the man now dead are upon her, and she does not at +first hear that her mother is speaking to her. + +"Gwen dear!... Gwen darling!--you hear what Sir Coupland says? We can do +no good." She has to touch her daughter's arm to get her attention. + +"Well!" The girl turns, and her tears are as plain on her face as its +beauty. "That means go home?" says she; and then gives a sort of +heart-broken sigh. "Oh dear!" Her lack of claim to grieve for this man +cuts like a knife. + +"We can do no good," her mother repeats. "Now, can we?" + +"No, I see. Suppose we go." She turns as though to go, but either her +intention hangs fire, or she only wishes her face unseen for the moment; +for she pauses, saying to her mother: "There is old Stephen. Ought we +not to see him--one of us?" + +"Yes!" says her ladyship, decisive on reflection. "I had forgotten about +old Stephen. But _I_ can go to him. You go back!... Yes, dear, you had +better go back.... What?" + +"I am not going back. I want to see the body--this man's body. I want to +see his face.... No; I am not a child, mamma. Let me have my way." + +"If you must, darling, you must. But I cannot see what use it can be. +See--here is Aunt Constance! _She_ does not want to see it...." A +confirmatory head-shake from Miss Dickenson. "Why should _you_?" + +"Aunt Constance never spoke to him. I did. And he spoke to me. Let me +go, mamma dear. Don't oppose me." Indeed, the girl seems almost +feverishly anxious, quite on a sudden, to have this wish. No need for +her mother to accompany her, she adds. To which her mother replies:--"I +would if you wished it, dear Gwen"; whereupon Aunt Constance, perceiving +in her heart an opportunity for public service tending to distinction, +says so would she. Further, in view of a verdict from somebody somewhere +later on, that she showed a very nice feeling on this occasion, she +takes an opportunity before they reach the cottage to say to Lady +Gwendolen in an important aside:--"You won't let your mother go into the +room, dear. Anything of this sort tells so on her system." To which the +reply is rather abrupt:--"You needn't come, either of you." So that is +settled. + +The body had not been carried into a room of the cottage, but into what +goes by the name of the Verderer's Hall, some fifty yards off. That much +carriage was spared by doing so. It now lies on the "Lord's table," so +called not from any reference to sacramental usage, but because the Lord +of the Manor sat at it on the occasions of the Manorial Courts. Three +centuries have passed since the last Court Baron; the last landlord who +sat in real council with his tenantry under its roof having been Roger +Earl of Ancester, who was killed in the Civil War. But old customs die +hard, and every Michaelmas Day--except it fall on a Sunday--the Earl or +his Steward at twelve o'clock receives from the person who enjoys a +right of free-warren over certain acres that have long since harboured +neither hare nor rabbit, an annual tribute which a chronicle as old as +Chaucer speaks of as "iiij tusshes of a wild bore." If no boars' tusks +are forthcoming, he has to be content with some equivalent devised to +meet their scarcity nowadays. Otherwise, the old Hall grows to be more +and more a museum of curios connected with the Park and outlying +woodlands, the remains of the old forest that covered the land when even +Earls were upstarts. A record pair of antlers on the wall is still +incredulously measured tip to tip by visitors unconvinced by local +testimony, and a respectable approach to Roman Antiquities is at rest +after a learned description by Archaeology. The place smells sweet of an +old age that is so slow--that the centuries have handled so +tenderly--that one's heart thinks of it rather as spontaneous +preservation than decay. It will see to its own survival through some +lifetimes yet, if no man restores it or converts it into a Studio. + +Is his rating "Death" or not, whose body is so still on its extemporised +couch--just a mattress from the keeper's cottage close at hand? Was the +doctor's wording warranted when he said just now under his +breath:--"_It_ is in here"? Could he not have said "He"? What does the +dog think, that waits and watches immovable at _its_ feet? If this is +death, what is he watching for? What does the old keeper himself think, +who lingers by this man whom he may have slain--this man who _may_ live, +yet? He has scarcely taken his eyes off that white face and its +strapped-up wound from the first moment of his sight of it. He does not +note the subdued entry of Lady Gwendolen and the two doctors, and when +touched on the shoulder to call his attention to the presence of a +ladyship from the Castle, defers looking round until a fancy of his +restless hope dies down--a fancy that the mouth was closing of itself. +He has had such fancies by scores for the last few hours, and said +farewell to each with a groan. + +"My mother is at the cottage, Stephen," says Gwen. "She would like to +see you, I know." Thereon the old man turns to go. He looks ten years +older than his rather contentious self of yesterday. The young lady says +no word either way of his responsibility for this disaster. She cannot +blame, but she cannot quite absolve him yet, without a grudge. Her +mother can; and will, somehow. + +The dog has run to her side for a moment--has uttered an undertone of +bewildered complaint; then has gone back patiently to his old post, and +is again watching. The great surgeon and the girl stand side by side, +watching also. The humbler medico stands back a little, his eyes rather +on his senior than on the body. + +"It is absolutely certain--this?" says Lady Gwen; questioning, not +affirming. She is wonderfully courageous--so Sir Coupland thinks--in the +presence of Death. But she is ashy white. + +He utters the barest syllable of doubt; then half-turns for courtesy to +his junior, who echoes it. Then each shakes his head, looking at the +other. + +"Is there no sound--nothing to show?" Gwen has some hazy idea that there +ought to be, if there is not, some official note of death due from the +dying, a rattle in the throat at least. + +Sir Coupland sees her meaning. "In a case of this sort," says he, "sheer +loss of blood, the breath may cease so gradually that sound is +impossible. All one can say is that there _is_ no breath, and no action +of the heart--so far as one can tell." He speaks in a business-like way +that is a sort of compliment to his hearer; no accommodation of facts as +to a child; then raises the lifeless hand slightly and lets it fall, +saying:--"See!" + +To his surprise the girl, without any comment, also raises the band in +hers, and stands holding it. "Yes--it will fall," says he, as though she +had spoken questioning it. But still she holds it, and never shrinks +from the horror of its mortality, somewhat to the wonder of her only +spectator. For the other doctor has withdrawn, to speak to someone +outside. + +Of a sudden the dog Achilles starts barking. A short, sharp, startled +bark--once, twice--and is silent. The girl lays the dead hand gently +down, not dropping it, but replacing it where it first lay. She does not +speak for a moment--cannot, perhaps. Then it comes with a cry, neither +of pain nor joy--mere tension. "Oh, Dr. Merridew ... the fingers closed +... They closed on mine ... the fingers _closed_.... I know it. I know +it ... The fingers _closed_!..." She says it again and again as though +in terror that her word might be doubted. He sees as she turns to him +that all her pride of self-control has given way. She is fighting +against an outburst of tears, and her breath comes and goes at will, or +at the will of some power that drives it. Sir Coupland may be +contemplating speech--something it is correct to say, something the +cooler judgment will endorse--but whatever it is he keeps it to himself. +He is not one of those cheap sages that has _hysteria_ on his tongue's +tip to account for everything. It _may_ be that; but it may be ... +Well--he has seen some odd cases in his time. + +So, without speaking to the agitated young lady, he simply calls his +colleague back; and, after a word or two aside with him, says to +her:--"You had better leave him to us. Go now." It gives her confidence +that he does not soothe or cajole, but speaks as he would to a man. She +goes, and as she walks across to the Keeper's Lodge makes a little peace +for her heart out of small material. Sir Coupland said "him" this +time--look you!--not "it" as before. + +The daughter finds the mother, five minutes later, trying a well-meant +word to the old keeper; to put a little heart in him, if possible. It +was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is +silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides, +she is only half grieved for the old chap--has only a languid sympathy +in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes +Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will +be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise the +exigencies of Hell. Also, she has recovered her self-command; and will +not show, even to her mother, how keen her interest has been in this man +in the balance betwixt life and death. + +As to the older lady, who has fought shy of seeing the body, the affair +is no more than a casualty, very little coloured by the fact that its +victim is a "gentleman." This sort of thing may impress the groundlings, +while a real Earl or Duke remains untouched. A coronet has a very +levelling effect on the plains below. Your mere baronet is but a +hillock, after all. Possibly, however, this is a proletariate view, +which always snubs rank, and her ladyship the Countess may never have +given a thought to this side of the case. Certainly she is honestly +grieved on behalf of her old friend Stephen, whom she has known for +thirty years past. In fact, of the two, as they walk back to the Towers, +the mother shows more than the daughter the reaction of emotion. + +Says her daughter to her as they walk back--the three as they came--"I +believe he will recover, for all that. I believe Dr. Merridew believes +it, too. I am certain the fingers moved." Her manner lays stress on her +own equanimity. It is more self-contained than need be, all things +considered. + +"The eyesight is easily deceived," says Miss Dickenson, prompt with the +views of experience. She always holds a brief for common sense, and is +considered an authority. "Even experts are misled--sometimes--in such +cases...." + +Gwen interrupts:--"It had nothing to do with eyesight. I _felt_ the +fingers move." Whereupon her mother, roused by her sudden emphasis, +says:--"But we are so glad that it _should_ be so, Gwen darling." And +then, when the girl stops in her walk and says:--"Of course you are--but +why not?" she has a half-smile as for petulance forgiven, as she +says:--"Because you fired up so about it, darling; that's all. We did +not understand that you had hold of the hand. Was it stiff?" This in a +semi-whisper of protest against the horror of the subject. + +"Not the least. Cold!--oh, how cold!" She shudders of set purpose to +show how cold. "But not _stiff_." + +The two other ladies go into a partnership of seniority, glancing at +each other; and each contributes to a duet about the duty of being +hopeful, and we shall soon know, and at any rate, the case could not be +in better hands, and so on. But whereas the elder lady was only working +for reassurance--puzzled somewhat at a certain flushed emphasis in this +beautiful daughter of hers--Miss Smith-Dickenson was taking mental +notes, and looking intuitive. She was still looking intuitive when she +joined the numerous party at lunch, an hour later. She had more than one +inquiry addressed to her about "this unfortunate accident," but she +reserved her information, with mystery, acquiring thereby a more defined +importance. A river behind a _barrage_ is much more impressive than a +pump. + + * * * * * + +Sir Coupland Merridew's place at table was still empty when the first +storm of comparison of notes set in over the events and deeds of the +morning. A conscious reservation was in the air about the disaster of +last night, causing talk to run on every other subject, but betrayed by +more interest in the door and its openings than lunch generally shows. +Presently it would open for the overdue guest, and he would have news +worth hearing, said Hope. For stinted versions of event had leaked out, +and had outlived the reservations and corrections of those who knew. + +Lunch was conscious of Sir Coupland's arrival in the house before he +entered, and its factors nodded to each other and said: "That's him!" +Nice customs of Grammar bow before big mouthfuls. However, Miss +Smith-Dickenson did certainly say: "I believe that _is_ Sir Coupland." + +It was, and in his face was secret content and reserve. In response to a +volley of What?--Well?--Tell us!--and so forth, he only said:--"Shan't +tell you anything till I've had something to eat!" But he glanced across +at Lady Gwen and nodded slightly--a nod for her exclusive use. + +Lunch, liberated by what amounted to certainty that the man was not +killed, ran riot; almost all its factors taking a little more, thank +you! It was brought up on its haunches by being suddenly made aware that +Sir Coupland--having had something to eat--had spoken. He had to repeat +his words to reach the far end of the long table. + +"Yes--I said ... only of course if you make such a row you can't +hear.... I said that this gentleman cannot be said to have recovered +consciousness"--here he paused for a mistaken exclamation of +disappointment to get nipped in the bud, and then continued--"yet a +while. However, I am glad to say I--both of us, Dr. Nash and myself, I +should say--were completely mistaken about the case. It has turned out +contrary to every expectation that...." Nobody noticed that a pause here +was due to Lady Gwen having made "No!" with her lips, and looked a +protest at the speaker. He went on:--"Well ... in short ... I would have +sworn the man was dead ... and he isn't! That's all I have to say about +it at present. It might be over-sanguine to say he is alive--meaning +that he will succeed in keeping so--but he is certainly not _dead_." +Miss Dickenson lodged her claim to a mild form of omniscience by saying +with presence of mind:--"Exactly!" but without presumption, so that only +her near neighbours heard her. Self-respect called for no more. + +Had the insensible man spoken?--the Earl asked pertinently. Oh dear, no! +Nothing so satisfactory as that, so far. The vitality was almost _nil_. +The Earl retired on his question to listen to what a Peninsular veteran +was saying to Gwen. This ancient warrior was one who talked but little, +and then only to two sorts, old men like himself, with old memories of +India and the Napoleonic wars, and young women like Gwen. As this was +his way, it did not seem strange that he should address her all but +exclusively, with only a chance side-word now and then to his host, for +mere courtesy. + +"When I was in Madras in eighteen-two--no--eighteen-three," he said, "I +was in the Nineteenth Dragoons under Maxwell--he was killed, you +know--in that affair with the Mahrattas...." + +"I know. I've read about the Battle of Assaye, and how General Wellesley +had two horses shot under him...." + +"That was it. Scindia, you know--that affair! They had some very good +artillery for those days, and our men had to charge up to the guns. I +was cut down in Maxwell's cavalry charge, and went near bleeding to +death. He was a fine fellow that did it...." + +"Never mind him! You were going to tell me about yourself." + +"Why--I was given up for dead. It was a good job I escaped decent +interment. But the surgeon gave me the benefit of the doubt, and stood +me over for a day or two. Then, as I didn't decay properly...." + +"Oh, General--don't be so horrible!" This from Miss Smith-Dickenson +close at hand. But Gwen is too eager to hear, to care about delicacies +of speech, and strikes in:-- + +"Do go on, General! Never mind Aunt Constance. She is so fussy. Go +on--'didn't decay properly'...." + +"Well--I was behindhand! Not up to my duties, considered as a corpse! +The doctor stood me over another twenty-four hours, and I came to. I was +very much run down, certainly, but I _did_ come to, or I shouldn't be +here now to tell you about it, my dear. I should have been sorry." + +A matter-of-fact gentleman "pointed out" that had General Rawnsley died +of his wounds, he would not have been in a position to feel either joy +or sorrow, or to be conscious that he was not dining at Ancester. The +General fished up a wandering eyeglass to look at him, and said:--"Quite +correct!" Miss Smith-Dickenson remarked upon the dangers attendant on +over-literal interpretations. The Hon. Mr. Pellew perceived in this that +Miss Dickenson had a sort of dry humour. + +"But you _did_ come to, General, and you _are_ telling me about it," +said Lady Gwen. "Now, how long was it before you rejoined your +regiment?" + +"H'm--well! I wasn't good for much two months later, or I should have +come in for the fag-end of the campaign. All right in three months, I +should say. But then--I was a young fellah!--in those days. How old's +your man?" + +"This gentleman who has been shot?" says Gwen, with some stiffness. "I +have not the slightest idea." But Sir Coupland answered the question for +her. "At a guess, General, twenty-five or twenty-six. He ought to do +well if he gets through the next day or two. He may have a good +constitution. I can't say yet. Yours must have been remarkable." + +"I had such a good appetite, you know," says the General. "Such a devil +of a twist! If I had had my way, I should have been at Argaum two months +later. But, good Lard!--they wouldn't let me out of Hospital." The old +soldier, roused by the recollection of a fifty-year-old grievance, still +rankling, launched into a denunciation of the effeminacy and timidity of +Authorities and Seniors, of all sorts and conditions. His youth was back +upon him with its memories, and he had forgotten that he too was now a +Senior. His torrent of thinly disguised execrations was of service to +Lady Gwen; as the original subject of the conversation, just shot, was +naturally forgotten. She had got all the enlightenment she wanted about +him, and was cultivating an artificial lack of interest in his accident. + +She was, however, a little dissatisfied with her own success in this +branch of horticulture. Her anxiety had felt itself fully justified till +now by the bare facts of the case. Her longing that this man should not +die was so safe while it seemed certain that he could not live, that she +felt under no obligation to account to herself for it. Analysis of +niceties of feeling in the presence of Death were uncalled for, surely. +But now, with at least a chance of his recovery, she felt that she ought +to be able to think of something else. So she talked of Sardanapalus and +Charles Keane at the Princesses' Theatre--the first a play, the second a +player--and the General, declining more than monosyllables to the +matter-o'-fact gentleman, subsided into wrathful recollection of an +exasperated young Dragoon chafing under canvas beneath an Indian sun, +and panting for news of his regiment in the north, fifty years before. + +But such intermittent conversation could not prevent her seeing that +Norbury the butler had handed a visiting-card, pencilled on the back, to +her father, and had whispered a message to him with a sense of its +gravity, and that her father had replied:--"Yes, say I will be there +presently." Nor that--in response to remote inquiry from his Countess +at the end of an avenue of finger-glasses--he had thrown the words +"Hamilton Torrens and the daughter--mother too ill to come--won't come +up to the house until he's fit to move!" all the length of the table. +That her mother had said:--"Oh yes--you know them," perhaps because of +an apologetic manner in her husband for being the recipient of the +message. Also that curiosity and information were mutual in the avenue, +and that next-door neighbours but one were saying:--"What's that?" and +getting no answer. + +However, the Intelligence Department did itself credit in the end, and +everyone knew that, immediately on the receipt of sanction from +headquarters, Tom Kettering the young groom had mounted the grey mare--a +celebrity in these parts--and made a foxhunter's short cut across a +stiff country to carry the news of the disaster to Pensham Steynes, Sir +Hamilton Torrens's house twenty miles off, and that that baronet and his +daughter Irene Torrens had come at once. "I hope he hasn't killed the +mare," said the Earl apprehensively. But his wife summoned Norbury to a +secret confidence, saying after it:--"No--it's all right--he came on the +box--didn't ride." From which the Earl knew--if the avenue didn't--that +Tom Kettering the groom, after an incredible break across country, +stabled the mare at Pensham Steynes, and rode back with the carriage. +The whole thing had been negotiated in less than three hours. + +All these things Gwendolen comes to be aware of somehow. But all of us +know how a chance word in a confused conversation stays by the hearer, +who is forced to listen to what is no elucidation of it, and is +discontented. Such a word had struck this young lady; and she watched +for her father, as lunch died away, to get the elucidation overdue. She +was able to intercept him at the end of a long colloquy with Sir +Coupland. "What did you mean, papa dearest, just now?..." + +"What did I mean, dear?... When?" + +"By 'until he's fit to move'?" + +"I meant until Sir Coupland says he can be safely brought up to the +house." + +"_This_ house, my dear?" It is not Gwen who speaks, but her mother, who +has joined the conversation. + +"Certainly, my love," says the Earl, with a kind of appealing +diffidence. "If you have no very strong objection. He can be carried, +Sir Coupland says, as soon as the wound is safe from inflammation. Of +course he must not be left at the Hall." + +"Of course not. But there are beds at the Lodge...." However, the Earl +says with a meek self-assertion:--"I think I would rather he were +brought here. His father and George were at Christ Church together...." +Before which her ladyship concedes the point. His lordship then says he +shall go at once to the Hall to see Sir Hamilton, and Gwen suggests that +she shall accompany him. She may persuade Miss Torrens to come up to the +Towers. + +This assumption that the wounded man could be moved, after conversation +between the Earl and Sir Coupland, was so reassuring, that Gwendolen +felt it more than ever due to herself to cultivate that indifference +about his recovery. However, she could not easily be too affectionate +and hospitable to his sister under the circumstances. + +By-the-by, it was rather singular that she had never seen this Irene +Torrens, when they were almost neighbours--only eighteen miles by road +between them. And Irene's father had been her Uncle George's great +friend at Oxford; both at Christ Church! This uncle, who, like his +friend Torrens, had gone into the army, was killed in action at Rangoon, +long before Gwendolen's day. + +It all takes so long to tell. The omission of half would shorten the +tale and spare the reader so much. What a very small book the History of +the World would be if all the events were left out! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + BACK IN SAPPS COURT. MICHAEL RAGSTROAR'S SECULARISM. HIS EXTENDED + KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. YET A GAOL-BIRD PROPER WAS OUTSIDE IT. ONE IN + QUEST OF A WIDOW. THE DEAD BEETLE IN DOLLY'S CAKE. HOW UNCLE MO DID + NOT LIKE THE MAN'S LOOKS. THERE _WAS_ NO WIDOW DAVERILL AND NEITHER + BURR NOR PRICHARD WOULD DO. HOW AUNT M'RIAR HAD BEEN AT CHAPEL. THE + SONS OF LEVI. MICHAEL'S NOBLE LOYALTY TOWARDS OUTLAWS + + +It was a fine Sunday morning in Sapps Court, and our young friend +Michael Rackstraw was not attending public worship. Not that it was his +custom to do so. Nevertheless, the way he replied to a question by a +chance loiterer into the Court seemed to imply the contrary. The +question was, what the Devil he was doing that for?--and referred to the +fact that he was walking on his hands. His answer was, that it was +because he wasn't at Church. Not that all absentees from religious rites +went about upside down; but that, had he been at Church, the narrow +exclusiveness of its ritual would have kept him right side up. + +The speaker's appearance was disreputable, and his manner morose, +sullen, and unconciliatory. Michael, even while still upside down, +fancied he could identify a certain twist in his face that seemed not +unfamiliar; but thought this might be due to his own drawbacks on +correct observation. Upright again, his identification was confirmed and +he knew quite well whose question he was answering by the time he felt +his feet. It was the man he had seen in the clutches of the water-rat at +Hammersmith, when both were capsized into the river six months ago. This +put him on his guard, and he prepared to meet further questions with +evasion or defiance. But he would flavour them with substantial facts. +It would confuse issues and make it more difficult to convict him of +mendacity. + +"You don't look an unlikely young beggar," said the man. "What name are +you called?" + +Michael thought a moment and settled that it might be impolitic to +disclose his name. So he answered simply:--"Ikey." Now, this name was +not contrary to any statute or usage. The man appeared to accept it in +good faith, and Michael decided in his heart that he was softer than +what he'd took him for. + +He recovered some credit, however, by his next inquiry which seemed to +place baptismal names among negligibles: "Ah, that's it, is it? But Ikey +what? What do they call your father, if you've got one?" + +Three courses occurred to Michael; improbable fiction, evasive or +defiant; plausible fiction; and the undisguised truth. As the first, the +Duke of Wellington's name recommended itself. He had, however, decided +mentally that this man was a queer customer, and might be an awkward +customer. So he discarded the Duke--satire might irritate--and chose the +second course to avoid the third. But he was betrayed by Realism, which +suggested that a study from Nature would carry conviction. He decided on +assuming the name of his friend the apothecary round the corner, up the +street facing over against the Wheatsheaf. He replied that his father's +name was Heeking's. It was easier to do this than to invent a name, +which might have turned out an insult to the human understanding. He was +disgusted to be met with incredulity. + +"Don't believe you," said the man. "You're a young liar. Where's your +father now--now this very minute?" + +"Abed." + +"What's he doing there?" + +"Sleeping of it off. It was Saturday with him last night. He had to be +fetched from the King's Arms very careful. Perkins's Entire. Barclay +Perkins. Fetched him myself! Mean to say I didn't?" But this part of the +tale was probable and no comment seemed necessary. + +"Where's your mother?" + +"Cookin' 'im a bloater over the fire. It does the temper good. Can't yer +smell it?" A flavour of cooking confirmed Michael's words, but he seemed +to require a more formal admission of his veracity than a mere nostril +set ajar and a glance at an open window. "Say, if you don't! On'y +there's no charge for the smelling of it. She'll tell yer just the same +like me, word in and word out. You can arks for yourself. I can 'oller +'er up less time than talkin' about it. You've only to say!" + +But this man, the twist of whose face had not been improved by his +recognition of the bloater, seemed to wish to confine his communications +to Michael, rather decisively. Indeed, there was a sound of veiled +intimidation in his voice as he said:--"You leave your mother to see to +the herrings, young 'un, and just you listen to me. You be done with +your kidding and listen to me. _You_ can tell me as much as I want to +know. Sharp young beggar!--you know what's good for you." An +intimidation of a possible _douceur_ perhaps? + +Now Master Michael, though absolutely deficient in education--his class, +a sort of aristocracy of guttersnipes, was so in the pre-Board-School +fifties,--was as sharp as a razor already even in the days of Dave +Wardle's early accident, and had added a world of experience to his +stock in the last few months. He had, in fact, been seeing the +Metropolis, as an exponent or auxiliary of his father's vocation as a +costermonger; and had made himself extremely useful, said Mr. Rackstraw, +in the manner of speaking. Only the manner of speaking, strictly +reported, did not use the expression _extremely_, but another +one which we need not dwell upon except to make reference to its +inappropriateness. Mr. Rackstraw was not a man of many words, so he had +to fall back upon the same very often or hold his tongue: a course +uncongenial to him. This word was a _pièce de résistance_--a kind of +sheet-anchor. + +In the course of these last few months of active costermongery, of +transactions in early peas and new potatoes, spring-cabbage and ripe +strawberries, he had acquired not only an insight into commerce but +apparently an intimate knowledge of every street in London, and a very +fair acquaintance with its celebrities; meaning thereby its real +celebrities--its sportsmen, patrons of the Prize Ring, cricketers, +rowing-men, billiard-players, jockeys--what not? Its less important +representative men, statesmen, bishops, writers, artists, lawyers; +soldiers and sailors even, though here concession was rife, had to take +a second place. But there was one class--a class whose members may have +belonged to any one of these--of which Michael's experience was very +limited. It was the class of gaol-birds. This type, the most puzzling to +eyes that see it for the first time, the most unmistakable by those well +read in it, was the type that was now setting this juvenile coster's +wits to work upon its classification, on this May morning in Sapps +Court. Michael's previous record of him was an interrupted sight of his +face in the river-garden at Hammersmith, and a reference to his +felonious antecedents at the inquest. He was, by the time the +conversation assumed the interest due to a hint of emolument, able to +say to himself that he should know the Old Bailey again by the cut of +its jib next time he came across it. + +In reply, he scorned circumlocution, saying briefly:--"Wot'll it come +to? Wot are you good for? That's the p'int." + +"You tell me no lies and you'll see. There's an old widow-lady down this +Court. Don't you go and say there ain't!" + +"There's any number. Which old widder?" + +"Name of Daverill. Old enough to be your father's granny." + +"No sich a name! There's one a sight older than that though--last house +down the Court--top bell." + +"How old do you make her out?" + +"Two 'underd next birthday!" But Michael perceived in his questioner's +eye a possible withdrawal of his offer of a consideration, and amended +his statement:--"Ninety-nine, p'raps!--couldn't say to arf a minute." + +"House at the end where the old cock in a blue shirt's smoking a +pipe--is that it?" + +"Ah!--up two flights of stairs. But she can't see you, nor yet hear you, +to speak of." + +"Who's the old cock?" + +"This little boy's uncle. He b'longs to the Fancy. 'Eavyweight he was, +wunst upon a time." And Dave Wardle, who had joined the colloquy, gave +confirmatory evidence: "He's moy Uncle Moses, he is. And he's moy sister +Dolly's Uncle Moses, he is. And moy sister Dolly she had a piece of koyk +with a beadle in it. She _had_. A dead beadle!" But this evidence was +ruled out of court by general consent; or rather, perhaps, it should be +said that the witness remained in the box giving evidence of the same +nature for his own satisfaction, while the court's attention wandered. + +"Oh--he was a heavyweight, was he? An ugly customer, I should reckon." +The stranger said this more to himself than to the boys. But he spoke +direct to Michael with the question, "What was it you said was the old +lady's name, now?" + +The boy, shrewd as he was, was but a boy after all. Was it wonderful +that he should accept the implication that he had given the name? Thrown +off his guard he answered:--"Name of Richards." Whereupon Dave, who was +still stuttering on melodiously about the dead monster in Dolly's cake, +endeavoured to correct his friend without complete success. + +"Pitcher, is it?" said the stranger. Michael, disgusted to find that he +had been betrayed into giving a name, though he was far from clear why +it should have been reserved, was glad of Dave's perverted version, as +replacing matters on their former footing. But the repetition of the +name, by voices the stimulus of definition had emphasized, caught the +attention of Uncle Moses, who thereon moved up the Court to find out who +this stranger could be, who was so evidently inquiring about the +upstairs tenant. As he reached close inspection-point his face did not +look as though the visitor pleased him. The latter said good-morning +first; but, simple as his words were, the gaol-bird manner of guarded +suspicion crept into them and stamped the speaker. + +"Don't like the looks of you, mister!" said Uncle Mo to himself. But +aloud he said:--"Good-morning to _you_, sir. I understood you to be +inquiring for Mrs. Prichard." + +"No--Daverill. No such a name, this young shaver says." + +"Not down this Court. It wasn't Burr by any chance now, was it?" + +"No--Daverill." + +"Because there _is_ a party by the name of Burr if you could have seen +your way." This was only the natural civility which sometimes runs riot +with an informant's judgment, making him anxious to meet the inquirer at +any cost, whatever inalienable stipulations the latter may have +committed himself to. In this case it seemed that nothing short of +Daverill, crisp and well defined, would satisfy the conditions. The +stranger shook his head with as much decision as reciprocal civility +permitted--rather as though he regretted his inability to accept +Burr--and replied that the name had "got to be" Daverill and no other. +But he seemed reluctant to leave the widows down this Court unsifted, +saying:--"You're sure there ain't any other old party now?" To which +Uncle Moses responded: "Ne'er a one, master, to _my_ knowledge. Widow +Daverill she's somewheres else. Not down _this_ Court!" He said it in a +valedictory way as though he had no wish to open a new subject, and +considered this one closed. He had profited by his inspection of the +stranger, and had formed a low opinion of him. + +But the stranger's reluctance continued. "You couldn't say, I suppose," +said he, in a cautious hesitating way, "you couldn't say what +countrywoman she was, now?" His manner might easily have been--so Uncle +Mo thought at least--that of indigence trying to get a foothold with an +eye to begging in the end. It really was the furtive suspiciousness that +hangs alike upon the miscreant and the mere rebel against law into whose +bones the fetter has rusted. The guilt of the former, if he can cheat +both the gaol and the gallows, may merge in the demeanour of a free man; +that of the latter, after a decade of prison-service you or I might have +remitted, will hang by him till death. + +Uncle Mo may have detected, through the mere blood-poisoning of the +prison, the inherent baseness of the man, or may have recoiled from the +type. Anyway, his instinct was to get rid of him. And evidently the less +he said about anyone in Sapps Court the better. So he replied, surlily +enough considering his really amiable disposition:--"No--I could _not_ +say what countrywoman she is, master." Then he thought a small trifle of +fiction thrown in might contribute to the detachment of this man's +curiosity from Mrs. Prichard, and added carelessly:--"Some sort of a +foringer I take it." Which accounted, too, for his knowing nothing about +her. No true Englishman knows anything about that benighted class. + +Now the boy Michael, all eyes and ears, had somehow come to an imperfect +knowledge that Mrs. Prichard had been in Australia once on a time. The +imperfection of this knowledge had affected the name of the place, and +when he officiously struck in to supply it, he did so inaccurately. +"Horstrian she is!" He added:--"Rode in a circus, she did." But this was +only the reaction of misinterpretation on a too inventive brain. + +"Then she ain't any use to me. Austrian, is she?" Thus the stranger; who +then, after a slow glare up and down the Court, in search of further +widows perhaps, turned to go, saying merely:--"I'll wish you a +good-morning, guv'nor. Good-morning!" Uncle Mo watched him as he lurched +up the Court, noting the oddity of his walk. This man, you see, had been +chained to another like himself, and his bias went to one side like a +horse that has gone in harness. This gait is known in the class he +belonged to as the "darby-roll," from the name by which fetters are +often spoken of. + +"How long has that charackter been makin' the Court stink, young +Carrots?" said Uncle Moses to Michael. + +"Afore you come up, Mr. Moses." + +"Afore I come up. How long afore I come up?" + +Michael appeared to pass through a paroxysm of acute calculation, ending +in a lucid calm with particulars. "Seven minute and a half," said he +resolutely. "Wanted my name, he did!" + +"What did you tell him?" + +"I told 'im a name. Orl correct it was. Only it warn't mine. I was too +fly for him." + +"What name did you tell him?" + +"Mr. Eking's at the doctor's shop. He'll find that all right. He can +read it over the door. He's got eyes in his head." No doubt sticklers +for conscience will quarrel with the view that the demands of Truth can +be satisfied by an authentic name applied to the wrong person. + +It did not seem to grate on Uncle Moses, who only said:--"Sharp boy! But +don't you tell no more lies than's wanted. Only now and again to shame +the Devil, as the sayin' is. And you, little Dave, don't you tell +nothing but the truth, 'cos your Aunt M'riar she says not to it." Dave +promised to oblige. + +Aunt M'riar, returning home with Dolly from a place known as "Chapel"--a +place generally understood to be good, and an antidote to The Rising +Sun, which represented Satan and was bad--only missed meeting this +visitor to Sapps by a couple of minutes. She might have just come face +to face with him the very minute he left the Court, if she had not +delayed a little at the baker's, where she had prevailed on +Sharmanses--the promoter of some latent heat in the bowels of the earth +which came through to the pavement, making it nice and dry and warm to +set upon in damp, cold weather--to keep the family Sunday dinner back +just enough to guarantee it brown all through, and the potatoes crackly +all over. Sharmanses was that obliging he would have kep' it in--it was +a shoulder of mutton--any time you named, but he declined to be +responsible that the gravy should not dry up. So Dolly carried her +aunt's prayer-book, feeling like the priests, the Sons of Levi, which +bare the Ark of the Covenant; and Aunt M'riar carried the Tin of the +Shoulder of Mutton, and took great care not to spill any of the Gravy. +The office of the Sons of Levi was a sinecure by comparison. + +Why did our astute young friend Michael keep his counsel about the +identity of the bloke that come down the Court that Sunday morning? +Well--it was not mere astuteness or vulgar cunning on the watch for an +honorarium. It was really a noble chivalry akin to that of the schoolboy +who will be flogged till the blood comes, rather than tell upon his +schoolfellow, even though he loathes the misdemeanour of the latter. It +was enough for Michael that this man was wanted by Scotland Yard, to +make silence seem a duty--silence, at any rate, until interrogated. He +was certainly not going to volunteer information--was, in fact, in the +position of the Humanitarian who declined to say which way the fox had +gone when the scent was at fault; only with this difference--that the +hounds were not in sight. Neither was he threatened with the +hunting-whip of an irate M.F.H. "Give the beggar his chance!"--that was +how Michael looked at it. He who knows the traditions of the class this +boy was born in will understand and excuse the feeling. + +Michael was--said his _entourage_--that sharp at twelve that he could +understand a'most anything. He had certainly understood that the man +whom he saw in the grip of the police-officer overturned in the Thames +was wanted by Scotland Yard, to pay an old score, with possible +additions to it due to that officer's death. He had understood, too, +that the attempt to capture the man had been treacherous according to +his ideas of fair play, while he had no information about his original +crime. He did not like his looks, certainly, but then looks warn't much +to go by. His conclusion was--silence for the present, without prejudice +to future speech if applied for. When that time came, he would tell no +more lies than were wanted. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + OF A VISIT MICHAEL PAID HIS AUNT, AND OF A FISH HE NEARLY CAUGHT. + THE PIGEONS, NEXT DOOR, AND A PINT OF HALF-AND-HALF. MISS JULIA + HAWKINS AND HER PARALYTIC FATHER. HOW A MAN IN THE BAR BROKE HIS + PIPE. OF A VISIT MICHAEL'S GREAT-AUNT PAID MISS HAWKINS. TWO + STRANGE POLICEMEN. HOW MR. DAVERILL MIGHT HAVE ESCAPED HAD HE NOT + BEEN A SMOKER. A MIRACULOUS RECOVERY, SPOILED BY A STRAIGHT SHOT + + +Michael Ragstroar's mysterious attraction to his great-aunt at +Hammersmith was not discountenanced or neutralised by his family in +Sapps Court, but rather the reverse: in fact, his visits to her +received as much indirect encouragement as his parents considered might +be safely given without rousing his natural combativeness, and +predisposing him against the ounce of influence which she alone +exercised over his rebellious instincts. Any suspicion of moral culture +might have been fatal, holy influences of every sort being eschewed by +Michael on principle. + +So when Michael's mother, some weeks later than the foregoing incident, +remarked that it was getting on for time that her branch of the family +should send a quartern of shelled peas and two pound of cooking-cherries +to Aunt Elizabeth Jane as a seasonable gift, her lord and master had +replied that he wasn't going within eleven mile of Hammersmith till +to-morrow fortnight, but that he would entrust peas and cherries, as +specified, to "Old Saturday Night," a fellow-coster, so named in +derision of his adoption of teetotalism, his name being really Knight. +He was also called Temperance Tommy, without irony, his name being +really Thomas. He, a resident in Chiswick, would see that Aunt Elizabeth +Jane got the consignment safely. + +Michael's father did this in furtherance of a subtle scheme which +succeeded. His son immediately said:--"Just you give _him_ 'em, and see +if he don't sneak 'em. See if he don't bile the peas and make a blooming +pudd'n of the cherries. You see if he don't! That's all I say, if you +arsk me." A few interchanges on these lines ended in Michael undertaking +to deliver the goods personally as a favour, time enough Sunday morning +for Aunt Elizabeth Jane herself to make a pudding of the cherries, +blooming or otherwise. + +As a sequel, Michael arrived at his aunt's so early on the following +Sunday that the peas and the cherries had to wait for hours to be +cooked, while Aunt Elizabeth Jane talked with matrons round in the +alley, and he himself took part in a short fishing expedition, nearly +catching a roach, who got away. The Humanitarian--is that quite the +correct word, by-the-by?--must rejoice at the frequency of this result +in angling. + +"The 'ook giv'," said Michael, returning disappointed. "Wot can you +expect with inferior tarkle?" He then undertook to get a brown Toby jug +filled at The Pigeons; though, being church-time--the time at which the +Heathen avail themselves of their opportunity of stopping away from +church--the purchase of one pint full up, and no cheating, was a +statutable offence on the part of the seller. + +But when a public has a little back-garden with rusticated woodwork +seats, painful to those rash enough to avail themselves of them, and a +negotiable wall you and your jug can climb over and descend from by the +table no one ever gets his legs under owing to this same rusticity of +structure, then you can do as Michael did, and make your presence felt +by whistling through the keyhole, without fear of incriminating the +Egeria of the beer-fountain in the locked and shuttered bar, near at +hand. + +Egeria was not far off, for her voice came saying:--"Say your name +through the keyhole; the key's took out.... No, you ain't Mrs. Treadwell +next door! You're a boy." + +"Ain't a party-next-door's grandnephew a boy?" exclaimed Michael +indignantly. "She's sent me with her own jug for a pint of arfnarf! +Here's the coppers, all square. You won't have nothing to complain of, +Miss 'Orkins." + +Miss Hawkins, the daughter of The Pigeons, or at least of their +proprietor, opened the door and admitted Michael Ragstroar. Her father +had drawn his last quart for a customer many long years ago, and his +right-hand half was passing the last days of its life in a bedroom +upstairs. A nonagenarian paralysed all down one side may be described as +we have described Mr. Hawkins. He was still able to see dimly, with one +eye, the glorious series of sporting prints that lined the walls of his +room; and such pulses as he had left were stirred with momentary +enthusiasm when the Pytchley Hunt reached the surviving half of his +understanding. The other half of him had lived, and seemed to have died, +years ago. The two halves may have taken too much when they were able to +move about together and get at it--too much brandy, rum, whisky; too +many short nips and long nips--too cordial cordials. Perhaps his +daughter took the right quantity of all these to a nicety, but +appearances were against her. She was a woman of the type that must have +been recognised in its girlhood as stunning, or ripping, by the then +frequenters of the bar of The Pigeons, and which now was reluctant to +admit that its powers to rip or stun were on the wane at forty. It was +that of an inflamed blonde putting on flesh, which meant to have +business relations with dropsy later on, unless--which seemed +unlikely--its owner should discontinue her present one with those nips +and cordials. She had no misgivings, so far, on this point; nor any, +apparently, about the seductive roll of a really fine pair of blue eyes. +While as for her hair, the bulk and number of the curl-papers it was +still screwed up in spoke volumes of what its release would reveal to an +astonished Sunday afternoon when its hour should come--not far off now. + +There was a man in the darkened bar, smoking a long clay. Michael felt +as if he knew him as soon as he set eyes on him, but it was not till the +pipe was out of his mouth that he saw who he was. He had been ascribing +to the weight or pressure of the pipe the face-twist which, when it was +removed, showed as a slight distortion. It was the man he had seen +twice, once in the garden he had just left, and once at Sapps Court. +Michael considered that he was entitled to a gratuity from this man, +having interpreted his language as a promise to that effect, and having +received nothing so far. + +He was not a diffident or timid character, as we know. "Seen you afore, +guv'nor!" was his greeting. + +The man gave a start, breaking his pipe in three pieces, but getting no +farther than the first letter of an oath of irritation at the accident. +"What boy's this?" he cried out, with an earnestness nothing visible +warranted. + +"Lard's mercy, Mr. Wix!" exclaimed the mistress of the house, turning +round from the compounding of the half-and-half. "What a turn you giv'! +And along of nothing but little Micky from Mrs. Treadwell next door! +Which most, Micky? Ale or stout?" + +"Most of whichever costis most," answered Michael, with simplicity. +Thereon he felt himself taken by the arm, and turning, saw the man's +face looking close at him. It was the sort of face that makes the end of +a dream a discomfort to the awakener. + +"Now, you young beggar!--_where_ have you seen me afore? I ain't going +to hurt you. You tell up straight and tell the truth." + +"Not onlest you leave hold of my arm!" + +"You do like he says, Mr. Wix.... Now you tell Mr. Wix, Micky. _He_ +won't hurt you." Thus Miss Julia, procuring liberty for the hand to +receive the half-and-half she was balancing its foam on. + +Michael rubbed the arm with his free hand as he took the brown +jug, to express resentment in moderation. But he answered his +questioner:--"Round in Sappses Court beyont the Dials acrost Oxford +Street keepin' to your left off Tottenham Court Road. You come to see +for a widder, and there warn't no widder for yer. Mean to say there +was?" + +"Where I sent you, Mr. Wix," said Miss Julia. "To Sapps Court, where +Mrs. Treadwell directed me--where her nephew lives. That's this boy's +father. You'll find that right." + +"Your Mrs. Treadmill, _she's_ all right. Sapps Court's all right of +itself. But it ain't the Court I was tracking out. If it was, they'd +have known the name of Daverill. Why--the place ain't no bigger than a +prison yard! About the length of down your back-garden to the water's +edge. It's the wrong Court, and there you have it in a word. She's in +Capps Court or Gapps Court--some * * * of a Court or other--not Sapps." +A metaphor has to be omitted here, as it might give offence. It was not +really a well-chosen or appropriate one, and is no loss to the text. +"What's this boy's name, and no lies?" he added after muttering to +himself on the same lines volcanically. + +"How often do you want to be told _that_, Mr. Wix? This boy's Micky +Rackstraw, lives with his grandmother next door.... Well--her sister +then! It's all as one. Ain't you, Micky?" + +"Ah! Don't live there, though. Comes easy-like, now and again. Like the +noospapers." + +"He's a young liar, then. Told me his name was Ikey." Miss Hawkins +pointed out that Ikey and Micky were substantially identical. But she +was unable to make the same claim for Rackstraw and Ekins, when told +that Micky had laid claim to the latter. She waived the point and +conducted the beer-bearer back the way he came, handing him the brown +jug over the wall, not to spill it. + +But she suggested, in consideration of the high quality of the +half-and-half, that her next-door neighbour might oblige by stepping in +by the private entrance, to speak concerning Sapps Court and its +inhabitants; all known to her more or less, no doubt. Which Aunt +Elizabeth was glad to do, seeing that the cherry-tart was only just put +in the oven, and she could spare that few minutes without risk. + +Now, this old lady, though she was but a charwoman depending for +professional engagements rather on the goodwill--for auld lang syne--of +one or two families in Chiswick, of prodigious opulence in her eyes, yet +was regarded by Sapps Court, when she visited her niece, Mrs. Rackstraw, +or Ragstroar, Michael's mother, as distinctly superior. Aunt M'riar +especially had been so much impressed with a grey shawl with fringes and +a ready cule--spelt thus by repute--which she carried when she come of a +Sunday, that she had not only asked her to tea, but had taken her to pay +a visit to Mrs. Prichard upstairs. She had also in conversation taken +Aunt Elizabeth Jane largely into her confidence about Mrs. Prichard, +repeating, indeed, all she knew of her except what related to her +convict husband. About that she kept an honourable silence. + +It was creditable to Miss Juliarawkins, whose name--written as +pronounced--gives us what we contend is an innocent pleasure, that she +should have suspected the truth about Wix or Daverill's want of +shrewdness when he visited Sapps Court. She had been biased towards this +suspicion by the fact that the man, when he first referred to Sapps +Court, had spoken the name as though sure of it; and it was to test its +validity that she invited Aunt Elizabeth Jane round by the private door, +and introduced her to the darkened bar, where the ex-convict was +lighting another pipe. She had heard Mrs. Treadwell speak of Aunt +M'riar; and now, having formed a true enough image of the area of the +Court, had come to the conclusion that all its inhabitants would be +acquainted, and would talk over each other's affairs. + +"Who the Hell's that?" Mr. Wix started as if a wasp had stung him, as +the old charwoman's knock came at the private entrance alongside of the +bar. He seemed very sensitive, always on the watch for surprises. + +"Only old Treadwell from next door. _She_ ain't going to hurt you, Tom. +You be easy." Miss Hawkins spoke with another manner as well as another +name now that she and this man were alone. She may never possibly have +known his own proper name, he having been introduced to her as Thomas +Wix twenty years ago. An introduction with a sequel which scarcely comes +into the story. + +His answer was beginning:--"It's easy to say be easy ..." when the woman +left the room to admit Aunt Elizabeth Jane. Who came in finishing the +drying of hands, suddenly washed, on a clean Sunday apron. "Lawsy me, +Miss Hawkins!" said she. "I didn't know you had anybody here." + +It was not difficult to _entamer_ the conversation. After a short +interlude about the weather, to which the man's contribution was a grunt +at most, the old lady had been started on the subject of her nephew and +Sapps Court, and to this he gave attention. If she had had her +tortoiseshell glasses she might have been frightened by the way he +knitted his brows to listen. But she had left them behind in her hurry, +and he kept back in a dark corner. + +"About this same aged widow body," said he, fixing the conversation to +the point that interested him. "What sort of an age now should you give +her? Eighty--ninety--ninety-five--ninety-nine?" He stopped short of a +hundred. Nobody one knows is a hundred. Centenarians are only in +newspapers. + +"I can tell you her age from her lips, mister. Eighty-one next birthday. +And her name, Maisie Prichard." + +Mr. Wix's attention deepened, and his scowl with it. "Now, can you make +that safe to go upon?" he said with a harsh stress on a voice already +harsh. "How came the old lady to say her own christened name? I'll pound +it I might talk to you most of the day and never know your first name. +Old folks they half forget 'em as often as not." + +Miss Hawkins struck in:--"Now you're talking silly, Mr. Wix. How many +young folk tell you their christened names right off?" But she had got +on weak ground. She got off it again discreetly. "Anyhow, Mrs. Treadwell +she's inventing nothing, having no call to." She turned to Aunt +Elizabeth Jane with the question:--"How come she to happen to mention +the name, ma'am?" + +"Just as you or I might, Miss Julia. Mrs. Wardle she said, 'I was +remarking of it to Mrs. Treadwell,' she said, 'only just afore we come +upstairs, ma'am,' she said, 'that you was one of twins, ma'am,' she +said. And then old Mrs. Prichard she says, 'Ay, to be sure,' she says, +'twins we were--Maisie and Phoebe. Forty-five years ago she died, Phoebe +did,' she says. 'And I've never forgotten Phoebe,' she says. 'Nor yet I +shan't forget Phoebe not if I live to be a hundred!'" + +"Goard blind my soul!" Mr. Wix muttered this to himself, and though Aunt +Elizabeth Jane failed to catch the words, she shuddered at the manner of +them. She did not like this Mr. Wix, and wished she had not forgotten +her tortoiseshell spectacles, so as to see better what he was like. The +words she heard him say next had nothing in them to cause a shudder, +though the manner of them showed vexation:--"If that ain't tryin' to a +man's temper! There she was all the time!" It is true he qualified this +last substantive by the adjective the story so often has to leave out, +but it was not very uncommon in those days along the riverside between +Fulham and Kew. + +"I thought you said the name was Daverill," said Miss Hawkins, taking +the opportunity to release a curl-paper at a looking-glass behind +bottles. It was just upon time to open, and the barmaid had got her +Sunday out. + +"Why the Hell shouldn't the name be Daverill? In course I did! Ask your +pardon for swearing, missis...." This was to the visitor, who had begun +to want to go. "You'll excuse my naming to you all my reasons, but I'll +just mention this one, not to be misunderstood. This here old lady's a +sort of old friend of mine, and when I came back from abroad I says to +myself I'd like to look up old Mrs. Daverill. So I make inquiry, you +see, and my man he tells me--he was an old mate of mine, you see--she's +gone to live at Sevenoaks--do you see?--at Sevenoaks...." + +"Ah, I see! I've been at Sevenoaks." + +"Well--there she had been and gone away to town again. Then says I, +'What's her address?' So they told me they didn't know, it was so long +agone. But the old woman--_her_ name was Killick, or Forbes was it?--no, +Killick--remembered directing on a letter to Mrs. Daverill, Sapps Court. +And Juliar here she said she'd heard tell of Sapps Court. So I hunted +the place up and found it. Then your Mrs. Wardle's husband--I take it he +was Moses Wardle the heavyweight in my young days--he put me off the +scent because of the name. The only way to make Prichard of her I can +see is--she married again. Well--did no one ever hear of an old fool +that got married again?" + +"That's nothing," said Miss Hawkins. "They'll marry again with the +rattle in their throats." + +That tart was in the oven, and had to be remembered. Or else Aunt +Elizabeth Jane wanted to see no more of Mr. Wix. "I must be running back +to my cooking," said she. "But if this gentleman goes again to find out +Sappses, he's only got to ask for my niece at Number One, or Mrs. Wardle +at Number Seven, and he'll find Mrs. Prichard easy." She did not speak +directly to the man, and he for his part noticed her departure very +slightly, giving it a fraction of a grunt he wanted the rest of later. + +Nor did Aunt Elizabeth Jane seem in a great hurry to get away when Miss +Hawkins had seen her to the door. She lingered a moment to refer to +Aunt's M'riar's talk of Widow Prichard. Certainly Mrs. Wardle at Number +Seven _she_ said nothing of any second marriage, and thought Prichard +was the name of the old lady's first husband, who had died in Van +Diemen's Land. Miss Julia paid very little attention. What business of +hers was Widow Prichard? She was much more interested in a couple of +policemen walking along the lane. Not a very common spectacle in that +retired thoroughfare! Also, instead of following on along the riverside +road it opened into, they both wheeled right-about-face and came back. + +Miss Julia, taking down a shutter to reinstate The Pigeons as a tavern +open to customers, noted that the faces of these two were strange to +her. Also that they passed her with the barest good-morning, +forbiddingly. The police generally cultivate intercourse with +public-house keepers of every sort, but when one happens to be a lady +with ringlets especially so; even should her complexion be partly due to +correctives, to amalgamate a blotchiness. These officers overdid their +indifference, and it attracted Miss Julia's attention. + +Aunt Elizabeth Jane thought at the time she might have mistaken what +she heard one of them say to the other. For, of course, she passed them +close. The words she heard seemed to be:--"That will be Hawkins." +Something in them rang false with her concept of the situation. But +there was the cherry-tart to be seen to, and some peas to boil. Only not +the whole lot at once for only her and Michael! As for that boy, she had +sent him off to the baker's, the minute he came back, to wait till the +bit of the best end of the neck was sure to be quite done, and bring it +away directly minute. + + * * * * * + +That day there was an unusually high spring-tide on the river, and +presumably elsewhere; only that did not concern Hammersmith, which +ascribed the tides to local impulses inherent in the Thames. Just after +midday the water was all but up to the necks of the piers of Hammersmith +Bridge, and the island at Chiswick was nearly submerged. Willows +standing in lakes were recording the existence of towing-paths no longer +able to speak for themselves, and the insolent plash of ripples over +wharves that had always thought themselves above that sort of thing +seemed to say:--"Thus far will I come, and a little farther for that +matter." Father Thames never quite touched the landing of the +boat-ladder, at the end of the garden at The Pigeons, but he went within +six inches of it. + +"The water wasn't like you see it now, that day," said a man in the +stern of a boat that was hanging about off the garden. "All of five foot +lower down, I should figure it. _He_ didn't want no help to get up--not +he!" + +"It was a tidy jump up, any way you put it," said the stroke oar. + +"Well--he could have done it! But he was aiming to help his man to a +seat in the boat, not to get a lift up for himself. I've not a word to +say against Toby Ibbetson, mind you! He took an advantage some wouldn't, +maybe. And then it's how you look at it, when all's done. You know what +Daverill was wanted for?" Oh yes--both oars knew that. "I call to mind +the place--knew it well enough. Out near Waltham Abbey. Lonely sort of +spot.... Yes--the girl died. Not before she'd had time to swear to the +twist in his face. He had been seen and identified none so far off an +hour before. Quite a young girl. Father cut his throat. So would you. +Thought he ought to have seen the girl safe home. So he ought. Ain't +that our man's whistle?" The boat, slowly worked in towards The Pigeons, +lays to a few strokes off on the slack water. The tide's mandate to stop +has come. The sergeant is waiting for a second whistle to act. + +Inside the tavern the woman has closed the street-door abruptly--has +given the alarm. "There's two in the lane!" she gasps. "Be sharp, Tom!" + +"Through the garden?" he says. "Run out to see." + +She is back almost before the door she opens has swung to. "It's all up, +Tom," she cries. "There's the boat!" + +"Stand clear, Juli-ar!" he says. "I'll have a look at your roof. Needn't +say I'm at home. Where's the key?" + +"I'll give it you. You go up!" She forgets something, though, in her +hurry. His pipe remains on the table where he left it smoking, lying +across the unemptied pewter. _He_ forgets it, too, though he follows her +deliberately enough. Recollection and emergency rarely shake hands. + +She meets him on the stairs coming down from the room where the +paralysed man lies, hearing but little, seeing only the walls and the +ceiling. "It's on the corner of the chimney-piece," she says. "_He's_ +asleep." Daverill passes her, and just as he reaches the door remembers +the pipe. It would be fatal to call out with that single knock at the +house-door below. Too late! + +She still forgets that pipe, and only waits to be sure he is through, to +open the door to the knocker. By the time she does so he has found the +key and passed through the dormer door that gives on the leads. The +paralysed man has not moved. Moreover, he cannot see the short ladder +that leads to the exit. It is on his dead side. + +"You've a party here that's wanted, missis. Name of Wix or Daverill. Man +about five-and-forty. Dark hair and light eyes. Side-draw on the mouth. +Goes with a lurch. Two upper front eye-teeth missing. Carries a gold +hunting-watch on a steel chain. Wears opal ring of apparent value. +Stammers slightly." So the police-officer reads from his warrant or +instructions, which he offers to show to Miss Hawkins, who scarcely +glances at it. + +Who so surprised and plausible as she? Why--her father is the only man +in the house, and him on his back this fifteen years or more! What's +more, he doesn't wear an opal ring. Nor any ring at all, for that +matter! But come in and see. Look all over the house if desired. _She_ +won't stand in the way. + +"Our instruction is to search," says the officer. He looks like a +sub-inspector, and is evidently what a malefactor would consider a "bad +man" to have anything to do with. Miss Hawkins knows that her right of +sanctuary, if any, is a feeble claim, probably overruled by some police +regulation; and invites the officers into the house, almost too +demonstratively. Just then she suddenly recollects that pipe. + +"You can find your way in, mister," she says; and goes through to the +bar. The moment she does so the officer shows alacrity. + +"Keep an eye to that cellar-flap, Jacomb," he says to his mate, and +follows the lady of the house. He is only just in time. "Is that your +father's pipe?" he asks. In another moment she would have hidden it. + +"Which pipe?--oh, this pipe?--_this_ pipe ain't nothing. Left stood +overnight, I suppose." And she paused to think of the best means of +getting the pipe suppressed. There was no open grate in the bar to throw +it behind. She was a poor liar, too, and was losing her head. + +"Give me hold a quarter of a minute," says the officer. She cannot +refuse to give the pipe up. "Someone's had a whiff off this pipe since +closing-time last night," he continues, touching the still warm bowl; +for all this had passed very quickly. And he actually puts the pipe to +his lips, and in two or three draws works up its lingering spark. "A +good mouthful of smoke," says he, blowing it out in a cloud. + +"You can look where you like," mutters the woman sullenly. "There's no +man for you. Only you won't want to disturb my father. He's only just +fell asleep." + +"He'll be sleeping pretty sound after fifteen year." Thus the officer, +and the unhappy woman felt she had indeed made a complete mess of the +case. "Which is his room now, ma'am? We'll go there first." + +Up the stairs and past a window looking on the garden. The day is hot +beneath the July sun, and the two men in uniform who are coming up the +so-called garden, or rather gravelled yard, behind The Pigeons, are +mopping the sweat from their brows. They might have been customers from +the river, but Miss Hawkins knows the look of them too well for that. +The house is surrounded--watched back and front. Escape is hopeless, +successful concealment the only chance. + +"Been on his back like that for fifteen years, has he?" So says the +officer looking at the prostrate figure of the old man on the couch. He +is not asleep now--far from it. His mouth begins to move, uttering +jargon. His one living eye has light in it. There is something he wants +to say and struggles for in vain. "Can't make much out of that," is the +verdict of his male hearer. His daughter can say that he is asking his +visitor's name and what he wants. He can understand when spoken to, she +says. But the intruder is pointing at the door leading to the roof. +"Where does that go to?" he asks. + +"Out on the tiles. I'll see for the key and let you through, if you'll +stop a minute." It is the only good bit of acting she has done. Perhaps +despair gives histrionic power. She sees a chance of deferring the +breaking-down of that door, and who knows what may hang on a few minutes +of successful delay? Before she goes she suggests again that the +paralysed man will understand what is said to him if spoke to plain. +Clearly, he who speaks plain to him will do a good-natured act. + +Whether the officer's motives are Samaritan or otherwise, he takes the +hint. As the woman gets out of hearing, he says:--"You are the master of +this house, I take it?" And his hearer's crippled mouth half succeeds in +its struggle for an emphatic assent. He continues:--"In course you are. +I'm Sub-Inspector Cardwell, N Division. There's a man concealed in your +house I'm after. He's wanted.... Who is he?"--a right guess of an +unintelligible question--"You mean what name does he go by? Well--his +name's Daverill, but he's called Thornton or Wix as may be. P'r'aps you +know him, sir?" Whether or no, the name has had effect electrically on +its hearer, who struggles frantically--painfully--hopelessly for speech. +The officer says commiseratingly:--"Poor devil!--he's quite off his +jaw"; and then, going to the open window, calls out to his mates of the +river-service, below in the garden:--"Keep an eye on the roof, boys." + +Then he goes out on the stair-landing. That woman is too long away--it +is out of all reason. As he passes the paralytic man, he notes that he +seems to be struggling violently for something--either to speak or to +rise. He cannot tell which, and he does best to hasten the return of the +woman who can. + +Out on the landing, Miss Hawkins, who has not been looking for keys, but +supplying her first Sunday customers in their own jugs, protests that +she has fairly turned the house over in her key-hunt--all in vain! Her +interest seems vivid that these police shall not be kept off her roof. +She suggests that a builder's yard in the Kew Road will furnish a ladder +long enough to reach the roof. "Shut on Sunday!" says Sub-Inspector +Cardwell conclusively. Then let someone who knows how be summoned to +pick the lock. By all means, if such a person is at hand. But no trade +will come out Sunday, except the turn-cock, obviously useless. That is +the verdict. "You'll never be for breaking down the door, Mr. Inspector, +with my father there ill in the room!"--is the woman's appeal. "Not till +we've looked everywhere else," is the reply. "I'll say that much. I'll +see through the cupboards in the room, though. _That_ won't hurt him." + +Little did either of them anticipate what met their eyes as the door +opened. There on the couch, no longer on his back, but sitting up and +gasping for clearer speech, which he seemed to have achieved in part, +was the paralysis-stricken man. The left hand, powerless no longer, was +still uncertain of its purpose, and wavered in its ill-directed motion; +the right, needed to raise him from his pillow, grasped the level +moulding of the couch-back. Its fingers still showed a better colour +than those of its fellow, which trembled and closed and reopened, as +though to make trial of their new-found power. His eyes were fixed on +this hand rather than on his daughter or the stranger. His knees jerked +against the light bondage of a close dressing-gown, and his right foot +was striving to lift or help the other down to the floor. Probably life +was slower to return to it than to the hand, as the blood returns +soonest to the finger-tips after frost. Only the face was quite +changed from its seeming of but ten minutes back. The voice choked +and stammered still, but speech came in the end, breaking out with a +shout-burst:--"Stop--stop--stop!" + +"Easy so--easy so!" says the police-officer, as the woman gives way to a +fit of hysterical crying, more the breaking-point of nerve-tension than +either joy or pain. "Easy so, master!--easy does it. Don't you be +frightened. Plenty of time and to spare!" + +The old man gets his foot to the floor, and his daughter, under no +impulse of reason--mere nerve-paroxysm--runs to his side crying +out:--"No, dear father! No, dear father! Lie down--lie down!" She is +trying to force him back to his pillow, while he chokes out something he +finds it harder to say than "Stop--stop!" which still comes at +intervals. + +"I should make it easy for him, Miss Hawkins, if I was in your place. +Let the old gentleman please himself." Thus the officer, whose +sedateness of manner acts beneficially. She accepts the suggestion, +standing back from her father with a stupid, bewildered gaze, between +him and the exit to the roof. "Give him time," says Sub-Inspector +Cardwell. + +He takes the time, and his speech dies down. But he can move that hand +better now--may make its action serve for speech. Slowly he raises it +and points--points straight at his daughter. He wants her help--is that +it? She thinks so, but when she acts on the impulse he repels her, +feebly shouting out: "No--no--no!" + +"Come out from between him and the clock, missis," says the officer, +thinking he has caught a word right, and that a clock near the door is +what the old man points at. "He thinks it's six o'clock." + +But the word was not _six_. The daughter moves aside, and yet the finger +points. "It's nowhere near six, father dear!" she says. "Not one o'clock +yet!" But still the finger points. And now a wave of clearer +articulation overcomes a sibilant that has been the worst enemy of +speech, and leaves the tongue free. "Wix!" That's the word. + +"Got it!" exclaims the officer, and the woman with a shriek falls +insensible. He takes little notice of her, but whistles for his mate +below--a peculiar whistle. It brings the man who was keeping watch in +the lane. "Got him all right," says his principal. "Out here on the +tiles. That's your meaning, I take it, Mr. Hawkins?" The old man nods +repeatedly. "And he's took the key out with him and locked to the door. +That's it, is it?" More nods, and then the officer mounts the short +ladder and knocks hard upon the door. He speaks to the silence on the +other side. "You've been seen, Mr. Wix. It's a pity to spoil a good +lock. You've got the key. We can wait a bit. Don't hurry!" + +Footsteps on the roof, and a shout from the garden below! He is seen +now--no doubt of it--whatever he was before. What is that they are +calling from the garden? "He's got a loose tile. Look out!" + +"Don't give him a chance to aim with it," says Jacomb below to his chief +on the ladder. Who replies:--"He's bound to get half a chance. Keep your +eyes open!" A thing to be done, certainly, with that key sounding in the +lock. + +The officer Cardwell only waited to hear it turn to throw his full +weight on the door, which opened outwards. He scarcely waited for the +back-click to show that the door, which had no hasp or clutch beyond the +key-service, was free on its hinges. Nevertheless, he was not so quick +but that the man beyond was quicker, springing back sharp on the turn of +his own hand. Cardwell stumbled as the door gave, unexpectedly easily, +and nearly fell his length on the leads. + +Jacomb, on the second rung of the step-ladder, feels the wind of a +missile that all but touches his head. He does not look round to see +what it strikes, but he hears a cry; man or woman, or both. In front of +him is his principal, on his legs again, grasping the wrist of the right +hand that threw the tile, while his own is on its owner's throat. + +"All right--all right!" says Mr. Wix. "You can stow it now. I could have +given you that tile under your left ear. But the right man's got the +benefit. You may just as well keep the snitchers for when I'm down. +There's no such * * * hurry." Nevertheless, the eyes of both officers +are keen upon him as he descends the ladder under sufferance. + +On the floor below, beside the bed he lay on through so many weary +years, lies Miss Julia's old father, stunned or dead. Her own +insensibility has passed, but has left her in bewilderment, dizzy and +confused, as she kneels over him and tries for a sign of life in vain. +At the ladder-foot the officers have fitted their prisoner with +handcuffs; and then Cardwell, leaving him, goes to lift the old man back +to his couch. But first he calls from the window:--"Got him all right! +Fetch the nearest doctor." + +Through the short interval between this and Daverill's removal, words +came from him which may bring the story home or explain it if events +have not done so already. "The old * * * has got his allowance. _He_ +won't ask for no more. Who was he, to be meddling? You was old enough in +all conscience, July-ar!" His pronunciation of her name has a hint of a +sneer in it--a sneer at the woman he victimised, some time in the +interval between his desertion of his wife and his final error of +judgment--dabbling in burglary. She might have been spared insult; for +whatever her other faults were, want of affection for her betrayer was +not among them, or she would not have run the risks of concealing him +from the police. + +Her paralytic father's sudden reanimation under stress of excitement +was, of course, an exceptionally well-marked instance of a phenomenon +well enough known to pathologists. It had come within his power to +avenge the wrong done to his daughter, and never forgiven by him. +Whether the officers would have broken down the door, if he had not +seized his opportunity, may be uncertain, but there can be no doubt that +the operative cause of Daverill's capture was his recovery of vital +force under the stimulus of excitement at the amazing chance offered him +of bringing it about. + +The affair made so little noise that only a very few Sunday loiterers +witnessed what was visible of it in the lane, which was indeed little +more than the unusual presence of two policemen. Then, after a surgeon +had been found and had attended to the injured man, it leaked out that a +malefactor had been apprehended at The Pigeons and taken away in the +police-boat to the Station lower down the river. + +That singular couple, Michael Ragstroar and his great-aunt, had got to +the cherry-tart before a passing neighbour, looking in at their window, +acquainted them what had happened. If after Michael come from the +bake-'us with the meat, which kep' hot stood under its cover in the sun +all of five minutes and no one any the worse, while the old lady boiled +a potato--if Michael had not been preoccupied with a puppy in this +interim, he might easy have seen the culprit took away in the boat. He +regretted his loss; but his aunt, from whom we borrow a word now and +then, pointed out to him that we must not expect everything in this +world. Also the many blessings that had been vouchsafed to him by a +Creator who had his best interests at heart. Had he not vouchsafed him a +puppy?--on lease certainly; but he would find that puppy here next time +he visited Hammersmith, possibly firmer in his gait and nothing like so +round over the stomach. And there was the cherry-tart, and the crust had +rose beautiful. + +Michael got home very late, and was professionally engaged all the week +with his father. He saw town, but nothing of his neighbours, returning +always towards midnight intensely ready for bed. By the time he chanced +across our friend Dave on the following Saturday, other scenes of London +Life had obscured his memory of that interview at The Pigeons and its +sequel. So, as it happened, Sapps Court heard nothing about either. + +The death of Miss Hawkins's father, a month later, did not add a +contemptible manslaughter to Thornton Daverill's black list of crimes. +For the surgeon who attended him--while admitting to her privately that, +of course, it was the blow on the temple that brought about the cause of +death--denied that it was itself the cause; a nice distinction. But it +seemed needless to add to the score of a criminal with enough to his +credit to hang him twice over; especially when an Inquest could be +avoided by accommodation with Medical Jurisprudence. So the surgeon, at +the earnest request of the dead man's daughter, made out a certificate +of death from something that sounded plausible, and might just as well +have been cessation of life. It was nobody's business to criticize it, +and nobody did. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + THE BEER AT THE KING'S ARMS. HOW UNCLE MO READ THE _STAR_, LIKE A + CHALDEAN, AND BROKE HIS SPECTACLES. HOW THE _STAR_ TOLD OF A + CONVICT'S ESCAPE FROM A JUG. HOW AUNT M'RIAR OVERHEARD THE NAME + "DAVERILL," AND WAS QUITE UPSET-LIKE. HER DEGREES AND DATES OF + INFORMATION ABOUT THIS MAN AND HIS ANTECEDENTS. UNCLE MO'S + IGNORANCE ABOUT HERS. HOW SHE DID NOT GIVE THE _STAR_ TO MRS. BURR + INTACT + + +The unwelcome visitor who, in the phrase of Uncle Mo, had made Sapps +Court stink--a thing outside the experience of its inhabitants--bade +fair to be forgotten altogether. Michael, the only connecting link +between the two, had all memory of the Hammersmith arrest quite knocked +out of his head a few days later by a greater incident--his father +having been arrested and fined for an assault on a competitor in +business, with an empty sack. It was entirely owing to the quality of +the beer at the King's Arms that Mr. Rackstraw lost his temper. + +But Daverill's corruption of the Court's pure air was not destined to +oblivion. It was revived by the merest accident; the merest, that is, up +to that date. There have been many merer ones since, unless the phrase +has been incorrectly used in recent literature. + +One day in July, when Uncle Moses was enjoying his afternoon pipe with +his old friend Affability Bob, or Jerry Alibone, and reading one of the +new penny papers--it was the one called the _Morning Star_, now no +more--he let his spectacles fall when polishing them; and, rashly +searching for them, broke both glasses past all redemption. He was much +annoyed, seeing that he was in the middle of a sensational account of +the escape of a prisoner from Coldbath Fields house of detention; a gaol +commonly known the "The Jug." It was a daring business, and Uncle Mo had +just been at the full of his enjoyment of it when the accident happened. + +"Have you never another pair, Mo?" said Mr. Alibone. And Uncle Mo called +out to Aunt M'riar:--"M'riar!--just take a look round and see for them +old glasses upstairs. I've stood down on mine, and as good as spiled +'em. Look alive!" For, you see, he was all on end to know how this +prisoner, who had been put in irons for violence, and somehow got free +and overpowered a gaoler who came alone into his cell, had contrived his +final escape from the prison. + +Mr. Alibone was always ready to deserve his name of Affability Bob. +"Give me hold of the paper, Mo," said he. "Where was you?... Oh +yes--here we are!... 'almost unparalleled audacity.' ... I'll go on +there." For Uncle Mo had read some aloud, and Mr. Alibone he wanted to +know too, to say the truth. And he really was a lot better scollard than +Mo--when it came to readin' out loud--and tackled "unparalleled" as if +it was just nothing at all; it being the word that brought Moses up +short; and, indeed, Aunt M'riar, whom we quote, had heard him wrestling +with it through the door, and considered it responsible for the +accident. Anyhow, Mr. Jerry was equal to it, and read the remainder of +the paragraph so you could hear every word. + +"What I don't make out," said Uncle Mo, "is why he didn't try the same +game without getting the leg-irons on him. He hadn't any call to be +violent--that I see--barring ill-temper." + +"That was all part of the game, Mo. Don't you see the game? It was +putting reliance on the irons led to this here warder making so free. +You go to the Zoarlogical Gardens in the Regency Park, and see if the +keeper likes walking into the den when the Bengal tiger's loose in it. +These chaps get like that, and they have to get the clinkers on 'em." + +"Don't quite take your idear, Jerry. Wrap it up new." + +"Don't you _see_, old Mo? He shammed savage to get the irons on his +legs, knowing how he might come by a file--which I don't, and it hasn't +come out, that I see. Then he spends the inside o' the night getting +through 'em, and rigs himself up like a picter, just so as if they was +on. So the officer was took in, with him going on like a lamb. Then up +he jumps and smashes his man's skull--makes no compliments about it, you +see. Then he closes to the door and locks it to enjoy a little leisure. +And then he changes their sootes of cloze across, and out he walks for +change of air. And he's got it!" + +Uncle Mo reflected and said:--"P'r'aps!" Then Aunt M'riar, who had +hunted up the glasses without waking the children, reappeared, bringing +them; and Uncle Mo found they wouldn't do, and only prevented his seeing +anything at all. So he was bound to have a new pair and pay by the week. +A cheap pair, that would see him out, come to threepence a week for +three months. + +The discovery of this painful fact threw the escaped prisoner into the +shade, and the _Morning Star_ would have been lost sight of--because it +was only Monday's paper, after all!--unless Aunt M'riar she'd put it by +for upstairs to have their turn of it, and Mrs. Burr could always read +some aloud to Mrs. Prichard, failing studious energy on the part of the +old lady. She reproduced it in compliance with the current of events. + +For Uncle Moses, settling down to a fresh pipe after supper, said to his +friend, similarly occupied:--"What, now, was the name of that +charackter--him as got out at the Jug?" + +"Something like Mackerel," said Mr. Alibone. + +"Wrong you are, for once, Jerry! 'Twarn't no more Mackerel than it was +Camberwell." + +Said Mr. Jerry:--"Take an even tizzy on it, Mo?" He twisted the paper +about to recover the paragraph, and found it. "Here we are! 'Ralph +Daverill, _alias_ Thornton, _alias_ Wix, _alias_!' ..." + +"Never mind his ale-houses, Jerry. That's the name I'm consarned +with--Daverill.... What's the matter with M'riar?" + +Uncle Mo had not finished his sentence owing to an interruption. For +Aunt M'riar, replacing some table-gear she was shifting, had sat down +suddenly on the nearest chair. + +"Never you mind me, you two. Just you go on talking." So said Aunt +M'riar. Only she looked that scared it might have been a ghost. So Mrs. +Burr said after, who came in that very minute from a prolonged trying +on. + +"Take a little something, M'riar," said Uncle Mo. He got up and went to +the cupboard close at hand, to get the something, which would almost +certainly have taken the form of brandy. But Aunt M'riar she said never +mind _her_!--she would be all right in a minute. And in a metaphorical +minute she pulled herself together, and went on clearing off the +supper-table. Suggestions of remedies or assistance seemed alike +distasteful to her, whether from Mrs. Burr or the two men, and there was +no doubt she was in earnest in preferring to be left to herself. So Mrs. +Burr she went up to her own supper, with thanks in advance for the +newspaper when quite done with, according to the previous intention of +Aunt M'riar. + +The two smokers picked life up at the point of interruption, while Aunt +M'riar made a finish of her operations in the kitchen. Uncle Mo +said:--"Good job for you I didn't take your wager, Jerry. Camberwell +isn't in it. Mackerel goes near enough to landing--as near as Davenant, +which is what young Carrots called him." + +This was the case--for Michael, though he had been silent at the time +about the Inquest, had been unable to resist the temptation to correct +Uncle Moses when the old boy asked: "_Wot_ did he say was the blooming +name of the party he was after--Daverill--Daffodil?" His answer +was:--"No it warn't! Davenant was what _he_ said." His acumen had gone +the length of perceiving in the stranger's name a resemblance to the +version of it heard more plainly in the Court at Hammersmith. This +correction had gratified and augmented his secret sense of importance, +without leading to any inquiries. Uncle Mo accepted Davenant as more +intrinsically probable than Daffodil or Daverill, and forgot both names +promptly. For a subsequent mention of him as Devilskin, when he referred +to the incident later in the day, can scarcely be set down to a +recollection of the name. It was quite as much an appreciation of the +owner. + +"But what's your consarn with any of 'em, Mo?" said Mr. Jerry. + +Uncle Moses took his pipe out of his mouth to say, almost +oratorically:--"Don't you _re_-member, Jerry, me telling you--Sunday six +weeks it was--about a loafing wagabond who came into this Court to hunt +up a widder named Daverill or Daffodil, or some such a name?" Uncle +Moses paused a moment. A plate had fallen in the kitchen. Nothing was +broke, Aunt M'riar testified, and closed the door. Uncle Mo +continued:--"I told you Davenant, because of young Radishes. But I'll +pound it I was right and he was wrong. Don't you call to mind, +Jeremiah?" For Uncle Mo often addressed his friend thus, for a greater +impressiveness. Jeremiah recalled the incident on reflection. "There you +are, you see," continued Uncle Mo. "Now you bear in mind what I tell +you, sir;"--this mode of address was also to gain force--"He's him! That +man's _him_--the very identical beggar! And this widder woman he was for +hunting up, she's his mother or his aunt." + +"Or his sister--no!--sister-in-law." + +"Not if she's a widder's usual age, Jerry." Uncle Mo always figured to +himself sisters, and even sisters-in-law, as essentially short of middle +life. You may remember also his peculiar view that married twins could +not survive their husbands. + +"What sort of man did you make him out to be, Mo?" + +"A bad sort in a turn-up with no rules. Might be handy with a knife on +occasion. Foxy sort of wiper!" + +"Not your sort, Mo?" + +"Too much ill-will about him. Some of the Fancy may have run into bad +feeling in my time, but mostly when they shook hands inside the ropes +they meant it. How's yourself, M'riar?" Here Aunt M'riar came in after +washing up, having apparently overheard none of the conversation. + +"I'm nicely, Mo, thankee! Have you done with the paper, Mr. Alibone?... +Thanks--I'll give it to 'em upstairs.... Oh yes! I'm to rights. It was +nothing but a swimming in the head! Goodnight!" And off went Aunt +M'riar, leaving the friends to begin and end about two more pipes; to +talk over bygones of the Ring and the Turf, and to part after midnight. + + * * * * * + +Observe, please, that until Mr. Jerry read aloud from the _Star_ Mr. +Wix's _aliases_, Aunt M'riar had had no report of this escaped convict, +except under the name of Davenant; and, indeed, very little under that, +because Uncle Mo, in narrating to her the man's visit to Sapps Court, +though he gave the name of his inquiry as Davenant, spoke of the man +himself almost exclusively as Devilskin. And really she had paid very +little attention to the story, or the names given. At the time of the +man's appearance in the Court nothing transpired to make her associate +him with any past experience of her own. He was talked about at dinner +on that Sunday certainly; but then, consider the responsibilities of the +carving and distribution of that shoulder of mutton. + +Aunt M'riar did not give the newspaper to Mrs. Burr, to read to Mrs. +Prichard, till next day. Perhaps it was too late, at near eleven +o'clock. When she did, it was with a reservation. Said she to Mrs. +Burr:--"You won't mind losing the bit I cut out, just to keep for the +address?--the cheapest shoes I ever did!--and an easy walk just out of +Oxford Street." She added that Dave was very badly off in this respect. +But she said nothing about what was on the other side of the shoe-shop +advertisement. Was she bound to do so? Surely one side of a +newspaper-cutting justifies the scissors. If Aunt M'riar could want one +side, ever so little, was she under any obligation to know anything +about the other side? + +Anyhow, the result was that old Mrs. Prichard lost this opportunity of +knowing that her son was at large. And even if the paragraph had not +been removed, its small type might have kept her old eyes at bay. +Indeed, Mrs. Burr's testimony went to show that the old lady's +inspection of the paper scarcely amounted to solid perusal. Said she, +accepting the _Star_ from Aunt M'riar next morning, apropos of the +withdrawn paragraph: "That won't be any denial to Mrs. Prichard, ma'am. +There's a-many always wants to read the bit that's tore off, showin' a +contradictious temper like. But she ain't that sort, being more by way +of looking at the paper than studying of its contents." Mrs. Burr then +preached a short homily on the waste of time involved in a close +analysis of the daily press, such as would enable the reader to +discriminate between each day's issue and the next. For her part the +news ran similar one day with another, without, however, blunting her +interest in human affairs. She imputed an analogous attitude of mind to +old Mrs. Prichard, the easier of maintenance that the old lady's failing +sight left more interpretations of the text open to her imagination. + +Mrs. Burr, moreover, went on to say that Mrs. Prichard had been that +upset by hearing about the builders, that she wasn't herself. This odd +result could not but interfere with the reading of even the lightest +literature. Its cause calls for explanation. Circumstances had arisen +which, had they occurred in the wintertime, would have been a serious +embarrassment to the attic tenants in Sapps Court. As it chanced, the +weather was warm and dry; otherwise old Mrs. Prichard and Mrs. Burr +would just have had to turn out, to allow the builder in, to attend to +the front wall. For there was no doubt that it was bulging and ought to +have been seen to, aeons ago. And it was some days since the landlord's +attention had been called, and Bartletts the builders had waked all the +dwellers in Sapps Court who still slept at six o'clock, by taking out a +half a brick or two to make a bearing for as many putlogs--pronounced +pudlocks--as were needed for a little bit of scaffold. For there was +more than you could do off a ladder, if you was God A'mighty Himself. +Thus Mr. Bartlett, and Aunt M'riar condemned his impiety freely. Before +the children! Closely examined, his speech was reverential, and an +acknowledgment of the powers of the Constructor of the Universe as +against the octave-stretch forlorn of our limitations. But it was +Anthropomorphism, no doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + OF LONDON BUILDERS, AND THEIR GREAT SKILL. OF THE HUMILIATING + POSITION OF A SHAMEFACED BAT. HOW MR. BARTLETT MADE ALL GOOD. A + PEEP INTO MRS. PRICHARD'S MIND, LEFT ALONE WITH HER PAST. MR. + BARTLETT'S TRUCK, AND DAVE WARDLE'S ANNEXATION OF IT. MRS. + TAPPING'S IMPRESSIONABILITY. AN ITALIAN MUSICIAN'S MONKEY. A CLEAN + FINISH. THE BULL AND THE DUCKPOND. OF MRS. PRICHARD'S JEALOUSY OF + MRS. MARROWBONE. CANON LAW. HOW DAVE DESCRIBED HER RIVAL. HER + SISTER PHOEBE. BUT--WHY DAVERILL, OF ALL NAMES IN THE WORLD? + FOURPENNYWORTH OF CRUMPETS + + +If you have ever given attention to buildings in the course of erection +in London, you must have been struck with their marvellous stability. +The mere fact that they should remain standing for five minutes after +the removal of the scaffold must have seemed to you to reflect credit on +the skill of the builder; but that they should do so for a +lifetime--even for a century!--a thing absolutely incredible. Especially +you must have been impressed by the nine-inch wall, in which every other +course at least consists of bats and closures. You will have marvelled +that so large a percentage of bricks can appear to have been delivered +broken; but this you would have been able to account for had you watched +the builder at work, noting his vicious practice of halving a sound +brick whenever he wants a bat. It is an instinct, deep-rooted in +bricklayers, against which unprofessional remonstrance is useless--an +instinct that he fights against with difficulty whenever popular +prejudice calls for full bricks on the face. So when the wall is not to +be rendered in compo or plaster, he just shoves a few in, on the courses +of stretchers, leaving every course of headers to a lifetime of +effrontery. What does it matter to him? But it must be most painful to a +conscientious bat to be taken for a full brick by every passer-by, and +to be unable to contradict it. + +Now the real reason why the top wall of No. 7, Sapps Court was bulging +was one that never could surprise anyone conversant to this extent with +nine-inch walls. For there is a weakest point in every such wall, where +the plate is laid to receive the joists, or jystes; which may be +pronounced either way, but should always be nine-inch. For if they are +six-inch you have to shove 'em in nearer together, and that weakens +your wall, put it how you may. You work it out and see if it don't come +out so. So said the builder, Mr. Bartlett, at No. 7, Sapps Court, when +having laid bare the ends of the top-floor joists in Mrs. Prichard's +front attic it turned out just like he said it would--six-inch jystes +with no hold to 'em, and onto that all perished at the ends! Why ever +they couldn't go to a new floor when they done the new roof Mr. Bartlett +could not conceive. They had not, and what was worse they had carried up +the wall on the top of the old brickwork, adding to the dead weight; and +it only fit to pull down, as you might say. + +However, the weather was fine and warm all the time Mr. Bartlett rebuilt +two foot of wall by sections; which he did careful, a bit at a time. And +all along, till they took away the scaffolding and made good them two or +three pudlock-holes off of a ladder, they was no annoyance at all to +Mrs. Prichard, nor yet to Mrs. Burr, excepting a little of that sort of +flaviour that goes with old brickwork, and a little of another that +comes with new, and a bit of plasterers' work inside to make good. +Testimony was current in and about the house to this effect, and may be +given broadly in the terms in which it reached Uncle Moses. His comment +was that the building trade was a bad lot, mostly; you had only to take +your eye off it half a minute, and it was round at the nearest bar +trying the four-half. Mr. Jerry's experience had been the same. + +Mrs. Burr was out all day, most of the time; so it didn't matter to her. +But it was another thing for the old woman, sometimes alone for hours +together; alone with her past. At such times her sleeping or waking +dreams mixed with the talk of the bricklayers outside, or the sound of a +piano from one of the superior houses that back-wall screened the Court +from--though they had no call to give theirselves airs that the Court +could see--a piano on which talent was playing scales with both hands, +but which wanted tuning. Old Mrs. Prichard was not sensitive about a +little discord now and again. As she sat there alone, knitting worsteds +or dozing, it brought back old times to her, before her troubles began. +She and her sister could both play easy tunes, such as the "Harmonious +Blacksmith" and the "Evening Hymn," on the square piano she still +remembered so well at the Mill. And this modern piano--heard through +open windows in the warm summer air, and mixing with the +indistinguishable sounds of distant traffic--had something of the effect +of that instrument of seventy years ago, breaking the steady monotone of +rushing waters under the wheel that scarcely ever paused, except on +Sunday. What had become of the old square piano she and Phoebe learned +to play scales on? What becomes of all the old furnishings of the rooms +of our childhood? Did any man ever identify the bed he slept in, the +table he ate at, half a century ago, in the chance-medley of +second-hand--third-hand--furniture his father's insolvency or his own +consigned it to? Would she know the old square piano again now, with all +its resonances dead--a poor, faint jargon only in some few scattered +wires, far apart? Yes--she would know it among a hundred, by the inlaid +bay-leaves on the lid that you could lift up to look inside. But that +was accounted lawless, and forbidden by authority. + +She dreamed herself back into the old time, and could see it all. The +sound of the piano became mixed, as she sat half dozing, with the smell +of the lilies of the valley which--according to a pleasing fiction of +Dolly Wardle--that little person's doll had brought upstairs for her, +keeping wide awake until she see 'em safe on the table in a mug. But the +sound and the smell were of the essence of the mill, and were sweet to +the old heart that was dying slowly down--would soon die outright. Both +merged in a real dream with her sister's voice in it, saying +inexplicably: "In the pocket of your shot silk, dear." Then she woke +with a start, sorry to lose the dream; specially annoyed that she had +not heard what the carman--outside with her father--had begun to say +about the thing Phoebe was speaking of. She forgot what that was, and it +was very stupid of her. + +That was Mr. Bartlett outside, laying bricks; not the carman at all. +What was that he was saying? + +"B'longed to a Punch's show, he did. Couldn't stand it no longer, he +couldn't. The tune it got on his narves, it did! If it hadn't 'a been +for a sort o' reel ease he got takin' of it quick and slow--like the +Hoarperer--he'd have gave in afore; so there was no pretence. It's all +werry fine to say temp'ry insanity, but I tell you it's the contrairy +when a beggar comes to his senses and drownds hisself. Wot'd the Pope do +if he had to play the same tune over and over and over and over?... +Mortar, John! And 'and me up a nice clean cutter. That's your quorlity, +my son." And the Court rang musically to the destruction of a good +brick. + +John--who was only Mr. Bartlett's son for purposes of rhetoric--slapped +his cold unwholesome mortar-pudding with a spade; and ceded an +instalment, presumably. Then his voice came: "Wot didn't he start on a +new toon for, for a wariation?" + +Mr. Bartlett was doing something very nice and exact with the +three-quarter he had just evolved, so his reply came in fragments as +from a mind preoccupied. "Tried it on he had--that game--more times +than once.... But the boys they took it up, and aimed stones.... And the +public kep' its money in its pocket--not to encourage noo Frenchified +notions--not like when they was a boy. So the poor beggar had to jump in +off of the end of Southend Pier, and go out with the tide." He added, as +essential, that Southend Pier was better than two mile long; so there +was water to drownd a man when the tide was in. + +The attention of very old people may be caught by a familiar word, +though such talk as this ripples by unheeded. The sad tale of the +Punch's showman--the exoteric one, evidently--roused no response in the +mind of old Mrs. Prichard, until it ended with the tragedy at Southend. +The name brought back that terrible early experience of the sailing of +the convict-ship--of her despairing effort at a farewell to be somehow +heard or seen by the man whom she almost thought of as in a grave, +buried alive! She was back again in the boat in the Medway, keeping the +black spot ahead in view--the accursed galley that was bearing away her +life, her very life; the man no sin could change from what he was to +her; the treasure of her being. She could hear again the monotonous beat +of her rowers' pair of oars, ill-matched against the four sweeps of the +convicts, ever gaining--gaining.... + +Surely she would be too late for that last chance, that seemed to her +the one thing left to live for. And then the upspringing of that blessed +breeze off the land that saved it for her. She could recall her terror +lest the flagging of their speed for the hoisting of the sail should +undo them; the reassuring voice of a hopeful boatman--"You be easy, +missis; we'll catch 'em up!"--the less confident one of his mate--"Have +a try at it, anyhow!" Then her joy when the sail filled and the plashing +of her way spoke Hope beneath her bulwark as she caught the wind. Then +her dread that the Devil's craft ahead would make sail too, and +overreach them after all, and the blessing in her heart for her hopeful +oarsman, whose view was that the officer in charge would not spare his +convicts any work he could inflict. "He'll see to it they arn their +breaffastis, missis. _He_ ain't going to unlock their wristis off of the +oars for to catch a ha'porth o' blow. You may put your money on him for +that." And then the sweet ship upon the water, and her last sight of the +man she loved as he was dragged aboard into the Hell within--scarcely a +man now--only "213 M"! + +Then the long hours that followed, there in the open boat beneath the +sun, whose setting found her still gazing in her dumb despair on what +was to be his floating home for months. Such a home! Scraps of her own +men's talk were with her still--the names of passing craft--the +discontent in the fleet--the names of landmarks on either coast. Among +these Southend--the word that caught her ear and set her a-thinking. But +there was no pier two miles long there then. She was sure of that. + +What was it Mr. Bartlett was talking about now? A grievance this time! +But grievances are the breath of life to the Human Race. The source of +this one seemed to be Sapps proprietor, who was responsible for the +restrictions on Mr. Bartlett's enthusiasm, which might else have pulled +the house down and rebuilt it. "Wot couldn't he do like I told him +for?"--thus ran the indictment--"Goard A'mighty don't know, nor yet +anybody else! Why--_he_ don't know, hisself! I says to him, I says, just +you clear out them lodgers, I says, and give me the run of the premises, +I says, and it shan't cost you a fi'-pun note more in the end, I says. +Then if he don't go and tie me down to a price for to make good front +wall and all dy-lapidations. And onlest he says wot he means by good, +who's to know?... Mortar, John!" John supplied mortar with a slamp--a +sound like the fall of a pasty Titan on loose boards. The grievance was +resumed, but with a consolation. "Got 'im there, accordin' as I think of +it! Wot's his idear of _good?_--that's wot _I_ want to know. Things is +as you see 'em...." Mr. Bartlett would have said the _esse_ of things +was _percipi,_ had he been a Philosopher, and would have felt as if he +knew something. Not being one, he subsided--with truisms--into silence, +content with the weakness of Sapps owner's entrenchments. + +Mr. Bartlett completed his contract, according to his interpretation of +the word "good"; and it seems to have passed muster, and been settled +for on the nail. Which meant, in this case, as soon as a surveyor had +condemned it on inspection, and accepted a guinea from Mr. Bartlett to +overlook its shortcomings; two operations which, taken jointly, +constituted a survey, and were paid for on another nail later. The new +bit of brickwork didn't look any so bad, to the eye of impartiality, now +it was pointed up; only it would have looked a lot better--mind you!--if +Mr. Bartlett had been allowed to do a bit more pointing up on the +surrounding brickwork afore he struck his scaffold. But Sapps landlord +was a narrer-minded party--a Conservative party--who wouldn't go to a +sixpence more than he was drove, though an economy in the long-run. The +remarks of the Court and its friends are embodied in these statements, +made after Mr. Bartlett had got his traps away on a truck, which +couldn't come down the Court by reason of the jam. It was, however, a +source of satisfaction to Dave Wardle, whose friends climbed into it +while he sat on the handle, outweighing him and lifting him into the +air. Only, of course, this joy lasted no longer than till they started +loading of it up. + +It lasted long enough, for all that, to give quite a turn to Mrs. +Tapping, whom you may remember as a witness of Dave's accident--the bad +one--nine months ago. Ever since then--if Mrs. Riley, to whom she +addressed her remarks, would believe her--Mrs. Tapping's heart had been +in her mouth whenever she had lighted her eye on young children +a-playing in the gutters. As children were plentiful, and preferred +playing wherever the chances of being run over seemed greatest, this +must have been a tax on Mrs. Tapping's constitution. She had, however, +borne up wonderfully, showing no sign of loss of flesh; nor could her +flowing hair have been thinned--to judge by the tubular curls that +flanked her brows, which were neither blinkers nor cornucopias +precisely; but which, opened like a scroll, would have resembled the +one; and, spirally prolonged, the other. It was the careful culture of +these which distracted the nose of Mrs. Tapping's _monde_, preoccupied +by a flavour of chandled tallow, to a halo of pomatum. Mrs. Riley was +also unchanged; she, however, had no alarming cardiac symptoms to +record. + +But as to that turn Dave Wardle giv' Mrs. Tapping. It really sent your +flesh through your bones, all on edge like, to see a child fly up in the +air like that. So she testified, embellishing her other physiological +experience with a new horror unknown to Pathologists. Mrs. Riley, less +impressionable, kept an even mind in view of the natural invulnerability +of childhood and the special guardianship of Divine Omnipotence. If +these two between them could not secure small boys of seven or eight +from disaster, what could? The unbiassed observer--if he had been +passing at the time--might have thought that Dave's chubby but vigorous +handgrip and his legs curled tight round the truck-handle were the +immediate and visible reasons why he was not shot across the truck into +space. Anyhow, he held on quite tight, shouting loudly the next item of +the programme--"Now all the other boys to jump out when oy comes to +free. One, two, _free_!" In view of the risk of broken bones the other +boys were prompt, and Dave came down triumphantly. Mrs. Riley's +confidence had been well founded. + +"Ye'll always be too thinder-harruted about the young spalpeens, me +dyurr," she said. "Thrust them to kape their skins safe! Was not me son +Phalim all as bad or wurruss. And now to say his family of childher!" + +Mrs. Tapping perceived her opportunity, and jumped at it. "That is the +truth, ma'am, what you say, and calls to mind the very words my poor +husband used frequent. So frequent, you might say, that as often as not +they was never out of his mouth. 'Mary Ann Tapping, you are too +tender-hearted for to carry on at all; bein', as we are, subjick.' And I +says back to him: 'Tapping'--I says--'no more than my duty as a +Christian woman should. Read your Bible and you will find,' I says. And +Tapping he would say:--'Right you are, Mary Ann, and viewin' all things +as a Gospel dispensation. But what I look at, Mary Ann'--he says--'is +the effect on your system. You are that 'igh-strung and delicate +organized that what is no account to an 'arder fibre tells. So bear in +mind what I say, Mary Ann Tapping'--he says--'and crost across the way +like the Good Samaritan, keepin' in view that nowadays whatever we are +we are no longer Heathens, and cases receive attention from properly +constitooted Authorities, or are took in at the Infirmary.' Referring, +Mrs. Riley, ma'am, to an Italian organ-boy bit by his own monkey, which +though small was vicious, and open to suspicion of poison...." Mrs. +Tapping dwelt upon her past experience and her meritorious attitude in +trying circumstances, for some time. As, in this instance, she had +offered refreshment to the victim, which had been requisitioned by his +monkey, who escaped and gave way to his appetite on the top of a +street-lamp, but was recaptured when the lamplighter came with his +ladder. + +"Shure there'll be nothing lift of the barrow soon barring the bare +fragmints of it," said Mrs. Riley, who had been giving more attention to +the boys and the truck than to the Italian and the monkey. And really +the repetition of the pleasing performance with the handle pointed to +gradual disintegration of Mr. Bartlett's property. + +However, salvage was at hand. A herald of Mr. Bartlett himself, or of +his representatives, protruded slowly from Sapps archway, announcing +that his scaffold-poles were going back to the sphere from which they +had emanated on hire. It came slowly, and gave a margin for a stampede +of Dave and his accomplices, leaving the truck very much aslant with the +handle in the air; whereas we all know that a respectable hand-barrer, +that has trusted its owner out of sight, awaits his return with the +quiet confidence of horizontality; or at least with the handle on the +ground. Mr. Bartlett's comment was that nowadays it warn't safe to take +one's eyes off of anything for half-a-quarter of a minute, and there +would have to be something done about it. He who analyses this remark +may find it hard to account for its having been so intelligible at first +hearing. + +But Mrs. Tapping and Mrs. Riley--who were present--were not analytical, +and when Mr. Bartlett inquired suspiciously if any of them boys belonged +to either of you ladies, one of the latter replied with a +counter-inquiry:--"What harrum have the young boys done ye, thin, +misther? Shure it's been a playzin' little enjoyment forr thim afther +school-hours!" Which revealed the worst part of Mr. Bartlett's character +and his satellite John's, a sullen spirit of revenge, more marked +perhaps in the man than in the master; for while the former merely +referred to the fact that he would know them again if he saw them, and +would then give them something to recollect him by, the latter said he +would half-skin some of 'em alive if he could just lay hands on 'em. But +the subject dropped, and Mr. Bartlett loaded up his truck and departed. +And was presently in collision with the authorities for leaving it +standing outside the Wheatsheaf, while he and John consumed a +half-a-pint in at the bar. + +When the coast was quite clear, the offenders felt their way back, not +disguising their satisfaction at their transgression. Mrs. Riley seemed +to think that she ought to express the feeling the Bench would have had, +had it been present. For she said: "You'll be laying yoursilves open to +pinalties, me boys, if ye don't kape your hands off other payple's +thrucks, and things that don't consurrun ye. So lave thim be, and attind +to your schooling, till you're riddy for bid." Dave's blue eyes dwelt +doubtfully on the speaker, expressing their owner's uncertainty whether +she was in earnest or not. Indeed, her sympathy with the offenders +disqualified her for judicial impressiveness. Anyhow, Dave remained +unimpressed, to judge by his voice as he vanished down the Court to +narrate this pleasant experience to Uncle Moses. It was on Saturday +afternoon that this took place. Have you ever noticed the strange +fatality which winds up all building jobs on Saturday? Only not _this_ +Saturday--always next Saturday. It is called by some "making a clean +finish." + +Old Mrs. Prichard lent herself to the fiction that she would rejoice +when the builders had made this clean finish. But she only did so to +meet expectation half-way. She had no such eagerness for a quiet Sunday +as was imputed to her. Very old people, with hearing at a low ebb, are +often like this. The old lady during the ten days Mr. Bartlett had +contrived to extend his job over--for his contract left all question of +extras open--had become accustomed to the sound of the men outside, and +was sorry when they died away in the distance, after breeding dissension +with poles in the middle distance; that is to say, the Court below. She +had felt alive to the proximity of human creatures; for Mr. Bartlett +and John still came under that designation, though builders by trade. If +it had not been Saturday, with a prospect of Dave and Dolly Wardle when +they had done their dinners, she would have had no alleviation in view, +and would have had to divide the time between knitting and dozing till +Mrs. Burr came in--as she might or might not--and tea eventuated: the +vital moment of her day. + +However, this was Saturday, and Dave and Dolly came up in full force as +the afternoon mellowed; and Aunt M'riar accompanied them, and Mrs. Burr +she got back early off her job, and there was fourpennyworth of +crumpets. Only that was three-quarters of an hour later. + +But Dave was eloquent about his adventure with the truck, judging the +old lady of over eighty quite a fit and qualified person to sympathize +with the raptures of sitting on a handle, and being jerked violently +into the air by a counterpoise of confederates. And no doubt she was; +but not to the extent imputed to her by Dave, of a great sense of +privation from inability to go through the experience herself. +Nevertheless there was that in his blue eyes, and the disjointed +rapidity of his exposition of his own satisfaction, that could bridge +for her the gulf of two-thirds of a century between the sad old now--the +vanishing time--and the merry _then_ of a growing life, and all the +wonder of the things to be. The dim illumination of her smile spread a +little to her eyes as she made believe to enter into the glorious +details of the exploit; though indeed she was far from clear about many +of them. And as for Dave, no suspicion crossed his mind that the old +lady's professions of regret were feigned. He condemned Aunt M'riar's +attitude, as that of an interloper between two kindred souls. + +"There, child, that'll do for about Mr. Bartlett's truct." So the good +woman had said, showing her lack of _geist_--her Philistinism. "Now you +go and play at The Hospital with Dolly, and don't make no more noise +than you can help." This referred to a game very popular with the +children since Dave's experience as a patient. It promised soon to be +the only record of his injuries, as witness his gymnastics of this +morning. + +But he was getting to be such a big boy now--seven, last birthday--that +playing at games was becoming a mere concession to Dolly's tender youth. +Old Mrs. Prichard's thin soprano had an appeal to this effect in it--on +Dave's behalf--as she said: "Oh, but the dear child may tell me, please, +all about the truck and some more things, too, before he goes to play +with Dolly. He has always such a many things to tell, has this little +man! Hasn't he now, Mrs. Wardle?" + +Aunt M'riar--good woman as she was--had a vice. She always would improve +occasions. This time she must needs say:--"There, Davy, now! Hear what +Mrs. Prichard says--so kind! You tell Mrs. Prichard all about Mrs. +Marrowbone and the bull in the duckpond. You tell her!" + +Dave, with absolute belief in the boon he was conferring on his +venerable hearer, started at once on a complicated statement, as one who +accepted the instruction in the spirit in which it was given. But first +he had to correct a misapprehension. "The bool wasn't in the duckpong. +The bool was in Farmer Jones's field, and the field was in the duckpong +on the other side. And the dusk was in the pong where there wasn't no +green." Evidently an oasis of black juice in the weed, which ducks +enjoy. Dave thought no explanation necessary, and went on:--"Then Farmer +Jones he was a horseback, and he rodid acrost the field, he did. And he +undooed the gate with his whip to go froo, and it stumbled and let the +bool froo, and Farmer Jones he rodid off to get the boy that +understoodid the bool. He fetched him back behind his saddle, he did. +And then the boy he got the bool's nose under control, and leaded him +back easy, and they shet to the gate." One or two words--"control," for +instance--treasured as essential and conscientiously repeated, gave Dave +some trouble; but he got through them triumphantly. + +"Is that all the story, Dave?" said Mrs. Prichard, who was affecting +deep interest; although it was by now painfully evident that Dave had +involved himself in a narrative without much plot. He nodded decisively +to convey that it was substantially complete, but added to round it +off:--"Mr. Marrowbone the Smith from Crincham he come next day and +mended up the gate, only the bool he was tied to a post, and the boy +whistled him a tune, or he would have tostid Mr. Marrowbone the Smith." + +Said Aunt M'riar irrelevantly:--"What was the tune he whistled, Dave? +You tell Mrs. Prichard what tune it was he whistled!" To which Dave +answered with reserve:--"A long tune." Probably the whistler's stock was +limited, and he repeated the piece, whatever it was, _da capo ad +libitum_. This legend--the thin plot of Dave's story--will not strike +some who have the misfortune to own bulls as strange. In some parts of +the country boys are always requisitioned to attend on bulls, who +especially hate men, perhaps resenting their monopoly of the term +_manhood_. + +This conversation would scarcely have called for record but for what it +led to. + +Old Mrs. Prichard, like Aunt M'riar, had a vice. It was jealousy. Her +eighty years' experience of a bitter world had left her--for all that +she would sit quiet for hours and say never a word--still longing for +the music of the tide that had gone out for her for ever. The love of +this little man--which had not yet learned its value, and was at the +service of age and youth alike--was to her even as a return of the +sea-waves to some unhappy mollusc left stranded to dry at leisure in the +sun. But her heart was in a certain sense athirst for the monopoly of +his blue eyes. She did not grudge him to any legitimate claimant--to +Uncle Mo or to Aunt M'riar, nor even to Mrs. Burr; though that good +woman scarcely challenged jealousy. Indeed, Mrs. Burr regarded Dave and +Dolly as mere cake-consumers--a public hungering for sweet-stuffs, and +only to be bought off by occasional concessions. It was otherwise with +unknown objects of Dave's affection, whose claims on him resembled Mrs. +Prichard's own. Especially the old grandmother at the Convalescent Home, +or whatever it was, where the child had recovered from his terrible +accident. She grudged old Mrs. Marrowbone her place in Dave's +affections, and naturally lost no opportunity of probing into and +analysing them. + +Said the old lady to Dave, when the bull was disposed of: "Was Mr. +Marrowbone the Smith old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson?" Dave shook his +head rather solemnly and regretfully. It is always pleasanter to say +_yes_ than _no_; but in this case Truth was compulsory. "He wasn't +_anyfink_ of Granny Marrowbone's. No, he wasn't!" said he, and continued +shaking his head to rub the fact in. + +"Now you're making of it up, Dave," said Aunt M'riar. "You be a good +little boy, and say Mr. Marrowbone the Smith was old Mrs. Marrowbone's +grandson. Because you know he was--now don't you, Davy? You tell Mrs. +Prichard he was old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson!" Dave, however, shook +his head obdurately. No concession! + +"Perhaps he was her son," said Mrs. Prichard. But this surmise only +prolonged the headshake; which promised to become chronic, to pause only +when some ground of agreement could be discovered. + +"The child don't above half know what he's talking about, not to say +_know_!" Thus Aunt M'riar in a semi-aside to the old lady. It was +gratuitous insult to add:--"He don't reely know what's a grandson, +ma'am." + +Dave's blue eyes flashed indignation. "Yorse I _does_ know!" cried he, +loud enough to lay himself open to remonstrance. He continued under due +restraint:--"I'm going to be old Mrs. Marrowbone's grangson." He then +remembered that the treaty was conditional, and added a proviso:--"So +long as I'm a good boy!" + +"Won't you be my grandson, too, Davy darling?" said old Mrs. Prichard. +And, if you can conceive it, there was pain in her voice--real pain--as +well as the treble of old age. She was jealous, you see; jealous of this +old Mrs. Marrowbone, who seemed to come between her and her little +new-found waterspring in the desert. + +But Dave was embarrassed, and she took his embarrassment for reluctance +to grant her the same status as old Mrs. Marrowbone. It was nothing of +the sort. It was merely his doubt whether such an arrangement would be +permissible under canon law. It was bigamy, however much you chose to +prevaricate. The old lady's appealing voice racked Dave's feelings. "I +carn't!" he exclaimed, harrowed. "I've spromussed to be Mrs. +Marrowbone's grangson--I have." And thereupon old Mrs. Prichard, +perceiving that he was really distressed, hastened to set his mind at +ease. Of course he couldn't be her grandson, if he was already Mrs. +Marrowbone's. She overlooked or ignored the possible compromise offered +by the fact that two grandmothers are the common lot of all mankind. But +it would be unjust--this was clear to her--that Dave should suffer in +any way from her jealous disposition. So she put her little grievance +away in her inmost heart--where indeed there was scarcely room for it, +so preoccupied had the places been--and then, as an active step towards +forgetting it, went on to talk to Dave about old Mrs. Marrowbone, +although she was not Mr. Marrowbone the Smith's grandmother. + +"Tell us, Dave dear, about old Mrs. Marrowbone. Is she very old? Is she +as old as me?" To which Aunt M'riar as a sort of Greek chorus +added:--"There, Davy, now, you be a good boy, and tell how old Mrs. +Marrowbone is." + +Dave considered. "She's not the soyme oyge," said he. "She can walk to +chutch and back, Sunday morning." But this was a judgment from physical +vigour, possibly a fallible guide. Dave, being prompted, attempted +description. Old Mrs. Marrowbone's hair was the only point he could +seize on. A cat, asleep on the hearthrug, supplied a standard of +comparison. "Granny Marrowbone's head's the colour of this," said Dave, +with decision, selecting a pale grey stripe. And Widow Thrale's was like +that--one with a deeper tone of brown, with scarcely any perceptible +grey. + +"And which on Pussy is most like mine, Dave?" said Mrs. Prichard. There +was no hesitation in the answer to this. It was "that sort";--that is, +the colour of Pussy's stomach, unequivocal white. And which did Dave +like best--an unfair question which deserved and got a Parliamentary +answer. "All free," said Dave. + +But this was merely colour of hair, a superficial distinction. How about +Granny Marrowbone's nose. "It's the soyme soyze," was the verdict, given +without hesitation. What colour were her eyes? "Soyme as yours." But +Dave was destined to incur public censure--Aunt M'riar representing the +public--for a private adventure into description. "She's more teef than +you," said he candidly. + +"Well, now, I do declare if ever any little boy was so rude! I never +did! Whatever your Uncle Moses would say if he was told, I can't think." +Thus Aunt M'riar. But her attitude was artificial, for appearance sake, +and she knew perfectly well that Uncle Moses would only laugh and +encourage the boy. The culprit did not seem impressed, though ready to +make concessions. Yet he did not really better matters by +saying:--"She's got some teef, she has"; leaving it to be inferred that +old Mrs. Prichard had none, which was very nearly true. The old lady did +not seem the least hurt. Nor was she hurt even when Dave--seeking merely +to supply accurate detail--added, in connection with the old hand that +wandered caressingly over his locks and brows:--"Her hands is thicker +than yours is, a lot!" + +"I often think, Mrs. Wardle," said she, taking no advantage of the new +topic offered, "what we might be spared if only our teeth was less +untrustworthy. Mine stood me out till over fifty, and since then they've +been going--going. Never was two such rows of teeth as I took with me to +the Colony. Over fifty years ago, Mrs. Wardle!" + +"To think of that!" said Aunt M'riar. It was the time--not the +teeth--that seemed so wonderful. Naturally old Mrs. Prichard's teeth +went with her. But fifty years! And their owner quite bright still, when +once she got talking. + +She was more talkative than usual this afternoon, and continued:--"No, I +do not believe, Mrs. Wardle, there was ever a girl with suchlike teeth +as mine were then." And then this memory brought back its companion +memory of the long past, but with no new sadness to her voice: "Only my +dear sister Phoebe's, Mrs. Wardle, I've told you about. She was my twin +sister ... I've told you ... you recollect?..." + +"Yes, indeed, ma'am, and died when you was in the Colony!" + +"I've never seen another more beautiful than Phoebe." She spoke with +such supreme unconsciousness of the twinship that Aunt M'riar forgot it, +too, until her next words came. "I was never free to say it of her in +those days, for they would have made sport of me for saying it. There +was none could tell us apart then. It does not matter now." She seemed +to fall away into an absent-minded dream, always caressing Dave's sunny +locks, which wanted cutting. + +Aunt M'riar did not instantly perceive why a twin could not praise her +twin's beauty; at least, it needed reflection. She was clear on the +point, however, by the time Dave, merely watchful till now, suddenly +asked a question:--"What are stwins?" He had long been anxious for +enlightenment on this point, and now saw his opportunity. His inquiry +was checked--if his curiosity was not satisfied--by a statement that +when a little boy had a brother the same age that was twins, incorrectly +_s_twins. He had to affect satisfaction. + +The old woman, roused by Dave's question, attested the general truth of +his informant's statements; then went back to the memory of her sister. +"But I never saw her again," said she. + +"No, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar. "So I understood. It was in England she +died?" + +"No--no! Out at sea. She was drowned at sea. Fifty years ago ... +Yes!--well on to fifty years ago." She fell back a little into her +dreamy mood; then roused herself to say:--"I often wonder, Mrs. Wardle, +suppose my sister had lived to be my age, should we have kept on alike?" + +Aunt M'riar was not a stimulus to conversation as far as perspicuity +went. A general tone of sympathy had to make up for it. "We should have +seen, ma'am," said she. + +"Supposing it had all gone on like as it was then, and we had just grown +old together! Supposing we had neither married, and no man had come into +it, should we all our lives have been mistaken for one another, so you +could not tell us apart?" + +Aunt M'riar said "Ah!" and shook her head. She was not imaginative +enough to contribute to a conversation so hypothetical. + +There was nothing of pathos, to a bystander, in the old woman's musical +voice, beyond its mere age--its reedy tone--which would have shown in it +just as clearly had she been speaking of any topic of the day. Conceive +yourself speaking about long forgotten events of your childhood to a +friend born thirty--forty--fifty years later, and say if such speech +would not be to you what old Mrs. Prichard's was to herself and her +hearer, much like revival of the past history of someone else. It was +far too long ago now--if it had ever been real; for sometimes indeed it +seemed all a dream--to lacerate her heart in recollecting it. The +memories that could do that belonged to a later time; some very much +later--the worst of them. Not but that the early memories could sting, +too, when dragged from their graves by some remorseless +resurrectionist--some sound, like that piano; some smell, like those +lilies of the valley. Measure her case against your own experience, if +its span of time is long enough to supply a parallel. + +Her speech became soliloquy--was it because of a certain want of pliancy +in Aunt M'riar?--and seemed to dwell in a disjointed way on the +possibility that her sister might have changed with time otherwise than +herself, and might even have been hard to recognise had they met again +later. It would be different with two girls of different ages, each of +whom would after a long parting have no guide to the appearance of her +sister; while twins might keep alike; the image of either, seen in the +glass, forecasting the image of the other. + +Aunt M'riar made a poor listener to this, losing clues and forging false +constructions. But her obliging disposition made her seem to understand +when she did not, and did duty for intelligence. Probably Dave--on the +watch for everything within human ken--understood nearly as much as Aunt +M'riar. Something was on the way, though, to rouse her, and when it came +she started as from a blow. What was that the old lady had just said? +How came that name in her mouth?... + +"What I said just now, Mrs. Wardle?... Let me see!... About what my +husband used to say--that Phoebe's memory would go to sleep, not like +mine, and I was a fool to fret so about her. I would not know her again, +maybe, if I saw her, nor she me.... Yes--he said all that.... What?" + +"What was the _name_ you said just now? Ralph ... something! Ralph +what?" + +"Oh--yes--I know! What Phoebe would have been if she had married my +husband's brother--Mrs. Ralph Daverill...." + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed Aunt M'riar. + +"Ah, there now!" said the old lady. "To think I should never have told +you his name!" She missed the full strength of Aunt M'riar's +exclamation; accounted it mere surprise at what was either a reference +to a former husband or an admission of a pseudonym. Aunt M'riar was glad +to accept matters as they stood, merely disclaiming excessive +astonishment and suggesting that she might easy have guessed that Mrs. +Prichard had been married more than once. She was not--she said--one of +the prying sort. But she was silent about the cause of her amazement; +putting the name in a safe corner of her memory, to grapple with it +later. + +The old woman, however, seemed to have no wish for concealments, saying +at once:--"I never had but one husband, Mrs. Wardle; but I'll tell you. +I've always gone by the name of Prichard ever since my son.... But I +never told you of him neither! It is he I would forget...." This +disturbed her--made her take the caressing hand restlessly from Dave's +head, to hold and be held by the other. She had to be silent a moment; +then said hurriedly:--"He was Ralph Thornton, after his father and +uncle. His father was Thornton--Thornton Daverill.... I'll tell you +another time." Thereupon Aunt M'riar held her tongue, and Mrs. Burr came +in with the fourpennyworth of crumpets. + + * * * * * + +An unskilful chronicler throws unfair burdens on his reader. The latter +need not read the chronicle certainly; there is always that resource! +If, however, he reads this one, let him keep in mind that Aunt M'riar +did _not_ know that the escaped prisoner of her newspaper-cutting had +been asking for a widow of the name of Daverill, whom he had somehow +traced to Sapps Court, any more than she knew--at that date--that old +Mrs. Prichard should really have been called old Mrs. Daverill. She only +knew that _his_ name was Daverill. So it was not in order to prevent +Mrs. Prichard seeing it that she cut that paragraph out of the _Morning +Star_. She must have had some other reason. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + A LADY AND GENTLEMAN, WHO HUNG FIRE. NATURAL HISTORY, AND + ARTIFICIAL CHRONOLOGY. NEITHER WAS TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER. + CONFIDENCES ABOUT ANOTHER LADY AND GENTLEMAN, SOME YEARS SINCE. HOW + THE FIRST GENTLEMAN FINISHED HIS SECOND CIGAR. DR. LIVINGSTONE AND + SEKELETU. MR. NORBURY'S QUORUM. WHY ADRIAN TORRENS WOKE UP, AND + WHOSE VOICE PROMISED NOT TO MENTION HIS EYES. FEUDAL BEEF-TEA, AND + MRS. BAILEY. AN EARLY VISIT, FROM AN EARL. AN EXPERIMENT THAT + DISCLOSED A PAINFUL FACT + + +It is three weeks later at the Castle; three weeks later, that is, than +the story's last sight of it. It is the hottest night we have had this +year, says general opinion. Most of the many guests are scattered in the +gardens after dinner, enjoying the night-air and the golden moon, which +means to climb high in the cirrus-dappled blue in an hour or so. And +then it will be a fine moonlight night. + +On such a night there is always music somewhere, and this evening +someone must be staying indoors to make it, as it comes from the windows +of the great drawing-room that opens on the garden. Someone is playing a +Beethoven sonata one knows well enough to pretend about with one's +fingers, theoretically. Only one can't think which it is. So says Miss +Smith-Dickenson, in the Shrubbery, to her companion, who is smoking a +Havana large enough to play a tune on if properly perforated. But she +wishes Miss Torrens would stop, and let Gwen and the Signore sing some +Don Juan. That is Miss Dickenson's way. She always takes exception to +this and to that, and wants t'other. It does not strike the Hon. +Percival Pellew, the smoker of the big cigar, as a defect in her +character, but rather as an indication of its illumination--a set-off to +her appearance, which is, of course, at its best in the half-dark of a +Shrubbery by moonlight, but is _passée_ for all that. Can't help that, +now, can we? But Mr. Pellew can make retrospective concession; she must +have told well enough, properly dressed, fifteen years ago. She don't +exactly bear the light now, and one can't expect it. + +The Hon. Percival complimented himself internally on a greater +spirituality, which can overlook such points--mere clay?--and discern a +peculiar essence of soul in this lady which, had they met in her more +palatable days, might have been not uncongenial to his own. Rather a +pity! + +Miss Dickenson could identify a glow-worm and correct the ascription of +its light to any fellow's cigar-end thrown away. She made the best +figure that was compatible with being indubitably _passée_ when she went +down on one knee in connection with this identification. Mr. Pellew felt +rather relieved. Her outlines seemed somehow to warrant or confirm the +intelligence he had pledged himself to. He remarked, without knowing +anything about it, that he thought glow-worms didn't show up till +September. + +"Try again, Mr. Pellew. It's partridge-shooting that doesn't begin till +September. That's what you're thinking of." + +"Well--August, then!" + +"No--that's grouse, not glow-worms. You see, you are reduced to July, +and it's July still. Do take my advice, Mr. Pellew, and leave Natural +History alone. Nobody will ever know you know nothing about it, if you +hold your tongue." + +The Hon. Percival was silent. He was not thinking about his shortcomings +as a Natural Historian. The reflection in his mind was:--"What a pity +this woman isn't twenty years younger!" He could discriminate--so he +imagined--between mere flippancy and spontaneous humour. The latter +would have sat so well on the girl in her teens, and he would then have +accepted the former as juvenile impertinence with so much less misgiving +that he was being successfully made game of. He could not quite shake +free of that suspicion. Anyhow, it was a pity Miss Smith-Dickenson was +thirty-seven. That was the age her friend Lady Ancester had assessed her +at, in private conversation with Mr. Pellew. "Though what the deuce my +cousin Philippa"--thus ran a very rapid thought through his mind--"could +think I wanted to know the young woman's age for, I can't imagine." + +"There it is!" said the lady, stooping over the glow-worm. "Little hairy +thing! I won't disturb it." She got on her feet again, saying:--"Thank +you--I'm all right!" in requital of a slight excursion towards +unnecessary help, which took the form of a jerk cut short and an +apologetic tone. "But don't talk Zoölogy or Botany, please," she +continued. "Because there's something I want you to tell me about." + +"Anything consistent with previous engagements. Can't break any +promises." + +"Have you made any promises about the man upstairs?" + +"Not the ghost of a one! But he isn't 'the man upstairs' to me. He's the +man in the room at the end of my passage. That's how I came to see him." + +"You did see him?" + +"Oh yes--talked to him till the nurse stopped it. I found we knew each +other. Met him in the Tyrol--at Meran--ten years ago. He was quite a boy +then. But he remembered me quite well. It was this morning." + +"Did he recognise you, or you him?" + +"Why--neither exactly. We found out about Meran by talking. No--poor +chap!--he can't recognise anybody, by sight at least. He won't do that +yet awhile." + +The lady said "Oh?" in a puzzled voice, as though she heard something +for the first time; then continued: "Do you know, I have never quite +realised that ... that the eyes were so serious. I knew all along that +there was _something_, but ... but I understood it was only weakness." + +"They have been keeping it dark--quite reasonably and properly, you +know--but there is it! He can't see--simply can't see. His eyes _look_ +all right, but they won't work. His sister knows, of course, but he has +bound her over to secrecy. He made me promise to say nothing, and I've +broken my promise, I suppose. But--somehow--I thought you knew." + +"Only that there was _something_--no idea that he was blind. But I won't +betray your confidence." + +"Thank you. It's only a matter of time, as I gather. But a bad job for +him till he gets his sight again." + +"He will, I suppose, in the end?" + +"Oh yes--in the end. Sir Coupland is cautious, of course. But I don't +fancy he's really uneasy. His sight might come back suddenly, he said, +at any moment. Of course, _he_ believes his eyesight will come back. +Only meanwhile he wants--it was a phrase of his own--to keep all the +excruciation for his own private enjoyment. That's what he said!" + +"I see. Of course, that makes a difference. And you think Sir Coupland +thinks he will get all right again?" + +Mr. Pellew says he does think so, reassuringly. "It has always struck me +as peculiar," says he, "that Tim's family ... I beg pardon--I should +have said the Earl's. But you see I remember him as a kid--we are +cousins, you know--and his sisters always called him Tim.... Well, I +mean the family here, you know, seem to know so little of the Torrenses. +Lady Gwen doesn't seem to have recognised this chap in the Park." + +"I believe she has never seen him. He has been a great deal abroad, you +know." + +"Yes, he's been at German Universities, and games of that sort." + +"Is that your third cigar, Mr. Pellew?" + +"No--second. Come, I say, Miss Dickenson, two's not much...." + +But her remark was less a tobacco-crusade than a protest against too +abrupt a production of family history by a family friend. Mr. Pellew +felt confident it would come, though; and it did, at about the third +whiff of the new cigar. + +"I suppose you know the story?" + +"Couldn't say, without hearing it first to know." + +"About Philippa and Sir Hamilton Torrens?" + +"Can't say I have. But then I'm the sort of fellah nobody ever tells +things to." + +"I suppose I oughtn't to have mentioned it." + +"I shall not tell anyone you did so. You may rely on that." Mr. Pellew +gave his cigar a half-holiday to say this seriously, and Miss Dickenson +felt that his type, though too tailor-made, was always to be relied on; +you had only to scratch it to find a Gentleman underneath. No audience +ever fails to applaud the discovery on the stage. Evidently there was no +reserve needed--a relation of the Earl, too! Still, she felt satisfied +at this passing recognition of Prudence on her part. Preliminaries had +been done justice to. + +She proceeded to tell what she knew of the episode of her friend's early +engagement to the father of the gentleman who had been shot. It was +really a very flat story; so like a thousand others of its sort as +scarcely to claim narration-space. Youth, beauty, high spirits, the +London season, first love--warranted the genuine article--parental +opposition to the union of Romeo and Juliet, on the vulgar, unpoetical +ground of Romeo having no particular income and vague expectations; the +natural impatience of eighteen and five-and-twenty when they don't get +their own way in everything; misunderstandings, ups-and-downs, +reconciliations and new misunderstandings; finally one rather more +serious than its predecessors, and judicious non-interference of +bystanders--underhanded bystanders who were secretly favouring another +suitor, who wasn't so handsome and showy as Romeo certainly, but who was +of sterling worth and all that sort of thing. Besides, he was very +nearly an Earl, and Hamilton Torrens was three-doors off his father's +Baronetcy and Pensham Steynes. This may have had its weight with Juliet. +Miss Dickenson candidly admitted that she herself would have been +influenced; but then, no doubt she was a worldling. Mr. Pellew admired +the candour, discerning in it exaggeration to avoid any suspicion of +false pretence. He did not suspect himself of any undue leniency to this +lady. She was altogether too _passée_ to admit of any such idea. + +The upshot of the flat episode, of course, was that Philippa "became +engaged" to her new suitor, and did _not_ fall out with him. They were +married within the year, and three months later her former _fiancé's_ +father died, rather unexpectedly. His eldest son, coming home from +Burmah on sick-leave, died on the voyage, of dysentery; and his second +brother, a naval officer, was in the autumn of the same year killed by a +splinter at the Battle of Navarino. So by a succession of fatalities +Romeo found himself the owner of his father's estate, and a not very +distant neighbour of Juliet and his successful rival. + +It appeared that he had consoled himself by marrying a Miss Abercrombie, +Miss Dickenson believed. These Romeos always marry a Miss Something; +who, owing to the way she comes into the story, is always on the +top-rung of the ladder of insipidity. Nobody cares for her; she appears +too late to interest us. No doubt there were several Miss Abercrombies +on draught, and he selected the tallest or the cleverest or the most +musical, avoiding, of course, the dowdiest. + +However, there was Lady Ancester's romance, told to account for the +languid intercourse between the Castle and Pensham Steynes, and the +non-recognition of one another by Gwen and the Man in the Park. Miss +Dickenson added a rider to the effect that she could quite understand +the position. It would be a matter of mutual tacit consent, tempered +down by formal calls enough to allay local gossip. "I think Miss Torrens +has stopped," said she collaterally; you know how one speaks +collaterally? "Shall we walk towards the house?" + +Then the Hon. Percival made a speech he half repented of later; +_videlicet_, when he woke next morning. It became the fulcrum, as it +were, of an inexplicable misgiving that Miss Dickenson would be bearing +the light worse than ever when he saw her at breakfast. The speech +was:--"It's very nice out here. One can hear the Don at Covent Garden. +Besides ... one can hear out here just as well." This must have been +taken to mean that two could. For the lady's truncated reply was:--"Till +you've finished your cigar, then!" + +Combustion was lip-close when the cigar-end was thrown away. The reader +of this story may be able to understand a thing its writer can only +record without understanding--the fact that this gentleman felt grateful +to the fine moonlight night, now nearly a _fait-accompli_, for enhancing +this lady's white silk, which favoured a pretence that she was only +reasonably _passée_, and enabled him to reflect upon the contour of her +throat without interruption from its skin. For it had a contour by +moonlight. Well!--sufficient to the day is the evil thereof; daylight +might have its say to-morrow. Consider the clock put back a dozen years! + + * * * * * + +"Oh yes, he's asleep still, but I've seen him--looked in on my way down. +Do you know, I really believe he will be quite fit for the journey +to-morrow. He's getting such a much better colour, and last night he +seemed so much stronger." Thus the last comer to the morning-rally of +breakfast claimants, in its ante-room, awaiting its herald. Miss Irene +Torrens is a robust beauty with her brother's eyes. She has been with +him constantly since she came with her father three weeks ago, and the +two of them watched his every breath through the terrible day and night +that followed. + +"Then perhaps he will let us see him," says Lady Gwen. "At last!" + +"You must not expect too much," says Miss Torrens. She does not like +saying it, but facts are overpowering. Her brother has exacted a pledge +from her to say nothing, even now, about his blindness--merely to treat +him as weak-eyed temporarily. He will pass muster, he says--will squeak +through somehow. "I can't have that glorious girl made miserable," were +the words he had used to her, half an hour since. This Irene will be all +on tenterhooks till the interview is safely over. Meanwhile it is only +prudent not to sound too hopeful a note. It is as well to keep a margin +in reserve in case the performance should fall through. + +Irene's response to her brother's words had been, "She is a glorious +girl," and she was on the way to "You should have seen her eyes last +night over that Beethoven!" But she broke down on the word _eyes_. How +else could it have been? Then the blind man had laughed, in the courage +of his heart, as big a laugh as his pitiable weakness could sustain, and +had made light of his affliction. He had never given way from the first +hour of his revival, when he had asked to have the shutters open, and +had been told they were already wide open, and the July sun streaming +into the room. + +It was the Countess who answered Irene's caution, as accompaniment to +her morning salute. "We are not to expect _anything_, my dear. That is +quite understood. It would be unreasonable. And we won't stop long and +tire him. But this girl of mine will never be happy if he goes away +without our--well!--becoming acquainted, I might almost say. Because +really we are perfect strangers. And when one has shot a man, even by +accident...." Her ladyship did not finish, but went on to hope the +eyesight was recovering. + +"Oh yes!" said Irene audaciously. "We are quite hopeful about it now. It +will be all right with rest and feeding up. Only, if I let you in to see +him you _will_ promise me, won't you--not to say a word about his eyes? +It only frightens him, and does no one any good." Of course, Miss +Torrens got her promise. It was an easy one to make, because reference +to the eyes only seemed a means towards embarrassment. Much easier to +say nothing about them. Gwen and Miss Torrens, very _liées_ already, +went out by the garden window to talk, but would keep within hearing +because breakfast was imminent. + +More guests, and the newspapers; as great an event in the early fifties +as now, but with only a fraction of the twentieth century's allowance of +news. Old General Rawnsley, guilty of his usual rudeness in capturing +the _Times_ from all comers, had to surrender it to the Hon. Percival +because none but a dog-in-the-manger could read a letter from Sir C. +Napier of Scinde, and about Dr. Livingstone and Sekeletu and the +Leeambye all at the same time. All comers, or several male comers at +least, essayed to pinion the successful captor of the _Times_, thirsting +for information about their own special subjects of interest. No--the +Hon. Percival did _not_ see anything, so far, about the new Arctic +expedition that was to unearth, or dis-ice, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_; +but the inquirer, a vague young man, shall have the paper directly. +Neither has he come on anything, as yet, about a mutiny in the camp at +Chobham. But the paper shall be at the disposal of this inquirer, too, +as soon as the eye in possession has been run down to the bottom of this +column. In due course both inquirers get hold of corners at the moment +of surrender, and then have paroxysms of polite concession which neither +means in earnest, during which the bone of contention becomes the prey +of a passing wolf. Less poetically, someone else gets hold of the paper +and keeps it. + +The Hon. Percival really surrendered the paper, not because his interest +in Lord Palmerston's speech had flagged, but because he had heard Miss +Dickenson come in, and that consideration about her endurance of the +daylight weighed upon him. On the whole, she is standing the glare of +day better than he expected, and her bodice seems very nicely cut. It +may have been an accident that she looked so dowdy yesterday morning. He +and she exchange morning greetings, passionlessly but with civility. The +lady may be accounting a _tête-à-tête_ by moonlight with a gentleman, an +hour long, an escapade, and he may be resolving on caution for the +future. By-the-by, _can_ a lady have a _tête-à-tête_ with another lady +by moonlight? Scarcely! + +Mr. Norbury, the butler, always feels the likeness of the breakfast +rally to fish in a drop-net. If he acts promptly, he will land his usual +congregation. He must look in at the door to see if there is a quorum. A +quarum would do. A cujus is a great rarity; though even that happens +after late dances, or when influenza is endemic. Mr. Norbury looked in +at the rally and recognised its psychological moment. More briefly, he +announced that breakfast was ready, while a gong rang up distant sheep +astray most convincingly. + + * * * * * + +Adrian Torrens, too weak still to show alacrity in waking, hears the +sound and is convinced. How he would rejoice to join the party below! He +knows _that_, in his sleep; and resolves as soon as he can speak to +tell Mrs. Bailey the nurse he could perfectly well have got up for +breakfast. Yet he knows he is glad to be kept lying down, for all that. + +He wakes cherishing his determination to say this to his tyrant, and is +conscious of the sun by the warmth, and the unanimity of the birds. He +knows, too, that the casement is open, by the sound of voices in the +garden below. His sister's voice and another, whose owner's image was +the last thing human he had seen, with the eyes that he dared not think +had looked their last upon the visible world when the crash came from +Heaven-knows-where and shut it out. He could identify it beyond a doubt; +could swear to it, now that he had come to understand the real story of +his terrible mishap, as the first sound that mixed with his returning +life, back from a painless darkness which was a Heaven compared to the +torture of his reviving consciousness. It was strange to be told now +that at that moment the medical verdict had been given that he was dead. +But he could swear to the voice--even to the words! What was it saying +now? + +"You may rely on me--indeed you may--to say nothing about the eyes. He +will be just able to see us, I suppose?" + +"He will hardly recognise you. How long was it altogether, do you +think?" + +"At Arthur's Bridge? Five minutes--perhaps less." + +"He took a good look at you?" + +"I suppose so. I think he did, as soon as he had got the dog chained. Oh +yes--I should say certainly! I fancied he might have seen me before, but +it seems not." + +"He says not. But you were not out when he went to Konigsberg." + +"Oh no--I had quite a long innings after that.... Well!--it _does_ sound +like cricket, doesn't it? Go on." + +"Oh--I see what you mean. What a ridiculous girl you are! What was I +saying!... Oh, I recollect! That was just after he graduated at Oxford. +Then he went to South America with Engelhardt. He really has been very +little at home for three years--over three years--past." + +"We shall see if he knows me. I won't say anything to guide him." Then +he heard his sister's voice reply to the speaker with words she had used +before:--"You know you must not expect too much." To which Lady +Gwendolen reiterated: "Oh, you may trust me. I shall say nothing to him +about it.... Oh, you darling!" This was to Achilles, manifestly. He had +become restless at the sound of conversation below, and had been +looking round the door-jamb to see if by any chance a dog could get +out. The entry of the nurse a moment since, with a proto-stimulant on a +tray, had let him out to tear down the stairs to the garden, rudely +thrusting aside the noble owner of the house, out of bounds in a +dressing-gown and able to defy Society. + +No lack of sight can quench the image in its victim's brain of Achilles' +greeting to the owners of the two voices. His sister has her fair share +of it--no more!--but her friend gets an accolade of a piece with the one +she received that morning by Arthur's Bridge, three weeks since. So his +owner's brain-image says, confirmed by sounds from without. He is +conscious of the absurdity of building so vivid and substantial a +superstructure on so little foundation, and would like to protest +against it. + +"Good-morning, Nurse. I'm better. What is it?--beef-tea. Earls' cooks +make capital beef-tea. On the whole I am in favour of Feudalism. Nothing +can be sweeter or neater or completer--or more nourishing--than its +beef-tea. Don't put any salt in till I tell you.... Oh no--_I'm_ not +going to spill it!" This is preliminary; the protest follows. "Who's +talking to my sister under the window?... that's her voice." Of course, +he knew perfectly well all the time. + +The nurse listens a moment. "That's her ladyship," says she, meaning the +Countess. Gwen's voice is not unlike her mother's, only fuller. "They +are just going in to breakfast. The gong went a minute ago." + +Now is his time to condemn the tyranny which keeps him in bed in the +morning and lying down all day. "I _could_ have got up and gone +downstairs, Mrs. Bailey, you know I could." + +Mrs. Bailey pointed out that had this scheme been carried out a life +would have been sacrificed. She explained to a newcomer, no less a +person than the Earl himself, that Mr. Torrens would kill himself in +five minutes if she did not keep the eyes of a lynx on him all the +blessed day. She is always telling him so without effect, he never being +any the wiser, even when she talks her head off. Patients never are, +being an unmanageable class at the best. A nurse with her head on ought +to be a rarity, according to Mrs. Bailey. + +The image of the Earl in the blind man's mind is very little helped by +recollection of the few occasions, some years ago, on which he has seen +him. It becomes now, after a short daily chat with him each morning +since he gained strength for interviews, that of an elderly gentleman +with a hesitating manner anxious to accommodate difficulties, soothing +an unreasonable race with a benevolent optimism, pouring oil on the +troubled waters of local religion and politics, taking no real interest +in the vortices into which it has pleased God to drag him, all with one +distinct object in view--that of adding to his collections undisturbed. +That is the impression he has produced on Mr. Adrian Torrens in a dozen +of his visits to his bedside. His lordship has made it a practice to +look in at his victim--for that is the way he thinks of him, will he +nill he!--as early every day as possible, and as late. He has suffered +agonies from constant longings to talk about his Amatis or his Elzevirs +or his Petitots, checked at every impulse by the memory of the patient's +blindness. He is always beginning to say how he would like to show him +this or that, and collapsing. This also is an inference of Mr. Torrens, +drawn in the dark, from sudden hesitations and changes of subject. + +"How are we this morning, Nurse?" On the mend, it seems, being more +refractory than ever; always a good sign with patients. But we must be +kept in bed, till midday at any rate, for some days yet. Or weeks or +months or years according to the degree of our intractability. The Earl +accepts this as common form, and goes to the bedside saying +sum-upwardly:--"No worse, at any rate!" + +"Tremendously better, Lord Ancester! _Tremendously_ better, thanks to +you and Mrs. Bailey.... Catch hold of the cup, Nurse.... Yes, I've +drained it to the dregs.... I know what you are going to say, my +lord...." + +"I was going to say that Mrs. Bailey and I are not on the same footing. +Mrs. Bailey didn't shoot you.... Yes, now grip hard! That's right! +Better since yesterday certainly--no doubt of it!" + +"Mrs. Bailey didn't shoot me in the mere vulgar literal sense. But she +was contributory, if not an accessory after the fact. It was written in +the Book of Fate that Mrs. Bailey would bring me beef-tea this very day. +If she had accepted another engagement the incident would have had to be +rewritten; which is impossible by hypothesis. Moreover, so far as I can +be said to have been shot, it was as a trespasser, not as a man.... Is +there a close season for trespassers? If there is, I admit that you may +be technically right. _Qui facit per alium facit per se_.... By-the-by, +I hope poor Alius is happier in his mind...." + +"Poor who?" says the Earl. He is not giving close attention to the +convalescent's disconnected chatter. He has been one himself, and knows +how returning life sets loose the tongue. + +"The _alius_ you facitted per. The poor chap that had the bad luck to +shoot me. Old Stephen--isn't he? Poor old chap! _What_ a mischance!" + +"Oh yes--old Stephen! I see--he's _alius_, of course. He comes over two +or three times a day to see how you are going on. They think him rather +a nuisance in the house, I believe. I have tried to comfort him as well +as I could. He will be glad of to-day's report. But he can't help being +dispirited, naturally." + +"He's so unaccustomed to homicide, poor old chap! People should be +educated to it, in case of accidents. They might be allowed to kill a +few women and children for practice--should never be left to the mercy +of their consciences, all raw and susceptible. Poor old Stephen! I +really think he might be allowed to come and see me now. I'm so very +much improved that a visit from my assassin would be a pleasant +experience--a wholesome stimulus. Wouldn't throw me back at all! Poor +old Stephen!" He seemed seriously concerned about the old boy; would not +be content without a promise that he and his wife should pay him an +early visit. + +He had been immensely better after that M.P. paid him a visit yesterday +morning. Mrs. Bailey confirmed this, testifying to the difficulty with +which the patient had been persuaded to remain in bed. But she had the +whip-hand of him there, because he couldn't find his clothes without her +help. This gives the Earl an idea of the condition of the patient's +eyesight beyond his previous concept of its infirmities. He has been +misled by its apparent soundness--for no one would have guessed the +truth from outward seeming--and the nurse's accident of speech rouses +his curiosity. + +"Ah, by-the-by," he says, "I was just going to ask." Which is not +strictly true, but apology to himself for his own neglect, "How _are_ +the eyes?" + +"Oh, the eyes are right enough," says the patient. He goes on to explain +that they are no inconvenience whatever so long as he keeps them shut. +It is only when he opens them that he notices their defect; which is, +briefly, that he can't see with them. His lordship seems to feel that +eyes so conditioned are hardly satisfactory. It is really new knowledge +to him, and he accepts it restlessly. He spreads his fingers out before +the deceptive orbs that look so clear, showing indeed no defect but a +kind of uncertainty; or rather perhaps a too great stillness as though +always content with the object in front of them. "What do you see now?" +he asks in a nervous voice. + +"Something dark between me and the light." + +"Is that all? Can't you see what it is?" + +"A book." A mere guess based on the known predilections of the +questioner. + +"Oh dear!" says the Earl. "It was my hand." He sees that the nurse is +signalling with headshakes and soundless lip-words, but has not presence +of mind to catch her meaning. + +The other seems to feel his speech apologetically, as though it were his +own fault. "I see better later in the day," he says. Which may be true +or not. + +The nurse's signalling tells, and the questioner runs into an opposite +extreme. "One is like that in the morning sometimes," says he absurdly, +but meaning well. He is not an Earl who would be of much use in a +hospital for the treatment of nervous disorders. However, having grasped +the situation he shows tact, changing the conversation to the heat of +the weather and the probable earliness of the crops. No one should ever +_show_ tact. He will only be caught _flagrante delicto_. Mr. Torrens is +perfectly well aware of what is occurring; and, when he lies still and +unresponsive with his eyes closed, is not really resting after exertion, +which is the nurse's interpretation of the action, but trying to think +out something he wants to say to the Earl, and how to say it. It is not +so easy as light jesting. + +The nurse telegraphs silently lipwise that the patient will doze now for +a quarter of an hour till breakfast; and the visitor, alive to the call +of discretion, has gone out gently before the patient knows he has left +the bedside. + +Things that creak watch their opportunity whenever they hear silence. So +the Earl's gentle exit ends in a musical and penetrating _arpeggio_ of a +door-hinge, equal to the betrayal of Masonic secrecy if delivered at the +right moment. "Is Mrs. Bailey gone?" says the patient, ascribing the +wrong cause to it. + +"His lordship has gone, Mr. Torrens. He thought you were dropping off." + +"Stop him--stop him! Say I have something particular to say. Do stop +him!" It must be something very particular, Nurse thinks. But in any +case the patient's demand would have to be complied with. So the Earl is +recaptured and brought back. + +"Is it anything I can do for you, Mr. Torrens? I am quite at your +service." + +"Yes--something of importance to me. Is Mrs. Bailey there?" + +"She is just going." She had not intended to do so. But this was a hint +clearly. It was accepted. + +"All clear!" says the Earl. "And the door closed." + +"My sister has promised to ask the Countess and your daughter--Lady +Gwen, is it not?" + +"That is my daughter's name, Gwendolen. 'Has promised to ask them' ... +what?" + +"To give me an opportunity before I go of thanking them both for all the +great kindness they have shown me, and of apologizing for my wish to +defer the interview." + +"Yes--but why me?... I mean that that is all quite in order, but how do +I come in?" As the speaker's voice smiles as well as his face, his +hearer's blindness does not matter. + +"Only this way. You know the doctors say my eyesight is not +incurable--probably will come all to rights of itself...." + +"Yes--and then?" + +"I want them--her ladyship and ..." + +"My wife and daughter. I understand." + +"... I want them to know as little about it as possible; to know +_nothing_ about it _if_ possible. You knew very little about it yourself +till just now." + +"I was misled--kindly, I know--but misled for all that. And the +appearance is so extraordinary. Nobody could guess...." + +"Exactly. Because the eyes are really unaffected and are sure to come +right. See now what I am asking you to do for me. Help me to deceive +them about it. They will not test my eyesight as you did just now...." + +"How do you know that?" + +"Because I heard Irene and your daughter talking in the garden a few +minutes ago--just after the breakfast-bell rang--talking about me, and I +eavesdropped as hard as I could. Lady Gwendolen has promised Irene to +say nothing about my eyesight for my sake. She will keep her +promise...." + +"How do you know that?" + +"By the sound of her voice." + +"She is only a human girl." + +"I am convinced that she will keep it; though, I grant you, +circumstances are against her. And neither she nor her mother will try +to find out, if they believe I see them dimly. That is where _you_ come +in. Only make them believe that. Don't let them suppose I am all in the +dark. Say nothing of your crucial experiment just now. Irene--dear +girl--has been a good sister to me, and has told many good round lies +for my sake. But she will explain to God. I cannot ask you, Lord +Ancester, to tell stories on my behalf. My petition is only for a modest +prevarication--the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain +a justifiable end. Consider the position analogous to that of one of +Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs, +you know--only what a truthful person tells instead of a fib! For my +sake!" + +"I am not thinking of my character for veracity," says the Earl +thoughtfully. "You should be welcome to a sacrifice of that under the +circumstances. I was thinking what form of false representation would be +most likely to gain the end, and safest. Do you know, I am inclined to +favour the policy of saying as little as possible? My dear wife is in +the habit of imputing to me a certain slowness and defective observation +of surrounding event. It is a common wifely attitude. You need not fear +my being asked any questions. In any case, I fully understand your +wishes, and you may rely on my doing my best. Here is your breakfast +coming. I hope you will not be knocked up with all this talk." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + BLIND MEN CAN'T SMOKE. CAN'T THEY? HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER + DAUGHTER AT LAST INTERVIEWED THEIR GUEST. HIS SUBTLE ARRANGEMENTS + FOR SEEMING TO SEE THEM. A BLUNDER OVER A HANDSHAKE, AND ALL THE + FAT IN THE FIRE, NEARLY! AN ELECTRIC SHOCK. THE EXCELLENCE OF + ACHILLES' HEART. HOW MR. TORRENS SPOILED IT ALL! BLUE NANKIN IS NOT + CROWN DERBY. GWEN'S GREAT SCHEME. HOW SHE CARRIED IT OUT + + +The morning passed, with intermittent visitors, one at a time. Each one, +coming away from the bedside, confirmed the report of his predecessor as +to the visible improvement of the convalescent. Each one in turn, when +questioned about the eyesight, gave a sanguine report--an echo of the +patient's own confidence, real or affected, in its ultimate restoration. +He would be all right again in a week or so. + +Underhand ways were resorted to of cheating despair and getting at the +pocket of Hope. Said one gentleman to the Earl--who was keeping his +counsel religiously--"He can't read small print." Whereto the Earl +replied--"Not yet awhile, but one could hardly expect that"; and felt +that he was carrying out his promise with a minimum of falsehood. Yet +his conscience wavered, because an eyesight may be unable to read small +print, and yet unable to read large print, or any print at all. Perhaps +he had better have left the first broad indisputable truth to impose on +its hearer unassisted. + +Another visitor scored a success on behalf of Optimism by reporting that +the patient had smoked a cigar in defiance of medical prohibitions. +"Can't be much wrong with his eyes," said this one, "if he can smoke. +You shut your eyes, and try!" Put to the proof, this dictum received +more confirmation than it deserved, solely to secure an audience for the +flattering tales of Hope. + +Much of the afternoon passed too, but without visitors. Because it would +never do, said Irene, for her brother not to be at his best when Gwen +and her mother came to pay their visit, resolved on this morning, at +what was usually the best moment of his day--about five o'clock. +Besides, he was to be got up and really dressed--not merely huddled into +clothes--and this was a fatiguing operation, never carried out in dire +earnest before. Doctor and Nurse had assented, on condition that Mr. +Torrens should be content to remain in his room, and not insist on going +downstairs. Where was the use of his doing so, with such a journey +before him to-morrow? Better surely to husband the last grain of +strength--the last inch-milligramme of power--for an eighteen-mile ride, +even with all the tonics in the world to back it! Mr. Torrens consented +to this reservation, and promised not to be rebellious. + +So--in time--the hour was at hand when he would see.... No!--_not_ +see--there was the sting of it!... that girl he had spoken with at +Arthur's Bridge. The vision of her in the sunset was upon him still. He +had pleaded with his sister that, come what might, she should not come +to him in his darkness, in the hope that this darkness might pass away +and leave her image open to him as before. For this hope had mixed +itself with that strong desire of his heart that his own disaster should +weigh upon her as little as possible. He had kept this meeting back +almost till the eleventh hour, hoping against hope that light would +break; longing each day for a gleam of the dawn that was to give him his +life once more, and make the whole sad story a matter of the past. And +now the time had come; and here he stood awaiting the ordeal he had to +pass successfully, or face his failure as he might. + +If he could but rig up an hour's colourable pretext of vision, however +imperfect, the reality might return in its own good time--if that was +the will of Allah--and that time might be soon enough. She might never +know the terrible anticipations his underthought had had to fight +against. + +"You look better in the blue Mandarin silk than you would in your +tailor's abominations," said Irene, referring to a dressing-gown costume +she had insisted on. "Only your hair wants cutting, dear boy! I won't +deceive you." + +"That's serious!" He lets it pass nevertheless. "Look here, 'Rene, I +want you to tell me.... Where are you?--oh, here!--all right.... Now +tell me--should you say I saw you, by the look of my eyes?" + +"Indeed I should. Indeed, indeed, _nobody_ could tell. Your eyes look as +strong as--as that hooky bird's that sits in the sun at the Zoölogical +and nictitates ... isn't that the word?... Goes twicky-twick with a +membrane...." + +"Fish eagle, I expect." + +"Shouldn't wonder! Only, look here!... You mustn't claw hold of Gwen +like that. How can you tell, without?" + +"Where they are, do you mean? Oh, I know by the voice. You go somewhere +else and speak." Whereupon Irene goes furtively behind him, and says +suddenly:--"Now look at me!" It is a success, for the blind man faces +round, looking full at her. + +She claps her hands. "Oh, Adrian!" she cries, "are you sure you don't +see--aren't you cheating?" A memory, in this, of old games of +blindman's-buff. "You always did cheat, darling, you know, when we +played on Christmas Eve. How do I know I can trust you?" She goes close +to him again caressing his face. "Oh, _do_ say, dear boy, you can see a +little!" But it is no use. He can say nothing. + +There are a few moments of distressing silence, and then the brother +says:--"Never mind, dear! It will be all right. They say so. Take me to +the window that I may look out!" They stand together at the open +casement, listening to the voices of the birds. The shrewdest observer +might fail to detect the flaw in those two full clear eyes that seem to +look out at the leagues of park-land, the spotted deer in the distance, +the long avenue-road soon indistinguishable in the trees. The sister +sees those eyes, no other than she has always known them, but knows that +they see nothing. + +"When I was here first," says the brother, "the thrushes were still +singing. They are off duty by now, the very last of them." He stops +listening. "That's a yellow-hammer. And that's a linnet. _You_ can't +tell one from the other." + +"I know. I'm shockingly ignorant.... What, dear? What is it you want?" +Her brother has been exploring the window-frame with a restless hand, +as though in search of some latch or blind-cord. He cannot find what he +wants. + +"I want to come to a clearness about the position of this blessed +window," he says. "Which direction is the bed in now? Well--describe it +this way, suppose! Say I'm looking north now, with my shoulder against +the window. Where's the bed? South-west--south-east--due south?" + +"South-west by south. Perhaps that's not nautical, but you know what I +mean." + +"All right! Now, look here! As I stand here--looking out +slantwise--where's the sunset? I mean, where would it be?--where does it +mean to be?" + +"You would be looking straight at it. Of course, you are not really +looking north.... There--now you are!" She had taken her hands from the +shoulder they were folded on and turned his head to the right. "But, I +say, Adrian dear!..." She hesitates. + +"What, for instance?" + +"Don't try to humbug too much. Don't try to do it, darling boy. You'll +only make a hash of it." + +"All right, goosey-woosey! I'll fry my own fish. Don't you be uneasy!" +And then they talk of other things: the journey home to-morrow, and how +it shall be as good as lying in bed to Adrian, in the big carriage with +an infinity of cushions; the new friends they have made here at the +Towers, with something of wonderment that this chance has been so long +postponed; the kindness they have had from them, and the ill-requital +Adrian made for it yesterday by breaking that beautiful blue china +tea-cup--any trifle that comes foremost--anything but the great grief +that underlies the whole. + +For Irene would have her brother at his best, that the visit to him of +her new-made friend Gwen may go off well, and steer clear of the +ambushes that beset it. Better that that visit should never come off, +than that her friend should be left to share their fears for the future. +Each is hiding from the other a weakening confidence in the renewal of +suspended eyesight, weaker at the outset than either had been prepared +to admit to the other. + +"Look here, 'Rene," says Adrian, an hour later, during which his sister +has read aloud to him, lying by the open window. "Never mind Becky +Sharp; she'll keep till the evening. Can we see Arthur's Bridge from +this window, where I saw your friend Lady Gwen? It was Arthur's, wasn't +it? What Arthur? King Arthur?" + +"Yes, if you like. Only don't go and call it Asses' Bridge, as you did +the other day--not when the family's here. It sounds disrespectful." + +"Not a bit. It only looks as if Euclid had been round. But answer my +question.... Oh, we _can_ see it! Very well, then; show me which way it +lies. Is it visible--the actual bridge itself, I mean--not the place +it's in?" + +Irene got up and looked out of the window from behind her brother's +chair. "Yes," she said. "One sees the stone arch plain. How can I show +you?" She took his head in her hands again to guide it to a true line of +sight. + +"Between us and the sunset?" + +"Thereabouts. Rather on the left." + +"Very good. Now we can go on with Becky Sharp." + +"That's it, my lord, is it? Where was I?--oh, Sir Pitt Crawley...." And +then the reading was continued, till tea portended, and Irene went away +to capture her visitors. + +All the sting of his darkness came upon him in its fulness as he heard +that voice on the stairs. Oh, could he but see her for one moment--only +one moment--to be sure that that dazzling image of three weeks since was +not a mere imagination! He knew well the enchantment of the rainbow +gleam on sea and earth and sky--the glory that makes Aladdin's palace of +the merest hovel. He could scarcely have said to a nicety why a +self-deception on this score seemed to him fraught with such evil. If it +was a terror on Gwen's behalf, that a false image cherished through a +period of reviving eyesight should in the end prove an injustice to her, +and cast a chill over his own passionate admiration--for it was that at +least that a chance of five minutes had enthralled him with--he banished +that terror artificially from his mind. What could it matter to _her_, +if he _was_ taken aback and disappointed at her not turning out what his +excited fancy had made her that evening at Arthur's Bridge? What was he +to _her_ that any chance man might not have been, after so scanty an +interchange of words? + +That was his dominant feeling, or underlying it, as her voice neared the +door of his room, saying:--"Fancy your carrying him away without our +seeing him--so much as thinking of it! I call you a wicked, unprincipled +sister." To which another voice, a maternal sort of voice, said what +must have been: "Don't speak so loud!"--or its equivalent. For the +girl's voice dropped, her last words being:--"_He_ won't hear, at this +distance." + +Then, she was actually coming in at the door! He could hear the +prodigious skirt-rustle that is now a thing of womanhood's past--though +we adored every comely example, mind you, we oldsters in those days, for +all that she carried a milliner's shop on her back--and as it climaxed +towards entry had to remember by force how slight indeed had been his +interchange of words with the visitor he wished to see--to see by +hearing, and to touch the hand of twice. For he had counted his coming +privileges in his heart already, even if his reason had made light of +its arithmetic. He would be on the safe side now--so he said to +himself--and think of the elder lady as the player of the leading +_rôle_. No disparagement to her subordinate; the merest deference to +convention! + +There was no mishap about the first meeting; only a narrow escape of +one. The man in the dark reckoned it safest to extend his hand and leave +it, to await the first claimant. He took for granted this would be the +mother, and as his hand closed on a lady's, not small enough to call his +assumption in question, said half interrogatively:--"Lady Ancester?" + +"That's Gwen," said his sister's voice. And at the word an electric +shock of a sort passed up his arm, the hand that still held his showing +no marked alacrity to release it. + +"Yes, this is _me_," says the voice of its owner, "_that's_ mamma." + +Lady Ancester, standing close to her, meets his outstretched hand and +shakes it cordially. Then follows pleasantry about mistaking the mother +for the daughter, with assumption of imperfect or dim vision only to +account for it, and a declaration from Adrian that he had been cautioned +not to confuse the one with the other. There _is_ a likeness, as a +matter of fact, and Irene has talked to him of it. The whole thing is +slighter than the telling of it. + +Then the three ladies and the one man have grouped--composed +themselves--for reasonable chat. He is in his invalid chair by special +edict, at the window, and the two visitors face him half-flanking it. +His sister leans over him behind on the chair-back. She has kept very +close to him, guiding him under pretence that he wants support, which is +scarcely the case now, so rapid has been his progress in this last week. +She is very anxious lest her brother should venture too rashly on +fictitious proofs of eyesight that does not exist. But it can all be put +down to uneasiness about his strength. + +The platitudes of mere chat ensue, the Countess being prolocutrix. But +she can be sincerely earnest in speaking of her own concern about the +accident, and her family's. Also to the full about the rejoicing of +everyone when it was "certain that all would turn out well." She has +been bound over to say nothing about the eyesight, and keeps pledges; +almost too transparently, perhaps. A word or two about it as a thing of +temporary abeyance might have been more plausible. + +Gwen has become very silent since that first warmth of her greeting. She +is leaving the conversation to her mother, which puzzles Irene, who had +framed a different picture of the interview, and is disappointed so far. +Achilles, the dog, too, may be disappointed--may be feeling that +something more demonstrative is due to the position. Irene imputes this +view to him, inferring it from his restless appeals to Gwen, as he leans +against her skirts, throwing back a pathetic gaze of remonstrance for +something too complex for his powers of language. Her comment:--"He is +always like that,"--seems to convey an image of his whereabouts to his +master, confirmed perhaps by expressive dog-substitutes for speech. + +"You mustn't let my bow-wow worry you, Lady Gwendolen. He presumes till +he's checked, on principle. Send him to lie down over here. Here, Ply, +Ply, Ply!... Oh, won't he come?" Probably Achilles knows that his +master, who speaks, is only being civil. + +"No--because I'm holding him. I want him here. He's a darling!" So says +Gwen; and then continues:--"Oh yes, _I_ know why he's Ply--short for +Pelides. I think he thinks I think it was his fault, and wants +forgiveness." + +"Possibly. But it is also possible that he sees his way by cajolery to +all the sweet biscuits with a little crown on them that come about with +tea. He wants none of us to have any. Pray do not think any the worse of +him. How is he to know that a well-bred person hungers for little crown +biscuits? We are so affected that there is nothing for him to go by." + +"And he's a dear, candid darling! Of course he is. He shall have +everything he wants." Achilles appears to accept the concession as +deserved, but to be ready to requite it with undying love. + +"It is all the excellence of his heart, I am aware, and a certain +simplicity and directness," says Adrian. "But all the same he mustn't +spoil ladies' dresses--beyond a certain point, of course. I have been +very curious to know, Lady Gwendolen, whether his paws came off--the +marks of them, I mean--on that lovely India muslin I saw you in three +weeks ago, just before this unfortunate affair which has given so much +trouble to everybody at--at ... Arthur's Bridge, of course! Couldn't +think of the name at the moment. At Arthur's Bridge. I'm afraid he +didn't do that dress any good." + +"It wasn't a new dress," says Gwen, "as far as I remember." A point her +maid would know more about, clearly. + +Lady Ancester seems to think a little _ex post facto_ chaperonage would +not be inappropriate. "Gwen was out of bounds, I understand," she says; +which means absolutely nothing, but sounds well. + +The remark seems somehow to focus the conversation, and become a +stepping-stone to a review of the recent events. Evidently the principal +actor in them takes that view. "I had no idea whom I was speaking to," +he says, "still less that Lady Gwendolen had taken the trouble to come +away from the house with so kind a motive. Of course, I have heard all +about it from my sister." + +Gwen perfectly understands. "And then you walked over to Drews Thurrock, +and Achilles' collar broke, and he got away." She speaks as one who +waits for more. + +"He did, and I am sorry to say he forgot himself. The old Adam broke out +in him in connection with the sudden springing of a hare, just under his +nose. It was almost the moment after his collar broke, and it is quite +possible he thought I meant to let him go. But after all, Achilles is +human, and really I could not blame him in any case. Try to see the +thing from his point of view. Fancy discovering an unused faculty lying +dormant--art, song, eloquence--and an unprecedented opportunity for its +use! Do you know, I don't believe Achilles had ever so much as seen a +hare before?--not a live one! He smelt one once at a poulterer's--a dead +one that was starting for the Antipodes with its legs crossed. The +poulterer lost his temper, very absurdly...." + +"Well--did he catch the hare? I mean the first hare." + +"That I can't say. Both vanished, and I suspect the hare got away. I'm +sure of one thing, that if Achilles did catch him he didn't know what to +do with him. He has not the sporting spirit. Cats interest him in his +native town, but when they show fight he comes and complains to me that +they are out of order. He overhauled a kitten three weeks old once, that +had come out to see the world, and it defied him to mortal combat. +Achilles talked to me all the way down the street about that kitten." + +"I want to know what happened next." From Gwen. + +"Yes--silly old chatterbox!--keep to the point." Thus Irene; and Lady +Ancester, who has been accepting the hare and the cats with dignity, +even condescension, adds:--"We were just at the most interesting part +of the story." This was practically her ladyship's first sight of the +son of the man she had gone so near to marrying over five-and-twenty +years ago. The search to discover a _modus vivendi_ between a past and +present at war may have thrown her a little out of her usual demeanour. +Gwen wondered why mamma need be so ceremonious. + +Adrian was perfectly unconscious of it, even if Irene was not. He ran +on:--"Oh--the story! Yes--Achilles forgot himself, and was off after the +hare like a whirlwind.... I don't know, Lady Ancester, whether you have +ever blown a whistle in the middle of an otherwise unoccupied landscape, +with no visible motive?" + +Her ladyship had not apparently. Irene found fault with the narrator's +style, suggesting a more prosaic one. But Gwen said: "Oh, Irene dear, +what a perfect _sister_ you are! Why can't you let Mr. Torrens tell his +tale his own way?" + +So Mr. Torrens went on:--"It doesn't matter. If you had ever done so, I +believe you would confirm my experience of the position. If Orpheus had +whistled, instead of singing to a lute, Eurydice would have stopped with +Pluto, and Orpheus would have cut a very poor figure. I began to +perceive that Achilles wasn't going to respond, and I knew the hare +wouldn't, all along. So I walked on and got to a wood of oaks with an +interesting appearance. The interesting appearance was inviting, so I +went inside. Achilles was sure to turn up, I thought. Poor dear!--I +didn't see him for some days after that, when I came to and heard all +about it. He had been very uneasy about me, I'm afraid." + +"But inside the wood with the interesting appearance--what happened +then?" Gwen would not tolerate digression. + +"Well, I came to the edge of a wall with a little sunk glade beyond, and +was looking across some blackberry bushes when I heard a rifle-shot, and +the whirr of a bullet. I had just time to notice that the whirr came +_with_ the gunshot--if it had been in the opposite direction it would +have followed it--when I was struck on the head and fell. It was the +fall that knocked me insensible, but it was the gunshot that was +responsible for all that bleeding.... Do you know, I can't tell you how +sorry I am for that old boy that fired the shot? I can't imagine +anything more miserable than shooting a man by accident." + +It was then that an uneasy feeling about those eyes, that looked so +clear and might be so deceiving, took hold of Gwen's mind, and would not +be ignored on any terms. The speaker's "you"--was it addressed in this +case to her or to her mother? The line of his vision seemed to pass +between them. If he could see at all, ever so dimly, he could look +towards the person he addressed. One does not always do so; true enough! +But one does not stare to right or to left of him. And she felt sure +these words had been spoken to herself. + +So while her mother was joining in commiseration of old Stephen, towards +whom she herself felt rather brutal, she was casting about for some +means of coming at the truth. Irene was no good, however altruistic her +motives might be for story-telling.... No!--his eyes looked at her in +quite another fashion that evening at Arthur's Bridge, in the light of +the sunset. She _must_ get at the truth, come what might! + +She left her mother to express sympathy for old Stephen, remaining +rather obdurately silent; checking a wish to say that it served the old +man right for meddling with loaded guns. She waited for the subject to +die down, and then recurred to its predecessor. Did Mr. Torrens walk +straight from Arthur's Bridge to the Thurrock or go roundabout? She did +not really want to know--merely wanted to get him to talk about himself +again. He might say something about his sight, by accident. + +He replied:--"I did not go absolutely straight. I went first to where a +couple of stones--a respectable married couple, I should say--were +standing close together in the fern, with big initials cut on them. +Their own, I presume." Gwen said she knew them; they were parish +boundaries. "Well--probably that hare was trying what it felt like to be +in two parishes at once, for he jumped from behind that stone and +started for the Thurrock--that's right, isn't it?" + +"Drews Thurrock? Yes." + +"It was unfortunately just then that the collar broke. I whistled until +I felt undignified, and then went straight for the said Thurrock, rather +dreading that I should find Achilles awaiting applause for an +achievement in--in leporicide, I suppose...." + +"I'm sure you didn't." + +"I did not. So I waited a little, and was thinking what I had better do +next, when the shot came. You can almost see the place from this +window." He got up from his chair, standing exactly where he had stood +when his sister made his hand point out Arthur's Bridge in blind show. +He made a certain amount of pretence that he could see; and, indeed, +seemed to do so. No stranger to the circumstances could have detected +it. "I couldn't be sure about the place of the stones, though," said he, +carefully avoiding direct verbal falsehood; at least, so Irene thought, +trembling at his rashness. He went on:--"Oh dear, how doddery one does +feel on one's legs after a turn out of this kind!" and fell back in his +chair, his sister alone noticing how he touched it with his hand first +to locate it. "I shall be better after a cup of tea," said he. And the +whole thing was so natural that although he had not said in so many +words that he could see anything, the impression that he could was so +strong that Gwen could have laughed aloud for joy. "He really does see +_something_!" she exclaimed to herself. + +If he could only have been content with this much of success! But he +must needs think he could improve upon it--reinforce it. His remark +about the cup of tea had half-reference to its appearance on the +horizon; or, rather on the little carved-oak table near the window, +whose flaps were being accommodated for its reception as he spoke. The +dwellers in this part of the country considered five o'clock tea at this +time an invention of their own, and were rather vain of it. Another +decade made it a national institution. + +"If there is one thing I enjoy more than another," he said, "it is a +copper urn that boils furiously by magic of its own accord. When I was a +kid our old cook Ursley used to allow me to come into the kitchen and +see the red-hot iron taken out of the fire and dropped into the inner +soul of ours, which was glorious." This was all perfectly safe, because +there was the urn in audible evidence. Indeed, the speaker might have +stopped there and scored. Why need he go on? "And these blue Nankin cups +are lovely. I never could go crockery-mad as some people do. But good +Nankin blue goes to my heart." And he really thought, poor fellow, that +he had done well, and been most convincing. + +Alas for his flimsy house of cards! Down it came. For there had only +been four left of that blue tea-service, and he had broken one. The urn +was hissing and making its lid jump in the middle of a Crown Derby +tea-set, so polychromatic, so self-assertive in its red and blue and +gold, that no ghost of a chance was left of catching at the skirts of +colour-blindness to find a golden bridge of escape from the blunder. The +most colour-blind eyes in the world never confuse monochrome and +polychrome. + +There is a sudden terror-struck misgiving on the beautiful face of Gwen, +and an uneasy note of doubt in her mother's voice, seeking by vague +speech to elude and slur over the difficulty. "The patterns are quite +alike," she says weakly. The blind man feels he has made a mistake, and +is driven to safe silence. He understands his slip more clearly when the +servant, speaking half-aside, but audibly, to the Countess, says:--"Mrs. +Masham said the blue was spoiled for four, my lady, and to bring four +of the China." Crown Derby is more distinctly China in English +vernacular than Nankin blue. + +Please understand that the story is giving at great length incidents +that passed in fractions of a minute--incidents Time recorded _currente +calamo_ for Memory to rearrange at leisure. + +The incident of the tea-cups was easily slurred over and forgotten. +Adrian Torrens saw the risks of attempting too much, and gave up +pretending that he could see. Irene and the Countess let the subject go; +the former most willingly, the latter with only slight reluctance. Gwen +alone dwelt upon it, or rather it dwelt upon her; her memory could not +shake it off. Do what she would the thought came back to her: "He cannot +see _at all_. I must know--I _must_ know!" She could not join in the +chit-chat which went on under the benevolent influence of the tea-leaf, +the great untier of tongues. She could only sit looking beautiful, +gazing at the deceptive eyes she felt so sure were blind to her beauty, +devising some means of extracting confession from their owner, and +thereby knowing the worst, if it was to come. It was interesting to her, +of course, to hear Mr. Torrens talk of the German Universities, with +which he seemed very familiar; and of South America, the area of which, +he said, had stood in the way of his becoming equally familiar with it. +He had been about the world a good deal for a man of five-and-twenty. + +"Gwen thought you were more," said Irene. "At Arthur's Bridge, you know! +She thought you were twenty-seven." + +"Because I was so wet through. Naturally. I was soaked and streaky. Are +you sure it wasn't thirty-seven, Lady Gwendolen?" + +It has been mentioned that Lady Ancester had a matter-of-fact +side to her character. But was it this that made her say +thoughtfully:--"Twenty-five perhaps--certainly not more!" Probably her +mind had run back nearly thirty years, and she was calculating from the +date of this man's father's marriage, which she knew; or from that of +his eldest brother's birth, which she also knew. She was not so clear +about Irene. At the time of that young lady's first birthday--her only +one, in fact--her close observation of her old flame's family dates was +flagging. But she was clear that this Adrian's birth had followed near +upon that of her own son Frank, drowned a few years since so near the +very place of this gunshot accident. The coincidence may have made her +identifications keener. Or Adrian's reckless chat, so like his father's +in old days that she had more than once gone near to comment on it, may +have roused old memories and set her a-fixing dates. + +Adrian laughed at the way his age seemed to be treated as an open +question. "We have the Registrar on our side, at any rate, Lady +Ancester. I can answer for that. By-the-by, wasn't my father ... did not +my father?..." He wanted to say: "Was not my father a friend of your +brother in old days?" But it sounded as if the friendship, whatever it +was, had lessened in newer days, and he knew of nothing to warrant the +assumption. He knew nothing of his father's early love passages, of +course. Fathers don't tell their sons what narrow escapes they have had +of being somebody else, or somebody else being they--an awkward +expression! + +Her ladyship thought over a phrase or two before she decided on:--"Your +father used to come to Clarges Street in my mother's time." She was +pleased with the selection; but less so with a second, one of several +she tried to herself and rejected. "We have really scarcely met since +those days. I thought him wonderfully little changed." + +Has a parent of yours, you who read--or of ours, for that matter--ever +spoken to one or other of us, I wonder, of some fancy of his or her +bygone days; one whose greeting, company manners apart, was an embrace; +whose letters were opened greedily; whose smile was rapture, and whose +frown a sleepless night? If he or she did so, was the outcome better +than the Countess's? + +She wanted to run away, but could not just yet. She made believe to talk +over antecedents--making a conversation of indescribable baldness, and +setting Irene's shrewd wits to work to find out why. It was not _her_ +brother, but her husband's, who had been Sir Hamilton's college-friend. +Yes, her father was well acquainted with Mr. Canning, and so on. This +was her contribution to general chat, until such time had elapsed as +would warrant departure and round the visit plausibly off. + +It was Clarges Street that had done it. Irene was sure of that! She, the +daughter of the Miss Abercrombie her father had married, sitting there +and coming to conclusions! + +However, the Countess meant to go--no doubt of it. "You have paid my +brother such a short visit, after all," said Irene. "Please don't go +away because you fancy you are tiring him." But it was no use. Her +ladyship meant to go, and went. Regrets of all sorts, of course; +explanatory insincerities about stringent obligations elsewhere; even +specific allegations of expected guests; false imputation of exacting +claims to the Earl. All with one upshot--departure. + +Gwen had taken little or no notice of what was passing, since that +betraying incident of the Crown Derby set. Her mind was at work on +schemes for discovery of the truth about those eyes. She got on the +track of a good one. If she could only contrive to be alone with him for +one moment. Yes--it _was_ worth trying? + +It was her mother's inexplicable alacrity to be gone that gave the +opportunity. Her ladyship said good-bye to Mr. Torrens; was sorry she +had to go, but the Earl was so fussy about anything the least like an +appointment--some concession to conscience in the phrasing of this--in +short, go she must! Having committed herself thus, to wait for her +daughter would have been the merest self-stultification. She went out +multiplying apologies, and Irene naturally accompanied her along +the lobby, assisted and sanctioned by Achilles. Gwendolen was +alone with the man who was still credited with sight enough to see +_something_--provided that it was a palpable something. Now--if she +could only play her part right! + +"Mamma is always in such a fuss to go somewhere and do something else," +she said, rather affecting the drawl of a fashionable young lady; for +she could hide anxiety better, she felt, that way. "Do you know, Mr. +Torrens, I don't believe a word of all that about people coming. +Nobody's coming. If there is, they've been there ever so long. I did so +want to talk to you about one of your poems. I mustn't stop now, I +suppose, or I shall be in a scrape." But all the while that she was +saying this she was standing with her right hand outstretched, as though +to say good-bye. Only the word remained unspoken. + +"Which of my poems was it?" He was to all seeming looking full at her, +yet his hand did not come out to meet hers. There was hope still. How +could he ratify an adieu with a handshake, on the top of a question that +called for an answer? + +Gwen had not arranged the point in her mind--had not thought of any +particular poem in fact. She took the first that occurred to her. "It's +the one called 'A Vigil in Darkness,'" she said. And then she would have +been so glad to withdraw it and substitute another. That was not +possible--she had to finish:--"I wanted to know if any other English +poet has ever used 'starren' for stars." + +Adrian laughed. "I remember," said he; then quoted: "'The daughters of +the dream witch come and go,' don't they? 'The black bat hide the +_starren_ of the night.' That's it, isn't it?... No--so far as I know! +But they are a queer lot. Nobody ever knows what they'll be at next in +the way of jargon. It's some rubbish I wrote when I was a boy. I put it +with the others to please 'Re." This was his shortest for Irene. + +If he would only have toned down his blank ignorance of the beautiful +white hand stretched out so appealingly to him--made the least +concession! If he had but held in readiness an open-fingered palm, with +intent, there would have been hope. But alas!--no such thing. When, +instead, he thrust both hands into the pockets of the blue Mandarin-silk +dressing-gown, Gwen felt exactly as if a knife had cut her heart. And +there were his two beautiful eyes looking--looking--straight at her! +Need Fate have worded an inexorable decree so cruelly? + +Hope caught at a straw, _more suo_. What was more likely than that +darkness was intermittent? Many things--most things for that matter! Any +improbability to outwit despair. Anything rather than final surrender. +Therefore, said Gwen to herself, her hand outstretched should await his, +however sick at heart its owner felt, till the last pretext of belief +had flagged and died--belief in the impossibility of so terrible a doom, +consistently with any decent leniency of the Creator towards His +creatures. + +"Oh--to please Irene, was it?" said Gwen, talking chancewise; not +meaning much, but hungering all the while for the slightest aliment for +starving Hope. "Who were 'the daughters of the Dream Witch?'" And then +she was sorry again. Better that a poem about darkness should have been +forgotten! She kept her hand outstretched, mind you!--even though Adrian +made matters worse by folding his hands round his arms on a high +chair-back, and leaning on it. "I wonder who she is," was the girl's +thought, as she looked at a ring. + +"Let me see!" said he. "How does it go?" Then he quoted, running the +lines into one: "'In the night-watches in the garden of Night ever the +watchman sorrowing for the light waiteth in silence for the silent Dawn. +Dead sleep is on the city far below.' Then the daughters of the Dream +Witch came and went as per contract. No--I haven't the slightest idea +who they were. They didn't leave their names." + +"You will never be serious, Mr. Torrens." She felt too heartsick to +answer his laugh. She never moved her hand, watching greedily for a sign +that never came. There was Irene coming back, having disposed of her +ladyship! "I _must_ go," said Gwen, "because of mamma. She's the Dream +Witch, I suppose. I _must_ go. Good-bye, Mr. Torrens! But I can leave +_my_ name--Gwen or Gwendolen. Choose which you prefer." She had to +contrive a laugh, but it caught in her throat. + +"Gwen, I think." It was such a luxury to call her by her name, holding +her hand in his--for, the moment she spoke "good-bye," his hand had +come to meet hers like a shot--that he seemed in no hurry to relinquish +it. Nor did she seem concerned to have it back at the cost of dragging. +"Did you ever live abroad?" said he. "In Italy they always kiss +hands--it's rather rude not to. Let's pretend it's Italy." + +She was not offended; might have been pleased, in fact--for Gwen was no +precisian, no drawer of hard-and-fast lines in flirtation--if it had not +been for the black cloud that in the last few minutes had been stifling +her heart. As it was, Adrian's trivial presumption counted for nothing, +unless, indeed, it was as the resolution of a difficulty. It was good so +far. Even so two pugilists are glad of a way out of a close grip +sometimes. It ended a handshake neither could withdraw from gracefully. +"Good-bye, Mr. Torrens," she said, and contrived another laugh. "I'll +come again to talk about the poetry. I _must_ go now." She passed Irene, +coming in from a moment's speech with the nurse outside, with a hurried +farewell, and ran on to her mother's room breathless. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + GWEN'S PESSIMISM. IT WAS ALL OUR FAULT! HOW SHE KNEW THAT ADRIAN + TORRENS WAS FIANCE, AND HOW HER MOTHER TOOK KINDLY TO THE IDEA. + PEOPLE ONLY KNOW WHAT THE WILL OF GOD IS, NOT WHAT IT ISN'T. BUT + ADRIAN TORRENS DID _NOT_ COME TO TABLE. LONELINESS, AND NIGHT--ALL + BUT SLEEPLESS. WANT OF COMMON SENSE. THE FATE OF A FEATHER. + COUNTING A THOUSAND. LOOKING MATTERS CALMLY IN THE FACE. A GREAT + DECISION, AND WHAT GWEN SAW IN A MIRROR + + +Lady Ancester, not sorry to get away from a position which involved the +consideration that she was unreasonable in feeling reluctance to remain +in it, endeavoured on arriving in her own room to congratulate herself +on her own share in an embarrassing interview. + +She had got through it very well certainly, but not so well as she had +been led to expect by her meeting with his father three weeks since. She +had had her misgivings before that interview, and had been pleasantly +surprised to find how thoroughly the inexorable present had ridden +rough-shod over the half-forgotten past. Their old identities had +vanished, and it was possible to be civil and courteous, and that sort +of thing; even to send messages of sympathy, quite in earnest, to the +lady who up till now had been little more than the Miss Abercrombie +Hamilton Torrens married. Being thus set at ease about what seemed rocks +of embarrassment ahead, in the father's case, Lady Ancester had looked +forward with perfect equanimity to making the acquaintance of the +son--had, in fact, only connected him in her mind with this deplorable +accident, which, however, she quite understood to be going to be a thing +of the past. All in good time. Her equanimity had, however, been +disturbed by the young man's inherited manner, which his father had so +completely lost; above all things by his rapid nonsense, one of his +father's leading characteristics in youth. She condemned it as more +nonsensical, which probably only meant that she herself was older. But +the manner--the manner of it! How it brought back Clarges Street and her +mother, and the family earthquake over her resolution to marry a young +Dragoon, with three good lives between him and his inheritance! She was +taken aback to find herself still so sensitive about that old story. + +She had not succeeded in ridding herself of her disquieting memories +when her daughter followed her, choking back tense excitement until she +had fairly closed the door behind her. Then her words came with a rush, +for all that she kept her voice in check to say them. + +"He cannot _see_, mamma--he cannot see _at all_! He is dead +stone-blind--for life--for life! And _we_ have done it--_we_ have done +it!" Then she broke down utterly, throwing herself on a sofa to hide in +its cushions the torrent of tears she could no longer keep back. "_We_ +have done it--_we_ have done it!" she kept on crying. "_We_ have ruined +his life, and the guilt is ours--ours--_all_!" + +The Countess, good woman, tried to mix consolation with protest against +such outrageous pessimism. She pointed out that there was no medical +authority for such an extreme view as Gwen's. On the contrary, Sir +Coupland had spoken most hopefully. And, after all, if Mr. Torrens could +see Arthur's Bridge he could not be absolutely blind. + +"He could not see Arthur's Bridge _at all_," said Gwen, sitting up and +wiping her tears, self-possessed again for the moment from the stimulus +of contradiction, always a great help. "I stood facing him for five +minutes holding out my hand for him to shake, and he never--_never_--saw +it!" + +"Perhaps he doesn't like shaking hands," said her mother weakly. "Some +people don't." + +"They do mine," said Gwen. "Besides, he did in the end, and...." + +"And what?" + +"And nothing." At which point Gwen broke down again, crying out as +before that he was blind, and she knew it. The doctors were only talking +against hope, and _they_ knew it. "Oh, mother, mother," she cried out, +addressing her mother as she would often do when in trouble or excited, +"how shall we bear it, years from now, to know that he can see +nothing--_nothing!_--and to know that the guilt of his darkness lies +with us--is ours--is yours and mine? Have we ever either of us said a +word of protest against that wicked dog-shooting order? It was in the +attempt to commit a crime that we sanctioned, that old Stephen tried to +shoot that darling Achilles. Oh, I know it was no fault of old +Stephen's!" She became a little calmer from indulgence of speech that +had fought for hearing. "Oh no, mother dear, it's no use talking. If Mr. +Torrens never recovers his eyesight he has only us to thank for it." She +paused a moment, and then added:--"And how I shall look that girl in the +face I don't know!" + +"What girl?" + +"Oh, didn't you see? The girl he's got that engaged ring on his finger +about. You didn't see? You never _do_ see, mamma dear!" + +"I didn't notice any particular ring, dear." Her ladyship may have felt +a relief about something, to judge by her manner. "Has Irene said +anything to you?" she asked. + +Gwen considered a little. "Irene talks a good deal about a Miss Gertrude +Abercrombie, a cousin. But she has never _said_ anything." + +"Oh!--it's Miss Gertrude Abercrombie?..." + +"_I_ know nothing about it. I was only guessing. She may be Miss +Gertrude Anybody. Whoever she is, it's the same thing. _Think_ what +she's lost!" + +"She has, indeed, my dear," says the elder lady, who is not going to +give up this acceptable Miss Gertrude Anybody, even at the risk of +talking some nonsense about her. "And we must all feel for the cruelty +of her position. But if she is--as I have no doubt she is--truly +attached to Mr. Torrens, she will find her consolation in the thought +that it is given to her to ... to...." But the Countess was not +rhetorician enough to know that choice words should be kept for +perorations. She had quite taken the edge off her best arrow-head. She +could not wind up "to be a consolation to her husband" with any +convincingness. So when Gwen interrupted her with:--"I see what you +mean, but it's nonsense," she fell back upon the strong entrenchment of +seniors, who know the Will of God. They really do, don't you know? "At +least," she said, "this Miss Abercrombie must admit that no blame can +fairly be laid at our door for what was so manifestly ordained by the +Almighty. Sir Hamilton Torrens himself was the first to exonerate your +father. His own keeper is instructed to shoot all dogs except poodles." + +"It was not the Will of God at all...." + +"My dear!--how _can_ you know that?" + +"Well--not more than everything else is! It was old Stephen's not +hitting his mark. And he would have killed Achilles, then. Oh dear, how +I do sometimes wish God could be kept out of it!... No, mamma, it's no +use looking shocked. Whatever makes out that it was not our fault is +wrong, and Sir Hamilton Torrens didn't mean that when he said it." + +"My dear, it is his own son." + +"Very well, then, all the more! Oh, you know what I mean.... No, mamma," +said she as she left the room, "it isn't any use. I am utterly miserable +about it." + +And she was, though she herself scarcely knew yet how miserable. So long +as she had someone else to speak to, the whole deadly truth lingered on +the threshold of her mind and would not enter. She ascribed weight to +opinions she would have disregarded had she had no stake on the chance +of their correctness. + +She caught at the narration of her maid Lutwyche, prolonging her +hair-combing for talk's sake. Lutwyche had the peculiarity of always +accommodating her pronunciation to the class she was speaking with, +elaborating it for the benefit of those socially above her. So her +inquiry how the gentleman was getting on was accounted for by her having +seen him from the guardian. Speaking with an equal, she would have said +garden. She had seen him therefrom, and been struck by his appearance of +recovered vigour, especially by his visible enjoyment of the land +escape. She would have said landscape to Cook. Pronounced anyhow, her +words were a comfort to her young mistress, defending her a very little +against the black thoughts that assailed her. Similarly, Miss Lutwyche's +understanding that Mr. Torrens would come to table this evening was a +flattering unction to her distressed soul, and she never questioned her +omniscient handmaid's accuracy. On the contrary, she utilised a memory +of some chance words of her mother to Irene, suggesting that her brother +might be "up to coming down" that evening, as a warrant for +replying:--"I believe so." + +Nevertheless, she had no hope of seeing him make his appearance in the +brilliantly illuminated Early Jacobean drawing-room, where at least two +of the upstairs servants had to light wax tapers for quite ten minutes +at dusk, to be even with a weakness of the Earl's for wax-candlelight +and no other. And when Irene appeared without him, her "Oh dear!--your +brother wasn't up to coming down, then?" was spiritless and perfunctory. +Nor did she believe her friend's "No--we thought it best to be on the +safe side." For she knew now why it was that this absence from the +evening banquet--"family dinner-table" is too modest a phrase--had been +so strenuously insisted on. There was no earthly reason why Irene's +brother should not have dressed and sat at table. Were there no sofas in +the Early Jacobean drawing-room? There was no reason against his +presence at all except that his absolute blindness must needs have been +manifest to every observer. She could see it all now. + +"You know, dear," said Irene, "if Adrian were a reasonable being, there +would be no harm in his dining down, as Lutwyche calls it. He could sit +up to dinner perfectly, but no earthly persuasion would get him up to +bed till midnight. And as for lying down on sofas in the drawing-room +after dinner, you could as soon get a mad bull to lie down on a sofa as +Adrian, if there was what Lutwyche calls company." + +So that evening the beauty of the Earl's daughter--whose name among the +countryfolk, by-the-by, was "Gwen o' the Towers"--was less destructive +than usual to the one or two new bachelors who helped the variation of +the party. For monumental beauty kills only poets and dreamers, and +these young gentlemen were Squires. The verdict of one of them about her +tells its tale:--"A stunner to look at, but too standoffish for my +money!" She was nothing of the sort; and would gladly, to oblige, have +shot a smile or an eye-flash at either of them if her heart had not been +so heavy. But she wanted terribly to be alone and cry all the evening, +and was of no use as a beauty. Perhaps it was as well that it was so, +for these unattached males. + +When the time came for the loneliness of night she was frightened of it, +and let Irene go at her own door with reluctance. In answer to whom she +said at parting:--"No--no, dear! I'm perfectly well, and nothing's the +matter." Irene spoke back after leaving her:--"You know _I'm_ not the +least afraid about him. It will be all right." Then Gwen mustered a poor +laugh, and with "Of course it will, dear!" vanished into her bedroom. + +She got to sleep and slept awhile; then awoke to the worst solitude a +vexed soul knows--those terrible "small hours" of the morning. Then, +every mere insect of evil omen that daylight has kept in bounds grows +to the size of an elephant, and what was the whirring of his wings +becomes discordant thunder. Then palliatives lose their market-value, +and every clever self-deception that stands between us and acknowledged +ill bursts, bubblewise, and leaves the soul naked and unarmed against +despair. + +Gwen waked without provocation at about three in the morning; waked +Heaven knew why!--for there was all the raw material of a good night's +rest; the candidate for the sleepership; a prodigiously comfortable bed; +dead silence, not so much as an owl in the still night she looked out +into during an excursion warranted to promote sleep--but never sleep +itself! She had been dragged reluctantly from a dreamless Nirvana into +the presence of a waking nightmare--two great beautiful eyes that looked +at her and saw nothing; and this coercion, she somehow felt, was really +due to an unaccountable absence of mind on her part. Surely she could +have kept asleep with a little more common sense. She would go back from +that excursion reinforced, and bid defiance to that nightmare. Sleep +would come to her, she knew, if she could find a _modus vivendi_ with a +loose flood of golden hair, and could just get hold of a feather-quill +that was impatient of imprisonment and wanted to see the world. She +searched for it with the tenderest of finger-tips because she knew--as +all the feather-bed world knows--that if one is too rough with it, it +goes in, and comes out again just when one is dropping off.... + +There!--it was caught and pulled out. She would not burn it. It would +smell horribly and make her think of Lutwyche's remedy for fainting +fits, burned feathers held to the nostrils. No!--she would put it +through the casement into the night-air, and it would float away and +think of its days on the breast of an Imbergoose, and believe them back +again. Oh, the difference between the great seas and winds, and the +inside of that stuffy ticking! Poor little breast-feather of a foolish +bird! Yes--now she could go to sleep! She knew it quite well--she had +only to contrive a particular attitude.... There, that was right! Now +she had only to put worrying thoughts out of her head and count a +thousand ... and then--oblivion! + +Alas, no such thing! In five minutes the particular attitude was a thing +of the past, and the worrying thoughts were back upon her with a +vengeance. Or, rather, the worrying thought; for her plural number was +hypocrisy. She was in for a deadly wakeful night, a night of growing +fever, with those sightless eyes expelling every other image from her +brain. She was left alone with the darkness and a question she dared not +try to answer. Suppose that when those eyes looked upon her that +evening at Arthur's Bridge for the first time--suppose it was also the +last? What then? How could she know it, and know how the thing came +about, and whom she held answerable for it, and go on living?... + +No--her life would end with that. Nothing would again be as it had been +for her. Her childhood had ended when she first saw Death; when her +brother's corpse was carried home dripping from within a stone's throw +of this new tragedy. But was not that what bills of lading call the "Act +of God"--fair play, as it were, on the part of Fate? What was this?... +Come--this would never do, with a pulse like that! + +No one should ever feel his pulse, or hers, at night. Gwen was none the +better for doing it. Nor did she benefit by an operation which her mind +called looking matters calmly in the face. It consisted in imaginary +forecasts of a _status quo_ that was to come about. She had to skip some +years as too horrible even to dream of; years needed to live down the +worst raw sense of guilt, and become hardened to inevitable life. Then +she filled in her _scenario_ with Sir Adrian Torrens, the blind Squire +of Pensham Steynes, and his beautiful and accomplished wife, a dummy +with no great vitality, constructed entirely out of a ring on Mr. +Torrens's finger and an allusion of Irene's to the Miss Gertrude +Abercrombie, whose skill in needlework surpassed Arachne's. Gwen did not +supply this lady with a sufficiently well-marked human heart. Perhaps +the temptation to make her clever and shrewd but not sympathetic, not +quite up to her husband's deserts, was irresistible. It allowed of an +unprejudiced consciousness of what she, Gwen, would have been in this +dummy's situation. It allowed latitude to a fancy that portrayed Lady +Gwendolen Whatever-she-had-become--because, of course, _she_ would have +to marry some fool--as the staunch and constant friend of the family at +Pensham. Her devotion to the dummy when in trouble--and, indeed, she +piled up calamities for the unhappy lady--was monumental; an example to +her sex. And when, to the bitter grief of her devoted husband, the dummy +died--all parties being then, at a rough estimate, forty--and she +herself, his dearest friend, stood by the dummy's grave with him, and, +generally speaking, sustained him in his tribulation, a disposition to +get the fool out of the way grew strong enough to make its victim doubt +her own vouchers for her own absolute disinterestedness. She turned +angrily upon her fancies, tore them to tatters, flung them to the winds. +One does this, and then the pieces join themselves together and reappear +intact. + +She was no nearer sleep after looking matters calmly in the face, that +way, for a full hour. Similar trials to dramatize a probable future all +ended on the same lines, and each time Gwen was indignant with herself +for her own folly. What was this man to her, whom she had seen twice? +Little enough!--she pledged herself to it in the Court of Conscience! +What was she to him, who had spoken with her twice certainly; but _seen_ +her--oh, how little! Why, _she_ had seen _him_ more, of the two, if one +came to close quarters with Time. See how long he was stooping over that +unfortunate dog-chain! + +Sitting up in bed in the dim July dawn, wild-eyed in an unshepherded +flock of golden locks, this young lady was certainly surpassingly +beautiful. She was revolving in her poor, aching head a contingency she +had not fully allowed for. Suppose--merely to look other things in the +face, you see!--suppose there were _no_ dummy! What chance would the +poor fellow have then of winning the love of any woman, with those blind +eyes in his head? Gwen got up restlessly and went to the casement, +meeting a stream of level sunlight that the swallows outside in the ivy +were making the subject of comment, and stood looking out over the +leagues of the ancient domain of her forefathers. "Gwen o' the +Towers"--that was her name. It seemed to join chorus with her own answer +to the last question, to her satisfaction. + +To offer the consolation of her love, to give all she had to give, to +this man as compensation for the great curse that had fallen on him +through the fault of her belongings, seemed to her in her excited state +easy and nowise strange--mere difficulty of the negotiation apart. She +elected to shut her eyes to a fact we and the story can guess--we are so +shrewd, you see!--and to make a parade in her own eyes of a +self-renunciation approaching that of Marcus Curtius. If only the gulf +would open to receive her she would fling herself in. She ignored the +dissimilarities of detail in the two cases, especially the conceivable +promised land at the bottom of _her_ gulf. The Roman Eques had nothing +but death and darkness to look forward to. + +The difficulties of the scheme shot across her fevered conception of it. +How if, though he was not affianced to the dummy, or any other lay +figure she might provide, his was a widowed heart left barren by the +hand of Death? How if some other disappointment had marred his +life?--some passion for a woman who had rashly accepted somebody else +before meeting him? This happens we know; so did Gwen, and was sorry. +How if some minx--Lutwyche's expression--had bewitched him and slighted +him? He might nurse a false ideal of her till Doomsday. Men did +sometimes, _coeteris paribus_. But how could she--how _could_ she?... +Anyhow, Gwen might have seen her way through that difficulty with a fair +chance. But--to be invisible! + +The morning sun had been at variance with some flames, hard to believe +clouds, and had just dispersed them so successfully that their place in +the heavens knew them no more. His rays, unveiled, bore hard upon the +blue eyes, sore with watching, of the girl a hundred million miles off, +and drove her from her casement. Gwen of the Towers fell back into the +room, all the flowing lawn of the most luxurious _robe-de-nuit_ France +could provide turned to gold by the touch of Phoebus. She paused a +moment before a mirror, to glance at her pallor in it, and to wonder at +the sunlight in the wealth of its setting of ungroomed, uncontrollable +locks. It was not vanity exactly that provoked the despairing +thought:--"But he will never see me--never!" A girl would have been a +hypocrite indeed who could shut her eyes to what Gwen saw in that +looking-glass. She knew all about it--had done so from babyhood. + +Some relaxation of the mind gave Morpheus an opportunity, and he took +such advantage of a willing victim that Lutwyche, coming three hours +later, scarcely knew how to deal with the case, and might have been +uneasy at such an intensive cultivation of sleep if she had been a +nervous person. But she was prosaic and phlegmatic, and held to the +general opinion that nothing unusual ever happened. So she was content +to make a little extra noise; and, when nothing came of it, to go away +till rung for. That was how Gwen came to be so late at breakfast that +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + HOW THE HON. PERCIVAL GAVE MISS DICKENSON HIS ACCOUNT OF THE BLIND + MAN. HOW THAT ANY YOUNG MAN SOEVER IS GLAD THAT ANY YOUNG LADY + SOEVER ISN'T _FIANCEE_, EXCEPT SHE BE UGLY. MISS DICKENSON'S + EFFRONTERY. HOW MR. PELLEW SAID "POOH!" IRENE'S ABSENCE, VISITING. + EVERYONE'S ELSE ABSENCE, EXCEPT THE BLIND MAN'S, GWEN'S, AND MRS. + BAILEY'S, WHO HAD A LETTER TO WRITE + + +The Hon. Percival Pellew had not been at the Towers continuously +throughout the whole three weeks following the accident. The best club +in London could not have spared him as long as that. He had returned to +his place in the House a day or two later, had voted on the Expenses at +Elections Bill, and had then gone to a by-election in Cornwall to help +his candidate to keep his expenses at a minimum. His way back to the +club did not lie near Ancester Towers, but he reconciled a renewal of +his visit there to his conscience by the consideration that an unusually +late Session was predicted. A little more country air would do him no +harm, and the Towers was the best club in the country. + +He had had absolutely no motive whatever for going there, outside what +this implies. Unless, indeed, something else was implied by his pledging +his honour to himself that this was the case. Self-deception is an art +that Man gives a great deal of attention to, and Woman nearly as much. + +The Countess said to him, on the evening of his reappearance in time to +dress for dinner:--"Everybody's gone, Percy--I mean everybody of your +lot a fortnight ago." Whereto he replied:--"How about the wounded man?" +and her ladyship said:--"Mr. Torrens? Oh yes, Mr. Torrens is here still +and his sister--they'll be here a few days longer.... There's nobody +else. Yes, there's Constance Dickenson. Norbury, tell them to keep +dinner back a little because of Mr. Pellew." This was all in one +sentence, chiefly to the butler. She ended:--"All the rest are new," and +the gentleman departed to dress in ten minutes--long ones probably. This +was two or three evenings before Miss Dickenson saw that glow-worm in +the garden. Perhaps three, because two are needed to account for the +lady's attitude about that cigar, and twelve hours for a coolness +occasioned by her ladyship's saying in her inconsiderate way:--"Oh, you +are quite old friends, you two, of course--I forgot." Only fancy saying +that a single lady and gentleman were "quite old friends"! Both parties +exhibited mature courtesy, enriched with smiles in moderation. But for +all that their relations painfully resembled civility for the rest of +that evening. + +However, whatever they were then, they were reinstated by now; that is +to say, by the morning after Gwen's bad night. Eavesdrop, please, and +overhear what you can in the arbutus walk, half-way through the Hon. +Percival's first cigar. + +The gentleman is accounting for something he has just said. "What made +me think so was his being so curious about our friend Cumberworld. As +for Gwen, I wouldn't trust her not to be romantic. Girls are." + +The lady speaks discreetly:--"Certainly no such construction would have +occurred to me. One has to be on one's guard against romantic ideas. +She might easily be--a--_éprise_, to some extent--as girls are...." + +"But spooney, no! Well--perhaps you're right." + +"I don't know whether I ought to say even that. I shouldn't, only to +you. Because I know I can rely on your discretion...." + +"Rather. Only you must admit that when she appeared this morning--and +last night--she was looking ..." + +"Looking what?" + +"Well ... rather too statuesque for jollity." + +"Perhaps the heat. I know she complains of the heat; it gives her a +headache." + +"Come, Miss Dickenson, that's not fair. You know it was what _you_ said +began it." + +"Began what?" + +"Madam, what I am saying arises naturally from ..." + +"There!--do stop being Parliamentary and be reasonable. What you mean +is--have those two fallen head over ears in love, or haven't they?" +Discussions of this subject of Love are greatly lubricated by +exaggeration of style. It is almost as good as a foreign tongue. She +continued more seriously:--"Tell me a little more of what Mr. Torrens +said." + +"When I saw him this morning?" Mr. Pellew looked thoughtfully at what +was left of his cigar, as if it would remind him if he looked long +enough, and then threw it abruptly away as though he gave it up as a bad +job. "No," he said, falling back on his own memory. "It wasn't what he +said. It was the way of saying it. Manner is incommunicable. And he said +so little about her. He talked a good deal about Philippa in a chaffy +sort of way--said she was exactly his idea of a Countess--why had one +such firm convictions about Countesses and Duchesses and Baronets and so +on? It led to great injustice, causing us to condemn nine samples out of +ten as Pretenders, not real Countesses or Duchesses or Baronets at all. +He was convinced his own dear dad was a tin Baronet; or, at best, +Britannia-metal. Alfred Tennyson had spoken of two sorts--little +lily-handed ones and great broad-shouldered brawny Englishmen. Neither +would eat the sugar nor go to sleep in an armchair with the _Times_ over +his head. _His_ father did both. I admitted the force of his criticism, +but could not follow his distinction between Countesses and Duchesses. +Duchesses were squarer than Countesses, just as Dukes were squarer than +Earls." + +"I think they are," said Miss Dickenson. She shut her eyes a moment for +reflection, and then decided:--"Oh yes--certainly squarer--not a doubt +of it!" Mr. Pellew formed an image in his mind, of this lady fifteen +years ago, with its eyes shut. He did not the least know why he did so. + +"Torrens goes on like that," he continued. "Makes you laugh sometimes! +But what I was going to say was this. When he had disposed of Philippa +and chaffed Tim a little--not disrespectfully you know--he became +suddenly serious, and talked about Gwen--spoke with a hesitating +deference, almost ceremoniously. Said he had had some conversation with +Lady Gwendolen, and been impressed with her intelligence and wit. Most +young ladies of her age were so frivolous. He was the more impressed +that her beauty was undeniable. The brief glimpse he had had of her had +greatly affected him artistically--it was an Aesthetic impression +entirely. He overdid this." + +Miss Dickenson nodded slightly in confidence with herself. _Her_ insight +jotted down a brief memorandum about Mr. Pellew's, and the credit it did +him. That settled, she recalled a something he had left unfinished +earlier. "You were asking about Lord Cumberworld, Mr. Pellew?" + +"Whether there was anything afoot in that quarter? Yes, he asked that, +and wanted to know if Mrs. Bailey, who had been retailing current +gossip, was rightly informed when she said that there was, and that it +was going to come off. He was very anxious to show how detached he was +personally. Made jokes about its 'coming off' like a boot...." + +"Stop a minute to see if I understand.... Oh yes--I see. 'If there was +anything afoot.' Of course. Go on." + +"It was a poor quip, and failed of its purpose. His relief was too +palpable when I disallowed Mrs. Bailey.... By-the-by, that's a rum +thing, Miss Dickenson,--that way young men have. I believe if I did it +once when I was a young fillah I did it fifty times." + +"Did what?" + +"Well--breathed free on hearing that a girl wasn't engaged. Doesn't +matter how doosid little they know of her--only seen her in the Park on +horseback, p'r'aps--they'll eat a lot more lunch if they're told she's +still in the market. Fact!" + +Miss Dickenson said that no doubt Mr. Pellew knew best, and that it was +gratifying to think how many young men's lunches her earlier days might +have intensified without her knowing anything about it. The gentleman +felt himself bound to reassure and confirm, for was not the lady +_passée_? "Rather!" said he; this favourite expression this time +implying that the name of these lunches was no doubt Legion. An awkward +sincerity of the lady caused her to say:--"I didn't mean that." And +then she had to account for it. She was intrepid enough to venture on: +"What I meant was, never being engaged," but not cool enough to keep of +one colour exactly. It didn't rise to the height of embarrassment, but +something rippled for all that. + +A cigar Mr. Pellew was lighting required unusual and special attention. +It had a mission, that cigar. It had to gloss over a slight flush on its +smoker's cheeks, and to take the edge off the abruptness with which he +said,--"Oh, gammon!" as he threw a Vesuvian away. + +He picked up the lost thread at the point of his own indiscreet +excursion into young-manthropology--his own word when he apologized for +it. "Anyhow," said he, "it struck me that our friend upstairs was very +hard hit. He made such a parade of his complete independence. Of course, +I'm not much of a judge of such matters. Not my line. I understand that +he has been prorogued--I mean his departure has. He's to try his luck at +coming downstairs this evening after feeding-time. He funks finding the +way to his mouth in public. Don't wonder--poor chap!" + +Then this lady had a fit of contrition about the way in which she had +been gossiping, and tried to back out. She had the loathsome meanness to +pretend that she herself had been entirely passive, a mere listener to +an indiscreet and fanciful companion. "What gossips you men are!" said +she, rushing the position boldly. "Fancy cooking up a romance about this +Mr. Torrens and Gwen, when they've hardly so much as," she had nearly +said, "set eyes on each other"; but revised it in time for press. It +worked out "when she has really only just set eyes on him, and chatted +half an hour." + +Mr. Pellew's indignation found its way through a stammer which expressed +the struggle of courtesy against denunciation. "Come--hang it all!" said +he. "It wasn't _my_ romance.... Oh, well, perhaps it wasn't yours +either. Only--play fair, Miss Dickenson. Six of the one and half a dozen +of the other! Confess up!" + +The lady assumed the tone of Tranquillity soothing Petulance. "Never +mind, Mr. Pellew!" she said. "You needn't lie awake about it. It doesn't +really matter, you know.... _Have_ you got the right time? Because I +have to be ready at half-past eleven to drive with Philippa. I +promised.... What!--a quarter past? I must run." She looked back to +reassure possible perturbation. "It really does _not_ matter between +_us_," said she, and vanished down the avenue. + +The Hon. Percival Pellew walked slowly in the opposite direction in a +brown study, leaving his thumbs in his armholes, and playing _la ci +darem_ with his fingers on his waistcoat. He played it twice or thrice +before he stopped to knock a phenomenal ash off his cigar. Then he +spoke, and what he said was "Pooh!" + +The story does not know why he said "Pooh!" It merely notes, apropos of +Miss Dickenson's last words, that the first person plural pronoun, used +as a dual by a lady to a gentleman, sometimes makes hay of the thirdness +of their respective persons singular. But if it had done so, this time, +"Pooh!" was a weak counter-blast against its influence. + + * * * * * + +Irene's friend Gretchen von Trendelenstein had written that morning that +she was coming to stay with the Mackworth Clarkes at Toft, only a couple +of miles off. She would only have two days, and could not hope to get as +far as Pensham, but couldn't Irene come to _her_? She was, you see, +Irene's bosom friend. The letter had gone to Pensham and been forwarded, +losing time. This was the last day of visiting-possibility at Toft. So +Irene asked to be taken there; and, if she stayed, would find her way +back somehow. Mr. Norbury, however, after referring to Archibald, the +head of the stables, made _dernier ressorts_ needless, and Irene was +driven away behind a spirited horse by the young groom, Tom Kettering. + +Her brother would have devolved entirely on Mrs. Bailey and chance +visitors, if he had not struck vigorously against confinement to his +room, after a recovery of strength sufficient to warrant his removal to +his home eighteen miles away. If he was strong enough for that, he was +strong enough for an easy flight of stairs, down and up, with tea +between. Mrs. Bailey, the only obstacle, was overruled. Indeed, that +good woman was an anachronism by now, her only remaining function being +such succour as a newly blinded man wants till he gets used to his +blindness. Tonics and stimulants were coming to an end, and her +professional extinction was to follow. Nevertheless, Mr. Torrens held +fast to dining in solitude until he recovered his eyesight, or at least +until he had become more dexterous without it. + +Now, it happened that on this day of all others three attractive events +came all at once--the Flower Show at Brainley Thorpe, the Sadleigh +Races, and a big Agricultural Meeting at King's Grantham, where the +County Members were to address constituents. The Countess had promised +to open the first, and the absence of the Earl from the second would +have been looked upon as a calamity. All the male non-coronetted members +of the company of mature years were committed to Agriculture or +Bookmaking, and the younger ones to attendance on Beauty at the Flower +Show. Poor Adrian Torrens!--there was no doubt he had been forgotten. +But he was not going to admit the slightest concern about that. "Go away +to your Von, darling Stupid!" said he. "And turn head over heels in her +and wallow. Do you want to be the death of me? Do you want to throw me +back when I'm such a credit to Mrs. Bailey and Dr. Nash?" Irene had her +doubts--but there!--wasn't Gretchen going to marry an Herr Professor and +be a Frau when she went back to Berlin, and would she ever see her +again? Moreover, Gwen said to her:--"He won't be alone if he's +downstairs in the drawing-room. Some of the women are sure to stop. It's +too hot for old Lady Cumberworld to go out. I heard her say so." + +"_She'll_ be no consolation for him," said Irene. + +"No--that she won't! But unless there's someone else there she'll have +Inez--you've seen the Spanish _dame-de-compagnie_?--and _she'll_ enjoy a +flirtation with your brother. He'll speak Spanish to her, and she'll +sing Spanish songs. _He_ won't hurt for a few hours." + +So Tom Kettering drove Irene away in the gig, and Adrian was guided +downstairs to an empty hall by Mrs. Bailey at four o'clock, so as to get +a little used to the room before anyone should return. Prophecy depicted +Normal Society coming back to tea, and believed in itself. Achilles +sanctioned his master's new departure by his presence, accompanying him +to the drawing-room. This dog was not only tolerated but encouraged +everywhere. Dogs are, when their eyes are pathetic, their coats +faultless, and their compliance with household superstitions +unhesitating. + +"Anybody in sight, Mrs. Bailey?" + +"Nobody yet, Mr. Torrens." + +"_Speriamo!_ Perhaps there's a piano in the room, Mrs. Bailey?" + +"There's two. One's stood up against the wall shut. The other's on three +legs in the middle of the room." That one was to play upon, she +supposed, the other to sing to. + +"If you will be truly obliging--you always are, you know--and conduct me +to the one on three legs in the middle of the room, I will play you an +air from Gluck's 'Orfeo,' which I am sure you will enjoy.... Oh yes--I +can do without any music-books because I have played it before, not +infrequently...." + +"I meant to set upon." In fact, Mrs. Bailey regarded this as the primary +purpose of music-books; and so it was, at the home of her niece, who +could play quite nicely. There was only two and they "just did." She +referred to this while Mr. Torrens was spinning the music-stool to a +suitable height for himself. He responded with perfect gravity--not a +fraction of a smile--that books were apt to be too high or too low. It +was the fault of the composers clearly, because the binders had to +accept the scores as they found them. If the binders were to begin +rearranging music to make volumes thicker or thinner, you wouldn't be +able to play straight on. Mrs. Bailey concurred, saying that she had +always said to her niece not to offer to play a tune till she could play +it right through from beginning to end. Mr. Torrens said that was +undoubtedly the view of all true musicians, and struck a chord, +remarking that the piano had been left open. "How ever could you tell +_that_ now, Mr. Torrens?" said Mrs. Bailey, and felt that she was in the +presence of an Artist. + +Nevertheless, she seemed to be lukewarm about _Che faro_, merely +remarking after hearing it that it was more like the slow tunes her +niece played than the quick ones. The player said with unmoved gravity +this was _andante_. Mrs. Bailey said that her niece, on the contrary, +had been christened Selina. She could play the Polka. So could Mr. +Torrens, rather to the good woman's surprise and, indeed, delight. He +was so good-humoured that he played it again, and also the +_Schottische_; and would have stood Gluck over to meet her taste +indefinitely, but that voices came outside, and the selection was +interrupted. + +The voice of Lady Ancester was one, saying despairingly:--"My dear, if +you're not ready we must go without you. I _must_ be there in time." +Miss Dickenson's was another, attesting that if the person addressed did +not come, sundry specified individuals would be in an awful rage. + +"Well, then, you must go without me. Flower shows always bore me to +death." This was a voice that had not died out of the blind man's ears +since yesterday; Lady Gwendolen's, of course. It added that its owner +must finish her letter, or it would miss the six o'clock post and not +catch the mail; which would have, somehow, some disastrous result. Then +said her mother's voice, she should have written it before. Then +justification and refutation, and each voice said its say with a +difference--more of expounding, explaining--with a result like in Master +Hugues of Saxe-Gotha's mountainous fugue, that one of them, Gwen's, +stood out all the stiffer hence. No doubt you know your Browning. Gwen +asserted herself victor all along the line, and remonstrance died a +natural death. But what was she going to do all the afternoon? A wealth +of employments awaited her, she testified. Rarely had so many arrears +remained unpaid. Last and least she must try through that song, because +she had to send the music back to the Signore. So the Countess supposed +she must go her own way, and presently Adrian Torrens was conscious that +her ladyship had gone hers, by the curt resurrection of sounds in +abeyance somewhile since; sounds of eight hoofs and four wheels; +suddenly self-assertive, soon evanescent. + +Was Gwen really going to come to sing at this piano? _That_ was +something worth living for, at least. But no!--conclusions must not be +jumped in that fashion. Perhaps she had a piano in her own room. Nothing +more likely. + +Achilles had stepped out, hearing sounds as of a departure; and now +returned, having seen that all was in satisfactory order. He sighed over +his onerous responsibilities, and settled down to repose--well-earned +repose, his manner suggested. + +"I suppose I shall have to clear out when her young ladyship comes in to +practise," said Mrs. Bailey. Mr. Torrens revolted inwardly against +ostracising the good woman on social grounds; but then, _did_ he want +her to remain if Gwen appeared? Just fancy--to have that newcomer all to +himself for perhaps an hour, as he had her for five minutes yesterday! +Too good to be true! He compromised with his conscience about Mrs. +Bailey. "Don't go away till she does, anyhow," said he. And then he sang +Irish Melodies with Tom Moore's words, and rather shocked his hearer by +the message the legatee of the singer received about his heart. She +preferred the Polka. + +It chanced that Mrs. Bailey also had weighty correspondence on hand, +relating to an engagement with a new patient; and, with her, +correspondence was no light matter. Pride had always stood between Mrs. +Bailey and culture, ever since she got her schooling done. Otherwise she +might have acquired style and a fluent caligraphy. As it was, her style +was uncertain and her method slow. Knowing this--without admitting +it--she was influenced by hearing a six o'clock post referred to, having +previously thought her letters went an hour later. So she developed an +intention of completing her letter, of which short instalments had been +turned out at intervals already, as soon as ever the advent of a guest +or visitor gave her an excuse for desertion. Of course a member of the +household was better than either; so she abdicated without misgiving +when--as she put it--she heard her young ladyship a-coming. + +Her young ladyship was audible outside long enough for Mrs. Bailey to +abdicate before she entered the room. They met on the stairs and spoke. +Was that Mr. Torrens at the piano?--asked Gwen. Because if it was she +mustn't stop him. She would cry off and try her song another time. + +But Mrs. Bailey reassured her, saying:--"He won't go on long, my lady. +You'll get your turn in five minutes," in an undertone. She added:--"He +won't see your music-paper. Trust him for that." These words must have +had a new hope in them for the young lady, for she said quickly: "You +think he _does_ see _something_, then?" The answer was ambiguous. +"Nothing to go by." Gwen had to be content with it. + + * * * * * + +Is there any strain of music known to man more harrowingly pathetic than +the one popularly known as _Erin go bragh_? Does it not make hearers +without a drop of Erse blood in their veins thrill and glow with a +patriotism that complete ignorance of the history of Ireland never +interferes with in the least? Do not their hearts pant for the blood of +the Saxon on the spot, even though their father's name be Baker and +their mother's Smith? Ours does. + +Adrian Torrens, though his finger-tips felt strange on the keys in the +dark, and his hands were weak beyond his own suspicion of their +weakness, could still play the Polka for Mrs. Bailey. When his audience +no longer claimed repetition of that exciting air, he struck a chord or +two of some Beethoven, but shook his head with a sigh and gave it up. +However, less ambitious attempts were open to him, and he had happened +on Irish minstrelsy; so, left to himself, he sang _Savourneen Dheelish_ +through. + +Gwen, entering unheard, was glad she could dry her eyes undetected by +those sightless ones that she knew showed nothing to the singer--nothing +but a black void. The pathos of the air backed by the pathos of a voice +that went straight to her heart, made of it a lament over the blackness +of this void--over the glorious bygone sunlight, never a ray of it to be +shed again for him! There was no one in the room, and it was a relief to +her to have this right to unseen tears. + +The feverish excitement of her sleepless night had subsided, but the +memory of a strange resolve clung to her, a resolution to do a thing +that then seemed practicable, reasonable, right; that had seemed since, +more than once, insurmountable--yes! Insane--yes! But _wrong_--no! Now, +hard hit by _Savourneen Dheelish_, the strength to think she might cross +the barriers revived, and the insanity of the scheme shrank as its +rightness grew and grew. After all, did she not belong to herself? To +whom else, except her parents? Well--her duty to her parents was clear; +to ransom their consciences for them; to enable them to say "We +destroyed this man's eyesight for him, but we gave him Gwen." If only +this pianist could just manage to love her on the strength of Arthur's +Bridge and that rainbow gleam! But how to find out? She could see +herself in a mirror near by as she thought it, and the resplendent +beauty that she could not handle was a bitterness to her; she gazed at +it as a warrior might gaze at his sword with his hands lopped off at the +wrists. Still, he _had_ seen her; that was something! She would not have +acknowledged later, perhaps, that at this moment her mind was running on +a foolish thought:--"Did I, or did I not, look my best at that moment?" + +She never noticed the curious _naïveté_ which left unquestioned her +readiness to play the part she was casting for herself--the _rôle_ of an +eyeless man's mate for life--yet never taxed her with loving him. +Perhaps it was the very fact that the circumstances of the case released +her from confessing her love, that paved the way for her to action that +would else have been impossible. "By this light," said Beatrice to +Benedick, "I take thee for pure pity." It was a vast consolation to +Beatrice to say this, no doubt. + +Achilles stopped _Savourneen Dheelish_ by his welcome to the newcomer. +To whom Gwen said:--"Oh, you darling!" But to his master she said:--"Go +on, it's me, Mr. Torrens. Gwen." + +"I know--'Gwen or Gwendolen.'" How easy it would have been for this +quotation from yesterday's postscript to seem impertinent! This man had +just the right laugh to put everything in its right place, and this time +it disclaimed audacious Christian naming. He went on:--"I mustn't +monopolize your ladyship's piano," and accommodated this mode of address +to the previous one by another laugh, exactly the right protest against +misinterpretation. + +"My ladyship doesn't want her piano," said Gwen. "She wants to hear you +go on playing. I had no idea you were so musical. Say good-evening, and +play some more." + +He went his nearest to meeting her hand, and his guesswork was not much +at fault. A galvanic thrill again shot through him at her touch, and +again neither of them showed any great alacrity to disconnect. "You are +sorry for me," said he. + +"Indeed I am. I cannot tell you how much so." She seemed to keep his +hand in hers to say this, and the action and the word were mated, to his +mind. She could not have done this but for my misfortune, thought he to +himself. But oh!--what leagues apart it placed them, that this +semi-familiarity should have become possible on so short an +acquaintance! Society reserves would have kept him back still in the +ranks of men. This placed him among cripples, a disqualified ruin. + +His heart sank, for he knew now that she had no belief that this awful +darkness would end. So be it! But, for now, there was the pure joy of +holding that hand for a moment! Forget it all--forget everything!--think +only of this little stolen delirium I can cheat the cruelty of God out +of, before I am the forsaken prey of Chaos and black Night. That was his +thought. He said not a word, and she continued:--"How much can you play? +I mean, can you do the fingering in spite of your eyes? Try some more." +She had barely withdrawn her hand even then. + +"I only make a very poor business of it at present," he said. "I shall +have to practise under the new circumstances. When the music jumps half +a mile along the piano I hit the wrong note. Anything that runs easy I +can play." He played the preliminary notes of the accompaniment of _Deh +vieni alla finestra_. "Anything like that. But I can't tackle anything +extensive. My hands haven't quite got strong again, I suppose. Now you +come!" + +He was beginning a hesitating move from the music-stool with a sense of +the uncertainty before him when his anchorage was forsaken, but +postponed it as a reply to his companion's remark:--"I'm not coming yet. +I'll play presently.... You were accompanying yourself just now. I was +listening to you at the end of the piano." + +"Anybody can accompany himself; he's in his own confidence." He struck a +chord or two, of a duet, this time, and she said:--"Yes--sing that. I +can recollect it without the music. I've sung it with the Signore no end +of times." They sang it together, and Gwen kept her voice down. She was +not singing with the tenor known all over Europe, this time; nor was the +room at any time, big as it was, more than large enough for this young +lady _à pleine voix_. Besides, Mr. Torrens was not in force, on that +score. In fact, at the end of this one song he dropped his fingers on +his knees from the keyboard, and said in a tone that professed amusement +at his own exhaustion: "That's all I'm good for. Funny, isn't it?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + BOTHER MRS. BAILEY! A GOOD CREATURE. MARCUS CURTIUS AND + UNMAIDENLINESS. THE DREAM WITCH AND HER DAUGHTERS. HOW GWEN TOLD OF + HER TRICK, AND MR. TORRENS OF HOW HE WAKED UP TO HIS OWN BLINDNESS. + THE PECULIARITIES OF DOWAGER-DUCHESSES. CAN GRIGS READ DIAMOND + TYPE? THE HYPOTHESIS MR. TORRENS WAS AFFIANCED TO. ADONIS, AND THAT + DETESTABLE VENUS. EARNESTNESS AND A CLIMAX. AN EARTHQUAKE, OR + HEARTQUAKE + + +The Philosopher may see absurdity in the fact that, when two persons +make concordant consecutive noises for ten minutes, the effect upon +their relativities is one that without them might not have come about in +ten weeks. We are not prepared to condemn the Philosopher, for once. He +is prosy, as usual; but what he says refers to an indisputable truth. +Nothing turns diversity into duality quicker than Music. + +Gwen did not think the breakdown of the tenor at all funny, and was +rather frightened, suggesting Mrs. Bailey. "Bother Mrs. Bailey!" said +Adrian. "Only it's very ungrateful of me to bother Mrs. Bailey." Said +Gwen:--"She really is a good creature." He replied:--"That's what she is +precisely. A good creature!" Gwen interpreted this as disposing of Mrs. +Bailey. Acting as her agent, she piloted the blind man through the +perils of the furniture to a satisfactory sofa, but could not prevail on +him to lie down on it. He seemed determined to assert his claim to a +discharge cured; allowing a small discount, of course, in respect of +this plaguy eye-affection. In defence of his position that it was a +temporary inconvenience, sure to vanish with returning vigour, he simply +nailed his colours to the mast--would hear of no surrender. + +Tea was negotiated, as customary at the Towers, and he made a parade of +his independence over it. No great risks were involved, the little +malachite table placed as a cup-haven being too heavy to knock over +easily. He was able, too, to make a creditable show of eyesight over the +concession of little brown biscuits to Achilles; only really Achilles +did all the seeing. A certain pretence of vision was possible too, in +the distinguishing of those biscuits which were hard from a softer sort; +which Achilles accepted, under protest always, with an implication that +he did it to oblige the donor. He had sacrificed his sleep--that was his +suggestion--and he did not deserve to be put off with shoddy goods. + +"He always has a nap during music now," said his master. "He used to +insist on singing too, if he condescended to listen. I had some trouble +to convince him that he couldn't sing--hadn't been taught to produce his +voice...." + +"Dear creature!--his voice produced itself like mine. M. Sanson--you +know the great training man?--wanted me to sing in one of my thoraxes or +glottises or oesophaguses. I believe I have several, but I don't know +which is which. He said my voice would last better. But I said I would +have both helpings at once; a recollection of nursery dinner, you +know...." + +"I understand--Achilles's view. There, you see!" This was a claim that +an audible tail-flap on the ground was applause. It really was nothing +but its owner's courteous recognition of his own name, to which he was +always alive. + +Gwen continued:--"Luckily I met the Signore, who told me Sanson's view +was very natural. What would become of all the trainers if people +produced their own voices?" + +"What, indeed? But you did get some sort of drill?" + +"Of course. The dear old Signore gave me some lessons. He told me an +infallible rule for people with souls. I was to sing as if the composer +was listening. I might sing scales and exercises if I liked. They had a +use. They prevented one's spoiling the great composers by hacking them +over and over before one could sing." + +Adrian felt that chat of this sort was the best after all, to keep safe +for him his _modus vivendi_ with this girl, in a world she was suddenly +lighting up for him in defiance of his darkness. He _could_ have +friendship, and he was not prepared to admit that estrangement might be +the more livable _modus_ of the two. So he shut his mental eyes as close +as his physical ones, and chatted. He told a story of how a great poet, +being asked a question in a lady's album:--"What is your favourite +employment?" wrote in reply:--"Cursing the schoolmaster who made me hate +Horace in my boyhood." It was a pity to spoil "Ah vous dirai-je, maman?" +for the young pianist, but _pluies de perles_ taught nobody anything. + +Gwen for her part was becoming painfully alive to the difficulties of +her Quixotic undertaking. Marcus Curtius's self-immolation was easy by +comparison, with all the cheers of assembled Rome crowding the Forum to +back him. If only the horse her metaphor had mounted would take the bit +in his teeth and bolt, tropically, how useful a phantasy it would be! +She became terribly afraid her heroic resolve might die a natural death +during intelligent conversation. Bother _pluies de perles_ and the young +pianist! This dry alternation of responses quashed all serious +conversation. And if this Adrian Torrens went away, to-morrow or next +day, what chance would there be in the uncertain future to compare with +this one? When could she be sure of being alone with him for an hour, at +his father's house or elsewhere? She must--she would--at least find from +him whether some other parallel of the Roman Knight had bespoken the +plunge for herself. She could manage that surely without being +"unmaidenly," whatever that meant. If she couldn't, she would just cut +the matter short and _be_ unmaidenly. But know she _must_! + +There is a time before the sun commits himself to setting--as he has +done every day till now, and we all take it for granted he will do +to-morrow--when the raw afternoon relents and the shadows lengthen over +the land; an hour that is not sunset yet, but has begun to know what +sunset means to do for roof and tree-top, and the high hills when a +forecast of the night creeps round their bases; and also for the good +looks of man and wench and beast, and even ugly girls. This hour had +come, and with it the conviction that everybody was sure to be very late +to-night, before Gwen, sitting beside the blind man on the sofa he had +flouted as a couch, got a chance to turn the conversation her way--to +groom the steed, so to speak, of Marcus Curtius for that appointment in +the Forum. It came in a lull, consequent on the momentary dispersion of +subject-matter by the recognition of Society's absence and its probable +late recurrence. + +"I was so sorry yesterday, Mr. Torrens." A modulation of Gwen's tone was +not done intentionally. It came with her wish to change the subject. + +"What for, then?" said Mr. Torrens, affecting a slight Irish accent with +a purpose not quite clear to himself. It might have given his words +their degree on a seriometer, granted the instrument. + +"Don't laugh at me, because I'm in earnest. I mean for being so +unfeeling...." + +"Unfeeling?" + +"Yes. I don't think talking about it again can make it any worse. But I +do want you to know that I only said it because I got caught--you know +how words get their own way sometimes...." + +"But what?--why?--when? What words got their way this time?" + +"I'm almost sorry I've spoken, if you didn't notice it. Because then I'm +such a fool for raking it up again.... Why, of course, when I pitched on +those lines of yours. And any others would have done just as well...." + +"Lord 'a massy me!--as Mrs. Bailey says. 'The daughters of the Dream +Witch'? What's the matter with _them_? _They're_ all right." + +"Oh yes--they're all right, no doubt. But I was thinking of.... Oh, I +can't bear to talk about it!... Oh dear!--I wish I hadn't mentioned +it...." + +"Yes, but _do_ mention it. Mention it again. Mention it lots of times. +Besides, I know what you mean...." + +"What?" + +"The 'watchman sorrowing for the light,' of course! It seemed like me. +Do you know it never crossed my mind in that connection?" + +"Is that really true? But, then, what an idiot I was for saying anything +about it! Only I couldn't help myself. I was so miserable! It laid me +awake all night to think of it." This was not absolutely true, because +Gwen had really lain awake on the main question, the responsibility of +her family for that shot of old Stephen's. But, to our thinking, she was +justified in using any means that came to hand. She went on:--"I'm not +sure that it would not have come to nearly the same thing in any +case--the sleepless night, I mean. I did not know till yesterday how ... +b-bad your eyes were"--for she had nearly said the word +_blind_--"because they kept on making the best of it for our sakes, +Irene and Mrs. Bailey did...." + +Adrian cut her speech across with an ebullition of sound sense--a +protest against extremes--a counterblast to hysterical judgments. +Obviously his duty! He succeeded in saying with a sufficient infusion of +the correct bounce:--"My dear Lady Gwendolen, indeed you are distressing +yourself about me altogether beyond anything that this unlucky mishap +warrants. In a case of this sort we must submit to be guided by medical +opinion; and nothing that either Sir Coupland Merridew or Dr. Nash has +said amounts to more than that recovery will be a matter of time. We +must have patience. In the meantime I am really the gainer by the +accident, for I shall always look upon my involuntary intrusion on your +hospitality as one of the most fortunate events of my life...." + +"'Believe me to remain very sincerely yours, Adrian Torrens.'" She +struck in with a ringing laugh, and finished up what really would have +been a very civil letter from him. "Now, dear Mr. Torrens, do stop being +artificial. Say you're sorry, and you won't do so any more." + +"Please, I'm sorry and I won't do so any more.... But I did do it very +well, now didn't I? You must allow that." + +"You did indeed, and Heaven knows how glad I should be to be able to be +taken in by it and believe every word the doctors say. But when one has +been hocus-pocussed about anything one ... one feels very strongly +about, one gets suspicious of everybody.... Oh yes--indeed, I think very +likely the doctors are right, and if Dr. Merridew had only said that you +couldn't see at all now, but that the sight was sure to come back, I +should have felt quite happy yesterday when...." She stopped, +hesitating, brought up short by suddenly suspecting that she was driving +home the fact of his blindness, instead of helping him to keep up heart +against it. But how could she get to her point without doing so? How +could Marcus Curtius saddle up for his terrible leap, and keep the words +of the Oracle a secret? + +At any rate, he could not see her confusion at her own +_malapropos_--that was something! She recovered from it to find him +saying:--"But what I want to know is--_what_ happened yesterday? I mean, +how came you to know anything you did not know before? Was it anything +_I_ did? I thought I got through it so capitally." He spoke more +dejectedly than hitherto, palpably because his efforts at pretence of +vision had failed. The calamity itself was all but forgotten. + +Gwen saw nothing ahead but confession. Well--it might be the best way to +the haven she wanted to steer for. "It was not what you _did_," said +she. "You made believe quite beautifully all the time we were sitting +there, talking talk. It was when I was just going. You remember when +mamma had gone away with 'Rene, and I put my foot in it over those +verses?" + +"Yes, indeed I do. Only, you know, that wasn't because of the Watchman. +I never mixed him in--not with my affairs. A sort of Oriental +character!" + +"Well--that was my mistake. You remember when, anyhow? Now, do you know, +all the time I was standing there talking about the Watchman, I was +holding out my hand to you to say good-night, and you never offered to +take it, and put your hands in your pockets? It must have gone on for +quite two minutes. And I was determined not to give a hint, and there +was no one else there...." Gwen thought she could understand the +gesture that made her pause, a sudden movement of the blind man's right +hand as though it had been stung by the discovery of its own +backwardness. + +He dropped it immediately in a sort of despairing way, then threw it up +impatiently. "All no use!" he said. "No use--no use--no use!" The sound +of his despair was in his voice as he let the hand fall again upon his +knee. He gave a heart-broken sigh:--"Oh dear!" and then sat on silent. + +Gwen was afraid to speak. For all she knew, her first word might be +choked by a sob. After a few moments he spoke again:--"And there was +I--thinking--thinking...." and stopped short. + +"Thinking what?" said Gwen timidly. + +"I will tell you some time," he said. "Not now!" And then he drew a long +breath and spoke straight on, as though some obstacle to speech had +gone. "It has been a terrible time, Lady Gwendolen--this first knowledge +of ... of what I have lost. Put recovery aside for a moment--let the +chance of it lie by, until it is on the horizon. Think only what the +black side of the shield means--the appalling darkness in the miserable +time to come--the old age when folk will call me the blind Mr. Torrens; +will say of me:--'You know, he was not born blind--it was an accident--a +gunshot wound--a long while back now.' And all that long while back will +have been a long vacuity to me, and Heaven knows what burden to +others.... I have known it all from the first. I knew it when I waked to +my senses in the room upstairs--to all my senses but one. I knew it when +I heard them speak hopefully of the case; hope means fear, and I knew +what the fear was they were hoping against. That early morning when +stupor came to an end, and my consciousness came back, I remembered all. +But I thought the darkness was only the sweet, wholesome darkness of +night, and my heart beat for the coming of the day. The day came, sure +enough, but I knew nothing of it. The first voice I heard was Mrs. +Bailey's, singing paeans over my recovery. She had been lying in wait for +it, in a chair beside the bed which I picture to myself as a chair of +vast scope and pretensions. I did not use my tongue, when I found it, to +ask where I was--because I knew I was somewhere and the bed was very +comfortable. I asked what o'clock it was, and was told it was near nine. +Then, said I, why not open the shutters and let in the light?" + +"What did Mrs. Bailey say?" + +"Mrs. Bailey said Lord have mercy, gracious-goodness-her, and I at once +perceived that I was in the hands of a good creature. I must have done +so, because I exhorted her to act in her official capacity. When she +said:--'Why ever now, when the sun's a-shining fit to brile the house +up!' I said to her--to remove ambiguity, you see--'Do be a good creature +and tell me, _is_ the room light or dark? She replied in a form of +affidavit:--'So help me, Mr. Torrens, if this was the last Bible word I +was to speak, this room is light, not dark, nor yet it won't be, not +till this blessed evening when there come candles or the lamp, as +preferred.' I had a sickening perplexity for a while whether I was sane +or mad, awake or dreaming, lying there with my heart adding to my +embarrassment needlessly by beating in a hurry. Then I remember how it +came to me all at once--the whole meaning of it. Till now, blind men had +been other people. Now I was to be one myself.... Say something!... I +don't like my own voice speaking alone.... there _is_ no one else in the +room, is there?" + +"Not a soul. And nobody will come. The dowager-duchess is having tea in +her own room, and all the others will be late." + +Something in this caused Mr. Torrens to say, with ridiculous +inconsecutiveness:--"Then you're not engaged to Lord Cumberworld?" + +"I certainly am _not_ engaged to Lord Cumberworld," said Gwen with cold +emphasis. "Why did you think I was?" + +"Mrs. Bailey." + +"Mrs. Bailey! And why did you think I wasn't?" + +"That requires thought. I don't quite see, now I come to think of it, +why a lady shouldn't be engaged to a party and speak about his grandma +as ..." + +"As I spoke of his just now? Why not, indeed? She _is_ a +dowager-duchess." + +"I admit it. But there are ways and ways of calling people +dowager-duchesses. It struck me that your way suggested that there was +something ridiculous about ... about _dowadging_." + +"So there is--to me. I believe it arose from the newspaper saying, when +we had a ball in London for me to come out, that the Dowager Lady +Scamander had a magnificent diamond stomacher. Perhaps you don't happen +to know the shape of that good lady?... Never mind. Anyhow, I am _not_ +engaged to this one's grandson; and she's safe in the west wing, where +the ghost never goes. We've got it all to ourselves. Go on!" + +"My first idea was how to prevent Europe and Asia finding it out and +frightening my family, at least until my eyes had had time to turn +round. The next voice I heard was the doctor's, summoned, I suppose, by +Mrs. Bailey. It was cheerful, and said that was good hearing, and now +we should do. He said:--'You lie quiet, Mr. Torrens, and I'll tell you +what it all was; because I daresay you don't know, and would like to.' I +said yes--very much. So he told me the story in a comfortable optimist +way--said it was a loss of blood from the occipital artery that had made +such a wreck of me, but that a contusion of the head had been the cause +of the insensibility, which had nearly stopped the action of the heart, +else I might have bled to death...." + +"Oh, how white you were when we found you!" Gwen exclaimed--"So terribly +white! But I half think I can see how it happened. Your heart stopped +pumping the blood out, because you were stunned, and that gave the +artery a chance to pull itself together. That's the sort of idea Dr. +Merridew gave me, with the long words left out." + +"What a very funny thing!" said Adrian thoughtfully, "to have one's life +saved by being nearly killed by something else. _Similia similibus +curantur._ However, all's fish that comes to one's net. Well--when Sir +Coupland had told me his story, he said casually:--'What's all this Mrs. +Bailey was telling me about your finding the room so dark?' I humbugged +a little over it, and said my eyesight was very dim. Whatever he +thought, he said very little to me about it. Indeed, he only said that +he was not surprised. A shock to the head and loss of blood might easily +react on the optic nerve. It would gradually right itself with rest. I +said I supposed he could try tests--lenses and games--to find out if the +eyes were injured. He said he would try the lenses and games later, if +it seemed necessary. For the present I had better stay quiet and not +think about it. It would improve. Then my father and 'Rene came, and +were jolly glad to hear my voice again. For I had only been +half-conscious for days, and only less than half audible, if, indeed, I +ever said anything. But I was on my guard, and my father went away home +without knowing, and I don't believe 'Rene quite knows now. It was your +father who spotted the thing first. Had he told you, to put you up to +the hand-shaking device?" + +"He never said a word. The handshaking was my own brilliant idea. When I +found--what I did find out--I went away and had a good cry in mamma's +room." This speech was an effort on Gwen's part to get a little +nearer--ever so little--to Marcus Curtius; nearer, that is, to her +metaphorical parallel of his heroism. Marcus had got weaker as an +imitable prototype during the conversation, and it had seemed to Gwen +that he might slip through her fingers altogether, if no help came. Her +"good cry" reinforced Marcus, and quite blamelessly; for who could find +fault with her for that much of concern for so fearful a calamity? What +had she said that she might not have said to a friend's husband, cruelly +and suddenly stricken blind? Indeed, could she as a friend have said +less? Was her human pity to be limited to women and children and cases +of special licence, or pass current merely under _chaperonage_? No--she +was safe so far certainly. + +"Oh, Lady Gwendolen, I can't stand this," was Adrian's exclamation in a +tone of real distress. "Why--why--should I make you miserable and lay +you awake o' nights? I couldn't help your finding out, perhaps. But what +a selfish beast I am to go on grizzling about my own misfortune.... +Well--I _have_ been grizzling! And all the while, as like as not, the +medicos are right, and in six weeks I shall be reading diamond type as +merry as a grig...." + +"Do grigs read diamond type?" + +"_I_ may be doing so, anyhow, grigs or no!" He paused an instant, his +absurdity getting the better of him. "I may have employed the expression +'grigs' rashly. I do not really know how small type they can read. I +withdraw the grigs. Besides, there's another point of view...." + +"What's that?" Gwen is a little impatient and absent. Marcus Curtius has +waned again perceptibly. + +"Why--suppose I had been knocked over two miles off, carried in, for +instance, at the Mackworth Clarkes', where 'Rene's gone...!" + +"But you weren't!" + +"Lady Gwendolen, you don't understand the nature of an hypothesis"--his +absurdity gets the upper hand again--"the nature of an hypothesis is +that its maker is always in the right. I am, this time. If I had been +nursed round at the Mackworth Clarkes', you would have known nothing +about me except as a mere accident--a person in the papers--a person one +inquires after...." + +Gwen interrupts him with determination. "Stop, Mr. Torrens," she says, +"and listen to me. If you had been struck by a bullet fired by my +father's order, by his servant, on his land, it would not have mattered +what house you were taken to, nor who nursed you round. I should have +felt that the guilt--yes, the guilt!--the _sin_ of it was on the +conscience of us all; every one of us that had had a hand, a finger, in +it, directly or indirectly. How could I have borne to look your sister +in the face...?" + +"You wouldn't have known her! Come, Lady Gwen!" + +"Very well, then, give her up. Suppose, instead, the girl you are +engaged to had been a friend of mine, how could I have borne to look +_her_ in the face?" + +"_She's_ a hypothesis. There's no such interesting damsel--that I know +of...." + +"Oh, isn't there?... Well--she's a hypothesis, and I've a right to as +many hypothesisses as you have." + +"I can't deny it." + +"Then how should I look her in the face? Answer my question, and don't +prevaricate." + +"What a severe--Turk you are! But I won't prevaricate. You wouldn't be +called on to look the hypothesis in the face. She would have broken me +off, like a sensible hypothesis that knew what was due to itself and its +family...." + +"Do be serious. Indeed _I_ am serious. It was in my mind all last +night--such a dreadful haunting thought!--what would this girl's +feelings be to me and mine? I made several girls I know stand for the +part. You know how one overdoes things when one is left to oneself and +the darkness?..." + +"Yes--that I do! No doubt of it!" The stress of a meaning he could not +help forced its way into his words, in spite of himself. Surely you need +not have shown it, said an inner voice to him. He made no reply. But he +did not see how. + +Almost before he had time to repent she had cried out:--"Oh, there now! +See what I have done again! I did not mean it. Do forgive me!" Neither +saw a way to patching up this lapse, and it was ruled out by tacit +consent. Gwen resumed:--"You know, I mean, how one dreams a thousand +things in a minute, and everything is as big as a house, even when it's +only strong coffee. This was worse than strong coffee. There were plenty +of them, these hypothesisses.... Oh yes!--we know plenty of girls you +do. I could count you up a dozen...." + +"--One's enough!--that means that one's the allowance, not that it's one +too many...." + +"Well--there were a many reproachful dream-faces, and every one of them +said to me:--'See what you have made of my life that might have been so +happy. See how you have con ...'" Gwen had very nearly said _condemned_, +but stopped in time. She could not refer to the demands of an eyeless +mate for constant help in little things, and all the irksomeness of a +home. + +Adrian, pretending not to hear "con," spoke at once. "But did none of +these charming girls--I'm sure I should have loved heaps of them--did +none of them remind you that they were hypothetical?" + +"Dear Mr. Torrens, I can't tell you how good and brave you seem to me +for laughing so much, and turning everything to a joke. But I _was_ in +earnest." + +"So was I." + +"_Then_ I did not understand." + +"What did you think I meant?" + +"I thought you were playing fast and loose with the nonsense about the +hypothesis. I did indeed." + +"Well, I was serious underneath. Listen, and I'll tell you. This +_fiancée_ of mine that you seem so cocksure about has no existence. I +give you my honour that it is so, and that I am glad of it.... Yes--glad +of it! How could I bear to think I was inflicting myself on a woman I +loved, and making her life a misery to her?" + +Gwen thought of beginning:--"If she loved you," and giving a little +sketch of a perfect wife under the circumstances. It never saw the +light, owing to a recrudescence of Marcus Curtius, who stood to win +nothing by his venture--was certainly not in love with Erebus. An act of +pure self-sacrifice on principle! Nothing could be farther from her +thoughts, be so good as to observe, than that she _loved_ this man! + +He went on uninterrupted:--"No, indeed I am heartily glad of it. It +would be a terrible embarrassment at the best. I should want to let her +off, and she would feel in honour bound to hold on, and really of all +the things I can't abide self-sacrifice is.... Well, Lady Gwendolen, +only consider the feelings of the chap on the altar! Hasn't he a right +to a little unselfishness for his own personal satisfaction?" This was a +sad wet blanket for Marcus Curtius. + +Gwen did not believe that Adrian's disclaimer of any preoccupation of +his affections was genuine. According to her theory of life--and there +is much to be said for it--a full-blown Adonis, that is to say, a +lovable man, refusing to love any woman on any terms, was a sort of +monstrosity. The original Adonis of Art and Song was merely an _homme +incompris_, according to this young lady. He hated Venus--odious +woman!--and no wonder. _She_ to claim the rank of a goddess! Besides, +Gwen suspected that Adrian was only prevaricating. Trothplight was one +thing, official betrothal another. It was almost too poor a shuffle to +accuse him of, but she was always flying at the throat of equivocation, +even when she knew she might be outclassed by it. "You are playing with +words, Mr. Torrens," said she. "You mean that you and this young lady +are not 'engaged to be married'? Perhaps not, but that has nothing to +do with the matter. I cannot feel it in my bones--as Mrs. Bailey +says--that any woman you could care for would back out of it because you +... because of this dreadful accident." Her voice was irresolute in +referring to it, and some wandering wave of that electricity that her +finger-tips were so full of made a cross-circuit and quickened the +beating of her hearer's heart. The vessel it struck in mid-ocean had no +time to right itself before another followed. "Surely--if she were worth +a straw--if she were worth the name of a woman at all--she would feel it +her greatest happiness to make it up to you for such...." She was going +to say "a privation," but she always shied off designating the calamity. +In her hurry to escape from "privation" she landed her speech in a +phrase she had not taken the full measure of--"Well--perhaps I oughtn't +to say that! I may be taking the young woman's name in vain. I only mean +that that is what _I_ should feel in her position." + +It had come as a chance speech before she saw its bearings. There was +not the ghost of an _arrière pensée_ behind the simple fact that she had +no choice but to judge another woman's mind by her own; a natural +thought! Her first instinct was to spoil the force she had not meant it +to have, by dragging the red herring of some foolish joke across the +trail. + +But--to think of it! Here had she been hatching such a brave scheme of +making her own life, and all the devotion she somehow believed she could +give, a compensation for a great wrong, and here she was now affrighted +at the smell of powder! Pride stepped in, and the memory of Quintus +Curtius. No--she would not say a single word to undo the effect of her +heedlessness. Let the worst stand! They had left her in the place of +that hypothesis whom she had herself discarded. It was no fault of hers +that had involved her personally. Was she bound to back out? She bit her +lip to check her own impulse to utter some cheap corrective. + +Until that rather scornful disclaimer of the Duke's son, Mrs. Bailey's +piece of fashionable intelligence had served--whether Adrian believed it +or not--as a sort of chaperon's aegis extended over this interview. It +had protected him against himself--against his impulse to break through +a silence that his three weeks' memory of this girl's image had made +painful. Recollect that her radiant beauty, in that setting sun-gleam, +was the last thing human his eyes had rested on before the night came on +him--the night that might be endless. It was not so easy, now that an +imaginary _fiancée_ had been curtly swept away, to fight against a +temptation he conceived himself bound in honour not to give way to. Not +so easy because _something_, that he hoped was not his vanity, was +telling him that this girl beside him, her very self that he had seen +once, whose image was to last for ever, was at least not placing +obstacles in his way. For anything that _she_ was doing to prevent it, +he might drive a coach-and-six through the social code that blocks a +declaration of passion to a girl under age without the consent of her +parents. He was conscious of this code, and his general acceptance of +it. But he was not so law-abiding but that he must needs get on the +box--of the coach-and-six--and flick the leaders with his whip. + +For he asked abruptly:--"How do you know that?" driving home the nail of +personality to the head. + +"Perhaps I am wrong," said Gwen, dropping her flag an inch. "But I was +thinking so all last night. I was in a sort of fever, you see, because I +felt so guilty, and it grew worse and worse...." + +"You were thinking that...?" + +"Well--you know--it was before I had any idea she was a hypothesis. I +thought she was real because of the ring." + +"My ring! Fancy!... But I'll tell you about my ring presently. Tell me +what you were thinking...." + +"Why--what I said before!" + +"But what _was_ it?" + +"Do you know, I think it was only a sort of attempt to get a little +sleep. You were so fearfully on my conscience, and it made it so much +easier to bear.... Only it worried me to think that perhaps she might +turn round and say:--'This was no fault of mine. Why should I bear for +life the burden of other people's sins?' ... If she was a perfect +beast--_beast_, you know!..." + +"The hypothesis would not have been a perfect beast. She would have been +a perfect lady, and Mrs. Bailey would have attested it. She would have +pointed out the desirability of a sister's love--at reasonable +intervals; visits and so on--for a man with his eyes poked out. She +might even have gone the length of insinuating that the finger of +Providence did it...." + +"Now you are talking nonsense again. Do be serious!" + +"Well--let's be serious! Suppose you tell me what it was you were +thinking that made the existence of that very dry and unsatisfying +hypothesis such a consolation!" + +"I should like to tell you--only I know I shall say it wrong, and you +will think me an odd girl; or unfeeling; which is worse." + +"I should do nothing of the sort. But I'll tell you what I should +think--what I have thought all this time I have been hearing your +voice--I merely mention it as a thing of pathological interest...." + +"Go on." + +"I should think it didn't matter what you said so long as you went on +speaking. Because whenever I hear your voice I can shut my eyes and +forget that I am blind." + +"Is that empty compliment, or are you in earnest?" + +"I was jesting a minute ago, but now I am in earnest. I mean what I say. +Your voice takes the load off my heart and the darkness off my brain, +and we are standing again by that stone bridge over yonder--Arthur's +Bridge--and I see you in all your beauty--oh! such beauty--as I look up +from Ply's cut collar against the sunset sky. That was my last hour of +vision, and its memory will go with me to the grave. And now when I hear +your voice, it all comes back to me, and the terrible darkness has +vanished--or the sense of it anyhow!..." + +"If that is so you shall hear it until your sight comes back--it +will--it must!" + +"How if it never comes back? How if I remain as I am now for life?" + +"I shall not lose my voice." + +How it came about neither could ever say; but each knew that it happened +then, just at that turn in the conversation, and that no one came +rushing into the drawing-room as they easily might have done--this lax +structure of language was employed later in reference to it--nor did any +of the thousand interruptions occur that might have occurred. Mrs. +Bailey might have come to Mr. Torrens to know how many g's there were in +agreeable, or a tea-collector might have prowled in to add relics to her +collection, or even the sound of the carriage afar--inaudible by +man--might have caused Achilles to requisition the opening of the +drawing-room door, that he might rush away to sanction its arrival. Two +guardian angels--the story thinks--stopped any of these things +happening. What did happen was that Gwen and Adrian, who a moment before +were nominally a lady and gentleman chatting on a sofa near the piano, +whose separation involved no consequences definable for either, were +standing speechless in each other's arms--speechless but waiting for the +power to speak. For nobody can articulate whose heart is thumping out of +all reason. He has to wait--or she, as may be. One of each is needed to +develope an earthquake of this particular kind. + +It was just as well that the Hon. Percival Pellew and Aunt Constance +Smith-Dickenson, who had started to walk from the flower-show with a +couple of young monkeys whose object in life was to spare everybody else +their company from selfish motives, did _not_ come rushing into the +drawing-room just then, but a quarter of an hour later. For even if the +parties had caught the sound of their arrival in time, the peculiarity +of Mr. Torrens' blindness would have stood in the way of any successful +pretence that he and Lady Gwendolen had been keeping their distance up +to Society point. We know how easy it is for normal people, when caught, +to pretend they are looking at dear Sarah's interesting watercolours +together, or anything of that sort. And even if the blind man had been +able to strike a bar or two carelessly on the piano, to advertise his +isolation, their faces would have betrayed them. Not that the tears of +either could have been identified on the face of the other. It was a +matter of expression. Every situation in this world has a stamp of its +own for the human face, and no stamp is more easily identified than that +on the face of lovers who have just found each other out. + + * * * * * + +Anyhow this story cannot go on, until the absurd tempest that has passed +over these two allows them to speak. Then they do so on an absolutely +new footing, and the man calls the girl his dearest and his own, and +Heaven knows what else. There one sees the difference between the B.C. +and A.D. of the Nativity of Love. It is a new Era. Call it the Hegira, +if you like. + +"I saw you once, dear love,"--he is saying--"I saw you once, and it was +you--you--you! The worst that Fate has in store for me cannot kill the +memory of that moment. And if blindness was to be the price of this--of +this--why, I would sooner be blind, and have it, than have all the eyes +of Argus and ... and starve." + +"You wouldn't know you were starving," says Gwen, who is becoming +normal--resuming the equanimities. "Besides, you would be such a Guy. +No--please don't! Somebody's coming!" + +"Nobody's coming. It's all right. I tell you, Gwen, or Gwendolen--do you +know I all but called you that, when you came in, before we sang...?" + +"Why didn't you quite? However, I'm not sorry you didn't on the whole. +It might have seemed paternal, and I should have felt squashed. And then +it might never have happened at all, and I should just have been a young +lady in Society, and you a gentleman that had had an accident." + +"It would have happened just the same, _I_ believe. Because why? I had +_seen_ you. At least, it _might_ have." + +"It _has_ happened, and must be looked in the face. Now whatever you +do, for Heaven's sake, don't go talking to papa and being penitent, till +I give you leave." + +"What should I be able to say to him? _I_ don't know. I can't justify my +actions--as the World goes...." + +"Why not?" + +"Nobody would hold a man blameless, in my circumstances, who made an +offer of marriage to a young lady under...." + +"It's invidious to talk about people's ages." + +"I wasn't going to say twenty-one. I was going to say under her father's +roof...." + +"Nobody ever makes offers of marriage on the top of anybody's father's +roof. Besides, you never made any offer, strictly speaking. You +said...." + +"I said that if I had my choice I would have chosen it all as it now is, +only to hear your voice in the dark, rather than to be without it and +have all the eyes of ... didn't I say Argus?" + +"Yes--you said Argus. But that was a _façon-de-parler_; at least I hope +so, for the sake of the Hypothesis.... Oh dear!--what nonsense we two +are talking...." Some silence; otherwise the _status quo_ remained +unchanged. Then he said:--"_I_ wonder if it's all a dream and we shall +wake." And she replied: "Not both--that's absurd!" But she made it more +so by adding:--"Promise you'll tell me your dream when we wake, and I'll +tell you mine." He assented:--"All right!--but don't let's wake yet." + +By now the sun was sinking in a flame of gold, and every little rabbit's +shadow in the fern was as long as the tallest man's two hours since, and +longer. The level glare was piercing the sheltered secrets of the +beechwoods, and choosing from them ancient tree-trunks capriciously, to +turn to sudden fires against the depths of hidden purple beyond--the +fringe of the mantle the vanguard of night was weaving for the hills. +Not a dappled fallow-deer in the coolest shade but had its chance of a +robe of glory for a little moment--not a bird so sober in its plumage +but became, if only it flew near enough to Heaven, a spark against the +blue. And the long, unhesitating rays were not so busy with the world +without, but that one of them could pry in at the five-light window at +the west end of the Jacobean drawing-room at the Towers, and reach the +marble Ceres the Earl's grandfather brought from Athens. And on the way +it paused and dwelt a moment on a man's hand caressing the stray locks +of a flood of golden hair he could not see--might never see at all. Or +who might live on--such things have been--to find it grey to a +half-illuminated sight in the dusk of life. So invisible to him now; so +vivid in his memory of what seemed to him no more than a few days +since! For half the time, remember, had been to him oblivion--a mere +blank. And now, in the splendid intoxication of this new discovery, he +could well afford to forget for the moment the black cloud that overhung +the future, and the desperation that might well lie hidden in its heart, +waiting for the day when he should know that Hope was dead. That day +might come. + +"Shall I tell you now, my dearest, my heart, my life"--this is what he +is saying, and every word he says is a mere truth to him; a sort of +scientific fact--"shall I tell you what I was going to say an hour +ago?..." + +"It's more than an hour, but I know when. About me sticking my hand +out?" + +"Just exactly then. I was thinking all the while that in another moment +I should have your hand in mine, and keep it as long as I dared. Eyes +were nothing--sight was nothing--life itself was nothing--nothing was +anything but that one moment just ahead. It would not last, but it would +fill the earth and the heavens with light and music, and keep death and +the fiend that had been eating up my soul at bay--as long as it lasted. +Dear love, I am not exaggerating...." + +"Do you expect me to believe that? Now be quiet, and perhaps I'll tell +you what I was thinking when I found out you couldn't see--have been +thinking ever since. I thought it well over in the night, and when I +came into this room I meant it. I did, indeed." + +"Meant what?" + +"Meant to get at the truth about that ring of yours. I had got it on the +brain, you see. I meant to find out whether she was anybody or nobody. +And if she was nobody I was going to...." She comes to a standstill; +for, even now--even after such a revelation, with one of his arms about +her waist, and his free hand caressing her hair--Marcus Curtius sticks +in her throat a little. + +"What were you going to?" said Adrian, really a little puzzled. Because +even poets don't understand some women. + +"Well--if it wasn't you I wouldn't tell. I ... I had made up my mind to +apply for the vacant place." This came with a rush, and might not have +come at all had she felt his eyes could see her; knowing, as she did, +the way the blood would quite unreasonably mount up to her face the +moment she had uttered it. "It all seemed such plain sailing in the +middle of the night, and it turned out not quite so easy as I thought it +would be. You know.... Be quiet and let me talk now!... it was the +guilt--my share in it--that was so hard to bear. I wanted to do +_something_ to make it up to you. And what could I do? A woman is in +such a fix. Oh, how glad I was when you opened fire on your own account! +Only _frightened_, you know." He was beginning to say something, but she +stopped him with:--"I know what you are going to say, but that's just +where the difficulty came in. If only I hadn't cared twopence about you +it would have been so easy!... Did you say how? Foolish man!--can't you +see that if I hadn't loved you one scrap, or only half across your lips +as we used to say when we were children, it would have been quite a +let-off to be met with offers of a brother's love ... and that sort of +thing.... Isn't that them?" This was colloquial. No doubt Gwen was +exceptional, and all the other young ladies in the Red Book would have +said:--"Are not these they?" + +This story does not believe that Gwen's statement of her recent +embarrassment covered the facts. Probably a woman in her position would +be less held at bay by the chance of a rebuff, than by a deadly fear of +kisses chilled by a spirit of self-sacrifice.... Ugh!--the hideous +suspicion! The present writer, from information received, believes that +little girls like to think that they are made of sugar and spice and all +that's nice, and that their lover's synthesis of slugs and snails and +puppy-dogs' tails doesn't matter a rap so long as they are ravenous. But +they mustn't snap, however large a percentage of puppy-dogs they +contain. + +Anyhow, Marcus Curtius never came off. He was really impossible; and, as +we all know, what's impossible very seldom comes to pass. And this case +was not among the exceptions. + +It wasn't them. But a revision of the relativities was necessary. When +Miss Dickenson and the Hon. Percival did come in, Gwen was at the piano, +and Adrian at the right distance for hearing. Nothing could have been +more irreproachable. The newcomers, having been audibly noisy on the +stairs, showed as hypocritical by an uncalled-for assumption of +preternatural susceptibility to the absence of other members of their +party acknowledging their necessity to make up a Grundy quorum. There is +safety in number when persons are of opposite sexes, which they +generally are. + +"Can't imagine what's become of them!" said Mr. Pellew, rounding off +some subject with a dexterous implication of its nature. "By +Jove!--that's good, though! Mr. Torrens down at last!" Greetings and +civilities, and a good pretence by the blind man of seeing the hands he +meets half-way. + +"That young Lieutenant What's-his-name and the second Accrington girl, +Gwen dear. They must have missed us and gone round by Furze Heath. I +shall be in a fearful scrape with Lady Accrington, I know. Why didn't +you come to the flower-show?" Thus Miss Dickenson, laying unnecessary +stress on the absentees. + +"I had a headache," says Gwen, "and Gloire de Dijon roses always make my +headaches worse.... Yes, it's very funny. Mr. Torrens and I have been +boring one another half the afternoon. But I've written some letters. Do +you know this in the new Opera--Verdi's?" She played a phrase or two of +the _Trovatore._ For it was the new Opera that year, and we were boys +... _eheu fugaces_! + +"I really think I ought to walk back a little and see about those young +people," says Aunt Constance fatuously. Thereupon Gwen finds she would +like a little walk in the cool, and will accompany Aunt Constance. But +just after they have left the room Achilles, whose behaviour has really +been perfect all along, is seized with a paroxysm of interest in an +inaudible sound, and storms past them on the stairs to meet the carriage +and keep an eye on things. So they only take a short turn on the terrace +in the late glow of the sunset, and go up to dress. + +Adrian and the Hon. Percival spend five minutes in the growing twilight, +actively ignoring all personal relations during the afternoon. They +discuss flower-shows on their merits, and recent Operas on theirs. They +censure the fashions in dress--the preposterous crinolines and the +bonnets almost hanging down on the back like a knapsack--touch politics +slightly: Louis Napoleon, Palmerston, Russian Nicholas. But they follow +male precedents, dropping trivialities as soon as womankind is out of +hearing, and preserve a discreet silence--two discreet silences--about +their respective recencies. They depart to their rooms, Adrian risking +his credit for a limited vision by committing himself to Mr. Pellew's +arm and a banister. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + THEOPHILUS GOTOBED. HOW A TENOR AND A SOPRANO VANISHED. HOW GWEN + ANNOUNCED HER INTENDED MARRIAGE. PRACTICAL ENCOURAGEMENT. AUNT + CONSTANCE AND MR. PELLEW, AND HOW THEY WERE OLDER THAN ROMEO, + JULIET, GWEN, AND MR. TORRENS. HOW THEY STAYED OUT FIVE MINUTES + LONGER, AND MISS DICKENSON CAME ACROSS THE EARL WITH A CANDLE-LAMP. + HOW GWEN'S FATHER KNEW ALL ABOUT IT. NEVERTHELESS THE EARL DID NOT + KNOW BROWNING. BUT HE SUSPECTED GWEN OF QUIXOTISM, FOR ALL THAT. + ONE'S TONGUE, AND THE CHOICE BETWEEN BITING IT OFF OR HOLDING IT. + HOW GWEN HAD BORROWED LORD CUMBERWORLD'S PENCIL. MRS. BAILEY AND + PARISIAN PROFLIGACY + + +The galaxy of wax lights had illuminated the Jacobean drawing-room long +enough to have become impatient, if only they had had human souls, +before the first conscientious previous person turned up dressed for +dinner, and felt ashamed and looked at a book. He affected superiority +to things, saying to the subsequent conscientious person:--"Seen +this?--'The Self-Renunciation of Theophilus Gotobed?'--R'viewers sayts +'musing;" and handing him Vol. I., which he was obliged to take. He just +looked inside, and laid it on the table. "Looks intristin'!" he said. + +It was bad enough, said Mr. Norbury to Cook sympathetically in +confidence, to put back three-quarters of an hour, without her ladyship +making his lordship behindhander still. This was because news travelled +to the kitchen--mind you never say anything whatever in the hearing of a +servant!--that their two respective ships were in collision in the +Lib'ary; _harguing_ was the exact expression. It was the heads of the +household who were late. Lady Gwendolen apologized for them, saying she +was afraid it was her fault. It was. But she didn't look penitent. She +looked resplendent. + +The two couples who had parted company, being anxious to advertise their +honourable conduct, executed a quartet-without-music in extenuation of +what appeared organized treachery. The soprano and tenor had lost sight +of the alto and basso just on the other side of Clocketts Croft, where +you came to a stile. They had from sheer good-faith retraced their steps +to this stile and sat on it reluctantly, in bewilderment of spirit, +praying for the spontaneous reappearance of the wanderers. These latter +testified unanimously that they had seen the tenor assist the soprano +over this stile, and that then the couple had disappeared to the right +through the plantation of young larches, and they had followed them +along a path of enormous length with impenetrable arboriculture on +either hand, without seeing any more of them, and expected to find them +on arriving. The tenor and soprano gave close particulars of their +return along this self-same path. All the evidence went to show that a +suspension of natural laws had taken place, the simultaneous presence of +all four at that stile seeming a mathematical certainty from which +escape was impossible. + +Guilty conscience--so Gwen thought at least--was discernible in every +phrase of the composition. This was all very fine for Lieutenant Tatham +and Di Accrington, the two young monkeys. But why Aunt Constance and her +middle-aged M.P.? If they wanted to, why couldn't they, without any +nonsense? That was the truncated inquiry Gwen's mind made. + +She herself was radiant, dazzling, in the highest spirits. But her +mother was silent and pre-occupied, and rather impatient with her more +than once during the evening. The Earl was the same, minus the +impatience. + +This was because of two very short colloquies under pressure, between +Gwen's departure upstairs and the Countess's overdue appearance at +dinner. The first began in the lobby outside Gwen's room, where her +mother overtook her on her way to her own. Here it is in full: + +"Oh--there you are, child! What a silly you were not to come! How's your +headache?... I do wish your father would have those stairs altered. It's +like the ascent of Mount Parnassus." Buckstone was presenting a +burlesque of that name just then, and her ladyship may have had it +running in her head. + +"It wasn't a real headache--only pretence. Come in here, mamma. I've +something to say.... No--I haven't rung for Lutwyche yet. _She's_ all +right. Come in and shut the door." + +"Why, girl, what's the matter? Why are you...?" + +"Why am I what?" + +"Well--twinkling and--breathing and--and altogether!" Her ladyship's +descriptive power is fairly good as far as it goes, but it has its +limits. + +"I don't believe I'm either twinkling or breathing or altogether.... +Well, then--I'm whatever you like--all three! Only listen to me, mamma +dear, because there's not much time. I'm going to marry Adrian Torrens. +There!" + +"Oh--my dear!" It is too much for the Countess after those stairs! She +sinks on a chair clutching her fingers tight, with wide eyes on her +daughter. It is too terrible to believe. But even in that moment Gwen's +beauty has such force that the words "A blind man!--never to see it!" +are articulate in her mind. For her child never looked more +beautiful--one half queenly effrontery, her disordered locks against the +window-light making a halo of rough gold round a slight flush its wearer +would resent the name of shame for; the other half, the visible +flinching from confession she would resent still more for justifying it. + +"Why--do you know anything against him?" + +"Darling!--you might marry anybody, and you know it." + +"Oh yes; I know all about it. I prefer this one. But _do_ you know +anything against him?" + +"Only ... only his _eyes_!... Oh dear! You know you said so yourself +yesterday--that the sight was destroyed...." + +"Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!" + +"If you are going to take that tone, Gwendolen, I really cannot talk +about it. You and your father must settle it between you somehow. It was +an accident--a very terrible accident, I know--but I must go away to +dress. It's eight.... Anyhow, _one_ thing, dear! You haven't given him +any encouragement--at least, I _hope_ not...." + +"Given him any what?" + +"Any practical encouragement ... any ..." + +"Oh yes--any quantity." She has to quash that flinching and brazen it +out. One way is as good as another. "I didn't tell him to pull my hair +down, though. I didn't mind. But if he had been able to see I should +have been much more strict." + +"Gwen dear--you are perfectly ... _shameless_!... Well--you are a very +odd girl...." This is concession; oddity is not shamelessness. + +"Come, mamma, be reasonable! If you can't see anybody and you mayn't +touch them, it comes down to making remarks at a respectful distance, +and then it's no better than acquaintance--visiting and leaving cards +and that sort of thing.... Come in!" Lutwyche interrupted with hot +water, her expression saying distinctly:--"I am a young woman of +unimpeachable character, who can come into a room where a titled lady +and her daughter are at loggerheads, no doubt about a love-affair, and +can shut my eyes to the visible and my ears to the audible. Go it!" + +Nevertheless, the disputants seemed to prefer suspension of their +discussion, and the elder lady departed, saying they would both be late +for dinner. + +This was the first short colloquy. The second was in the Earl's +dressing-room, from which he was emerging when his wife, looking scared, +met him coming out in _grande tenue_ through the district common to +both, the room Earls and Countesses had occupied from time immemorial. +He saw there was some excitement afoot, but was content to await the +information he knew would come in the end. Tacit reciprocities of +misunderstanding ensuing, he felt it safest to say:--"Nothing wrong, I +hope?" This is what followed: + +"I think you might show more interest. I have been very much startled +and annoyed.... But I must tell you later. There's no time now." + +"I think," says his lordship deferentially, "that, having mentioned it, +it might be better to ..." + +"I suppose you mean I oughtn't to have mentioned it.... Starfield, I +cannot possible wear that thick dress to-night. It's suffocating. Get +something thinner.... Oh, well--if I must tell you I must tell you! Go +back in your room a minute while Starfield finds that dress.... Oh +no--_she's_ not listening ... never mind _her_! There, the door's shut!" + +"Well--what _is_ it?" + +"It's Gwen. However, I dare say it's only a flash in the pan, and she'll +be off after somebody else. If only my advice had been taken he never +would have come into the house...." + +"But who _is_ he, and what is _it_?" + +"My dear, I'll tell you if you'll not be so impatient. It's this young +Torrens.... Yes--now you're shocked. So was I." For no further +explanations are necessary. When one hears that "it" is John and Jane, +one knows. + +"But, Philippa, are you sure? It seems to me perfectly incredible." + +"Speak to her yourself." + +"She's barely seen him; and as for him, poor fellow, he has never seen +_her_ at all." The rapidity of events seems out of all reason to a +constitutionally cautious Earl. + +"My dear, how unreasonable you are! If he could _see_ her, of course, +she wouldn't think of him for one moment. At least, I suppose not." + +"I _cannot_ understand," says the bewildered Earl. And then he begins +repeating her ladyship's words "If--he--could ..." as though inviting a +more intelligible repetition. This is exasperating--a clear insinuation +of unintelligibility. + +"Oh dear, how slow men are!" The lady passes through a short phase of +collapse from despair over man's faculties, then returns to a difficult +task crisply and incisively. "Well, at any rate, you can see _this_? The +girl's got it into her head that the accident was _our_ fault, and that +it's _her_ duty to make it up to him." + +"But, then, she's not really in love with him, if it's a self-denying +ordinance." + +The Countess is getting used to despair, so she only shrugs a submissive +shoulder and remarks with forbearance:--"It is _no_ use trying to make +you understand. Of course, it's _because_ she is in love with him that +she is going in for ... what did you call it?..." + +"A self-denying ordinance." + +"_I_ call it heroics. If she wasn't in love with him, do you suppose she +would want to fling herself away?" + +"Then it isn't a self-denying ordinance at all. I confess I _don't_ +understand. I must talk to Gwen herself." + +"Oh, talk to her by all means. But don't expect to make any impression +on her. I know what she is when she gets the bit in her teeth. Certainly +talk to her. I really must go and dress now...." + +"Stop one minute, Philippa...." + +"Well--what?" + +"Apart from the blindness--poor fellow!--is there anything about this +young man to object to? There's nothing about his family. Why!--his +father's Hamilton Torrens, that was George's great friend at Christ +Church. And his mother was an Abercrombie...." + +"I can't go into that now." Her ladyship cuts Adrian's family very +short. Consider her memories of bygones! No wonder she became acutely +alive to her duties as a hostess. She had created a precedent in this +matter, though really her husband scarcely knew anything about her +_affaire de coeur_ with Adrian's father thirty years ago. It was not a +hanging matter, but she could not object to the young man's family after +such a definite attitude towards his father. + +Here ends the second short colloquy, which was the one that caused the +Earl to be so more than usually absent that evening. It had the opposite +effect on her ladyship, who felt better after it; braced up again to +company-manners after the first one. Gwen, as mentioned before, was +dazzling; superb; what is apt to be called a cynosure, owing to +something Milton said. Nevertheless, the Shrewd Observer, who happened +in this case to be Aunt Constance, noticed that at intervals the young +lady let her right-hand neighbour talk, and died away into +preoccupation, with a vital undercurrent of rippled lip and thoughtful +eye. Another of her shrewd observations was that when the Hon. Percival, +referring to Mr. Torrens, still an absentee by choice, said:--"I tried +again to persuade him to come down at feeding-time, but it was no go," +Gwen came suddenly out of one dream of this sort to say from her end of +the table, miles off:--"He really prefers dining by himself, I know," +and went in again. + +It was this that Aunt Constance referred to in conversation with Mr. +Pellew, at about half-past ten o'clock in that same shrubbery walk. They +had cultivated each other's absence carefully in the drawing-room, and +had convinced themselves that neither was necessary to the other. That +clause having been carried nem. con., they were entitled to five +minutes' chat, without prejudice. Neither remembered, perhaps, the +convert to temperance who decided that passing a public-house door _à +contre-coeur_ entitled him to half-a-pint. + +"How did you get on with little Di Accrington?" the lady had said. And +the gentleman had answered:--"First-rate. Talked to her about _your_ +partner all the time. How did you hit it off with him?" A sympathetic +laugh over the response: "Capitally--he talked about _her_, of course!" +quite undid the fiction woven with so much pains indoors, and also as it +were lighted a little collateral fire they might warm their fingers at, +or burn them. However, a parade of their well-worn seniority, their old +experience of life, would keep them safe from _that_. Only it wouldn't +do to neglect it. + +Mr. Pellew recognised the obligation first. "Offly amusin'!--young +people," said he, claiming, as the countryman of Shakespeare, his share +of insight into Romeo and Juliet. + +"Same old story, over and over again!" said Aunt Constance. They posed +as types of elderliness that had no personal concern in love-affairs, +and could afford to smile at juvenile flirtations. Mr. Pellew felt +interested in Miss Dickenson's bygone romances, implied in the slight +shade of sentiment in her voice--wondered in fact how the doose this +woman had missed her market; this was the expression his internal +soliloquy used. She for her part was on the whole glad that an intensely +Platonic friendship didn't admit of catechism, as she was better pleased +to leave the customers in that market to the uninformed imagination of +others, than to be compelled to draw upon her own. + +The fact was that, in spite of its thinness and slightness, this +Platonic friendship with a mature bachelor whose past--while she +acquitted him of atrocities--she felt was safest kept out of sight, had +already gone quite as near to becoming a love-affair as anything her +memory could discover among her own rather barren antecedents. So there +was a certain sort of affectation in Aunt Constance's suggestion of +familiarity with Romeo and Juliet. She wished, without telling lies, to +convey the idea that the spinsterhood four very married sisters did not +scruple to taunt her with, was either of her own choosing or due to some +tragic event of early life. She did not relish the opposite pole of +human experience to her companion's. Of course, he was a bachelor +nominally unattached--she appreciated that--just as she was a spinster +very actually unattached. But all men of his type she had understood +were alike; only some--this one certainly--were much better than others. +Honestly she was quite unconscious of any personal reason for assigning +to him a first-class record. + +Attempts to sift the human mind throw very little light upon it, and the +dust gets in the eyes of the story. Perhaps that is why it cannot give +Miss Dickenson's reason for not following up her last remark with:--"And +will go on so, I suppose, to the end of time!" as she had half-intended +to do, philosophically. Possibly she thought it would complicate the +topic she was hankering after. It would be better to keep that +provisionally clear of subjects made to the hand of writers of plays. +She would not go beyond hypnotic suggestion at present. She approached +it with the air of one who dismisses a triviality. + +"It seems Mr. Adrian Torrens is a musician as well as a poet." + +"Had they been playing the piano?" + +"Really, Mr. Pellew, how absurd you are! Where does 'they' come in?" + +"Oh--well--a--of course--I thought you were referring to ..." + +"_Whom_ did you suppose I was referring to?" Aggressive equanimity here +that can wait weeks, if necessary. + +"Torrens and my cousin Gwen! Be hanged if I can see why I shouldn't +refer to them!" + +"Do so by all means. I wasn't, myself; but it doesn't matter. It was +Nurse Bailey told Lutwyche, whom I borrow from Gwen sometimes, that Mr. +Torrens was a great musician." + +"How does Nurse Bailey know?" + +"He was playing to her quite beautiful in the drawing-room just before +her young ladyship came in. And then Mrs. Bailey went upstairs to write +a letter because there was plenty of time before the post." + +"Can't say I believe Nurse Bailey's much of a dab at music." Mr. Pellew +was reflecting on the humorous background of Miss Dickenson's +character, clear to his insight in her last speech. "But it was just +post-time when we got back from the flower-show.... What then? Why, her +young ladyship must have been there long enough for Mrs. Bailey to write +a letter." + +"Is that the way you gossip at your Club, Mr. Pellew?" + +"Come, I say, Miss Dickenson, that's too bad! I merely remark that a +lady and gentleman must have had plenty of time for music, and you call +it 'gossip.'" + +"Precisely." + +"Well, I say it's a jolly shame!... You don't suppose there _is_ +anything there, do you?" This came with a sudden efflux of seriousness. + +Aunt Constance had landed her fish and was blameless. Nobody could say +she had been indiscreet. She, too, could afford to be suddenly serious. +"I don't mind saying so to you, Mr. Pellew," she said, "because I know I +can rely upon you. But did you notice at dinner-time, when you said you +had tried to persuade Mr. Torrens to come down, that Gwen took upon +herself to answer for him all the way down the table?" + +"By Jove--so she did! I didn't notice it at the time. At least, I mean I +did notice it at the time, but I didn't take much notice of it. +Well--you know what I mean!" As Miss Dickenson knows perfectly well, she +tolerates technical flaws of speech with a nod, and allows Mr. Pellew to +go on:--"But, I say, this will be an awful smash for the family. A blind +man!" Then he becomes aware that a conclusion has been jumped at, and +experiences relief. "But it may be all a mistake, you know." Aunt +Constance's silence has the force of speech, and calls for further +support of this surmise. "They haven't had the time. She has only known +him since yesterday. At least he had never seen her but once--he told me +so--that time just before the accident." + +"Gwen is a very peculiar girl," says the lady. "A spark will fire a +train. Did you notice nothing when we came in from the flower-show?" + +"Nothing whatever. Did you?" + +"Little things. However, as you say, it may be all a mistake. I don't +think anything of the time, though. Some young people are volcanic. Gwen +might be." + +"I saw no sign of an eruption in him--no lunacy. He chatted quite +reasonably about the division on Thursday, and the crops and the +weather. Never mentioned Gwen!" + +"My dear Mr. Pellew, you really are quite pastoral. Of course, Gwen is +exactly what he would _not_ mention." + +Mr. Pellew seems to concede that he is an outsider. "You think it was +Love at first sight, and that sort of thing," he says. "Well--I hope it +will wash. It don't always, you know." + +"Indeed it does not." The speaker cannot resist the temptation to +flavour philosophy with a suggestion of tender regrets--a hint of a +life-drama in her own past. No questions need be answered, and will +scarcely be asked. But it is candid and courageous to say as little as +may be about it, and to favour a cheerful outlook on Life. She is bound +to say that many of the happiest marriages she has known have been +marriages of second--third--fourth--fifth--_n_th Love. She had better +have let it stand at that if she wanted her indistinct admirer to screw +up his courage then and there to sticking point. For the Hon. Percival +had at least seen in her words a road of approach to a reasonably tender +elderly avowal. But she must needs spoil it by adding--really quite +unconsciously--that many such marriages had been between persons in +quite mature years. Somehow this changed the nascent purpose kindled by +a suggestion of _n_th love in Autumn to a sudden consciousness that the +conversation was sailing very near the wind--some wind undefined--and +made Mr. Pellew run away pusillanimously. + +"By-the-by, did you ever see the Macganister More man that died the +other day? Married the Earl's half-sister?" + +"Never. Of course, I know Clotilda perfectly well." + +"Let's see--oh yes!--she's Sister Nora. Oh yes, of course I know +Clotilda. She's his heiress, I fancy--comes into all the property--no +male heir. She'll go over to Rome, I suppose." + +"Why?" + +"Always do--with a lot of independent property. Unless some fillah cuts +in and snaps her up." + +"Do tell me, Mr. Pellew, why it is men can never credit any woman with +an identity of her own?" + +"Well, I only go by what I see. If they don't marry they go over to +Rome--when there's property--dessay I'm wrong.... What o'clock's +that?--ten, I suppose. No?--well, I suppose it must be eleven, when one +comes to think of it. But it's a shame to go in--night like this!" And +then this weak-minded couple impaired the effect of their little +declaration of independence of the united state--the phrase sounds +familiar somehow!--by staying out five or six minutes longer, and going +in half an hour later; two things only the merest pedant would declare +incompatible. But it kept the servants up, and Miss Dickenson had to +apologise to Mr. Norbury. + +How many of us living in this present century can keep alive to the fact +that the occupants of country-mansions, now resplendent with an electric +glare which is destroying their eyesight and going out suddenly at +intervals, were sixty years ago dependent on candles and moderator +lamps, which ran down and had to be wound up, and then ran down again, +when there was no oil. There was no gas at the Towers; though there +might have been, granting seven miles of piping, from which the gas +would have escaped into the roots of the beeches and killed them. + +Even if there had been, it does not follow that Miss Dickenson, in full +flight to her own couch, would not have come upon the Earl in the lobby +near Mr. Torrens's quarters, with a candle-lamp in his hand, which he +carried about in nocturnal excursions to make sure that a great +conflagration was not raging somewhere on the premises. He seemed, Miss +Dickenson thought, to be gazing reproachfully at it. It was burning all +right, nevertheless. She wished his lordship good-night, and fancied it +was very late. The Earl appeared sure of it. So did a clock with clear +ideas on the subject, striking midnight somewhere, ponderously. The lady +passed on; not, however, failing to notice that the lamp stopped at a +door on the way, and that its bearer was twice going to knock thereat +and didn't. Then a dog within intimated that he should bark presently, +unless attention was given to an occurrence he could vouch for, which +his master told him to hold his tongue about; calling out "Come in!" +nevertheless, to cover contingencies. + +The passer-by connected this with Gwen's behaviour at dinner, and other +little things she had noticed, and meant to lie awake on the chance of +hearing his lordship say good-night to Mr. Torrens, perhaps illuminating +the situation. But resolutions to lie awake are the veriest gossamer, +blown away by the breath that puts the bedside candle out. Miss +Dickenson and Oblivion had joined hands some time when his lordship said +good-night to Mr. Torrens. + +He had found him standing at his window, as though the warm night-air +was a luxury to him, in the blue silk dressing-gown he had affected +since his convalescence. There was no light in the room; indeed, light +would have been of no service to him in his state. He did not move, but +said: "I suppose I ought to be thinking of turning in now, Mrs. Bailey?" + +"It isn't Mrs. Bailey," said the Earl. "It's me. Gwen's father." + +"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Adrian, starting back from the window. "I +thought it was the good creature. I had given you up, Lord Ancester--it +got so late." For his lordship had made a visit of inquiry and a short +chat with this involuntary guest an invariable finish to his daily +programme, since the latter recovered consciousness. "I'm afraid there's +no light in the room," said Adrian. "I told 'Rene to blow the candles +out. I can move about very fairly, you see, but I never feel safe about +knocking things down. I might set something on fire." If he had had his +choice, he would rather not have had another interview with his host +until he was at liberty to confess all and say _peccavi_. Even "Gwen's +father's" announcement of himself did not warrant his breaking his +promise. + +"There is no light," said the visitor, "except mine that I have brought +with me. I expected to find you in the dark--indeed, I was afraid I +might wake you out of your first sleep. I came because of Gwen--because +I felt I _must_ see you before I went to bed myself." He paused a +moment, Adrian remaining silent, still at a loss; then continued:--"This +has been very sudden, so sudden that it has quite ..." + +Then Adrian broke out:--"Oh, how you must be blaming me! Oh, what a +_brute_ I've been!..." + +"No--no, no--_no!_ Not that, not that _at all_! Not a word of blame for +anybody! None for you--none for Gwen. But it has been so--so sudden...." +Indeed, Gwen's father seems as though all the breath, morally speaking, +had been knocked out of his body by this escapade of his daughter's. +For, knowing from past experience the frequent tempestuous suddenness of +her impulses, and convinced that Adrian in his position neither could +nor would have shown definitely the aspirations of a lover, his image of +their interview made Gwen almost the first instigator in the affair. +"Why, you--you have hardly _seen_ her----" he says, referring only to +the shortness of their acquaintance, not to eyesight. + +Adrian accepts the latter meaning without blaming him. "Yes," he says, +"but see her I _did_, though it was but a glimpse. I tell you this, Lord +Ancester--and it is no rhapsody; just bald truth--that if this day had +never come about.... I mean if it had come about otherwise; I might have +gone away this morning, for instance ... and if I had had to learn, as I +yet may, that this black cloud I live in was to be my life for good, and +all that image I saw for a moment of Gwen--Gwen in her glory in the +light of the sunset, for one moment--one moment!..." He breaks down over +it. + +The Earl's voice is not in good form for encouragement, but he does his +best. "Come--come! It's not so bad as all that yet. See what Merridew +said. Couldn't say anything for certain for another three months. +Indeed he said it might be more, and yet you might have your sight back +again without a flaw in either eye. He really said so!" + +"Well--he's a jolly good fellow. But what I mean is, what I was going to +say was that my recollection of her in that one moment would have been +the one precious thing left for me to treasure through the +pitch-darkness.... You remember--or perhaps not--that about a hand's +breadth of it--the desert, you know--shining alone in the salt leagues +round about...." + +"N-no. I don't think I do. Is it ... a ... Coleridge?" + +"No--Robert Browning. He'd be new to you. You would hardly know him. +However, I should try to forget the rest of the desert this time." + +The Earl did not follow, naturally, and changed the subject. "It is very +late," he said, "and I have only time to say what I came to say. You may +rely on my not standing arbitrarily in the way of my daughter's wishes +when the time comes--and it has not come yet--for looking at that side +of the subject. It can only come when it is absolutely certain that she +knows her own mind. She is too young to be allowed to take the most +important step in life under the influence of a romantic--it may be +Quixotic--impulse. I have just had a long talk with her mother about it, +and I am forced to the conclusion that Gwen's motives are not so unmixed +as a girl's should be, to justify bystanders in allowing her to act upon +them--bystanders I mean who would have any right of interference.... I +am afraid I am not very clear, but I shrink from saying what may seem +unfeeling...." + +"Probably you would not hurt me, and I should deserve it, if you did." + +"What I mean is that Gwen's impulse is ... is derived from ... from, in +short, your unhappy accident. I would not go so far as to say that she +has schemed a compensation for this cruel disaster ... which we need +hardly be so gloomy about yet awhile, it seems to me. But this I do +say"--here the Earl seemed to pick up heart and find his words +easier--"that if Gwen has got that idea I thoroughly sympathize with +her. I give you my word, Mr. Torrens, that not an hour passes, for me, +without a thought of the same kind. I mean that I should jump at any +chance of making it up to you, for mere ease of mind. But I have nothing +to give that would meet the case. Gwen has a treasure--herself! It is +another matter whether she should be allowed to dispose of it her own +way, for her own sake. Her mother and I may both feel it our duty to +oppose it." + +Adrian said in an undertone, most dejectedly: "You would be right. How +could I complain?" Then it seemed to him that his words struck a false +note, and he tried to qualify them. "I mean--how could I say a word of +any sort? Could I complain of any parents, for trying to stop their girl +linking her life to mine? And such a life as hers! And yet if it were +all to do again, how could I act otherwise than as I did a few hours +since. Is there a man so strong anywhere that he could put a curb on his +heart and choke down his speech to convention-point, if he thought that +a girl like Gwen ... I don't know how to say what I want. All speech +goes wrong, do what I will." + +"If he thought that a girl like Gwen was waiting for him to speak out? +Is that it?... Oh--well--not exactly that! But something of the sort, +suppose we say?" For Adrian's manner had entered a protest. "Anyhow I +assure you I quite understand my Gwen is--very attractive. But nobody is +blaming anybody. After all, what would the alternative have been? Just +some hypocritical beating about the bush to keep square with the +regulations--to level matters down to--what did you call +it?--convention-point! Nothing gained in the end! Let's put all that on +one side. What _we_ have to look at is this--meaning, of course, by +'we,' my wife and myself:--Is Gwen really an independent agent? Is she +not in a sense the slave of her own imagination, beyond and above the +usual enthralment that one accepts as part of the disorder. I myself +believe that she is, and that the whole root and essence of the business +may be her pity for yourself, and also I should say an exaggerated idea +of her own share in the guilt...." + +"There _was_ none," Adrian struck in decisively. "But I understand your +meaning exactly. Listen a minute to this. If I had thought what you +think possible--well, I would have bitten my tongue off rather than +speak. Why, think of it! To ask a girl like that to sacrifice herself to +a cripple--a half-cripple, at least...." + +"Without good grounds for supposing she was waiting to be asked," said +the Earl; adding, to anticipate protest:--"Come now!--that's what we +mean. Let's say so and have done with it," to which Adrian gave tacit +assent. His lordship continued:--"I quite believe you; at least, I +believe you would rather have held your tongue than bitten it off. I +certainly should. But--pardon my saying so--I cannot understand ... I'm +not finding fault or doubting you ... I _cannot_ understand how you came +to be so--so ... I won't say cocksure--let's call it sanguine. If there +had been time I could have understood it. But I cannot see where the +time came in." + +Adrian fidgetted uneasily, and felt his cheeks flush. "I can answer for +when it began, with me. I walked across that glade from Arthur's Bridge +quite turned into somebody else, with Gwen stamped on my brain like a +Queen's head on a shilling, and her voice in my ears as plain as the +lark's overhead. But whether we started neck and neck, I know not. I do +know this, though, that I shall never believe that if I had been first +seen by her in my character as a corpse, either she or I would ever have +been a penny the wiser." + +"You are the wiser?--quite sure?" The Earl seemed to have his doubts. + +"Quite sure. Do you recollect how 'the Duke grew suddenly brave and +wise'? He was only the 'fine empty sheath of a man' before. But it's no +use quoting Browning to you." + +"Not the slightest. I suppose he was referring to a case of love at +first sight--is that it?... It is a time-honoured phenomenon, only it +hardly comes into practical politics, because young persons are so +secretive about it. I can't recollect any lady but Rosalind who +mentioned it at the time--or any gentleman but Romeo, for that matter. +Gwen has certainly kept her own counsel for three weeks past." + +"Dear Lord Ancester, you are laughing at me...." + +"No--no! No, I wouldn't do that. Perhaps I was laughing a little at +human nature. That's excusable. However, I understand that you _are_ +cocksure--or sanguine--about the similarity of Romeo's case. I won't +press Gwen about Rosalind's. Of course, if she volunteers information, I +shall have to dismiss the commiseration theory--you understand me?--and +suppose that she is healthily in love. By healthily I mean selfishly. If +no information is forthcoming, all I can say is--the doubt remains; the +doubt whether she is not making herself the family scapegoat, carrying +away the sins of the congregation into the wilderness." + +"You know I think that all sheer nonsense, whatever Gwen thinks? She may +think the sins of the congregation are as scarlet. To me they are white +as wool." + +"The whole question turns on what Gwen thinks. Believing, as I do, that +my child may be sacrificing herself to expiate a sin of mine, I have no +course but to do my best to prevent her, or, at least to postpone +irrevocable action until it is certain that she is animated by no such +motive. I might advocate that you and she should not meet, for--suppose +we say--a twelvemonth, but that I have so often noticed that absence +not only 'makes the heart grow fonder,' as the song says, but also makes +it very turbulent and unruly. So I shall leave matters entirely +alone--leave her to settle it with her mother.... Your sister knows of +this, I suppose?" + +"Oh yes! Gwen told her of it across the table at dinner-time." + +"Across the table at dinner-time? _Imp_-ossible!" + +"Well--look at this!" Adrian produces from his dressing-gown pocket a +piece of paper, much crumpled, with a gilt frill all round, and holds it +out for the Earl to take. While the latter deciphers it at his +candle-lamp, he goes on to give its history. Irene had been back very +late from the Mackworth Clarkes, and had missed the soup. She had not +spoken with Gwen at all, and as soon as dessert had effloresced into +little _confetti_, had been told by that young lady to catch, the thing +thrown being the wrapper of one of these, rolled up and scribbled on. +"She brought it up for me to see," says Adrian, without thought of cruel +fact. Blind people often speak thus. + +The Earl cannot help laughing at what he reads aloud. "'I am going to +marry your brother'--that's all!" he says. "That's what she borrowed +Lord Cumberworld's pencil for. Really Gwen _is_...!" But this wild +daughter of his is beyond words to describe, and he gives her up. + +If the Duke's son had not been honourable, he might have peeped and +known his own fate. For he had been entrusted with this missive, to hand +across the table to Irene lower down. Lady Gwendolen ought to have given +it to Mr. Norbury, to hand to Miss Torrens on a tray. That was Mr. +Norbury's opinion. + +When the Earl looked up from deciphering the pencil-scrawl, he saw that +Adrian's powers were visibly flagging; and no wonder, convalescence +considered, and such a day of strain and excitement. He rose to go, +saying:--"You see what I want--nothing in a hurry." + +Adrian's words were slipping away from him as he replied, or tried to +reply:--"I see. If I were to get my eyes back, Gwen might change her +mind." But he failed over the last two letters. Mrs. Bailey, still in +charge, lived on the other side of a door, at which the Earl tapped, +causing a scuttling and a prompt appearance of the good creature, who +seemed to have an ambush of grog ready to spring on her patient. It was +what was wanted. + +"Remember this, Mr. Torrens," said his lordship, when a rally encouraged +him to add a postscript, "that in spite of what you say, I feel just as +Gwen does, that the blame of your mishap lies with me and mine--with me +chiefly...." + +"All nonsense, my lord! Excuse my contradicting you flatly. Your +instruction, not expressed but implied, to old Stephen, was clearly +_not_ to miss his mark. If he had killed Achilles you _would_ have been +responsible, as Apollo was responsible for the arrow of Paris.... Yes, +my dear, we were talking about you." This was to the collie, who woke up +from deep sleep at the sound of his name, and felt he could mix with a +society that recognised him. But not without shaking himself violently +and scratching his head, until appealed to to stop. + +The Earl let further protest stand over, and said good-night, rather +relieved at the beneficial effect of the good creature's ministrations. +The excellent woman herself, when the grog was disposed of, facilitated +her charge's dispositions for the night, and retired to rest with an +ill-digested idea that she had interrupted a conversation about the +corrupt gaieties of a vicious foreign capital, inhabited chiefly by +atheists and idolaters. + + * * * * * + +The Countess's long talk with her husband, wedged in between an early +abdication of the drawing-room and the sound of Gwen laughing +audaciously with Miss Torrens on the staircase, and more temperate +good-nights below, had tended towards a form of party government in +which the Earl was the Liberal and her ladyship the Conservative party. +The Bill before the House was never exactly read aloud, its contents +being taken for granted. When the Countess had said, in their previous +interview, first that it was Gwen, and then that it was this young +Torrens, she had really exhausted the subject. + +Nevertheless she seemed now to claim for herself credit for a clear +exposition of the contents of this Bill, in spite of constant +interruptions from a factious Opposition. "I hope," she said, "that, now +that I have succeeded in making you understand, you will speak to Gwen +yourself. I suppose she's not going to stop downstairs all night." + +The Earl also supposed not. But even in that very improbable event the +resources of human ingenuity would not be exhausted. He could, for +instance, go downstairs to speak to her. But other considerations +intervened. Was her ladyship's information unimpeachable? Was it +absolutely impossible that she should have been misled in any +particular? Could he, in fact, consider his information official? + +The Countess showed unexampled forbearance under extreme trial. "My +dear," she said, "how perfectly absurd you are! How can there be any +doubt of the matter? Listen to me for one moment and think. When a girl +insists on talking to her mother when both are late for dinner, and have +hardly five minutes to dress, and says flatly, 'Mamma dear, I am going +to marry So-and-so, or So-and-so'--because it's exactly the same thing, +whoever it is--how can there be any possibility of a mistake?" + +"Very little, certainly," says the Earl reflectively. He seemed to +consider the point slowly. "But it can hardly be said to be exactly the +same thing in all cases. This case is peculiar--is peculiar." + +"I can't see where the peculiarity comes in. You mean his eyes. But a +girl either is, or is not, in love with a man, whether he has eyes in +his head or not." + +"Indisputably. But it complicates the case. You must admit, my dear, +that it complicates the case." + +"You mean that I am unfeeling? Wouldn't it be better to say so instead +of beating about the bush? But I am nothing of the sort." + +"My dear, am I likely to say so? Have you ever heard me hint such a +thing? But one may be sincerely sorry for the victim of such an awful +misfortune, and yet feel that his blindness complicates matters. Because +it does." + +"I'm not sure that I understand what you are driving at. Perhaps we are +talking about different things." This is not entirely without +forbearance--may show a trace of uncalled-for patience, as towards an +undeserved conundrum-monger. + +"Perhaps we are, my dear. But as to what I'm driving at. Can you recall +what Gwen said about his eyes?" + +"I think so. Let me see.... Yes--she said did I know anything against +him. I said--nothing except his eyes. And then she said--I recollect it +quite plainly--'Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!'" + +"What did you answer to that?" + +"I refused to talk any longer, and said you and she must settle it your +own way." + +"Nothing else?" + +"Oh--well--nothing--nothing to speak of! Lutwyche came worrying in with +hot water." + +The Earl sat cogitating until her ladyship roused him by saying "Well!" +rather tartly. Then he echoed back:--"Well, Philippa, I think possibly +you are right." + +"Only possibly!" + +"Probably then. Yes--certainly probably!" + +"What about?" + +"I thought I understood you to say that, in your opinion, Gwen had got +it into her head that ..." + +"Oh dear!... There--never mind!--go on." She considered her husband a +prolix Earl, sometimes. + +"... That the accident was _our_ fault, and that it was _her_ duty to +make it up to him." + +"Of course she has. What did you suppose?" + +"I supposed she might have--a--fallen in love with him. I thought you +thought so, too, from what you said." + +"My dear Alexander, shall I never make you understand?" Her ladyship +only used the long inconvenient name to emphasize rhetoric, which she +did also in this instance by making every note _staccato_. "Gwen, has, +fallen, in, love, with, Mr. Torrens, because, we, _did it_? _Now_ do you +see?" + +"She has a--mixture of motives, in fact?" + +"Absolutely none whatever! She's over head and ears in love with him +_because_ his eyes are out. No other reason in life! What earthly good +do you think the child thinks she could do him if she _didn't_ love him? +Men will never understand girls if they live till Doomsday." + +The Earl did not grapple with the problems this suggested; but +reflected, while her ladyship waited explicitly. At last he said:--"It +certainly appears to me that if Gwen's ... predilection for this man +depends in any degree on a mistaken conviction of duty, the only course +open to us is to--to temporise--to deprecate rash actions and +undertakings. Under the circumstances it would be impossible to condemn +or find fault with either. It is perfectly inconceivable that poor +Torrens--should have--should have taken any initiative...." + +"Oh, my dear, what nonsense! Of course, Gwen did that. She proposed to +him when I was away at the flower-show...." + +"Philippa--how _can_ you? How would such a thing be _possible_? +Really--_really!_ ..." + +"Well, _really really_ as much as you like, but any woman could propose +to a blind man--a little way off, certainly--only I don't know that Gwen +..." However, the Countess stopped short of her daughter's reference to +a respectful distance and card-leaving. + +It was at this point that Gwen and Irene were audible on the stairs, +suggesting the lateness of the hour. The Earl said:--"I think I shall go +and see Torrens as soon as there's quiet. I have gone to him every +evening till now. I may speak to him about this." To which her ladyship +replied:--"Now mind you put your foot down. What I am always afraid of +with you is indecision." He made no answer, but listened, waiting for +the last disappearance couchwards. Then he went to his room for his +hand-lamp, as described, and after satisfying himself about that +conflagration's non-existence, was just in time to cross Miss Dickenson, +a waif overdue, and wonder what on earth had made that very spirit and +image of all conformity guilty of such a lapse. + +Then followed his interview with Mr. Torrens already detailed. Perhaps +the foregoing should have come first. If ever you retell the tale you +can make it do so. But whatever you do be careful to insist on that +point of not talking before the servants. Dwell on the fact that Miss +Lutwyche went straight to the Servants' Hall, after putting a finishing +touch on her young ladyship, and said to the housekeeper:--"You'll be +very careful, Mrs. Masham, to say nothing whatever about her young +ladyship and Mr. Torrenson"; it being one of her peculiarities to alter +the names of visitors on the strength of alleged secret information, to +prove that she was in the confidence of the family. To which Mrs. Masham +replied:--"Why not be outspoken, Anne Lutwyche?" provoking, or +licensing, further illumination on the subject; with the result that in +half an hour the household was observing discreet silence about it, and +exacting solemn promises of equal discretion from acquaintances as +discreet as itself. But there were words between Mrs. Starfield, the +Countess's abettor in dressing, and Miss Lutwyche; the former having +found herself forestalled in her theory of the argument in the Lib'ary, +which she had reported as the cause of delay, by the latter's prompt +expression of cautious reserve, and having accused her of throwing out +hints and nothing to go upon. Whereupon the young woman had indignantly +repudiated the idea that a frank nature like hers could be capable of an +underhand _insinuendo_, and had felt a great and just satisfaction with +her powers of handling her mother-tongue. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + PSYCHOLOGIES ABOUT THE COUNTESS. HOW GWEN WOULDN'T GO TO ATHENS, OR + ROME, OR TO STONE GRANGE. BUT SHE WOULD GO WITH HER COUSIN CLO TO + CAVENDISH SQUARE. HOW THEY DROVE OVER TO GRANNY MARRABLE'S, AND + DAVE'S LETTER WAS TALKED ABOUT. HIS AMANUENSIS. OH, BUT HOW STRANGE + THAT PHOEBE SHOULD READ MAISIE'S WRITING AGAIN! AN ODIOUS LITTLE + GIRL, WITH A STYE IN HER EYE. AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE. HOW + MICHAEL'S FRIENDS SHOULD BE ESCHEWED, IF NOT HIMSELF. HOW GRANNY + MARRABLE AND HER SISTER HAD MADE SLIDES ON ICE THAT THAWED SEVENTY + YEARS AGO. HOW A LADY AND GENTLEMAN JUMPED FARTHER OFF + + +The Countess of Ancester was mistaken when she said to Gwen's mother +that that young lady was sure to cool down, as other young ladies, +noteworthily her own mother's daughter, had done under like +circumstances. The story prefers this elaborate way of referring to what +that august lady said to herself, to more literal and commonplace +formulas of speech; because it emphasizes the official, personal, and +historical character of the speaker, the hearer, and the instance she +cited, respectively. She spoke as a Countess, a Woman of the World, one +who knew what her duty was to herself and her daughter, and had made up +her mind to perform it, and not be influenced by sentimental nonsense. +She listened as a parent, really very fond of this beautiful creature +for which she was responsible, and painfully conscious of a bias towards +sentimental nonsense, which taxed her respect for her official adviser. +She referred to her historical precedent--her own early experience--with +a confidence akin to that of the passenger in sight of Calais, who dares +to walk about the deck because he knows how soon it will be safe to say +he was always a very good sailor. + +But just as that very good sailor is never quite free from painful +memories of moments on the voyage, over which he might have had to draw +a veil, so this lady had to be constantly on her guard against recurrent +images of her historical precedent, during her periods of wavering +between her two suitors. Could she not remember--could she ever forget +rather?--Romeo's passionate epistles and Juliet's passionate answers, +during that period of enforced separation; when the latter had not begun +to cool down, and was still able to speak of Gwen's father--undeveloped +then in that capacity--as a tedious, middle-aged prig whom her +ridiculous aunt wanted to force upon her? Was it a sufficient set-off +against all this fiery correspondence that she had burned one +preposterous--and red-hot--effusion, and started seriously on cooling, +because a friend brought her news that Romeo was not pining at all, but +had, on the contrary, danced three waltzes with a fascinating cousin of +hers? Of course it was, said the Countess officially, and she had +behaved like a good historical precedent, which Gwen would follow in due +course. Give her time. + +Nevertheless her unofficial self was grave and reflective more than once +over the likeness of this young Adrian to Hamilton, his father, +especially in his faculty for talking nonsense. Some people seemed to +think his verses good. Perhaps the two things were not incompatible. +Hamilton had never written verses, as far as she knew. No doubt that +Miss Abercrombie his father married was responsible for the poetry. If +he had married another Miss Abercrombie it might have been quite +different. She found it convenient to utilise a second example of the +same name; some suppositions are more convenient than others. She +shirked one which would have cancelled Gwen, as an impossibility. One +_must_ look accomplished facts in the face. + +The cooling down did not start with the alacrity which her ladyship had +anticipated. She had expected a fall of at least one degree in the +thermometer within a couple of months. Time seems long or short to us in +proportion as we are, so to speak, brought up against it. Only the +unwatched pot boils over; and, broadly speaking, pudding never cools, +and blowing really does very little good. This lady would have _blown_ +her daughter metaphorically--perhaps thrown cold water on her passion +would be a better metaphor--if her husband had not earnestly dissuaded +her from doing so. It would only make matters worse. If Gwen was to +marry a blind man, at least do not let her do it in order to contradict +her parents. Fights and Love Affairs alike are grateful to bystanders +who do not interfere; but interference is admissible in the former, to +assist waverers up to the scratch. In the latter, the sooner time is +called, the better for all parties. But if time is called too soon, ten +to one the next round will last twice as long. + +The Earl also interposed upon his wife's attempt to stipulate for a +formal declaration of reciprocal banishment. "Very well, my dear +Philippa!" said he. "Forbid their meeting, if you like! You can do it, +because Adrian is bound in honour to forward it if we insist. But in my +opinion you will by doing so destroy the last chance of the thing dying +a natural death." Said Philippa:--"I don't believe you want it to"--a +construction denounced, we believe, by sensitive grammarians. The Earl +let it pass, replying:--"I do not wish it to die a violent death." Her +ladyship dropped the portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless +reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's +father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The +rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their +brows and woven into the patterns of the garments. Among them, two +images--a potential Adrian and a potential Gwen--each with one variation +of parentage, but quite out of court for St. George's, Hanover Square. +Are the Countess's thoughts obscure to you? They were, to her. So she +refused to entertain them. + +In the Earl's mind there was an element bred of his short daily visits +to the young man, whose disaster had been a constant source of +self-reproach to him. If only its victim had been repugnant to him, he +would have been greatly helped in the continual verdicts of the Court of +his own conscience, which frequently discharged him without a stain on +his character. How came it, then, that he so soon found himself back in +the dock, or re-arguing the case as counsel for the prisoner? Probably +his sentiments towards the young man himself were responsible for some +of his discontent with his own impartial justice, however emphatically +he rejected the idea. There is nothing like a course of short +attendances at the bedside of a patient to generate an affection for its +occupant, and in this case everything was in its favour. All question of +responsibility for Adrian's accident apart, there was enough in his +personality to get at the Earl's soft corners, especially the one that +constantly reminded its owner that he was now without a son and heir. +For, since his son Frank was drowned, he was the father of daughters +only. It was not surprising that he should enter some protest against +any but a spontaneous cancelling of Gwen's trothplight. It was only fair +that spontaneity should have a chance. He did not much believe that the +cooling down process would be materially assisted by a spell of +separation; but if Philippa would not be content without it, try it, by +all means! If she could persuade her daughter to go with her to Paris, +Rome, Athens--New York, for that matter!--why, go! But the Earl's shrug +as he said this meant that her young ladyship had still to be reckoned +with, and that pig-headed young beauties in love were kittle cattle to +shoe behind. Those were the words his brain toyed with, over the case, +for a moment. + +The reckoning bristled with difficulties, and every unit was disputed. +Paris was not fit to be visited, with the present government; and was +not safe, for that matter. Cholera was raging in Rome. Athens was a mass +of ruins from the recent earthquakes. Gwen wavered a moment over New +York, not seriously suggested. It was so absurd as to be worth a +thought. This seems strange to us, nowadays; but it was then nearly as +far a cry to Broadway as it is now to Tokio. + +Appeals to Gwen to go abroad with her mother failed. She also made +difficulties--good big ones--about going with her parents to Scotland. +Her scheme was transparent, though she indignantly disclaimed it. How +could anything be more absurd than to accuse her of conspiring with +Irene towards a visit to that young lady at Pensham Steynes? Had she not +promised to live without seeing Adrian for six months, and was she not +to be trusted to keep her word? + +She really wished to convince her father of the reality of her +attachment, apart from compensation due to loss of sight. So she agreed +to accompany Cousin Clotilda to London, and to stay with her at the +town-mansion of the Macganister More, who had just departed this life, +leaving the whole of his property to the said Cousin, his only daughter +and heiress. She rather looked forward to a sojourn in the great house +in Cavendish Square, a mysterious survival of the Early Georges, which +had not been really tenanted for years, though Sister Nora had camped in +it on an upstairs floor you could see Hampstead Heath from. It would be +fun to lead a gypsy life there, building castles in the air with Sister +Nora's great inheritance, and sometimes peeping into the great +unoccupied rooms, all packed-up mirrors and chandeliers and consoles and +echoes and rats--a very rough inventory, did you say? But admit that you +know the house! Its individuality is unimportant here, except in so far +as it supplied an attraction to London for a love-sick young lady. Its +fascination and mystery were strong. So were the philanthropies that +Sister Nora was returning to, refreshed by a twelve-month of total +abstinence, with more power to her elbow from a huge balance at her +banker's, specially contrived to span the period needed for the putting +of affairs in order. + +So when Miss Grahame--that was the family name--went on to London, after +a month's stay at the Towers, Gwen was to accompany her. That was the +arrangement agreed upon. But before they departed, they paid a visit to +Granny Marrable at Chorlton, who was delighted at the reappearance of +Sister Nora, and was guilty of some very transparent insincerity in her +professions of heartfelt sorrow for the Macganister More. He, however, +was very soon dismissed from the conversation, to make way for Dave +Wardle. + +Her young ladyship from the Castle hardly knew anything about Dave. In +fact, his fame reached her for the first time as they drove past the +little church at Chorlton on their way to Strides Cottage, Mrs. +Marrable's residence. Sister Nora was suddenly afraid she had "forgotten +Dave's letter after all." But she found it, in her bag; and rejoiced, +for had she not promised to return it to Granny Marrable, to whom--not +to herself--it was addressed, after Dave's return last year to his +parents. Lady Gwendolen was, or professed to be, greatly interested; +reading the epistle carefully to herself while her cousin and Granny +Marrable talked over its writer. But she was fain to ask for an +occasional explanation of some obscurity in the text. + +It was manifestly a dictated letter, written in a shaky hand as of an +old person, but not an uneducated one by any means; the misspellings +being really intelligent renderings of the pronunciation of the +dictator. As, for instance, the opening:--"Dear Granny Marrowbone," +which caused the reader to remark:--"I suppose that doesn't mean that +the writer thinks you spell your name that way, Mrs. Marrable, only that +the child _says_ Marrowbone." The owner of the name assented, +saying:--"That would be so, my lady, yes." And her ladyship proceeded: +"I like you. I like Widow Thrale. I like Master Marmaduke!"--This was +the other small convalescent, he who had an unnatural passion for Dave's +crutch, likened to Ariadne--"I like Sister Nora. I like the Lady. I like +Farmer Jones, but not much. I am going to scrool on Monday, and shall +know how to read and write with a peng my own self." "Quite a +love-letter," said Gwen, after explanations of the persons referred +to--as that "the lady" was the mother of her own personal ladyship; that +is, the Countess herself. Gwen continued, identifying one of the +characters:--"But that was hypocrisy about Farmer Jones. He didn't like +Farmer Jones at all. I don't.... That's not all. What's this?" She went +on, reading aloud:--"'Writited for me by Mrs. Picture upstairs on her +decks with hink.' I see he has signed it himself, rather large. I wonder +who is Mrs. Picture, who writes for him." + +"We heard a great deal about Mrs. Picture, my lady." Sister Nora thought +her name might be Mrs. Pitcher, though odd. "I could hardly say myself," +said Granny Marrable diffidently. + +Gwen speculated. "Pilcher, or Pilchard, perhaps! It couldn't be Picture. +What did he tell you about her?" + +"Oh dear--a many things! Mrs. Picture had been out to sea, in a ship. +But she will be very old, too, Mrs. Picture. I call to mind now, that +the dear child couldn't tell _me_ from Mrs. Picture when he first came, +by reason of the white hair. So she may be nigh my own age." + +Gwen was looking puzzled over something in the letter. "'Out to sea in a +ship!'" she repeated. "I wonder, has 'decks' anything to do with +that?... N-n-no!--it must be 'desk.' It can't be anything else." It was, +of course, Mrs. Prichard's literal acceptance of Dave's pronunciation. +But it had a nautical air for the moment, and seemed somehow in keeping +with that old lady's marine experience. + +Widow Thrale then came in, bearing an armful of purchases from the +village. With her were two convalescents; who must have nearly done +convalescing, they shouted so. The ogress abated them when she found her +granny had august company, and removed them to sup apart with an anaemic +eight-year-old little girl; in none of whom Sister Nora showed more than +a lukewarm interest, comparing them all disparagingly with Dave. In +fact, she was downright unkind to the anaemic sample, likening her to +knuckle of veal. It was true that this little girl had a stye in her +eye, and two corkscrew ringlets, and lacked complete training in the use +of the pocket-handkerchief. All the ogress seemed to die out of Widow +Thrale in her presence, and the visitors avoided contact with her +studiously. She seemed malignant, too, driving her chin like a knife +into the _nuque_ of one of the small boys, who kicked her shins +justifiably. However, they all went away to convalesce elsewhere, as +soon as their guardian the ogress had transplanted from a side-table a +complete tea-possibility; a tray that might be likened to Minerva, +springing fully armed from the head of Jove. "Your ladyship will take +tea," said Granny Marrable, in a voice that betrayed a doubt whether the +Norman Conquest could consistently take tea with Gurth the Swineherd. + +Her ladyship had no such misgiving. But an aristocratic prejudice +dictated a reservation:--"Only it must be poured straight off before it +gets like ink.... Oh, stop!--it's too black already. A little hot water, +thank you!" And then Mrs. Thrale, in cold blood, actually stood her +Rockingham teapot on the hob; to become an embittered deadly poison, a +slayer of the sleep of all human creatures above a certain standard of +education. When all other class distinctions are abolished, this one +will remain, like the bones of the Apteryx. + +"We'll pay a visit to Dave," said Sister Nora. "Perhaps he'll introduce +us to Mrs. Picture." Nothing hung on the conversation, and Mrs. Picture, +always under that name--there being indeed none to correct it--cropped +up and vanished as often as Dave was referred to. One knows how readily +the distortions of speech of some lovable little man or maid will +displace proper names, whose owners usually surrender them without +protest. That Granny Marrowbone and Mrs. Picture were thereafter +accepted as the working designations of the old twins was entirely owing +to Dave Wardle. + +"Mrs. Picture lives upstairs, it seems," said Gwen, referring to the +letter. "I wonder you saw nothing of her, Cousin Chloe." + +"Why should I, dear? I never went upstairs. I heard of her because the +little sister-poppet wanted to take the doll I gave her to show to a +person the old prizefighter spoke of as the old party two-pair-up. But I +thought the name was Bird." + +"A prizefighter!" said Gwen. "How interesting! We _must_ pay a visit to +the Wardle family. Is it a very awful place they live in?" This question +was asked in the hope of an affirmative answer, Gwen having been +promised exciting and terrible experiences of London slums. + +"Sapps Court?" said Miss Grahame, speaking from experience. "Oh +no!--quite a respectable place. Not like places I could show you out of +Drury Lane. I'll show you the place where Jo was, in this last Dickens." +Which would fix the date of this story, if nothing else did. + +Granny Marrowbone looked awestruck at this lady's impressive knowledge +of the wicked metropolis, and was, moreover, uneasy about Dave's +surroundings. She had had several other letters from Dave; the latter +ones to some extent in his own caligraphy, which often rendered them +obscure. But the breadth of style which distinguished his early dictated +correspondence was always in evidence, and such passages as lent +themselves to interpretation sometimes contained suggestions of +influences at work which made her uneasy about his future. These were +often reinforced by hieroglyphs, and one of these in particular appeared +to refer to persons or associations she shrank from picturing to herself +as making part of the child's life. She handed the letter which +contained it to Sister Nora, and watched her face anxiously as she +examined it. + +Sister Nora interpreted it promptly. "A culprit running away from the +Police, evidently. His legs are stiff, but the action is brisk. I should +say he would get away. The police seem to threaten, but not to be +acting promptly. What do you think, Gwen?" + +"Unquestionably!" said Gwen. "The Police are very impressive with their +batons. But what on earth is this thing underneath the malefactor?" +Sister Nora went behind her chair, and they puzzled over it, together. +It was inscrutable. + +At last Sister Nora said slowly, as though still labouring with +perplexity:--"Is it possible?--but no, it's impossible--possible he +means that?..." + +"Possible he means what?" + +"My idea was--but I think it's quite out of the question---- Well!--you +know there is a prison called 'The Jug,' in that sort of class?" + +"I didn't know it. It looks very like a jug, though--the thing does.... +Yes--he's a prisoner that's got out of prison. He must have had the Jug +all to himself, though, it's so small!" + +"I do believe that's what it is, upon my word. There was an escape from +Coldbath Fields--which is called the Stone Jug--some time back, that was +in the papers. It made a talk. That's it, I do believe!" Sister Nora was +pleased at the solution of the riddle; it was a feather in Dave's cap. + +Said Gwen:--"He did escape, though! I'm glad. He must have been a +cheerful little culprit. I should have been sorry for him to get into +the hands of those wooden police." Her acceptance of Dave's +Impressionist Art as a presentment of facts was a tribute to the force +of his genius. Some explanatory lettering, of mixed founts of type, had +to be left undeciphered. + +The ogress came back from the convalescents; having assigned them their +teas, and enjoined peace. "You should ask her ladyship to read what's on +the back, Granny," she said; not to presume overmuch by direct speech to +the young lady from the Towers. The old lady said acquiescingly:--"Yes, +child, that _would_ be best. If you please, my lady!" + +"This writing here?" said Gwen, turning the paper. "Oh yes--this is Mrs. +Picture again. 'Dave says I am to write for him what this is he has +drawed for Granny Marrowbone to see. The lady may see it, too.' ... +That's not me; he doesn't know me.... Oh, I see!--it's my mother...." + +"Yes--that's Cousin Philippa. Go on." + +Gwen went on:--"'It is the Man in High Park at the Turpentine +Micky'--some illegible name--'knew and that is Michael in the corner +larfing at the Spolice. The Man has got out of sprizzing and the Spolice +will not cop him.' There was no room for Michael Somebody, and he +hasn't worked out well," said Gwen, turning the image of Michael several +ways up, to determine its components. But it was too Impressionist. "I +suppose 'cop' means capture?" said she. + +"That's it," said Sister Nora. "I think I know who Michael is. He's +Michael Rackstraw, a boy. Dave's Uncle had a bad impression of him--said +he would live to be hanged at an early date. He wouldn't be surprised to +hear that that young Micky had been pinched, any minute. 'Pinched' is +the same as 'copped.' Uncle Moses' slang is out-of-date." + +She looked again at the undeciphered inscription. "I think 'Michael' +explains this lot of big and little letters," she said; and read them +out as: "'m, i, K, e, y, S, f, r, e, N, g.' Mickey's friend, evidently!" + +"Oh, dearie me!" said the old lady. "To think now that that dear child +should be among such dreadful ways. I do wonder now--and, indeed, my +lady and Miss Nora, I've been thinking a deal about him, with his blue +eyes and curly brown hair, and him but just turned of seven.... I have +been thinking, my lady, only perhaps it's hardly for me to say ... I +_have_ been a wondering whether this ... elderly person ... only God +forgive me if I do her wrong!... whether this Mrs. Picture...." Granny +Marrable wavered in her indictment--hoped perhaps that one of the ladies +would catch her meaning and word her interpretation. + +Sister Nora understood, and was quite ready with one. "Oh yes, I see +what you mean, Mrs. Marrable--whether the old woman is the right sort of +old woman for Dave. And it's very natural and quite right of you to +wonder. _I_ should if I hadn't seen the boy's parents--his uncle and +aunt.... Oh yes, of course, they are not his parents in the vulgar +sense! Don't be commonplace, Gwen!... nice, quiet, old-fashioned sort of +folk, devoted to the children. As for the prizefighting, I don't think +anything of that. I'm sure he fought fair; and it was the same for both +anyhow! He's an old darling, _I_ think. I'll show him to you, Gwen, down +his native court. Really, dear Granny Marrable, I don't think you need +be the least uneasy. We'll go and see Dave the moment we get up to +London--won't we, Gwen?" + +"We'll go there first," said Gwen. But for all this reassurance the old +lady was clearly uneasy. "With regard to the boy Michael," said she +hesitatingly, "did you happen, ma'am, to _see_ the boy Michael.... I +mean, did he?..." + +"Did he turn up when I was there, you mean? Well--no, he didn't! But +after all, what does the boy Michael come to in it? He'd made a slide +down the middle of the Court, and Uncle Moses prophesied his death on +the gallows! But, dear me, all children make slides--girls as well as +boys. I used to make slides, all by myself, in Scotland." + +Granny Marrable's mind ran back seventy years or so. "Yes, indeed, that +is true; and so did I." She nodded towards the chimneyshelf, where the +mill-model stood--Dave's model. "There's the mill where I had my +childhood, and it's there to this day, they tell me, and working. And +the backwater above the dam, it's there, too, I lay, where my sister +Maisie and I made a many slides when it froze over in the winter +weather. And there's me and Maisie in our lilac frocks and white +sun-bonnets. Five-and-forty years ago she died, out in Australia. But +I've not forgotten Maisie." + +She could mention Maisie more serenely than Mrs. Prichard, _per contra_, +could mention Phoebe. But, then, think how differently the forty-five +years had been filled out in either case. Maisie had been forced to +_ricordarsi del tempo felice_ through so many years of _miseria_. +Phoebe's journey across the desert of Life had paused at many an oasis, +and their images remained in her mind to blunt the tooth of Memory. The +two ladies at least heard nothing in the old woman's voice that one does +not hear in any human voice when it speaks of events very long past. + +Gwen showed an interest in the mill. "You and your sister were very much +alike," she said. + +"We were twins," said Granny Marrable. But, as it chanced, Gwen at this +moment looked at her watch, and found it had stopped. She missed the old +woman's last words. When she had satisfied herself that the watch was +still going she found that Granny Marrable's speech had lost its slight +trace of sadness. She had become a mere recorder, _viva voce_. "Maisie +married and went abroad--oh dear, near sixty years ago! She died out +there just after our father--yes, quite forty-five--forty-six years +ago!" Her only conscious suppression was in slurring over the gap +between Maisie's departure and her husband's; for both ladies took her +meaning to be that her sister married to go abroad, and did not return. + +It was more conversation-making than curiosity that made Gwen +ask:--"Where was 'abroad'? I mean, where did your sister go?" The old +lady repeated:--"To where she met her death, in Australia. +Five-and-forty years ago. But I have never forgotten Maisie." Gwen, +looking more closely at the mill-model as one bound to show interest, +said:--"And this is where you used to slide on the ice with her, on the +mill-dam, all that time ago. Just fancy!" The reference to Maisie was +the merest chat by the way; and the conversation, at this mention of the +ice, harked back to Sapps Court. + +"Of course you made slides, Granny Marrable," said Sister Nora; "and +very likely somebody else tumbled down on the slides. But you have never +been hanged, and Michael won't be hanged. It was only Uncle Moses's fun. +And as for old Mrs. Picture, I daresay if the truth were known, Mrs. +Picture's a very nice old lady? I like her for taking such pains with +Dave's letter-writing. But we'll see Mrs. Picture, and find out all +about it. Won't we, Gwen?" Gwen assented _con amore_, to reassure the +Granny, who, however, was evidently only silenced, not convinced, about +this elderly person in London, that sink of iniquities. + +Gwen resumed her seat and took another cup of tea, really to please her +hosts, as the tea was too strong for anything. Then Feudalism asserted +itself as it so often does when County magnates foregather with village +minimates--is that the right word? Landmarks, too, indisputable to need +recognition were ignored altogether, and all the hearsays of the +countryside were reviewed. The grim severance between class and class +that up-to-date legislation makes every day more and more well-defined +and bitter had no existence in fifty-four at Chorlton-under-Bradbury. +Granny Marrable and the ogress, for instance, could and did seek to know +how the gentleman was that met with the accident in July. Of course, +_they_ knew the story of the gentleman's relation with "Gwen o' the +Towers," and both visitors knew they knew it; but that naturally did not +come into court. It underlay the pleasure with which they heard that Mr. +Adrian Torrens was all but well again, and that the doctors said his +eyesight would not be permanently affected. Gwen herself volunteered +this lie, with Sir Coupland's assurance in her mind that, if Adrian's +sight returned, it would probably do so outright, as a salve to her +conscience. + +"There now!" said Widow Thrale. "There will be good hearing for Keziah +when she comes nigh by us next, maybe this very day. For old Stephen +he's just gone near to breaking his heart over it, taking all the fault +to himself." Keziah was Keziah Solmes, Stephen Solmes's old wife, whose +sentimentalism would have saved Adrian Torrens's eyesight if she had not +had such an obstinate husband. Stephen was a connection of the departed +saddler, the speaker's husband. + +Said Sister Nora as they rose to rejoin the carriage:--"Now +remember!--you're not to fuss over Dave, Mrs. Thrale. _We'll_ see that +he comes to no harm." The ogress did not seem so uneasy about the child, +saying:--"It's the picture of the man running from the Police Granny +goes by, and 'tis no more than any boy might draw." Whereat Sister Nora +said, laughing: "You needn't get scared about Mickey, if that's it. He's +just a young monkey." But the old woman seemed still to be concealing +disquiet, saying only:--"I had no thought of the boy." She had formed +some misapprehension of Dave's surrounding influences, which seemed hard +to clear up. + +Riding home Gwen turned suddenly to her cousin, after reflective +silence, saying:--"What makes the old Goody so ferocious against the +little boy's Mrs. Picture?" To which the reply was:--"Jealousy, I +suppose. What a beautiful sunset! That means wind." But Sister Nora was +talking rather at random, and there may have been no jealousy of old +Maisie in the heart of old Phoebe. + +Moreover, Gwen's was not an inquiry-question demanding an answer. It was +interrogative chat. She was thinking all the while how amused Adrian +would have been with Dave's letter and the escaped prisoner. Then her +thought was derailed by one of the sudden jerks that crossed the line so +often in these days. Chat with herself must needs turn on the mistakes +she had made in not borrowing that letter to enclose with her next one +to Adrian, for him to ... to _what_? There came the jerk! What could he +see? Indeed, one of the sorest trials of this separation from him was +the way her correspondence--for she had insisted on freedom in this +respect--was handicapped by his inability to read it. How could she +allow all she longed to say to pass under the eyes even of Irene, dear +friend though she had become? She would have given worlds for an +automaton that could read aloud, whose speech would repeat all its eyes +saw, without passing the meaning of it through an impertinent mind. + +Sister Nora was quite in her confidence about her love-affair; in fact, +she had seen Adrian for a moment, her arrival at the Towers on her way +from Scotland after her father's death having overlapped his +departure--which had been delayed a few days by pretexts of a shallow +nature--just long enough to admit of the introduction. She inclined to +partisanship with the Countess. Why--see how mad the whole thing was! +The girl had fancied herself in love with him after seeing him barely +once, for five minutes. It never could last. She was, however, quite +prepared to back Gwen if it did show signs of being, or becoming, a +_grande passion_. Meanwhile, evidently the kindest thing was to turn +her mind in another direction, and the inoculation of an Earl's +daughter with the virus of an enthusiasm which has been since called +_slumming_ presented itself to her in the light of an effort-worthy end. +Sister Nora was far ahead of her time; it should have fallen twenty +years later. + +But she was not going to imperil her chances of success by using too +strong a _virus_ at the first injection. Caution was everything. This +projected visit to Sapps Court was a perfect stepping-stone to a +stronger regimen, such as an incursion into the purlieus of Drury Lane. +Tom-all-alone's might overtax the nervous system of a neophyte. The +full-blown horrors which civilisation creates wholesale, and remedies +retail, were not to be grappled with by untrained hands. A time might +come for that; meanwhile--Sapps Court, clearly! + +The two ladies had a quiet drive back to the Towers. How very quiet the +latter end of a drive often is, as far as talk goes! Does the Ozymandian +silence on the box react upon the rank and file of the expedition, or is +it the hypnotic effect of hoof-monotony? Lady Gwen and Miss Grahame +scarcely exchanged a word until, within a mile of the house, they +identified two pedestrians. Of whom their conversation was precisely +what follows, not one word more or less:-- + +"There they are, Cousin Chloe, exactly as I prophesied." + +"Well--why shouldn't they be?" + +"I didn't say anything about shoulds and shouldn't. I merely referred to +facts.... Come--_say_ you think it ridiculous!" + +"I can't see why. Their demeanour appears to me unexceptionable, and +perfectly dignified. Everything one would expect, knowing the +parties...." + +"Are they going to walk about like that to all eternity, being +unexceptionable? That's what I want to know?" + +"You are too impatient, dear!" + +"They have been going on for months like that; at least, it _seems_ +months. And never getting any nearer! And then when you talk to them +about each other, they speak of each other _respectfully_! They really +do. He says she is a shrewd observer of human nature, and she says he +appears to have had most interesting experiences. Indeed, I'm not +exaggerating." + +"My dear Gwen, what _do_ you expect?" + +"Oh--_you_ know! You're only making believe. Why, when I said to him +that she had been a strikingly pretty girl in her young days, and had +refused no end of offers of marriage, he ... _What_ do you say?" + +"I said 'not no end.'" + +"Well--of course not! But I thought it as well to say so." + +"And what did he say to that?" + +"He got his eyeglass right to look at her, as if he had never seen her +before, and came to a critical decision:--'Ye-es, yes, yes--so I should +have imagined. Quite so!' It amounted to acquiescing in her having gone +off, and was distinctly rude. She's better than that when I speak to her +about him certainly. This morning she said he smoked too many cigars." + +"How absurd you are, Gwen! Why was that better?" + +"H'm--it's a little difficult to say! But it _is_ better, distinctly. +There--they've heard us coming!" + +"Why?" + +"Because they both jumped farther off. They were far enough already, +goodness knows!... Good evening, Percy! Good evening, Aunt Constance! +We've had such a lovely drive home from Chorlton. I suppose the others +are on in front." And so forth. Every _modus vivendi_, at arm's length, +between any and every single lady and gentleman, was to be fooled to the +top of its bent, in their service. + +The carriage was aware it was _de trop_, but was also alive to the +necessity of pretending it was not. So it interested itself for a moment +in some palpable falsehoods about the cause of the pedestrians figuring +as derelicts; and then, representing itself as hungering for the society +of their vanguard, started professedly to overtake it. It was really +absolutely indifferent on the subject. + +"I suppose," said Miss Grahame enigmatically, as soon as inaudibility +became a certainty, "I suppose that's why you wanted Miss +Smith-Dickenson to come to Cavendish Square?" + +Gwen did not treat this as a riddle; but said, equally +inexplicably:--"He could call." And very little light was thrown on the +mystery by the reply:--"Very well, Gwen dear, go your own way." Perhaps +a little more, though not much, by Gwen's marginal comment:--"You know +Aunt Constance lives at an outlandish place in the country?" + +"Do you know, Gwen dear," said Miss Grahame, after reflection, "I really +think we ought to have offered them a lift up to the house. Stop, +Blencorn!" Blencorn stopped, without emotion. Gwen said:--"What +nonsense, Cousin Chloe! They're perfectly happy. Do leave them alone. Go +on, Blencorn!" Who, utterly unmoved, went on. But Sister Nora +said:--"No, Gwen dear, we really ought! Because I know Mr. Pellew has to +catch his train, and he'll be late. Don't go on, Blencorn!" Gwen +appearing to assent reluctantly, the arrangement stood; as did the +horses, gently conversing with each other's noses about the caprices of +the carriage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + HOW IT CAME ABOUT THAT THE LADY AND GENTLEMAN COULD JUMP FARTHER + OFF. WHAT MISS DICKENSON WANTED TO SAY AND DIDN'T, AND THE REPLY + MR. PELLEW DIDN'T MAKE, IN FULL. OF A SPLIT PATHWAY, AND THE + SHREWDNESS OF RABBITS. BUT THERE WAS NO RABBIT, AND WHEN BLENCORN + STOPPED AGAIN, THEY OVERTOOK THE CARRIAGE. THEIR FAREWELL, AND HOW + MR. PELLEW RAN AGAINST THE EARL + + +The Hon. Percival was called away to town that evening, and was to catch +the late train at Grantley Thorpe, where it stopped by signal. There was +no need to hurry, as he belonged to the class of persons that catch +trains. This class, when it spends a holiday at a country-house, dares +to leave its packing-up, when it comes away, to its valet or lady's-maid +_pro tem._, and knows to a nicety how low it is both liberal and +righteous to assess their services. + +If this gentleman had not belonged to this class, it is, of course, +possible that he would still have joined the party that had walked over, +that afternoon, to see the Roman Villa at Ticksey, the ancient +Coenobantium, in company with sundry Antiquaries who had lunched at the +Towers, and had all talked at once in the most interesting possible way +on the most interesting possible subjects. It was the presence of these +gentlemen that, by implication, supplied a reason why Gwen and Sister +Nora should prefer the others, on in front, to the less pretentious +stragglers whom they had overtaken. + +Archaic Research has an interest short of the welfare of Romeo and +Juliet; or, perhaps, murders. But neither of these topics lend +themselves, at least until they too become ancient history, to +discussion by a Society, or entry on its minutes. Perhaps it was the +accidental occurrence of the former one, just as the party started to +walk back to the Towers, that had caused Mr. Percival and Aunt Constance +to lag so far behind it, and substitute their own interest in a +contemporary drama for the one they had been professing, not very +sincerely, in hypocausts and mosaics and terra-cottas. + +For this lady had then remarked that, for her part, she thought the +Ancient Romans were too far removed from our own daily life for any but +Antiquarians to enter sympathetically into theirs. She herself doted on +History, but was inclined to draw the line at Queen Ann. It would be +mere affectation in her to pretend to sympathize with Oliver Cromwell or +the Stuarts, and as for Henry the Eighth he was simply impossible. But +the Recent Past touched a chord. Give her the four Georges. This was +just as she and the Hon. Percival began to let the others go on in +front, and the others began to use their opportunity to do so. + +Three months ago the gentleman might have decided that the lady was +talking rot. Her position now struck him as original, forcible, and new. +But he was so keenly alive to the fact that he was not in the least in +love with her, that it is very difficult to account for his leniency +towards this rot. It showed itself as even more than leniency, if he +meant what he said in reply:--"By Jove, Miss Dickenson, I shouldn't +wonder if you were right. I never thought of it that way before!" + +"I'm not quite sure I ever did," she answered; telling the truth; and +not seeming any the worse, in personality, for doing so. "At least, +until I got rather bored by having to listen. I really hate speeches and +lectures and papers and things. But what I said is rather true, for all +that. I'm sure I shall be more interested in the house the Prince Regent +was drunk in, where I'm going to stay in town, than in any number of +atriums. It _does_ go home to one more--now, doesn't it?" + +Mr. Pellew did not answer the question. He got his eyeglass right, and +looked round--he had contracted a habit of doing this--to see if Aunt +Constance was justifying the tradition of her youth, reported by her +adopted niece. He admitted that she was. Stimulated by this conviction, +he decided on:--"Are you going to stay in town? Where?" + +"At Clotilda's--Sister Nora, you know. In Cavendish Square. I hope it's +like what she says. Scarcely anything has been moved since her mother +died, when she was a baby, and for years before that the drawing-rooms +were shut up. Why did you ask?" This was a perfectly natural question, +arising out of the subject before the house. + +Nevertheless it frightened the gentleman into modifying what he meant to +say next, which was:--"May I call on you there?" He gave it up, as too +warm on the whole, considering the context, and said instead:--"I could +leave your book." Something depended on the lady's answer to this. So +she paused, and worded it:--"By all means bring it, if you prefer doing +so," instead of:--"You needn't take any trouble about returning the +book." + +Only the closest analysis can be even with the contingencies of some +stages in the relativities of grown-ups, however easily one sees through +the common human girl and boy. Miss Dickenson's selected answer just +saved the situation by the skin of its teeth. For there certainly was a +situation of a sort. Nobody was falling in love with anybody, that saw +itself; but for all that a fatality dictated that Mr. Pellew and Aunt +Constance were in each other's pockets more often than not. Neither had +any wish to come out, and popular observation supplied the language the +story has borrowed to describe the fact. + +The occupant of Mr. Pellew's pocket was, however, dissatisfied with her +answer about the book. Her tenancy might easily become precarious. She +felt that the maintenance of Cavendish Square, as a subject of +conversation, would soften asperities and dispel misunderstandings, if +any. So, instead of truncating the subject of the book-return, she +interwove it with the interesting mansion of Sister Nora's family, +referring especially to the causes of her own visit to it. "Gwen and +Cousin Clo, as she calls her, very kindly asked me to go there if I came +to London; and I suppose I shall, if my sister Georgie and her husband +are not at Roehampton. Anyway, even if I am not there, I am sure they +will be delighted to see you.... Oh no!--Roehampton's much too far to +come with it, and I can easily call for it." This was most ingenious, +for it requested Mr. Pellew to make his call a definite visit, while +depersonalising that visit by a hint at her own possible absence. This +uncertainty also gave latitude of speech, her hypothetical presence +warranting an attitude which would almost have implied too warm a +welcome from a certainty. She even could go so far as to add:--"However, +I should like to show you the Prince's drawing-room--they call it so +because he got drunk there; it's such an honour, you see!--so I hope I +shall be there." + +"Doosid int'ristin'--shall certainly come! Gwen's to go to London to get +poor Torrens out of her head--that's the game, isn't it?" + +"That sort of thing, I believe. Change of scene and so on." Miss +Dickenson spoke as one saturated with experience of refractory lovers, +not without a suggestion of having in her youth played a leading part in +some such drama. + +"Well--I'm on his side. P'r'aps that's not the right way to put it; I +suppose I ought to say _their_ side. Meaning, the young people's, of +course! Yes, exactly." + +"One always takes part against the stern parent." The humour of this +received a tributary laugh. "But do you really think Philippa wrong, +Mr. Pellew? I must say she seems to me only reasonable. The whole thing +was so absurdly sudden." + +Mr. Pellew was selecting a cigar--why does one prefer smoking the best +one first?--and was too absorbed to think of anything but "Dessay!" as +an answer. His choice completed, he could and did postpone actually +striking a match to ask briefly:--"Think anything'll come of it?" + +Miss Dickenson, being a lady and non-smoker, could converse +consecutively, as usual. "Come of what, Mr. Pellew? Do you mean come of +sending Gwen to London to be out of the young man's way, or come of ... +come of the ... the love-affair?" + +"Well--whichever you like! Either--both!" The cigar, being lighted, drew +well, and the smoker was able to give serious attention. "What do you +suppose will be the upshot?" + +"Impossible to say! Just look at all the circumstances. She sees him +first of all for five minutes in the Park, and then he gets shot. Then +she sees him when he's supposed to be dead, just long enough to find out +that he's alive. Then she doesn't see him for a fortnight--or was it +three weeks? Then she sees him and finds out that his eyesight is +destroyed...." + +"That's not certain." + +"Perhaps not. We'll hope not. She finds out--what she finds out, suppose +we say! Then they get left alone at the piano the whole of the +afternoon, and ..." + +"And all the fat was in the fire?" + +"What a coarse and unfeeling way of putting it, Mr. Pellew!" + +"Well--_I_ saw it was, the moment I came into the room. So did you, Miss +Dickenson! Don't deny it." + +"I certainly had an impression they had been precipitate." + +"Exactly. Cut along!" + +"And then, you know, he was to have gone home next day, and didn't. He +was really here four days after that; and, of course, all that time it +got worse." + +"_They_ got worse?" + +"I was referring to their infatuation. It comes to the same thing. +Anyhow, there was plenty of time for it, or for them--which ever one +calls it--to get up to fever-heat. Four days is plenty, at their time of +life. But the question is, will it last?" + +"I should say no!... Well, no--I should say yes!" + +"Which?" + +"H'm--well, perhaps _no!_ Yes--_no!_ At the same time, the parties are +peculiar. He'll last--there's no doubt of that!... And I don't see any +changed conditions ahead.... Unless...." + +"Unless what?" + +"Unless he gets his eyesight again." + +"Do you mean that Gwen will put him off, if he sees her?" + +"No--come now--I say, Miss Dickenson--hang it all!" + +"Well, I didn't know! How was I to?" + +Some mysterious change in the conditions of the conversation came about +unaccountably, causing a laugh both joined in with undisguised +cordiality; they might almost be said to have hob-nobbed over a +unanimous appreciation of Gwen. Its effect was towards a mellower +familiarity--an expurgation of starch, which might even hold good until +one of them wrote an order for some more. For this lady and gentleman, +however much an interview might soften them, had always hitherto +restiffened for the next one. At this exact moment, Mr. Pellew entered +on an explanation of his meaning in a lower key, for seriousness; and +walked perceptibly nearer the lady. Because a dropped voice called for +proximity. + +"What I meant to say was, that pity for the poor chap's misfortune may +have more to do with Gwen's feelings towards him--you understand?--than +she herself thinks." + +"I quite understand. Go on." + +"If he were to recover his sight outright there would be nothing left to +pity him for. Is it not conceivable that she might change altogether?" + +"She would not admit it, even to herself." + +"That is very likely--pride and _amour propre_, and that sort of thing! +But suppose that he suspected a change?" + +"I see what you mean." + +"These affairs are so confoundedly ... ticklish. Heaven only knows +sometimes which way the cat is going to jump! It certainly seems to me, +though, that the peculiar conditions of this case supply an element of +insecurity, of possible disintegration, that does not exist in ordinary +everyday life. You must admit that the circumstances are ... are +abnormal." + +"Very. But don't you think, Mr. Pellew, that circumstances very often +_are_ abnormal?--more often than not, I should have said. Perhaps that's +the wrong way of putting it, but you know what I mean." Mr. Pellew +didn't. But he said he did. He recognised this way of looking at the +unusual as profound and perspicuous. She continued, reinforced by his +approval:--"What I was driving at was that when two young folks are +very--as the phrase goes--spooney, they won't admit that peculiar +conditions have anything to do with it. They have always been destined +for one another by Fate." + +"How does that apply to Gwen and Torrens?" + +"Merely that when Mr. Torrens's sight comes back.... What?" + +"Nothing. I only said I was glad to hear you say _when_, not _if_. Go +on." + +"When his sight comes back--unless it comes back very quickly--they will +be so convinced they were intended for one another from the beginning of +Time, that they won't credit the accident with any share in the +business." + +"Except as an Agent of Destiny. I think that quite likely. It supplies a +reason, though, for not getting his sight back in too great a hurry. How +long should you say would be safe?" + +"I should imagine that in six months, if it is not broken off, it will +have become chronic. At present they are rather ... rather ..." + +"Rather underdone. I see. Well--I don't understand that anyone wants to +take them off the hob...." + +"I think her mother does." + +"Not exactly. She only wishes them to stand on separate hobs for three +months. They will hear each other simmer. My own belief is that they +will be worked up to a sort of frenzy, compared to which those two +parties in Dante ... you know which I mean?..." + +"Paolo and Francesca?" + +Mr. Pellew thought to himself how well enformed Miss Dickenson was. He +said aloud:--"Yes, them. Paolo and Francesca would be quite +lukewarm--sort of negus!--compared to our young friends. Correspondence +is the doose. Not so bad in this case, p'r'aps, because he can't read +her letters himself.... I don't know, though--that might make it +worse.... Couldn't say!" And he seemed to find that cigar very good, +and, indeed, to be enjoying himself thoroughly. + +Had Aunt Constance any sub-intent in her next remark? Had it any +hinterland of discussion of the ethics of Love, provocative of practical +application to the lives of old maids and old bachelors--if the one, +then the other, in this case--strolling in a leisurely way through +bracken and beechmast, fancy-free, no doubt? If she had, and her +companion suspected it, he was not seriously alarmed, this time. But +then he was off to London in a couple of hours. + +Her remark was:--"You seem to be quite an authority on the subject, Mr. +Pellew." + +"No--you don't mean that? Does me a lot of credit, though! Guessin', I +am, all through. No experience--honour bright!" + +"You don't expect me to believe that, Mr. Pellew?" + +"Needn't believe it, unless you like, Miss Dickenson. But it's true, for +all that. Never was in love in my life!" + +"You must have found life very dull, Mr. Pellew. How a man can contrive +to exist without.... Isn't that wheels?" It didn't matter whether it was +or not, but the lady's speech had stumbled into a pitfall--she was +exploring a district full of them--and she thought the wheels might +rescue her. + +But the gentleman was not going to let her off, though he was ready to +suppose the wheels were the carriage coming back. "It won't catch us up +for ever so long, you'll see! Such a quiet evening as this, one hears +miles off...." He interrupted his own speech by a variation of tone, +repeating the pitfall words:--"'Contrive to exist without'"--and then +supplied as sequel:--"'womankind somehow or other.' That's what you mean +to say, isn't it?" + +"Yes." No qualification!--more pitfalls, perhaps. + +"Only I never said anything of the sort! Never meant it, anyhow. What I +meant was that I had never caught the disorder like my blind friend. He +went off at score like Orlando in 'Winter's Tale.'" + +"In 'As You Like It.'" + +"I meant 'As You Like It.' I suppose it was because he happened to come +across thingummybob--Rosalind." + +"It always is." + +"P'r'aps I never came across Rosalind. Anyhow, I give you my honour I +never had any experience to make me an authority on the subject. I +expect you are a much better one than I." + +"Why?" Miss Dickenson's share of the conversation had become very dry +and monosyllabic. + +What was passing in her mind, and reducing her to monosyllables, was the +thought that she was a woman, and, as such, handicapped in speech with a +man; while he could say all he pleased about himself, and expect her to +listen to it with interest. They had been gradually becoming intimate +friends, and this intimacy had ripened sensibly even during this short +chat, the sequel of the separation from the Archaeological Congress, +which it suited them to believe only just out of sight and hearing: +quite within shot considered as _chaperons_. Their familiarity had got +to such a pitch that the Hon. Percival had contrived to take her into +his confidence about his own life, and she had to remain tongue-tied +about hers, being a woman. + +How could she say to him:--"I have never had the ghost of a love-affair +in the whole of my colourless, but irreproachable, life. A mystic usage +of my family of four sisters, a nervous invalid mother, and an +absent-minded father, determined my status in early girlhood. I was to +show a respectful interest in the love-affairs of my sisters, who were +handsome and pretty and charming and attractive and _piquantes_, while I +was relatively plain and backward, besides having an outcrop on one +cheek which has since been successfully removed. I was not to presume +upon my position as a sister to express opinions about these said +love-affairs, because I was not supposed to know anything about such +matters. They were not in my department. My _rôle_ was a domestic one, +and I had a high moral standpoint; which I would gladly have dispensed +with, but the force of family tradition overpowered me. It has been a +poor consolation to me to carry about this standpoint like a campstool +to the houses of the friends I visit at intervals, now that my sisters +are all married, and my mother has departed this life, and my father has +married a Mrs. Dubosc, with whom I don't agree. I lead a life of +constant resentment against unattached mankind, who decide, after +critical inspection, that they won't, when I have really never asked +them to. You and I have been more companionable--more like keeping +company, as Lutwyche would say--than any man I ever came across, and I +should like to be able to say to you that, even as you never met with +Rosalind, even so I never met with Orlando, but without any phase of my +career to correspond with the one you so delicately hinted at just now, +in your own. For I fancied I read between your lines that your scheme of +life had not been precisely that of an anchorite. Pray understand that I +have never supposed it was so, and that I rather honour your attempt to +indicate the fact to me without outraging my maidenly--old maidish, if +you will--susceptibilities"? + +It was because Miss Constance Dickenson, however improbable it may seem, +had wanted to say all this and a great deal more, and could not see her +way to any of it, that she had become dry and monosyllabic. It was +because of this compulsory silence that she felt that even her +brief:--"Why?" in answer to Mr. Pellew's suggestion that an Orlando must +have come on her stage though no Rosalind had come on his, struck her +after it had passed her lips as a false step. + +He in his turn was at a loss to get something worded so as not to +overstep his familiarity-licence. Rough-hewn, it might have run +thus:--"Because no girl, as pretty as you must have been, fifteen or +twenty years ago, ever goes without a lover _in posse_, though he may +never work out as a husband _in esse_, nor even a _fiancé_." He did not +see his way to polishing and finishing it so that it would be safe. He +could manage nothing better than "Obviously!" He said it twice +certainly, and threw away the end of his cigar to repeat it. But he +might not have done this if he had not been so near departure. + +Somehow, it left them both silent. Sauntering along on the new-fallen +beechmast, struck by the gleams of a sunset that seemed to be giving +satisfaction to the ringdoves overhead, it could not be necessary to +prosecute the conversation. All the same, if it had paused on a +different note, an incredibly slight incident that counted for something +quite measurable in the judgment of each, might have had no importance +whatever. + +But really it was so slight an incident that the story is almost ashamed +to mention it. It was this. An island of bracken, with briars in its +confidence, not negotiable by skirts--especially in those days--must +needs split a path of turf-velvet wide enough for acquaintances, into +two paths narrow enough for lovers. Practically, the choice between +walking in one of these at the risk of some little rabbit +misinterpreting their relations, and going round the island, lay with +the gentleman. The Hon. Percival did not mince the matter, as he might +have done last week, but diminished his distance from his companion in +order that one narrow pathway should accommodate both. It was just after +they had passed the island that Miss Dickenson exclaimed:--"There's the +carriage," and Gwen perceived their consciousness of its proximity. The +last episode of the story comes abreast of the present one. + +The story is ashamed of its own prolixity. But how is justice to be done +to the gradual evolution of a situation if hard-and-fast laws are to be +laid down, restricting the number of words that its chronicler shall +employ? Condemn him by all means, but admit at least that every smallest +incident of the foregoing narrative had its share of influence on the +future of its actors. + +It is true that nothing very crucial followed. For when, after the +carriage had pulled up and interrupted the current of conversation, and +gone on again leaving it doubtful how it should be resumed, it again +stopped for the pedestrians to overtake it, it became morally incumbent +on them to do so, and also prudent to accept its statement that it was +nearly half-past six, and to take advantage of a lift that it offered. +For Mr. Pellew must not miss that train. The carriage may have noticed +that it never overtook the Archaeological Congress, which must have +walked very quick, unless indeed the two stragglers walked very slow. + + * * * * * + +Miss Dickenson must have dressed for dinner much quicker than they +walked along the avenue. For when Mr. Pellew, after a short snack, on +his way to put himself in the gig beside his traps, looked in at the +drawing-room to see if there was anyone he had failed to say good-bye +to, he found that lady very successfully groomed in spite of her +alacrity, and suggesting surprise at its success. Fancy her being down +before everyone else after all! Here is the conversation: + +"Well, good-bye! I'll remember the book. I've enjoyed my visit +enormously." + +"It has been quite delightful. We've had such wonderful weather. Don't +put yourself out of the way to bring the book, though. I don't want it +back yet a while." + +"All right. Thursday morning you leave here, didn't I hear you say? I +shall have read it by then. I could drop round Thursday evening. Just +suit me!" + +"That will do perfectly. Only not if it's the least troublesome to bring +it." + +"Oh no; not the very slightest! Nine?--half-past?" + +"Nine--any time. I would say come to dinner, only I haven't mentioned it +to Miss Grahame, and I don't know her arrangements...." + +"Bless me, no--the idea! I'll drop round after dinner at the Club. Nine +or half-past." + +"We shall expect you. Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" But Mr. Pellew, turning to go and leaving his eyes behind +him, collided with the Earl, who was adhering to a conscientious rule of +always being punctual for dinner. + +"Oh--Percy! You'll lose your train. Stop a minute!--there was something +I wanted to say. What _was_ it?... Oh, I know. Gwen's address in +London--have you got it? She's going to stay with her cousin, you +know--hundred-and-two, Cavendish Square. She'll be glad to see you if +you call, I know." This was founded on a misapprehension, which the +family resented, that it was not able to take care of itself in his +absence. The Countess would have said:--"Fancy Gwen wanting to be +provided with visitors!" + +This estimable nobleman was destined to suspect he had put his foot in +it, this time, from the way in which his suggestion was received. An +inexplicable _nuance_ of manner pervaded his two guests, somewhat such +as the Confessional might produce in a penitent with a sense of humour, +who had committed a funny crime. It was, you see, difficult to assign a +plausible reason why Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson should have already +signed a treaty on the subject. + +Perhaps it was not altogether disinterested in the gentleman to look at +his watch, and accept its warning that nothing short of hysterical haste +would catch his train for him. However, the grey mare said, through her +official representative in the gig behind her, that we should do it if +the train was a minute or so behind. So possibly he was quite sincere. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + CONCERNING CAVENDISH SQUARE, AND ITS WHEREABOUTS IN THE EARLY + FIFTIES. MRS. FITZHERBERT AND PRINCESS CAROLINE. TWO LONG-FORGOTTEN + CARD-PACKS. DUMMY, AND HOW MR. PELLEW TOOK HIS HAND. GWEN'S + PERVERTED WHIST-SENSE. THE DUST OF AGES, AT ITS FINEST. HOW IT + TURNED THE TALK, AND MOULDED EVENT. HOW GWEN'S PEN SCRATCHED ON + INTO THE NIGHT + + +Aesthetic Topography is an interesting study. Seen by its light, at the +date of this story, Oxford Street was certainly at one and the same time +the South of the North of London, and the North of the South. For +whereas Hanover Square, which is only a stone's throw to the south of +it, is, so to speak, saturated with Piccadilly--and when you are there +you may just as well be in Westminster at once--it is undeniable that +Cavendish Square is in the zone of influence of Regent's Park, and that +Harley and Wimpole Streets, which run side by side north from it, never +pause to breathe until they all but touch its palings. Once in Regent's +Park, how can Topography--the geometric fallacy apart--ignore St. John's +Wood? And once St. John's Wood is admitted, how is it possible to turn a +cold shoulder to Primrose Hill? Cross Primrose Hill, and you may just as +well be out in the country at once. + +But there!--our impressions may be but memories of fifty years ago, and +our reader may wonder why Cavendish Square suggests them. + +He himself, probably very much our junior--a bad habit other people +acquire as Time goes on--may consider Harley Street and Wimpole Street +just as much town as Hanover Square, and St. John's Wood--even Primrose +Hill!--as on all fours with both. We forgive him. One, or possibly we +ought to say several, should learn to be tolerant of the new-fangled +opinions of hot-headed youth. We were like that ourself, when a boy. But +let him have his own way. These streets shall be unmitigated Town now, +to please him, in spite of the walks Dr. Johnson had in Marylebone +Fields. To be sure, Marylebone Fields soon became Gardens then-abouts, +like Ranelagh, and you drove along Harley Street to a musical +entertainment there, with music by Pergolesi and Galuppi. + +The time of this story is post-Johnsonian, but it is older than its +readers; unless, indeed, a chance oldster now and then opens it to see +if it is a proper book to have in the house. The world in the early +fifties was very unlike what it is in the present century, and _that_ +isn't yet in its teens. It was also very unlike what it had been in the +days when the family mansion in Cavendish Square, that had not had a +family in it then for forty years, was as good as new. It was so, no +doubt, for a good while after George the Third ceased to be King, +because the thorough griming it has had since had hardly begun, and +fields were sweet at Paddington, and the Regent could be bacchanalian in +that big drawing-room on the first floor without any consciousness that +he had a Park in the neighbourhood. Oh dear--how near the country +Cavendish Square was in those days! + +By the time Queen Victoria was on the throne the grime had set in in +earnest, and was hard at work long before the fifty-one Exhibition +reported progress--progress in bedevilment, says the Pessimist? Never +mind him! Let him sulk in a corner while the Optimist dwells on the +marvellous developments of which fifty-one was only symptomatic--the +quick-firing guns and smokeless powder; the mighty ships, a dozen of +them big enough to take all the Athenians of the days of Pericles to the +bottom at once; the machines that turn out books so cheap that their +contents may be forgotten in six months, and no one be a penny the +worse; the millionaires who have so much money they can't spend +it--heaps and heaps of wonders up-to-date that no one ever feels +surprised at nowadays. The Optimist will tell you all about them. For +the moment, let's pretend that none of them have come to pass, and get +back to Cavendish Square at the date of the story, and the suite of +rooms on the second floor that had been Sister Nora's town anchorage +when she first made Dave Wardle's acquaintance as an unconscious +Hospital patient, and that had been renovated since her father's death +to serve as a _pied-à-terre_ until she could be sure of her arrangements +in the days to come. + +Her friends were not the least too tired, thank you, after the journey, +to be shown the great drawing-room, on which the touching incident in +the life of a Royal Personage had conferred an historical dignity. "I +think--" said she "--only I haven't quite made up my mind yet--that I +shall call this ward Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the next room Princess +Caroline. Or the other way round. Which do you think?" For one of her +schemes was to turn the old family mansion into a Hospital. + +"Let me see!" said Gwen. "I've forgotten my history. Mrs. Fitzherbert +was his wife, wasn't she?" + +Miss Dickenson was always to be relied on for general information. +"Unquestionably," said she. "But he repudiated her for political +reasons, a course open to him as heir to the throne. Legally, Princess +Caroline of Brunswick was his lawful wife...." + +"And, lawfully," said Gwen, "Mrs. Fitzherbert was his legal wife. +Nothing can be clearer. Yes--I should say certainly call the big room +Mrs. Fitzherbert. Whom shall you call the other rooms after, Clo?" + +"All the others. There's any number! Mrs. Robinson, Lady Jersey, Lady +Conyngham ... one for every room in the house, and several over. Just +fancy!--the room has never been altered, since those days. It was +polished up for my poor mother--whom no doubt I saw in my youth, but +took no notice of. You see, I wasn't of an age to take notice, when she +departed to Kingdom-come, and my father exiled himself to Scotland...." + +"And he kept it packed up like this--how long?" + +"Well--you know how old I am. Twenty-seven." + +Aunt Constance corrected dates. "George the Fourth," said she +chronologically, "ascended the throne in 1820. Consequently he cannot +have become intoxicated in this room...." + +Sister Nora interrupted. Of course he couldn't--not in her father's +time. The cards and dice were going in her great-uncle's time, who drank +himself to death forty years ago. "There used to be some packs of +cards," said she, "in one of these drawers. I know I saw some there, +only it's a long time back--almost the only time I ever came into the +room. I'll look.... Take care of the dust!" + +It was lucky that the cabinet-maker who framed that inlaid table knew +his business--they did, in his day--or the rounded front might have +called for a jerk, instead of giving easily to the pull it had awaited +so patiently, through decades. "There they are!" said Gwen, "with +nobody to deal them. Poor cards--locked up in the dark all these years! +Do let's have them out and play dummy to-night." + +A spirit of Conservatism suggested that it would be impious to disturb a +_status quo_ connected with Royalty. But Gwen said, touching a visible +ace:--"Just think, Clo, if _you_ were an ace, and had a chance of being +trumps, how would you like to be shut up in a drawer again?" This appeal +to our common humanity had its effect, and a couple of packs were +brought out for use. No language could describe the penetrating powers +of the dust that accompanied their return to active duties. It ended the +visit _en passant_ of these three ladies, who were not sorry to find +themselves in an upstairs suite of rooms with a kitchen and a miniature +household, just established regardless of expense. Because three hundred +a year was what Miss Grahame was "going to" live upon, as soon as she +had "had time to turn round," and for the moment it was absurd to draw +hard and fast lines. Just wait and give her time, to get a little +settled! + +The fatigue of the journey was enough to negative any idea of going out +anywhere, and indeed there was nothing in the way of theatre or concert +that was at all tempting. But it was not enough to cause collapse, and +whist became plausible within half an hour after dinner. There was +something delightful in the place, too, with its windows opening on the +tree-tops of the Square, and the air of a warm autumn evening bringing +in the sound of a woebegone brass band from afar, mixed with the endless +hum of wheels with hoof-beats in the heart of it, like currants in a +cake. The air was all the sweeter that a whiff of chimney-smoke broke +into it now and again, and emphasized its quality. When the band left +off the "Bohemian Girl" and rested, and imagination was picturing the +trombone in half, at odds with condensation, a barrel-organ was able to +make itself heard, with _Il Pescatore_, till the band began again with +The Sicilian Bride, and drowned it. + +Miss Dickenson had been discreet about her expectation of a visitor. She +maintained her discretion even when the sound of a hansom's lids, +followed by "Yes--this house!" and a double knock below, turned out not +to be a mistake, but the Hon. Percival Pellew, Carlton Club. She +nevertheless roused the interested suspicion of Gwen and her hostess, +who looked at each other, and said respectively:--"Oh, it's my cousin +Percy," and "Oh, Mr. Pellew"; the former adding:--"He can take Dummy's +hand"; the latter,--"Oh, of course, ask him to come up, Maggie! Don't +let him go away on any account." But neither of these ladies expressed +any surprise at the rather prompt recrudescence of Mr. Pellew, last seen +at the Towers two days since. + +The only flaw in a pretext that Mr. Pellew had come to leave Tennyson's +"Princess," with his card in it, and run away as if the book-owner would +bite him, was perhaps the ostentation with which that lady left his +detention to her hostess. It would have been at once more candid and +more skilful to say, "Oh yes, it's my book. But I didn't want Mr. Pellew +to bother about bringing it back," with a judicious infusion of +enthusiasm that the visitor's efforts to get away should fail. However, +the flaw was slight, and no one cared about the transparency of the +pretext. Moreover, Maggie, a new importation from the Highlands, thought +that her young ladyship, whose beauty had overwhelmed her, was at the +bottom of it--not Aunt Constance. + +"Now you _are_ here, Percy, you had better make yourself useful. Sit as +we are. I'm not sorry you're come, because I hate playing dummy." This +was Gwen, naturally. + +The impersonality of Dummy furnished a topic to tide over the +assimilation of things, and help the social _fengshui_ to plausibility. +There was a fillah--said Mr. Pellew--at the Club, who wouldn't take +Dummy unless that fiction was accommodated with a real chair. And there +was another fillah who couldn't play unless the vacant chair was taken +away. Something had happened to this fillah when he was a boy, and +anything like a ghost was uncongenial to him. You shouldn't lock up +children in the dark or make grimaces at them if you wanted them not to +be nervous in after-life ... and so forth. + +Gwen was a bad whist-player, sometimes taking a very perverted view of +the game. As, for instance, when, after Mr. Pellew had dealt, she asked +her partner how many trumps she held. "Because, Clo," said she, "I've +only got two, and unless you've got at least four, I don't see the use +of going on." Public opinion condemned this attitude as unsportsmanlike, +and demanded another deal. Gwen welcomed the suggestion, having only a +Knave and a Queen in all the rest of her hand. + +Her partner expressed disgust. "I think," she said, "you might have held +your tongue, Gwen, and played it out. But I shan't tell you why." + +"Oh, I know, of course, without your telling me. You're made of trumps. +I'm so sorry, dear! There--see!--I've led." She played Knave. + +"This," said Mr. Pellew, with shocked gravity, "is not whist." + +"Well," said Gwen, "I can _not_ see why one shouldn't say how many +cards one has of any suit. Everyone knows, so it must be fair. Everyone +sees Dummy's hand." + +"I see your point. But it's not whist." + +"Am I to play, or not?" said Aunt Constance. She looked across at her +partner, as a serious player rather amused at the childish behaviour of +their opponents. A sympathetic bond was thereby established--solid +seriousness against frivolity. + +"Fire away!" said Gwen. "Second player plays lowest." Miss Dickenson +played the Queen. "_That's_ not whist, aunty," said Gwen triumphantly. +Her partner played the King. "There now, you see!" said Gwen. She +belonged to the class of players who rejoice aloud, or show depression, +after success or failure. + +This time her exultation was premature. Mr. Pellew, without emotion, +pushed the turn-up card, a two, into the trick, saying to his +partner:--"Your Queen was all right. Quite correct!" The story does not +vouch for this. It may have been wrong. + +"Do you _mean_ to _say_, Cousin Percy"--thus Gwen, with indignant +emphasis--"that you've not got a club in your hand, at the very first +round. You _cannot_ expect us to believe _that_!" Mr. Pellew pointed out +that if he revoked he would lose three tricks. "Very well," said Gwen. +"I shall keep a very sharp look out." But no revoke came, and she had to +console herself as a loser with the reflection that it was only the odd +trick, after all--one by cards and honours divided. + +This is a fair sample of the way this game went on establishing a +position of moral superiority for Mr. Pellew and his partner, who looked +down on the irregularities of their opponents from a pinnacle of True +Whist. Their position as superior beings tended towards mutual +understandings. A transition state from their relations in that +easy-going life at the Towers to the more sober obligations of the +metropolis was at least acceptable; and this isolation by a better +understanding of tricks and trumps, a higher and holier view of ruffing +and finessing, appeared to provide such a state. There was partnership +of souls in it, over and above mere vulgar scoring. + +Nothing of interest occurred until, in the course of the second rubber, +Gwen made a misdeal. Probably she did so because she was trying at the +same time to prove that having four by honours was absurd in itself--an +affront to natural laws. It was the merest accident, she maintained, +when all the court-cards were dealt to one side--no merit at all of the +players. Her objection to whist was that it was a mixture of skill and +chance. She was inclined to favour games that were either quite the one +or quite the other. Roulette was a good game. So was chess. But whist +was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.... Misdeal! The +analysis of games stopped with a jerk, the dealer being left without a +turn-up card. + +"But what a shame!" said Gwen. "Is it fair I should lose my deal when +the last card's an ace? How would any of you like it?" The appeal was +too touching to resist, though Mr. Pellew again said this wasn't whist. +A count of the hands showed that Aunt Constance held one card too few +and Gwen one too many. A question arose. If a card were drawn from the +dealer's hand, was the trump to remain on the table? Controversy ensued. +Why should not the drawer have her choice of thirteen cards, as in every +analogous case? On the other hand, said Gwen, that ace of hearts was +indisputably the last card in the pack; and therefore the trump-card, by +predestination. + +Mr. Pellew pointed out that it mattered less than Miss Dickenson +thought, as if she pitched on this very ace to make up her own thirteen, +its teeth would be drawn. It would be no longer a turn-up card, and some +new choice of trumps would have to be made, somehow; by _sortes +Virgilianae_, or what not. Better have another deal. Gwen gave up the +point, under protest, and Miss Dickenson dealt. Spades were trumps, this +time. + +It chanced that Gwen, in this deal, held the Knave and Queen of hearts. +She led the Knave, and only waiting for the next card, to be sure that +it was a low one, said deliberately to her partner:--"Don't play your +King, Cousin Clo; Percy's got the ace," in defiance of all rule and +order. + +"Can't help it," said Cousin Clo. "Got nothing else!" Out came the King, +and down came the ace upon it, naturally. + +"There now, see what I've done," said Gwen. "Got your King squashed!" +But she was consoled when Mr. Pellew pointed out that if Miss Grahame +had played a small card her King would almost certainly have fallen to a +trump later. "It was quite the right play," said he, "because now your +Queen makes. You couldn't have made with both." + +"I believe you've been cheating, and looking at my hand," said Gwen. +"How do you know I've got the Queen?" + +"How did you know I had got the ace?" said Mr. Pellew. And really this +was a reasonable question. + +"By the mark on the back. I noticed it when I turned it up, when hearts +were trumps, last deal. I don't consider that cheating. All the same, I +enjoy cheating, and always cheat whenever I can. Card games are so very +dull, when there's no cheating." + +"But, Gwen dear, I don't see any mark." This was Miss Grahame, examining +the last trick. She put the ace, face down, before this capricious +whist-player, who, however, adhered to her statement, saying +incorrigibly:--"Well, look at it!" + +"I only see a shadow," said Mr. Pellew. But it wasn't a shadow. A shadow +moves. + +Explanation came, on revision of the ace's antecedents. It had lain in +that drawer five-and-twenty years at least, with another card +half-covering it. In the noiseless air-tight darkness where it lay, +saying perhaps to itself:--"Shall I ever take a trick again?" there was +still dust, dust of thought-baffling fineness! And it had fallen, fallen +steadily, with immeasurable slowness and absolute impartiality, on all +the card above had left unsheltered. There was the top-card's +silhouette, quite recognisable as soon as the shadow was disestablished. + +"It will come out with India-rubber," said Miss Grahame. + +"I shouldn't mess it about, if I were you," said Gwen. "I know +India-rubber. It grimes everything in, and makes black streaks." Which +was true enough in those days. The material called bottle-rubber was +notable for its power of defiling clean paper, and the sophisticated +sort for becoming indurated if not cherished in one's trouser-pockets. +The present epoch in the World's history can rub out quite clean for a +penny, but then its _dramatis personae_ have to spend their lives dodging +motor-cars and biplanes, and holding their ears for fear of gramophones. +Still, it's _something_! + +Mr. Pellew suggested that the best way to deal with the soiled card +would be for whoever got it to exhibit it, as one does sometimes when a +card's face is seen for a moment, to make sure everyone knows. We were +certainly not playing very strictly. This was accepted _nem. con._ + +But the chance that had left that card half-covered was to have its +influence on things, still. Who can say events would have run in the +same grooves had it not directed the conversation to dust, and caused +Mr. Pellew to recollect a story told by one of those Archaeological +fillahs, at the Towers three days ago? It was that of the tomb which, +being opened, showed a forgotten monarch of some prehistoric race, +robed, crowned, and sceptred as of old; a little shrunk, perhaps, a bit +discoloured, but still to be seen by his own ghost, if earth-bound and +at all interested. Still to be seen, even by Cook's tourists, had he but +had a little more staying-power. But he was never seen, as a matter of +fact, by any man but the desecrator of his tomb. For one whiff of fresh +air brought him down, a crumbling heap of dust with a few imperishable +ornaments buried in it. His own ghost would not have known him again; +and, in less time than it takes to tell, the wind blew him about, and he +had to take his chance with the dust of the desert. + +"I suppose it isn't true," said Gwen incredulously. "Things of that sort +are generally fibs." + +"Don't know about this one," said Mr. Pellew, sorting his cards. "Funny +coincidence! It was in the _Quarterly Review_--very first thing I opened +at--Egyptian Researches.... That's our trick, isn't it?" + +"Yes--my ten. I'll lead.... Yes!--I think I'll lead a diamond. I always +envy you men your Clubs. It must be so nice to have all the newspapers +and reviews...." Aunt Constance said this, of course. + +"It wasn't at the Club. Man left it at my chambers three +months ago--readin' it by accident yesterday evening--funny +coincidence--talkin' about it same morning! Knave takes. No--you can't +trump. You haven't got a trump." + +"Now, however did you know that?" said Gwen. + +"Very simple. All the trumps are out but two, and I've got them here in +my hand. See?" + +"Yes, I see. But I prefer real cheating, to taking advantages of things, +like that.... What are you putting your cards down for, Cousin Percy?" + +"Because that's game. Game and the rubber. We only want two by cards, +and there they are!" + +When rubbers end at past ten o'clock at night, well-bred people wait for +their host to suggest beginning another. Ill-bred ones, that don't want +one, say suddenly that it must be getting late--as if Time had slapped +them--and get at their watches. Those that do, say that that clock is +fast. In the present case no disposition existed, after a good deal of +travelling, to play cards till midnight. But there was no occasion to +hustle the visitor downstairs. + +Said Miss Dickenson, to concede a short breathing pause:--"Pray, Mr. +Pellew, when a gentleman accidentally leaves a book at your rooms, do +you make no effort to return it to him?" + +"Well!" said Mr. Pellew, tacitly admitting the implied impeachment. "It +_is_ rather a jolly shame, when you come to think of it. I'll take it +round to him to-morrow. Gloucester Place, is it--or York Place--end of +Baker Street?... Can't remember the fillah's name to save my life. +Married a Miss Bergstein--rich bankers. Got his card at home, I expect. +However, that's where he lives--York Place. He's a Sir Somebody +Something.... What were you going to say?" + +"Oh--nothing.... Only that it would have been very interesting to read +that account. However, Sir Somebody Something must be wanting his +_Quarterly Review_.... Never mind!" + +Gwen said:--"What nonsense! He's bought another copy by this time. He +can afford it, if he's married a Miss Bergstein. Bring it round +to-morrow, Percy, to keep Aunt Constance quiet. We shan't take her with +us to see Clo's little boy. We should make too many." Then, in order to +minimise his visit next day, Mr. Pellew sketched a brief halt in +Cavendish Square at half-past three precisely to-morrow afternoon, when +Miss Dickenson could "run her eye" through the disintegration of that +Egyptian King, without interfering materially with its subsequent +delivery at Sir Somebody Something's. It was an elaborate piece of +humbug, welcomed with perfect gravity as the solution of a perplexing +and difficult problem. Which being so happily solved, Mr. Pellew could +take his leave, and did so. + +"Didn't I do that capitally, Clo?" + +"Do which, dear?" + +"Why--making her stop here to see him. Or giving her leave to stop; it's +the same thing, only she would rather do it against her will. I mean +saying we should make too many at Scraps Court, or whatever it is." + +"Oh yes--quite a stroke of genius! Gwen dear, what an inveterate +matchmaker you are!" + +"Nonsense, Clo! I never...." Here Gwen hung fire for a moment, +confronted by an intractability of language. She took the position by +storm, _more suo_:--"I never _mutchmoke_ in my life.... What?--Well, you +may laugh, Clo, but I never _did_! Only when two fools irritate one by +not flying into each other's arms, and wanting to all the time.... Oh, +it's exasperating, and I've no patience!" + +"You are quite sure they do ... want to?" + +"Oh yes--I think so. At least, I'm quite sure Percy does." + +"Why not Aunt Constance?" + +"Because I can't imagine anyone wanting to rush into any of my cousins' +arms--my he-cousins. It's a peculiarity of cousins, I suppose. If any of +mine had been palatable, he would have caught on, and it would have come +off. Because they all want _me_, always." + +"That's an old story, Gwen dear." The two ladies looked ruefully at one +another, with a slight shoulder-shrug apiece over a hopeless case. Then +Miss Grahame said:--"Then you consider Constance Dickenson is still +palatable?" She laughed on the word a little--a sort of protest. "At +nearly forty?" + +"Oh dear, yes! Not that she's forty, nor anything like it. She's +thirty-six. Besides, it has nothing to do with age. Or very little. +Why--how old is that dear old lady at Chorlton that was jealous of your +little boy's old woman in London?" + +"Old Goody Marrable? Over eighty. But the other old lady is older still, +and Dave speaks well of her, anyhow! We shall see her to-morrow. We must +insist on that." + +"Well--I could kiss old Goody Marrable. I should be sorry for her bones, +of course. But they're not her fault, after all! She's quite an old +darling. I hope Aunt Connie and Percy will manage a little common sense +to-morrow. They'll have the house to themselves, anyhow. Ta bye-bye, +Chloe dear!" + + * * * * * + +Miss Grahame looked in on her way to her own room to see that Miss +Dickenson had been provided with all the accessories of a good night--a +margin of pillows and blankets _à choix_, and so on. Hot-water-bottle +time had scarcely come yet, but hospitality might refer to it. There +was, however, a word to say touching the evening just ended. What did +Miss Grahame think of Gwen? Aunt Constance's _parti pris_ in life was a +benevolent interest in the affairs of everybody else. + +Miss Grahame thought Gwen was all right. The amount of nonsense she had +talked to-night showed she was a little excited. A sort of ostentatious +absurdity, like a spoiled child! Well--she has been a spoiled child. But +she--the speaker--always had believed, did still believe, that Gwen was +a fine character underneath, and that all her nonsense was on the +surface. + +"Will she hold to it, do you think?" + +"How can I tell? I should say yes. But one never knows. She's writing +him a long letter now. She's in the next room to me, and I heard her +scratching five minutes after she said good-night. I hope she won't +scribble all night and keep me awake. My belief is she would be better +for some counter-excitement. A small earthquake! Anything of that sort. +Good-night! It's very late." But it came out next day that Gwen's pen +was still scratching when this lady got to sleep an hour after. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + A PROFESSIONAL CONSULTATION ACROSS A COUNTER, AND HOW THE STORY OF + THE MAN IN HYDE PARK WAS TOLD BY DOLLY. HOW AUNT M'RIAR KNEW THE + NAME WAS NOT "DARRABLE." HOW SHE TOLD UNCLE MO WHOSE WIFE SHE WAS + AND WHOSE MOTHER MRS. PRITCHARD WAS. HOW POLLY DAVERILL JUNIOR HAD + DIED UNBAPTIZED, AND ATTEMPTS TO BULLY THE DEVIL ARE FUTILE. HOW + HER MOTHER WAS FORMERLY BARMAID AT THE ONE TUN, BUT BECAME AUNT + M'RIAR LATER, AND HOW THE TALLOW CANDLE JUST LASTED OUT. HOW DOLLY, + VERY SOUND ASLEEP, WAS GOOD FOR HER AUNT + + +"I shouldn't take any violent exercise, if I was you, Mr. Wardle," said +Mr. Ekings, the Apothecary, whose name you may remember Michael +Ragstroar had borrowed and been obliged to relinquish. "I should be very +careful what I ate, avoiding especially pork and richly cooked food. A +diet of fowls and fish--preferably boiled...." + +"Can't abide 'em!" said Uncle Moses, who was talking over his symptoms +with Mr. Ekings at his shop, with Dolly on his knee. "And whose a-going +to stand Sam for me, livin' on this and livin' on that? Roasted +chicking's very pretty eating, for the sake of the soarsages, when +you're a Lord Mayor; but for them as don't easy run to half-crowns for +mouthfuls, a line has to be drawed. Down our Court a shilling has to go +a long way, Dr. Ekings." + +The medical adviser shook his head weakly. "You're an intractable +patient, Mr. Moses," he said. He knew that Uncle Moses's circumstances +were what is called moderate. So are a church mouse's; and, in both +cases, the dietary is compulsory. Mr. Ekings tried for a common ground +of agreement. "Fish doesn't mount up to much, by the pound," he said, +vaguely. + +"Fishes don't go home like butcher's meat," said Uncle Moses. + +"You can't expect 'em to do that," said Mr. Ekings, glad of an +indisputable truth. "But there's a vast amount of nourishment in 'em, +anyway you put it." + +"So there is, Dr. Ekings. In a vast amount of 'em. But you have to eat +it all up. Similar, grass and cows. Only there's no bones in the grass. +Now, you know, what I'm wanting is a pick-me-up--something with a nice +clean edge in the smell of it, like a bottle o' salts with holes in the +stopper. And tasting of lemons. I ain't speaking of the sort that has to +be shook when took. Nor yet with peppermint. It's a clear sort to see +through, up against the light, what I want." + +Mr. Ekings, a humble practitioner in a poor neighbourhood, supplied more +mixtures in response to suggestions like Uncle Mo's, than to legitimate +prescriptions. So he at once undertook to fill out the order, saying in +reply to an inquiry, that it would come to threepence, but that Uncle Mo +must bring or send back the bottle. He then added a few drops of chloric +ether and ammonia, and some lemon to a real square bottleful of aq. pur. +haust., and put a label on it with superhuman evenness, on which was +written "The Mixture--one tablespoonful three times a day." Uncle Moses +watched the preparation of this _elixir vitae_ with the extremest +satisfaction. He foresaw its beneficial effect on his system, which he +had understood was to blame for his occasional attacks of faintness, +which had latterly been rather more frequent. Anything in such a clean +phial, with such a new cork, would be sure to do his system good. + +Mrs. Riley came in for a bottle which was consciously awaiting her in +front of the leeches, and identified it as "the liniment," before Mr. +Ekings could call to mind where he'd stood it. She remarked, while +calculating coppers to cover the outlay, that she understood it was to +be well r-r-r-rhubbed in with the parrum of her hand, and that she was +to be thr-rusted not to lit the patiint get any of it near his mouth, +she having been borrun in Limerick morr' than a wake ago. She remarked +to Uncle Mo that his boy was looking his bist, and none the wurruss for +his accidint. Uncle Mo felt braced by the Celtic atmosphere, and thanked +Mrs. Riley cordially, for himself and Dave. + +"Shouldn't do that, if I was you, Mr. Wardle," said Mr. Ekings the +Apothecary, as Uncle Mo hoisted Dolly on his shoulder to carry her home. + +"No more shouldn't I, if you was me, Dr. Ekings," was the intractable +patient's reply. "Why, Lard bless you, man alive, Dolly's so light it's +as good as a lift-up, only to have her on your shoulders! Didn't you +never hear tell of gravitation? Well--that's it!" But Uncle Mo was out +of his depth. + +"It'll do ye a powerful dale of good, Mr. Wardle," said Mrs. Riley. +"Niver you mind the docther!" And Uncle Mo departed, braced again, with +his _elixir vitae_ in his left hand, and Dolly on his right shoulder, +conversing on a topic suggested by Dr. Ekings's remarks about diet. + +"When Dave tooktid Micky to see the fisses corched in the Turpentine, +there was a jenklum corched a fiss up out of the water, and another +jenklum corched another fiss up out of the water...." Dolly was pursuing +the subject in the style of the Patriarchs, who took their readers' +leisure for granted, and never grudged a repetition, when Uncle Mo +interrupted her to point out that it was not Dave who took Michael +Ragstroar to Hy' Park, but _vice versa_. Also that the whole proceeding +had been a disgraceful breach of discipline, causing serious alarm to +himself and Aunt M'riar, who had nearly lost their reason in +consequence--the exact expression being "fritted out of their wits." If +that young Micky ever did such a thing again, Uncle Mo said, the result +would be a pretty how-do-you-do, involving possibly fatal consequences +to Michael, and certainly local flagellation of unheard-of severity. + +Dolly did not consider this was to the point, and pursued her narrative +without taking notice of it. "There was a jenklum corched a long fiss, +and there was another jenklum corched a short fiss, and there was +another jenklum corched a short fiss...." This seemed to bear frequent +repetition, but came to an end as soon as history ceased to supply the +facts. Then another phase came, that of the fishers who didn't corch no +fiss, whose name appeared to be Legion. They lasted as far as the arch +into Sapps Court, and Uncle Mo seemed rather to relish the monotony than +otherwise. He would have made a good Scribe in the days of the Pharaohs. + +But Dolly came to the end of even the unsuccessful fishermen. Just as +they reached home, however, she produced her convincing incident, all +that preceded it having evidently been introduction pure and simple. +"And there was a man saided fings to Micky, and saided fings to Dave, +and saided fings to...." Here Dolly stuttered, became confused, and +ended up weakly: "No, he didn't saided no fings, to no one else." + +A little _finesse_ was necessary to land the _elixir vitae_ on the +parlour chimney-piece, and Dolly on the hearthrug. Then Uncle Mo sat +down in his own chair to recover breath, saying in the course of a +moment:--"And what did the man say to Dave, and what did he say to young +Sparrowgrass?" He did not suppose that "the man" was a person capable of +identification; he was an unknown unit, but good to talk about. + +"He saided Mrs. Picture." Dolly placed the subject she proposed to treat +broadly before her audience, with a view to its careful analysis at +leisure. + +"What on 'arth did he say Mrs. Picture for? _He_ don't know Mrs. +Picture." The present tense used here acknowledged the man's +authenticity, and encouraged the little maid--three and three-quarters, +you know!--to further testimony. It came fairly fluently, considering +the witness's recent acquisition of the English language. + +"He doos know Mrs. Picture, ass he doos, and he saided Mrs. Picture to +Micky, ass he did." This was plenty for a time, and during that time the +witness could go on nodding with her eyes wide open, to present the +subject lapsing, for she had found out already how slippery grown-up +people are in argument. Great force was added by her curls, which lent +themselves to flapping backwards and forwards as she nodded. + +It was impossible to resist such evidence, outwardly at least, and Uncle +Mo appeared to accept it. "Then the man said Mrs. Picture to Dave," said +he. "And Dave told it on to you, was that it?" He added, for the general +good of morality:--"_You're_ a nice lot of young Pickles!" + +But this stopped the nodding, which changed suddenly to a negative +shake, of great decision. "The man never saided nuffint to Dave, no he +didn't." + +"Thought you said he did. You're a good 'un for a witness-box! Come up +and sit on your old uncle. The man said Mrs. Picture to young +Sparrowgrass--was that it?" Dolly nodded violently. "And young +Sparrowgrass he passed it on to Dave?" But it appeared not, and Dolly +had to wrestle with an explanation. It was too much involved for +letterpress, but Uncle Mo thought he could gather that Dave had been +treated as a mere bystander, supposed to be absorbed in angling, during +a conversation between Michael Ragstroar and the Man. "Dave he came home +and told you what the Man said to Micky--was that it?" So Uncle Mo +surmised aloud, not at all clear that Dolly would understand him. But, +as it turned out, he was right, and Dolly was glad to be able to attest +his version of the facts. She resumed the nodding, but slower, as though +so much emphasis had ceased to be necessary. "Micky toldited Dave," she +said. She then became immensely amused at a way of looking at the event +suggested by her uncle. The Man had told Micky; Micky had told Dave; +Dave had told Dolly; and Dolly had told Uncle Mo, who now intensified +the interest of the event by saying he should tell Aunt M'riar. Dolly +became vividly anxious for this climax, and felt that this was life +indeed, when Uncle Mo called out to Aunt M'riar:--"Come along here, +M'riar, and see what sort of head and tail you can make of this here +little Dolly!" Whereupon Aunt M'riar came in front out at the back, and +listened to a repetition of Dolly's tale while she dried her arms, which +had been in a wash-tub. + +"Well, Mo," she said, when Dolly had repeated it, more or less +chaotically, "if you ask me, what I say is--you make our Dave speak out +and tell you, when he's back from school, and say you won't have no +nonsense. For the child is that secretive it's all one's time is worth +to be even with him.... What's the Doctor's stuff for you've been +spending your money on at Ekingses?" + +"Only a stimulatin' mixture for to give tone to the system. Dr. Ekings +says it'll do it a world o' good. Never known it fail, he hasn't." + +"Have you been having any more alarming symptoms, Mo, and never told +me?" + +"Never been better in my life, M'riar. But I thought it was getting on +for time I should have a bottle o' stuff, one sort or other. Don't do to +go too long without a dose, nowadays." Whereupon Aunt M'riar looked +incredulous, and read the label, and smelt the bottle, and put it back +on the mantelshelf. And Uncle Mo asked for the wineglass broke off +short, out of the cupboard; because it was always best to be beforehand, +whether you had anything the matter or not. + +Whatever Aunt M'riar said, Dave was not secretive. Probably she meant +communicative, and was referring to the fact that Dave, whenever he was +called on for information, though always prompt to oblige, invariably +made reply to his questioner in an undertone, in recognition of a mutual +confidence, and exclusion from it of the Universe. He had a soul above +the vulgarities of publication. Aunt M'riar merely used a word that +sounded well, irrespective of its meaning--a common literary practice. + +Therefore Dave, when applied to by Uncle Mo for particulars of what "the +Man" said, made a statement of which only portions reached the general +public. This was the usual public after supper; for Mr. Alibone's +companionship in an evening pipe was an almost invariable incident at +that hour. + +"What's the child a-sayin' of, Mo?" said Aunt M'riar. + +"Easy a bit, old Urry Scurry!" said Uncle Mo, drawing on his imagination +for an epithet. "Let me do a bit of listening.... What was it the party +said again, Davy--just _pre_cisely?..." Dave was even less audible than +before in his response to this, and Uncle Mo evidently softened it for +repetition:--"Said if Micky told him any--etceterer--lies he'd rip his +heart out? Was that it, Dave?" + +"Yorce," said Dave, aloud and emphatically. "_This_ time!" Which seemed +to imply that the speaker had refrained from doing so, to his credit, on +some previous occasion. Dave laid great stress on this point. + +Aunt M'riar seemed rather panic struck at the nature of this revelation. +"Well now, Mo," said she, "I do wonder at you, letting the child tell +such words! And before Mr. Alibone, too!" + +Mr. Jerry's expression twinkled, as though he protested against being +credited with a Pharisaical purity, susceptible to shocks. Uncle Mo +said, with less than usual of his easy-going manner:--"I'm a going, +M'riar, to get to the bottom of this here start. So you keep outside o' +the ropes!" and then after a little by-play with Dave and Dolly, which +made the hair of both rougher than ever, he said suddenly to +Dave:--"Well, and wasn't you frightened?" + +"Micky wasn't frightened," said Dave, discreetly evasive. He objected to +pursuing the subject, and raised a new issue. The sketch that followed +of the interview between Micky and the Man was a good deal blurred by +constant India-rubber, but its original could be inferred from +it--probably as follows, any omissions to conciliate public censorship +being indicated by stars. Micky speaks first: + +"Who'll you rip up? You lay 'ands upon me, that's all! You do, and I'll +blind your eyesight, s'elp me! Why, I'd summing a Police Orficer, and +have you took to the Station, just as soon as look at you...." It may be +imagined here that Michael's voice rose to a half-shriek, following some +movement of the Man towards him. "I would, by Goard! You try it on, +that's all!" + +"Shut up with your * * row, you * * young * * ... No, master, I ain't +molestin' of the boy; only just frightening him for a bit of a spree! +_I_ don't look like the sort to hurt boys, do I, guv'nor?" This was +addressed to a bystander, named in Dave's report as "the gentleman." Who +was accompanied by another, described as "the lady." The latter may have +said to the former:--"I think he looks a very kind-hearted man, my dear, +and you are making a fuss about nothing." The latter certainly said +"Hggrromph!" or something like it, which the reporter found difficult to +render. Then the man assumed a hypocritical and plausible manner, saying +to Michael:--"I'm your friend, my boy, and there's a new shilling for +you, good for two * * tanners any day of the week." Micky seemed to have +been softened by this, and entered into a colloquy with the donor, +either not heard or not understood by Dave, whose narrative seemed to +point to his having been sent to a distance, with a doubt about +inapplicable epithets bestowed on him by the Man, calling for asterisks +in a close report. Some of these were probably only half-understood, +even by Micky; being, so to speak, the chirps of a gaol-bird. But Dave's +report seemed to point to "Now, is that * * young * * to be trusted not +to split?" although he made little attempt to render the asterisky parts +of speech. + +Uncle Mo and Mr. Jerry glanced at one another, seeming to understand a +phrase that had puzzled Aunt M'riar. + +"That was it, Mo," said Mr. Jerry, exactly as if Uncle Mo had spoken, +"_spit upon_ meant _split upon_." Dave in his innocence had supposed +that a profligacy he was himself sometimes guilty of had been referred +to. He felt that his uncle's knee was for the moment the stool of +repentance, but was relieved when a new reading was suggested. There +could be no disgrace in splitting, though it might be painful. + +"And, of course," said Uncle Mo, ruffling Dave's locks, "of course, you +kept your mouth tight shut--hay?" Dave, bewildered, assented. He +connected this _bouche cousue_ with his own decorous abstention, not +without credit to himself. Who shall trace the inner workings of a small +boy's brain? "Instead of telling of it all, straight off, to your poor +old uncle!" There was no serious indignation in Uncle Mo's tone, +but the boy was too new for nice distinctions. The suggestion of +disloyalty wounded him deeply, and he rushed into explanation. +"Becorze--becorze--becorze--becorze," said he--"becorze Micky said _not_ +to!" He arrived at his climax like a squib that attains its ideal. + +"Micky's an owdacious young varmint," said Uncle Mo. "Small boys that +listened to owdacious young varmints never used to come to much good, +not in _my_ time!" Dave looked shocked at Uncle Mo's experience. But he +had reservations to offer as to Micky, which distinguished him from +vulgar listeners to incantations. "Micky said not to, and Micky said +Uncle Mo didn't want to hear tell of no Man out in Hoy' Park, and me to +keep my mouth shut till I was tolded to speak." + +"And you told him to speak, and he spoke!" said Mr. Jerry, charitably +helping Dave. "You couldn't expect any fairer than that, old Mo." Public +opinion sanctioned a concession in this sense, and Dave came off the +stool of repentance. + +"Very good, then!" said Uncle Mo. "That's all squared, and we can cross +it off. But what I'm trying after is, how did this here ... +bad-languagee"--he halted a minute to make this word--"come to know +anything about Goody Prichard upstairs?" + +"Did he?" said Mr. Jerry, who of course had only heard Dave on the +subject. + +"This young party said so," said Uncle Mo, crumpling Dolly to identify +her, "at the very first go off. Didn't you, little ginger-pop, hay?" +This new epithet was a passing recognition of the suddenness with which +Dolly had broken out as an informant. It gratified her vanity, and made +her chuckle. + +Dave meanwhile had been gathering for an oratorical effort, and now +culminated. "I never told Dolly nuffint _about_ Mrs. Picture upstairs. +What _I_ said was 'old widder lady.'" + +"Dolly translated it, Mo, don't you see?" said Mr. Jerry. Then, to +illuminate possible obscurity, he added:--"Off o' one slate onto the +other! Twig?" + +"I twig you, Jerry." Uncle Mo winked at his friend to show that he was +alive to surroundings and tickled Dave suddenly from a motive of policy. +"How come this cove to know anything about any widder lady--hay? That's +a sort of p'int we've got to consider of." Dave was impressed by his +uncle's appearance of profound thought, and was anxious not to lag +behind in the solution of stiff problems. He threw his whole soul into +his answer. "Because he was _The Man_." Nathan the prophet can scarcely +have been more impressive. Perhaps, on the occasion Dave's answer +recalls, someone said:--"Hullo!" in Hebrew, and gave a short whistle. +That was what Mr. Jerry did, this time. + +Uncle Mo enjoined self-restraint, telegraphically; and said, +verbally:--"What man, young Legs? Steady a minute, and tell us who he +was." Which will be quite intelligible to anyone whose experience has +included a small boy in thick boots sitting on his knee, and becoming +excited by a current topic. + +Dave restrained his boots, and concentrated his mind on a statement. It +came with pauses and repetitions, which may be omitted. "He worze the +same Man as when you and me and Micky, only not Dolly, see him come +along down the Court Sunday morning. _Munce_ ago!" This was emphatic, to +express the date's remoteness. "He wanted for to be told about old Widow +Darrable who lived down this Court, and Micky he said no such name, nor +yet anywhere's about this neighbourhood, he said. And the Man he said +Micky was a young liar. And Micky he said who are you a-callin' +liar?..." + +"_What_ name did he say?" Uncle Mo interrupted, with growing interest. +Dave repeated his misapprehension of it, which incorporated an idea +that similar widows would have similar surnames. If one was Marrable, it +was only natural that another should be Darrable. + +Aunt M'riar, whose interest also had been some time growing, struck in +incisively. "The name was Daverill. He's mixed it up with the old lady +in the country he calls his granny." She was the more certain this was +so owing to a recent controversy with Dave about this name, ending in +his surrender of the pronunciation "Marrowbone" as untenable, but +introducing a new element of confusion owing to Marylebone Church, a +familiar landmark. + +There was something in Aunt M'riar's manner that made Uncle Mo +say:--"Anything disagreed, M'riar?" Because, observe, his interest in +this mysterious man in the Park turned entirely on Mrs. Prichard's +relations with him, and he had never imputed any knowledge of him to +Aunt M'riar. Why should he? Indeed, why should we, except from the +putting of two and two together? Of which two twos, Uncle Mo might have +known either the one or the other--according to which was which--but not +both. This story has to confess occasional uncertainty about some of its +facts. There may have been more behind Uncle Mo's bit of rudeness about +Aunt M'riar's disquiet than showed on the surface. However, he never +asked any questions. + + * * * * * + +Those who have ever had the experience of keeping their own counsel for +a long term of years know that every year makes it harder to take others +into confidence. A concealed troth-plight, marriage, widowhood--to name +the big concealments involving no disgrace--gets less and less easy to +publish as time slips by, even as the hinges rust of doors that no man +opens. There may be nothing to blush about in that cellar, but the key +may be lost and the door-frame may have gripped the door above, or the +footstone jammed it from below, and such fungus-growth as the darkness +has bred has a claim to freedom from the light. Let it all rest--that is +its owner's word to his own soul--let it rest and be forgotten! All the +more when the cellar is full of garbage, and he knows it. + +There was no garbage in Aunt M'riar's cellar that she was guilty of, but +for all that she would have jumped at any excuse to leave that door +tight shut. The difficulty was not so much in what she had to tell--for +her conscience was clear--as in rousing an unprepared mind to the +hearing of it. Uncle Mo, quite the reverse of apathetic to anything that +concerned the well-being of any of his surroundings, probably accounted +Aunt M'riar's as second to none but the children's. Nevertheless, the +difficulty of rousing him to an active interest in this hidden +embarrassment of hers, of which he had no suspicion, was so palpable to +Aunt M'riar, that she was sorely put to it to decide on a course of +action. And the necessity for action was not imaginary. Keep in mind +that all Uncle Mo's knowledge of Aunt M'riar's antecedents was summed up +in the fact of her widowhood, which he took for granted--although he had +never received it _totidem verbis_ when she first came to supplant Mrs. +Twiggins--and which had been confirmed as Time went on, and no husband +appeared to claim her. Even if he could have suspected that her husband +was still living, there was nothing in the world to connect him with +this escaped convict. No wonder Uncle Mo's complete unconsciousness +seemed to present an impassable barrier to a revelation. Aunt M'riar had +not the advantages of the Roman confessional, with its suggestive +_guichet_. Had some penitent, deprived of that resource, been driven +back on the analogous arrangement of a railway booking-office, the +difficulty of introducing the subject could scarcely have been greater. + +However, Aunt M'riar was not going to be left absolutely without +assistance. That evening--the evening, that is, of the day when Dave +told the tale of the Man in the Park--Uncle Moses showed an unusual +restlessness, following on a period of thoughtfulness and silence. After +supper he said suddenly:--"I'm a-going to take a turn out, M'riar. Any +objection?" + +"None o' my making, Mo. Only Mr. Jerry, he'll be round. What's to be +told him?" + +"Ah--I'll tell you. Just you say to Jerry--just you tell him...." + +"What'll I tell him?" For Uncle Mo appeared to waver. + +"Just you tell him to drop in at The Sun, and bide till I come. They've +a sing-song going on to-night, with the pianner. He'll make hisself +happy for an hour. I'll be round in an hour's time, tell him." + +"And where are you off for all of an hour, Mo?" + +"That's part of the p'int, M'riar. Don't you be too inquis-eye-tive.... +No--I don't mind tellin' of ye, if it's partic'lar. I'm going to drop +round to the Station to shake hands with young Simmun Rowe--they've made +him Inspector there--he's my old pal Jerky Rowe's son I knew from a boy. +Man under forty, as I judge. But he won't let me swaller up _his_ time, +trust him! Tell Jerry I'll jine him at half-after nine, the very +latest." + +"I'll acquaint him what you say, Mo. And you bear in mind what Mr. +Jeffcoat at The Sun had to say about yourself, Mo." + +"What was it, M'riar? Don't you bottle it up." + +"Why, Mr. Jeffcoat he said, after passing the time of day, round in +Clove Street, 'I look to Mr. Wardle to keep up the character of The +Sun,' he said. So you bear in mind, Mo." + +Whereupon Uncle Mo departed, and Aunt M'riar was left to her own +reflections, the children being abed and asleep by now; Dolly certainly, +probably Dave. + +Presently the door to the street was pushed open, and Mr. Jerry +appeared. "I don't see no Moses?" said he. + +Aunt M'riar gave her message, over her shoulder. To justify this she +should have been engaged on some particular task of the needle, easiest +performed when seated. Mr. Alibone, to whom her voice sounded unusual, +looked round to see. He only saw that her hands were in her lap, and no +sign was visible of their employment. This was unlike his experience of +Aunt M'riar. "Find the weather trying, Mrs. Wardle?" + +"It don't do me any harm." + +"Ah--some feels the heat more than others." + +Aunt M'riar roused herself to reply:--"If you're meaning me, Mr. +Alibone, it don't touch me so much as many. Only my bones are not so +young as they were--that's how it came I was sitting down. Now, +supposin' you'd happened in five minutes later, you might have found me +tidin' up. I've plenty to do yet awhile." But this was not convincing, +although the speaker wished to make it so; probably it would have been +better had less effort gone to the utterance of it. For Aunt M'riar's +was too obvious. + +Mr. Jerry laughed cheerfully, for consolation. "Come now, Aunt M'riar," +said he, "_you_ ain't the one to talk as if you was forty, and be making +mention of your bones. Just you let them alone for another fifteen year. +That'll be time." Mr. Jerry had been like one of the family, so +pleasantry of this sort was warranted. + +It was not unwelcome to Aunt M'riar. "I'm forty-six, Mr. Jerry," she +said. "And forty-six is six-and-forty." + +"And fifty-six is six-and-fifty, which is what I am, this very next +Michaelmas. Now I call that a coincidence, Mrs. Wardle." + +Aunt M'riar reflected. "I should have said it was an accident, Mr. +Jerry. Like anythin' else, as the sayin' is. You mention to Mo, not to +be late, no more than need be. Not to throw away good bedtime!" Mr. +Jerry promised to impress the advantages of early hours, and went his +way. But his reflections on his short interview with Aunt M'riar took +the form of asking himself what had got her, and finding no answer to +the question. Something evidently had, from her manner, for there was +nothing in what she said. + +He asked the same question of Uncle Mo, coming away from The Sun, where +they did not wait for the very last tune on the piano, to the disgust of +Mr. Jeffcoat, the proprietor. "What's got Aunt M'riar?" said Uncle Mo, +repeating his words. "Nothin's got Aunt M'riar. She'd up and tell me +fast enough if there was anything wrong. What's put you on that lay, +Jerry?" + +"I couldn't name any one thing, Mo. But going by the looks of it, I +should judge there was a screw loose in somebody's wheelbarrow. P'r'aps +I'm mistook. P'r'aps I ain't. S'posing you was to ask her, Mo!--asking +don't cost much." + +Uncle Moses seemed to weigh the outlay. "No," he said. "Asking wouldn't +send me to the work'us." And when he had taken leave of his friend at +their sundering-point, he spent the rest of his short walk home in +speculation as to what had set Jerry off about Aunt M'riar. It was with +no misgiving of hearing of anything seriously amiss that he said to her, +as he sat in the little parlour recovering his breath, after walking +rather fast, while she cultured the flame of a candle whose wick had +been cut off short:--"Everything all right, M'riar?" He was under the +impression that he asked in a nonchalant, easy-going manner, and he was +quite mistaken. It was only perfectly palpable that he meant it to be +so, and he who parades his indifference is apt to overreach himself. + +Aunt M'riar had been making up her mind that she must tell Mo what she +knew about this man Daverill, at whatever cost to herself. It would have +been much easier had she known much less. Face to face with an +opportunity of telling it, her resolution wavered and her mind, +imperfectly made up, favoured postponement. To-morrow would do. "Ho +yes," said she. "Everything's all right, Mo. Now you just get to bed. +Time enough, I say, just on to midnight!" But her manner was defective +and her line of argument ill-chosen. Its result was to produce in her +hearer a determination to discover what had got her. Because it was +evident that Jerry was right, and that _something_ had. + +"One of the kids a-sickenin' for measles! Out with it, M'riar! Which is +it--Dave?" + +"No, it ain't any such a thing. Nor yet Dolly.... Anyone ever see such a +candle?" + +"Then it's scarlatinar, or mumps. One or other on 'em!" + +"Neither one nor t'other, Mo. 'Tain't neither Dave nor Dolly, this +time." But something or other was somebody or something, that was clear! +Aunt M'riar may have meant this, and yet not seen how very clear she +made it. She recurred to that candle, and a suggestion of Uncle Mo's. +"It's easy sayin', 'Run the toller off,' Mo; but who's to do it with +such a little flame?" + +Presently the candle, carefully fostered, picked up heart, and the +tension of doubt about its future was relieved. "She'll do now," said +Uncle Mo, assigning it a gender it had no claim to. "But what's gone +wrong, M'riar?" + +The appeal for information was too simple and direct to allow of keeping +it back; without, at least, increasing its implied importance. Aunt +M'riar only intensified this when she answered:--"Nothing at all! At +least, nothing to nobody but me. Tell you to-morrow, Mo! It's time we +was all abed. Mind you don't wake up Dave!" For Dave was becoming his +uncle's bedfellow, and Dolly her aunt's; exchanges to vary monotony +growing less frequent as the children grew older. + +But Uncle Mo did not rise to depart. He received the candle, adolescent +at last, and sat holding it and thinking. He had become quite alive now +to what had impressed Mr. Jerry in Aunt M'riar's appearance and manner, +and was harking back over recent events to find something that would +account for it. The candle's secondary education gave him an excuse. Its +maturity would have left him no choice but to go to bed. + +A light that flashed through his mind anticipated it. "It's never that +beggar," said he, and then, seeing that his description was +insufficient:--"Which one? Why, the one we was a-talking of only this +morning. Him I've been rounding off with Inspector Rowe--our boy's man +he saw in the Park. You've not been alarmin' yourself about _him_?" For +Uncle Mo thought he could see his way to alarm for a woman, even a +plucky one, in the mere proximity of such a ruffian. He would have gone +on to say that the convict was, by now, probably again in the hands of +the police, but he saw as the candle flared that Aunt M'riar's usually +fresh complexion had gone grey-white, and that she was nodding in +confirmation of something half-spoken that she could not articulate. + +He was on his feet at his quickest, but stopped at the sound of her +voice, reviving. "What--what's that, M'riar?" he cried. "Say it again, +old girl!" So strange and incredible had the words seemed that he +thought he heard, that he could not believe in his own voice as he +repeated them:--"_Your_ husband!" He was not clear about it even then; +for, after a pause long enough for the candle to burn up, and show him, +as he fell back in his seat, Aunt M'riar, tremulous but relieved at +having spoken, he repeated them again:--"Your _husband_! Are ye sure +you're saying what you mean, M'riar?" + +That it was a relief to have said it was clear in her reply:--"Ay, Mo, +that's all right--right as I said it. My husband. You've known I had a +husband, Mo." His astonishment left him speechless, but he just managed +to say:--"I thought him dead;" and a few moments passed. Then she added, +as though deprecatingly:--"You'll not be angry with me, Mo, when I tell +you the whole story?" + +Then he found his voice. "Angry!--why, God bless the wench!--what call +have I to be angry?--let alone it's no concern of mine to be meddlin' +in. Angry! No, no, M'riar, if it's so as you say, and you haven't gone +dotty on the brain!" + +"I'm not dotty, Mo. You'll find it all right, just like I tell you...." + +"Well, then, I'm mortal sorry for you, and there you have it, in a word. +Poor old M'riar!" His voice went up to say:--"But you shan't come to no +harm through that character, if that's what's in it. I'll promise ye +that." It fell again. "No--I won't wake the children.... I ain't quite +on the shelf yet, nor yet in the dustbin. There's my hand on it, +M'riar." + +"I know you're good, Mo." She caught at the hand he held out to give +her, and kept it. "I know you're good, and you'll do like you say. Only +I hope he won't come this way no more. I hope he don't know I'm here." +She seemed to shudder at the thought of him. + +"Don't he know you're here? That's rum, too. But it's rum, all round. +Things _are_ rum, sometimes. Now, just you take it easy, M'riar, and if +there's anything you'll be for telling me--because I'm an old friend +like, d'ye see?--why, just you tell me as much as comes easy, and no +more. Or just tell me nothing at all, if it sootes you better, and I'll +set here and give an ear to it." Uncle Mo resumed his former seat, and +Aunt M'riar put back the hand he released in her apron, its usual place +when not on active service. + +"There's nothing in it I wouldn't tell, Mo--not to you--and it won't use +much of the candle to tell it. I'd be the easier for you to know, only +I'm not so quick as some at the telling of things." She seemed puzzled +how to begin. + +Uncle Moses helped. "How long is it since you set eyes on him?" + +"Twenty-five years--all of twenty-five years." + +Uncle Mo was greatly relieved at hearing this. "Well, but, +M'riar--twenty-five years! You're shet of the beggar--clean shet of him! +You are _that_, old girl, legally and factually. But then," said he, +"when was you married to him?" + +"I've got my lines to show for that, Mo. July six, eighteen +twenty-nine." + +Uncle Mo repeated the date slowly after her, and then seemed to plunge +into a perplexing calculation, very distorting to the natural repose of +his face. Touching his finger-tips appeared to make his task easier. +After some effort, which ended without clear results, he said:--"What +I'm trying to make out is, how long was you and him keeping house? +Because it don't figure up. How long should you say?" + +"We were together six weeks--no more." + +"And you--you never seen him since?" + +"Never since. Twenty-five years agone, this last July!" At which Uncle +Mo was so confounded that words failed him. His only resource was a long +whistle. Aunt M'riar, on the contrary, seemed to acquire narrative +powers from hearing her own voice, and continued:--"I hadn't known him a +twelvemonth, and I should have been wiser than to listen to him--at my +age, over one-and-twenty!" + +"But you made him marry you, M'riar?" + +"I did that, Mo. And I have the lines and my ring, to show it. But I +never told a soul, not even mother. I wouldn't have told her, to be +stopped--so bad I was!... What!--Dolly--Dolly's mother? Why, she was +just a young child, Dave's age!... How did I come to know him? It was +one day in the bar--he came in with Tom Spring, and ordered him a quart +of old Kennett. He was dressed like a gentleman, and free with his +money...." + +"I knew old Tom Spring--he's only dead this two years past. I s'pose +that was The Tun, near by Piccadilly, I've heard you speak on." + +"... That was where I see him, Mo, worse luck for the day! The One Tun +Inn. They called him the gentleman from Australia. He was for me and him +to go to Brighton by the coach, and find the Parson there. But I stopped +him at that, and we was married in London, quite regular, and we went to +Brighton, and then he took me to Doncaster, to be at the races. There's +where he left me, at the Crown Inn we went to, saying he'd be back afore +the week was out. But he never came--only letters came with money--I'll +say that for him. Only no address of where he was, nor scarcely a word +to say how much he was sending. But I kep' my faith towards him; and the +promise I made, I kep' all along. And I've never borne his name nor said +one word to a living soul beyond one or two of my own folk, who were +bound to be quiet, for their sake and mine. Dolly's mother, she came to +know in time. But the Court's called me Aunt M'riar all along." + +A perplexity flitted through Uncle Mo's reasoning powers, and vanished +unsolved. Why had he accepted "Aunt M'riar" as a sufficient style and +title, almost to the extent of forgetting the married name he had heard +assigned to its owner five years since? He would probably have forgotten +it outright, if the post had not, now and then--but very rarely--brought +letters directed to "Mrs. Catchpole," which he had passed on, if he saw +them first, with the comment:--"I expect that's meant for you, Aunt +M'riar"; treating the disposition of some person unknown to use that +name as a pardonable idiosyncrasy. When catechized about her, he had +been known to answer:--"She ain't a widder, not to my thinking, but her +husband he's as dead as a door-nail. Name of Scratchley; or +Simmons--some such a name!" As for the designation of "Mrs. Wardle" used +as a ceremonial title, it was probably a vague attempt to bring the +household into tone. Whoever knows the class she moved in will have no +trouble in recalling some case of a similar uncertainty. + +This is by way of apology for Uncle Mo's so easily letting that +perplexity go, and catching at another point. "What did he make you +promise him, M'riar? Not to let on, I'll pound it! He wanted you to keep +it snug--wasn't that the way of it?" + +"Ah, that was it, Mo. To keep it all private, and never say a word." +Then Aunt M'riar's answer became bewildering, inexplicable. "Else his +family would have known, and then I should have seen his mother. Seein' +I never did, it's no wonder I didn't know her again. I might have, for +all it's so many years." It was more the manner of saying this than the +actual words, that showed that she was referring to a recent meeting +with her husband's mother. + +Uncle Mo sat a moment literally open-mouthed with astonishment. At +length he said:--"Why, when and where, woman alive, did you see his +mother?" + +"There now, Mo, see what I said--what a bad one I am at telling of +things! Of course, Mrs. Prichard upstairs, she's Ralph Daverill's +mother, and he's the man who got out of prison in the _Mornin' Star_ +and killed the gaoler. And he's the same man came down the Court that +Sunday and Dave see in the Park. That's Ralph Thornton Daverill, and +he's my husband!" + +Uncle Mo gave up the idea of answering. The oppression of his +bewilderment was too great. It seemed to come in gusts, checked off at +intervals by suppressed exclamations and knee-slaps. It was a knockdown +blow, with no one to call time. But then, there were no rules, so when a +new inquiry presented itself, abrupt utterance followed:--"Wasn't there +any?... wasn't there any?..." followed by a pause and a difficulty of +word-choice. Then in a lowered voice, an adjustment of its terms, due to +delicacy:--"Wasn't there any consequences--such as one might expect, ye +know?" + +Aunt M'riar did not seem conscious of any need for delicacies. "My baby +was born dead," she said. "That's what you meant, Mo, I take it?" Then +only getting in reply:--"That was it, M'riar," she went on:--"None knew +about it but mother, when it was all over and done with, later by a year +and more. I would have called the child Polly, being a girl, if it had +lived to be christened.... Why would I?--because that was the name he +knew me by at The Tun." + +Uncle Mo began to say:--"If the Devil lets him off easy, I'll ..." and +stopped short. It may have been because he reflected on the limitations +of poor Humanity, and the futility of bluster in this connection, or +because he had a question to ask. It related to Aunt M'riar's +unaccountable ignorance throughout of Daverill's transportation to +Norfolk Island, and the particular felony that led to it. "If you was +not by way of seeing the police-reports, where was all your friends, to +say never a word?" + +"No one said nothing to me," said Aunt M'riar. She seemed hazy as to the +reason at first; then a light broke:--"They never knew his name, ye see, +Mo." He replied on reflection:--"Course they didn't--right you are!" and +then she added:--"I only told mother that; and she's no reader." + +A mystery hung over one part of the story--how did she account for +herself to her family? Was she known to have been married, or had +popular interpretation of her absence inclined towards charitable +silence about its causes--asked no questions, in fact, giving up +barmaids as past praying for? She seemed to think it sufficient light on +the subject to say:--"It was some length of time before I went back +home, Mo," and he had to press for particulars. + +His conclusion, put briefly, was that this deserted wife, reappearing +at home with a wedding-ring after two years' absence, had decided that +she would fulfil her promise of silence best by giving a false married +name. She had engineered her mother's inspection of her marriage-lines, +so as to leave that good woman--a poor scholar--under the impression +that Daverill's name was Thornton; not a very difficult task. The name +she had chosen was Catchpole; and it still survived as an identifying +force, if called on. But it was seldom in evidence, "Aunt M'riar" +quashing its unwelcome individuality. The general feeling had been that +"Mrs. Catchpole" might be anybody, and did not recommend herself to the +understanding. There was some sort o' sense in "Aunt M'riar." + +The eliciting of these points, hazily, was all Uncle Mo was equal to +after so long a colloquy, and Aunt M'riar was not in a condition to tell +more. She relit another half-candle that she had blown out for economy +when the talk set in, and called Uncle Mo's attention to the moribund +condition of his own:--"There's not another end in the house, Mo," said +she. So Uncle Mo had to use that one, or get to bed in the dark. + +He had been already moved to heartfelt anger that day against this very +Daverill, having heard from his friend the Police-Inspector the story of +his arrest at The Pigeons, at Hammersmith; and, of course, of the +atrocious crime which had been his latest success with the opposite sex. +This Police-Inspector must have been Simeon Rowe, whom you may remember +as stroke-oar of the boat that was capsized there in the winter, when +Sergeant Ibbetson of the river-police met his death in the attempt to +capture Daverill. Uncle Mo's motive in visiting the police-station had +not been only to shake hands with the son of an old acquaintance. He had +carried what information he had of the escaped convict to those who were +responsible for his recapture. + + * * * * * + +If you turn back to the brief account the story gave of Maisie +Daverill's--or Prichard's--return to England, and her son's marriage, +and succeed in detecting in Polly the barmaid at the One Tun any trace +of the Aunt M'riar with whom you were already slightly acquainted, it +will be to the discredit of the narrator. For never did a greater change +pass over human identity than the one which converted the _beauté de +diable_ of the young wench just of age, who was serving out stimulants +to the Ring, and the Turf, and the men-about-town of the late twenties, +to that of the careworn, washtub-worn, and needle-worn manipulator of +fine linen and broidery, who had been in charge of Dolly and Dave +Wardle since their mother's death three years before. Never was there a +more striking testimony to the power of Man to make a desolation of the +life of Woman, nor a shrewder protest against his right to do so. For +Polly the Barmaid, look you, had done nothing that is condemned by the +orthodox moralities; she had not even flown in the face of her legal +duty to her parents. Was she not twenty-one, and does not that magic +numeral pay all scores? + +The Australian gentleman had one card in his pack that was Ace of Trumps +in the game of Betrayal. He only played it when nothing lower would take +the trick. And Polly got little enough advantage from the sanction of +the Altar, her marriage-lines and her wedding-ring, in so far as she +held to the condition precedent of those warrants of respectability, +that she should observe silence about their existence. The only +duplicity of which she had been guilty was the assumption of a false +married name, and that had really seemed to her the only possible +compromise between a definite breach of faith and passive acceptance of +undeserved ill-fame. And when the hideous explanation of Daverill's long +disappearance came about, and _éclaircissement_ seemed inevitable, she +saw the strange discovery she had made of his relation to Mrs. Prichard, +as an aggravation to the embarrassment of acknowledging his past +relation to herself. + +There was one feeling only that one might imagine she might have felt, +yet was entirely a stranger to. Might she not have experienced a +longing--a curiosity, at any rate--to set eyes again on the husband who +had deserted her all those long years ago? And this especially in view +of her uncertainty as to how long his absence had been compulsory? As a +matter of fact, her only feeling about this terrible resurrection was +one of shrinking as from a veritable carrion, disinterred from a grave +she had earned her right to forget. Why need this gruesome memory be +raked up to plague her? + +The only consolation she could take with her to a probably sleepless +pillow was the last charge of the old prizefighter to her not to fret. +"You be easy, M'riar. He shan't come a-nigh _you_. I'll square _him_ +fast enough, if he shows up down this Court--you see if I don't!" But +when she reached it, there was still balm in Gilead. For was not Dolly +there, so many fathoms deep in sleep that she might be kissed with +impunity, long enough to bring a relieving force of tears to help the +nightmare-haunted woman in her battle with the past? + +As for Mo, his threat towards this convicted miscreant had no connection +with his recent interview with his police-officer friend--no hint of +appeal to Law and Order. The anger that burnt in his heart and sent the +blood to his head was as unsullied, as pure, as any that ever Primeval +Man sharpened flints to satisfy before Law and Order were invented. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + HOW UNCLE MO MADE THE DOOR-CHAIN SECURE, AND A SUNFLOWER LOOKED ON + THE WHILE. HOW AUNT M'RIAR STOPPED HER EARS. A BIT OF UNCLE MO'S + MIND. HOW DOLLY KISSED HIM THROUGH THE DOOR-CRACK, BUT NOT MRS. + BURR. CONCERNING RATS, TO WHICH UNCLE MO TOOK THE OPPOSITE VIEW. OF + ONE, OR SOME, WHICH TRAVELLED OUT TO AUSTRALIA WITH OLD MRS. + PRICHARD. HOW DAVE MET THREE LADIES IN A CARRIAGE, NONE OF WHOM + KISSED HIM. HOW UNCLE MO WENT UPSTAIRS WITH THE CHILDREN, IN + CONNECTION WITH THE RATS HE HAD DISCREDITED, AND STAYED UP QUITE A + TIME. HOW HE INTERVIEWED MR. BARTLETT ABOUT THEM + + +"You're never fidgeting about _him_?" said Aunt M'riar to Uncle Mo, one +morning shortly after she had told him the story of her marriage. "He's +safe out of the way by now. You may rely on your police-inspectin' +friend to inspect _him_. Didn't he as good as say he was took, Mo?" + +"That warn't precisely the exact expression used, M'riar," said Uncle +Mo, who was doing something with a tool-box at the door that opened on +the front-garden that opened on the Court. Dolly was holding his tools, +by permission--only not chisels or gouges, or gimlets, or bradawls, or +anything with an edge to it--and the sunflower outside was watching +them. Uncle Mo was extracting a screw with difficulty, in spite of the +fact that it was all but out already. He now elucidated the cause of +this difficulty, and left the Police Inspector alone. "'Tain't stuck, if +you ask me. I should say there never had been no holt to this screw from +the beginning. But by reason there's no life in the thread, it goes +round and round rayther than come out.... Got it!--wanted a little +coaxin', it did." That is to say, a few back-turns with very light +pressure brought the screw-head free enough for a finger-grip, and the +rest was easy. "It warn't of any real service," said Uncle Mo. "One size +bigger would ketch and hold in. This here one's only so much +horse-tentation. Now I can't get a bigger one through the plate, and I +can't rimer out the hole for want of a tool--not so much as a small +round file.... Here's a long 'un, of a thread with the first. He'll +ketch in if there's wood-backin' enough.... That's got him! Now it'll +take a Hemperor, to get _that_ out." Uncle Mo paused to enjoy a moment's +triumph, then harked back:--"No--the precise expression made use of was, +they might put their finger on him any minute." + +"Which don't mean the same thing," said Aunt M'riar. + +"No more it don't, M'riar, now you mention it. But he won't trust his +nose down this Court. If he does, and I ain't here, just you do like I +tell you...." + +Aunt M'riar interrupted. "I couldn't find it in me to give him up, Mo. +Not for all I'm worth!" She spoke in a quick undertone, with a stress in +her voice that terrified Dolly, who nearly let go a hammer she had been +allowed to hold, as harmless. + +"Not if you knew what he's wanted for, this time?" + +"Don't you tell me, Mo. I'd soonest know nothing.... No--no--don't you +tell me a word about it!" And Aunt M'riar clapped her hands on her ears, +leaving an iron, that she had been trying to abate to a professional +heat, to make a brown island on its flannel zone of influence. All her +colour--she had a fair share of it--had gone from her cheeks, and Dolly +was in two minds whether she should drop the hammer and weep. + +Uncle Mo's reassuring voice decided her to do neither, this time. "Don't +you be frightened, M'riar," said he. "I wasn't for telling you his last +game. Nor it wouldn't be any satisfaction to tell. I was only going to +say that if he was to turn up in these parts, just you put the chain +down--it's all square and sound now--and tell him he'll find me at The +Sun." He closed the door and put the chain he had been revising on its +mettle; adding as he did so, in defiance of Astronomy:--"'Tain't any so +far off, The Sun." Dolly's amusement at the function of the chain, and +its efficacy, was so great as to cause her aunt to rule, as a point of +Law, that six times was plenty for any little girl, and that she must +leave her uncle a minute's peace. + +Dolly granting this, Aunt M'riar took advantage of it, to ask what +course Uncle Mo would pursue, if she complied with his instructions. "If +you gave him up to the Police, Mo," she said, "and I'd sent him to you, +it would be all one as if I'd done it." + +"I'll promise not to give him to the Police, if he comes to me off of +your sending, M'riar. In course, if he's only himself to thank for +coming my way, that's another pair of shoes." + +"But if it was me, what'll you do, Mo?" Aunt M'riar wasn't getting on +with those cuffs. + +"What'll I do? Maybe I'll give him ... a bit of my mind." + +"No--what'll you do, Mo?" There was a new apprehension in her voice as +she dropped it to say:--"He's a younger man than you, by nigh twenty +years." + +The anticipation of that bit of Uncle Mo's mind had gripped his jaw and +knitted his brow for an instant. It vanished, and left both free as he +answered:--"You be easy, old girl! I won't give him a chance to do _me_ +no harm." Aunt M'riar bent a suspicious gaze on him for a moment, but it +ended as an even more than usually genial smile spread over the old +prizefighter's face, and he gave way to Dolly's request to be sut out +only dest this once more; which ended in a Pyramus and Thisbe +accommodation of kisses through as much thoroughfare as the chain +permitted. They were painful and dangerous exploits; but it was not on +either of those accounts that Mrs. Burr, coming home rather early, +declined to avail herself of Dolly's suggestion that she also should +take advantage of this rare opportunity for uncomfortable endearments; +but rather in deference to public custom, whose rules about kissing +Dolly thought ridiculous. + +The door having to be really shut to release the chain, its reopening +seemed to inaugurate a new chapter, at liberty to ignore Dolly's +flagrant suggestions at the end of the previous one. Besides, it was +possible for Uncle Mo to affect ignorance; as, after all, Dolly was +outside. Mrs. Burr did not tax him with insincerity, and the subject +dropped, superseded by less interesting matter. + +"I looked in to see," said Aunt M'riar, replying to a question of Mrs. +Burr's. "The old lady was awake and knitting, last time. First time +she'd the paper on her knee, open. Next time she was gone off sound." + +"That's her way, ma'am. Off and on--on and off. But she takes mostly to +the knitting. And it ain't anything to wonder at, I say, that she drops +off reading. I'm sure I can't hold my eyes open five minutes over the +newspaper. And books would be worse, when you come to read what's wrote +in them, if it wasn't for having to turn over the leaves. Because you're +bound to see where, and not turn two at once, or it don't follow on." +Aunt M'riar and Uncle Mo confirmed this view from their own experience. +It was agreed further that small type--Parliamentary debates and the +like--was more soporific than large, besides spinning out the length and +deferring the relaxation of turning over, when in book-form. Short +accidents, and not too prolix criminal proceedings were on the whole +the most palatable forms of literature. It was not to be wondered at +that old Mrs. Prichard should go to sleep over the newspaper at her age, +seeing that none but the profoundest scholars could keep awake for five +minutes while perusing it. The minute Dave came in from school he should +take Dolly upstairs to pay the old lady a visit, and brighten her up a +bit. + +"Very like she's been extra to-day"--thus Mrs. Burr continued--"by +reason of rats last night, and getting no sleep." + +"There ain't any rats in your room, missis," said Uncle Mo. "We should +hear 'em down below if there was." + +"What it is if it ain't rats passes me then, Mr. Wardle. I do assure you +there was a loud crash like a gun going off, and we neither of us hardly +got any sleep after." + +"Queer, anyhow!" said Uncle Mo. But he evidently doubted the statement, +or at least thought it exaggerated. + +"I'll be glad to tell her you take the opposite view to rats, Mr. +Moses," said Mrs. Burr. "For it sets her on fretting when she gets +thinking back. And now she'll never be tired of telling about the rats +on the ship when she was took out to Australia. Running over her face, +and starting her awake in the night! It gives the creeps only to hear." + +"There, Dolly, now you listen to how the rats run about on Mrs. Picture +when she was on board of the ship." Thus Aunt M'riar, always with that +haunting vice of perverting Art, Literature, Morals, and Philosophy to +the oppressive improvement of the young. She seldom scored a success, +and this time she was hoisted with her own petard. For Dolly jumped with +delight at the prospect of a romance of fascinating character, combining +Zoölogy and Travel. She applied for a place to hear it, on the knee of +Mrs. Burr, who, however, would have had to sit down to supply it. So she +was forced to be content with a bald version of the tale, as Mrs. Burr +had to see to getting their suppers upstairs. She was rather +disappointed at the size and number of the rats. She enquired:--"Was +they large rats, or small?" and would have preferred to hear that they +were about the size of small cats--not larger, for fear of +inconveniencing old Mrs. Picture. And a circumstance throwing doubt on +their number was unwelcome to her. For it appeared that old Mrs. Picture +slept with her fellow-passengers in a dark cabin, and no one might light +a match all night for fear of the Captain. And rats ran over those +passengers' faces! But it may have been all the same rat, and to Dolly +that seemed much less satisfactory than troops. She was rather cast +down about it, but there was no need to discourage Dave. She could +invent some extra rats, when he came back from school. + + * * * * * + +Lay down the book, you who read, and give but a moment's thought to the +strangeness of these two episodes, over half a century apart. One, in +the black darkness of an emigrant's sleeping-quarters on a ship +outward-bound, all its tenants huddled close in the stifling air; child +and woman, weak and strong, sick and healthy even, penned in alike to +sleep their best on ranks of shelves, a mere packed storage of human +goods, to be delivered after long months of battle with the seas, ten +thousand miles from home. Or, if you shrink from the thought that +Maisie's luck on her first voyage was so cruel as that, conceive her +interview with those rodent fellow-passengers as having taken place in +the best quarters money could buy on such a ship--and what would _they_ +be, against a good steerage-berth nowadays?--and give her, at least, a +couch to herself. Picture her, if you will, at liberty to start from it +in terror and scramble up a companion ladder to an open deck, and pick +her way through shrouds and a bare headway of restless sprits above, and +Heaven knows what of coiled cordage and inexplicable bulkhead underfoot, +to some haven where a merciful old mariner, alone upon his watch, shuts +his eyes to his duty and tolerates the beautiful girl on deck, when he +is told by her that she cannot sleep for the rats. Make the weather +fair, to keep the picture at its best, and let her pass the hours till +the coming of the dawn, watching the mainmast-truck sway to and fro +against the Southern Cross, as the breeze falls and rises, and the +bulwark-plash is soft or loud upon the waters. + +And then--all has vanished! That was half a century ago, and more. And a +very little girl with very blue eyes and a disgracefully rough shock of +golden curls has just been told of those rats, and has resolved to add +to their number--having power to do so, like a Committee--when she comes +to retell the tale to her elder brother; and then they will both--and +this is the strangest of all!--they will both go and make a noisy and +excited application to an authority to have it confirmed or +contradicted. And this authority will be that girl who sat on that deck +beneath the stars, and listened to the bells sounding the hours through +the night, to keep the ship's time for a forgotten crew, on a ship that +may have gone to the bottom many a year ago, on its return voyage home +perhaps--who knows? + +Before Dave heard Dolly's version of the rats, he had a tale of his own +to tell, coming in just after Mrs. Burr had departed. As he was excited +by the event he was yearning to narrate, he did not put it so lucidly as +he might have done. He said:--"Oy saw the lady, and another lady, and +another lady, all in one carriage. And they see me. And the lady"--he +still pronounced this word _loydy_--"she see me on the poyvement, and +'Stop' she says. And then she says, 'You're Doyvy, oyn't you, that had +the ax-nent?' I says these was my books I took to scrool...." + +"Didn't you _say_ you was Davy?" said Uncle Mo. And Aunt M'riar she +actually said:--"Well, I never!--not to tell the lady who you was!" + +Dave was perplexed, looking with blue-eyed gravity from one to the +other. "The loydy said I _was_ Doyvy," said he, in a slightly injured +tone. He did not at all like the suggestion that he had been guilty of +discourtesy. + +"In course the lady knew, and knew correct," said Uncle Mo, drawing a +distinction which is too often overlooked. "Cut along and tell us some +more. What more did the lady say?" + +Dave concentrated his intelligence powerfully on accuracy:--"The loydy +said to the yuther loydy--the be-yhooterful loydy...." + +"Oh, there was a beautiful lady, was there?" + +Dave nodded excessively, and continued:--"Said here's a friend of mine, +Doyvy Wardle, and they was coming to poy a visit to, to-morrow +afternoon." + +"And what did the other lady say?" + +Dave gathered himself together for an effort of intense fidelity:--"She +said--she said--'He's much too dirty to kiss in the open street'--she +said, 'and better not to touch.' Yorce!" He seemed magnanimous towards +Gwen, in spite of her finical delicacy. + +Aunt M'riar turned his face to the light, by the chin. "What's the child +been at?" said she. + +"The boys had some corks," was Dave's explanation. Nothing further +seemed to be required; Uncle Mo merely remarking: "It'll come off with +soap." However, there was some doubt about the identity of these +carriage ladies. Was one of them the original lady of the rings; who had +taken Dave for a drive or _vice versa_. "Not her!" said Dave; and went +on shaking his head so long to give his statement weight, that Aunt +M'riar abruptly requested him to stop, as her nervous system could not +bear the strain. It was enough, she said, to make her eyes come out by +the roots. + +"She must have been somebody else. She couldn't have been nobody," said +Uncle Mo cogently. "Spit it out, old chap, Who was she?" + +It was easy to say who she was; the strain of attestation had turned on +who she wasn't. Dave became fluent:--"Whoy, the loydy what was a +cistern, and took me in the roylwoy troyne and in the horse-coach to +Granny Marrowbone." For he had never quite dissociated Sister Nora from +ball-taps and plumbings. He added after reflection:--"Only not dressed +up like then!" + +At this point Dolly, whose preoccupation about those rats had stood, +between her and a reasonable interest in Dave's adventure, struck in +noisily and rudely with disjointed particulars about them, showing a +poor capacity for narrative, and provoking Uncle Mo to tickling her with +a view to their suppression. Aunt M'riar seized the opportunity to +capture Dave and subject him to soap and water at the sink. + +As soon as the boys' corks, or the effect of using them after ignition +as face-pigments, had become a thing of the past, Dave and Dolly were +ready to pay their promised visit to Mrs. Prichard. Uncle Mo suggested +that he might act as their convoy as far as the top-landing. This was a +departure from precedent, as stair-climbing was never very welcome to +Uncle Mo. But Aunt M'riar consented, the more readily that she was all +behind with her work. Uncle Mo not only went up with the children, but +stayed up quite a time with the old lady and Mrs. Burr. When he came +down he did not refer to his conversation with them, but went back to +Dave's encounter with his aristocratic friends in the street. + +"The lady that sighted our boy out," said he, "she'll be Miss +What's-her-name that come on at the Hospital--her with the clean white +tucker...." This referred to a vaguely recollected item of the costume +in which Sister Nora was dressed up at the time of Dave's accident. It +had lapsed, as inappropriate, during her nursing of her father in +Scotland, and had not been resumed. + +"That's her," said Aunt M'riar. "Sister of Charity--that's what _she_ +is. The others are ladyships, one or both. They all belong." The tone of +remoteness might have been adopted in speaking of inhabitants of Mars +and Venus. + +"I thought her the right sort, herself," said Uncle Mo, implying that +others of her _monde_ might be safely assumed to be the wrong sort, +pending proof of the contrary. "Anyways, she's coming to pay Dave a +visit, and I'll be glad of a sight of her, for one!" + +"Oh, I've no fault to find, Mo, if that's what you mean." Aunt M'riar +was absorbed in her mystery, doing justice to what was probably a lady's +nightgear, of imperial splendour. So she probably had spoken rather at +random; and, indeed, seemed to think apology necessary. She took +advantage of the end of an episode to say, while contemplating the +perfection of two unimpeachable cuffs:--"So long as the others don't +give theirselves no airs." Isolated certainly, as to structure; but, +after all, has speech any use except to communicate ideas? + +Uncle Mo presumably understood, as he accepted the form of speech, +saying:--"And so long as we do ourselves credit, M'riar." + +"Well, Mo, you never see me do anything but behave." + +"That I never did, M'riar. Right you are!" Which ended a little colloquy +that contained or implied a protest against the compulsory association +of classes, expressed to a certain extent by special leniency towards an +exceptional approach from without. Having entered his own share of the +protest, Uncle Mo announced his intention of seeking Mr. Bartlett the +builder, to speak to him about them rats. This saying Aunt M'riar did +not even condemn as enigmatical, so completely did all that relates to +buildings lie outside her jurisdiction. + +"I've got my 'ands so full just now," said Mr. Bartlett, when Uncle Mo +had explained the object of his visit, "or I'd step round to cast an eye +on that bressumer. Only you may make your mind easy, and say I told you +to it. If we was all of us to get into a perspiration whenever a board +creaked or a bit of loose parging come down a chimley, we shouldn't have +a minute's peace of our lives. Some parties is convinced of Ghosts the +very first crack! Hysterical females in partic'lar." Mr. Bartlett did +not seem busy, externally; but he contrived to give an impression that +he was attending to a job at Buckingham Palace. + +Uncle Mo felt abashed at his implied rebuke. It was not deserved, for he +was guiltless of superstition. However, he had accepted the position of +delegate of the top-floor, which, of course, was an hysterical floor, +owing to the sex of its tenants. For Mr. Bartlett's meaning was the +conventional one, that all women were hysterical, not some more than +others. Uncle Mo felt that his position was insecure; and that he had +better retire from it. Noises, he conceded, was usually nothing at all; +but he had thought he would mention them, in this case. + +Mr. Bartlett professed himself sincerely obliged to all persons who +would mention noises, in spite of their equivocal claims to existence. +It might save a lot of trouble in the end, and you never knew. As soon +as he had a half an hour to spare he would give attention. Till Tuesday +he was pretty well took up. No one need fidget himself about the noises +he mentioned; least of all need the landlord be communicated with, as he +was not a Practical Man, but in Independent Circumstances. Moreover, he +lived at Brixton. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + OF A RAID ON DOLLY'S GARDEN. THAT YOUNG DRUITT'S BEHAVIOUR TO HIS + SISTER. MR. RAGSTROAR'S ACCIDENT, AND HIS MOKE. HOW THE TWO LADIES + CAME AT LAST. LADY GWENDOLEN RIVERS, AND HOW DOLLY GOT ON HER LAP. + HOW DAVE WENT UPSTAIRS TO GET HIS LETTER. HOW MRS. PRICHARD HAD + TAKEN MRS. MARROWBONE TO HEART, AND VICE VERSA. HOW DOLLY GOT A + LOCK OF GWEN'S HAIR, AND VICE VERSA. HOW DAVE DELAYED AND DOLLY AND + GWEN WENT TO FETCH HIM. A REMARKABLE SOUND. THEN GOD-KNOWS-WHAT, + OUTSIDE! + + +An effort of horticulture was afoot in the front-garden of No. 7, Sapps +Court. Dave Wardle and Dolly were engaged in an attempt to remedy a +disaster that had befallen the Sunflower. There was but one--the one +that had been present when Uncle Mo was adjusting that door-chain. + +Its career had been cut short prematurely. For a boy had climbed up over +the end wall of those gardens acrost the Court, right opposite to where +it growed; and had all but cut through the stem, when he was cotched in +the very act by Michael Ragstroar. That young coster's vigorous +assertion of the rights of property did a man's heart good to see, +nowadays. The man was Uncle Mo, who got out of the house in plenty of +time to stop Michael half-murdering the marauder, as soon as he +considered the latter had had enough, he being powerfully outclassed by +the costermonger boy. Why, he was only one of them young Druitts, when +all was said and done! Michael felt no stern joy in him--a foeman not +worth licking, on his merits. But the knife that he left behind, with a +buckhorn handle, was a fizzing knife, and was prized in after-years by +Michael. + +The Wardle household had gone into mourning for the Sunflower. Was it +not the same Sunflower as last year, reincarnated? Dolly sat under it, +shedding tears. Uncle Mo showed ignorance of gardening, saying it might +grow itself on again if you giv' it a chance; not if you kep' on at it +like that. Dave disagreed with this view, but respectfully. His Hospital +experience had taught him the use of ligatures; and he kept on at it, +obtaining from Mrs. Burr a length of her wide toyp to tie it in +position. If limbs healed up under treatment, why not vegetation? The +operator was quite satisfied with his handiwork. + +In fact, Dave and Dolly both foresaw a long and prosperous life for the +flower. They rejected Aunt M'riar's suggestion, that it should be cut +clear off and stood in water, as a timid compromise--a stake not worth +playing for. And Michael Ragstroar endorsed the flattering tales Hope +told, citing instances in support of them derived from his own +experience, which appeared to have been exceptional. As, for instance, +that over-supplies of fruit at Covent Garden were took back and stuck on +the stems again, as often as not. "I seen 'em go myself," said he. "'Ole +cartloads!" + +"Hark at that unblushing young story!" said Aunt M'riar, busy in the +kitchen, Michael being audible without, lying freely. "He'll go on like +that till one day it'll surprise me if the ground don't open and swallow +him up." + +But Uncle Mo had committed himself to an expression of opinion on the +vitality of vegetables. He might condemn exaggeration, but he could +scarcely repudiate a principle he had himself almost affirmed. He took +refuge in obscurity. "'Tain't for the likes of us, M'riar," said he, +shaking his head profoundly, "to be sayin' how queer starts there mayn't +be. My jiminy!--the things they says in lecters, when they gets the +steam up!" He shook his head a little quicker, to recover credit for a +healthy incredulity, and arranged a newspaper he was reading against +difficulties, to gain advantages of position and a better discrimination +of its columns. + +"If it was the freckly one with the red head," said Aunt M'riar, +referring back to the fracas of the morning, "all I can say is, I'm +sorry you took Micky off him." From which it appeared that this culprit +was not unknown. Indeed, Aunt M'riar was able to add that Widow Druitt +his mother couldn't call her soul her own for that boy's goings on. + +"He'd got a tidy good punishing afore I got hold of the scruff of my +man's trousers," said Uncle Mo, who seemed well contented with the +culprit's retribution; and, of course, _he_ knew. "Besides," he added, +"he had to get away over them bottles." That is to say, the wall-top, +bristling with broken glass. Humanity had paved the way for the enemy's +retreat. Uncle Mo added inquiry as to how the freckly one's behaviour to +his family had come to the knowledge of Sapps Court. + +"You can see acrost from Mrs. Prichard's. He do lead 'em all a life, +that boy! Mrs. Burr she saw him pour something down his sister's back +when she was playing scales. Ink, she says, by the look. But, of course, +it's a way off from here, over to Mrs. Druitt's." + +"Oh--she's the one that plays the pyanner. Same tune all through--first +up, then down! Good sort of tune to go to sleep to!" + +"'Tain't a tune, Mo. It's _scales_. She's being learned how. One day +soon she'll have a tune to play. An easy tune. Mrs. Prichard says _she_ +could play several tunes before she was that girl's age. Then she hadn't +no brother to werrit her. I lay that made a difference." Aunt M'riar +went on to mention other atrocities ascribed by Mrs. Burr to the freckly +brother. His behaviour to his musical sister had, indeed, been a matter +of serious concern to the upstairs tenants, whose window looked directly +upon the back of Mrs. Druitt's, who took in lodgers in the main street +where Dave had met with his accident. + +The boy Michael was suffering from enforced leisure on the day of this +occurrence, as his father's cart had met with an accident, and was under +repair. Its owner had gone to claim compensation personally from the +butcher whose representative had ridden him down; not, he alleged, by +misadventure, but from a deep-rooted malignity against all poor but +honest men struggling for a livelihood. No butcher, observe, answers +this description. Butchers are a class apart, whose motives are +extortion, grease, and blood. They wallow in the last with joy, and +practise the first with impunity. If they can get a chance to run over +you, they'll do it! Trust them for that! Nevertheless, so hopeless would +this butcher's case be if his victim went to a lawyer, that it was worth +having a try at it afore he done that--so Mr. Rackstraw put it, later. +Therefore, he had this afternoon gone to High Street, Clapham, to apply +for seven pun' thirteen, and not take a penny less. Hence his son's +ability to give attention to local matters, and a temporary respite to +his donkey's labours in a paddock at Notting Hill. As for Dave, and for +that matter the freckly boy, it was not term-time with them, for some +reason. Dave was certainly at home, and was bidden to pay a visit to +Mrs. Prichard in the course of the afternoon, if those lady-friends of +his whom he met in the street yesterday did not come to pay _him_ a +visit. It was not very likely they would, but you never could tell. Not +to place reliance! + +Uncle Mo kept looking at his watch, and saying that if this here lady +meant to turn up, she had better look alive. Being reproved for +impatience by Aunt M'riar, he said very good, then--he'd stop on to the +hour. Only it was no use runnin' through the day like this, and nothing +coming of it, as you might say. This was only the way he preferred of +expressing impatience for the visit. It is a very common one, and has +the advantages of concealing that impatience, putting whomsoever one +expects in the position of an importunate seeker of one's society, and +suggesting that one is foregoing an appointment in the City to gratify +him. Uncle Mo did unwisely to tie himself to the hour, as he became +thereby pledged to depart, he having no particular wish to do so, and no +object at all in view. + +But he was not to be subjected to the indignity of a recantation. As the +long hand of his watch approached twelve, and he was beginning to feel +on the edge of an embarrassment, Dave left off watering the Sunflower, +and ran indoors with the news that there were two ladies coming down the +Court, one of whom was Sister Nora, and the other "the other lady." +Dave's conscience led him into a long and confused discrimination +between this other lady and the other other lady, who had shared with +her the back-seat in that carriage yesterday. It was quite unimportant +which of the two had come, both being unknown to Dave's family. +Moreover, there was no time for the inventory of their respective +attributes Dave wished to supply. He was still struggling with a detail, +in an undertone lest it should transpire in general society, when he +found himself embraced from behind, and kissed with appreciation. He had +not yet arrived at the age when one is surprised at finding oneself +suddenly kissed over one's shoulder by a lady. Besides, this was his old +acquaintance, whom he was delighted to welcome, but who made the +tactical mistake of introducing "the other lady" as Lady Gwendolen +Rivers. Stiffness might have resulted, if it had not been for the +conduct of that young lady, which would have thawed an iceberg. It was +not always thus with her; but, when the whim was upon her, she was +irresistible. + +"I know what Dave was saying to you when we came in, Mr. Wardle," said +she, after capturing Dolly to sit on her knee, and coming to an anchor. +"He was telling you exactly what his friend had said to him about me. He +was Micky. I've heard all about Micky. This chick's going to tell me +what Micky said about me. Aren't you, Dolly?" She put Dolly at different +distances, ending with a hug and a kiss, of which Dolly reciprocated the +latter. + +Dolly would have embarked at once on a full report, if left to herself. +But that unfortunate disposition of Aunt M'riar's to godmother or +countersign the utterances of the young, very nearly nipped her +statement in the bud. "There now, Dolly dear," said the excellent +woman, "see what the lady says!--you're to tell her just exactly what +Micky said, only this very minute in the garden." Which naturally +excited Dolly's suspicion, and made her impute motives. She retired +within herself--a self which, however, twinkled with a consciousness of +hidden knowledge and a resolution not to disclose it. + +Gwen's tact saved the position. "Don't you tell _them_, you know--only +me! You whisper it in my ear.... Yes--quite close up, like that." Dolly +entered into this with zest, the possession of a secret in common with +this new and refulgent lady obviously conferring distinction. + +Sister Nora--not otherwise known to Sapps Court--was resuming history +during the past year for the benefit of Uncle Mo. She had seen nothing +of Dave, or, indeed, of London, since October; till, yesterday, when she +got back from Scotland, whom should she see before she had been five +minutes out of the station but Dave himself! Only she hardly knew him, +his face was so black. Here Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar shook penitential +heads over his depravity. Sister Nora paid a passing tribute to the +Usages of Society, which rightly discourage the use of burnt cork on the +countenance, and proceeded. She had heard of him, though, having paid a +visit to Widow Thrale in the country, where he got well after the +Hospital. + +This was a signal for Dave to find his voice, and he embarked with +animation on a variegated treatment of subjects connected with his visit +to the country. A comparison of his affection for Widow Thrale and +Granny Marrable, with an undisguised leaning to the latter; a reference +to the lady with the rings, her equipage, and its driver's nose; Farmer +Jones's bull, and its untrustworthy temper; the rich qualities of +duckweed; the mill-model on the mantelshelf, and individualities of his +fellow-convalescents. This took time, although some points were only +touched lightly. + +Possibly Uncle Moses thought it might prove prolix, as he said:--"If I +was a young shaver now, and ladies was to come to see me, I should get a +letter I was writing, to show 'em." The delicacy and tact with which +this suggestion was offered was a little impaired by Aunt +M'riar's:--"Yes, now you be a good boy, Dave, and ..." and so forth. + +Many little boys would not have been so magnanimous as Dave, and would +have demurred or offered passive resistance. Dave merely removed Sister +Nora's arm rather abruptly from his neck, saying:--"Storp a minute!" and +ran up the stairs that opened on the kitchen where they were sitting. +There was more room there than in the little parlour. + +Uncle Moses explained:--"You see, ladies, this here young Dave, for all +he's getting quite a scholar now, and can write any word he can spell, +yet he don't take to doing it quite on his own hook just yet a while. So +he gets round the old lady upstairs, for to let him set and write at her +table. Then she can tip him a wink now and again, when he gets a bit +fogged." + +"That's Mrs. Picture," said Gwen, interested. But she did not speak loud +enough to invite correction of her pronunciation of the name, and Sister +Nora merely said:--"That's her!" and nodded. Dolly at once launched into +a vague narrative of a misadventure that had befallen her putative +offspring, the doll that Sister Nora had given her last year. Struvvel +Peter had met with an accident, his shock head having got in a +candle-flame in Mrs. Picture's room upstairs, so that he was quite +smooth before he could be rescued. The interest of this superseded other +matter. + +"Davy he's a great favourite with the ladies," said Uncle Mo, as +Struvvel Peter subsided. "He ain't partic'lar to any age. Likes 'em a +bit elderly, if anythin', I should say." He added, merely to generalise +the conversation, and make talk:--"Now this here old lady in the country +she's maybe ten years younger than our Mrs. Prichard, but she's what you +might call getting on in years." + +"Prichard," said Gwen, for Sister Nora's ear. "I thought it couldn't be +Picture." + +"Prichard, of course! How funny we didn't think of it--so obvious!" + +"Very--when one knows! I think I like Picture best." + +Aunt M'riar, not to be out of the conversation, took a formal exception +to Uncle Mo's remark:--"The ladies they know how old Old Mrs. Marrable +in the country is, without your telling of 'em, Mo." + +"Right you are, M'riar! But they don't know nothing about old Mrs. +Prichard." Uncle Mo had spoken at a guess of Mrs. Marrowbone's age, of +which he knew nothing. It was a sort of emulation that had made him +assess _his_ old lady as the senior. He felt vulnerable, and changed the +conversation. "That young Squire's taking his time, M'riar. Supposin' +now I was just to sing out to him?" + +But both ladies exclaimed against Dave being hurried away from his old +lady. Besides, they wanted to know some more about her--what sort of +classification hers would be, and so on. There were stumbling-blocks in +this path. Better keep clear of classes--stick to generalities, and hope +for lucky chances! + +"What made Dave think the old souls so much alike, Mrs. Wardle?" said +Sister Nora. "Children are generally so sharp to see differences." + +"It was a kind of contradictiousness, ma'am, no better I do think, +merely for to set one of 'em alongside the other, and look at." Aunt +M'riar did not really mean contradictiousness, and can hardly have meant +_contradistinction_, as that word was not in her vocabulary. We incline +to look for its origin in the first six letters, which it enjoys in +common with contrariwise and contrast. This, however, is Philology, and +doesn't matter. Let Aunt M'riar go on. + +"Now just you think how alike old persons do get, by reason of change. +'Tain't any fault of their own. Mrs. Prichard she's often by way of +inquiring about Mrs. Marrowbone, and I should say she rather takes her +to heart." + +"How's that, Mrs. Wardle? Why 'takes her to heart'?" A joint question of +the ladies. + +"Well--now you ask me--I should say Mrs. Prichard she wants the child +all to herself." Aunt M'riar's assumption that this inquiry had been +made without suggestion on her own part was unwarranted. + +"_I'll_ tell you, ladies," said Uncle Mo, rolling with laughter. "The +old granny's just as jealous as any schoolgirl! She's _that_, and you +may take my word for it." He seemed afraid this might be interpreted to +Mrs. Prichard's disadvantage; for he added, recovering gravity:--"Not +that I blame her for it, mind you!" + +"Do you hear _that_, Gwen?" said Sister Nora. "Mrs. Picture's jealous of +Granny Marrowbone.... I must tell you about that, Mrs. Wardle. It's +really as much as one's place is worth to mention Mrs. Prichard to Mrs. +Marrable. I assure you the old lady believes I-don't-know-what about +her--thinks she's a wicked old witch who will make the child as bad as +herself! She does, indeed! But then, to be sure, Goody Marrable thinks +everyone is wicked in London.... What's that, Gwen?" + +"We want a pair of scissors, Dolly and I do. Do give us a pair of +scissors, Aunt Maria.... Yes, go on, Clo. I hear every word you say. How +very amusing!... Thank you, Aunt Maria!" For Gwen and Dolly had just +negotiated an exchange of locks of hair, which had distracted the full +attention of the former from the conversation. She had, however, heard +enough to confirm a half-made resolution not to leave the house without +seeing Mrs. Prichard. + +"Ass! Vis piece off vat piece," says Dolly, making a selection from the +mass of available gold, which Gwen snips off ruthlessly. + +"Well!" says Aunt M'riar, with her usual record of inexperience of +childhood. "I never, never did, in all my christened days!" + +"Quip off a bid, bid piece with the fidders," says Dolly, delighted at +the proceeding. "A bid piece off me at the vethy top." The ideal in her +mind is analogous to the snuffing of a candle. A lock of a browner gold +than the one she gives it for is secured--big enough, but not what she +had dreamed of. + +Uncle Mo was seriously concerned at Dave's prolonged absence. Not that +he anticipated any mishap!--it was only a question of courtesy to +visitors. Supposing Aunt M'riar was to go up and collar Dave and fetch +him down, drastically! Uncle Mo always shirked stair-climbing, partly +perhaps because he so nearly filled the stairway. He overweighted the +part, aesthetically. + +Gwen perceived her opportunity. "Please do nothing of the sort, Aunt +Maria," said she. "Look here! Dolly and I are going up to fetch him. +Aren't we, Dolly?" + +It would have needed presence of mind to invent obstacles to prevent +this, and neither Uncle Mo nor Aunt M'riar showed it, each perhaps +expecting Action on the other's part. Moreover, Dolly's approval took +such a tempestuous form that opposition seemed useless. Besides, there +was that fatal assurance about Gwen that belongs to young ladies who +have always had their own way in everything. It cannot be developed in +its fulness late in life. + +Aunt M'riar's protest was feeble in the extreme. "Well, I should be +ashamed to let a lady carry me! That I should!" If Aunt M'riar had known +the resources of the Latin tongue, she might have introduced the +expression _ceteris paribus_. No English can compass that amount of +slickness; so her speech was left crude. + +Uncle Mo really saw no substantial reason why this beautiful vision +should not sweep Dolly upstairs, if it pleased her. He may have felt +that a formal protest would be graceful, but he could not think of the +right words. And Aunt M'riar had fallen through. Moreover, his memory +was confident that he had left his bedroom-door shut. As to miscarriage +of the expedition into Mrs. Prichard's territory, he had no misgiving. + +Miss Grahame was convinced that the incursion would have better results +if she left it to its originator, than if she encumbered it with her own +presence. After all, the room could be no larger than the one she sat +in, and might be smaller. Anyhow, they could get on very well without +her for half an hour. And she wanted a chat with Dave's guardians; she +did not really know them intimately. + +"The two little ones must be almost like your own children to you, Mr. +Wardle," said she, to broach the conversation. + +"Never had any, ma'am," said Uncle Mo, literal-minded from +constitutional good-faith. + +"If you _had_ had any was what I meant." Perhaps the reason Miss +Grahame's eye wandered after Aunt M'riar, who had followed Gwen and +Dolly--to "see that things were straight," she said--was that she felt +insecure on a social point. Uncle Mo's eye followed hers. + +"Nor yet M'riar," said he, seeing a precaution necessary. "Or perhaps I +should say _one_. Not good for much, though! Born dead, I believe--years +before ever my brother married her sister. Never set eyes on M'riar's +husband! Name of Catchpole, I believe.... That's her coming down." He +raised his voice, dropped to say this, as she came within +hearing:--"Yes--me and M'riar we share 'em up, the two young characters, +but we ain't neither of us their legal parents. Not strickly as the Law +goes, but we've fed upon 'em like, in a manner of speaking, from the +beginning, or nigh upon it. Little Dave, he's sort of kept me a-going +from the early days, afore we buried his poor father--my brother David, +you see. He died down this same Court, four year back, afore little +Dolly was good for much, to look at.... They all right, M'riar?" + +"They're making a nice racket," said Aunt M'riar. "So I lay there ain't +much wrong with _them_." She picked up a piece of work to go on with, +and explored a box for a button to meet its views. Evidently a garment +of Dolly's. Probably this was a slack season for the higher needlework, +and the getting up of fine linen was below par. + +Uncle Mo resumed:--"So perhaps you're right to put it they are like my +own children, and M'riar's." He was so chivalrously anxious not to +exclude his co-guardian from her rights that he might have laid himself +open to be misunderstood by a stranger. Miss Grahame understood him, +however. So she did, thoroughly, when he went on:--"I don't take at all +kindly, though, to their growing older. Can't be helped, I suppose. +There's a many peculiar starts in this here world, and him as don't +like 'em just has to lump 'em. As I look at it, changes are things one +has to put up with. If we had been handy when we was first made, we +might have got our idears attended to, to oblige. Things are fixtures, +now." + +Miss Grahame laughed, and abstained consciously from referring to the +inscrutable decrees of Providence which called aloud for recognition. +"Of course, children shouldn't grow," she said. "I should like them to +remain three, especially the backs of their necks." Uncle Mo's +benevolent countenance shone with an unholy cannibalism, as he nodded a +mute approval. There was something very funny to his hearer in this old +man's love of children, and his professional engagements of former +years, looked at together. + +Aunt M'riar took the subject _au serieux_. "Now you're talking silly, +Mo," she said. "If the children never grew, where would the girls be? +And a nice complainin' you men would make then!" + +Miss Grahame made an effort to get away from abstract Philosophy. "I'm +afraid it can't be helped now, anyhow," said she. "Dave _is_ growing, +and means to be a man. Oh dear--he'll be a man before we know it. He'll +be able to read and write in a few months." + +Uncle Mo's face showed a cloud. "Do ye really think that, ma'am?" he +said. "Well--I'm afeared you may be right." He looked so dreadfully +downcast at this, that Miss Grahame was driven to the conclusion that +the subject was dangerous. + +She could not, however, resist saying:--"He _must_ know _some_ time, you +know, Mr. Wardle. Surely you would never have Dave grow up uneducated?" + +"Not so sure about that, ma'am!" said Uncle Mo, shaking a dubious head. +"There's more good men spiled by schoolmasters than we hear tell of in +the noospapers." What conspiracy of silence in the Press this pointed at +did not appear. But it was clear from the tone of the speaker that he +thought interested motives were at the bottom of it. + +Now Miss Grahame was said by critical friends--not enemies; at least, +they said not--to be over-anxious to confer benefits of her own +selection on the Human Race. Her finger-tips, they hinted, were itching +to set everyone else's house in order. Naturally, she had a strong bias +towards Education, that most formidable inroad on ignorance of what we +want to know nothing about. Uncle Mo regarded the human mind, if not as +a stronghold against knowledge, at least as a household with an +inalienable right to choose its guests. Miss Grahame was in favour of +invitations issued by the State, and _visé'd_ by the Church. Everything +was to be correct, and sanctioned. But it was quite clear to her that +these views would not be welcome to the old prizefighter, and she was +fain to be content with the slight protest against Obscurantism just +recorded. In short, Miss Grahame found nothing to say, and the subject +had to drop. + +She could, however, lighten the air, and did so. "What on earth are they +about upstairs?" said she. "I really think I might go up and see." And +she was just about to do so, with the assent of Aunt M'riar, when the +latter said suddenly:--"My sakes and gracious! What's that?" rather as +though taken aback by something unaccountable than alarmed by it. + +Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said, +placidly:--"Water-pipes, _I_ should say." For in a London house no +sound, even one like the jerk of a stopped skid on a half-buried +boulder, is quite beyond the possible caprice of a choked supply-pipe. + +Miss Grahame would have accepted the sound as normal, with some +reservation as to the strangeness of everyday noises in this house, but +for Aunt M'riar's exclamation, which made her say:--"Isn't that right?" + +It was not, and the only human reply to the question was a further +exclamation from Aunt M'riar--one of real alarm this time--at a +disintegrating cracking sound, fraught with an inexplicable sense of +insecurity. "_That_ ain't water-pipes," said Uncle Mo. + +Then something--something terrifying--happened in the Court outside. +Something that came with a rush and roar, and ended in a crash of +snapping timber and breaking glass. Something that sent a cloud of dust +through the shivered window-panes into the room it darkened. Something +that left behind it no sound but a sharp cry for help and moaning cries +of pain, and was followed by shouts of panic and alarm, and the tramp of +running feet--a swift flight to the spot of helpers who could see it +without, the thing that had to be guessed by us within. Something that +had half-beaten in the door that Uncle Mo, as soon as sight was +possible, could be seen wrenching open, shouting loudly, +inexplicably:--"They are underneath--they are underneath!" + +_Who_ were underneath? The children? And underneath what? + +A few seconds of dumb terror seemed an age to both women. Then, Gwen on +the stairs, and her voice, with relief in its ring of resolution. "Don't +talk, but come up _at once_! The old lady _must_ be got down, +_somehow_! Come up!" A consciousness of Dolly crying somewhere, and of +Dave on the landing above, shouting:--"Oy say, oy say!" more, Miss +Grahame thought, as a small boy excited than one afraid; and then, light +through the dust-cloud. For Uncle Mo, with a giant's force, had released +the jammed door, and a cataract of brick rubbish, falling inwards, left +a gleam of clear sky to show Gwen, beckoning them up, none the less +beautiful for the tension of the moment, and the traces of a rough +baptism of dust. + +What was it that had happened? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + OF A LADY AND GENTLEMAN ON THE EDGE OF A LONG VOYAGE TOGETHER. + SHALL THEY TAKE THE TICKETS? HOW MR. PELLEW HEARD SEVERAL CLOCKS + STRIKE ONE. HOW HE CALLED NEXT DAY, AND HEARD ABOUT THE CHOBEY + FAMILY. THE PROFANITY OF POETS, WHEN PROFANE. HOW MR. PELLEW + SOMETIMES WENT TO CHURCH. THE POPULAR SUBJECT OF LOVE, IN THE END. + MRS. AMPHLETT STARFAX'S VIEWS. KISSING FROM A NEW STANDPOINT. HOW + MR. PELLEW FORGOT, OR RECOLLECTED, HIMSELF. BONES, BELOW, AND HIS + BAD GUESSING. HOW THE CARRIAGE CAME BACK WITH A FRIEND IT HAD + PICKED UP, WHOM MR. PELLEW CARRIED UPSTAIRS. UNEQUIVOCAL SIGNS OF + AN ATTACHMENT WHICH + + +Had Gwen really been able to see to the bottom of her cousin's, the Hon. +Percival's mind, she might not have felt quite so certain about his +predispositions towards her adopted aunt. The description of these two +as wanting to rush into each other's arms was exaggerated. It would have +been fairer to say that Aunt Constance was fully prepared to consider an +offer, and that Mr. Pellew was beginning to see his way to making one. + +The most promising feature in the lady's state of mind was that she was +formulating consolations, dormant now, but actively available if by +chance the gentleman did not see his way. She was saying to herself that +if another flower attracted this bee, she herself would thereby only +lose an admirer with a disposition--only a slight one perhaps, but still +undeniable--to become corpulent in the course of the next few years. She +could subordinate her dislike of smoking so long as she could suppose +him ever so little in earnest; but, if he did waver by any chance, what +a satisfaction it would be to dwell on her escape from--here a mixed +metaphor came in--the arms of a tobacco shop! She could shut her eyes, +if she was satisfied of the sincerity of a redeeming attachment to +herself, to all the contingencies of the previous life of a middle-aged +bachelor about town; but they would no doubt supply a set-off to his +disaffection, if that was written on the next page of her book of Fate. +In short, she would be prepared in that case to accept the conviction +that she was well rid of him. But all this was subcutaneous. Given only +the one great essential, that he was not merely philandering, and then +neither his escapades in the past, nor his cigars, nor even his +suggestions towards a corporation, would stand in the way of a +whole-hearted acceptance of a companion for life who had somehow managed +to be such a pleasant companion during that visit at the Towers. At +least, she would be better off than her four sisters. For this lady had +a wholesome aversion for her brothers-in-law, tending to support the +creed which teaches that the sacrament of marriage makes of its +votaries, or victims, not only parties to a contract, but one flesh, and +opens up undreamed-of possibilities of real fraternal dissension. + +The gentleman, on the other hand, was in what we may suppose to be a +corresponding stage of uncertainty. He too was able to perceive, or +affect a perception, that, after all, if he came to the scratch and the +scratch eventuated--as scratches do sometimes--in a paralysis of +astonishment on the lady's part that such an idea should ever have +entered into the applicant's calculations, it wouldn't be a thing to +break his heart about exactly. He would have made rather an ass of +himself, certainly. But he was quite prepared not to be any the worse. + +This was, however, not subcutaneous, with him. He said it to himself, +quite openly. His concealment of himself from himself turned on a sort +of passive resistance he was offering to a growing reluctance to hear a +negative to his application. He was, despite himself, entertaining the +question:--Was this woman whom he had been assessing and wavering over, +_more masculino_, conceivably likely to reject him on his merits? Might +she not say to him:--"I have seen your drift, and found you too pleasant +an acquaintance to condemn offhand. But now that you force me to ask +myself the question, 'Can I love you?' you leave me no choice but to +answer, 'I can't.'" And he was beginning to have a misgiving that he +would very much rather that that scratch, if ever he came to it, should +end on very different lines from this. All this, mind you, was under the +skin of his reflections. + +As he walked away slowly in the moonlight, with the appointment fresh in +his mind to return next day on a shallow archaeological pretext, he may +have been himself at a loss for his reason for completing a tour of the +square, and pausing to look up at the house before making a definite +start for his Club, or his rooms in Brook Street. Was any reason +necessary, beyond the fineness of the night? He had an indisputable +right to walk round Cavendish Square without a reason, and he exercised +it. He rather resented the policeman on his beat saying goodnight to +him, as though he were abnormal, and walked away in the opposite +direction from that officer, who was searchlighting areas for want of +something to do, with an implication of profound purpose. He decided on +loneliness and a walk exactly the length of a cigar, throwing its last +effort to burn his fingers away on his doorstep. He carried the +animation of his thoughts on his face upstairs to bed with him, for it +lasted through a meditation at an open window, through a chorus of cats +about their private affairs, and the usual controversy about the hour +among all the town-clocks, which becomes embittered when there is only +one hour to talk about, and compromise is impossible. Mr. Pellew heard +the last opinion and retired for the night at nine minutes past. But he +first made sure that that _Quarterly Review_ was in evidence, and +glanced at the Egyptian article to confirm his impression of the +contents. They were still there. He believed all his actions were sane +and well balanced, but this was credulity. One stretches a point +sometimes, to believe oneself reasonable. + +It was a model September afternoon--and what can one say more of +weather?--when at half-past three precisely Mr. Pellew's hansom overshot +the door of 102, Cavendish Square, and firmly but amiably insisted on +turning round to deposit its fare according to the exact terms of its +contract. Its proprietor said what he could in extenuation of its +maladroitness. They shouldn't build these here houses at the corners of +streets; it was misguiding to the most penetrating intellect. He +addressed his fare as Captain, asking him to make it another sixpence. +He had been put to a lot of expense last month, along of the strike, and +looked to the public to make it up to him. For the cabbies had struck, +some weeks since, against sixpence a mile instead of eightpence. Mr. +Pellew's heart was touched, and he conceded the other sixpence. + +There at the door was Miss Grahame's open landaulet, and there were she +and Gwen in it, just starting to see the former's little boy. That was +how Dave was spoken of, at the risk of creating a scandal. They +immediately lent themselves to a gratuitous farce, having for its +object the liberation of Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson from external +influence. + +"Constance _was_ back, wasn't she?" Thus Miss Grahame; and Gwen had the +effrontery to say she was almost certain, but couldn't be quite sure. If +she wasn't there, she would have to go without that pulverised Pharaoh, +as Sir Somebody Something's just yearnings for his _Quarterly_ were not +to be made light of. "Don't you let Maggie take the book up to her, +Percy. You go up in the sitting-room--you know, where we were playing +last night?--and if she doesn't turn up in five minutes don't you wait +for her!" Then the two ladies talked telegraphically, to the exclusion +of Mr. Pellew, to the effect that Aunt Constance had only gone to buy a +pair of gloves in Oxford Street, and was pledged to an early return. The +curtain fell on the farce, and a very brief interview with Mary at the +door ended in Mr. Pellew being shown upstairs, without reservation. So +he and Aunt Constance had the house to themselves. + +To do them justice, the attention shown to the covering fiction of the +book-loan was of the very smallest. It could not be ignored altogether; +so Miss Dickenson looked at the article. She did not read a word of it, +but she looked at it. She went further, and said it was interesting. +Then it was allowed to lie on the table. When the last possible book has +been printed--for even Literature must come to an end some time, if Time +itself does not collapse--that will be the last privilege accorded to +it. It will lie on the table, while all but a few of its predecessors +will stand on a bookshelf. + +"It's quite warm out of doors," said Mr. Pellew. + +"Warmer than yesterday, I think," said Miss Dickenson. And then talk +went on, stiffly, each of its contribuents execrating its stiffness, but +seeing no way to relaxation. + +"Sort of weather that generally ends in a thunderstorm." + +"Does it? Well--perhaps it does." + +"Don't you think it does?" + +"I thought it felt very like thunder an hour ago." + +"Rather more than an hour ago, wasn't it?" + +"Just after lunch--about two o'clock." + +"Dessay you're right. I should have said a quarter to." Now, if this +sort of thing had continued, it must have ended in a joint laugh, and +recognition of its absurdity. Aunt Constance may have foreseen this, +inwardly, and not been prepared to go so fast. For she accommodated the +conversation with a foothold, partly ethical, partly scientific. + +"Some people feel the effect of thunder much more than others. No doubt +it is due to the electrical condition of the atmosphere. Before this was +understood, it was ascribed to all sorts of causes." + +"I expect it's nerves. Haven't any myself! Rather like tropical storms +than otherwise." + +Here was an opportunity to thaw the surface ice. The lady could have +done it in an instant, by talking to the gentleman about himself. That +is the "Open Sesame!" of human intercourse. She preferred to say that in +their village--her clan's, that is--in Dorsetshire, there was a sept +named Chobey that always went into an underground cellar and stopped its +ears, whenever there was a thunderstorm. + +Mr. Pellew said weakly:--"It runs in families." He had to accept this +one as authentic, but he would have questioned its existence if +anonymous. He could not say:--"How do you know?" to an informant who +could vouch for Chobey. Smith or Brown would have left him much freer. +The foothold of the conversation was giving way, and a resolute effort +was called for to give it stability. Mr. Pellew thought he saw his way. +He said:--"How jolly it must be down at the Towers--day like this!" + +"Perfectly delicious!" was the answer. Then, in consideration of the +remoteness of mere landscape from personalities, it was safe to +particularise. "I really think that walk in the shrubbery, where the +gentian grew in such quantity, is one of the sweetest places of the kind +I ever was in." + +"I know I enjoyed my ..." Mr. Pellew had started to say that he enjoyed +himself there. He got alarmed at his own temerity and backed out ... "my +cigars there," said he. A transparent fraud, for the possessive pronoun +does not always sound alike. "My," is one thing before "self," another +before "cigars." Try it on both, and see. Mr. Pellew felt he was +detected. He could slur over his blunder by going straight on; any topic +would do. He decided on:--"By-the-by, did you see any more of the dog?" + +"Achilles? He went away, you know, with Mr. Torrens and his sister, a +few days after." + +"I meant that. Didn't you say something about seeing him with the +assassin--the old gamekeeper--what was his name?" + +"Old Stephen Solmes? Yes. I saw them walking together, apparently on the +most friendly terms. Gwen told me afterwards. They were walking towards +his cottage, and I believe Achilles saw him safe home, and came back." + +"Just so. Torrens told me about the dog when old Solmes came to say +good-bye to him, and do a little more penance in sackcloth and ashes. I +am using Torrens's words. The old chap made a scene--went down on his +knees and burst out crying--and the dog tried to console him. Torrens +seemed quite clear about what was passing in the dog's mind." + +"What did he say the dog meant? Can you remember?" Miss Dickenson was +settling down to chat, perceptibly. + +"Pretty well. Achilles had wished to say that he personally, so far from +finding fault with Mr. Solmes for trying to shoot him, fully recognised +that he drew trigger under a contract to do so, given circumstances +which had actually come about. He would not endeavour to extenuate his +own conduct, but submitted that he was entitled to a lenient judgment, +on the ground that a hare, the pursuit of which was the indirect cause +of the whole mishap, had jumped up from behind a stone.... Well--I +suppose I oughtn't to repeat all a profane poet thinks fit to say...." + +"Please do! Never mind the profanity!" It really was a stimulus to the +lady's curiosity. + +Mr. Pellew repeated the apology which the collie's master had ascribed +to him. Achilles had only acted in obedience to Instincts which had been +Implanted in him in circumstances for which he was not responsible, and +which might, for anything he knew, have been conceived in a spirit of +mischief by the Author of all Good. This levity was stopped by a shocked +expression on the lady's face. "Well," said the gentleman, "you mustn't +blow _me_ up, Miss Dickenson. I am only repeating, as desired, the words +of a profane poet. He had apologized, he told me, for what he said, when +his sister boxed his ears." + +"Serve him right. But what was his apology?" + +"That he owed it to Achilles, who was unable to speak for himself, to +lay stress on what he conceived to be the dog's Manichaean views, which +he had been most unwillingly forced to infer from his practice of +suddenly barking indignantly at the Universe, in what certainly seemed +an unprayerful spirit." + +"It was only Mr. Torrens's nonsense. He wanted to blaspheme a little, +and jumped at the opportunity. They are all alike, Poets. Look at Byron +and Shelley!" + +Mr. Pellew, for his own purposes no doubt, managed here to insinuate +that he himself was not without a reverent side to his character. These +fillahs were no doubt the victims of their own genius, and presumably +Mr. Torrens was a bird of the same feather. He himself was a stupid +old-fashioned sort of fillah, and couldn't always follow this sort of +thing. It was as delicate a claim as he could make to sometimes going +to Church on Sunday, as was absolutely consistent with Truth. + +To his great relief, Miss Dickenson did not catechize him closely about +his religious views. She only remarked, reflectively and vaguely:--"One +hardly knows what to think. Anyone would have said my father was a +religious man, and what does he do but marry a widow, less than three +years after my mother's death!" + +Certainly the coherency of this speech was not on its surface. But Mr. +Pellew accepted it contentedly enough. At least, it clothed him with +some portion of the garb of a family friend; say shoes or gloves, not +the whole suit. Whichever it was, he pulled them on, and felt they +fitted. He began to speak, and stopped; was asked what he was going to +say, and went on, encouraged:--"I was going to say, only I pulled up +because it felt impertinent...." + +"Not to me! Please tell me exactly!" + +"I was going to ask, how old is your father? Is he older than me?" + +"Why, of course he is! I'm thirty-six. How old are you? Tell the truth!" +At this exact moment a funny thing happened. The _passée_ elderly young +lady vanished--she who had been so often weighed, found wanting, and +been put back in the balance for reconsideration. She vanished, and a +desirable _alter ego_--Mr. Pellew's, as he hoped--was looking across at +him from the sofa by the window, swinging the tassel of the red blind +that kept the sun in check, and hushed it down to a fiery glow on the +sofa's occupant waiting to know how old he was. + +"I thought I had told you. Nearly forty-six." + +"Very well, then! My father is five-and-twenty years your senior." + +"If you had to say exactly _why_ you dislike your father's having +married again, do you think you could?" + +"Oh dear, no! I'm quite sure I couldn't. But I think it detestable for +all that." + +"I'm not sure that you're right. You may be, though! Are you sure it +hasn't something to do with the ... with the party he's married?" + +"Not at all sure." Dryly. + +"Can't understand objecting to a match on its own account. It's always +something to do with the outsider that comes in--the one one knows least +of." + +"You wouldn't like this one." It may seem inexplicable, that these words +should be the cause of the person addressed taking the nearest chair to +the speaker, having previously been a nomad with his thumbs in the +armholes of his waistcoat. Close analysis may connect the action with an +extension of the family-friendship wardrobe, which it may have +recognised--a neckcloth, perhaps--and may be able to explain why it +seemed doubtful form to the Hon. Percival to keep his thumbs in those +waistcoat-loops. To us, it is perfectly easy to understand--without any +analysis at all--why, at this juncture, Miss Dickenson said:--"I suppose +you know you may smoke a cigarette, if you like?" + +In those days you might have looked in tobacconist's shopwindows all day +and never seen a cigarette. It was a foreign fashion at which sound +smokers looked askance. Mossoos might smoke it, but good, solid John +Bull suspected it of being a kick-shaw not unconnected with Atheism. He +stuck to his pipe chiefly. Nevertheless, it was always open to skill to +fabricate its own cigarettes, and Mr. Pellew's aptitude in the art was +known to Miss Dickenson. The one he screwed up on receipt of this +licence was epoch-making. The interview had been one that was going to +last a quarter of an hour. This cigarette made its duration +indeterminate. Because a cigarette is not a cigar. The latter is like a +chapter in a book, the former like a paragraph. At the chapter's end +vacant space insists on a pause for thought, for approval or +condemnation of its contents. But every paragraph is as it were kindled +from the last sentence of its predecessor; as soon as each ends the next +is ready. The reader aloud is on all fours with the cigarette-smoker. He +doesn't always enjoy himself so much, but that is neither here nor +there. + +It was not during the first cigarette that Mr. Pellew said to Aunt +Constance:--"Where is it they have gone to-day, do you know?" That first +one heard, if it listened, all about the lady's home in Dorsetshire and +her obnoxious stepmother. It may have wondered, if it was an observant +cigarette, at the unreserve with which the narrator took its smoker into +the bosom of her confidence, and the lively interest her story provoked. +If it had--which is not likely, considering the extent of its +experience--a shrewd perception of the philosophy of reciprocity, +probably it wondered less. It heard to the end of the topic, and Mr. +Pellew asked the question above stated, as he screwed up its successor, +and exacted the death-duty of an ignition from it. + +"They ought to be coming back soon," was the answer. "I told them I +wouldn't have tea till they came. They're gone to see a _protégée_ of +Clotilda's, who lives down a Court. It's not very far off; under a mile, +I should think. We saw him in the street, coming from the +railway-station. He looked a nice boy. That is to say, he would have +looked nice, only he and his friends had all been blacking their faces +with burnt cork." + +"What a lark! Why didn't you go to the Court?... I'm jolly glad you +didn't, you know, but you might have...." This was just warm enough for +the position. With its slight extenuation of slang, it might rank as +mere emphasized civility. + +It was Miss Dickenson's turn to word something ambiguous to cover all +contingencies. "Yes, I should have been very sorry if you had come to +bring the book, and not found me here." This was clever, backed by a +smile. She went on:--"They thought two would be quite enough, +considering the size of the Court." + +A spirit of accommodation prevailed. Oh yes--Mr. Pellew quite saw that. +Very sensible! "It don't do," said he, "to make too much of a descent on +this sort of people. They never know what to make of it, and the thing +don't wash!" But he was only saying what came to hand; because he was +extremely glad Miss Dickenson had not gone with the expedition. How far +he perceived that his own visit underlay its arrangements, who can say? +His perception fell short of being ignorant that he was aware of it. +Suppose we leave it at that! + +Still, regrets--scarcely Jeremiads--that she had not been included would +be becoming, all things considered. They could not be misinterpreted. "I +was sorry not to go," she said. "His father was a prizefighter and seems +interesting, according to Clotilda. Her idea is to get Gwen enthusiastic +about people of this sort, or any of her charitable schemes, rather than +dragging her off to Switzerland or Italy. Besides, she won't go!" + +"That's a smasher! The idea, I suppose, is to get her away and let the +Torrens business die a natural death. Well--it won't!" + +"You think not?" + +"No thinking about it! Sure of it! I've known my cousin Gwen from a +child--so have you, for that matter!--and I know it's useless. If she +will, she will, you may depend on't; and if she won't she won't, and +there's an end on't. You'll see, she'll consent to go fiddling about for +three months or six months to Wiesbaden or Ems or anywhere, but she'll +end by fixing the day and ordering her trousseau, quite as a matter of +course! As for _his_ changing--pooh!" Mr. Pellew laughed aloud. Miss +Dickenson looked a very hesitating concurrence, which he felt would bear +refreshing. He continued:--"Why, just look at the case! A man loses his +eyesight and is half killed five minutes after seeing--for the first +time, mind you, for the first time!--my cousin Gwen Rivers, under +specially favourable circumstances. When he comes to himself he finds +out in double quick time that she loves him? _He_ change? Not he!" + +"Do tell me, Mr. Pellew.... I'm only asking, you know; not expressing +any opinion myself.... Do tell me, don't you think it possible that it +might be better for both of them--for Gwen certainly, if it ... if it +never...." + +"If it never came off? If you ask me, all I can say is, that I haven't +an opinion. It is so absolutely their affair and nobody else's. That's +my excuse for not having an opinion, and you see I jump at it." + +"Of course it is entirely their affair, and one knows. But one can't +help thinking. Just fancy Gwen the wife of a blind country Squire. It is +heartbreaking to think of--now isn't it?" + +But Mr. Pellew was not to be moved from his position. "It's their own +look out," said he. "Nobody else's!" He suddenly perceived that this +might be taken as censorious. "Not finding fault, you know! You're all +right. Naturally, you think of Gwen." + +"Whom ought I to think of? Oh, I see what you mean. It's true I don't +know Mr. Torrens--have hardly seen him!" + +"I saw him a fairish number of times--one time with another. He's a sort +of fillah ... a sort of fillah you can't exactly describe. Very unusual +sort of fillah!" Mr. Pellew held his cigarette a little way off to look +at it thoughtfully, as though it were the usual sort of fellow, and he +was considering how he could distinguish Mr. Torrens from it. + +"You mean he's unusually clever?" + +"Yes, he's that. But that's not exactly what I meant, either. He's +clever, of course. Only he doesn't give you a chance of knowing it, +because he turns everything to nonsense. What I wanted to say was, that +whatever he says, one fancies one would have said it oneself, if one had +had the time to think it out." + +Miss Dickenson didn't really identify this as a practicable shade of +character, but she pretended she did. In fact she said:--"Oh, I know +exactly what you mean. I've known people like that," merely to lubricate +the conversation. Then she asked: "Did you ever talk to the Earl about +him?" + +"Tim? Yes, a little. He doesn't disguise his liking for him, personally. +He's rather ... rather besotted about him, I should say." + +"_She_ isn't." How Mr. Pellew knew who was meant is not clear, but he +did. + +"Her mother, you mean," said he. "Do you know, I doubt if Philippa +dislikes him? I shouldn't put it that way. But I think she would be glad +for the thing to die a natural death for all that. Eyes apart, you +know." When people begin to make so very few words serve their purpose +it shows that their circumferences have intersected--no mere tangents +now. A portion of the area of each is common to both. Forgive geometry +this intrusion on the story, and accept the metaphor. + +"Yes, that's what it is," said Aunt Constance. And then in answer to a +glance that, so to speak, asked for a confirmation of a telegram:--"Oh +yes, I know we both mean the same thing. You were thinking of that old +story--the old love-affair. I quite understand." She might have added +"this time," because the last time she knew what Mr. Pellew meant she +was stretching a point, and he was subconscious of it. + +"That's the idea," said he. "I fancy Philippa's feelings must be rather +difficult to define. So must his papa's, I should think." + +"I can't fancy anything more embarrassing." + +"Of course Tim has a mighty easy time of it, by comparison." + +"Does he necessarily know anything about it?" + +"He must have heard of it. It wasn't a secret, though it wasn't +announced in the papers. These things get talked about. Besides, she +would tell him." + +"Tell him? Of course she would! She would tell him that that young +Torrens was a 'great admirer' of hers." + +"Yes--I suppose she _would_ make use of some expression of that sort. +Capital things, expressions!" + +Aunt Constance seemed to think this phrase called for some sort of +elucidation. "I always feel grateful," said she, "to that +Frenchman--Voltaire or Talleyrand or Rochefoucauld or somebody--who said +language was invented to conceal our thoughts. That was what you meant, +wasn't it?" + +"Precisely. I suppose Sir Torrens--this chap's papa--told the lady he +married ..." + +"She was a Miss Abercrombie, I believe." + +"Yes--I believe she was.... Told her he was a great admirer of her +ladyship once on a time--a boyish freak--that sort of thing! Pretends +all the gilt is off the gingerbread now. Wish I had been there when Sir +Hamilton turned up at the Towers, after the accident." + +"I _was_ there." + +"Well! And then?" + +"Nothing and then. They were--just like anybody else. When I saw them +was after his son had begun to pull round. Till then I fancy neither he +nor the sister ..." + +"Irene. ''Rene,' he calls her. Jolly sort of girl, and very handsome." + +"Neither Irene nor her father came downstairs much. It was after you +went away." + +"And what did they say?--him and Philippa, I mean." + +"Oh--say? What _did_ they say? Really I can't remember. Said what a long +time it was since they met. Because I don't believe they _had_ met--not +to shake hands--for five-and-twenty years!" + +"What a rum sort of experience! Do you know?... only of course one can't +say for certain about anything of this sort ..." + +"Do I know? Go on." + +"I was going to say that if I had been them, I should have burst out +laughing and said what a couple of young asses we were!" The Hon. +Percival was very colloquial, but syntax was not of the essence of the +contract, if any existed. + +Aunt Constance was not in the mood to pooh-pooh the _tendresses_ of a +youthful passion. She was, if you will have it so, sentimental. "Let me +think if I should," said she, with a momentary action of closing her +eyes, to keep inward thought free of the outer world. In a moment they +were open again, and she was saying:--"No, I should not have done +anything of the sort. One laughs at young people, I know, when they are +so very inflammatory. But what do we think of them when they are not?" +She became quite warm and excited about it, or perhaps--so thought Mr. +Pellew as he threw his last cigarette-end away through that open +window--the blaze of a sun that was forecasting its afterglow made her +seem so. Mr. Pellew having thrown away that cigarette-end +conscientiously, and made a pretence of seeing it safe into the front +area, was hardly bound to go back to his chair. He dropped on the sofa, +beside Miss Dickenson, with one hand over the back. He loomed over her, +but she did not shy or flinch. + +"What indeed!" said he seriously, answering her last words. "A young man +that does not fall in love seldom comes to any good." He was really +thinking to himself:--"Oh, the mistakes I should have been saved in +life, if only this had happened to me in my twenties!" He was not making +close calculation of what the lady's age would have been in those days. + +She was dwelling on the abstract question:--"You know, say what one may, +the whole of their lives is at stake. And we never think them young +geese when the thing comes off, and they become couples." + +"No. True enough. It's only when it goes off and they don't." + +"And what is so creepy about it is that we never know whether the couple +is the right couple." + +"Never know anything at all about anything beforehand!" Mr. Pellew was +really talking at random. Even the value of this trite remark was +spoiled. For he added:--"Nor afterwards, for that matter!" + +Miss Dickenson admitted that we could not lay too much stress on our own +limitations. But she was not in the humour for platitudes. Her mind was +running on a problem that might have worried Juliet Capulet had she +never wedded her Romeo and taken a dose of hellebore, but lived on to +find that County Paris had in him the makings of a lovable mate. Quite +possible, you know! It was striking her that if a trothplight were +nothing but a sort of civil contract--civil in the sense of courteous, +polite, urbane, accommodating--an exchange of letters through a callous +Post Office--a woman might be engaged a dozen times and meet the males +implicated in after-life, without turning a hair. But even a hand-clasp, +left to enjoy itself by its parents--not nipped in the bud--might poison +their palms and recrudesce a little in Society, long years after! While, +as for lips.... + +Something crossed her reflections, just on the crux of them--their most +critical point of all. "There!" said she. "Did you hear that? I knew we +should have thunder." + +But Mr. Pellew had heard nothing and was incredulous. He verified his +incredulity, going to the window to look out. "Blue sky all round!" said +he. "Must have been a cart!" He went back to his seat, and the +explanation passed muster. + +Miss Dickenson picked up her problem, with that last perplexity hanging +to it. No, it was no use!--- that equable deportment of Sir Hamilton and +Philippa remained a mystery to her. She, however--mere single Miss +Dickenson--could not of course guess how these two would see themselves, +looking back, with all the years between of a growing Gwen and Adrian; +to her, it was just the lapse of so much time, nothing more--a year or +so over the time she had known Philippa. For Romeo and Juliet were +metaphors out of date when she came on the scene, and Philippa was a +Countess. + +She was irritated by the inability she felt to comment freely on these +views of the position. It would have been easier--she saw this--to do so +had Mr. Pellew gone back to his chair, instead of sitting down again +beside her on the sofa. It was her own fault perhaps, because she could +not have sworn this time that she had not seemed to make room. That +unhappy sex--the female one--lives under orders to bristle with +incessant safeguards against misinterpretation. Heaven only knows--or +should we not rather say, Hell only knows?--what latitudes have claimed +"encouragement" as their excuse! That lady in Browning's poem never +should have looked at the gentleman so, had she meant he should not love +her. So _he_ said! But suppose she saw a fly on his nose--how then? + +Therefore it would never have done for Miss Dickenson to go into close +analysis of the problems suggested by the meeting of two undoubted +_fiancés_ of years long past, and the inexplicable self-command with +which they looked the present in the face. She had to be content with +saying:--"Of course we know nothing of the intentions of Providence. But +it's no use pretending that it would not feel very--queer." She had to +clothe this word with a special emphasis, and backed it with an implied +contortion due to teeth set on edge. She added:--"All I know is, I'm +very glad it wasn't _me_." After which she was clearly not responsible +if the topic continued. + +Mr. Pellew took the responsibility on himself of saying with deep-seated +intuition:--"I know precisely what you mean. You're perfectly right. +Perfectly!" + +"A hundred little things," said the lady. The dragging in of ninety-nine +of these, with the transparent object of slurring over the hundredth, +which each knew the other was thinking of, merely added to its +vividness. Aunt Constance might just as well have let it alone, and +suddenly talked of something else. For instance, of the Sun God's +abnormal radiance, now eloquent of what he meant to do for the +metropolis when he got a few degrees lower, and went in for setting, in +earnest. Or if she shrank from that, as not prosaic enough to dilute the +conversation down to mere chat-point, the Ethiopian Serenaders who had +just begun to be inexplicable in the Square below. But she left the +first to assert its claim to authorship of the flush of rose colour that +certainly made her tell to advantage, and the last to account for the +animation which helped it. For the enigmatic character of South Carolina +never interferes with a certain brisk exhilaration in its bones. She +repeated in a vague way:--"A hundred things!" and shut her lips on +particularisation. + +"I don't know exactly how many," said Mr. Pellew gravely. He sat drawing +one whisker through the hand whose elbow was on the sofa-back, with his +eyes very much on the flush and the animation. "I was thinking of one in +particular." + +"Perhaps _I_ was. I don't know." + +"I was thinking of the kissin'." + +"Well--so was I, perhaps. I don't see any use in mincing matters." She +had been the mincer-in-chief, however. + +"Don't do the slightest good! When it gets to kissin'-point, it's all +up. If I had been a lady, and broken a fillah off, I think I should have +been rather grateful to him for getting out of the gangway. Should have +made a point of getting out, myself." + +The subject had got comfortably landed, and could be philosophically +discussed. "I dare say everyone does not feel the point as strongly as I +do," said Miss Dickenson. "I know my sister Georgie--Mrs. Amphlett +Starfax--looks at it quite differently, and thinks me rather a ... prig. +Or perhaps _prig_ isn't exactly the word. I don't know how to put +it...." + +"Never mind. I know exactly what you mean." + +"You see, the circumstances are so different. Georgie had been engaged +six times before Octavius came on the scene. But, oh dear, how I _am_ +telling tales out of school!..." + +"Never mind Georgie and Octavius. They're not your sort. You were saying +how you felt about it, and that's more interesting. Interests me more!" +Conceive that at this point the lady glanced at the speaker ever so +slightly. Upon which he followed a slight pause with:--"Yes, why are you +a _prig_, as she thought fit to put it?" + +"Because I told her that if ever I found a young man who suited me--and +_vice versa_--and it got to ... to what you called just now +'kissing-point,' I should not be so ready as she had been to pull him +off like an old glove and throw him away. That was when I was very +young, you know. It was just after she jilted Ludwig, who afterwards +married my sister Lilian--Baroness Porchammer; my eldest sister...." + +"Oh, _she_ jilted Ludwig, and _he_ married your sister Lilian, was that +it?" Mr. Pellew, still stroking that right whisker thoughtfully, was +preoccupied by something that diverted interest from this family +history. + +Aunt Constance did not seem to notice his abstraction, but talked on. +"Yes--and what is so funny about Georgie with Julius is that they don't +seem to mind kissing now from a new standpoint. Georgie particularly. In +fact, I've seen her kiss him on both sides and call him an old stupid. +However, as you say, the cases are not alike. Perhaps if Philippa's old +love had married her sister--Lady Clancarrock of Garter, you +know--instead of Uncle Cosmo, as they call him, they could have got used +to it, by now. Only one must look at these things from one's own point +of view, and by the light of one's experience." A ring on her right hand +might have been one of the things, and the sun-ray through the +blind-slip the light of her experience, as she sat accommodating the +flash-light of the first to the gleam of the second. + +If everyone knew to a nicety his or her seeming at the precise point of +utterance of any speech, slight or weighty, nine-tenths of our wit or +profundity would remain unspoken. Man always credits woman with knowing +exactly what she looks like, and engineering speech and seeming towards +the one desired end of impressing him--important Him! He acquits himself +of studying the subject! Probably he and she are, as a matter of fact, +six of the one and half a dozen of the other. Of this one thing the +story feels certain, that had Miss Dickenson been conscious of her +neighbour's incorporation into a unit of magnetism--he being its +victim--of her mere outward show in the evening light with the +subject-matter of her discourse, this little lecture on the ethics of +kissing would never have seen the light. But let her finish it. Consider +that she gives a pause to the ring-gleam, then goes on, quite in +earnest. + +"It's very funny that it should be so, I know--but there it is! If I had +ever been engaged, or on the edge of it--I never have, really and +truly!--and the infatuated youth had ... had complicated matters to that +extent, I never should have been able to wipe it off. That's an +expression of a small niece of mine--three-and-a-quarter.... Oh +dear--but I never _said_ you might!..." + +For the gentleman's conduct had been extraordinary! unwarranted, +perhaps, according to some. According to others, he may only have +behaved as a many in his position would have behaved half an hour +sooner. "I am," said he, "the infatuated youth. Forgive me, Aunt +Constance!" For he had deliberately taken that lady in his arms and +kissed her. + +The foregoing is an attempt to follow through an interview the +development of events which led to its climax--a persistent and +tenacious attempt, more concerned with its purpose than with inquiring +into the interest this or that reader may feel who may chance to light +upon this narrative. No very close analysis of the sublatent impulses +and motives of its actors is professed or attempted; only a fringe of +guesswork at the best. But let a protest be recorded against the +inevitable vernacular judgment in disfavour of the lady. "Of +course--the minx! As if she didn't know what she was about the whole +time. As if she wasn't leading him on!" Because that is the attitude of +mind of the correct human person in such a case made and provided. That +is, if an inevitable automatic action can be called an attitude of mind. +Is rotation on its axis an attitude of a wheel's mind? To be sure, +though, a wheel may turn either of two ways. A ratchet-wheel is needed +for this metaphor. + +However, the correct human person may be expressing a universal opinion. +This is only the protest of the story, which thinks otherwise. But even +if it were so, was not Miss Dickenson well within her rights? The story +claims that, anyhow. At the same time, it records its belief that +four-fifths of the _dénouement_ was due to Helios. The magic golden +radiance intoxicated Mr. Pellew, and made him forget--or +remember--himself. The latter, the story thinks. That ring perhaps had +its finger in the pie--but this may be to inquire too curiously. + +One thing looks as though Miss Dickenson had not been working out a +well-laid scheme. Sudden success does not stop the heart with a jerk, or +cause speechlessness, even for a moment. Both had happened to her by the +time she had uttered her _pro forma_ remonstrance. Her breath lasted it +out. Then she found it easiest to remain passive. She was not certain it +would not be correct form to make a show of disengaging herself from the +arms that still held her. But--she didn't want to! + +This may have justified Mr. Pellew's next words:--"You do forgive me, +don't you?" more as assertion than inquiry. + +She got back breath enough to gasp out:--"Oh yes--only don't talk! Let +me think!" And then presently:--"Yes, I forgive you in any case. +Only--I'll tell you directly. Let's look out of the window. I want to +feel the air blow.... You startled me rather, that's all!" + +Said Mr. Pellew, at the window, as he reinstated an arm dispossessed +during the transit:--"I did it to ... to _clinch_ the matter, don't you +see? I thought I should make a mess of it if I went in for eloquence." + +"It was as good as any way. I wasn't the least angry. Only...." + +"Only what?" + +"Only by letting you go on like this"--half a laugh came in here--"I +don't consider that I stand committed to anything." + +"I consider that _I_ stand committed to everything." The arm may have +slightly emphasized this. + +"No--that's impossible. It _must_ be the same for both." + +"Dearest woman! Just as you like. But I know what I mean." Indeed, Mr. +Pellew did seem remarkably clear about it. Where, by-the-by, was that +_passée_ young lady, and that middle-aged haunter of Clubs? Had they +ever existed? + +Bones was audible from below, as they stood looking out at the west, +where some cirro-stratus clouds were waiting to see the sun down beyond +the horizon, and keep his memory golden for half an hour. Bones was +affecting ability to answer conundrums, asked by an unexplained person +with a banjo, who treated him with distinction, calling him "Mr. Bones." +Both were affecting an air of high courtesy, as of persons familiar with +the Thrones and Chancelleries of Europe. The particulars of these +conundrums were inaudible, from distance, but the scheme was clear. +Bones offered several solutions, of a fine quality of wit, but wrong. He +then produced a sharp click or snap, after his kind, and gave it up. His +friend or patron then gave the true solution, whose transcendent humour +was duly recognised by Europe, and moved Bones to an unearthly dance, +dryly but decisively accompanied on his instrument. A sudden outburst of +rhythmic banjo-thuds and song followed, about Old Joe, who kicked up +behind and before, and a yellow girl, who kicked up behind Old Joe. Then +the Company stopped abruptly and went home to possible soap and water. +Silence was left for the lady and gentleman at No. 102 to speak to one +another in undertones, and to wonder what o'clock it was. + +"They ought to be back by now," says she. "I wonder they are so late. +They are making quite a visitation of it." + +Says he:--"Gwen is fascinated with the old prizefighter. Just like her! +I don't care how long they stop; do you?" + +"I don't think it matters," says she, "to a quarter of an hour. The +sunset is going to be lovely." This is to depersonalise the position. A +feeble attempt, under the circumstances. + +It must have been past the end of that quarter of an hour, when--normal +relations having been resumed, of course--Miss Dickenson interrupted a +sub-vocal review of the growth of their acquaintance to say, "Come in!" +The tap that was told to come in was Maggie. Was she to be making the +tea? Was she to lay it? On the whole she might do both, as the delay of +the absentees longer was in the nature of things impossible. + +But, subject to the disposition of Mr. Pellew's elbows on the +window-sill, they might go on looking out at the sunset and feel +_réglés_. Short of endearments, Maggie didn't matter. + +The self-assertion of Helios was amazing. He made nothing of what one +had thought would prove a cloud-veil--tore it up, brushed it aside. He +made nothing, too, of the powers of eyesight of those whose gaze dwelt +on him over boldly. + +"It _is_ them," said Miss Dickenson, referring to a half-recognised +barouche that had turned the corner below. "But who on earth have they +got with them? I can't see for my eyes." + +"Only some friend they've picked up," said Mr. Pellew. But he rubbed his +own eyes, to get rid of the sun. Recovered sight made him exclaim:--"But +what are the people stopping for?... I say, something's up! Come along!" +For, over and above a mysterious impression of the unusual that could +hardly be set down to the bird's-eye view as its sole cause, it was +clear that every passer-by was stopping, to look at the carriage. +Moreover, there was confusion of voices--Gwen's dominant. Mr. Pellew did +not wait to distinguish speech. He only repeated:--"Come along!" and was +off downstairs as fast as he could go. Aunt Constance kept close behind +him. + +She was too bewildered to be quite sure, offhand, why Gwen looked so +more than dishevelled, as she met them at the stairfoot, earnest with +excitement. Not panic-struck at all--that was not her way--but at +highest tension of word and look, as she made the decision of her voice +heard:--"Oh, there you are, Mr. Pellew. Make yourself useful. Go out and +bring her in. Never mind who! Make haste. And Maggie's to fetch the +doctor." Mr. Pellew went promptly out, and Miss Dickenson was +beginning:--"Why--what?..." But she had to stand inquiry over. For +nothing was possible against Gwen's:--"Now, Aunt Connie dear, don't ask +questions. You shall be told the whole story, all in good time! Let's +get her upstairs and get the doctor." They both followed Mr. Pellew into +the street, where a perceptible crowd, sprung from nowhere, was already +offering services it was not qualified to give, in ignorance of the +nature of the emergency that had to be met, and in defiance of a +policeman. + +Mr. Pellew had taken his instructions so quickly from Miss Grahame, +still in the carriage, that he was already carrying the doctor's +patient, whoever and whatever she was, but carefully as directed, into +the house. At any rate it was not Miss Grahame herself, for that lady's +voice was saying, collectedly:--"I don't think it's any use Maggie +going, Gwen, because she doesn't know London. James must fetch him, in +the carriage. Dr. Dalrymple, 65, Weymouth Street, James! Tell him he +_must_ come, at once! Say _I_ said so." It was then that Aunt Constance +perceived in the clear light of the street, that not only was the +person Mr. Pellew was carrying into the house--whom she could only +identify otherwise as having snow-white hair--covered with dust and +soiled, but that Gwen and Miss Grahame were in a like plight, the latter +in addition being embarrassed by a rent skirt, which she was fain to +hold together as she crossed the doorstep. Once in the house she made +short work of it, finishing the rip, and acquiescing in the publicity of +a petticoat. It added to Aunt Constance's perplexity that the carriage +and James appeared in as trim order as when they left the door three +hours since. These hours had been eventful to her, and she was really +feeling as if the whole thing must be a strange dream. + +She got no explanation worth the name at the time of the incident. For +Gwen's scattered information after the old snow-white head was safe on +her own pillow--she insisted on this--and its owner had been guaranteed +by Dr. Dalrymple, was really good for very little. The old lady was +Cousin Clo's little boy's old Mrs. Picture, and she was the dearest old +thing. There had been an accident at the house while they were there, +and a man and a woman had been hurt, but no fatality. The man had not +been taken to the Hospital, as his family had opposed his going on the +ground of his invulnerability. The old prizefighter was uninjured, as +well as those two nice children. They might have been killed. But as to +the nature of the accident, it remained obscure, or perhaps the +ever-present consciousness of her own experience prevented Aunt +Constance getting a full grasp of its details. The communication, +moreover, was crossed by that lady's exclamation:--"Oh dear, the events +of this afternoon!" just at the point where the particulars of the +mishap were due, to make things intelligible. + +At which exclamation Gwen, suddenly alive to a restless conscious manner +of Aunt Constance's, pointed at her as one she could convict without +appeal, saying remorselessly:--"Mr. Pellew has proposed and you have +accepted him while we were away, Aunt Connie! Don't deny it. You're +engaged!" + +"My dear Gwen," said Miss Dickenson, "if what you suggest were true, I +should not dream for one moment of concealing it from you. But as for +any engagement between us, I assure you there is no such thing. Beyond +showing unequivocal signs of an attachment which...." + +Gwen clapped the beautiful hands, still soiled with the dirt of Sapps +Court, and shook its visible dust from her sleeve. Her laugh rang all +through the House. "_That's_ all right!" she cried. "He's shown +unequivocal signs of an attachment which. Well--what more do you want? +Oh, Aunt Connie, I'm _so_ glad!" + +All that followed had for Miss Dickenson the same dream-world character, +but of a dream in which she retained presence of mind. It was needed to +maintain the pretext of unruffled custom in her communications with her +male visitor; the claim to be, before all things, normal, on the part of +both, in the presence of at least one friend who certainly knew all +about it, and another who may have known. Because there was no trusting +Gwen. However, she got through it very well. + +Regrets were expressed that Sir Somebody Something had not got his +_Quarterly_ after all; but it would do another time. Hence consolation. +After Mr. Pellew had taken a farewell, which may easily have been a +tender one, as nobody saw it, she heard particulars of the accident, +which shall be told here also, in due course. + +Some embarrassment resulted from Gwen's headstrong action in bringing +the old lady away from the scene of this accident. She might have been +provided for otherwise, but Gwen's beauty and positiveness, and her +visible taking for granted that her every behest would be obeyed, had +swept all obstacles away. As for her Cousin Clotilda, she was secretly +chuckling all the while at the wayward young lady's reckless incurring +of responsibilities towards Sapps Court. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + THE LETTER GWEN WROTE TO MR. TORRENS, TO TELL OF IT. MATILDA, WHO + PLAYED SCALES, BUT NOT "THE HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH." THE OLD LADY'S + JEALOUSY OF GRANNY MARROWBONE, AND DAVE'S FIDELITY TO BOTH. HOW + BEHEMOTH HICCUPPED, AND DAVE WENT TO SEE WHAT WAS BROKEN. THE + EARTHQUAKE AT PISA. IT WAS OWING TO THE REPAIRS. HOW PETER JACKSON + APPEARED BY MAGIC. HOW MR. BARTLETT SHORED NO. 7 UP TEMPORY, AND + THE TENANTS HAD TO MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT WAS LEFT OF IT. UNCLE MO's + ENFORCED BACHELOR LIFE + + +If love-letters were not so full of their writers' mutual satisfaction +with their position, what a resource amatory correspondence would be to +history! + +In the letters to her lover with which Gwen at this time filled every +available minute, the amatory passages were kept in check by the hard +condition that they had to be read aloud to their blind recipient. So +much so that the account which she wrote to him of her visit to Sapps +Court will be very little the shorter for their complete omission. + +It begins with a suggestion of suppressed dithyrambics, the suppression +to be laid to the door of Irene. But with sympathy for her, too--for how +can she help it? It then gets to business. She is going to tell "the +thing"--spoken of thus for the first time--in her own way, and to take +her own time about it. It is not even to be read fast, but in a +leisurely way; and, above all, Irene is not to look on ahead to see what +is coming; or, at least, if she does she is not to tell. Quite enough +for the present that he should know that she, Gwen, has escaped without +a scratch, though dusty. She addresses her lover, most unfairly, as "Mr. +Impatience," in a portion of the letter that seems devised expressly to +excite its reader's curiosity to the utmost. The fact is that this young +beauty, with all her inherent stability and strength of character, was +apt to be run away with by impish proclivities, that any good, serious +schoolgirl would have been ashamed of. This letter offered her a rare +opportunity for indulging them. Let it tell its own tale, even though we +begin on the fifth page. + +"I must pause now to see what sort of a bed Lutwyche has managed to +arrange for me, and ring Maggie up if it isn't comfortable. Not but what +I am ready to rough it a little, rather than that the old lady should be +moved. She is the dearest old thing that ever was seen, with the +loveliest silver hair, and must have been surpassingly beautiful, I +should say. She keeps on reminding me of someone, and I can't tell who. +It may be Daphne Palliser's grandmother-in-law, or it may be old Madame +Edelweissenstein, who's a _chanoinesse_. But the nice old lady on the +farm I told you of keeps mixing herself up in it--and really all old +ladies are very much alike. By-the-by, I haven't explained her yet. +Don't be in such a hurry!... There now!--my bed's all right, and I +needn't fidget. Clo says so. The old lady is asleep with a stayed pulse, +says Dr. Dalrymple, who has just gone. And anything more beautiful than +that silver hair in the moonlight I never saw. Now I really must begin +at the beginning. + +"Clo and I started on our pilgrimage to Sapps Court at half-past three, +without the barest suspicion of anything pending, least of all what I'm +going to tell. Go on. We left Mr. Percival Pellew on the doorstep, +pretending he was going to leave a book for Aunt Constance, and go away. +Such fun! He went upstairs and stopped two hours, and I do believe +they've got to some sort of decorous trothplight. Only A. C. when +accused, only says he has shown unmistakable evidence of something or +other, I forget what. Why on earth need people be such fools? There they +both _are_, and what more _can_ they want? She admits, however, that +there is 'no engagement'! When anybody says _that_, it means they've +been kissing. You ask Irene if it doesn't. Any female, I mean. Now go +on. + +"A more secluded little corner of the world than Sapps Court I never +saw! Clo's barouche shot us out at the head of the street it turns out +of, and went to leave a letter at St. John's Wood and be back in half an +hour. We had no idea of a visitation, then. Besides, Clo had to be at +Down Street at half-past five. There is an arch you go in by, and we +nearly stuck and could go neither way. I was sorry to find the houses +looked so respectable, but Clo tells me she can take me to some much +better ones near Drury Lane. Dave, the boy, and his Uncle and Aunt, and +a little sister, Dolly, whom I nearly ate, live in the last house down +the Court. When we arrived Dolly was watering a sunflower, almost +religiously, in the front-garden eight feet deep. It would die vethy +thoon, she said, if neglected. She told us a long screed, about Heaven +knows what--I think it related to the sunflower, which a naughty boy had +chopped froo wiv a knife, and Dave had tighted on, successfully. + +"The old prizefighter is just like Dr. Johnson, and I thought he was +going to hug Clo, he was so delighted to see her, and so affectionate. +So was Aunt Maria, a good woman who has lost her looks, but who must +have had some, twenty years ago. I got Dolly on my knee, and _we_ did +the hugging, Dolly telling me secrets deliciously, and tickling. She is +four next birthday, a fact which Aunt Maria thought should have produced +a sort of what the _Maestro_ calls _precisione_. I preferred Dolly as +she was, and we exchanged locks of hair. + +"We had only been there a very short time when Uncle Moses suggested +that Dave should fetch a letter he was writing, from 'Old Mrs. +Prichard's Room' upstairs, and Dave--who is a dear little chap of six or +seven or eight--rushed upstairs to get it. I forgot how much I told you +about the family, but I know I said something in yesterday's letter. +Anyhow, 'old Mrs. Prichard' was not new to me, and I was very curious to +see her. So when more than five minutes had passed and no Dave +reappeared, I proposed that Dolly and I should go up to look for him, +and we went, Aunt Maria following in our wake, to cover contingencies. +She went back, after introducing me to the very sweet old lady in a +high-backed chair, who comes in as the explanation of the beginning of +this illegible scrawl. How funny children are! I do believe Uncle Moses +was right when he said that Dave, if anything, preferred his loves to be +'a bit elderly.' I am sure these babies see straight through wrinkles +and decay and toothless gums to the burning soul the old shell +imprisons, and love it. Do you recollect that picture in the Louvre we +both had seen, and thought the same about?--the old man with the sweet +face and the appalling excrescence on the nose, and the little boy's +unflinching love as he looks up at him. Oh, that nose!!! However, there +is nothing of that in old Mrs. Picture, as Dave called her, according to +her own spelling. _Her_ face is simply perfect.... There!--I went in to +look at it again by the moonlight, and I was quite right. And as for her +wonderful old white hair!... I could write for ever about her. + +"I think our incursion must have frightened the old soul, because she +had lived up there by herself, except for her woman-friend who is out +all day, and Aunt Maria and the children now and then, since she came to +the house; so that a perfect stranger rushing in lawlessly--well, can't +you fancy? However, she really stood it very well, considering. + +"'I have heard of you, ma'am, from Dave. He's told me all about your +rings. Where is the boy?... Haven't you, Dave--told me all about the +lady's rings?' + +"Dave came from some absorbing interest at the window, to say:--'It +wasn't her,' with a sweet, impressive candour. He went back immediately. +Something was going on outside. I explained, as I was sharp enough to +guess, that my mother was the lady with the rings. I got into +conversation with the old lady, and we soon became friends. She was very +curious about 'old Mrs. Marrable' in the country. Indeed, I believe +Uncle Mo was not far wrong when he said she was as jealous as any +schoolgirl. It is most amusing, the idea of these two octogenarians +falling out over this small bone of contention! + +"While we talked, Dave and Dolly looked out of the window, Dave +constantly supplying bulletins of the something that was going on +without. I could not make it out at first, and his interjections of 'Now +she's took it off'--'Now she's put it on again'--made me think he was +inspecting some lady who was 'trying on' in the opposite house. It +appeared, however, that the thing that was taken off and put on was not +a dress, but some sort of plaister or liniment applied to the face of a +boy, the miscreant who had made a raid on Dave's garden that morning, +and spoiled his sunflower (see _ante_). It was because Dave had become +so engrossed in this that he had not come downstairs again with his +letter. + +"The old lady, I am happy to say, was most amiable, and took to me +immensely. I couldn't undertake to say now exactly how we got on such +good terms so quickly. We agreed about the wickedness of that boy, +especially when Dave reported ingratitude on his part towards the +sister, who was tending him, whom he smacked and whose hair he pulled. +To think of his smacking that dear girl that played the piano so nicely +all day! And pulling her back-tails so she called out when she was +actually succouring his lacerated face. I gathered that her name may +have been Matilda, and that she wore plaits. + +"'I think her such a nice, dear girl,' said old Mrs. Picture--I like +that name for her--'because she plays the piano all day long, and I sit +here and listen, and think of old times.' I asked a question. 'Why, no, +my dear!--I can't say she knows any tunes. But she plays her scales all +day, very nicely, and makes me think of when my sister and I played +scales--oh, so many years ago! But we played tunes too. I sometimes +think I could teach her "The Harmonious Blacksmith," if only we was a +bit nearer.' I could see in her old face that she was back in the Past, +listening to a memory. How I wished I had a piano to play 'The +Harmonious Blacksmith' for her again! + +"I got her somehow to talk of herself and her antecedents, but rather +stingily. She married young and went abroad, but she seemed not to want +to talk about this. I could not press her. She had come back home--from +wherever she was--many years after her husband's death, with an only +son, the survivor of a family of four children. He was a man, not a boy; +at least, he married a year or so after. She 'could not say that he was +dead.' Otherwise, she knew of no living relative. Her means of +livelihood was an annuity 'bought by my poor son before....'--before +something she either forgot to tell, or fought shy of--the last, I +think. 'I'm very happy up here,' she said. 'Only I might not be, if I +was one of those that wanted gaiety. Mrs. Burr she lives with me, and it +costs her no rent, and she sees to me. And my children--I call 'em +mine--come for company, 'most every day. Don't you, Dave?' + +"Dave tore himself away from the pleasing spectacle of his enemy in +hospital, and came to confirm this. 'Yorce!' said he, with emphasis. 'Me +and Dolly!' He recited rapidly all the days of the week, an appointment +being imputed to each. But he weakened the force of his rhetoric by +adding:--'Only not some of 'em always!' Mrs. Picture then said:--'But +you love your old granny in the country better than you do me, don't +you, Davy dear?' Whereupon Dave shouted with all his voice:--'I +_doesn't_!' and flushed quite red, indignantly. + +"The old lady then said, most unfairly:--'Then which do you love best, +dear child? Because you must love _one_ best, you know!' I thought +Dave's answer ingenious:--'I loves whichever it _is_, best.' If only all +young men were as candid about their loves, wouldn't they say the same? + +"Dolly had picked up the recitation of the days of the week for her own +private use, and was repeating it _ad libitum_ in a melodious undertone, +always becoming louder on Flyday, Tackyday, Tunday. She was hanging over +the window-sill watching the surgical case opposite. How glad I am now +when I recollect my impulse to catch the little maid and keep her on my +knee! Dolly's good Angel prompted this, and had a hand in my inspiration +to tell the story of Cinderella, with occasional refrains of song which +I do believe old Mrs. Picture enjoyed as much as the two smalls. I +shudder as I think what it would have been if they had still been at the +window when it came--the thing I have been so long postponing. + +"It came without any warning that it would have been possible to act +upon. We might certainly have shouted to those below to stand clear, _if +we had ourselves understood_. But how _could_ we? You can have no idea +how bewildering it was. + +"When something you can't explain portends Heavens-know-what, what +on earth can you do? Pretend it's ghosts, and very curious and +interesting? I think I might have done so this time, when an alarming +noise set all our nerves on the jar. It was not a noise capable of +description--something like Behemoth hiccuping goes nearest. Only I +didn't want to frighten the babies, so I said nothing about the ghosts. +Dolly said it wasn't her--an obvious truth. Old Mrs. Picture said it +must have been her chair--an obvious fallacy. She then deserted her +theory and suggested that Dave should 'go down and see if anything was +broken,' which Dave immediately started to do, much excited. + +"I felt very uncomfortable and creepy, for it recalled the shock of +earthquake Papa and I were in at Pisa two years ago--it is a feeling one +never gets over, that _terremotitis_, as Papa called it. I believe I was +more alarmed than Dolly, and as for Dave, I am sure that so far he +thought the whole thing the best fun imaginable. Picture to yourself, as +he slams the door behind him and shouts his message to the world below, +that I remain seated facing the light, while Dolly on my knee listens +to a postscript of Cinderella. My eyes are fixed on the beauty of the +old side-face I see against the light. Get this image clear, and then I +will tell you what followed. + +"Even as I sat looking at the old lady, that noise came again, and +plaster came tumbling down from the ceiling, obscuring the window +behind. As I fixed my eyes upon it, falling, I saw beyond it what really +made me think at first that I was taking leave of my senses. The houses +opposite seemed to shoot straight up into the air, as though they were +reflections in a mirror which had fallen forward. An instant after, I +saw what had happened. It was the window that was moving, not the +houses. + +"It was so odd! I had time to see all this and change my mind, before +the great crash came to explain what had happened. For until the roar of +a cataract of disintegrated brickwork, followed by a cloud of choking +dust, showed that the wall of the room had fallen outwards, leaving the +world clear cut and visible under a glorious afternoon sky until that +dust-cloud came and veiled it, I could not have said what the thing was, +or why. There seemed to be time--good solid time!--between the sudden +day-blaze and the crash below, and I took advantage of it to wonder what +on earth was happening. + +"Then I knew it all in an instant, and saw in another instant that the +ceiling was sagging down; for aught I knew, under the weight of a +falling roof. + +"Old Mrs. Picture was not frightened at all. 'You get this little Dolly +safe, my dear,' said she to me. 'I can get myself as far as the landing. +But don't you fret about me. I'm near my time.' She seemed quite alive +to the fact that the house was falling, but at eighty, what did that +matter? She added quite quietly:--'It's owing to the repairs.' Dolly +suddenly began to weep, panic-struck. + +"I saw that Mrs. Picture could not rise from her chair, though she +tried. But what could I do? Any attempt of mine to pick her up and carry +her would only have led to delay. I saw it would be quicker to get help, +and ran for it, overtaking Dave on the stairs. + +"Below was chaos. The kitchen where I had left my cousin talking with +Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud +of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door, +which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an +avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt +Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand +clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with +marvellous alacrity for a man of his years, and no consideration at all +for glass or crockery. I felt sick, you may fancy, when it came home to +me that someone was crying aloud with pain, buried under that heap of +fallen brickwork. + +"But we could be of no use yet a while, so I told Clo and Aunt Maria to +come upstairs and help to get the old lady down. They did as they were +bid, being, in fact, terrified out of their wits, and quite unable to +make suggestions. A male voice came from within the room where I had +just left Mrs. Picture by herself. I took it quite as a matter of +course. + +"'You keep out on that landing, some of you, till I tell you to come in. +This here floor won't carry more than my weight.' This was what I heard +a man say, speaking from where the window had been, mysteriously. I was +aware that he had stepped from some ladder on to the floor of the room, +jumping on it recklessly as though to test its bearing power. Then that +he had gathered up my old new acquaintance in a bundle, carefully made +in a few seconds, and had said:--'Come along down!' to all whom it might +concern. He shepherded us, all three women and the two children, into a +back-bedroom below, and went away, leaving his bundle on the bed; +saying, after glancing round at the cornice:--'You'll be safe enough +here for a bit, just till we can see our way.' He had a peculiar hat or +cap, and I saw that he was a fireman. I did not know that firemen held +any intercourse with human creatures. It appears that they do +occasionally, under reserves. + +"Then it was that I became alarmed about my old lady. Her face had lost +what colour it had, and her finger-tips had become blue and lifeless. +But she spoke, faintly enough, although quite clearly, always urging us +to go to a safer place, and leave her to her luck. This was, of course, +nonsense. Nor was there any safer place to go to, so far as I understood +the position. Aunt Maria went down to find brandy, if possible, in the +heart of the confusion below. She found half a wineglassful somewhere, +and brought back with it a report of progress. They had to be cautious +in removing the rubbish, so that no worse should come to the sufferer it +had half buried. We kept it from the old lady that this was her +fellow-lodger, Mrs. Burr, and made her take some brandy, whether she +liked it or no. I then went down to see for myself, and Clo came too. + +"The police had taken prompt possession of the Court, and only a +limited force of volunteers were allowed to share in the removal of the +rubbish. Uncle Mo and the fireman, who seemed to be a personal friend, +were attacking the ruin from within, throwing the loose bricks back into +the kitchen, and working for the dear life. + +"As we came in they halted, in obedience to, 'Easy a minute, you inside +there. Gently does it,' from the spontaneous leading mind, whoever he +was, without. Uncle Mo, streaming with perspiration, and forgetful of +social niceties, turned to me saying:--'You go back, my dear, you go +back! 'Tain't for you to see. You go back!' I replied:--'Nonsense, Mr. +Wardle! What do you take me for?' For had I not stood beside _you_, my +darling, when you lay dead in the Park? + +"I could see what had taken place. The woman had been just about to +knock at the door when the wall fell from above. Nothing had struck her +direct, else she would almost surely have been killed. The ruin had +fallen far enough from the house to avoid this, but the recoil of its +disintegration (I'm so proud of that expression) had jammed her against +the wall and choked the door.... I'm so sleepy I can't write another +word." + + * * * * * + +No doubt the sequel described how Mrs. Burr, rescued alive, but +insensible, was borne away on a stretcher to the Hospital, and how the +party were released from the house, whose complete collapse must have +presented itself to their excited imaginations as more than a +possibility. No doubt also obscure points were made plain; as, for +instance, the one which is prominent in the short newspaper report, +which runs as follows:--"A singular fall of brickwork, the consequences +of which might easily have proved fatal, occurred on Thursday last at +Sapps Court, Marylebone, when the greater part of the front-wall of No. +7 fell forward into the street, blocking the main entrance and causing +for a time the greatest alarm to the inhabitants, who, however, were all +ultimately rescued uninjured. A remarkable circumstance was that the +cloud of dust raised by the shower of loose brickwork was taken for +smoke and was sufficient to cause an alarm of fire; as a matter of fact, +two engines had arrived before the circumstances were explained. The +mistake was not altogether unfortunate, as an escape ladder which was +passing at the time was of use in reaching the upper floors, whose +tenants were at one time in considerable danger. A sempstress, Mrs. +Susan Burr, living upstairs, was returning home at the moment of the +calamity, and was severely injured by the falling brickwork, but no +serious result is anticipated. A costermonger of the name of Rackstraw +also received some severe contusions, but if we may trust the report of +his son, an intelligent lad of thirteen, he is very little the worse by +his misadventure." + +Although "no serious result was anticipated" in Mrs. Burr's case--in the +newspaper sense of the words, which referred to the Coroner--the results +were serious enough to Mrs. Burr. She was disabled from work +indefinitely, and was too much damaged to hope to leave the Hospital, +for weeks at any rate. A relative was found, ready to take charge of her +when that time should arrive, but apparently not ready to disclose her +own name. For, so far as can be ascertained, she was never spoken of at +Sapps Court otherwise than as "Mrs. Burr's married niece." + +Mr. Bartlett was on the spot, within an hour, taking measures for the +immediate safety of the inmates, and his own ultimate pecuniary +advantage. He pointed out it was quite unnecessary for anyone to turn +out of the rooms below, although he admitted that the open air had got +through the top story. His immediate resources were quite equal to a +temporary arrangement practicable in a couple of hours or so. A +contrivance of inconceivable slightness, involving no drawbacks whatever +to families occupying the premises it was engendered in, was necessary +to hold the roof up tempory, for fear it should come with a run. It was +really a'most nothing in the manner of speaking. You just shoved a +len'th of quartering into each room, all down the house to the bottom, +with a short scaffold-board top and bottom to distribute out the weight, +and tapped 'em across with a 'ammer, and there you were! The top one +ketched the roof coming down, and you had no need to be apprehensive, +because it would take a tidy weight--double what Mr. Bartlett was going +to put upon it. + +This was a security against a complete collapse of the roof and upper +floor, but if it come on heavy rain, what would keep Aunt M'riar's room +dry? She and Dolly could not sleep in a puddle. Mr. Bartlett, however, +pledged himself to make all that good with a few yards of tarpauling, +and Aunt M'riar and Dolly went to bed, with sore misgivings as to +whether they would wake alive next day. Dolly woke in the night and +screamed with terror at what she conceived was a spectre from the grave, +but which was really nothing but a short length of scaffold-pole +standing upright at the foot of her bed. + +This was bad enough, but it further appeared next day that a new floor +would be _de rigueur_ overhead in Mrs. Prichard's room. Not only were +sundry timber balks shoved up against the house outside so they couldn't +constitoot a hindrance to anyone--so Mr. Bartlett said when he giv' in a +price for the job--but the street-door wouldn't above half shet to, and +all the windows had to be seen to. Add to this afflictions from +tarpaulings that would keep you bone-dry even if there come a +thunderstorm--or perhaps, properly speaking, that would have done so +only they were just a trifle wore at critical points--and smells of damp +plaster that quite took away the relish from your food, and you will +form some idea what remaining in the house during the repairs meant to +Uncle Mo and his belongings. + +Not that Dolly and Dave took their sufferings to heart much. The +novelties of the position went far to compensate them for its drawbacks. +One supreme grief there was for them, certainly. The avalanche of +brickwork had destroyed, utterly and irrevocably, that cherished +sunflower. They had clung to a lingering hope that, as soon as the +claims of humanity had been discharged by the rescue of the victims of +the catastrophe, the attention of the rescuers would be directed to +carefully removing the _débris_ from above their buried treasure. They +were shocked at the callous indifference shown to its fate. It was an +early revelation of the heartlessness of mankind. Nevertheless, the +shattered sunflower was recovered in the end, and Dolly took it to bed +with her, and cried herself to sleep over it. + + * * * * * + +So it seemed impossible for Dave and Dolly, and their uncle and aunt, +all to remain on in the half-wrecked house. But then--where had they to +go to? It was clear that Dolly and her aunt would have to turn out, and +the only resource seemed to be that they should go away for a while to +her grandmother's, an old lady at Ealing, who existed, but went no +further. She had never entered Sapps Court, but her daughters, Aunt +M'riar and Dolly's mother, had paid her dutiful visits. There was no +ill-feeling--none whatever! So to Ealing Aunt M'riar went, two or three +days later, and Dave went too, although he was convinced Uncle Mo +couldn't do without him. + +The old boy himself remained in residence, being fed by The Rising Sun; +which sounds like poetry, but relates to chops and sausages and a +half-a-pint, a monotonous dietary on which he subsisted until his family +returned a month later to a reinstated mansion. He lived a good deal at +The Sun during this period, relying on the society of his host and his +friend Jerry. His retrospective chats with the latter recorded his +impressions of the event which had deprived him of his household, and +left him a childless wanderer on the surface of Marylebone. + +"Red-nosed Tommy," said he, referring to Mr. Bartlett, "he wouldn't have +put in that bit of bressemer to ketch up those rotten joists over +M'riar's room if I hadn't told him. We should just have had the floor +come through and p'r'aps my little maid and M'riar squashed dead right +off. You see, they would have took it all atop, and no mistake. Pore +Susan got it bad enough, but it wasn't a dead squelch in her case. It +come sideways." Uncle Mo emptied his pipe on the table, and thoughtfully +made the ash do duty first for Mrs. Burr, and then for Aunt M'riar and +Dolly, by means of a side-push and a top-squash with his finger. He +looked at the last result sadly as he refilled his pipe--a +hypothetically bereaved man. Dolly might have been as flat as that! + +"How's Susan Burr getting on?" asked Mr. Alibone. + +"That's according to how much money you're inclined to put on the +doctors. Going by looks only--what M'riar says--she don't give the idea +of coming to time. Only then, there's Sister Nora--Miss Grahame they +call her now; very nice lady--she's on the doctor's side, and says Mrs. +Burr means to pull round. Hope so!" + +"How's Carrots--Carrots senior--young Radishes' dad?" + +"Oh--him? _He's_ all right. He ain't the sort to take to bein' doctored. +He's getting about again." + +"I thought a bit of wall came down on him." + +"Came down bodily, he says. But it don't foller that it did, because he +says so. Anyhow, he got a hard corner of his nut against it. _He_ ain't +delicate. He says he'll have it out of the landlord--action for +damages--wilful neglect--'sorlt and battery--that kind o' thing!" + +"Won't Mrs. Burr?" + +"Couldn't say--don't know if a woman counts. But it don't matter. Sister +Nora, she'll see to _her_. Goes to see her every day. She or the other +one. I say, Jerry!..." + +"What say, old Mo?" + +"You haven't seen the other one." + +"Oh, that's it, is it?" Mr. Jerry spoke perceptively, appreciatively. +For Uncle Mo, by partly closing one eye, and slightly varying the +expression of his lips, had contrived somehow to convey the idea that he +was speaking of dazzling beauty, not by any means unadorned. + +"I tell you this, Jerry, and you can believe me or not, as you like. If +I was a young feller, I'd hang about Hy' Park all day long only to get a +squint at her. My word!--there's nothing to come anigh her--ever I saw! +And there she was, a-kissing our little Dolly, like e'er a one of us!" + +"What do you make out her name to be?" said Mr. Jerry. + +"Sister Nora called her _Gwen_," replied Mo, speaking the name +mechanically but firmly. "But what the long for that may be, I couldn't +say. 'Tain't Gwenjamin, anyhow." He stopped to light his pipe. + +"It was this young ladyship that carried off old Prichard in a two-horse +carriage, I take it." + +Uncle Mo nodded. "Round to Sister Nora's--in Cavendish Square--with a +black Statute stood upright--behind palin's. M'riar she's been round to +see the old lady there, being told to. And seemin'ly this here young +Countess"--Uncle Mo seemed to object to using this word--"she's a-going +to carry the old lady off to the Towels, where she lives when she's at +home...." + +"The Towels? Are you sure it isn't _Towers_? Much more likely!" + +Uncle Mo made a mental note about Jerry, that he was tainted with John +Bull's love of a lord. How could anything but a reverent study of +Debrett have given such an insight into the names of Nobs' houses? "It +don't make any odds, that I can see!" was his comment. The correction, +however, resulted in an incumbrance to his speech, as he was only half +prepared to concede the point. He continued:--"She's a-going, as I +understand from M'riar, to pack off Mrs. Prichard to this here Towels, +or Towers, accordin' as we call it. And, as I make it out, she'll keep +her there till so be as Mr. Bartlett gets through the repairs. Or she'll +send her back to a lodgin'; or not, as may be. Either, or eye-ther." +Having thus, as it were, saturated his speech with freedom of +alternative, Uncle Mo dismissed the subject, in favour of Gwen's beauty. +"But--to look at her!" said he. The old man was quite in love. + +Mr. Jerry disturbed his contemplation of the image Gwen had left him. +"How long does Bartlett mean to be over the job?" he asked. + +"He means to complete in a month. If you trust his word. I can't say I +do." + +"When _will_ he complete, Mo? That's the question. What's the answer?" + +"The Lord alone knows." Uncle Mo shook his head solemnly. But he +recalled his words. "No--He don't! Even the Devil don't know. I tell you +this, Jerry--there never was a buildin' job finished at any time spoke +of aforehand. It's always _after_ any such a time. And if you jump on +for to catch it up, it's _afterer_." + +"Best to hold one's tongue about it, eh? Anyway, the old lady's got a +berth for a time. Rum story! She'd have been put to it if it hadn't been +for the turn things took. When's she to go?" + +"To these here Towels, or Towers, whichever you call 'em? M'riar didn't +spot that. When she's took back, I suppose. When the young lady goes." + +"What'll your young customer say to Mrs. Prichard being gone, when his +aunt brings him back?" + +Uncle Mo seemed to cogitate over this. He had not perhaps been fully +alive to the disappointment in store for Dave when he came back and +found no Mrs. Picture at Sapps Court. Poor little man! The old +prizefighter's tender heart was touched on his boy's behalf. But after +all there would be worse trials than this on the rough road of life for +Dave. "He'll have to lump it, I expect, Jerry," said he. "Besides, Mrs. +P., she'll come back as soon as the new plaster's dry. She's not going +to stop at the Towels--Towers--whatever they are!--for a thousand +years." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + HOW GWEN GOT AT MRS. PRICHARD's HISTORY, OR SOME OF IT. ONE CRIME + MORE OF HER SON'S. THE WALLS OF TROY, AND THOSE OF SAPPS COURT. + AUNT M'RIAR'S VISIT OF INSPECTION. HOW SHE CALLED ON MRS. + RAGSTROAR, WHO SENT HER SECRETIVE SON ROUND. HIS MESSAGE FROM MR. + WIX. WHO WAS COMING TO SEE HIS MOTHER, UNLESS SHE WAS SOMEBODY + ELSE. A MESSAGE TO MR. WIX, UNDERTAKEN BY MICHAEL. UNCLE MO's JOY + AT THE PROSPECT OF DAVE AND DOLLY + + +How very improbable the Actual would sometimes feel, were it not for our +knowledge of the events which led up to it! + +Nothing could have been more improbable _per se_ than that old Mrs. +Prichard, upstairs at No. 7, down Sapps Court, should become the guest +of the Earl and Countess of Ancester, at The Towers in Rocestershire. +But a number of improbable antecedent events combined to make it +possible, and once its possibility was established, it only needed one +more good substantial improbability to make it actual. Gwen's +individuality was more than enough to supply this. But just think what +a succession of coincidences and strange events had preceded the demand +for it! + +To our thinking the New Mud wanted for Dave's _barrage_ was responsible +for the whole of it. But for that New Mud, Dave would not have gone to +the Hospital. But for the Hospital, he would never have excited a tender +passion in the breast of Sister Nora; would never have visited Granny +Marrowbone; would never have been sought for by The Aristocracy at his +residence in Sapps Court. Some may say that at this point nothing else +would have occurred but for the collapse of Mr. Bartlett's brickwork, +and that therefore the rarity of sound bricks in that conglomerate was +the _vera causa_ of the events that followed. But why not equally the +imperfection of old Stephen's aim at Achilles? If he had killed +Achilles, it is ten to one Gwen would have gone abroad with her mother, +instead of being spirited away to Cavendish Square by her cousin in +order that she should thereby become entangled in slums. Or for that +matter, why not the death of the Macganister More? Had he been living +still, Cousin Clo would never have visited Ancester Towers at all. + +No--no! Depend upon it, it was the New Mud. But then, Predestination +would have been dreadfully put out of temper if, instead of imperious +impulsive Gwen, ruling the roast and the boiled, and the turbot with +_mayonnaise_, and everything else for that matter, some young woman who +could be pulverised by a reproof for Quixotism had been her understudy +for the part, and she herself had had mumps or bubonic plague at the +time of the accident. In that case Predestination would hardly have +known which way to turn, to get at some sort of compromise or +accommodation that would square matters. For there can be no reasonable +doubt that what did take place was quite in order, and that--broadly +speaking--everyone had signed his name over the pencil marks, and filled +in his witness's name and residence, in the Book of Fate. If Gwen's +understudy had been called on, there would have been--to borrow a +favourite expression of Uncle Mo's--a pretty how-do-you-do, on the part +of Predestination. + +Fortunately no such thing occurred, and Predestination's powers of +evasion were not put to the test. The Decrees of Fate were fulfilled as +usual, and History travelled on the line of least resistance, to the +great gratification of The Thoughtful Observer. In the case of lines of +compliance with the will of Gwen, there was no resistance at all. Is +there ever any, when a spoiled young beauty is ready to kiss the +Arbiters of Destiny as a bribe, rather than give way about a whim, +reasonable or unreasonable? + +And, after all, so many improbabilities having converged towards +creating the situation, there was nothing so very unreasonable in Gwen's +whim that old Mrs. Picture should go back with her to the Towers. It was +only the natural solution of a difficulty in a conjunction of +circumstances which could not have varied materially, unless Gwen and +her cousin had devolved the charge of the old lady on some +Institution--say the Workhouse Infirmary--or a neighbour, or had +forsaken her altogether. They preferred carrying her off, as the story +has seen, in a semi-insensible state from the shock, to their haven in +Cavendish Square. Next day an arrangement was made which restored to +Gwen--who had slept on a sofa, when she was not writing the letter +quoted in the foregoing text--the couch she had insisted on dedicating +to "Old Mrs. Picture," as she continued to call her. + + * * * * * + +It was very singular that Gwen, who had seen the old twin sister--as +_we_ know her to have been--should have fallen so in love with the one +whose acquaintance she last made. The story can only accept the fact +that it was so, without speculating on its possible connection with the +growth of a something that is not the body. It may appear--or may +not--to many, that, in old Maisie's life, a warp of supreme love, +shuttle-struck by a weft of supreme pain, had clothed her soul, as it +were, in a garment unlike her sister's; a garment some eyes might have +the gift of seeing, to which others might be blind. Old Granny Marrable +had had her share of trouble, no doubt; but Fate had shown her fair +play. Just simple everyday Death!--maternity troubles lived through in +shelter; nursing galore, certainly--who escapes it? Of purse troubles, +debts and sordid plagues, a certain measure no doubt, for who escapes +_them_? But to that life of hers the scorching fires that had worked so +hard to slay her sister's heart, and failed so signally, had never +penetrated. Indeed, the only really acute grief of her placid life had +been the supposed death of this very sister, now so near her, unknown. +Still, Gwen might, of course, have taken just as strongly to Granny +Marrable if some slight chance of their introduction had happened +otherwise. + +The old lady remained at Cavendish Square three weeks, living chiefly in +an extra little room, which had been roughly equipped for service, to +cover the contingency. As Miss Lutwyche seemed to fight shy of the task, +Maggie, the Scotch servant, took her in hand, grooming her carefully and +exhibiting her as a sort of sweet old curiosity picked up out of a +dustheap, and now become the possession of a Museum. Aunt Constance, who +kept an eye of culture on Maggie's dialect, reported that she had said +of the old lady, that she was a "douce auld luckie": and that she stood +in need of no "bonny-wawlies and whigmaleeries," which, Miss Grahame +said, meant that she had no need of artificial decoration. She was very +happy by herself, reading any easy book with big enough print. And +though she was probably not so long without the society of grown people +as she had often been at Sapps Court, she certainly missed Dave and +Dolly. But she seemed pleased and gratified on being told that Dave was +not gone, and was at present not going, anywhere near old Mrs. Marrable +in the country. + +The young lady broached her little scheme to her venerable friend, or +_protégée_, as soon as it became clear that a return to the desolation +to which Mr. Bartlett had converted Sapps Court might be a serious +detriment to her health. Mr. Bartlett himself admitted the facts, but +disputed the inferences to be drawn from them. Yes--there was, and there +would be, a trifle of myesture hanging round; nothing in itself, but +what you might call traces of ewaporation. You saw similar phenomena in +sinks, and at the back of cesterns. But you never come across anyone the +worse for 'em. He himself benefited by a hatmosphere, as parties called +it nowadays, such as warn't uncommon in basements of unoccupied +premises, and in morasses. But you were unable to account for other +people's constitutions not being identical in all respects with your +own. Providence was inscrutable, and you had to look at the symptoms. +These were the only guides vouchsafed to us. He would, however, wager +that as soon as the paperhanger was out of the house and the plaster +giv' a chance to 'arden, all the advantages of a bone-dry residence +would be enjoyed by an incoming tenant. + +Portions of this opinion leaked out during a visit of Aunt M'riar to +Mrs. Prichard, at Cavendish Square, she having come from Ealing by the +'bus to overhaul the position with Uncle Mo, and settle whether she and +Dave and Dolly could return next week with safety. They had decided in +the negative, and Mr. Bartlett had said it was open to them to soote +themselves. Uncle Mo's sleeping-room had, of course, been spared by the +accident, so he only suffered from a clammy and depressing flavour that +wouldn't hang about above a day or two. At least, Mr. Bartlett said so. + +Gwen treated the idea that Mrs. Prichard should so much as talk about +returning to her quarters, with absolute derision. + +"I'm going to keep you here and see you properly looked after, Mrs. +Picture, till I go to the Towers. And then I shall just take you with +me." For she had installed the name Picture as the old lady's working +designation with such decision that everyone else accepted it, though +one or two used it in inverted commas. "I always have my own way," she +added with a full, rich laugh that Lord William Bentinck might have +heard on his black pedestal in the Square below. + +Aunt M'riar departed, not to be too late for her 'bus, and Gwen stayed +for a chat. She often spent half an hour with the old lady, trying +sometimes to get at more of her past history, always feeling that she +was met by reticence, never liking to press roughly for information. + +The two thin old palms that had once been a beautiful young girl's +closed on the hand that was even now scarcely in its fullest glory of +life, as its owner's eyes looked down into the old eyes that had never +lost their sweetness. The old voice spoke first. "Why--oh why," it said, +"are you so kind to me? My dear!" + +"Is it strange that I should be kind to you?" said Gwen, speaking +somewhat to herself. Then louder, as though she had been betrayed into a +claim to benevolence, and was ashamed:--"The kindness comes to very +little, when all's said and done. Besides, you can ..." She paused a +moment, taking in the pause a seat beside the arm-chair, without loosing +the hand she held; then made her speech complete:--"Besides, you can pay +it all back, you know!" + +"I pay! How can I pay it back?" + +"You can. I'm quite in earnest. You can pay me back everything I can do +for you--everything and more--by telling me.... Now, you mustn't be put +out, you know, if I tell you what it is." Gwen was rather frightened at +her own temerity. + +"My dear--just fancy! Why should I want you not to know--anything I can +tell, if I can remember it to tell you? What is it?" + +"How you come to be living in Sapps Court. And why you are so poor. +Because you _are_ poor." + +"No, I have a pound a week still. I have been better off--yes! I have +been well off." + +"But how came you to live in Sapps Court?" + +"How came I?... Let me see!... I came there from Skillicks, at +Sevenoaks, where I was last. Six shillings was too much for me alone. It +is only seven-and-sixpence at Sapps for both of us. It was through poor +Susan Burr that I came there. To think of her in the Hospital!" + +"She's going on very nicely to-day. I went to see her with my cousin. Go +on. It was through her?..." + +"Through her I came to Sapps. She wanted to be in town for her work, and +found Sapps. She had no furniture, or just a bed. And I had been able to +keep mine. Then, you see, I wanted a helping hand now and again, and she +had her sight, and could make shift to keep order in the place. I had +every comfort, be sure!" This was spoken with roused emphasis, as though +to dissipate uneasiness about herself. + +"I saw you had some nice furniture," said Gwen. "I was on the look out +for your desk, where Dave's letters were written." + +"Yes, it's mahogany. I was frightened about it, for fear it should be +scratched. But Davy's Aunt Maria was saying Mr. Bartlett's men had been +very civil and careful, and all the furniture was safe in the bedroom at +the back, and the door locked." + +"But where did the furniture come from?" + +"From the house." + +"The house where you lived with your husband?" + +The old woman started. "Oh no! Oh no--no! All that was long--long ago." +She shrank from disinterring all but the most recent past. + +But it was the deeper stratum of oblivion that had to be reached, +without dynamite if possible. "I see," Gwen said. "Your own house after +his death?" + +Memory was restive, evidently--rather resented the inquiry. Still, a +false inference could not be left uncorrected. "Neither my husband's nor +mine," was the answer. "It was my son's house, after my husband's +death." Its tone meant plainly:--"I tell you this, for truth's sake. +But, please, no more questions!" + +Gwen's idea honestly was to drop the curtain, and her half-dozen words +were meant for the merest epilogue. When she said:--"And he is dead, +too?" she only wanted to round off the conversation. She was shocked +when the two delicate old hands hers lay between closed upon it almost +convulsively, and could hardly believe she heard rightly the articulate +sob, rather than speech, that came from the old lady's lips. + +"Oh, I hope so--I hope so!" + +"Dear Mrs. Picture, you _hope_ so?" For Gwen could not reconcile this +with the ideal she had formed of the speaker. At least, she could not be +happy now without an explanation. + +Then she saw that it would come, given time and a sympathetic listener. +"Yes, my dear, I hope so. For what is his life to him--my son--if he is +alive? The best I can think of for him, is that he is long dead." + +"Was he mad or bad?" + +"Both, I hope. Perhaps only mad. Then he would be neither bad nor good. +But he was lost for me, and we were well apart: before he was"--she +hesitated--"sent away...." + +"Sent away! Yes--where?" + +"I ought not to tell you this ... but will you promise me?..." + +"To tell no one? Yes--I promise." + +"I know you will keep your promise." The old lady kept on looking into +the beautiful eyes fixed on hers, still caressing the hand she held, and +said, after a few moments' silence:--"He was sent to penal servitude, +not under his own name. They said his name was ... some short name ... +at the trial. That was at Bristol." Then, after another pause, as though +she had read Gwen's thoughts in her scared, speechless face:--"It was +all right. He deserved his sentence." + +"Oh, I am so glad!" Gwen was quite relieved. "I was afraid he was +innocent. I thought he could not be guilty, because of you. But was he +really wicked--_bad_, I mean--as well as legally guilty?" + +"I like to hope that he was mad. The offence that sent him to Norfolk +Island was scarcely a wicked one. It was only burglary, and it was a +Bank." The old face looked forgiving over this, but set itself in lines +of fixed anger as she added:--"It was not like the thing that parted +us." + +"You wish not to tell me that?" + +"My dear, it is not a thing for you to hear." The gentleness of the +speaker averted the storm of indignation and contempt which similar +expressions of the correctitudes had more than once excited in this +rebellious young lady. + +But Gwen felt at liberty to laugh a little at them, or could not resist +the temptation to do so. "Oh dear!" she cried. "Am I a new-born baby, to +be kept packed in cotton-wool, and not allowed to hear this and hear +that? Do, dear Mrs. Picture--you don't mind my calling you by Dave's +name?--do tell me what it was that parted you and your son. _I_ shall +understand you. I'm not Mary that had a little lamb." + +"Well, my dear, when I was about your age, before I was married, I'm not +at all sure that _I_ should have understood. Perhaps that is really the +reason why I took the girl's part...." + +"Why you took the girl's part?" said Gwen, who had _not_ understood, so +far, and was puzzled at the expression. + +"Yes. I believed her story. They tried to throw the blame on her; he +did, himself. My dear, it was his cowardice and treachery that made me +hate him. You are shocked at that?" + +"No--at least, I mean, I don't believe you meant it." + +"I meant it at the time, my dear. And I counted him as dead, and tried +to forget him. But it is hard for a mother to forget her son." + +"I should have thought so." Gwen was not quite happy about old Mrs. +Picture's inner soul. How about a possible cruel corner in it? + +The old lady seemed to suspect this question's existence, unexpressed. +Apology in her voice hinted at need of forgiveness--pleaded against +condemnation. "But," she said, after a faltered word or two, short of +speech, "you do not know, my dear, how bad a man can be. How should +you?" + +Perhaps the tone of her voice threw a light on some obscurity accepted +ambiguities had left. For Gwen said, rather suddenly: "You need not tell +me any more. You have told me plenty and I understand it." And so she +did, for working purposes, though perhaps some latitudes in the sea of +this Ralph Daverill's iniquities were by her unexplored and +unexplorable. + +This particular atrocity of his has no interest for the story, beyond +the fact that it was the one that led to his separation from his mother, +and that it accounts for the very slight knowledge that she seems to +have had of the details of his conviction and deportation. It must have +happened between his desertion of his lawful wife, Dave's Aunt M'riar, +and his ill-advised attempt at burglary. Whether his offence against +"the girl" whose part his mother took was made the subject of a criminal +indictment is not certain, but if it was he must have escaped with a +slight punishment, to be able to give his attention to the strong room +of that Bank so soon after. Those who are inclined to think that his +mother was unforgiving towards her own son, to the extent of +vindictiveness, may find an excuse for her in a surmise which some facts +connected with the case made plausible, that he adduced some childish +levities on this girl's part as a warrant for his atrocious behaviour +towards her, and so escaped legal penalty. Those who know with what +alacrity male jurymen will accept evasions of this sort, will admit that +this is at least possible. + +This is conjecture, by the way, as Gwen asked to know no more of the +incident, seeming to shrink from further knowledge of it in fact. She +allowed it to pass out of the conversation, retaining the pleasant and +wholesome attempt to redistribute the Bank's property as at least fit +for discussion, and even pardonable--an act due to a mistaken economic +theory--redistribution of property by a free lance, not wearing the +uniform of a School of Political Thought. + +"But how long was his term of service?" she asked, coming back into the +fresher air of mere housebreaking. + +"I am afraid it was for fourteen years. But I have never known. I can +hardly believe it now, but I know it is true for all that, that he was +convicted and transported without the trial coming to my ears at the +time. I only knew that he had disappeared, and thought it was by his own +choice. And what means had I of finding him, if I had wanted to? _That_ +I never did." + +"Because of ... because of the girl?" + +"Because of the girl Emma.... Oh yes! I was his mother, but ..." She +stopped short. Her meaning was clear; some sons would cripple the +strongest mother's love. + +"Then you had to give up the house," said Gwen, to help her away from +the memory that stung her, vividly. + +"I gave it up and sold the furniture, all but one or two bits I kept by +me--Dave Wardle's desk, and the arm-chair. I went to a lodging at +Sidcup--a pretty place with honeysuckles round my window. I lived there +a many years, and had friends. Then the railway came, and they pulled +the cottage down--Mrs. Hutchinson's. And all the folk I knew were driven +away--went to America, many of them; all the Hutchinsons went. I +remember that time well. But oh dear--the many moves I had after that! I +cannot tell them all one from another...." + +"It tires you to talk. Never mind now. Tell me another time." + +"No--I'm not tired. I can talk. Where was I? Oh--the lodgings! I moved +many times--the last time to Sapps Court, not so very long ago. I made +friends with Mrs. Burr at Skillicks, as I told you." + +"And that is what made you so poor?" + +"Yes. I have only a few hundred pounds of my own, an annuity--it comes +to sixty pounds a year. I have learned how to make it quite enough for +me." Nevertheless, thought Gwen to herself, the good living in her +temporary home in Cavendish Square had begun to tell favourably. Enough +is seldom as good as a feast on sixty pounds a year. The old lady +seemed, however, to dismiss the subject, going on with something +antecedent to it:--"You see now, my dear, why I said 'I hope.' What +could the unhappy boy be to me, or I to him? But I shall never know +where he died, nor when." + +Gwen tried to get at more about her past; but, at some point antecedent +to this parting from her son, she seemed to become more reserved, or +possibly she had overtasked her strength by so much talk. Gwen noticed +that, in all she had told her, she had not mentioned a single name of a +person. Some slight reference to Australia, which she had hoped would +lead naturally to more disclosure, seemed rather, on second thoughts, to +furnish a landmark or limit, with the inscription: "Thus far and no +farther." You--whoever you are, reading this--may wonder why Gwen, who +had so lately heard of Australia, and Mrs. Marrable's sister who went +there over half-a-century ago, did not forthwith put two and two +together, and speculate towards discovery of the truth. It may be +strange to you to be told that she _was_ reminded of old Mrs. Marrable's +utterance of the word "Australia" when old Mrs. Prichard spoke it, and +simply let the recollection drop idly, _because_ it was so unlikely the +two two's would add up. To be sure, she had quite forgotten, at the +moment, _what_ the old Granny at Chorlton had said about the Antipodes. +It is only in books that people remember all through, quite to the end. + +Bear this in mind, that this sisterhood of Maisie and Phoebe was +entrenched in its own improbability, and that one antecedent belief of +another mind at least would have been needed to establish it. A hint, a +suggestion, might have capitalised a dozen claims to having said so all +along. But all was primeval silence. There was not a murmur in Space to +connect the two. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Bartlett, the builder, after inspecting the collapse of the wall, +lost no time in drawing up a contract to reinstate same and make good +roof, replacing all defective work with new where necessary; only in his +haste to come to his impressive climax--"the work to be done to the +satisfaction of yourself or your Surveyor for the sum of £99.8.4 +(ninety-nine pounds eight shillings and fourpence),"--he spelt this last +word _nesseracy_. He called on the landlord, the gentleman of +independent means at Brixton, with this document in his pocket and a +strong conviction of his own honesty in his face, and pointed out that +what he said all along had come to pass. As his position had been that +unless the house was rebuilt--by him--at great expense, it was pretty +sure to come tumbling down, as these here old houses mostly did, it was +difficult for the gentleman of independent means to gainsay him, +especially as the latter's wife became a convert to Mr. Bartlett on the +spot. It was his responsible and practical manner that did it. She +directed her husband--a feeble sample of the manhood of Brixton--not to +set up his judgment against that of professional experience, but to +affix his signature forthwith to the document made and provided. He +said weakly:--"I suppose I must." The lady said:--"Oh dear, no!--he must +do as he liked." He naturally surrendered at discretion, and an almost +holy expression of contentment stole over Mr. Bartlett's countenance, +superseding his complexion, which otherwise was apt to remain on the +memory after its outlines were forgotten. + +To return once more to the drying of the premises after their +reconstruction. The accepted view seemed to be that as soon as Mr. +Bartlett and his abettors cleared out and died away, the walls would +begin to dry, and would make up for lost time. Everyone seemed inclined +to palliate this backwardness in the walls, and to feel that they, +themselves, had they been in a like position, could not have done much +drying--with all them workmen in and out all day; just think! + +But now a new era had dawned, and what with letting the air through, and +setting alight to a bit of fire now and again, and the season keeping +mild and favourable, with only light frosts in the early morning--only +what could you expect just on to Christmas?--there seemed grounds for +the confidence that these walls would do themselves credit, and yield up +their chemically uncombined water by evaporation. HO2, who existed in +those days, was welcome to stay where he was. + +However, these walls refused to come to the scratch on any terms. Homer +is silent as to how long the walls of Ilium took to dry; they must have +been wet if they were built by Neptune. But one may be excused for +doubting if they took as long as wet new plaster does, in premises +parties are waiting to come into, and getting impatient, in London. +Ascribe this laxity of style to the historian's fidelity to his sources +of information. + +Not that it would be a fair comparison, in any case. For the walls of +Troy were peculiar, having become a meadow with almost indecent haste +during the boyhood of Ascanius, who was born before Achilles lost his +temper; and before the decease of Anchises, who was old enough to be +unable to walk at the sacking of the city. But no doubt you will say +that that is all Virgil, and Virgil doesn't count. + +The point we have to do with is that the walls at No. 7 did _not_ dry. +And you must bear in mind that it was not only Mrs. Prichard's apartment +that was replastered, but that there was a lot done to the ceiling of +Aunt M'riar's room as well, and a bit of the cornice tore away where the +wall gave; so that the surveyor he ordered, when he come to see it, all +the brickwork to come down as far as flush with the window, which had to +be allowed extra for on the contract. Hence the decision--and even that +was coming on to November--that the children should stop with their +granny at Ealing while their aunt come up to get things a little in +order, and the place well aired. + +Aunt M'riar's return for this purpose drags the story on two or three +weeks, but may just as well be told now as later. + +When she made this second journey up to London, she found Mr. Bartlett's +ministrations practically ended, his only representatives being a man, a +boy, and a composite smell, whereof one of the components was the smell +of the man. Another, at the moment of her arrival, putty, was going +shortly to be a smell of vivid green paint, so soon as ever he had got +these two or three panes made good. For he was then going to put a +finishing coat on all woodwork previously painted, and leave his pots in +the way till he thought fit to send for them, which is a house-painter's +prerogative. He seemed to be able to absorb lead into his system without +consequences. + +"There's been a young sarsebox making inquiry arter you, missis," said +this artist, striving with a lump of putty that no incorporation could +ever persuade to become equal to new. He was making it last out, not to +get another half-a-pound just yet a while. "Couldn't say his name, but I +rather fancy he belongs in at the end house." + +Aunt M'riar identified the description, and went up to her room +wondering why that young Micky had been asking for her. Uncle Moses was +away, presumably at The Sun. She busied herself in endeavours to +reinstate her sleeping-quarters. Disheartening work!--we all know it, +this circumventing of Chaos. Aunt M'riar worked away at it, scrubbed the +floor and made the bed, taking the dryness of the sheets for granted +because it was only her and not Dolly to-night, and she could give them +a good airing in the kitchen to-morrow. The painter-and-glazier, +without, painted and glazed; maintaining a morose silence except when he +imposed its observance also on a boy who was learning the trade from him +very gradually, and suffering from _ennui_ very acutely. He said to this +boy at intervals:--"You stow that drumming, young Ebenezer, and 'and me +up the turps"--or some other desideratum. Which suspended the drumming +in favour of active service, after which it was furtively resumed. + +Uncle Mo evidently meant to be back late. The fact was, his home had no +attraction for him in the absence of his family, and the comfort of The +Sun parlour was seductive. Aunt M'riar's visit was unexpected, as she +had not written in advance. So when the painter-and-glazier began to +prepare to leave his tins and pots and brushes and graining-tools behind +him till he could make it convenient to call round and fetch them, Aunt +M'riar felt threatened by loneliness. And when he finally took his +leave, with an assurance that by to-morrow morning any person so +disposed might rub his Sunday coat up against _his_ day's work, and +never be a penny the worse, Aunt M'riar felt so forsaken that she just +stepped up the Court to hear what she might of its news from Mrs. +Ragstroar, who was momentarily expecting the return of her son and +husband to domestic dulness, after a commercial career out Islington +way. They had only got to stable up their moke, whose home was in a +backyard about a half a mile off, and then they would seek their +Penates, who were no doubt helping to stew something that smelt much +nicer than all that filthy paint and putty. + +"That I could not say, ma'am," said Mrs. Ragstroar, in answer to an +inquiry about the object of Micky's visit. "Not if you was to offer five +pounds. That boy is Secrecy Itself! What he do know, and what he do not +know, is 'id in his 'art; and what is more, he don't commoonicate it to +neither me nor his father. Only his great-aunt! But I can send him +round, as easy as not." + +Accordingly, about half an hour later, when Aunt M'riar was beginning to +wonder at the non-appearance of Uncle Mo, Master Micky knocked at her +door, and was admitted. + +"'Cos I've got a message for you, missis," said he. He accepted the +obvious need of his visit for explanation, without incorporating it in +words. "It come from that party--party with a side-twist in the +mug--party as come this way of a Sunday morning, askin' for old Mother +Prichard--party I see in Hy' Park along of young Dave...." + +Aunt M'riar was taken aback. "How ever come you to see more of _him_?" +said she. For really this was, for the moment, a greater puzzle to her +than why, being seen, he should send _her_ a message. + +Micky let the message stand over, to account for it. "'Cos I did see +him, and I ain't a liar. I see him next door to my great-aunt, as ever +is. Keep along the 'Ammersmith Road past the Plough and Harrow, and so +soon as ever you strike the Amp'shrog, you bear away to the left, and +anybody'll tell you The Pidgings, as soon as look at you. Small 'ouse, +by the river. Kep' by Miss Horkings, now her father's kicked. Female +party." This was due to a vague habit of the speaker's mind, which +divided the opposite sex into two genders, feminine and neuter; the +latter including all those samples, unfortunate enough--or fortunate +enough, according as one looks at it--to present no attractions to +masculine impulses. Micky would never have described his great-aunt as a +female party. She was, though worthy, neuter beyond a doubt. + +Aunt M'riar accepted Miss Hawkins, without further analysis. "_She_ +don't know me, anyways," said she. "Nor yet your Hyde Park man, as far +as I see. How come he to know my name? Didn't he never tell you?" She +was incredulous about that message. + +"He don't know nobody's name, as I knows on. Wot he said to me was a +message to the person of the house at the end o' the Court. Same like +you, missis!" + +"And what was the message?" + +"I'll tell you that, missis, straight away and no lies." Micky gathered +himself up, and concentrated on a flawless delivery of the message:--"He +said he was a-coming to see his mother; that's what _he_ said--his +_mother_, the old lady upstairs. Providin' she wasn't nobody else! He +didn't say no names. On'y he said if she didn't come from Skillick's she +_was_ somebody else." + +"Mrs. Prichard, she came from Skillick's, I know. Because she said so. +That's over three years ago." Aunt M'riar was of a transparent, truthful +nature. If she had been more politic, she would have kept this back. +"Didn't he say nothing else?" she asked. + +"Yes, he did, and this here is what it was:--'Tell the person of the +house,' he says, 'to mention my name,' he says. 'Name o' Darvill,' he +says. So I was a-lyin', missis, you see, by a sort o' chance like, when +I said he said no names. 'Cos he _did_. He said his own. Not but what he +goes by the name of Wix." + +"What does he want of old Mrs. Prichard now?" + +"A screw. Sov'rings, if he can get 'em. Otherwise bobs, if he can't do +no better." + +"Mrs. Prichard has no money." + +"He says she has and he giv' it her. And he's going to have it out of +her, he says." + +"Did he say that to you?" + +"Not he! But he said it to Miss Horkings. Under his nose, like." No +doubt this expression, Michael's own, was a derivative of "under the +rose." It owed something to _sotto voce_, and something to the way the +finger is sometimes laid on the nose to denote acumen. + +"Look you here, Micky! You're a good boy, ain't you?" + +"Middlin'. Accordin'." An uncertain sound. It conveyed a doubt of the +desirability of goodness. + +"You don't bear no ill-will neither to me, nor yet to old Mrs. +Prichard?" + +"Bones alive, no!" This also may have been coined at home. "That was the +idear, don't you twig, missis? I never did 'old with windictiveness, +among friends." + +"Then you do like I tell you. When are you going next to your aunt at +Hammersmith?" + +Micky considered a minute, as if the number of his booked engagements +made thought necessary, and then said decisively: "To-morrow mornin', to +oblige." + +"Very well, then! You go and find out this gentleman...." + +"He ain't a gentleman. He's a varmint." + +"You find him out, and say old Mrs. Prichard she's gone in the country, +and you can't say where. No more you can't, and I ain't going to tell +you. So just you say that!" + +"I'm your man, missis. On'y I shan't see him, like as not. He don't stop +in one place. The orficers are after him--the police." + +Then Aunt M'riar showed her weak and womanish character. Let her excuse +be the memory of those six rapturous weeks, twenty-five years ago, when +she was a bride, and all her life was rosy till she found herself +deserted--left to deal as she best might with Time and her loneliness. +You see, this man actually _was_ her husband. Micky could not understand +why her voice should change as she said:--"The police are after +him--yes! But you be a good boy, and leave the catching of him to them. +'Tain't any concern of yours. Don't you say nothing to them, and they +won't say nothing to you!" + +The boy paused a moment, as though in doubt; then said with +insight:--"I'll send 'em the wrong way." He thought explanation due, +adding:--"I'm fly to the game, missis." Aunt M'riar had wished not to be +transparent, but she was not good at this sort of thing. True, she had +kept her counsel all those years, and no one had seen through her, but +that was mere opacity in silence. + +She left Micky's apprehension to fructify, and told him to go back and +get his supper. As he opened the door to go Uncle Mo appeared, coming +along the Court. The sight of him was welcome to Aunt M'riar, who was +feeling very lonesome. And as for the old boy himself, he was quite +exhilarated. "Now we shall have those two young pagins back!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + WHY NOT KEEP COMPANY WHEN YOU HAVE A CHANCE? GUIZOT AND + MONTALEMBERT. MRS. BEMBRIDGE CORLETT's EYEGLASSES. KINKAJOUS. THE + PYTHON'S ATTITUDE. AN OSTRICH'S CARESS. HOW SIR COUPLAND MERRIDEW + CALLED ON LADY GWENDOLEN WITH A LETTER. ROYALTY. NECROSIS. + ILLEGIBILITY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN CALLED AGAIN IN SAPPS + COURT, AND KNOCKED IN VAIN. HOW OLD MRS. PRICHARD WAS SPIRITED AWAY + TO ROCESTERSHIRE, AND THOUGHT SHE WAS DREAMING + + +Mr. Percival Pellew and Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson had passed, under +the refining influence of Love, into a new phase, that of not being +formally engaged. It was to be distinctly understood that there was to +be nothing precipitate. This condition has its advantages; very +particularly that it postpones, or averts, family introductions. Yet it +cannot be enjoyed to the full without downright immorality, and it +always does seem to us a pity that people should be forced into Evil +Courses, in order to shun the terrors of Respectability. Why should not +some compromise be possible? The life some couples above suspicion +contrive to lead, each in the other's pocket as soon as the eyes of +Europe wander elsewhere, certainly seems to suggest a basis of +negotiation. + +No doubt you know that little poem of Browning about the lady and +gentleman who watched the Seine, and saw Guizot receive Montalembert, +who rhymed to "flare"? Of course, the case was hardly on all fours with +that of our two irreproachables, but we suspect a point in common. We +feel sure that those lawless loiterers in a dissolute capital were +joyous at heart at having escaped the fangs of the brothers of the one, +and the sisters of the other, respectively, although at the cost of +having the World's bad names applied to both. In this case there were no +brothers on the lady's part, and only one sister on the gentleman's. But +Aunt Constance was not sorry for a breathing-pause before being +subjected to an inspection through glasses by the Hon. Mrs. Bembridge +Corlett, which was the name of the unique sister-sample, and herself +subjecting Mr. Pellew to a similar overhauling by her own numerous +relatives. She had misgivings about the _accolade_ he might receive from +Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, and also about the soul-communion which her +sister Lilian, who had a sensitive nature, demanded as the price of +recognition in public a second time of all persons introduced to her +notice. + +Mr. Pellew's description of the Hon. Mrs. Corlett had impressed her with +the necessity of being ready to stand at bay when the presentation came +off. + +"Dishy will look at you along the top of her nose, with her chin in the +air," said he. "But you mustn't be alarmed at that. She only does it +because her glasses--we're all short-sighted--slip off her nose at +ordinary levels. And when you come to think of it, how can she hold them +on with her fingers when she looks at you. Like taking interest in a +specimen!" + +"I am a little alarmed at your sister Boadicea, Percy, for all that," +said Miss Dickenson, and changed the conversation. This was only a day +or two after the Sapps Court accident, and the phase of not being +formally engaged had begun lasting as long as possible, being found +satisfactory. So old Mrs. Prichard was a natural topic to change to. +"Isn't it funny, this whim of Gwen's, about the old lady you carried +upstairs?" + +"What whim of Gwen's?" + +"Oh, don't you know. Of course you don't! Gwen's fallen in love with +her, and means to take her to the Towers with her when she goes back." + +"Very nice for the old girl. What's she doing that for?" + +"It's an idea of hers. However, there is some reason in it. The old +lady's apartments must be dry before she goes back to them, and that may +be weeks." + +"Why can't she stop where she is?" + +"All by herself? At least, only the cook! When Miss Grahame goes to +Devonshire, Maggie goes with her, to lady's-maid her." + +"I thought we were going to be pastoral, and only spend three hundred a +year on housekeeping." + +"So we are--how absurdly you do put things, Percy!--when we make a fair +start. But just till we begin in earnest, there's no need for such +strictness. Anyhow, if Maggie doesn't go to Devonshire, she'll go back +to her parents at Invercandlish. So the old lady can't stop. And Gwen +will go back to the Towers, of course. I don't the least believe they'll +hold out six months, those two.... What little ducks Kinkajous are! Give +me a biscuit.... No--one of the soft ones!" + +For, you see, they were at the Zoölogical Gardens. They had felt that +these Gardens, besides being near at hand, were the kind of Gardens in +which the eyes of Europe would find plenty to occupy them, without +staring impertinently at a lady and gentleman who were not formally +engaged. Who would care to study them and _their_ ways when he could see +a Thibetan Bear bite the nails of his hind-foot, or observe the habits +of Apes, or sympathize with a Tiger about his lunch? Our two visitors to +the Gardens had spent an hour on these and similar attractions, noting +occasionally the flavour that accompanies them, and had felt after a +visit to the Pythons, that they could rest a while out of doors and +think about the Wonders of Creation, and the drawbacks they appear to +suffer from. But a friendly interest in a Python had lived and +recrudesced as the Kinkajou endeavoured to get at some soft biscuit, in +spite of a cruel wire screen no one bigger than a rat could get his +little claw through. + +"I don't believe that fillah _was_ moving. He was breathing. But he +wasn't moving. I know that chap perfectly well. He never moves when +anyone is looking at him, out of spite. He hears visitors hope he'll +move, and keeps quite still to disappoint them." It was Mr. Pellew who +said this. Miss Dickenson shook her head incredulously. + +"He _was_ moving, you foolish man. You should use your eyes. That long +straight middle piece of him on the shelf moved; in a very dignified +way, considering. The move moved along him, and went slowly all the way +to his tail. When I took my eyes off I thought the place was moving, +which is a proof I'm right.... Oh, you little darling, you've dropped +it! I'm so sorry. I must have another, because this has been in the mud, +and you won't like it." This was, of course, to the Kinkajou. + +Mr. Pellew supplied a biscuit, but improved the occasion:--"Now if this +little character could only keep his paws off the Public, he wouldn't +want a wire netting. Couldn't you give him a hint?" + +"I could, but he wouldn't take it. He's a little darling, but he's +pig-headed...." A pause, and then a quick explanatory side-note:--"Do +you know, I think that's Sir Coupland Merridew coming along that path. I +hope he isn't coming this way.... I'm afraid he is, though. You know who +I mean? He was at the Towers...." + +"I know. Yes, it's him. He's coming this way. If he sees it's us, he'll +go off down the side-path. But he won't see--he's too short-sighted. +Can't be helped!" + +"Oh dear--what a plague people are! Let's be absorbed in the Kinkajou. +He'll pass us." + +But the great surgeon did nothing of the sort. On the contrary he +said:--"I saw it was you, Miss Dickenson." Then he reflected about her +companion, and said he was Mr. Pellew, he thought, and further:--"Met +you at Ancester in July." It was a great relief that he did _not_ +say:--"You are a lady and gentleman, and can perhaps explain yourselves. +_I_ can't!" He appeared to decide on silence about _them_, as +irrelevant, and went on to something more to the purpose--"Perhaps you +know if the family are in town--any of them?" Miss Dickenson testified +to the whereabouts of Lady Gwendolen Rivers, and Sir Coupland wrote it +in a notebook. There seemed at this point to be an opportunity to say +how delightful the Gardens were this time of the year, so Miss Dickenson +seized it. + +"I didn't come to enjoy the gardens," said the F.R.C.S. "I wish I had +time. I came to see to a broken scapula. Keeper in the Ostrich +House--bird pecked him from behind. Did it from love, apparently. Said +to be much attached to keeper. Two-hundred-and-two, Cavendish Square, is +right, isn't it?" + +"Two-hundred-and-two; corner house.... Must you go on? Sorry!--you could +have told us such interesting things." The effect of this one word "us," +indiscreetly used, was that Sir Coupland, walking away to his carriage +outside the turnstiles, wondered whether it would come off, and if it +did, would there be a family? Which shows how very careful you have to +be, when you are a lady and gentleman. + +The former, in this case, remained unconscious of her _lapsus linguae_; +saying, in fact:--"I think we did that very well! I wonder whether he +will go and see Gwen!" + +"I hope he will. Do you know, I couldn't help suspecting that he had +something to say about Torrens's eyesight--something good. Perhaps it +was only the way one has of catching at straws. Still, unless he has, +why should he want to see Gwen? He couldn't want to tell her there was +no hope--to rub it in!" + +"I see what you mean. But I'm afraid he only put down the address for us +to tell her he did so--just to get the credit of a call without the +trouble." + +"When did you take to Cynicism, madam?... No--come, I say--that's not +fair! It's only my second cigar since I came to the Gardens...." The +byplay needed to make this intelligible may be imagined, without +description. + +Does not the foregoing lay further stress on the curious fact that the +_passée_ young lady and the oscillator between Pall Mall and that Club +at St. Stephen's--this describes the earlier seeming of these two--have +really vanished from the story? Is it not a profitable commentary on +the mistakes people make in the handling of their own lives? + + * * * * * + +Sir Coupland Merridew was not actuated by the contemptible motive Aunt +Constance had ascribed to him. Moreover, the straw Mr. Pellew caught at +was an actual straw, though it may have had no buoyancy to save a +swimmer. It must have had _some_ though, or Sir Coupland would never +have thrown it to Gwen, struggling against despair about her lover's +eyesight. Of course he did not profess to do so of set purpose; that +would have pledged him to an expression of confidence in that straw +which he could hardly have felt. + +When he called at Cavendish Square two days later at an unearthly hour, +and found Gwen at breakfast, he accounted for his sudden intrusion by +producing a letter recently received from Miss Irene Torrens, of which +he said that, owing to the peculiarity of the handwriting, he had +scarcely been able to make out anything beyond that it related to her +brother's blindness. Probably Lady Gwendolen knew her handwriting +better than he did. At any rate, she might have a shot at trying +to make it out. But presently, when she had time! He, however, +would take a cup of coffee, and would then go on and remove a +portion of a diseased thigh-bone from a Royal leg--that of Prince +Hohenslebenschlangenspielersgeiststein--only he never could get the name +right. + +The story surmises that, having carefully read every word of the letter, +he chose this way of letting Gwen know of a fluctuation in Adrian's +eye-symptoms; which, he had inferred, would not reach her otherwise. But +he did not wish false hopes to be built on it. The deciphering of the +illegibilities by Gwen, under correctives from himself, would exactly +meet the case. + +"I can _not_ see that 'Rene's writing is so very illegible," said Gwen. +"Now be quiet and let me read it." She settled down to perusal, while +Sir Coupland sipped his coffee, and watched her colour heighten as she +read. That meant, said he to himself, that he must be ready to throw +more cold water on this letter than he had at first intended. + +Said Gwen, when she had finished:--"Well, that seems to me very plain +and straightforward. And as for illegibility, I know many worse hands +than 'Re's." + +"What's that word three lines down?... Yes, that one!" + +"'Dreaming.'" + +"I thought it was 'drinking.'" + +"It certainly is 'dreaming' plain enough!" + +"What do you make of it? Don't read it all through. Tell me the upshot." + +"I don't mind reading it. But I'll tell it short, as you're in a hurry. +Adrian dropped asleep on the sofa, and woke with a start, +saying:--'What's become of Septimius Severus on the bookshelf?' It was a +bust, it seems. 'Re said:--'How did you know it had been moved?' and he +seemed quite puzzled and said:--'I can't tell. I forgot I was blind, and +saw the whole room.' Then 'Re said, he must have been dreaming. 'But,' +said he, 'you say it _has_ been moved.' So what does 'Re do but say he +_must_ have heard somehow that it was moved, _because_ it was impossible +that he should have been able to see only just that much and no more.... +Oh dear!" said Gwen, breaking off suddenly. "What a pleasure people do +seem to take in being silly!" + +Sir Coupland proceeded to show deference to correct form. "It is far +more likely," said he, "that Mr. Torrens had heard someone say the bust +was moved, and had forgotten it till he woke up out of a dream, than +that he should have a sudden flash of vision." A more cautious method +than Irene's, of assuming the point at issue. + +Gwen paid no attention to this, putting it aside to apologize to Irene. +"However, 'Re had the sense to write straight to you about it. I'll say +that for her." Then she read the letter again while Sir Coupland spun +out his cup of coffee. She was still dwelling on it when he looked at +his watch suddenly and said: "I must be off. Consider Prince +Hohenschlangen's necrosis!" Then said Gwen, pinning him to truth with +the splendour of her eyes:--"You are perfectly and absolutely certain, +Dr. Merridew, that a momentary gleam of true vision in such a case would +be _impossible_?" + +"I never said _that_," said Sir Coupland. + +"What _did_ you say?" said Gwen. + +"As improbable as you please, short of impossible. Now I'm off. +Impossible's a long word, you know, and very hard to spell." Sir +Coupland went off in a hurry, leaving Irene's letter in Gwen's +possession, which was dishonourable; because he had really read the +injunction it contained, on no account to show it to Gwen in case she +should build false hopes on it. But then Gwen had not read this passage +aloud to him, so he did not know it officially. + +Lunch was the next conclave of the small household, and although Mr. +Pellew was there--it was extraordinary how seldom he was anywhere +else!--Irene's letter was freely handed round the table and made the +subject of comment. + +"It won't do to build upon it," said Cousin Clo. + +"Why not?" said Gwen. + +"It never does to be led away," said Miss Dickenson. Her reputation for +sagacity had to be maintained. + +"Doesn't it?" said Gwen. + +Mr. Pellew was bound, in consideration of his company, to dwell upon the +desirableness of keeping an even mind. Having done full justice to this +side of the subject, he added a rider. He had always said the chances +were ten to one Torrens would recover his eyesight, and this sort of +thing looked uncommonly like it. Now didn't it? Whereupon Gwen, who +shook hands with him across the table to show her approval, said that +anyhow she must hear Adrian's own account of this occurrence from his +own mouth forthwith, and she should go back to-morrow to the Towers, and +insist upon driving over to Pensham Steynes, whether or no! + +Miss Grahame remonstrated with her later, when Aunt Constance and her +swain had departed to some dissipation--the story is not sure it was not +Madame Tussaud's--and pointed out that she really had solemnly promised +not to see Mr. Torrens for six months. She admitted this, but +counterpointed out that she could just see him for half an hour to hear +his own account of the incident, and then they could begin fair. She was +a girl of her word, and meant to keep it. Only, no date had been fixed. +As for her pledges to assist her cousin's schemes for benefiting Sapps +Court and its analogues, in Drury Lane or elsewhere, was she not going +to carry off the old fairy godmother she had discovered and give her +such a dose of fresh air and good living as she had not had for twenty +years past? Could any Patron Saint of Philanthropy ask more? + +Gwen, of course, had her way. She did not cut her visit to Cavendish +Square needlessly short. She remained there long enough to give some +colour to the pretext that she was exploring slums with philanthropy in +view, and actually to make a visit with her cousin to the reconstructed +home of the Wardles in Sapps Court. But no response came to knocking at +door or window, and it was evident that Aunt M'riar had not returned. +Michael Ragstroar, the making of whose acquaintance on this occasion +gratified both ladies, offered to go to The Sun for Uncle Mo and bring +him round; but his offer was declined, as their time was limited. This +must have been a few days before the return of Aunt M'riar and the +children, and in the interim her young ladyship had taken flight to the +home of her ancestors, contriving somehow to convey away with her her +new-made old friend, and to provide her with comfortable lodgment in the +housekeeper's quarters, making Mrs. Masham, the housekeeper, responsible +for her comforts. + +As for the old lady herself, she was very far from being sure that she +was not dreaming. + +END OF PART I + + + + +WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST + +PART II + + + +CHAPTER I + + MICKY'S AUNT, WHO HAD A COLD. MASCHIL THE CHIEF MUSICIAN, AND DOEG + THE EDOMITE. A SUNDAY-RAPTURE. THE BEER. HOW MISS JULIA HAWKINS + THOUGHT THE GLASS A FRAUD. HOW MICKY DELIVERED HIS MESSAGE. A + CONDITIONAL OFFER OF MARRIAGE. JANUS HIS BASKET. ALETHEA'S AUNT + TREBILCOCK. A SHREWD AND HOOKY KITTEN WHO GOT OUT. HER MAJESTY'S + HORSE-SLAUGHTERER. OF A LEAN LITTLE GIRL. HER BROTHER'S NOSE. HOW + MR. WIX KNOCKED AT AUNT M'RIAR'S DOOR. THE CHAIN. HOW AUNT M'RIAR + IMPRESSED MR. WIX AS AN IDIOT. WHO WAS THE WOMAN? HOW SHE OPENED + THE DOOR FOR MICKY'S SAKE, AND LOOKED HARD AT HER HUSBAND. HIS + LAWFUL WIFE! SCRIPTURE READINGS IN HELL. HOW SHE WENT TO FETCH ALL + THE MONEY SHE HAD IN THE HOUSE. HOW MR. WIX CAPTURED UNCLE MO'S OLD + WATCH. HOW AUNT M'RIAR TRIPPED UNCLE MO UP + + +The return of the two young pagans to Sapps Court, and the complete +re-establishment of Uncle Mo's household, had to be deferred yet one or +two more days, to his great disappointment. On the morning following +Aunt M'riar's provisional return, the weather set in wet, and the old +boy was obliged to allow that there ought to be a fire in the grate of +Aunt M'riar's wrecked bedroom for at least a couple of days before Dolly +returned to sleep in it. He attempted a weak protest, saying that his +niece was a dry sort of little party that moisture could not injure. But +he conceded the point, to be on the safe side. + +Aunt M'riar said never a word to him about the message she had received +from the convict through the boy Micky, and the answer she had returned. +She had not forgotten Uncle Mo's communications with that Police +Inspector, and felt confident that her reception of a message from Mr. +Wix at his old haunt would soon be known to the latter if she did not +keep her counsel about it. The words she used in her heart about it were +nearly identical with Hotspur's. Uncle Moses would not utter what he did +not know. She had not a thought of blame for Mo, for she knew that her +disposition to shield this man was idiosyncrasy--could not in the nature +of things be shared, even by old and tried friends. + +There was a fine chivalric element about this defensive silence of hers. +The man was now nothing to her--dust and ashes, dead and done with! This +last phrase was the one her heart used about him--not borrowed from +Browning any more than its other speech from Shakespeare. "I've done +with _him_ for good and all," said she to herself. "But the Law shall +not catch him along o' me." He was vile--vile to her and to all +women--but she could bear her own wrong, and she was not bound to fight +the battles of others. He was a miscreant and a felon, the mere blood on +those hands was not his worst moral stain. He was foul from the terms of +his heritage of life, with the superadded foulness of the galleys. But +she _had_ loved him once, and he was her husband. + +Micky kept his word, going over to his great-aunt the following Sunday; +to oblige, as he said. Mrs. Treadwell had a cold, and was confined to +the house; but the boy was a welcome visitor. "There now, Michael," said +she, "I was only just this minute thinking to myself, if Micky was here +he could go on reading me the Psalms, where I am, instead of me putting +my eyes out. For the sight is that sore and inflamed, and my glasses +getting that wore out from being seen through so much, that I can't +hardly make out a word." + +Micky's only misgivings on his visits to Aunt Elizabeth Jane were +connected with a Family Bible to which his old relative was devoted, and +with her disposition to make him read the Psalms aloud. Neither of them +attached any particular meaning to the text; she being contented with +its religious _aura_ and fitness for Sunday, and he absorbed in the +detection of correct pronunciation by spelling, a syllable at a time. So +early an allusion to this affliction disheartened Micky on this +occasion, and made him feel that his long walk from Sapps Court had been +wasted, so far as his own enjoyment of it was concerned. + +"Oh, 'ookey, Arntey," said he dejectedly, "I say now--look here! Shan't +I make it Baron Munch Hawson, only just this once?" For his aunt +possessed, as well as the Holy Scriptures, a copy of Baron Munchausen's +Travels and a Pilgrim's Progress. Conjointly, they were an Institution, +and were known as Her Books. + +But she resisted the secular spirit. "On Sunday morning, my dear!" she +exclaimed, shocked. "How ever you _can_! Now if on'y your father was to +take you to Chapel, instead of such a bad example, see what good it +would do you both." + +The ounce of influence that Aunt Elizabeth Jane alone possessed told on +Michael's stubborn spirit, and he did not contest the point. "Give us +the 'Oly Bible!" said he briefly. "Where's where you was?" + +"That's a good boy! Now you just set down and read on where I was. 'To, +the, chief, musician,' and the next word's a hard word and you'll have +to spell it." For, you see, Aunt Elizabeth Jane's method was to go +steadily on with a text, and not distinguish titles and stage +directions. + +So her nephew, being docile, tackled the fifty-second Psalm, and did not +flinch from _m_, _a_, _s_, mass--_c_, _h_, _i_, _l_, chill; total, +Mass-Chill--nor from _d_, _o_, do; _e_, _g_, hegg; total, Do-Hegg. But +when he came to Ahimelech, he gave him up, and had to be told. However, +he laboured on through several verses, and the old charwoman listened in +what might be called a Sunday-rapture, conscious of religion, but not +attaching any definite meaning to the words. As for Micky, he only +perceived that David and Saul, Doeg the Edomite, and Ahimelech the +Priest, were religious, and therefore bores. He had a general idea that +the Psalmist could not keep his hair on. He might have enjoyed the +picturesque savagery of the story if Aunt Elizabeth Jane had known it +well enough to tell him. But when you read for flavour, and ignore +import, the plot has to go to the wall. + +Aunt Elizabeth Jane kept her nephew to his unwelcome devotional +enterprise until the second "Selah"--a word which always seemed to +exasperate him--provoked his restiveness beyond his powers of restraint. +"I say, Aunt Betsy," said he, "shan't I see about gettin' in the beer?" +This touched a delicate point, for his visit being unexpected, rations +were likely to be short. + +Some reproof was necessary. "There now, ain't you a tiresome boy, +speaking in the middle!" But this was followed by: "Well, my dear, I +can't take anything myself, the cold's that heavy on me. But that's no +reason against a glass for you, after your walk. On'y I tell you, you'll +have to make your dinner off potatoes and a herring, that you will, by +reason there's nothing else for you. And all the early shops are shut an +hour ago." + +Then Michael showed how great his foresight and resource had been. +"Bought a mutting line-chop coming along, off of our butcher. Fivepence +'a'pen'y. Plenty for two if you know how to cook it right, and don't cut +it to waste." In this he showed a thoughtfulness beyond his years, for +the knowledge that the amount of flesh, on any bone, may be +doubled--even quadrupled--by the skill of its carver, is rarely found +except in veterans. + +Aunt Elizabeth Jane paid a tribute of admiration. "My word!" said she, +"who ever would have said a boy could! Now you shall cook that chop +while I tell you how." So the fifty-second Psalm lapsed, and Michael was +at liberty to forget Doeg the Edomite. + +But the glass of beer claimed attention first, because it would never do +to leave that chop to get cold while he went for it next door. Aunt +Elizabeth Jane allowed Michael to take the largest glass, as he had read +so good and bought his own chop, and with it he crossed the wall into +the garden of The Pigeons, as the story has seen him do before. + +Miss Juliarawkins, summoned by a whistle through the keyhole, looked a +good deal better in sackcloth and ashes than she had done in several +discordant colours. She was going to stop as long as ever she could in +mourning for her father, so as to get the wear out of the stuff, and +make it of some use. Some connection might die, by good luck. She was +one of those that held with making the same sackcloth and ashes do for +two. + +She looked critically at the rather large tumbler Micky had brought for +his beer, and made difficulties about filling of it right up, even with +the top. For this was a supply under contract. A glass full was to be +paid for as a short half-pint. But as Miss Hawkins truly said, no glass +had any call to be half as big as Saint Paul's. Her customer, however, +was not to be put off in this way. A glass was a glass, and a half-pint +was a half a pint. There was no extry reduction when the glass was +undersized. You took the good with the bad. + +A voice Micky knew growled from a recess:--"Give the young beggar full +measure, Juli_ar_. What he means is, you go by a blooming average." + +Miss Hawkins filled up the glass this once, but said:--"You tell your +Aunt Treadwell she'll have to keep below the average till Christmas. _I_ +never see such a glass!" + +Micky was not sorry to find that he could deliver his message direct. He +had not hoped to come upon the man himself. He paid for his beer on +contract terms, and said confidentially:--"I say, missis, I got a +message for him in there." + +"Mrs. Treadwell's nephew Michael from next door says he's got a message +for you, and you can say if you'll see him. Or not." This was spoken +snappishly, as though a coolness were afoot. + +The man replied with mock amiability, meant to irritate. "You can send +him in here, Juliar. You're open to." But when in compliance with the +woman's curt:--"You hear--you can go in," the boy entered the little +back-parlour, he turned on him suddenly and fiercely, saying:--"You're +the * * * young nark of some damned teck--some * * * copper, by Goard!" + +If the boy had flinched before this accusation, which meant that he was +a police-spy employed by a detective, he might have repented it. But +Micky was no coward, and stood his ground; all the more firmly that he +fully grasped the man's precarious position, in the very house where he +had been once before captured. He answered resolutely:--"I could snitch +upon you this minute, master, if I was to choose. But you aren't no +concern of mine, further than I've got a message for you." + +"The boy's all safe," said Miss Hawkins briefly, outside. Whereupon the +man, after a subsiding growl or two, said:--"You gave the party my +message? What had she got to say back again? You may mouth it out and +cut your lucky." + +Micky gave his message in a plain and business-like manner. "Mrs. Wardle +she's back after the accident, and Mrs. Prichard she's in the country, +and she don't know where." + +"Who don't know where? Mrs. Prichard?" + +"Mrs. Wardle. I said you was a-coming to see your mother, onlest the old +lady wasn't your mother. Then you shouldn't come." + +"What did she say about Skillicks?" + +"Said Mrs. Prichard come from Skillickses. Three year agone." + +"You hear that, Miss Hawkins?" Mr. Wix seemed pleased, as one who had +scored, adding:--"I knew it was the old woman.... Anything else she +said?" + +Micky appeared to consider his answer; then replied:--"Said I wasn't to +split upon you." + +"What the Hell does she say that for? She don't know who I am." + +Micky considered again, and astutely decided, perceiving his mistake, to +say as little as possible about Aunt M'riar's seeming interest in Mr. +Wix's safety from the Law. Then he said:--"She don't know nothing about +you, but when I says to her the Police was after you, she cuts in sharp, +and says, she does, that was no concern o' mine, and I was to say +nothing to them, and they wouldn't say nothing to me." + +Mr. Wix said, "Rum!" and Miss Hawkins, who had been keeping her ears +open close at hand, looked in through the barcasement to say:--"You go +_there_, Wix, and back to gaol you go! I only tell you." And retired, +leaving the convict knitting tighter the perplexed scowl on his face. He +called after her:--"Come back here, you Juliar!" + +"I can hear you." + +"What the Devil do you mean?" + +"Can't you see for yourself? This woman don't want the boy to get fifty +pound. If I was in her shoes, I shouldn't neither." Micky only heard +this imperfectly. + +"You wouldn't do anything under a hundred, _you_ wouldn't. Good job for +me they don't double the amount.... Easy does it, Juliar--only a bit of +my fun!" For Miss Hawkins, even as a woman stung by a cruel insult, had +shown her flashing eyes, heightened colour, and panting bosom at the +bar-opening as before. Mr. Wix seemed gratified. "Pity you don't flare +up oftener, Juliar," said he. "You've no idea what a much better woman +you look. Damn it, but you _do_!" + +The woman made an effort, and choked her anger. "God forgive you, Wix!" +said she, and fell back out of sight. Michael thought he heard her sob. +He was not too young to understand this little drama, which took less +time to act than to tell. + +The convict had lost the thread of his examination, and had to hark +back. _Why_ was it, Mrs. Prichard had gone away into the country?... Oh, +the house had fallen down, had it? But, then, how came Mrs. Wardle to be +living in it still? Because, said Michael, it was only the wall fell off +of the front, and now Mr. Bartlett he'd made all that good, and Mrs. +Prichard was only kep' out by the damp. Did Mrs. Wardle _really_ not +know where Mrs. Prichard was? She had not told Michael, that was all he +could say. Old Mo he'd never slept out of the house, only the family. +And they was coming back soon now. Was old Mo an invalid, who never went +out? "No fear!" said Michael. "He's all to rights, only a bit oldish, +like. He spends the afternoons round at The Sun, and then goes home to +supper." The interview ended with a present of half-a-bull to Micky from +the convict, which the boy seemed to stickle at accepting. But he took +it, and it strengthened his resolution not to turn informer, which was +probably Mr. Wix's object. + +He came away with an impression that Miss Hawkins had said:--"The boy's +lying. How could the front-wall of a house fall down?" But he had heard +no more and was glad to come away. He went back to his Aunt Betsy and +cooked his chop under her tutelage. What a time he had been away, said +she! + +If Micky had remembered word for word the whole of this interview, he +might have had misgivings of the effect of one thing he had said +unawares. It was his reference to Uncle Mo's absence at The Sun during +the late afternoon. Manifestly, it left the house in Mr. Wix's +imagination untenanted, during some two hours of the day, except by Aunt +M'riar, and the children perhaps. And what did _they_ matter? + +"You're mighty wise, Juliar, about the party of the house and the +fifty-pun' reward." So said the convict when the woman came back, after +seeing that Micky had crossed the wall unmolested by authority. "Folk +ain't in any such a hurry to get a man hanged when they know what'll +happen if they fail of doing it. Not even for fifty pound!" + +"What _will_ happen?" + +"Couldn't say to a nicety. But she would stand a tidy chance of getting +ripped up, next opportunity." He seemed pleased at his expression of +this fact, as he took the first pulls at a fresh pipe, on the +window-seat with his boots against the shutter and a grip of interlaced +fingers behind his close-cut head for support. Why in Heaven's name does +the released gaol-bird crop his hair? One would have thought the first +instinct of regained freedom would have been to let it grow. + +Miss Hawkins looked at him without admiration. "I often wonder," said +she, "at the many risks I run to shelter you, for you're a bloody-minded +knave, and that's the truth. It was a near touch but I might have lost +my licence, last time." + +"The Beaks were took with your good looks, Juliar. They're good judges +of a fine woman. An orphan you was, too, and the mourning sooted you, +prime!" He looked lazily at her, puffing--not without admiration, of a +sort. Her resentment seemed to gratify him more than any subserviency. +He continued:--"Well, nobody can say I haven't offered to make an honest +woman of _you_, Juliar." + +"Much it was worth, your offer! As if you was free! And me to sell The +Pigeons and go with you to New York! No--no! I'm better off as I am, +than that." + +"I'm free, accordin' to Law. Never seen the girl, nor heard from +her--over twenty years now--twenty-three at least. Scot-free of _her_, +anyhow! Don't want none of her, cutting in to spoil my new start in +life. Re-spectable man--justice of peace, p'r'aps." He puffed at his +pipe, pleased with the prospect. Then he sounded the keynote of his +thought, adding:--"Why--how much could you get for the freehold of this +little tiddleywink?" + +If Miss Julia had been ever so well disposed towards being made +technically an honest woman by her betrayer of auld lang syne, this +declaration of his motives might easily have hardened her heart against +him. What fatuity of affection could have survived it? Yet his candour +was probably his only redeeming feature. He was scarcely an invariable +hypocrite; he was merely heartless, sensual, and cruel to the full +extent of man's possibilities. Nevertheless, he could and would have +lied black white with a purpose. He was, this time, thrown off his +guard, as it were, and truthful by accident. Whether the way in which +the woman silently repelled his offer was due to her disgust at its +terms, or whether she had her doubts of the soundness of his +jurisprudence, the story can only guess. Probably the latter. She merely +said:--"I'm going to open the house," and left his inquiry unanswered. +This was notice to him that his free run of the lower apartments was +ended. He went upstairs to some place of concealment. + + * * * * * + +"What was you and young Carrots so busy about below here?" said Uncle Mo +next day, coming down the stairs to breakfast in the kitchen an hour +later than Aunt M'riar. + +"Telling me of his Aunt Betsy yesterday. Mind your shirt-sleeve. It's +going in the butter." + +"What's Aunt Betsy's little game?... No, it's all right--the butter's +too hard to hurt.... Down Chiswick way, ain't she?" + +"Hammersmith." Aunt M'riar wasn't talkative; but then, this morning, it +was bloaters. They should only just hot through, or they dry. + +"Who was the bloke he was talking about? Somebody he called _him_." +Uncle Mo's ears had been too sharp. + +"There!--I've no time to be telling what a boy says. No one any good, +I'll go bail!" Whereupon, as Uncle Mo's curiosity was not really keenly +excited, the subject dropped. + +But, as a matter of fact, Michael had contrived in a short time to give +an account of his experience of yesterday. And he had left Aunt M'riar +in a state of disquiet and apprehension which had to be concealed, +somehow. For she was quite clear that she would not take Mo into her +confidence. She saw she had to choose between risking an interview with +this convict husband of hers, and giving him up to the Law, probably to +the gallows. + +The man would come again to seek out his old mother, to extort money +from her; that was beyond a doubt. But would he of necessity recognise +the wife of twenty-three years ago in the very middle-aged person Aunt +M'riar saw in the half of a looking-glass that Mr. Bartlett's careful +myrmidons had not broken? Would she recognise him? Need either see the +other? Well--no! Communications might be restricted to speech through a +door with the chain up. + +She took the boy Michael freely into her confidence about her +unwillingness to see this man. But that she could do on the strength of +his bad character; her own relation to him of course remained concealed. +She puzzled her confidant not a little by her seeming inconsistency--so +repugnant was she to the miscreant himself, yet so anxious that he +should not fall into the hands of the Police. Micky kept his perplexity +to himself, justifying his mother's estimate of his character. + +But this much was clearly understood between them, that should the +convict be seen by Micky on his way to the house, he should forthwith +take one of two courses. If Uncle Mo was absent at the time, he was to +warn Aunt M'riar of Mr. Wix's approach. If otherwise, he was to warn the +unwelcome visitor of the risk he would run if he persisted in his +attempt to procure an interview. Of course the chances were that Micky +would be away on business, selling apples, potatoes, and turnips. + +As it turned out, however, he was able to observe one of the conditions +of this compact. + + * * * * * + +It was on the Tuesday following the boy's visit to his great-aunt that +Mrs. Tapping had words with her daughter Alethea. They arose out of +Alethea's young man, an upstart. At least, he was so designated by Mrs. +Tapping, for aspiring to the hand of this young lady; who, though plain +by comparison with her mother at the same age, and no more figure than +what you see, was that sharp with her tongue when provoked, it made your +flesh curdle within you to hear her expressions. We need hardly say that +we have to rely on her mother for these facts. It was, however, the +extraction of Alethea that determined the presumptuousness of her young +man's aspirations. He was marrying into two families, the Tappings and +the Davises, which, though neither of them lordly, had always held their +heads high and their behaviour according. Whereas this young Tom was +metaphorically nobody, though actually in a shoe-shop and giving +satisfaction to his employers, with twenty-one shillings a week certain +and a rise at Christmas. You cannot do that unless you are a physical +entity, but when your grandmother is in an almshouse and your father met +his death in an inferior capacity at a Works, you have no call to give +yourself airs, and the less you say the better. + +This brief sketch of the _status quo_ was given to Mrs. Riley by Mrs. +Tapping, in her woollen shawl for the first time, because of the sharp +edge in the wind, with a basket on her arm that Janus would have found +useful, owing to its two lids, one each side the handle. They were at +the entrance to Mrs. Riley's shop, and that good woman was bare-armed +and bonnetless in the cold north wind. She had not lost her Irish +accent. + +"It is mesilf agrays with you intoirely," said she sympathetically. + +"Not but what I do freely admit," said Mrs. Tapping, pursuing her topic +in a spirit of magnanimity, "that young Rundle himself never makes bold, +and is always civil spoke, which we might expect, seeing what is called +for, measuring soles. For I always do say that the temptation to forget +theirself is far more than human, especially flattenin' down the toe to +get the len'th, though of course the situation would be sacrificed, and +no character." This was an allusion to the delicacy of the position of +one who adjusts a sliding spanner to the foot of Beauty, to determine +its length to a nicety. The subject suggests curious questions. +Suppose--to look at its romantic side, as easier of discussion--that +you, young lady, were passionately adored by the young man at your +shoe-shop, and he were to kiss your foot as Vivien did Merlin's, could +you--would you--complain at the desk and lose him his situation? And how +about the Pope? Is his Holiness never measured--_sal a reverentia!_--for +his shoes? Or does the Oecumenical Council guess, and strike an +average? However, the current of the story need not be interrupted to +settle that. + +"He intinds will," said Mrs. Riley. This was merely a vague compliment +to Alethea's suitor. "Ye see, me dyurr, it's taking the young spalpeen's +part she'll be, for shure! It is the nature of thim." That is to say, +lovers. + +"But never to the point of calling tyrant, Mrs. Riley. Nor ojus +vulgarity. Nor epithets I will not repeat, relating to family +connections. Concerning which, _I_ say, God forgive Alethear! For the +accommodation at a nominal rent of persons in reduced circumstances is +not an almshouse, say what she may. And her Aunt Trebilcock is not a +charitable object, nor yet a deserving person, having mixed with the +best. And in so young a girl texts are not becoming, to a parent." + +"Which was the tixt, thin?" said Mrs. Riley, interested. "I'm bel'avin' +ye, me dyurr!" This was to encourage Mrs. Tapping, and disclaim +incredulity. + +"Since you're asking me, Mrs. Riley ma'am, I will not conceal from you +the Scripture text used only this morning by my own daughter, to my +face. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a +fall.' Whereupon I says to Alethear, 'Alethear,' I says, 'be truthful, +and admit that old Mrs. Rundle and your Aunt Trebilcock are on a +dissimular footing, one being distinctly a Foundation in the Whitechapel +Road, and the other Residences, each taking their own Milk.'" Some +further particulars came in here, relating to the bone of that mornin's +contention, which had turned on Mrs. Tapping's objections to her +daughter's demeaning, or bemeaning, herself, by marrying into a lower +rank of life than her own. + +All this conversation of these two ladies has nothing to do with the +story. The only reason for referring to it is that it took place at this +time, just opposite Mrs. Riley's shop, and led her to remark:--"You lave +the young payple alone, Mrs. Tapping, and they'll fall out. You'll only +kape thim on, by takin' order with thim. Thrust me. Whativer have ye got +in the basket?" + +Mrs. Tapping explained that she was using it to convey a kitten, born in +her establishment, to Miss Druitt at thirty-four opposite, who had +expressed anxiety to possess it. It was this kitten's expression of +impatience with its position that had excited Mrs. Riley's curiosity. +"Why don't ye carry the little sowl across in your hands, me dyurr?" +said she; not unreasonably, for it was only a stone's-throw. Mrs. +Tapping added that this was no common kitten, but one of preternatural +activity, and possessed of diabolical tentacular powers of entanglement. +"I would not undertake," said she, "to get it across the road, ma'am, +only catching hold. Nor if I got it safe across, to onhook it, without +tearing." Mrs. Riley was obliged to admit the wisdom of the Janus +basket. She knew how difficult it is to be even with a kitten. + +This one was destined to illustrate the resources of its kind. For as +Mrs. Tapping endeavoured to conduct the conversation back to her +domestic difficulties, she was aware that the Janus basket grew suddenly +lighter. Mrs. Riley exclaimed at the same moment:--"Shure, and the +little baste's in the middle of the road!" So it was, hissing like a +steam-escape, and every hair on its body bristling with wrath at a large +black dog, who was smelling it in a puzzled, thoughtful way, _sans +rancune_. A cart, with an inscription on it that said its owner was +"Horse-Slaughterer to Her Majesty," came thundering down the street, +shaking three drovers seriously. The dog, illuminated by some new idea, +started back to bark in a sudden panic-stricken way. Who could tell what +new scourge this was that dogdom had to contend with? + +Her Majesty's Horse-Slaughterer pulled his cart up just in time. It +would else have run over a man who was picking the kitten up. All the +males concerned exchanged execrations, and then the cart went on. The +dog's anxiety to smell the phenomenon survived, till the man kicked him +and told him to go to Hell. + +"Now who does this here little beggar belong to?" said the man, whom +Mrs. Riley did not like the looks of. Mrs. Tapping claimed the cat, and +expressed wonder as to how it had got out of the basket. Heaven only +knew! It is only superhuman knowledge, divine or diabolical, that knows +how cats get out of baskets; or indeed steel safes, or anything. + +"As I do not think, mister," said Mrs. Tapping--deciding at the last +moment not to say "my good man"--"it would be any use to try getting of +it inside of this basket out here in the street, let alone its aptitude +for getting out when got in, I might trouble you to be so kind as to +fetch it into my shop next door here, by the scruff of its neck +preferable.... Thank you, mister!" She had had some idea of making it +"Sir," but thought better of it. + +The kitten, deposited on the counter, concerned itself with a +blue-bottle fly. The man remarked that it was coming on to rain. Mrs. +Tapping had not took notice of any rain, but believed the statement. Why +is it that one accepts as true any statement made by a visibly +disreputable male? Mrs. Tapping did not even look out at the door, for +confirmation or contradiction. She was so convinced of this rain that +she suggested that the man should wait a few minutes to see if it didn't +hold up, because he had no umbrella. His reply was:--"Well, since you're +so obliging, Missis, I don't mind if I do. My mate I'm waiting for, +he'll be along directly." He declined a chair or stool, and waited, +looking out at the door into the _cul de sac_ street that led to Sapps +Court, opposite. Mrs. Tapping absented herself in the direction of a +remote wrangle underground, explaining her motive. She desired that her +daughter, whose eyesight was better than her own, should thread a piece +of pack-thread through a rip in the base of the Janus basket, which had +to account for the kitten's appearance in public. She did not seem +apprehensive about leaving the shop ungarrisoned. + +But had she been a shrewder person, she might have felt misgivings about +this man's character, even if she had acquitted him of such petty theft +as running away with congested tallow candles. For no reasonable theory +could be framed of a mate in abeyance, who would emerge from anywhere +down opposite. A mate of a man who seemed to be of no employment, to +belong to no recognised class, to wear description-baffling clothes--not +an ostler's, nor an undertaker's, certainly; but some suspicion of one +or other, Heaven knew why!--and never to look straight in front of him. +Without some light on his vocation, imagination could provide no mate. +And this man looked neither up nor down the street, but remained +watching the _cul de sac_ from one corner of his eye. It was not coming +on to rain as alleged, and he might have had a better outlook nearer the +door. But he seemed to prefer retirement. + +The wrangle underground fluctuated slightly, went into another key, and +then resumed the theme. A lean little girl came in, who tapped on the +counter with a coin. She called out "'A'p'orth o' dips!" taking a tress +of her hair from between her teeth to say it, and putting it back to +await the result. She had a little brother with her, who was old +enough to walk when pulled, but not old enough to discipline his +own nose, being dependent on his sister's good offices, and her +pocket-handkerchief. He offered a sucked peardrop to the kitten, who +would not hear of it. + +There certainly was no rain, or Mrs. Riley would never have remained +outside, with those bare arms and all. There she was, saying +good-evening to someone who had just come from Sapps Court. The man in +the shop listened, closely and curiously. + +"Good-avening, Mr. Moses, thin! Whin will we see the blessed chilther +back? Shure it's wakes and wakes and wakes!" Which written, looks odd; +but, spoken, only conveyed regretful reference to the time Dave and +Dolly had been away, without taxing the hearer's understanding. "They +till me your good lady's been sane, down the Court." + +Uncle Mo had just come out, on his way to a short visit to The Sun. He +was looking cheerful. "Ay, missis! Their aunt's bringin' of 'em back +to-morrow from Ealing. _I_'ll be glad enough to see 'em, for one." + +"And the owld sowl upstairs. Not that I iver set my eyes on her, and +that's the thrruth." + +"Old Mother Prichard? Why--that's none so easy to say. So soon as her +swell friends get sick of her, I suppose. She's being cared for, I take +it, at this here country place." + +"'Tis a nobleman's sate in the Norruth, they sid. Can ye till the name +of it, to rimimber?" Mrs. Riley had an impression shared by many, that +noblemen's seats are, broadly speaking, in the North. She had no +definite information. + +Uncle Mo caught at the chance of warping the name, uncorrected. "It's +the Towels in Rocestershire," said he with effrontery. "Some sort of a +Dook's, good Lard!" Then to change the subject:--"She won't have no +place to come back to, not till Mrs. Burr's out and about again." + +"The axidint, at the Hospital. No, indade! And how's the poor woman, +hersilf? It was the blissin' of God she wasn't kilt on the spot!" + +"It warn't a bad bit of luck. She'll be out of hospital next week, I'm +told. They're taking their time about it, anyhow! Good-night to ye, +missis! The rain's holdin' off." And Uncle Mo departed. Aunt M'riar had +insisted on his not discontinuing any of his lapses into bachelorhood +proper; which implies pub or club, according to man's degree. + + * * * * * + +Just a few minutes ago--speaking abreast of the story--Aunt M'riar, +getting ready at last to do a little work after so much tidying up, had +to go to the door to answer a knock. Its responsible agent was Michael, +excited. "It's _him_!" said he. "I seen him myself. Over at Tappingses. +And Mr. Moses, he's a-conversing with Missis Riley next door." He went +on to offer to make an affidavit, as was his practice, not only on the +Testament, but on most any book you could name. + +It was not necessary: Aunt M'riar believed him. "You tell him," she +replied, "that Mrs. Prichard's gone away, and no time fixed for coming +back. Then he'll go. If he don't go, and comes along, just you say to +him Mr. Wardle he'll be back in a minute. He'll be only a short time at +The Sun." + +"I'll say wotsumever you please, Missis Wardle. Only that won't carry no +weight, not if I says it ever so. He's a sly customer. Here he is +a-coming. Jist past the post!" That is, the one Dave broke his head off. + +Aunt M'riar's heart thumped, and she felt sick. "_You_ say there's no +one in the house then," said she. This was panic, and loss of judgment. +For the interview was palpable to anyone approaching down the Court. +Micky must have felt this, but he only said:--"I'll square him how I +can, missis," and withdrew from the door. Mr. Wix's lurching footstep, +with the memory of its fetters on it, approached at its leisure. He +stopped and looked round, and saw the boy, who acknowledged his stare. +"I see you a-coming," said Michael. + +Mr. Wix said:--"Young Ikey." He appeared to consider a course of action. +"Now do you want another half-a-bull?" + +"Ah!" Micky was clear about that. + +"Then you do sentry-go outside o' this, in the street, and if you see a +copper turning in here, you run ahead and give the word. Understand? +This is Wardle's, ain't it?" + +"That's Wardle's. But there ain't nobody there." + +"You young liar. I saw you talking through the door, only this minute." + +"That warn't anybody, only Aunt M'riar. Party you wants is away--gone +away for a change. Mr. Moses ain't there, but he'll be back afore you +can reckon him up. You may knock at that door till you 'ammer in the +button, and never find a soul in the house, only Aunt M'riar. You try! +'Ammer away!" There was a _faux air_ of self-justification in this, +which did not bear analysis. Possibly Micky thought so himself, for he +vanished up the Court. He would at least be able to bring a false alarm +if any critical juncture arose. + +The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then knocked at the door, +and waited. The woman inside had been listening to his voice with a +quaking heart--had known it for that of her truant husband of twenty +years ago, through all the changes time had made, and in spite of such +colour of its own as the prison taint had left in it. And he stood there +unsuspecting; not a thought in his mind of who she was, this Aunt +M'riar! Why indeed should he have had any? + +She could not trust her voice yet, with a heart thumping like that. She +might take a moment's grace, at least, for its violence to subside. She +sat down, close to the door, for she felt sick and the room went round. +She wanted not to faint, though it was not clear that syncope would make +matters any the worse. But the longer he paused before knocking again, +the better for Aunt M'riar. + +The knock came, a _crescendo_ on the previous one. She _had_ to respond +some time. Make an effort and get it over! + +"That * * * young guttersnipe's given me a bad character," muttered Wix, +as he heard the chain slipped into its sheath. Then the door opened, and +a tremulous voice came from within. + +"What is it ... you want?" it said. Its trepidation was out of all +proportion to the needs of the case. So thought Mr. Wix, and decided +that this Aunt M'riar was some poor nervous hysteric, perhaps an idiot +outright. + +"Does an old lady by the name of Prichard live here, mistress?" He hid +his impatience with this idiot, assuming a genial or conciliatory +tone--a thing he perfectly well knew how to do, on occasion. "An old +lady by the name of Prichard.... You've got nothing to be frightened of, +you know. I'm not going to do _her_ any harm, nor yet you." He spoke as +to the idiot, in a reassuring tone. For the hysterical voice had tried +again for speech, and failed. + +Aunt M'riar mustered a little more strength. "Old Mrs. Prichard's away +in the country," she said almost firmly. "She's not likely to be back +yet awhile. Can I take any message?" + +"Are _you_ going in the country?" + +"For when she comes back, I should have said." + +"Ah--but when will that be? Next come strawberry-time, perhaps! I'll +write to her." + +"I can't give her address." Aunt M'riar had an impression that the +omission of "you" after "give" just saved her telling a lie here. Her +words might have meant: "I am not at liberty to give her address to +anyone." It was less like saying she did not know it. + +His next words startled her. "_I_ know her address. Got it written down +here. Some swell's house in Rocestershire." He made a pretence of +searching among papers. + +Aunt M'riar was so taken by surprise at this that she had said +"Yes--Ancester Towers" before she knew it. She was not a person to +entrust secrets to. + +"Right you are, mistress! Ancester Towers it is." He was making a +pretence, entirely for his own satisfaction, of confirming this from a +memorandum. Mr. Wix had got what he wanted, but he enjoyed the success +of his ruse. Of course, he had only used what he had just overheard from +Uncle Moses. + +The thought then crossed Aunt M'riar's mind that unless she inquired of +him who he was, or why he wanted Mrs. Prichard, he would guess that she +knew already. It was the reaction of her concealed knowledge--a sort of +innocent guilty conscience. It was not a reasonable thought, but a vivid +one for all that--vivid enough to make her say:--"Who shall I say asked +for her?" + +"Any name you like. It don't matter to me. I shall write to her myself." + +Guilty consciences--even innocent ones--can never leave well alone. The +murderer who has buried his victim must needs hang about the spot to be +sure no one is digging him up. One looks back into the room one lit a +match in, to see that it is not on fire. A diseased wish to clear +herself from any suspicion of knowing anything about her visitor, +impelled Aunt M'riar to say:--"Of course I don't know the name you go +by." Obviously she would have done well to let it alone. + +A person who had never borne an _alias_ would have thought nothing of +Aunt M'riar's phrase. The convict instantly detected the speaker's +knowledge of himself. Another thought crossed his mind:--How about that +caution this woman had given to Micky? Why was she so concerned that the +boy should not "split upon" him? "Who the devil are you?" said he +suddenly, half to himself. It was not the form in which he would have +put the question had he reflected. + +The exclamation produced a new outcrop of terror or panic in Aunt +M'riar. She found voice to say:--"I've told you all I can, master." Then +she shut the door between them, and sank down white and breathless on +the chair close at hand, and waited, longing to hear his footsteps go. +She seemed to wait for hours. + +Probably it was little over a minute when the man outside knocked +again--a loud, sepulchral, single knock, with determination in it. Its +resonance in the empty house was awful to the lonely hearer. + +But Aunt M'riar's capacity for mere dread was full to the brim. She was +on the brink of the reaction of fear, which is despair--or, rather, +desperation. Was she to wait for another appalling knock, like that, to +set her heartstrings vibrating anew? To what end? No--settle it now, +under the sting of this one. + +She again opened the door as before. "I've told you all I know about +Mrs. Prichard, and it's true. You must just wait till she comes back. I +can't tell you no more." + +"I don't want any more about Mrs. Prichard. I want to see side of this +door. Take that * * * chain off, and speak fair. I sent you a civil +message through that young boy. He gave it you?" + +"He told me what you said." + +"What did he say I said? If he told you any * * * lies, I'll half murder +him! What did he say?" + +"He said you was coming to see your mother, and Mrs. Prichard she must +be your mother if she comes from Skillicks. So I told him she come from +Skillicks, three year agone. Then he said you wanted money of Mrs. +Prichard...." + +"How the devil did he know that?" + +"He said it. And I told him the old lady had no money. It's little +enough, if she has." + +"And that was all?" + +"All about Mrs. Prichard." + +"Anything else?" + +"He told me your name." + +"What name?" + +"Thornton Daverill." The moment Aunt M'riar had said this she was sorry +for it. For she remembered, plainly enough considering the tension of +her mind, that Micky had only given her the surname. Her oversight had +come of her own bitter familiarity with the name. Think how easy for her +tongue to trip! + +"Anything else?" + +"No--nothing else." + +"You swear to Goard?" + +"I have told you everything." + +"Then look you here, mistress! I can tell you this one thing. That young +boy never told you Thornton. I've never named the name to a soul since I +set foot in England. How the devil come you to know it?" + +Aunt M'riar was silent. She had given herself away, and had no one but +herself to thank for it. + +"How the devil come you to know it?" The man raised his voice harshly to +repeat the question, adding, more to himself:--"You're some * * * jade +that knows me. Who the devil _are_ you?" + +The woman remained dumb, but on the very edge of desperation. + +"Open this damned door! You hear me? Open this door--or, look you, I +tell you what I'll do! Here's that * * * young boy coming. I'll twist +his neck for him, by Goard, and leave him on your doorstep. You put me +to it, and I'll do it. I'm good for my word." A change of tone, from +savage anger to sullen intent, conveyed the strength of a controlled +resolve, that might mean more than threat. At whatever cost, Aunt M'riar +could not but shield Micky. It was in her service that he had provoked +this man's wrath. + +She wavered a little, closed the door, and slipped the chain-hook up to +its limit. Even then she hesitated to withdraw it from its socket. The +man outside made with his tongue the click of acceleration with which +one urges a horse, saying, "Look alive!" She could see no choice but to +throw the door open and face him. The moment that passed before she +could muster the resolution needed seemed a long one. + +That she was helped to it by an agonising thirst, almost, of curiosity +to see his face once more, there can be no doubt. But could she have +said, during that moment, whether she most desired that he should have +utterly forgotten her, or that he should remember her and claim her as +his wife? Probably she would not have hesitated to say that worse than +either would be that he should recognise her only to slight her, and +make a jest, maybe, of the memories that were his and hers alike. + +She had not long to wait. It needed just a moment's pause--no more--to +be sure no sequel of recognition would follow the blank stare that met +her gaze as she threw back the door, and looked this husband of hers +full in the face. None came, and her heart throbbed slower and slower. +It would be down to self-command in a few beats. Meanwhile, how about +that chance slip of her tongue? "Thornton" had to be accounted for. + +The man's stare was indeed blank, for any sign of recognition that it +showed. It was none the less as intent and curious as was the scrutiny +that met it, looking in vain for a false lover long since fled, not a +retrievable one, but a memory of a sojourn in a garden and a collapse in +a desert. So little was left, to explain the past, in the face some +violence had twisted askew, close-shaved and scarred, one white scar on +the temple warping the grip in which its contractions held a cold green +orb that surely never was the eye that was a girl-fool's _ignis fatuus_, +twenty odd years ago. So little of the flawless teeth, which surely +those fangs never were!--fangs that told a tale of the place in which +they had been left to decay; for such was prison-life three-quarters of +a century since. It was strange, but Aunt M'riar, though she knew that +it was he, felt sick at heart that he should be so unlike himself. + +He was the first to speak. "You'll know me again, mistress," he said. He +took his eyes off her to look attentively round the room. Uncle Mo's +sporting prints, prized records of ancient battles, caught his eye. +"Ho--that's it, is it?" said he, with a short nod of illumination, as +though he had made a point as a cross-examiner. "That's where we +are--Figg and Broughton--Corbet--Spring?... That's your game, is it? Now +the question is, where the devil do I come in? How come you to know my +name's Thornton? That's the point!" + +Now nothing would have been easier for Aunt M'riar than to say that Mrs. +Prichard had told her that her only surviving son bore this name. But +the fact is that the old lady, quite a recent experience, had for the +moment utterly vanished from her thoughts, and the man before her had +wrenched her mind back into the past. She could only think of him as the +cruel betrayer of her girlhood, none the less cruel that he had failed +in his worst plot against her, and used a legitimate means to cripple +her life. She could scarcely have recalled anything Mrs. Prichard had +said, for the life of her. She was face to face with the past, yet +standing at bay to conceal her identity. + +Think how hard pressed she was, and forgive her for resorting to an +excusable fiction. It was risky, but what could she do? "I knew your +wife," said she briefly. "Twenty-two years agone." + +"You mean the girl I married?" He had had to marry one of them, but +could only marry one. That was how he classed her. "What became of that +girl, I wonder? Maybe you know? Is she alive or dead?" + +"I couldn't say, at this len'th of time." Then, she remembered a +servant, at the house where her child was born, and saw safety for her +own fiction in assuming this girl's identity. Invention was stimulated +by despair. "She was confined of a girl, where I was in service. She +gave me letters to post to her husband. R. Thornton Daverill." That was +safe, anyhow. For she remembered giving letters, so directed, to this +girl. + +The convict sat down on the table, looking at her no longer, which she +found a relief. "Did that kid live or die?" said he. "Blest if I +recollect!" + +"Born dead. She had a bad time of it. She came back to London, and I +never see any more of her." Aunt M'riar should have commented on this +oblivion of his own child. She was letting her knowledge of the story +influence her, and endangering her version of it. + +The man stopped and thought a little. Then he turned upon her suddenly. +"How came you to remember that name for twenty-two years?" said he. + +A thing she recollected of this servant-girl helped her at a pinch. "She +asked me to direct a letter when she hurt her hand," she said. "When +you've wrote a name, you bear it in mind." + +"What did she call the child?" + +"It was born dead." + +"What did she mean to call it?" + +The answer should have been "She didn't tell me." But Aunt M'riar was a +poor fiction-monger after all. For what must she say but "Polly, after +herself"? + +"Not Mary?" + +Then Aunt M'riar forgot herself completely. "No--Polly. After the name +you called her, at The Tun." She saw her mistake, too late. + +Daverill turned his gaze on her again, slowly. "You seem to remember a +fat lot about this and that!" said he. He got down off the table, and +stepped between Aunt M'riar and the door, saying: --"Come you here, +mistress!" The harshness of his voice was hideous to her. He caught her +wrist, and pulled her to the window. The only gas-lamp the Court +possessed shone through it on her white face. "Now--what's your * * * +married name?" + +Aunt M'riar could not utter a word. + +"I can tell you. You're that * * * young Polly, and your name's +Daverill. You're my lawful wife--d'ye hear?" He gave a horrible laugh. +"Why, I thought you was buried years ago!" + +She began gasping hysterically:--"Leave me--leave me--you are nothing to +me now!" and struggled to free herself. Yet, inexpressibly dreadful as +the fact seemed to her, she knew that her struggle was not against the +grasp of a stranger. Think of that bygone time! The thought took all the +spirit out of her resistance. + +He returned to his seat upon the table, drawing her down beside him. +"Yes, Polly Daverill," said he, "I thought you dead and buried, years +ago. I've had a rough time of it, since then, across the water." He +paused a moment; then said quite clearly, almost passionlessly:--"God +curse them all!" He repeated the words, even more equably the second +time; then with a rough bear-hug of the arm that gripped her +waist:--"What have _you_ got to say about it, hay? Who's your * * * +husband now? Who's your prizefighter?" + +The terrified woman just found voice for:--"He's not my husband." She +could not add a word of explanation. + +The convict laughed unwholesomely, beneath his breath. "_That's_ what +you've come to, is it? Pretty Polly! Mary the Maid of the Inn! The man +you've got is not your husband. Sounds like the parson--Holy Scripture, +somewhere! I've seen him. He's at the lush-ken down the road. Now you +tell the truth. When's he due back here?" + +She had only just breath for the word seven, which was true. It was past +the half-hour, and he would not have believed her had she said sooner. +But it was as though she told him that she knew she was helplessly in +his power for twenty-five minutes. Helplessly, that is, strong +resolution and desperation apart! + +"Then he won't be here till half-past. Time and to spare! Now you listen +to me, and I'll learn you a thing or two you don't know. You are +my--lawful--wife, so just you listen to me! Ah, would you?..." This was +because he had supposed that a look of hers askant had rested on a knife +upon the table within reach. It was a pointed knife, known as "the bread +knife," which Dolly was never allowed to touch. He pulled her away from +it, caught at it, and flung it away across the room. "It's a narsty, +dangerous thing," he said, "safest out of the way!" Then he went +on:--"You--are--my--lawful--wife, and what St. Paul says mayhap you +know? 'Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as it is fit in the +Lord.' ... What!--me not know my * * * Testament! Why!--it's the only * +* * book you get a word of when you're nursing for Botany Bay fever. God +curse 'em all! Why--the place was Hell--Hell on earth!" + +Aunt M'riar now saw too late that she should not have opened that door, +at any cost. But how about Micky? Surely, however, that was a mere +threat. What had this man to gain by carrying it out? Why had she not +seen that he would never run needless risk, to gain no end? + +The worst thorn in her heart was that, changed as he was from the +dissolute, engaging youth that she had dreamed of reforming, she still +knew him for himself. He was, as he said, her husband. And, for all that +she shrank from him and his criminality with horror, she was obliged to +acknowledge--oh, how bitterly!--that she wanted help against herself as +much as against him. She was obliged to acknowledge the grisly force of +Nature, that dictated the reimposition of the yoke that she had through +all these years conceived that she had shaken off. And she knew that she +might look in vain for help to Law, human or theological. For each in +its own way, and for its own purposes, gives countenance to the only +consignment of one human creature to the power of another that the slow +evolution of Justice has left in civilised society. Each says to the +girl trapped into unholy matrimony, from whom the right to look inside +the trap has been cunningly withheld:--"Back to your lord and master! Go +to him, he is your husband--kiss him--take his hand in thine!" Neither +is ashamed to enforce a contract to demise the self-ownership of one +human being to another, when that human being is a woman. And yet Nature +is so inexorable that the victim of a cruel marriage often needs help +sorely--help against herself, to enable her, on her own behalf, to shake +off the Devil some mysterious instinct impels her to cling to. Such an +instinct was stirring in Aunt M'riar's chaos of thought and feeling, +even through her terror and her consciousness of the vileness of the man +and the vileness of his claim over her. The idea of using the power that +her knowledge of his position gave her never crossed her mind. Say +rather that the fear that a call for help would consign him to a just +retribution for his crimes was the chief cause of her silence. + +A dread that she might be compelled to do so was lessened by his next +speech. "You've no call to look so scared, Polly Daverill. You do what +I tell you, and be sharp about it. What are you good for?--that's the +question! Got any money in the house?" + +She felt relieved. Now he would take his arm away. That arm was all the +worse from the fact that her shrinking from it was one-sided. "A +little," she answered. "It's upstairs. Let me get it." + +He relaxed the arm. "Go ahead!" he said. "I'll follow up." + +She cried out with sudden emphasis:--"No--I will not. I will not." And +then with subdued earnestness:--"Indeed I will bring it down. Indeed I +will." + +"You won't stick up there, by any chance, till your man that's not your +husband happens round?" + +She addressed him by name for the first time. "Thornton, did I ever tell +you a lie?" + +"I never caught you in one, that I know of. Cut along!" + +She went like a bird released. Once in her room, and clear of him, she +could lock her door and cry for help. She turned the key, and had +actually thrown up the window-sash, when her own words crossed her +mind--her claim to veracity. No--she would keep a clear conscience, come +what might. She glanced up the Court, and saw Micky coming through the +arch; then closed the window, and took an old leather purse from the +drawer of the looking-glass Mr. Bartlett's men had not broken. It +contained the whole of her small savings. + +After she left the room, Daverill had glanced round for valuables. An +old silver watch of Uncle Mo's, that always stopped unless allowed to +lie on its back, was ticking on the dresser. The convict slipped it into +his pocket, and looked round for more, opening drawers, looking under +dish-covers. Finding nothing, he sat again on the table, with his hands +in the pockets of his velveteen corduroy coat. His face-twist grew more +marked as he wrinkled the setting of a calculating eye. "I should have +to square it with Miss Juliar," said he, in soliloquy. He was evidently +clear about his meaning, whatever it was. + +The boy came running down the Court, and entering the front-yard, whose +claim to be a garden was now _nil_, tapped at the window excitedly. +Daverill went to the door and opened it. + +"Mister Moses coming along. Stopping to speak to Tappingses. You'd best +step it sharp, Mister Wix!" + +"Polly Daverill, look alive!" The convict shouted at the foot of the +stairs, and Aunt M'riar came running down. "Where's the * * * cash?" +said he. + +"It's all I've got," said poor Aunt M'riar. She handed the purse to +him, and he caught it and slipped it in a breast-pocket, and was out in +the Court in a moment, running, without another word. He vanished into +the darkness. + +Five minutes later, Uncle Mo, escaping from Mrs. Tapping, came down the +Court, and found the front-door open and no light in the house. He +nearly tumbled over Aunt M'riar, in a swoon, or something very like it, +in the chair by the door. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + HOW ADRIAN TORRENS COULD SING WITHOUT WINCING. FIGARO. DICTATION OF + LETTERS. HOW ADRIAN BROKE DOWN. THE LERNAEAN HYDRA'S EYE-PEEPS. HOW + ADRIAN COULD SEE NOTHING IN ANY NUMBER OF LOOKING-GLASSES. HOW + GWEN, IN SPITE OF APPEARANCES, HELD TO THE SOLEMN COMPACT. SIR + MERRIDEW'S TREACHERY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN HAD BEEN TO LOOK + AT ARTHUR'S BRIDGE. A KINKAJOU IS NOT A CARCAJOU. OF THE + PECULIARITIES OF FIRST-CLASS SERVANTS. MRS. PICTURE'S STORY + DIVULGED BY GWEN. HOW DAVE'S RIVAL GRANNIES WERE SAFEST APART + + +Old folk and candles burn out slowly at the end. But before that end +comes they flicker up, once, twice, and again. The candle says:--"Think +of me at my best. Remember me when I shone out thus, and thus; and never +guttered, nor wanted snuffing. Think of me when you needed no other +light than mine, to look in Bradshaw and decide that you had better go +early and ask at the Station." Thus says the candle. + +And the old man says to the old woman, and she says it back to +him:--"Think of me in the glorious days when we were dawning on each +other; of that most glorious day of all when we found each other out, +and had a tiff in a week and a reconciliation in a fortnight!" Then each +is dumb for a while, and life ebbs slowly, till some chance memory stirs +among the embers, and a bright spark flickers for a moment in the dark. +The candle dies at last, and smells, and mixes with the elements. And +some say you and I will do the very same--die and go out. Possibly! Just +as you like! Have it your own way. + +It is even so with the Old Year in his last hours. Is ever an October so +chill that he may not bid you suddenly at midday to come out in the +garden and recall, with him, what it was like in those Spring days when +the first birds sang; those Summer days when the hay-scent was in +Cheapside, and a great many roses had not been eaten by blights, and it +was too hot to mow the lawn? Is ever a November so self-centred as to +refuse to help the Old Year to a memory of the gleams of April, and the +nightingale's first song about the laggard ash-buds? Is icy December's +self so remorseless, even when the holly-berries are making a parade of +their value as Christmas decorations?--even when it's not much use +pretending, because the Waits came last night, and you thought, when you +heard them, what a long time ago it was that a little boy or girl, who +must have been yourself, was waked by them to wonder at the mysteries of +Night? But nothing is of any use in December, because January will come, +and this year will be dead and risen from its tomb, and the +metaphorically disposed will be hoping that Resurrection is not so +uncomfortable as all that comes to. + +That time was eight weeks ahead one morning at Pensham Steynes, which +has to be borne in mind, as the residence of Sir Hamilton Torrens, +Bart., when the blind man, his son, was dictating to his sister Irene +one of the long missives he was given to sending to his _fiancée_ in +London. It was just such a late October day as the one indirectly +referred to above; in fact, it would quite have done for a Spring day, +if only you could have walked across the lawn without getting your feet +soaked. The chance primroses that the mild weather had deluded into +budding must have felt ashamed of their stupidity, and disgusted at the +sight of the stripped trees, although they may have reaped some +encouragement from a missel-thrush that had just begun again after the +holiday, and been grateful to the elms and oaks that had kept some +decent clothing on them. Irene had found one such primrose in a morning +walk, and a confirmation of it in the morning's _Times_. + +"Why didn't you say the ground was covered with them, 'Re? I could have +believed in any number on your authority. Surely, a chap with his eyes +out is entitled to the advantages which seeing nothing confers on him. +Do please perjure yourself about violets and crocuses on my behalf. It +is quite a mistake to suppose I shall be jealous. You've no idea what a +magnanimous elder brother you've got." So Adrian had said when they came +in, and had felt his way to the piano--it was extraordinary how he had +learned to feel his way about--and had played the air of "Sumer is +ycumin in, lhude sing cucu," with the courage of a giant. Not only that, +but actually sang it, and never flinched from:--"Groweth seed and +bloweth meed and springeth wood anew." And his heart was saying to him +all the while that he might never again see the springing of the young +corn, and the daisies in the grass, and the new buds waiting for the +bidding of the sun. + +Irene, quite alive to her brother's intrepidity, but abstaining +resolutely from spoken acknowledgment--for would not that have been an +admission of the need for courage?--had gone through a dramatic effort +on her own behalf, a kind of rehearsal of the part she had to play. She +had arranged writing materials for action, and affected the attitude of +a patient scribe, longing for dictation. She had assumed a hardened +tone, to say:--"When you're ready!" Then Adrian had deserted the piano, +and addressed himself to dictation. "Where were we?" said he. For the +letter was half written, having been interrupted by visitors the day +before. + +"When the Parysfort women came in?" said Irene. "We had got to the old +woman. After the old woman--what next?" + +Adrian repeated, "After the old woman--after the old woman." Then he +said suddenly:--"Bother the old woman. I tell you what, 'Re, we must +tear this letter up, and start fair. Those people coming in spoiled it." +His tone was vexed and restless. The weariness of his blindness galled +him. This fearful inability to write was one of his worst trials. He +fought hard against his longing to cry out--to lighten his heart, ever +so little, by expression of his misery; but then, the only one thing he +could do in requital of the unflagging patience of this dear amanuensis, +was to lighten the weight of her sorrow for him. And this he could only +do by showing unflinching resolution to bear his own burden. One worst +unkindest cut of all was that any word of exasperation against the +cruelty of a cancelled pen might seem an imputation on her of +ineffective service, almost a reproach. It was perhaps because the +visitors of yesterday were so evidently to blame for the miscarriage of +this letter, that Adrian felt, in a certain sense, free to grieve aloud. +It was a relief to him to say:--"The Devil fly away with the Honourable +Misses Parysforts!" + +"Suppose we have a clean slate, darling, and I'll tear the letter up, +old woman and all. Or shall I read back a little, to start you?" + +"Oh no--please! On no account read anything again.... Suppose I confess +up! Make some stars, and go on like this:--'These are not Astronomy, but +to convey the idea that I have forgotten where I was, and that we have +to make it a rule never to re-read, for fear I should tear it up. I +believe I was trying to find a new roundabout way of saying how much +more to me you were than anything in Heaven or Earth.'" The dictation +paused. + +"Go on," said the amanuensis. "After 'Heaven and Earth'?" She paused +with an expectant pen, her eyes on the paper. Then she looked up, to see +that her brother's face was in his hands, dropped down on the +side-cushion of the sofa. She waited for him to speak, knowing he would +only think she did not see him. But she had to wait overlong for the +lasting powers of this excuse; so she let it lapse, and went to sit +beside him, and coaxed his hands from his face, kissing away something +very like a tear. "But why now, darling?" said she. "You know what I +mean. What was it in the letter?" + +"Why--I was going to say," replied Adrian, recovering himself, "I was +going on to 'the thing that makes day of my darkness' or something of +that sort--some poetical game, you know--and then I thought what a many +things I could write if I could write them myself, and shut them in the +envelope for Gwen alone, that I can't say now, though the dearest sister +ever man had yet writes them for me. I _can_ say to _her_, darling, that +if I were offered my eyesight back, by some irritating fairy +godmother--that kind of thing--in exchange for the Gwen that is mine, I +would not accept her boon upon the terms. I should, on the contrary, +wish I were the Lernaean Hydra, that I might give the balance of seven +pairs of eyes rather than ..." + +"Rather than lose Gwen." Irene spoke, because he had hesitated. + +"Exactly. But I got stuck a moment by the reflection that Gwen's +sentiments might not have remained altogether unchanged, in that case. +In fact, she might have run away, at Arthur's Bridge. It is an obscure +and difficult subject, and the supply of parallel cases is not all one +could wish." + +"I don't see why we shouldn't put all or any of that in the letter." For +Irene always favoured her brother's incurable whimsicality as a resource +against the powers of Erebus and dark Night, and humoured any approach +to extravagance, to disperse the cloud that had gathered. This one +pleased him. + +"How shall we put it?... somehow like this.... By-the-by, do you know +how to spell Lernaean?..." He paused abruptly, and seemed to listen. +"Sh--sh a minute! What's that outside? I thought I heard somebody +coming." Irene listened too. + +"Ply hears somebody," she said. And then she had all but said "Look at +him!" in an unguarded moment. + +An instant later the dog had started up and scoured from the room as if +life and death depended on his presence elsewhere. Adrian heard +something his sister did not, and exclaimed "What's that?" + +"Nothing," said Irene. "Only someone at the front-door. Ply's always +like that." + +"I didn't mean Ply. Listen! Be quiet." The room they were in was remote +from the front-door of the house, and the voice they heard was no more +than a musical modulation of silence. It had a power in it, for all +that, to rouse the blind man to excitement. He had to put a restraint on +himself to say quietly:--"Suppose you go and see! Do you mind?" Irene +left the room. + +Anyone who had seen Adrian then for the first time, and watched him +standing motionless with his hands on a chairback and the eyes that saw +nothing gazing straight in front of him, but not towards the door, would +have wondered to see a man of his type apparently so interested in his +own image, repeated by the mirror before him as often as eyesight could +trace its give-and-take with the one that faced it on the wall behind +him. He was the wrong man for a Narcissus. The strength of his framework +was wrong throughout. Narcissus had no bone-distances, as artists say, +and his hair was in crisp curls, good for the sculptor. No one ever +needed to get a pair of scissors to snip it. But though anyone might +have marvelled at Adrian Torrens's seeming Narcissus-like intentness on +his own manifold image, he could never have surmised that cruel +blindness was its apology. He could never have guessed, from anything in +their seeming, that the long perspective of gazing orbs, vanishing into +nothingness, were not more sightless than their originals. + +He only listened for a moment. For, distant as she was, Irene's cry of +surprise on meeting some new-comer was decisive as to that new-comer's +identity. It could be no one but Gwen. Irene's welcome settled that. + +The blind man was feeling his way to the door when Gwen opened it. Then +she was in his arms, and what cared he for anything else in the heavens +above or the earth beneath? His exultation had to die down, like the +resonant chords in the music he had played an hour since, before he +could come to the level of speech. Then he said prosaically:--"This is +very irregular! How about the solemn compact? How are we going to look +our mamma in the face?" + +"Did it yesterday evening!" said Gwen. "We had an explosion.... Well, I +won't say that--suppose we call it a warm discussion, leading to a more +reasonable attitude on the part of ... of the people who were in the +wrong. The other people, that is to say!" + +"Precisely. They always are. I vote we sit on the sofa, and you take +your bonnet off. I know it's on by the ribbons under your chin--not +otherwise." + +"What a clever man he is--drawing inferences! However, bonnets _have_ +got very much out of sight, I admit. Hands off, please!... There!--now I +can give particulars." + +Irene, who--considerately, perhaps--had not followed closely, here came +in, saying:--"Stop a minute! I haven't heard anything yet.... +There!--now go on." + +She found a seat, and Gwen proceeded. + +"I came home yesterday, with an old woman I've picked up, who certainly +is the dearest old woman...." + +"Never mind the old woman. Why did you come?" + +"I came home because I chose. I came here because I wanted to.... Well, +I'll tell you directly. What I wish to mention now is that I have not +driven a coach-and-six through the solemn compact. I assented to a +separation for six months, but no date was fixed. I assure you it +wasn't. I was looking out all the time, and took good care." + +"Wasn't it fixed by implication?" This was Irene. + +"Maybe it was. But _I_ wasn't. We can put the six months off, and start +fair presently. Papa quite agreed." + +"Mamma didn't?" This was Adrian. + +"Of course not. That was the basis of the ... warm discussion which +followed on my declaration that I was coming to see you to-day. However, +we parted friends, and I slept sound, with a clear conscience. I got up +early, to avoid complications, and made Tom Kettering drive me here in +the dog-cart. It took an hour and a half because the road's bad. It's +like a morass, all the way. I like the sound of the horse's hoofs when I +drive, not mud-pie thuds." + +"We didn't hear any sound at all, except Ply.... Yes, dear!--of course +_you_ heard. I apologize." Irene said this to Achilles, who, catching +his name, took up a more active position in the conversation, which he +conceived to be about himself. Some indeterminate chat went on until +Gwen said suddenly:--"Now I want to talk about what I came here for." + +"Go it!" said Adrian. + +"I want to know all about what 'Re said to Dr. Merridew in her +letter.... Well, what's the matter?" + +Amazement on Irene's fact had caused this. "And that man calls himself +an F.R.C.S.!" said she. + +Adrian, uninformed, naturally asked why not. Gwen supplied a clue for +guessing. "He said he couldn't read your handwriting, and gave me your +letter to make out." + +"What nonsense! I write perfectly plainly." + +"So I told him. But he maintained he had hardly been able to make out a +word of it. Of course I read it. Your caution to him not to tell me was +a little obscure, but otherwise I found it easy enough. Anyhow, I read +all about it. And now I know." + +"Well--I'll never trust a man with letters after his name again. Of +course he was pretending." + +"But what for?" + +"Because he wanted to tell you, and didn't want to get in a scrape for +betraying my confidence." + +Adrian struck in. Might he ask what the rumpus was about? Why Sir +Merridew, and why letters? + +Irene supplied the explanation. "I wrote to him about you and Septimius +Severus.... Don't you recollect? And I cautioned him particularly not to +tell Gwen.... Why not? Why--of course not! It was sheer, inexcusable +dishonesty, and I shall tell him so next time I see him." + +Gwen appeared uninterested in the point of honour. "I wonder," she said, +"whether he thought telling me of it this way would prevent my building +too much on it, and being disappointed. That would be so exactly like +Dr. Merridew." + +"I think," said Adrian deliberately, "that I appreciate the position. +Septimius Severus figures in it as a bust, or as an indirect way of +describing a circumstance; preferably the latter, I should say, for it +must be most uncomfortable to be a bust. As an Emperor he is +inadmissible. I remember the incident--but I suspect it was only a +dream." His voice fell into real seriousness as he said this; then went +back to mock seriousness, after a pause. "However, I am bound to say +that 'inexcusable dishonesty' is a strong expression. I should suggest +'pliable conscience,' always keeping in view the motive of ... Yes, +Pelides dear, but I have at present nothing for you in the form of cake +or sugar. Explain yourself somehow, to the best of your ability." For +Achilles had suddenly placed an outstretched paw, impressively, on the +speaker's knee. + +"I see what it was," said Gwen. "You said 'pliable conscience'--just +now." + +"Well?" + +"He thought he was the first syllable. Never mind _him_! I want you to +tell me about Septimius Severus. He's what I came about. What was it +that happened, exactly?" Thereupon Adrian gave the experience which the +story knows already, in greater detail. + +In the middle, a casual housekeeper was fain to speak to Miss Torrens, +for a minute. Who therefore left the room and became a voice, +housekeeping, in the distance. + +Then Gwen made Adrian tell the story again, cross-examining him as one +cross-examines obduracy in the hope of admissions that will at least +countenance a belief in the truth that we want to be true. If Adrian had +seen his way to a concession that would have made matters pleasant, he +would have jumped at the chance of making it. But false hope was so much +worse than false despair. Better, surely, a spurious growth of the +latter, with disillusionment to come, than a stinted instalment of the +former with a chance of real despair ahead. Adrian took the view that +Sir Coupland was really a weak, good-natured chap who had wanted Gwen to +have every excuse for hope that could be constructed, even with unsound +materials; but who also wanted the responsibilities of the jerry-builder +to rest on other shoulders than his own. Gwen discredited this view of +the great surgeon's character in her inner consciousness, but hardly had +courage to raise her voice against it, because of the danger of +fostering false hopes in her lover's mind. Nevertheless she could not be +off fanning a little flame of comfort to warm her heart, from the +conviction that so responsible an F.R.C.S. would never have gone out of +his way to show her the letter if he had not thought there was some +chance, however small, of a break in the cloud. + +After Sir Coupland's letter and its subject had been allowed to lapse, +Gwen said:--"So now you see what I came for, and that's all about it. +What do you think I did, dearest, yesterday as soon as I had seen my old +lady comfortably settled? She was dreadfully tired, you know. But she +was very plucky and wouldn't admit it." + +"Who the dickens _is_ your old lady?" + +"Don't be impatient. I'll tell you all in good time. First I want to +tell you where I went yesterday afternoon. I went across the garden +through the rose-forest ... you know?--what you said must be a +rose-forest to smell like that...." + +"I know. And you went through the gate you came through,"--even so a +Greek might have spoken to Aphrodite of "the sea-foam you sprang +from"--"and along the field-path to the little bridge fat men get stuck +on...." This was an exaggeration of an overstatement of a disputed fact. + +"Yes, my dearest, and I was there by myself. And I stood and looked over +to Swayne's Oak and thought to myself if only it all could happen again, +and a dog might come with a rush and kiss me, and paw me with his dirty +paws! And then if you--_you_--_you_ were to come out of the little +coppice, and come to the rescue, all wet through and dripping, how I +would take you in my arms, and keep you, and not let you go to be shot. +I _would_. And I would say to you:--'I have found you in time, my +darling, I have found you, in time to save you. And now that I have +found you, I will keep you, like this. And you would look at me, and see +that it was not a forward girl, but me myself, your very own, come for +you.... I wonder what you would have said." + +"I wonder what I should have said. I think I know, though. I should have +said that although a perfect stranger, I should like, please, to remain +in Heaven as long--I am quoting Mrs. Bailey--as it was no inconvenience. +I might have said, while in Heaven, that we were both under a +misapprehension, having taken for granted occurrences, to the +development of which our subsequent experiences were essential. But I +should have indulged the misapprehension...." + +"Of course you would. Any man in his senses would...." + +"I agree with you." + +"Unless he was married or engaged or something." + +"That might complicate matters. Morality is an unknown quantity.... But, +darling, let's drop talking nonsense...." + +"No--don't let's! It's such sensible nonsense. Indeed, dearest, I saw it +all plain, as I stood there yesterday at Arthur's Bridge. I saw what it +had all meant. I did not know _at the time_, but I should have done so +if I had not been a fool. I did not see then why I stood watching you +till you were out of sight. But I do see now." + +Adrian answered seriously, thoughtfully, as one who would fain get to +the heart of a mystery. "I knew quite well then--I am convinced of +it--why I turned, when I thought I was out of sight, to see if you were +still there. I turned because my heart was on fire--because my world was +suddenly filled with a girl I had exchanged fifty words with. I was not +unhappy before you dawned--only tranquil." + +"What were you thinking of, just before you saw me, when you were wading +through the wet fern? I think _I_ was only thinking how wet the ferns +must have been. How little I thought then who the man was, with the +dog! You were only 'the man' then." + +"And then--I got shot! I'm so glad. Just think, dearest, what a +difference it would have made to me if that ounce of lead had gone an +inch wrong...." + +"And you had been killed outright!" + +"I didn't mean that. I meant the other way. Suppose it had missed, and I +had finished my walk with my eyes in my head, and come back here and got +an introduction to the girl I saw in the Park, and not known what to say +to her when I got it!" + +"I should have known you at once." + +"Dearest love, some tenses of verbs are kittle-cattle to shoe behind. +'Should have' is one of the kittlest of the whole lot. You would have +thought me an interesting author, and I should have sent you a copy of +my next book. And then we should have married somebody else." + +"Where is the organ of nonsense in Poets' heads, I wonder. It must be +this big one, on the top." + +"No--that's veneration. My strong point. It shows itself in the +readiness with which I recognise the Finger of Providence. I discern in +the nicety with which old Stephen's bullet did its predestined work a +special intervention on my behalf. A little more and I should have been +sleeping with my fathers, or have joined the Choir of Angels, or anyhow +been acting up to my epitaph to the best of my poor ability. A little +less, and I should have gone my way rejoicing, ascribing my escape from +that bullet to the happy-go-lucky character of the Divine disposition of +human affairs. I should never have claimed the attentions due to a +slovenly, unwholesome corpse...." + +"You shall _not_ talk like that. Blaspheme as much as you like. I don't +mind blasphemy." + +Adrian kissed the palm of the hand that stopped his mouth, and continued +speech, under drawbacks. "An intelligent analysis will show that my +remarks are reverential, not blasphemous. You will at least admit that +there would have been no Mrs. Bailey." + +Gwen removed her hand. "None whatever! Yes, you may talk about Mrs. +Bailey. There would have been no Mrs. Bailey, and I should never have +lain awake all night with your eyes on my conscience.... Yes--the night +after mamma and I had tea with you...." + +"My eyes on your conscience! Oh--my eyes be hanged! Would I have my eyes +back now?--to lose _you_! Oh, Gwen, Gwen!--sometimes the thought comes +to me that if it were not for my privation, my happiness would be too +great to be borne--that I should scarcely dare to live for it, had the +price I paid for it been less. What is the loss of sight for life to set +against...." + +"Are you aware, good man, that you are talking nonsense? Be a reasonable +Poet, at least!" + +She was drawing her hand caressingly over his, and just as she said +this, lifted it suddenly, with a start. "Your ring scratches," said she. + +"Does it?" said he, feeling it. "Oh yes--it does. I've found where. I'll +have it seen to.... I wonder now why I never noticed that before." + +"It's a good ring that won't scratch its wearer. I suppose I was +unpopular with it. It didn't hurt. Perhaps it was only in fun. Or +perhaps it was to call attention to the fact that you have never told me +about it. You haven't, and you said you would." + +"So I did, when we had The Scene." He meant the occasion on which, +according to Gwen's mamma, she had made him an offer of her affections +in the Jacobean drawing-room. "It's a ring with magic powers--nothing to +do with any young lady, as you thought. It turns pale at the approach of +poison." + +"Let's get some poison, and try. Isn't there some poison in the house?" + +"I dare say there is, in the kitchen. You might touch the bell and ask." + +"I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean private poison--doctor's +bottles--blue ones with embossed letters.... _You_ know?" + +"_I_ know. My maternal parent has any number. But all empty, I'm afraid. +She always finishes them. Besides--don't let's bring her in! She has +such high principles. However, I've got some poison--what an Irish +suicide would consider the rale cratur--only I won't get it out even for +this experiment, because I may want it...." + +"You _may want it_!" + +"Of course." He suddenly deserted paradox and levity, and became +serious. "My dearest, think of this! Suppose I were to lose you, here in +the dark!... Oh, I know all that about duty--_I_ know! I would not kill +myself at once, because it would be unkind to Irene. But suppose I lost +Irene too?" + +"I can't reason it out. But I can't believe it would ever be right to +destroy oneself." + +"Possibly not, but once one was effectually destroyed...." + +"That sounds like rat-paste." Gwen wanted to joke her way out of this +region of horrible surmise. + +But Adrian was keen on his line of thought. "Exactly!" said he. "Vermin +destroyer. _I_ should be the vermin. But once destroyed, what contrition +should I have to endure? Remorse is a game that takes two selves to play +at it--a criminal and a conscientious person! Suppose the rat-paste had +destroyed them both!" + +"But would it?" + +"Absolute ignorance, whether or no, means an even chance of either. I +would risk it, for the sake of that chance of rich, full-blown +Non-Entity. Oh, think of it!--after loneliness in the dark!--loneliness +that once was full of life...." + +"But suppose the other chance--how then?" + +"Suppose I worked out as a disembodied spirit--and I quite admit it's as +likely as not, neither more nor less--it does not necessarily follow +that Malignity against Freethinkers is the only attribute of the +Creator. When one contemplates the extraordinary variety and magnitude +of His achievements, one is tempted to imagine that He occasionally +rises above mere personal feeling. It certainly does seem to me that +damning inoffensive Suicides would be an unwarrantable abuse of +Omnipotence. The fact is, I have a much better opinion of the Most High +than many of His admirers." + +"But, nonsense apart.... Yes--it _is_ nonsense!... do you mean that you +would kill yourself about me?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm so glad, because I shan't give you the chance. But dear, silly +man--dearest, silliest man!--I do wish you would give me up that bottle. +I'll promise to give it back if ever I want to jilt you. Honour bright!" + +"I dare say. With the good, efficacious poison emptied away; and tea, or +rum, or Rowland's Macassar instead! I cannot conceive a more equivocal +position than that of a suicide who has taken the wrong poison under the +impression that he has launched himself into Eternity." + +"Oh no--I could never do that! It would be such a cruel hoax. Now, +dearest love, do let me have that bottle to take care of. Indeed, if +ever I jilt you, you shall have it back. Engaged girls--honourable +ones!--always give presents back on jilting. _Do_ let me have it!" + +Adrian laughed at her earnestness. "_I'm_ not going to poison myself," +said he. "Unless you jilt me! So it comes to exactly the same thing, +either way. There--be easy now! I've promised. Besides, the Warroo or +Guarano Indian who gave it me--out on the Essequibo; it was when I went +to Demerara--told me it wouldn't keep. So I wouldn't trust it. Much +better stick to nice, wholesome, old-fashioned Prussic Acid." He had +quite dropped his serious tone, and resumed his incorrigible levity. + +"Did you really have it from a wild Indian? Where did he get it? Did he +make it?" + +"No--that's the beauty of it. The Warroos of Guiana are great dabs at +making poisons. They make the celebrated Wourali poison, the smallest +quantity of which in a vein always kills. It has never disappointed its +backers. But he didn't make this. He brought it from the World of +Spirits, beyond the grave. It is intended for internal use only, being +quite inoperative when injected into a vein. Irene unpacked my valise +when I came back, and touched the bottle. And an hour afterwards she saw +that her white cornelian had turned red." + +"Nonsense! It was a coincidence. Stones do change." + +"I grant you it was a coincidence. Sunrise and daybreak are +coincidences. But one is because of t'other. Irene believed my poison +turned her stone red, or she would never have refused to wear it a +minute longer, from an unreasonable dislike of the Evil One, whose +influence she discerned in this simple, natural phenomenon. I considered +myself justified in boning the ring for my own use, so I had it enlarged +to go on my finger, and there it is, on! I shall never see it again, +unless Septimius Severus turns up trumps. What colour should you say it +was now?" + +Gwen took the hand with the mystic ring on it, turning it this way and +that, to see the light reflected. "Pale pink," she said. "Yes--certainly +pale pink." She appeared amused, and unconvinced. "I had no idea 'Re was +superstitious. You are excusable, dearest, because, after all, you are +only a man. One expects a woman to have a little commonsense. Now +if...." She appeared to be wavering over something--disposed towards +concessions. + +"Now if what?" + +"If the ring had had a character from its last place--if it had +distinguished itself before...." + +"Oh, I thought I told you about that. I forgot. It was a ring with a +story, that came somehow to my great-great-grandfather, when he was in +Paris. It had done itself great credit--gained quite a reputation--at +the Court of Louis Quatorze, on the fingers I believe of the Marchioness +de Brinvilliers and Louise de la Vallière.... Yes, I think both, but +close particulars have always been wanting. 'Re only consented to wear +it on condition she should be allowed to disbelieve in it, and then when +this little stramash occurred through my bringing home the Warroo +poison, her powers of belief at choice seem to have proved +insufficient.... Isn't that her, coming back?" + +It was; and when she came into the room a moment later, Gwen +said:--"We've been talking about your ring, and a horrible little bottle +of Red Indian poison this silly obstinate man has got hidden away and +won't give me." + +"I know," said Irene. "He's incorrigible. But don't you believe him, +Gwen, when he justifies suicide. It's only his nonsense." Irene had come +back quite sick and tired of housekeeping, and was provoked by the +informal _status quo_ of the young lady and gentleman on the sofa into +remarking to the latter:--"Now you're happy." + +"Or ought to be," said Gwen. + +"Now, go on exactly where you were," said Irene. + +"I will," said Adrian. "I was just expressing a hope that Gwen had been +regular in her attendance at church while in London." He did not seem +vitally interested in this, for he changed almost immediately to another +subject. "How about your old lady, Gwen? She's your old lady, I suppose, +whose house tumbled down?" + +"Yes, only not quite. We got her out safe. The woman who lived with her, +Mrs. Burr.... However, I wrote all that in my letter, didn't I?" + +"Yes--you wrote about Mrs. Burr, and how she was a commonplace person. +We thought you unfeeling about Mrs. Burr." + +"I was, quite! I can't tell you how it has been on our consciences, +Clo's and mine, that we have been unable to take an interest in Mrs. +Burr. We tried to make up for it, by one of us going every day to see +her in the hospital. I must say for her that she asked about Mrs. +Prichard as soon as she was able to speak--asked if she was being got +out, and said she supposed it was the repairs. She is not an imaginative +or demonstrative person, you see. When I suggested to her that she +should come to look after Mrs. Prichard in the country, till the house +was rebuilt, she only said she was going to her married niece's at +Clapham. I don't know why, but her married niece at Clapham seemed to me +indisputable, like an Act of Parliament. I said 'Oh yes!' in a convinced +sort of way, as if I knew this niece, and acknowledged Clapham." + +"Then you have got the old lady at the Towers?" + +"Yes--yesterday. I don't know how it's going to answer." + +Adrian said: "Why shouldn't it answer?" + +Irene was sharper. "Because of the servants, I suppose," said she. + +Gwen said:--"Ye-es, because of the household." + +"I thought," said Adrian, "that she was such a charming old lady." This +took plenty of omissions for granted. + +"So she is," said Gwen. "At least, _I_ think her most sweet and +fascinating. But really--the British servant!" + +"_I_ know," said Irene. + +"Especially the women," said Gwen. "I could manage the men, easily +enough." + +"You _could_," said Adrian, with expressive emphasis. And all three +laughed. Indeed, it is difficult to describe the subserviency of her +male retinue to "Gwen o' the Towers." To say that they were ready to +kiss the hem of her garment is but a feeble expression of the truth. +Say, rather, that they were ready to fight for the privilege of doing +so! + +"I can't say," Gwen resumed, "precisely what I found my misgivings on. +Little things I can't lay hold of. I can't find any _fault_ with +Lutwyche when she was attending on the dear old soul in Cavendish +Square. But I couldn't help thinking...." + +"What?" + +"Well--I thought she showed a slightly fiendish readiness to defer to my +minutest directions, and perhaps, I should say, a fell determination not +to presume." Telegraphies of slight perceptive nods and raised eyebrows, +in touch with shoulder shrugs not insisted on, expressed mutual +understanding between the two young ladies. "Of course, I may be wrong," +said Gwen. "But when I interviewed Mrs. Masham last thing last night, it +was borne in upon me, Heaven knows how, that she had been in collision +with Lutwyche about the old lady." + +"What is it you call her?" said Irene. "Old Mrs. Picture? There's +nothing against her, is there?" + +Adrian had seemed to be considering a point. "Did you not say +something--last letter but one, I think--about the old lady's husband +having been convicted and transported?" + +"Oh _yes_!--but that's not to be talked about, you know! Besides, it was +her son, not her husband, that I wrote about. I only found out about the +husband a day or two ago. Only you must be very careful, dearest, and +remember it's a dead secret. I promise not to tell things, and then of +course I forget, when it's you. Old Mrs. Picture would quite understand, +though, if I told her." + +Adrian said that he really must have some more of the secret to keep, or +it would not be worth keeping. + +So Gwen told them then and there all that old Mrs. Picture had told her +of her terrible life-story. It may have contained things this present +narrative has missed, or _vice versa_, but the essential points were the +same in both. + +"What a queer story!" said Adrian. "Did the old body cry when she told +it?" + +"Scarcely, if at all. She looked very beautiful--you've no idea how +lovely she is sometimes--and told it all quite quietly, just as if she +had been speaking of someone else." + +"I have always had a theory," said Adrian, "that one gets less and less +identical, as Time goes on...." + +"What do you mean by that?" said Gwen. + +"Haven't the slightest idea!" Adrian had been speaking seriously, but at +this point his whimsical mood seized him. He went on:--"You don't mean +to say, I hope, that you are going to make meaning a _sine qua non_ in +theories? It would be the death-knell of speculation." + +"You don't know what a goose you are engaged to, Gwen," said Irene +parenthetically. + +"Yes, I do. But he meant something this time. He _does_, you know, now +and again, in spite of appearances to the contrary. What _did_ you mean, +please?" + +"I can only conjecture," said Adrian incorrigibly. Then, more in +earnest:--"I think it was something like this. I know that I am the same +man that I was last week so long as I remember what happened last week. +Suppose I forget half--which I do, in practice--I still remain the same +man, according to my notion of identity. But it is an academical +notion, of no use in everyday life. A conjurer who forgets how to +lay eggs in defiance of natural law, or how to find canaries in +pocket-handkerchiefs, is not the same conjurer, in practical politics. +And yet he is the same man. Dock and crop his qualities and attributes +as you will, he keeps the same man, academically. But not for working +purposes. By the time you can say nothing about him, that was true of +him last week, he may just as well be somebody else." + +"Mind you recollect all that, and it will do in a book," said his +sister. "But what has it to do with Gwen's old woman?" + +"Yes--what has it to do with my old woman?" said Gwen. + +"Didn't you say," Adrian asked, "that the old lady told all about her +past quite quietly, just as if she had been speaking of somebody else? +Your very expression, ma'am! You see, she was to all intents and +purposes somebody else then, or has become somebody else now. I always +wonder, whether, if one had left oneself--one of one's selves--behind +in the past, like old Mrs. Picture, and some strange navigation on the +sea of life were to land one in a long-forgotten port, where the memory +still hung on, in a mind or two, of the self one had left behind--would +the self one had grown to be bring conviction to the mind or two? +Wouldn't the chance survivors who admitted that you were Jack or Jim or +Polly be discouraged if they found that Jack or Jim or Polly had +forgotten the old pier that was swept away, or the old pub which the new +hotel was, once. Wouldn't they discredit you? Wouldn't they decide that, +for all your bald, uninteresting identity--mere mechanical sameness--you +wouldn't wash?" + +"Rip van Winkle washed," said Gwen. + +"Because Washington Irving chose. I sometimes imagine Rip isn't really +true. Anyhow, his case doesn't apply. _He_ remembered everything as if +it was yesterday. For him, it _was_ yesterday. So he was the same man, +both in theory and practice. Jack and Jim and Polly were to forget, by +hypothesis." + +"Does old Mrs. Picture?" asked Irene. + +"I should say--very little," said Gwen. "Less now than when I took her +first to Cavendish Square. She'll get very communicative, I've no doubt, +if she's fed up, in the country air. I shall see to that myself. So Mrs. +Masham had better look out." + +"There's mamma!" said Irene suddenly. "I'll go and see that she gets her +writing things.... No--don't you move! She won't come in here. She wants +to write important letters. You sit still." And Irene went off to +intercept the Miss Abercrombie her father had married all those years +ago instead of Gwen's mother. She does not come much into this story, +but its reader may be interested to know that she was an enthusiastic +Abolitionist, and a friend of the Duchess of Sutherland. There was only +one thing in those days that called for abolition--negro slavery in +America; so everyone who recollects the fifties will know what an +Abolitionist was. Nevertheless, though Lady Torrens happens to keep +outside the story, it would have been quite another story without her. + +Adrian was a good son, and loved his mother duly. She returned his +affection, but could not stand his poetical effusions, which she thought +showed an irreverent spirit. We are not quite sure they did not. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + HOW AN OLD LADY WAS TAKEN FOR A DRIVE, AND SAW JONES'S BULL, ALL IN + A DREAM. STRIDES COTTAGE AND A STRANGE CONTIGUITY. AFTER SIXTY + YEARS! HOW TOBY SMASHED A PANE OF GLASS WITH A HORSE-CHESTNUT, AND + NEARLY HAD NO SUGAR IN HIS BREAD-AND-MILK. HOW THE OLD BODY + CURTSIED AND THE OLD SOUL DIDN'T GO TO SLEEP. HOW GWEN NEARLY + FORGOT TO INTRODUCE THEM. HOW MRS. PICTURE KNOCKED UP AND RAN + DOWN,--BUT WOULD NOT HAVE MUTTON BROTH. BUT NEITHER KNEW! HOW MRS. + PICTURE THOUGHT MRS. MARRABLE A NICE PERSON. HOW GWEN LUNCHED WITH + HER PARENTS. "REALLY, OUR DAUGHTER!" HOW LOOKING AMUSED DOES NO + GOOD. WAS GWEN JONES'S BULL, OR HOW? NORBURY AS AN ORACLE. HOW THE + EARL WENT ROUND TO SEE THE FAIRY GODMOTHER + + +It had all come on the old woman like a bewildering dream. It began with +the sudden appearance, as she dozed in her chair at Sapps Court, all the +memories of her past world creeping spark-like through its half-burned +scroll, a dream of Gwen in her glory, heralded by Dave; depositing +Dolly, very rough-headed, on the floor, and explaining her intrusion +with some difficulty owing to those children wanting to explain too. +This was dreamlike enough, but it had become more so with the then +inexplicable crash that followed a discomfort in the floor; more so with +that strange half-conscious drive through the London streets in the glow +of the sunset; more so yet, when, after an interval of real dreams, she +woke to the luxury of Sister Nora's temporary arrangements, pending the +organization of the Simple Life; more dreamlike still when she woke +again later, to wonder at the leaves of the creeper that framed her +lattice at the Towers, ruby in the dawn of a cloudless autumn day, and +jewelled with its dew. She had to look, wonderingly, at her old +unchanged hands, to be quite sure she was not in Heaven. Then she caught +a confirmatory glimpse of her old white head in a mirror, and that +settled it. Besides, her old limbs ached; not savagely, but quite +perceptibly, and that was discordant with her idea of Heaven. + +Her acquiescence was complete in all that had happened. Not that it was +clearly what she would have chosen, even if she could have foreseen all +its outcomings, and pictured to herself what she would have been +refusing, had refusal been practicable. Her actual choice, putting aside +newly kindled love for this mysterious and beautiful agency, half +daughter and half Guardian Angel, that had been sprung upon her life so +near its close, might easily have been to face the risks of some +half-dried plaster, and go back to her old chair by the fire in Sapps +Court, and her day-dreams of the huge cruel world she had all but seen +the last of; to watch through the hours for what was now the great +relaxation of her life, the coming of Dave and Dolly, and to listen +through the murmur of the traffic that grew and grew in the silence of +the house, for the welcome voices of the children on the stairs. But how +meet Gwen's impulsive decisions with anything but acquiescence? It was +not, with her, mere ready deference to the will of a superior; she might +have stickled at that, and found words to express a wish for her old +haunts and old habits of life. It was much more nearly the feeling a +mother might have had for a daughter, strangely restored to her, after +long separation that had made her a memory of a name. It was mixed with +the ready compliance one imputes to the fortunate owner of a Guardian +Angel, who is deserving of his luck. No doubt also with the fact that no +living creature, great or small, ever said nay to Gwen. But, for +whatever reason, she complied, and wondered. + +Remember, too, the enforced associations of her previous experience. +Think how soon the conditions of her early youth--which, if they +afforded no high culture, were at least those of a respected middle +class in English provincial life--came to an end, and what they gave +place to! Then, on her return to England, how little chance her +antecedents and her son's vicious inherited disposition gave her of +resuming the position she would have been entitled to had her exile, and +its circumstances, not made the one she had to submit to abnormal! Aunt +M'riar and Mrs. Burr were good women, but those who study class-niceties +would surely refuse to _ranger_ either with Granny Marrable. And even +that old lady is scarcely a fair illustration; for, had her sister's +bridegroom been what the bride believed him, the social outcome of the +marriage would have been all but the same as of her own, had she wedded +his elder brother. + +It is little wonder that old Mrs. Picture, who once was Maisie, should +succumb to the influences of this dazzling creature with all the world +at her feet. And less that these influences grew upon her, when there +was none to see, and hamper free speech with conventions. For when they +were alone, it came about that either unpacked her heart to the other, +and Gwen gave all the tale of the shadow on her own love in exchange +for that of the blacker shadows of the galleys--of the convict's cheated +wife, and the terrible inheritance of his son. + +The story is sorry to have to admit that Gwen's bad faith to the old +lady, in the matter of her pledge of secrecy, did not show itself only +in her repetition of the story to her lover and his sister. She told her +father, a nobleman with all sorts of old-fashioned prejudices, among +others that of disliking confidences entrusted to him in disregard of +solemn oaths of secrecy. His protest intercepted his daughter's +revelation at the outset. "Unprincipled young monkey!" he exclaimed. +"You mustn't tell me when you've promised not to. Didn't you, now?" + +"Of course I did! But _you_ don't count. Papas don't, when trustworthy. +Besides, the more people of the right sort know a secret, the better it +will be kept." Gwen had to release her lips from two paternal fingers to +say this. She followed it up by using them--she was near enough--to run +a trill of kisslets across the paternal forehead. + +"Very good!" said the Earl. "Fire away!" It has been mentioned that Gwen +always got her will, somehow. This _how_ was the one she used with her +father. She told the whole tale without reserves; except, perhaps, +slight ones in respect of the son's misdeeds. They were not things to be +spoken of to a good, innocent father, like hers. + +She answered an expression on his face, when she had finished, +with:--"As for any chance of the story not being true, that's +impossible." + +"Then it must be true," was the answer. Not an illogical one! + +"Don't agree meekly," says Gwen. "Meek agreement is contradiction.... +What makes you think it fibs?" + +"I don't think it fibs, my darling. Because I attach a good deal of +weight to the impression it has produced upon you. But other people +might, who did not know you." + +"Other people are not to be told, so they are out of it.... Well, +perhaps that _has_ very little to do with the matter." + +"Not very much. But tell me!--does the old lady give no names at all?" + +"N-no!--I can remember none. Her real name is not Picture, of course ... +I should have said Prichard." + +"I understand. But couldn't you get at her husband's name, to verify the +story?" + +"I don't want it verified. Where's the use?... No, she hasn't told me a +single surname of any of the people.... Oh yes--stop a minute! Of +course she told me Prichard was a name in her family--some old nurse's. +But it's such a common name." + +"Did she not say where she came from--where her family belonged?" + +"Yes--Essex. But Essex is like Rutlandshire. Nobody has ever been to +either, or knows anyone that is there by nature." + +"I didn't know that was the case, but I have no interest in proving the +contrary. Suppose you try to get at her husband's name--her real married +name. I could tell my man in Lincoln's Inn to hunt up the trial. Or even +if you could get the exact date it might be enough. There cannot have +been so very many fathers-in-laws' signatures forged in one year." + +But Gwen did not like to press the old lady for information she was +reluctant to give, and the names of the family in Essex and the +delinquent remained untold; or, if told to Gwen, were concealed more +effectually by her than the narrative they were required to fill out. +And as the confidants to whom she had repeated that narrative were more +loyal to her than she herself had been to its first narrator, it +remained altogether unknown to the household at the Towers; and, indeed, +to anyone who could by repeating it have excited suspicion of the +twinship of the farmer's widow at Chorlton-under-Bradbury and the old +lady whom her young ladyship's eccentricities had brought from London. + +Apart from their close contiguity, nothing occurred for some time to +make mutual recognition more probable than it had been at any moment +since Dave's visit to Chorlton had disclosed to each the bare fact of +the other's existence. They were within five miles of one another, and +neither knew it; nor had either a thought of the other but as a memory +of long ago; still cherished, as a sepulchral stone cherishes what Time +leaves legible, while his slow hand makes each letter fainter day by +day. + +And yet--how near they went on one occasion to what must have led to +recognition, had the period of their separation been less cruelly long, +and its strange conditions less baffling! How near, for instance, three +or four days after old Maisie's arrival at the Towers, when Gwen the +omnipotent decided that she would take Mrs. Picture for a long drive in +the best part of the day--the longest drive that would not tire her to +death! + +Whether the old soul that her young ladyship had taken such a fancy +to--that was how Blencorn the coachman and Benjamin the coachboy thought +of her--really enjoyed the strange experience of gliding over smooth +roads flanked by matchless woodlands or primeval moorland; cropless +Autumn fields or pastures of contented cattle; through villages of the +same mind about the undesirableness of change that had been their creed +for centuries, with churches unconscious of judicious restoration and an +unflawed record of curfews; by farms with all the usual besetting sins +of farms, black duck-slush and uncaptivating dung-heaps; cattle no +persuasion weighs with; the same hen that never stops the same +dissertation on the same egg, the same cock that has some of the vices +of his betters, our male selves to wit--whether the said old soul really +enjoyed all this, who can say? She may have been pretending to satisfy +her young ladyship. If so, she succeeded very well, considering her +years. But it was all part of a dream to her. + +In that dream, she waked at intervals to small realities. One of these +was Farmer Jones's Bull. Not that she had more than a timid hope of +seeing that celebrated quadruped himself. She was, however, +undisguisedly anxious to do so; inquiring after him; the chance of his +proximity; the possibility of cultivating his intimate acquaintance. No +other bull would serve her purpose, which was to take back to Dave, who +filled much of her thoughts, an authentic report of Farmer Jones's. + +"Dave must be a very nice little boy," said Gwen. "Anyhow, he's pretty. +And Dolly's a darling." This may have been partly due to the way in +which Dolly had overwhelmed the young lady--the equivalent, as it were, +of a kind of cannibalism, or perhaps octopus-greed--which had stood in +the way of a maturer friendship with her brother. However, there had +really been very little time. + +"You see, my dear," said the old lady, "if I was to _see_ Farmer Jones's +Bull, I could tell the dear child about him in London. Isn't that a +Bull?" But it wasn't, though possibly a relation he would not have +acknowledged. + +"I think Blencorn might make a point of Farmer Jones's Bull," said Gwen. +"Blencorn!" + +"Yes, my lady." + +"I want to stop at Strides Cottage, coming back. _You_ know--Mrs. +Marrable's!" + +"Yes, my lady." + +"Well--isn't that Farmer Jones's farm, on the left, before we get there? +Close to the Spinney." Now Mr. Blencorn knew perfectly well. But he was +not going to admit that he knew, because farms were human affairs, and +he was on the box. He referred to his satellite, the coachboy, whose +information enabled him to say:--"Yes, my lady, on the left." Gwen then +said:--"Very good, then, Blencorn, stop at the gate, and Benjamin can +go in and say we've come to see the Bull. Go on!" + +"I wonder," said old Mrs. Prichard, with roused interest, "if that is +Davy's granny I wrote to for him. Such a lot he has to say about her! +But it was Mrs.... Mrs. Thrale Dave went to stop with." + +"Mrs. Marrable--Granny Marrable--is Mrs. Thrale's mother. A nice old +lady. Rather younger than you, and awfully strong. She can walk nine +miles." In Rumour's diary, the exact number of a pedestrian's miles is +vouched for, as well as the exact round number of thousands Park-Laners +have _per annum_. "I dare say we shall see her," Gwen continued. "I hope +so, because I promised my cousin Clo to give her this parcel with my own +hands. Only she may be out.... Aren't you getting very tired, dear Mrs. +Picture?" + +Mrs. Picture was getting tired, and admitted it. "But I must see the +Bull," said she. She closed her eyes and leaned back, and Gwen +said:--"You can drive a little quicker, Blencorn." There had been plenty +of talk through a longish drive, and Gwen was getting afraid of +overdoing it. + +This was the gate of the farm, my lady. Should Benjamin go across to the +house, and express her ladyship's wishes? Benjamin was trembling for the +flawless blacking of his beautiful boots, and the unsoiled felt of his +leggings. Yes, he might go, and get somebody to come out and speak to +her ladyship, or herself, as convenient. But while Benjamin was away on +this mission, the unexpected came to pass in the form of a boy. We all +know how rarely human creatures occur in fields and villages, in +England. This sporadic example, in answer to a question "Are you Farmer +Jones's boy?" replied guardedly:--"Ees, a be woon." + +"Very well then," said Gwen. "Find Farmer Jones, to show us his Bull." + +The boy shook his head. "Oo'r Bull can't abide he," said he. "A better +tarry indowers, fa'ather had, and leave oy to ha'andle un. A be a foine +Bull, oo'r Bull!" + +"You mean, you can manage your Bull, and father can't. Is that it?" +Assent given. "And how can you manage your Bull?" + +"Oy can whistle un a tewun." + +"Is he out in the field, or here in his stable or house, or whatever +it's called?" + +"That's him nigh handy, a-roomblin'." It then appeared that this youth +was prepared, for a reasonable consideration, to lead this formidable +brute out into the farmyard, under the influence of musical cajolery. He +met a suggestion that his superiors might disapprove of his doing so, by +pointing out that they would all keep "yower side o' th' gayut" until +the Bull--whose name, strange to say, seemed to be Zephyr--was safe in +bounds, chained by his nose-ring to a sufficient wall-staple. + +Said old Mrs. Picture, roused from an impending nap by the interest of +the event:--"This must be the boy Davy told about, who whistled to the +Bull. Why--the child can never tire of telling that story." It certainly +was the very selfsame boy, and he was as good as his word, exhibiting +the Bull with pride, and soothing his morose temper as he had promised, +by monotonous whistling. Whether he was more intoxicated with his +success or with a shilling Gwen gave him as recompense, it would have +been hard to say. + +The old lady was infinitely more excited and interested about this Bull, +on Dave's account, than about any of the hundred-and-one things Gwen had +shown her during her five-mile drive. When Gwen gave the direction:--"Go +on to Strides Cottage, Blencorn," and Blencorn, who had scarcely +condescended to look at the Bull, answered:--"Yes, my lady," her +interest on Dave's account was maintained, but on a rather different +line. She was, however, becoming rapidly too fatigued to entertain any +feelings of resentment against her rival, and none mixed with the +languid interest the prospect of seeing her aroused during the +three-minutes' drive from Farmer Jones's to Strides Cottage. + + * * * * * + +This story despairs of showing to the full the utter strangeness of the +position that was created by this meeting of old Maisie and old Phoebe, +each of whom for nearly half a century had thought the other dead. It is +forced to appeal to its reader to make an effort to help its feeble +presentations by its own powers of imagery. + +Conceive that suddenly a voice that imposed belief on its hearers had +said to each of them:--"This is your sister of those long bygone +years--slain, for you, by a cunning lie; living on, and mourning for a +death that never was; dreaming, as you dreamed, of a slowly vanishing +past, vanishing so slowly that its characters might still be visible at +the end of the longest scroll of recorded life. Look upon her, and +recognise in that shrunken face the lips you kissed, the cheeks you +pressed to yours, the eye that laughed and gave back love or mockery! +Try to hear in that frail old voice the music of its speech in the years +gone by; ask for the song it knew so well the trick of. Try to caress +in those grey, thin old tresses the mass of gold from whose redundance +you cut the treasured locks you almost weep afresh to see and handle, +even now." Then try to imagine to yourself the outward seeming of its +hearers, always supposing them to understand. It is a large supposition, +but the dramatist would have to accept it, with the ladies in the stalls +getting up to go. + +Are _you_ prepared to accept, off the stage, a snapshot recognition of +each other by the two old twins, and curtain? It is hard to conceive +that mere eyesight, and the hearing of a changed voice, could have +provoked such a result. However, it is not for the story to decide that +in every case it would be impossible. It can only record events as they +happened, however much interest might be gained by the interpolation of +a little skilful fiction. + + * * * * * + +That morning, at Strides Cottage, a regrettable event had disturbed +Granny Marrable's equanimity. A small convalescent, named Toby, who was +really old enough to know better, had made a collection of beautiful, +clean, new horse-chestnuts from under the tree in the field behind the +house. Never was the heart of man more embittered by this sort being no +use for cooking than in the case of these flawless, glossy rotundities. +Each one was a handful for a convalescent, and that was why Toby so +often had his hands in his pockets. He was, in fact, fondling his +ammunition, like Mr. Dooley. For that was, according to Toby, the +purpose of Creation in the production of the horse-chestnut tree. He had +awaited his opportunity, and here it was:--he was unwatched in the large +room that was neither kitchen nor living-room, but more both than +neither, and he seized it to show his obedience to a frequent injunction +not to throw stones. He was an honourable convalescent, and he proved it +in the choice of a missile. His first horse-chestnut only gave him the +range; his second smashed the glass it was aimed at. And that glass was +the door or lid of the automatic watermill on the chimney-piece! + +The Granny was quite upset, and Widow Thrale was downright angry, and +called Toby an undeserving little piece, if ever there was one. It was a +harsh censure, and caused Toby to weep; in fact, to roar. Roaring, +however, did nothing towards repairing the mischief done, and nearly led +to a well-deserved penalty for Toby, to be put to his bed and very +likely have no sugar in his bread-and-milk--such being the exact wording +of the sentence. It was not carried out, as it was found that the +watermill and horses, the two little girls in sun-bonnets, and the +miller smoking at the window, were all intact; only the glass being +broken. There was no glazier in the village, which broke few windows, +and was content to wait the coming round of a peripatetic plumber, who +came at irregular intervals, like Easter, but without astronomical +checks. So, as a temporary expedient to keep the dust out, Widow Thrale +pasted a piece of paper over the breakage, and the mill was hidden from +the human eye. Toby showed penitence, and had sugar in his +bread-and-milk, but the balance of his projectiles was confiscated. + +Consequently, old Mrs. Marrable was not in her best form when her young +ladyship arrived, and Benjamin the coachboy came up the garden pathway +as her harbinger to see if she should descend from the carriage to +interview the old lady. She did not want to do so, as she felt she ought +to get Mrs. Prichard home as soon as possible; but wanted, all the same, +to fulfil her promise of delivering Sister Nora's parcel with her own +hands. She was glad to remain in the carriage, on hearing from Benjamin +that both Granny Marrable and her daughter were on the spot; and would, +said he, be out in a minute. + +"They'll curtsey," said Gwen. "Do, dear Mrs. Picture, keep awake one +minute more. I want you so much to see Dave's other Granny. She's such a +nice old body!" Can any student of language say why these two old women +should be respectively classed as an old soul and an old body, and why +the cap should fit in either case? + +"I won't go to sleep," said Mrs. Prichard, making a great effort. "That +must be Dave's duck-pond, across the road." The duck-pond had no alloy. +She did not feel that her curiosity about Dave's other Granny was quite +without discomfort. + +"Oh--had Dave a duck-pond? It looks very black and juicy.... Here come +the two Goodies! I've brought you a present from Sister Nora, Granny +Marrable. It's in here. I know what it is because I've seen it--it's +nice and warm for the winter. Take it in and look at it inside. I +mustn't stop because of Mrs.... There now!--I was quite forgetting...." +It shows how slightly Gwen was thinking of the whole transaction that +she should all but tell Blencorn to drive home at this point, with the +scantiest farewell to the Goodies, who had curtsied duly as foretold. +She collected herself, and continued:--"You remember the small boy, Mrs. +Marrable, when I came with Sister Nora, whose letter we read about the +thieves and the policeman?" + +"Ah, dear, indeed I do! That dear child!--why, what would we not give, +Ruth and me, to see him again?" + +"Well, this is Mrs. Picture, who wrote his letter for him. This is +Granny Marrable, that Dave told you all about. She says she wants him +back." + +And then Maisie and Phoebe looked each other in the face again after +half a century of separation. Surely, if there is any truth in the +belief that the souls of twins are linked by some unseen thread of +sympathy, each should have been stirred by the presence of the other. If +either was, she had no clue to the cause of her perturbation. They +looked each other in the face; and each made some suitable recognition +of her unknown sister. Phoebe hoped the dear boy was well, and Maisie +heard that he was, but had not seen him now nigh a month. Phoebe had had +a letter from him yesterday, but could not quite make it out. Ruth would +go in and get it, for her ladyship to see. Granny Marrable made little +direct concession to the equivocal old woman who might be anything, for +all she was in her ladyship's carriage. + +"I suppose," said Gwen, "the boy has tried to describe the accident, and +made a hash of it. Is that it?" + +"Indeed, my lady, he does tell something of an accident. Only I took it +for just only telling--story-book like!... Ah, yes, that will be the +letter. Give it to her ladyship." + +Gwen took the letter from Widow Thrale, but did not unfold it. "Mayn't I +take it away," she said, "for me and Mrs. Picture to read at home? I +want to get her back and give her some food. She's knocking up." + +Immediately Granny Marrable's heart and Widow Thrale's overflowed. What +did the doubts that hung over this old person matter, whatever she was, +if she was running down visibly within the zone of influence of +perceptible mutton-broth; which was confirming, through the door, what +the wood-smoke from the chimney had to say about it to the Universe? Let +Ruth bring out a cup of it at once for Mrs. Picture. It was quite good +and strong by now. Granny Marrable could answer for that. + +But it was one thing to be generous to a rival, another to accept a +benevolence from one. Mrs. Picture quite roused herself to acknowledge +the generosity, but she wouldn't have the broth on any terms, evidently. +Gwen thought she could read the history of this between the lines. As we +have seen, she was aware of the sort of jealousy subsisting between +these two old Grannies about their adopted grandson. She thought it best +to favour immediate departure, and Blencorn jumped at the first symptom +of a word to that effect. The carriage rolled away, waving farewells to +the cottage, and the tenants of the latter went slowly back to the +mutton-broth. + +And neither of the two old women had the dimmest idea whose face it was +that she had looked at in the broad full light of a glorious autumn day; +not passingly, as one glances at a stranger on the road, who comes one +knows not whence, to vanish away one knows not whither; but inquiringly, +as when a first interview shows us the outward seeming of one known by +hearsay--one whom our mind has dwelt on curiously, making conjectural +images at random, and wondering which was nearest to the truth. And to +neither of those who saw this meeting, for all they felt interest to +note what each would think of the other, did the thought come of any +very strong resemblance between them. They were two old women--that was +all! + +And yet, in the days of their girlhood, these old women had been so much +alike that they were not allowed to dress in the same colour, for mere +mercy to the puzzled bystanders. So much alike that when, for a frolic, +each put on the other's clothes, and answered to the other's name, the +fraud went on for days, undetected! + +It seems strange, but gets less strange as all the facts are sorted out, +and weighed in the scale. First and foremost the whole position was so +impossible _per se_--one always knows what is and is not possible!--that +any true version of the antecedents of the two old women would have +seemed mere madness. Had either spectator noted that the bones of the +two old faces were the same, she would have condemned her own powers of +observation rather than doubt the infallibility of instinctive +disbelief, which is the attitude of the vernacular mind not only to what +it wishes to be false, but to anything that runs counter to the +octave-stretch forlorn--as Elizabeth Browning put it--of its limited +experience. Had either noted that the eyes of the two were the same, she +would have attached no meaning to the similarity. So many eyes are the +same! How many shades of colour does the maker of false eyes stock, all +told? Guess them at a thousand, and escape the conclusion that in a +world of a thousand million, a million of eyes are alike, if you can. If +they had compared the hair still covering the heads of both, they would +have found Dave's comparison of it with Pussy's various tints a good and +intelligent one. Maisie was silvery white, Phoebe merely grey. But the +greatest difference was in the relative uprightness and strength of the +old countrywoman, helped--and greatly helped--by the entire difference +in dress. + +No!--it was not surprising that bystanders should not suspect offhand +that something they would have counted impossible was actually there +before them in the daylight. Was it not even less so that Maisie and +Phoebe, who remembered Phoebe and Maisie last in the glory and beauty of +early womanhood, should each be unsuspicious, when suspicion would have +gone near to meaning a thought in the mind of each that the other had +risen from the grave? It is none the less strange that two souls, +nourished unborn by the same mother, should have all but touched, and +that neither should have guessed the presence of the other, through the +outer shell it dwelt in. + +How painfully we souls are dependent on the evidence of our +existence--eyes and noses and things! + +To get back to the thread of the story. Mrs. Picture, on her part, +seemed--so far as her fatigue allowed her to narrate her impressions--to +take a more favourable view of her rival than the latter of herself. She +went so far as to speak of her as "a nice person." But she was in a +position to be liberal; being, as it were, in possession of the bone of +contention--unconscious Dave, equally devoted to both his two Grannies! +Would she not go back to him, and would not he and Dolly come up and +keep her company, and Dolly bring her doll? Would not Sapps Court rise, +metaphorically speaking, out of its ashes, and the rebuilt wall of that +Troy get bone-dry, and the window be stood open on summer evenings by +Mrs. Burr, for to hear Miss Druitt play her scales? It was much easier +for Maisie to forgive Phoebe her claim on Dave's affection than _vice +versa_. + +She was, however, so thoroughly knocked up by this long drive that she +spoke very little to Gwen about Strides Cottage or anything else, at the +time. Gwen saw her on the way to resuscitation, and left her rather +reluctantly to Mrs. Masham and Lutwyche; who would, she knew, take very +good care that her visitor wanted for nothing, however much she +suspected that those two first-class servants were secretly in revolt +against the duty they were called on to execute. They would not enter +their protest against any whim of her young ladyship, however mad they +might think it, by any act of neglect that could be made the basis of an +indictment against them. + +She herself was overdue at the rather late lunch which her august +parents were enjoying in solitude. They were leaving for London in the +course of an hour or so, having said farewell in the morning to such +guests as still remained at the Towers; and intended, after a short stay +in town, to part company--the Earl going to Bath, where it was his +practice each year to go through a course of bathing, by which means he +contended his life might be indefinitely prolonged--to return in time +for Christmas, which they would probably celebrate--or, as the Earl +said, undergo--at Ancester Towers, according to their usual custom. + +"What on earth have you been doing, Gwen, to make you so late?" said the +Countess. "We couldn't wait." + +"It doesn't matter," was her daughter's answer. "I can gobble to make up +for lost time. Don't bring any arrears, Norbury. I can go on where they +are. What's this--grouse? Not if it's grousey, thank you!... +Oh--well--perhaps I can endure it ... What have I been doing? Why, +taking a drive!... Yes--hock. Only not in a tall glass. I hate tall +glasses. They hit one's nose. Besides, you get less.... I took my old +lady out for a drive--all round by Chorlton, and showed her things. We +saw Farmer Jones's Bull." + +"Is that the Bull that killed the man?" This was the Earl. His eyes were +devouring his beautiful daughter, as they were liable to do, even at +lunch, or in church. + +"I believe he did. It was a man that beat his wife. So it was a good +job. He's a dear Bull, but his eyes are red. He had a little boy ... +Nonsense, mamma!--why don't you wait till I've done? He had a little boy +to whistle to him and keep his nerves quiet. The potatoes could have +waited, Norbury." The story hopes that its economies of space by +omitting explanations will not be found puzzling. + +The Countess's mien indicated despair of her daughter's manners or +sanity, or both. Also that attempts to remedy either would be futile. +Her husband laughed slightly to her across the table, with a +sub-shrug--the word asks pardon--of his shoulders. She answered it by +another, and "Well!" It was as though they had said:--"Really--our +daughter!" + +"And where else did you go?" said the Earl, to re-rail the conversation. +"And what else did you see?" + +"Mrs. Picture was knocking up," said Gwen. "So we didn't see so much as +we might have done. We left a parcel from Cousin Clo at Goody +Marrable's, and then came home as fast as we could pelt. You know Goody +Marrable, mamma?" + +"Oh dear, yes! I went there with Clo, and she gave us her strong-tea." + +Gwen nodded several times. "Same experience," said she. "Why is it they +_will_?" The story fancies it referred, a long time since, to this vice +of Goody Marrable's. No doubt Gurth the Swineherd would have made tea on +the same lines, had he had any to make. + +The Countess lost interest in the tea question, and evidently had +something to say. Therefore Gwen said:--"Yes, mamma! What?" and got for +answer:--"It's only a suggestion." + +"But _what_ is a suggestion?" said the Earl. + +"No attention will be paid to it, so it's no use," said her ladyship. + +"But what _is_ it?" said the Earl. "No harm in knowing _what_ it is, +that I can see!" + +"My dear," said the Countess, "you are always unreasonable. But Gwen may +see some sense in what I say. It's no use your looking amused, because +that doesn't do any good." After which little preliminary skirmish she +came to the point, speaking to Gwen in a half-aside, as to a +fellow-citizen in contradistinction to an outcast, her father. "Why +should not your old woman be put up at Mrs. Marrable's? They do this +sort of thing there. However, perhaps Mrs. Marrable is full up." + +"I didn't see anybody there but the two Goodies. I didn't go in, though. +But why is Mrs. Picture not to stop where she is?" + +"Just as you please, my dear." Her ladyship abdicated with the +promptitude of a malicious monarch, who seeks to throw the Constitution +into disorder. "How long do you want to stop here yourself?" + +"I haven't made up my mind. But _why_ is Mrs. Picture not to stop where +she is?" This was put incisively. + +Her ladyship deprecated truculence. "My dear Gwen!--really! _Are_ you +Farmer Jones's Bull, or who?" Then, during a lull in the servants, for +the moment out of hearing, she added in an undertone:--"You can ask +Norbury, and see what _he_ thinks. Only wait till Thomas is out of the +room." To which Gwen replied substantially that she was still in +possession of her senses. + +Now Norbury stood in a very peculiar relation to this noble Family. +Perhaps it is best described as that of an Unacknowledged Deity, +tolerating Atheism from a respect for the Aristocracy. He was not +allowed altars or incense, which might have made him vain; but it is +difficult to say what questions he was not consulted on, by the Family. +Its members had a general feeling that opinions so respectful as his +_must_ be right, even when they did not bear analysis. + +Gwen let the door close on Thomas before she approached the Shrine of +the Oracle. It must be admitted that she did so somewhat as Farmer +Jones's Bull might have done. "_You've_ heard all about old Mrs. +Picture, Norbury?" said she. + +Why should it have been that Mr. Norbury's "Oh _dear_, yes, my lady!" +immediately caused inferences in his hearers' minds--one of which, in +the Countess's, caused her to say to Gwen, under her voice:--"I told you +so!"? + +But Gwen was consulting the Oracle; what did it matter to her what +forecasts of its decisions the Public had made? "But you haven't _seen_ +her?" said she. No--Mr. Norbury had _not_ seen her; perfect candour must +admit that. She was only known to him by report, gathered from +conversations in which he himself was not joining. How could he be +induced to disclose that part of them that was responsible for a +peculiar emphasis in his reply to her ladyship's previous question? + +Not by the Countess's--"She is being well attended to, I suppose?" +spoken as by one floating at a great height above human affairs, but to +a certain extent responsible if they miscarried. For this only produced +a cordial testimonial from the Oracle to the assiduity, care, and skill +with which every want of the old lady was being supplied. Gwen's method +was likely to be much more effective, helped as it was by her absolute +licence to be and to do whatever she liked, and to suffer nothing +counter to her wishes, though, indeed, she always gained them by +omnipotent persuasion. She had also, as we have seen, a happy faculty of +going straight to the point. So had Farmer Jones's Bull, no doubt, on +occasion shown. + +"Which is it, Lutwyche or Mrs. Masham?" said she. What it was that was +either remained indeterminate. + +Mr. Norbury set himself to say which, without injustice to anyone +concerned. He dropped his voice to show how unreservedly he was telling +the truth, yet how reluctant he was that his words should be overheard +at the other end of the Castle. "No blame attaches," said he, to clear +the air. "But, if I might make so bold, the arrangement would work more +satisfactory if put upon a footing." + +The Countess said:--"You see, Gwen. I told you what it would be." The +Earl exchanged understandings with Norbury, which partly took the form +of inaudible speech. The fact was that Gwen had sprung the old lady on +the household without doing anything towards what Mr. Norbury called +putting matters on a footing. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + OLD MEMORIES, AGAIN. THE VOYAGE OUT, FIFTY YEARS SINCE. SAPPS + COURT, AND BREAD-AND-BUTTER SPREAD ON THE LOAF. HOW GWEN CAME INTO + THE DREAM SUDDENLY. HOW THEY READ DAVE'S LETTER, AND MUGGERIDGE WAS + UNDECIPHERABLE. HOW IT WASN'T THE MIDDLE AGES, BUT JEALOUSIES BRED + RUCTIONS. SO GWEN DINED ALONE, BUT WENT BACK. A CONTEMPTIBLE + HOT-WATER BOTTLE. MISS LUTWYCHE'S SKETCH OF THE RUCTIONS, AND HER + MAGNANIMITY. NAPOLÉON DE SOUCHY. HIS VANITY. BUT MAISIE AND + PHOEBE REMAINED UNCONSCIOUS, AS WHY SHOULD THEY NOT? INDEED, WHY + NOT POSTPONE THE DISCOVERY UNTIL AFTER THE GREAT INTERRUPTION, + DEATH? + + +The problem of where the anomalous old lady was to be lodged might have +been solved by what is called an accommodating disposition, but not by +the disposition incidental to the _esprit de corps_ of a large staff of +domestic servants. To control them is notoriously the deuce's own +delight, and old Nick's relish for it must grow in proportion as they +become more and more corporate. As Mr. Norbury said--and we do not feel +that we can add to the force of his words--her young ladyship had not +took proper account of tempers. Two of these qualities, tendencies, +attributes, or vices--or indeed virtues, if you like--had developed, or +germinated, or accrued, or suppurated, as may be, in the respective +bosoms of Miss Lutwyche and Mrs. Masham. It was not a fortunate +circumstance that the dispositions of these two ladies, so far from +being accommodating, were murderous. That is, they would have been so +had it happened to be the Middle Ages, just then. But it wasn't. Tempers +had ceased to find expression in the stiletto and the poison-cup, and +had been curbed and stunted down to taking the other party up short, +showing a proper spirit, and so on. + +"What was that you were saying to Norbury, papa dear?" Gwen asked this +question of her father in his own room, half an hour later, having +followed him thither for a farewell chat. + +"Saying at lunch?" asked the Earl, partly to avoid distraction from the +mild Havana he was lighting, partly to consider his answer. + +"Saying at lunch. Yes." + +"Oh, Norbury! Well!--we were speaking of the same thing as you and your +mother, I believe. Only it was not so very clear what that was. You +didn't precisely ... formulate." + +"Dear good papa! As if everything was an Act of Parliament! What did +Norbury say?" + +"I only remember the upshot. Miss Lutwyche has a rather uncertain +temper, and Mrs. Masham has been accustomed to be consulted." + +"Well--and then?" + +"That's all I can recollect. It's a very extraordinary thing that it +should be so, but I have certainly somehow formed an image in my mind of +all my much too numerous retinue of servants taking sides with Masham +and Miss Lutwyche respectively, in connection with this old lady of +yours, who must be a great curiosity, and whom, by the way, I haven't +seen yet." He compared his watch with a clock on the chimney-piece, +whose slow pendulum said--so he alleged--"I, am, right, you, are, +wrong!" all day. + +"Suppose you were to come round and see her now!" + +"Should I have time? Yes, I think I should. Just time to smoke this in +peace and quiet, and then we'll pay her a visit. Mustn't be a long one." + + * * * * * + +The day had lost its beauty, and the wind in the trees and the chimneys +was inconsolable about the loss, when Gwen said to the old +woman:--"Here's my father, come to pay you a visit, Mrs. Picture." +Thereon the Earl said:--"Don't wake her up, Gwennie." But to this she +said:--"She isn't really asleep. She goes off like this." And he +said:--"Old people do." + +Her soft hand roused the old lady as gently as anything effectual could. +And then Mrs. Picture said:--"I heard you come in, my dear." And, when +Gwen repeated that her father had come, became alive to the necessity of +acknowledging him, and had to give up the effort, being told to sit +still. + +"You had such a long drive, you see," said Gwen. "It has quite +worn you out. It was my fault, and I'm sorry." Then, relying on +inaudibility:--"It makes her seem so old. She was quite young when we +started off this morning." + +"Young folks," said his lordship, "never believe in old bones, until +they feel them inside, and then they are not young folks any longer. +Why--where did we drive to, to knock ourselves up so? What's her +name--Picture?" He was incredulous, evidently, about such a name being +possible. But there was a sort of graciousness, or goodwill, about his +oblique speech in the first person plural, that more than outweighed +abruptness in his question about her. + +She rallied under her visitor's geniality--or his emphasis, as might be. +"Maisie Prichard, my lord," said she, quite clearly. Her designation for +him showed she was broad awake now, and took in the position. She could +answer his question, repeated:--"And where _did_ we drive?" by +saying:--"A beautiful drive, but I've a poor head now for names." She +tried recollection, failed, and gave it up. + +"Chorlton-under-Bradbury?" said the Earl. + +"We went there too. I know Chorlton quite well, of course. The other +one!--where the clock was." Gwen supplied the name, a singular one, +Chernoweth; and the Earl said:--"Oh yes--Chernoweth. A pretty place. But +why 'Chorlton quite well, of course'?" + +Gwen explained. "Because of the small boy, Dave. Don't you know, +papa?--I told you Mrs. Picture has directed no end of letters to +Chorlton, for Dave." The Earl was not very clear. "Don't you +remember?--to old Mrs. Marrable, at Strides Cottage?" Still not very +clear, he pretended he was, to save trouble. Then he weakened his +pretence, by saying:--"But I remember Mrs. Marrable, and Strides +Cottage, near forty years ago, when your Uncle George and I were two +young fellows. Fine, handsome woman she was--didn't look her age--she +had just married Farmer Marrable--was a widow from Sussex, I think. +Can't think what her name had been ... knew it once, too!" + +"She's a fine-looking old lady now," said Gwen. "Isn't she, Mrs. +Picture?" + +"I am sure she is that too, my dear, or you would not say so. Only my +eyesight won't always serve me nowadays as it did, not for seeing near +up." The reserves about Dave's other Granny were always there, however +little insisted on. Old Maisie was exaggerating about her eyesight. She +had seen her rival quite clearly enough to have an opinion about her +looks. + +"Did you see the inside of the cottage, and the old chimney-corners? And +the well out at the back?" Thus the Earl. + +"We didn't go in. I wanted to get home. But what a lot you recollect of +it, papa dear!" + +"I ought to recollect something about it. It was Strides Cottage where +your Uncle George was taken when he broke his leg, riding." + +"Oh, was it there? Yes, I've heard of that. His horse threw him on a +heap of stones, and bolted, and pitched into Dunsters Gap, and had to be +shot." + +"Yes, he shouldn't have ridden that horse. But he was always at that +sort of thing, George." A sound came in here that had the same relation +to a sigh that a sip has to a draught. "Well!--Mrs. Marrable nursed him +up at Strides Cottage till he was fit to move--they were afraid about +his back at first--and I used to ride over every morning. We used to +chaff poor Georgy about his beautiful nurse.... Oh yes!--she was young +enough for that. Woman well under forty, I should say." + +Gwen made calculations and attested possibilities. Oh dear, yes!--Granny +Marrable must have been under forty then. She surprised his lordship, +first by gently smoothing aside the silver hair on the old woman's +forehead, then by stooping down and kissing it. "Why, how old are you +now, dear?" she said, as though she were speaking to a child. He for his +part was only surprised, not dumfounded. He just felt a little glad his +Countess was elsewhere; and was not sorry, on looking round, to see that +no domestic was present. What a wild, ungovernable daughter it was, this +one of his, and how he loved it! + +So did old Mrs. Picture, to judge by the illumination of the eyes she +turned up to the girl's young face above her. "How old am I now, my +dear?" said she. "Eighty-one this Christmas." Thereupon said Gwen:--"You +see, papa! Old Mrs. Marrable must have been quite a young woman in Uncle +George's time. She's heaps younger than Mrs. Picture." She again +smoothed the beautiful silver hair, adding:--"It's not unfeelingness, +because Uncle George died years before I was born." + +"Killed at Rangoon in twenty-four," said the Earl, with another +semi-sigh. "Poor Georgy!" And then his visit was cut as short as--even +shorter than--his forecast of its duration, for his next words were:--"I +hear someone coming to fetch me. Your mamma is sure to start an hour +before the time. Good-bye, Mrs.... Picture. I hope you are being well +fed and properly attended to." To which the old lady replied:--"I thank +your lordship, indeed I am," in an old-fashioned way that went well with +the silver hair. And Gwen said:--"Dear old parent! Do you think _I_ +shan't see to that?" and followed him out of the room. + +"She's a nice old soul," said he, in the passage. "I wanted to see what +she was like. But I thought it best to say nothing about the convict." + +"Of course not. I'll follow you round before you go, to say good-bye. +You won't start for half an hour." And Gwen returned to the old soul, +who presently said to her--to account to her for knowing how to say "my +lord" and "your lordship"--"When I first married, my husband's great +friend was Lord Pouralot. But I very soon called him Jack." This was a +reminiscence of her interim between her victimisation and loneliness, +which of course her innocence thought of as marriage. But was this early +lordship's really a ladyship, if such a one appeared, we wonder? Very +likely she was only another dupe, like Maisie. Possibly less fortunate, +in one way. For, owing to the high price of women, in the land of +Maisie's destiny, she--poor girl--never knew she was not a good one, +until she found she was not a widow, although her worthless love of a +lifetime was dead. + +Oh, the difference Law's sanctions make! For a woman shall be the same +in thought and word and deed through all her sojourn on Earth, yet vary +as saint and sinner with the hall-mark of Lincoln's Inn. + + * * * * * + +Gwen followed the Earl very shortly, and left old Maisie to dream away +the time until, somewhile after the final departure of her parents, she +was free to return. When she did so she found the old woman sitting +where she had left her, to all seeming quite contented. The day had died +a sudden death intestate, and the flickering firelight meant to have its +say unmolested, till candletime. The intrusion of artificial light was +intercepted by Gwen, who liked to sit and talk to Mrs. Picture in the +twilight, thank you, Mrs. Masham! Take it away! + +Where had the old mind wandered in that two hours' interval? Had the +actual meeting with her sister--utterly incredible even had she known +its claims to belief--taken any hold on it that bore comparison with +that of Farmer Jones's Bull, for instance, or the visit of a real live +Earl? Certainly not the former, while as for the latter it was at best a +half-way grip between the two; perhaps farther, if anything, from the +supreme Bull, the great enthralling interest that was to be vested in +her letter to Dave, to be written at the next favourable climax of +strength, nourished by repose. Some time in the morning--to-day she was +far too tired to think of it. + +How she dwelt upon that appalling quadruped, and his savage breast--have +bulls breasts?--soothed by the charms of music! How she phrased the +various best ways of describing the mountain he was pleased to call his +neck, with its half-hundredweight of dewlap; the merciless strength of +his horns; the blast of steam from his nostrils into the chill of the +October day; the deep-seated objection to everybody in his lurid eyes, +attesting the unclubableness of his disposition! How she hesitated +between this way and that of expressing to the full his murderousness +and the beautiful pliancy of his soul, if got at the right way; showing, +as the pseudo-Browning has it, that "we never should think good +impossible"! + +One thing she made up her mind to. She would not tell that dear boy, +that this bull--which was in a sense _his_ bull, or Sapps Court's, +according as you look at it--had ever had to succumb on a fair field of +battle. For Gwen had told her, as they rode home, and she had roused +herself to hear it, how one summer morning, so early that even rangers +were still abed and asleep, they were waked by terrific bellowings from +a distant glade in the parklands, and, sallying out to find the cause, +were only just in time to save the valued life of this same bull--even +Jones's. For he had broken down a gate and vanished overnight, and +wandered into the sacred precincts of the _villosi terga bisontes_, the +still-wild denizens of the last league of the British woodlands Caesar +found; and _Bos Taurus_ had risen in his wrath, and showed that an +ancient race was not to be trifled with, with impunity. Even Jones's +Bull went down in the end--though, mind you, evidence went to show that +he made an hour's stand!--before the overwhelming rush and the terrible +horns of the forest monarch. And the victor only gave back before a wall +of brandished torch and blazing ferns, that the unsportsmanlike spirit +of the keepers did not scruple to resort to. No--she would not admit +that Dave's bull had ever met his match. She would say how he had killed +a man, which Gwen had told her also; but to save the boy from too much +commiseration for this man, she would lay stress upon the brutality of +the latter to his wife, and even point out that Farmer Jones's Bull +might be honestly unconscious of the consequences that too often result +when one gores or tramples on an object of one's righteous indignation. + +Strides Cottage played a very small part in the memories of the day. +Some interest certainly attached to the older woman who had emerged from +it to interview the carriage, but it was an interest apt to die down +when once its object had been ascertained to resemble any other handsome +old village octogenarian. Any peculiarity or deformity might have +intensified it, or at least kept it alive; mere good looks and upright +carriage, and strict conformity with the part of an ancient dependent of +a great local potentate, neither fed nor quenched the mild fires of her +rival granny's jealousy. Old Mrs. Picture had looked upon Granny +Marrable, and was none the wiser. That Granny had at least seen her way +to moralising on the way appearances might dupe us, and how sad it would +be if, after all, such a respectable-looking old person should be an +associate o£ thieves, a misleader of youth, and a fraud. But Mrs. +Picture found little to say to herself, and nothing to say to anybody +else, about Strides Cottage. + +Rather, she fell back, as soon as Jones's Bull flagged, on her long +record of an unforgotten past. That wind that was growing with the +nightfall no longer moaned for her in the chimney, five centuries old, +of the strange great house strange Fate had brought her to, but through +the shrouds of a ship on the watch for what the light of sunrise might +show at any moment. She could hear the rush and ripple of the cloven +waters under the prow, just as a girl who leaned upon the gunwale, +intent for the first sight of land, heard it in the dawn over fifty +years ago. She could seem to look back at the girl--who was, if you +please, herself--and a man who leaned on the same timber, some few feet +away, intent on the horizon or his neighbour, as might be; for he stood +aft, and her face was turned away from him. And she could seem to hear +his words too, for all the time that came between:--"Say the word, +mistress, and I'll be yours for life. I would give all I have to give, +and all I may live to get, but to call you mine for an hour." And how +his petition seemed empty sound, that she could answer with a curt +denial, so bent was her heart on another man in the land she hoped to +see so soon. Yet he was a nice fellow, too, thought old Mrs. Prichard as +she sat before Mrs. Masham's fire at the Towers; and she forgave him the +lawlessness of his impulse for its warmth, bred in the narrow limits of +a ship on the seas for three long months!--how could he help it? Such a +common story on shipboard, and ... such an uncommon ending! Ask the +captains of passenger ships what _they_ think, even now that ships steam +twenty knots an hour. One's fellow-creatures are so human, you see. + +Then a terrible dream of a second voyage, from Sydney to Port Macquarie, +that almost made her wish she had accepted this man's offer to see her +safe into the arms of her lawful owner, out on leave and growing +prosperous in Van Diemen's Land. Need she have said him nay so firmly? +Could she not have trusted to his chivalry? Or was the question she +asked herself not rather, could she have trusted her own heart, if that +chivalry had stood as gold in the furnace. + +Back again to the throbbing wheel, and the ceaseless flow of the little +river at the Essex mill, and childhood! Why should her waking dream hark +back to the dear old time? The natural thing would have been to dream on +into the years she spent out there with the man she loved, who at least, +to all outward seeming, gave her back love for love, while he played the +sly devil against her for his own ends. But she knew nothing of this: +and, till his death revealed the non-legal character of their union, she +could leave him on his pinnacle. So it was not because her mind shrank +from these memories of her married life that it conjured back again the +scent of the honeysuckles on the house-porch that looked on the garden +with the sundial on the wall above it, its welcome to that of the June +roses; its dissension with the flavour of the damp weeds that clung to +the time-worn timbers of the water-wheel, or that of the grinding flour +when the wind blew from the mill, and carried with it from the +ventilators some of the cloud that could not help forward the whitening +of the roof. She might almost have been breathing again the air that +carried all these scents; and then, with them, the old mill itself was +suddenly upon her; and she and Phoebe were there, in the shortest waists +ever frockmaker dreamed of, and the deepest sunbonnets possible, with +the largest possible ribbons, very pale yellow to harmonize--as canons +then ruled--with the lilac of their dresses. They were there, they two, +watching the inexhaustible resource of interest to their childish lives; +the consignment of grain to storage in the loft above the whirling +stones, and the dapple-grey horse that was called Mr. Pitt, and the dark +one with the white mane that was Mr. Fox. She could remember _their_ +names well; but by some chance all those years of utter change had +effaced that of the carman who slung the sacks on the fall-rope, which +by some mysterious agency bore them up to a landing they vanished from +into a doorway half-way to Heaven. What on earth was that man's name? +Her mind became obsessed with the name Tattenhall, which was entirely +wrong, and, moreover, stood terribly in the way of Muggeridge, +which--you may remember?--was the name Dave had carried away so clearly +from his inspection of the mill on Granny Marrable's chimney-piece. + + * * * * * + +Her memories of her old home had died away, and she was back in Sapps +Court again, sympathizing with Dolly over an accident to Shockheaded +Peter, the articulation of whose knee-joint had given way, causing his +leg to come off promptly, from lack of integuments and tendons. She had +pointed out to Dolly that it was still open to her, as The Authority, +to hush Peter to sleep as before, his leg being carefully replaced in +position, although without ligatures. Dolly had carried out this +instruction in perfect good faith; but it had not led to a satisfactory +result. It failed owing to the patient's restlessness. "He _will_ tit in +his s'eep, and he tums undone," said the little lady, hard to console. +Oh dear--how soon Dolly would be four, and begin to lose her early +versions of consonants! + +Poor Susan Burr had then flashed across her recollection, provoked by +the bread-and-butter Dolly baptized with the bitter tears she shed over +Peter's leg. That naturally led to the household loaf, which was +buttered before the slice was cut; sometimes the whole round, according +to how many at tea. This led to a controversy of long standing between +Dave and Dolly, as to which half should be took first; Dave having a +preference for the underside, with the black left on. Students of the +half-quartern household loaf will appreciate the niceties involved. In +this connection, Susan Burr had come in naturally, like the officiating +priest at Mass. Poor Susan! Suppose, after all, that Europe had been +mistaken in what seemed to be its estimate of married nieces at Clapham! +Suppose Susan was being neglected--how then? But marriage and Clapham, +between them, soothed and reassured misgivings a mere unqualified niece +might easily generate. By this time the waking dreamer was on the +borderland of sleep, and Mrs. Burr's image crossed it with her and +became a real dream, and whistled the tune the boy had whistled to +Farmer Jones's Bull. And into that dream came, suddenly and unprovoked, +her sister Phoebe of old, beautiful and fresh as violets in April, and +ended a tale of how she would have none of Ralph Daverill, come what +might, by saying, "Why, you are all in the dark, and the fire's going +out!" + +This resurrection of Phoebe, at this moment, may have been mere +coincidence--a reflex action of Gwen's sudden reappearance; her first +words creating, in her hearer's sleep-waking mind, the readiest image of +a youth and beauty to match her own. As soon as the dream died, the +dreamer was aware of the speaker's identity. "Oh, my dear!" she said, +"I've been asleep almost ever since you went away." + +"Mrs. Masham was quite right, for once, not to let them disturb you. Now +they'll bring tea--it's never too late for tea--and then we can read +your little friend's letter." Thus Gwen, and the old woman brightened up +under a living interest. + +"There now!" said she. "The many times I've told my boy that one day he +would write my letters for me, instead of me for him! To think of his +managing all by himself, spelling and all!" + +"Well, we shall see what sort of a job the young man's made of it. Put +the candles behind Mrs. Picture, Lupin, so as not to glare her eyes." +Lupin obeyed, with a studied absence of protest on her face against +having to wait upon an anomaly. Who could be sure this venerable +person--from Sapps Court, think of it!--had never waited on anyone +herself? It was the ambiguity that was so disgusting. + +"Please may I see it, to look at?" said Mrs. Picture. "I may not be able +to read it, quite, but you shall have it back, to read." She was eager +to see the young scribe's progress, but was baffled by obscurities, as +she anticipated. She was equal to:--"Dear Granny Marrable." No more! + +"Hand it over!" said Gwen. "'Dear Granny Marrable.' That's all plain +sailing; now what's this? 'This crorce is for Dolly's love.' There's a +great big black cross to show it, and everything is spelt just as I say +it. 'I give you my love itself!' Really, he's full of the most excellent +differences, as Shakespeare says. I'll go on. 'Arnt M'riar she's +took....' Oh dear! this _is_ a word to make out! Whatever can it be? +Let's see what comes after.... Oh, it goes on:--'because she is not +here.' Really it looks as if Aunt Maria had gone to Kingdom Come. Is +there anything she _would_ have taken because she was 'not there,' that +you know of? Is your tea all right?" + +"It's very nice indeed, my dear. I think perhaps it might be the +omnibus, because Aunt M'riar _did_ take the omnibus that day she came to +see me. She was to come again, without the children, to see all +straight." + +"H'm!--it may be the omnibus, spelt with an H. Suppose we accept +_homliburst_, and see how it works out! '... because she is not here. +She is going'--he's put a W in the middle of going--'to see Mrs.'--I +know this word is Mrs., but he's put the S in the middle and the R at +the end--'to see Mrs. Spicture tookted away by Dolly's lady to Towel.' +That wants a little thinking out." Gwen stopped to think it over, and +wondrous lovely she looked, thinking. + +"Perhaps," said the old lady diffidently, "I can guess what it means, +because I know Dave. Suppose Aunt M'riar came the day we came away, and +found us gone! If she came up to say goodbye?..." + +"No, that won't do! Because we came on Wednesday. This was written on +Thursday. It's dated 'On Firsday.' Did he mean that Aunt Maria had come +up to Sapps Court, but would not come to Cavendish Square because she +knew you had come here? It's quite possible. I don't wonder Mrs. +Marrable couldn't make it out." The old lady seemed to think the +interpretation plausible, and Gwen read on:--"'I say we had an +axdnt'--that really is beautifully spelt--'because the house forled +over, and Mrs. Ber underneath and Me and Dolly are sory.'" Gwen stopped +a moment to consider the first two words of this sentence, and decided +that "I say" was an apostrophe. "I see," said she, "that the next +sentence has your name in it again, only he's left out the U, and made +you look something between Spider and Spectre." + +"The dear boy! What does he say next about me?" The old lady was looking +intensely happy; a reflex action of Dave. + +"There's a dreadful hard word comes next ... Oh--I see what it is! +'Supposing.' Only he's made it 'sorsppposing'--such a lot of P's! I +think it is only to show how diffidently he makes the suggestion. It +doesn't matter. Let's get on. 'Supposing you was to show'--something I +really cannot make head or tail of--'to Mrs. Spictre who is my other +graney?' I wonder what on earth it can be!" + +"I don't think it's any use my looking, my dear. What letters does it +look most like?" + +"Why!--here's an M, and a U, and a C, and an E, and an R, and an I, and +a J. That's a word by itself. 'Mucerij.' But what word can he mean? _It_ +can't be _mucilage_; that's impossible! I thought it might be _museum_ +at first, as it was to be shown. But it's written too plain, in a big +round hand--all in capitals. What _can_ it be?" And Gwen sat there +puzzling, turning the word this way and that, looking all the lovelier +for the ripple of amusement on her face at the absurd penmanship of the +neophyte. + +Poor dear Dave! With the clearest possible perception of the name +Muggeridge, when spoken, he could go no nearer to correct writing of it +than this! He could hardly have known of the two G's, from the sound; +but the omission of the cross-bar from the one that was _de rigueur_ was +certainly a _lapsus calami_, and a serious one. The last syllable was +merely phonetic, and unrecognisable; but the G that looked like a C was +fatal. + +It was an odd chance indeed that brought this name, or its distortion, +to challenge recognition at this moment, when the thought of its owner +had just passed off the mind that might have recognised it, helped by a +slight emendation. The story dwells on it from a kind of fascination, +due to the almost incredible strangeness of these two sisters' utter +unconsciousness of one another, and yet so near together! It was almost +as though a mine were laid beneath their feet, and this memory of a name +floated over it as a spark, and drifted away on a wind of chance to be +lost in a space of oblivion. However, sparks drift back, now and again. + +This conversation over Dave's letter had no peculiar interest for either +speaker, over and above its mere face-value, which was of course far +greater for the elder of the two. Gwen deciphered it to the end, +laughing at the writer's conscientious efforts towards orthography. But +when the end came, with an attestation of affectionate grandsonship that +roused suspicions of help from seniors, so orthodox was the spelling, +she consigned the missive to its envelope after very slight revision of +points of interest. But she would talk a little about Dave too, in +deference to his other granny's solicitude about him. That was the +source of her own interest in what was otherwise a mere recollection of +an attractive _gamin_ with an even more attractive sister. + +It was part of the embarrassment consequent on her own headstrong +creation of an anomalous social position, that Gwen could not decide, +nominally omnipotent as she was in her parents' absence, on telling the +servants to serve her dinner in the room Mrs. Picture occupied. Had it +not been for her suspicion of a hornet's nest at hand, she might have +dared to ordain that Mrs. Picture should be her sole guest in her own +section of the Towers, or at least that she herself should become the +table-guest of the old lady in Francis Quarles; "might have," not "would +have," because Mrs. Picture's own feelings had to be reckoned with. +Might she not be embarrassed, and overweighted by too emphatic a change +of circumstances? Indeed, had Gwen known it, she was only tranquil and +contented with things as they were in the sense in which one who passes +through a dream is tranquil and contented. It was the quietude of +bewilderment, alive to gratitude. + +Uncertainty on this point co-operated with the possible hornet's nest, +and sent Gwen away to a lonely evening meal in her own rooms; for +nothing short of a suite of apartments was allotted to any inmate of +importance at the Towers. She had to submit to a banquet of a kind, if +only as a measure of conciliation to the household. But, the banquet +ended, she was free to return and take coffee with her _protégée_. She +had no objection to talking about her lover to Mrs. Picture, rather +welcoming the luxury of speaking of her marriage with him as a thing +already guaranteed by Fate. + +"When we are married," said she, "I mean to have that delicious old +house we saw on the hill. That's why I wanted to show it to you. It's +all nonsense about the ghost. I dare say the Roundheads murdered the +ghost there--I mean the woman the ghost's the ghost of--but she wouldn't +appear to me. Ghosts never do. Did you ever see one?... But you wouldn't +be in the house. You would be at a sweet little cottage just close, +which is simply one mass of roses. You and Dolly. And Mrs. Burr." Mrs. +Burr was thrown into attend to the _ménage_. + +Old Mrs. Picture did not quite know what to say. She had found out +instinctively that perpetual gratitude had its drawbacks for the +receiver as well as the giver. So she said, diffidently:--"Wouldn't it +cost a great deal of money?" + +"Cost nothing," said Gwen. "The place belongs to my father. It's all +very well for people, that mind ghosts, not to live in it. But I don't +see why that should apply to Mr. Torrens and me." + +"Doesn't he mind ghosts?" + +"Not the least." She was going to say more, but was stopped, by danger +ahead. The chances of his seeing, or not seeing, a ghost, could hardly +be discussed. The old lady probably felt this too, for she seemed to +keep something back. + +Her next words showed what it had been, in an odd way. "Is he not to +see?" she said, speaking almost as if afraid of the sound of her own +words. + +Gwen's answer came in a hurried undertone:--"Oh, I dare not think so. He +_will_ see! He _must_ see!" Her distress was in her fingers, that she +could not keep still, as well as in her voice. She rose suddenly, +crossed the room to the window, and stood looking out on the darkness. + +Presently she turned round, esteeming herself mistress of her strength +again, and hoping for the serenity of her companion's old face, and its +still white hair, to help her. Old Maisie could not shed a tear now on +her own behalf. But ... to think of the appalling sorrow of this +glorious girl! Gwen did not return to her seat; but preferred a +footstool, at the feet of the dear old lady, whose voice was +heart-broken. + +"Oh, my dear--my dear! That he should never see _you_!... never!... +never!" The golden head with all its wealth was in her lap, and the +silver of her own was white against it as she spoke. No such tears had +yet fallen from Gwen's eyes as these that mixed with this old woman's, +the convict's relict--the convict's mother--from Sapps Court. + +An effort against herself, to choke them back, and an ignominious +failure! A short breakdown, another effort, and a success! Gwen rose +above herself, morally triumphant. The beautiful young face, when it +looked up, assorted well with the words:--"This is all cowardice, dear +Mrs. Picture. He _has_ seen, though it was only a few seconds. The sight +is there. And look what Dr. Merridew said. His eyes might be as strong +as they had ever been in his life." + +Then followed reflections on the pusillanimity of despair, the duty of +hoping, and an attempt on Gwen's part to forestall a possible shock to +the old lady should she ever come to the knowledge of Adrian's free +opinions. She wanted her to think well of her lover. But she could not +conscientiously give him a character for orthodoxy. She took refuge in a +position which is often a great resource in like cases, ascribing to him +an intrinsic devoutness, a hidden substantial sanctity compatible with +the utmost latitudes of heterodoxy; a bedrock of devout gneiss or +porphyry hidden under a mere alluvium of modern freethinking; a +reality--if the truth were known--of St. Francis of Assisi behind a mask +of Voltaire. Her hearer only half followed her reasoning, but that +mattered little, as she was brimming with assent to anything Gwen +advanced, with such beautiful and earnest eyes to back it. + +"It's a great deal too far to drive you over to see him," said Gwen. "It +would knock you to pieces--eighteen miles each way! It's over two hours +and a half in the carriage, even when the roads are not muddy. The mare +got me there in an hour and three-quarters the other day, but you +couldn't stand that sort of thing. I'm going again in the gig +to-morrow.... Oh no!--not till eleven o'clock. I shall come and sit with +you and see all comfortable before I go. I shall get there at lunch. How +do you get on with Masham?" This was asked with a pretence of absence of +misgiving, and the response to it was a testimonial to Mrs. Masham, +rather overdone. Gwen extenuated Mrs. Masham. She had known Masham all +her life, and she really was a very good woman, in spite of her caps. As +for her expanse, it was not her fault, but the hand of Nature; and her +black jet ringlets were, Gwen believed, congenital. + +But the next clock was going to say ten, however inaccurately. In fact, +a little one, in a hurry, got its word in first, and was condemned by a +reference to Gwen's repeater, which refused to go farther than nine. +She, however, rang up Masham, of whose voice, _inter alias_, she had +been half-conscious in the distance for some time past; and who gave the +impression of having recently shown a proper spirit. + +"She'll be better in bed, I think, Masham. She's had such a tiring day. +It was my fault. I was rather afraid at the time. I suppose she'll be +all right. She gets everything she wants, I suppose?" + +"I beg your ladyship's pardon!" + +"She gets everything she wants?" + +"So far as comes to my knowledge, my lady. Touching wishes not +expressed, I could not undertake to say." Mrs. Masham bridled somewhat, +and showed signs of having a right to feel injured. "If your ladyship +would make inquiry, and satisfy yourself...." Then something would be +revealed in the service of Truth. Only she did not finish the sentence. + +It was Gwen's way to accept every challenge. "Is her bed nice and warm?" +said she, going straight to a point--the nearest in sight, for this took +place within view of the bed in question, seen through a half-open door. +Prudence would have waived investigation, but Gwen's prudence was never +at home when wanted. She ought not to have accepted the housekeeper's +suggestion that she could satisfy herself by an autopsy. The comfort of +this couch, warm or cold, was already leagues above its occupant's +wildest conception of luxury. What must her ladyship do but say:--"Yes, +thank you, Masham, I'll feel for myself." And there, if that young +hussy, Lupin, hadn't sent the hot bottle right down to the end! + +This version of the incident, gathered from a subsequent communication +of the housekeeper, will be at once intelligible to all but the very few +to whom the hot bottle is a stranger. _They_ have not had the experience +so many of us are familiar with, of being too short to reach down all +that way, and having either to wallow under the coverlids like a Kobold, +or untuck the bed, and get at the remote bottle like a paper-knife. + +Probably this bottle's prominence in the unpleasantness that germinated +among the servants who remained at the Towers after the departure of the +Earl and Countess was due to the extreme impalpability of other +grievances. It was something you could lay hold of; and was laid hold +of, for instance, by Miss Lutwyche, to flagellate Mrs. Masham. "At any +rate," said that severe critic, "what I took charge of, that I would act +up to. When I undertook the old party in Cavendish Square, she was kept +warm, and no playing fast and loose with bottles. And she didn't give +offence, that I see, but seemed"--here her love of new expressions came +in, tending to wards superiority--"but seemed of an accommodating +habit." This expression was far from unfortunate, and it was owing to +the disposition so described that old Maisie, as soon as she was fully +aware that she had been the unintentional cause of strained relations in +the household, became very uncomfortable; and, much as she loved the +beautiful but headstrong creature that had taken such a fancy to her, +felt more than ever that the sooner she returned to her own proper +surroundings the better. + +Gwen returned to her own quarters after a certain amount of +good-humoured fault-finding, having listened to and made light of many +expressions of contrition from the old lady that she should have +occasioned what Miss Lutwyche afterwards spoke of as just so much +uncalled-for hot water. Gwen's youth and high spirits, and her supreme +contempt for the petty animosities of the domestics, made it less easy +for her to understand the feelings of her old guest, and the rather +anomalous position in which she had placed her. She thought she had said +all she need about it when she warned Mrs. Picture not to be put out by +Mrs. Masham and Lutwyche's nonsense. Servants were always like that. +Bother Mrs. Masham and Lutwyche! + +The latter, however, when assisting her young mistress to retire for the +night--an operation which takes two when a young lady of position is +cast for the leading part--was eloquent about the hot water, which she +said no doubt prevailed, but appeared to her entirely unwarranted. Her +account of the position redounded to her own credit. Hers had been the +part of a peace-maker. She had made the crooked straight, and the rough +places plain. The substratum of everybody else's character was also +excellent, but human weakness, to which all but the speaker were liable, +stepped in and distorted the best intentions. If only Mrs. Masham did +not give away to the sharpness of her tongue, a better heart did not +exist. Mr. Norbury might frequently avoid misunderstandings if an acute +sense of duty and an almost startling integrity of motive were the only +things wanted to procure peace with honour in a disturbed household. But +that was where it was. You must have Authority, and a vacillating +disposition did not contribute to its exercise. In Mr. Norbury a fatal +indecision in action and a too great sensitiveness of moral fibre +paralysed latent energies of a high order which might otherwise have +made him a leader among men. As for the girls, the dove-like innocence +of inexperience, so far as it could exist among a lot of young monkeys, +was responsible for _their_ contribution to the hot water. A negligible +quantity of a trivial ingredient! Young persons were young persons, and +would always remain so--an enigmatical saying. As for the French Cook, +Napoléon de Souchy, he was in bed and knew nothing about it. Besides, he +went next day. He had, in fact, gone by the same train as the Earl, +travelling first-class, and had been taken for his lordship at Euston, +which hurt his vanity. + +To this revelation Gwen listened with interest, hoping to hear more +precisely what the row was about. Why hot water at all, if uncalled for? +As she had not expected to hear much, she was very little surprised to +hear nothing. She pictured the attitude in action of Miss Lutwyche, whom +she knew well enough to know that she would coax history in her own +favour. The best of lady's-maids cannot be at once a Tartar and an +Angel. Gwen surmised that in the region of the servants' common-room and +the kitchen Miss Lutwyche would show so much of the former as had been +truly ascribed to her, whereas she herself would only see the latter. +The worst of it was that her old lady, being within hearing, would know +or suspect the dissensions she was the innocent cause of, and would be +uncomfortable. She must say or do something, consolatory or reassuring, +to-morrow. She fretted a little, till she fell asleep, over this matter, +which was really a trifle. Think of the thing she had seen that day, +that she was so profoundly unconscious of--the two sisters whose lips +met last a lifetime ago; whose grief, each for each, had nearly died of +time!--think of the two of them, then and there, face to face in the +daylight! But they too slept, that night, old Maisie and old Phoebe, as +calm as Gwen; and as safe, to all seeming, in their ignorance. + +Would it not be better--thought thinks, involuntarily--that they should +remain in this ignorance, through the little span of Time still left +them, in a state which is a best decay? Would it not be best that the +few hours left should run their course, and that the two should either +pass away to nothingness and peace, as may be, or--as may be too, just +as like as not--wake to a wonder none can comprehend, an inconceivable +surprise, a sudden knowledge what the whole thing meant that must seem, +if they come to comprehend it now, a needless cruelty? If they--and you +and I, in our turn--are to be nothing, mere items of the past lost in +Oblivion, why not spare them the hideous revelation of the many, many +years of might-have-been, when the same sun shone unmoved on each, even +marked the hours for them alike, each unseen by the other, each beyond +the sound of the other's speech, the touch of the other's hand? Why +should either now, at the eleventh hour, come to know of the audacious +fraud that made them strangers? + +But why--why anything, for that matter? Why the smallest pain, the +greatest joy? What end does either serve, but to pass and be forgotten. +What is left for us but the bald consolation of imaging a form for the +Supreme Power--one like ourselves by preference--and a concession to +it.... _Fiat voluntas tua!_ It doesn't really matter _what_ form, you +see! The phantasmata vary, but the invisible what?--or who?--remains the +same. Gloria in excelsis Deo, nomine quocunque! + + + + +CHAPTER V + + HOW MRS. PICTURE SPOILED OLD PHOEBE'S DREAM, BUT WAS A NICE OLD + SOUL, TO LOOK AT. PARSON DUNAGE's MOTHER. A CLOCK THAT STRUCK, + BETWEEN TWO TWINS. HOW TOBY DID NOT WAKE, AND KEZIAH SOLMES CAME + NEXT DAY FOR HIM. THE WICKED MAN WHO DID IT AGAIN, AND HIS + RESEMBLANCE TO TOBY. THE COATINGS OF THE LATTER'S STOMACH. MRS. + LAMPREY. COLONEL WARRENDER AND THE PHEASANTS. HOW WIDOW THRALE AND + KEZIAH WENT TO SEE AN OLD SOUL NEXT DAY. A RETROSPECULATION. + SUPPOSE WIDOW THRALE HAD BEEN TOLD! ON IMPROBABILITY, + IMPOSSIBILITY, INCREDIBILITY, AND MAISIE's PILGRIMAGE TO A GRAVE + SHE NEVER FOUND. MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN, AND THEIR IRRELEVANCE + + +"'Tis pity she could not stop!" said Granny Marrable in the course of +evening chat with the niece, who was scarcely thought of as anything but +a daughter, by even the oldest village gossips. Indeed, when we reflect +that little Ruth Daverill, now Widow Thrale, was under four when her +mother tore herself from her to rejoin her husband, it is little wonder +that she should take the same view of her own parentage. For one thing, +there was the twinship between the mother and aunt. The child under four +can have seen little difference between them. + +The pen almost shrinks from writing Widow Ruth's reply to old Phoebe, so +plainly did it word her ignorance of who this was that she had seen two +hours since. "Who, mother? Oh, the old person! Ay, but she has a kind +heart, has Gwen." This was not disrespectful familiarity. All the +villagers in those parts, talking among themselves, gave their +christened names to the Earl's family. The moment an outsider came in, +"The Family" consisted entirely of lordships and ladyships. + +But how strange, that such a speech--actually the naming of a mother by +a daughter--should be so slightly spoken, in an ignorance so complete! + +Granny Marrable's thought, of the two, dwelt more on "the old person"; +whose identity, as Dave's other Granny, had made its impression on her. +Otherwise, for all she had seen of her, it might have passed from her +mind. Also, she was grieved about that mutton-broth. The poor old soul +had just looked worn to death, and all that way to drive! If she had +only just swallowed half a cup, it would have made such a difference. It +added to Granny Marrable's regret, that the mutton-broth had proved so +good. The old soul had passed on unrefreshed even while Strides Cottage +was endorsing that mutton-broth. + +The Granny quite fretted over it, not even the beautiful fur tippet +Sister Nora had sent her having power to expel it from her mind. And, +quite late, nigh on to midnight, she woke with a start from a dream she +had had; it set her off talking again about old Mrs. Picture. For it was +one of this old lady's vices that she would sit up late and waste a deal +of good sleep out of bed in that venerable arm-chair of hers. + +"There now, Ruth," said she, "I was asleep again and dreaming." For she +never would admit that this practice was an invariable one. + +"What about, mother?" said Widow Thrale. + +"That breaking of the glass set me a-dreaming over our old mill, and +your mother, child, that died across the seas. We was both there, girls +like, all over again. Only Dave's Mrs. Picture, she come across the +dream, and spoilt it." + +It was not necessary for Mrs. Ruth to take her attention off the +pillow-lace she was at work upon. She remarked:--"I thought her a nice +old soul, to look at." This was not quite uncoloured by the vague +indictment against Mrs. Picture about Dave, who had, somehow, qualified +for the receipt of forgiveness. Which implies some offence to condone. + +Shadowy as the offence was, Granny Marrable could not ignore it +altogether. "Good looks are skin-deep--so they say! But it's not for me +to be setting up for judge. At her time of life, and she a-looking so +worn out, too!" The memory of the mutton-broth rankled. Forgiveness was +setting in. + +"At her time of life, mother? Why, she's none so much older than you. +What should you take her to be?" The subject was just worth spare +attention not wanted for the lace-spools. + +"Why, now--there's Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory. She's +ninety-four this Christmas. This old soul she might be half-way on, +between me and Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory." + +Mrs. Ruth dropped the spools, to think arithmetically, with her fingers. +"Eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight," she said, "Eighty-seven!... +This one's nearer your own age than that, mother." She went on with her +work. + +"There now, Ruth, is not that just like you, all over? You will always +be making me out older than I am. I am not turned of eighty-one, child, +not till next year. My birthday comes the first day of the year." + +"I thought you and my mother were both born at Christmas." + +"Well, my dear, we always called it Christmas, for to have a birthday +together on New Year's Eve. But the church-clock got time to strike the +hour betwixt and between the two of us, so Maisie was my elder sister by +just that, and no more. She would say ... Ah dearie me!--poor Maisie!... +she would say by rights _she_ should marry first, being the elder. And +then I would tell her the clock was fast, and we were both of an age. +'Twas a many years sooner she married, as God would have it. All of +three years before ever I met poor Nicholas." And then the old woman, +who had hitherto kept back the story of her sister's marriage, made a +slip of the tongue. "Maybe I was wrong, but I was a bit scared of men +and marriage in those days." + +It was no wonder Ruth connected this with the father she had never seen. +"Why _did_ my father go to Australia?" said she. It was asked entirely +as a matter of history, for did it not happen before the speaker was +born? The passive acceptance through a lifetime of such a fact can only +be understood by persons who have experienced a similar sealed +antecedent. Non-inquiry into such a one may be infused into a mother's +milk. + +Granny Marrable could be insensible to pressure after a life-time of +silence. She had never thrown light on the mystery and she would not, +now. Her answer even suggested a false solution. "He grew to be rich +after your mother died. But I lost touch of him then, and when and where +he came by his death is more than I can tell ye, child!" There was +implication in this of a prosperous colonist, completely impatriated in +the land of his wealth. + +Ruth's father's vanished history was of less importance than the clock's +statement that it was midnight. Her "Now, mother, we're later and later. +It's striking to-morrow, now!" referred to present life and present +bedtime, and her rapid adjustment of the spools meant business. + +The old Granny showed no sense of having escaped an embarrassment. She +did not shy off to another subject. On the contrary, she went back to +the topic it had hinged on. "Eighty-one come January!" said she, +lighting her own candle. "And please God I may see ninety, and only be +the worse by the price of a new pair of glasses to read my Testament. +Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory, she's gone stone-deaf, and one +may shout oneself hoarse. But everyone else than you, child, _I_ can +hear plain enough. There's naught to complain of in _my_ hearing, yet a +while." + +Granny Marrable's conscience stung her yet again about Mrs. Picture's +departure unrefreshed. "I would have been the happier for knowing that +that old soul was none the worse," said she. But all the answer she got +was:--"Be quiet, mother, you'll wake up Toby." + +She harped on the same string next day, the immediate provocation to the +subject being a visit from Keziah Solmes the old keeper's wife--you +remember her connection Keziah; she who remonstrated with her husband +about the use of fire-arms, and nearly saved Adrian Torrens's +eyesight?--who had been driven over, in a carrier's cart that kept up a +daily communication between the Towers and Chorlton, in pursuance of an +arrangement suggested one day by Gwen. Why should not Widow Thrale's +convalescents, when good, enjoy the coveted advantages of a visit to the +Towers? Mrs. Keziah Solmes had welcomed the opportunity for her grandson +Seth. Seth was young, but with well-marked proclivities and aspirations, +one of which was a desire for male companionship, preferably of boys +older than himself, whom he could incite to acts of lawlessness and +destruction he was still too small to commit effectually. He despised +little girls. He had been pleased with the account given of the +convalescent Toby, and had consented to receive him on stated terms, +having reference to the inequitable distribution of cake in his own +favour. Hence this visit of his grandmamma to Strides Cottage, with the +end in view that she should return with Toby, who for his part had +undertaken to be good, with secret reservations in his own mind as to +special opportunities to be bad, created by temporary withdrawals of +control. + +"He can be a very bad little boy indeed," said Widow Thrale, shaking her +head solemnly, "when he's forgotten himself. Who was it broke a pane of +glass Thursday morning before his breakfast, and very nearly had no +sugar?" + +Toby said, "Me!" and did not show a contrite heart; seemed too much like +the wicked man that did it again. + +Granny Marrable entered into undertakings for Toby's future conduct. +"He's going to be a wonderful good little boy this time," said she, "and +do just exactly whatever he's told, and nothing else." Toby looked very +doubtful, but allowed the matter to drop. + +"He's vary hearty to look at now, Aunt Phoebe," said Mrs. Keziah--Granny +Marrable was always Aunt Phoebe to her husband's relations--when this +youth had gone away to conduct himself unexceptionably elsewhere, on his +own recognisances. "What has the little ma'an been ailing with?" Widow +Thrale gave particulars of Toby's disaster, which had let him in for a +long convalescence, the moral of which was that no little boy should +drink lotions intended for external use only, however inquiring his +disposition might be. Toby had nearly destroyed the coatings of his +stomach, and his life had only been preserved by a miracle; which, +however, _had_ happened, so it didn't matter. + +Mrs. Solmes was to await the return of the carrier's cart in a couple of +hours, hence it was possible to review and report upon the little local +world, deliberately. Granny Marrable began near home. How was the +visitor's husband? + +"He doan't get any yoonger, Aunt Phoebe," said Keziah. "But he has but a +vary little to complain of, at his time of life. If and only he could +just be off fretting! He's never been the same in heart since he went so +nigh to killing Mr. Torrens o' Pensham, him that yoong Lady Gwen is +ta'aking oop with. But a can't say a didn't forewarn him o' what cooms +of a lwoaded gwun. And he _doan't_--so I'll do him fair justice." + +"Young Torrens of Pensham, _he_ can't complain," said a sharp, youngish +woman who had come into the room just soon enough to catch the thread of +the conversation. She was the housekeeper at Dr. Nash's, who supplied +what he prescribed, and was always very obliging about sending. She came +with a bottle. + +"Why can't he complain, Mrs. Lamprey?" Widow Thrale asked this first, so +the others only thought it. + +"Where would he have been, Mrs. Thrale, but for the accident? _Accident_ +you may call it! A rare bit o' luck some'll think! Why--who would the +young gentleman have got for a wife, if nobody had shot him? Answer me +that! Some girl, I suppose!" + +Yes, indeed! To marry Gwen o' the Towers! But how about the poor +gentleman's eyesight? This crux was conjointly propounded. "Think what +eyesight is to a man!" said Widow Thrale gravely and convincingly. + +Mrs. Lamprey echoed back:--"His eyesight?" with a pounce on the first +syllable. But seemed to reflect, saying with an abated emphasis:--"Only +of course you wouldn't know _that_." Know what?--said inquiry. +"Why--about his eyesight! And perhaps I've no call to tell you, seeing I +had it in confidence, as you might say." + +This was purely formal, in order to register a breach of confidence as +an allotropic form of good faith. All pointed out their perfect +trustworthiness; and Mrs. Lamprey, with very little further protest, +narrated how she had been present when her master, Dr. Nash--whom you +will remember as having attended Adrian after the accident--told how his +colleague at Pensham Steynes had written to him an account of the +curious momentary revival of Adrian's eyesight, or perhaps dream. But +Dr. Nash had thrown doubt on the dream, and had predicted to his wife +that other incidents of the same sort would follow, would become more +frequent, and end in complete recovery. + +A general expression of rejoicing--most emphatic on the part of Keziah, +who had a strong personal interest at stake--was followed by a reaction. +It was hardly possible to concede Gwen o' the Towers to any consort +short of a monarch on his throne, or a coroneted lord of thousands of +acres at least, except by virtue of some great sacrifice on the part of +the fortunate man, that would average his lot with that of common +humanity. It wasn't fair. Let Fate be reasonable! Adrian, blind for +life, was one thing; but to call such a peerless creature wife, and have +eyes to see her! A line must be drawn, somewhere! + +"We must hope," said Granny Marrable, as soon as a working eyesight was +fairly installed in each one's image of Mr. Torrens, "that he may prove +himself worthy." + +Said Widow Thrale:--"'Tis no ways hard to guess which her ladyship would +choose. I would not have been happy to wed with a blind husband. Nor +yourself, Cousin Keziah!" + +Said Mrs. Keziah:--"I'm a-looking forward to the telling of my good man. +But I lay he'll be for sayun' next, that he'll be all to blame if the +wedding turn out ill." + +"How can ye put that down to him, to lay it at his door? The fault is +none of his, Cousin Keziah." Thus Widow Thrale. + +"Truly the fault be none of his. But thou doesna knaw Ste'aphen Solmes +as I do. He'll be for sayun'--if that g'woon had a been unlwoaded, +Master Torrens had gone his way, and no harm done, nouther to him nor +yet to Gwen. But who can say for certain that 'tis not God's will all +along?" + +Mrs. Lamprey interrupted. There was the child's medicine, to be taken +regular, three times a day as directed on the bottle, and she had to +take Farmer Jones his gout mixture. "But what I told you, that's all +correct," said she, departing. "The gentleman will get his eyesight +again, and Dr. Nash says so." + +Keziah waited for Mrs. Lamprey to depart, and then went on:--"They do +say marriages are made in Heaven, and 'tis not unlike to be true. 'Tis +all one there whether we be high or low." This was a tribute to +Omnipotence, acknowledging its independence of County Families. So +august a family as the Earl's might wed as it would, without suffering +disparagement. Anyway, there was her young ladyship driving off this +very morning to Pensham, so there was every sign at present that the +decrees of Providence would hold good. She, Keziah, had heard from her +nephew, Tom Kettering, where he was to drive, the carrier's cart having +called at the Towers after picking her up at the cottage. Moreover, +she--having alighted to interchange greetings with the household--had +chanced to overhear her young ladyship say where she was going and when +she would be back. She was talking with an old person, a stranger, in +black, with silver-white hair. + +"That would be Dave's old Mrs. Picture, Ruth," said Granny Marrable, +with apparent interest. She was not at all sorry to hear something of +her having arrived safely at the Towers, none the worse for her long +drive yesterday. Mrs. Keziah, however, showed a disposition to qualify +her report, saying:--"Th' o'ald la'ady was ma'akin' but a power show, at +that. She'll be a great age, shower-ly! Only they do say, creaking +dowers ha'ang longest." + +Said Widow Thrale then, explanatorily:--"Mother will be fretting by +reason that the old soul would take no refreshment. But reckon you can't +with Wills and Won'ts, do what you may! They just drove away, sharp, +they did! I tell mother she took no harm, and if she did, t'was no fault +of hers, or mine, I lay!" + +Two days later, Widow Thrale went over by arrangement to Mrs. Solmes's +cottage to recover her convalescent, Toby. She also travelled by the +carrier's cart, accepting the hospitality of her cousin for the night, +and returning next day with Toby. Granny Marrable was not going to be +left alone at the cottage, as she was bidden to spend a day or two with +her granddaughter, or more strictly grandniece, Maisie Costrell, to make +up for her inability, owing to a bad cold six weeks since, to accompany +Widow Thrale to the first celebration of the birthday of the latter's +grandchild, at whose entry into the world you may remember the old lady +was officiating when Dave visited Strides Cottage a year ago. + +Said she, parting at the door from Widow Thrale:--"You'll keep it in +mind what I said, Ruth." + +Said Ruth, in reply,--"Touching the two yards of calico, or young Davy's +London Granny?" For she had more than one mission to Keziah. + +"If you name her so, child." This rather stiffly. "Anywise, her young +ladyship's old soul that come in the carriage. 'Tis small concern of +mine or none at all to be asking. But I would be the easier to be +assured that all went well with her, looking so dazed as she did. At her +time of life too! More like than not Keziah will be for taking you over +to the Castle, and maybe you'll see Mrs.--Picture...." + +"Picture's not her real name, only young Davy he's made it for her." + +"Well, child, 'tis the same person bears it, whatever the name be! Maybe +you'll see Mrs. Picture, and maybe she'll have something to tell of +little Davy. I would have made some inquiry of him from her myself, but +the time was not to spare." This Granny had not been at all disposed to +admit that another Granny could give her any information about Dave. But +curiosity rankled, and inquiry through an agent was another matter. + +"Lawsey me, mother," said Widow Thrale. "I'll get Keziah to take me +round, and I'll get some gossip with the old soul. I'll warrant she +hasn't lost her tongue, even be she old as Parson Dunage's mother at the +Rectory. Good-bye, mother dear! Take care of yourself on the road to +Maisie's. Put on Sister Nora's fur tippet in the open cart, for the wind +blows cold at sundown." Granny Marrable disallowed the fur tippet, with +some scorn for the luxury of the Age. + +If Brantock the carrier, who drove away with Widow Thrale, promising +that she should be in time for sooper at Soalmes's, and a bit thrown in, +had been told whose mother she would speak with next day, and when she +saw her last, he would probably have said nothing--for carriers don't +talk; they carry--but his manner would have betrayed his incredulity. +And Brantock was no more of a Sadducee than his betters. Who could have +believed that that afternoon Widow Thrale and Granny Marrable went away +in opposite directions, the former to her own mother, the latter to Mrs. +Picture's grandchild, amid the utter ignorance of all concerned? Yet the +facts of the case were just as we have stated them, and no one of the +incidents that brought them about was in itself incredible. + +Brantock was not told anything at all about anything, and did not +himself originate a single remark, except that the rain was holding off. +It may have been. His horse appeared to have read the directions on all +the parcels, choosing without instruction the most time-saving routes to +their different destinations, and going on the moment they were paid +for. In fact, Mr. Brantock had frequently to resume his seat on a cart +in motion, at the risk of his life. When they arrived at the passenger's +destination, the horse looked round to make quite sure she was safe on +the ground, and then started promptly. His master showed his superiority +to the mere brute creation, at this point, by saying, "Goodnight, +mistress!" The horse said nothing. + +Widow Thrale had only expected to hear a mixed report of the success of +her convalescent's visit, so she was not disappointed. It gradually came +out that Seth and Toby had at first glared suspiciously at one another; +the former, as the host, refusing to shake hands; the latter denying his +identity, saying to him explicitly:--"_You_ ain't the woman's little +boy!" They had then dissimulated their hostility, in order to mislead +their introducers. They had even gone the length of affecting readiness +to play together, in order that they might take advantage of the absence +of authority to arrange a duel without seconds. This was interrupted, +not because the unrestrained principals could injure each other--they +were much too small and soft to do that--but in order to do justice to +civilised usage, which defines the relations of host and guest; crossing +fisticuffs, even pacifisticuffs, off their programme altogether, and +only countenancing religion and politics with reservations. Being +separated, each laid claim to having licked the other. In which they +followed the time-honoured usage of embattled hosts, or at least of +their respective war correspondents. They then became fast friends till +death. Widow Thrale was grieved and shocked at the behaviour of a little +boy to whom she had ascribed superhuman goodness. A fallen idol! + +However, as both were too young to be troubled with consciences, and +nothing appeared to overtax their powers of digestion, the visit was +considered a great success. In fact, it competed with a previous visit +last year, of our Dave Wardle, to the disadvantage of the latter; as +Dave and Seth had been too far apart in age, and the only point in which +Dave's visit scored was that he was big enough to carry Seth on his +shoulders, and even this had been prohibited owing to his recent +surgical experiences. The making of the comparison naturally led to the +connection of Dave, whatever it was, with the old woman at the Towers, +whom Lady Gwen had nigh lost her wits about--so folks said. "But tha +knowas what o'or Gwen be!" said Mrs. Keziah. Gwen's reputation with all +the countryside was that of waywardness and wilfulness carried to +excess, but always with an unerring nobility of object. + +Old Stephen had something to say about this, and preferred to put it as +a contradiction to Keziah. "Na-ay, na-ay, wife! O'or Gwen can guess a +lady, by tokens, as well as thou or I. Tha-at be the story of it. Some +la-ady that's coom by ill-luck in her o'ald age, and no friend to hand. +She'm gotten a friend now, and a good one!" The old boy did not seem +nearly so depressed as his wife's account of him had led Strides Cottage +to believe. But then, to be sure, the first thing she had told him when +she reached home with the boy yesterday, was Mrs. Lamprey's story of Mr. +Torrens's probable restoration of sight. Hope was Hope, and the cloud +had lifted. His speculation about Mrs. Picture's possible social status +was quite a talkative effort, for him. + +Somehow it did not seem convincing to his hearers. Keziah shook her head +in slow doubt. "If that were the right of it, husband, the housekeeper's +rooms would be no place for her. Gwen would not put it on her to bide +with Mrs. Masham." + +Old Stephen did not acquiesce. "May happen the old soul would shrink shy +of the great folk at the Towers," said he. + +"Ay, but there be none!" said his wife. She went on to say that there +was scarce a living soul now at the Castle, beyond Gwen and sundry +domestics, making ready for the Colonel on Monday. This was a gentleman +who scarcely comes into the story, a much younger brother of the +Countess, who was allowed to bring friends down for the shooting every +autumn to the Towers, and took full advantage of the permission. This +year had been an exceptionally good year for the pheasants; in _their_ +sense, not the sportsman's. For all the Colonel's friends were in the +Crimea, and the October shooting had been sadly neglected except by the +poachers. He was now back from the Crimea, but was not good for much +shooting or fox-hunting, having been himself shot through the lungs in +September at the Battle of the Alma, and invalided home. But he was +already equal to the duties of host to a shooting-party, and though he +could kill nothing himself, he could hear others do so, and could smell +the nice powder. The Earl hated this sort of thing, and was glad to get +out of the way till the worst of it was over. + +Widow Thrale kept modestly outside this review of the Castle's +economies, but when they were exhausted referred again to her wish to +get a sight of old Mrs. Picture, putting her anxiety to do so entirely +on the shoulders of the Granny, of whose wish to know that the old woman +had borne the rest of her journey she made the most. She was not +prepared to confess to her own curiosity, so she used this device to +absolve her of confession. Cousin Keziah also was really a little +inquisitive, so an arrangement was easily made that these two should +walk over to the Towers on the afternoon of next day, pledging old +Stephen to the keeping of a careful eye on the pranks of the two young +conspirators against the peace and well-being of maturity, whose +business it is to know the exact amount of licence permissible to youth, +and at what point the restraint of a firm enunciation of high moral +principles becomes a necessity. + + * * * * * + +If Widow Thrale had been seized with a sudden mania for the improbable, +and had set her wits to work their hardest on a carefully chosen typical +example, could she have lighted on one that would have imposed a greater +strain on human powers of belief than the presence, a mile off, of her +mother, dead fifty years since? How improbable it would have seemed to +her that her aunt and her kith and kin of that date should fall so +easily dupes to a fraud! How improbable that folk should be so content +without inquiry, on either side of the globe; that her own mother should +remain so for years, and should even lack curiosity, when she returned +to England, to seek out her sister's grave; an instinctive tribute, one +would have said, almost certain to be paid by so loving a survivor! How +improbable that no two lines of life of folk concerned should ever +intersect thereafter, through nearly fifty years! And then, how about +her father?--how about possible half-brothers and sisters of hers?--how +improbable that they should remain quiescent and never seek to know +anything about their own flesh and blood, surviving in England! What a +tissue of improbabilities! + +But then, supposing all facts known, would not old Maisie's daughter +have admitted their possibility, even made concession as to +probability? Had the tale been told to her then and there, at the +Ranger's Lodge in the Park, the two forged letters shown her, and all +the devil's cunning of their trickery, would it have seemed so strange +that her simple old aunt should be caught in the snare, or others less +concerned in the detection of the fraud? And had she then come to know +this--that when her mother in the end, twenty years later, came back to +her native land, her first act was to seek out the grave where she knew +her father was buried, and to find his name alone upon it; that she was +then misled by a confused statement of a witness speaking from hearsay; +and that she went away thereupon, having kept a strict lock on her +tongue as to her own name, and the marriage she now knew to have been no +marriage--had Ruth Thrale been told all this, would it not have gone far +to soften the harshness of the tale's incredibility? + +That story was a strange one, nevertheless, of Maisie's visit to the +little graveyard in Essex, where she thought to find the epitaph of +Phoebe and of Phoebe's husband probably, and her father's to a +certainty. For wherever her brother-in-law and his wife were interred, +her father's remains must have been placed beside her mother's, in the +grave she had known from her childhood. But nothing had been added to +the inscription of her early recollections, except her father's name and +appropriate Scriptural citations; with a date, as it chanced, near +enough to the one she expected, to rouse no suspicion of the deceptions +her husband had practised on her. + +Her consciousness of her equivocal position had weighed upon her so +strongly that she hesitated to make herself known to any of the older +inhabitants of the village--indeed, she would have been at a loss whom +to choose--and least of all to any of her husband's relatives, though it +would have been easy to find them. No doubt also it made her speech +obscure to the only person of whom she made any inquiry. This person, +who may have been the parish clerk, saw her apparently looking for a +particular grave, and asked if he could give any information. Instead of +giving her sister's name, or her own, she answered:--"I am looking for +my sister's grave. We were the daughters of Isaac Runciman." His +reply:--"She went away. I could not tell you where" was evidently a +confused idea, involving a recollection by a man well under forty of +Maisie's own disappearance during a period of his boyhood just too early +for vital interest in two young women in their twenties. He had taken +her for Phoebe. But he must have felt the shakiness of his answer +afterwards. For nothing can make it a coherent one, as a speech to +Phoebe. On the other hand, it did not seem incoherent to Maisie. She +connected it with the false story of her sister's departure to nurse her +husband in Belgium, and the wreck of the steamer in which they recrossed +the Channel. Her tentative question:--"Did you know of the shipwreck?" +only confirmed this. His reply was:--"I was not here at the time, so I +only knew that she was going abroad to her husband." _He_ was speaking +of Maisie's own voyage to Australia, and took her speech to mean that +the ship _she_ sailed in was wrecked. _She_ was thinking of the forged +letter. + + * * * * * + +Have you, who read this, ever chanced to have an experience of how vain +it is to try to put oneself in touch with events of twenty or thirty +years ago? How came Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to be so near of a +tale if, as some fancy, they never put stylus to papyrus till Paul +pointed out their duty to them? Did they compare notes? But if they did, +why did they leave any work to be done by harmonizers? + +However, this story has nothing to do with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. +Reflections suggest themselves, for all that, with unconscious Mrs. Ruth +Thrale in charge of her cousin by marriage, Keziah Solmes, making her +way by the road--because the short cut through the Park is too wet--to +the great old Castle, with a room in it where an old, old woman with a +sweet face and silver-white hair is watching the cold November sun that +has done its best for the day and must die, and waiting patiently for +the coming of a Guardian Angel with a golden head and a voice that rings +like music. For that is what Gwen o' the Towers is to old Mrs. Prichard +of Sapps Court, who came there from Skillicks. + +What is that comely countrywoman on the road to old Mrs. Prichard? What +was old Mrs. Prichard to her, fifty-odd years ago, before she drew +breath? What, when that strong hand, a baby's then, tugged at those +silver locks, then golden? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + HOW OLD MAISIE RECEIVED A VISIT FROM HER DAUGHTER RUTH, AND REMADE + HER ACQUAINTANCE. HOW RUTH STAYED TO TEA. OF HER RESEMBLANCE TO + POMONA. OF DAVE'S CONFUSION, LAST YEAR, BETWEEN HIS TWO HONORARY + GRANNIES. OF MAGIC MUSIC, AND HOW AGGRAVATED AN ANGEL MIGHT HAVE + BEEN, WHO PLAYED, FOR DESTINY TO GUESS. HOW OLD MAISIE DIDN'T GO TO + SLEEP, AND POMONA MADE TOAST. OF A LOG, AND SOME LICHENS. HOW A + LITTLE BEETLE GOT BURNT ALIVE. AND POSSIBLY THE SERVANTS WERE NOT + QUARRELLING. HOW OLD MAISIE HEARD HERSELF CALLED "A PLAGUY OLD + CAT." MRS. MASHAM'S DUPLICITY. HOW OLD MAISIE WISHED FOR HER OWN + DAUGHTER, UNAWARES + + +Old Maisie had a difficulty in walking, owing to rheumatism. But this +had improved since her promotion from the diet of Sapps Court to that of +Cavendish Square; and later, of the Towers. So much so, that she would +often walk about the room, for change; and had even gone cautiously on +the garden-terrace, keeping near the house; which was possible, as +Francis Quarles had lodged on a ground-floor when he gave his name to +the room she occupied. + +So, this afternoon, after wondering for some time whose voices those +were she heard, variously, in the several passages and antechambers of +the servants' quarters, and deciding that one broad provincial accent +was a native's, and the other, a softer and sweeter one, that of one of +the inhabitants of Strides Cottage, she could not be sure which, she got +up slowly from her chair by the fire, and made her way to the window, to +see the better the little that was left of the sunlight. + +Was that cold red disk, going oval in the colder grey of the mist that +rose from the darkening land, the selfsame remorseless sun that, one +Christmas Day that she remembered well, blazed so over Macquarie that +the awkward well-handle, the work of a convict on ticket-of-leave, who +had started a forge near by, grew so hot it all but singed the sheep's +wool she wrapped round it to protect her hands? So hot that her husband, +even when the sun was as low as this, could light his pipe with a +burning-glass--a telescope lens whose tube had gone astray, to lead a +useless life elsewhere. She remembered that shoeing-smith well; a good +fellow, sentenced for life for a crime akin to Wat Tyler's, mercifully +reprieved from death by King George in consideration of his +provocation; for was he not, like Wat Tyler, the girl's father? She +remembered what she accounted that man's only weakness--his dwelling +with joy on the sound of the hammer-stroke of his swift, retributive +justice--the concussion of the remorseless wrought iron on the split +skull of a human beast. She remembered his words with a shudder:--"Ay, +mistress, I can shut my eyes and listen for it now. And many was the +time it gave me peace to think upon it. Ay!--in the worst of my twenty +years, the nights in the cursed river-boat they called the hulks, I +could bear them I was shut up with in the dark, and the vermin that +crawled about us, and a'most laugh to be able to hear it again, and +bless God that it sent him to Hell without time for a prayer!" The words +came back to her mind like the hideous incident of a dream we cannot for +shame repeat aloud, and made her flesh creep. But then, suppose the girl +had been her Dolly Wardle, grown big, or her own little maid, whom she +never saw again, who died near fifty years ago! Why--the sleeping face +of that baby was fresh on her lips still; had never lost its freshness +since she tore herself away to reach, at any cost, the man she loved! + +Could not the sun have been content to set, without becoming a link with +a past she shrank from, so many were the evil memories that clung about +it? She was glad that someone should come into the room, to break +through this one. There was nothing in this good-humoured +villager--surely Pomona's self in a cotton print, somewhat older than is +usual with that goddess--nothing but what served to banish these +nightmares of her lonely recollection. Only, mind you, Sam Rendall--that +was Wat Tyler's name, this time--was a good man, who deserved to have +had that daughter's children on his knee. She, Maisie, had deserted +hers. + +"May happen you'll call me to mind, ma'am, me and my old mother, at the +door of Strides Cottage, two days agone. I made bold to look in, hoping +to see you better." Thus Pomona, and old Maisie was grateful for the +wholesome voice. Still, she was puzzled, being unconscious that she had +seemed so ill. Pomona thought her introduction of herself had not been +clear, and repeated:--"Strides Cottage, just this side Chorlton, betwixt +Farmer Jones and the Reedcroft--where her young ladyship bid stop the +carriage...." She paused to let the old lady think. Perhaps she was +going too fast. + +But no--it was not that at all. Old Maisie was quite clear about the +incident, and its whereabouts. "Oh yes!" said she. "I knew it was +Strides Cottage, because I had the name from my little Davy, for the +envelopes of his letters. And I knew Farmer Jones, because of his Bull. +It was only a bit of fatigue, with the long ride." Then as the bald +disclaimer of any need for solicitude seemed a chill return for Pomona's +cordiality, old Maisie hastened to add a corollary:--"I did not find the +time to thank your mother as I would have liked to do; but I get old and +slow, and the coachman was a bit quick of his whip. I should be sorry +for you to think me ungrateful, or your good mother." + +It was as well that she added this, for there was a shade of wavering in +Ruth Thrale's heart as to whether the interview was welcome. A trace of +that jealousy about Dave just hung in Maisie's manner. And she rather +stood committed, by not having accepted the mutton-broth. That corollary +may have been Heaven-sent, to keep the mother and daughter in touch, in +the dark--just for a chance of light! + +And yet it only just served its turn. For the daughter's half-hesitating +reply:--"But I thought I would look in," if expanded to +explanation-point, would have been worded:--"I came to show good-will, +more than from any grounded misgivings about your health, ma'am; and +now, having shown it, it is time to go." And she might have departed, +easily. + +But Fate also showed good-will, and would not permit it. Old Mrs. +Picture became suddenly alive to the presence of a well-wisher, and to +her own reluctance to drive her away. "Oh, but you need not go yet," +said she. "Or perhaps they want you?" + +Oh dear no!--nobody wanted _her_. Her friend she came with, her Cousin +Keziah, was talking to Mrs. Masham. The pleasant presence would remain, +its owner said, and take a seat near the fire. The old lady was glad, +for she had had but little talk with anyone that day. Her morning +interview with Gwen had been a short one, for that young lady was +longing to get away for a second visit to her lover. + +Old Maisie, to encourage possible diffidence to believe that a quiet +chat would really be welcome to her, made reference to the +disappointment such a short allowance of her young ladyship had been, +and resuming her high-backed chair, put on her spectacles to get a +better view of her visitor--oh, how unconsciously! + +Think of the last kiss she gave a sleeping baby, half a century ago! + +There was, of course, a topic they could speak of--little Dave Wardle, +dear to both. Widow Thrale, fond as she had been of the child, had not +Granny Marrable's bias towards monopolizing him. _That_ was the result +of a _grande passion_, generated perhaps by the encouragement the young +man had given to a second Granny, so very equivalent to his first. +Moreover, there was that obscure reference in his letters to an +accident--for _axdnt_ was a mere clerical error. She worded an inquiry +after Dave, tentatively. + +"I have not seen the dear child for four weeks," said old Maisie. "Oh +dear me, yes--four weeks and more! Let me see, when was the accident?... +Oh dear!--how the time does slip away!..." + +"Was that the accident Dave speaks of in his letter? We could not quite +make out Dave's letter. Sometimes 'tis a little to seek, what the child +means." + +Old Maisie nodded assent. "But he'll soon be quite a scholar and write +his own letters all through. I think her ladyship took this one to send +it back. I can tell you about the accident. It was owing to the +repairs." The old lady pursued the subject in the true spirit of a +narrator, beginning at a wrong end, by preference one unintelligible to +her hearer. In consequence, the actual fall of the house-wall was +postponed, in favour of a description of its cause, which dealt +specially with the blamelessness of Mr. Bartlett, and incidentally with +the dishonesty of some colleagues of his, of whom he had spoken as +"they," without particulars. Her leniency to Mr. Bartlett was entirely +founded on the fact that she had conversed with him once on the subject, +and had been mysteriously impressed with his simplicity and manliness. +How did Mr. Bartlett manage it? A faint percentage of beer, like foreign +matter in analyses, is not alone enough to establish integrity. Nor a +flavour of clothes. + +The wall fell in the end, and Widow Thrale saw a light on the story, +after expressing more admiration and sympathy for Mr. Bartlett than was +human, under the circumstances. She was much impressed. "And by the +mercy of God you were all saved, ma'am," said she. "Her young ladyship +and little Dave, and his sister, and yourself!" It really seemed quite a +stroke of business, this, on the part of a Superior Power, which had +left building materials and gravitation, after creating them, to their +own wayward impulses. + +Old Maisie admitted the beneficence of Providence, but rather as an act +of courtesy. "For," said she, "we were never in any real danger, owing +to the piece of timber Mr. Bartlett had thrown across to catch the +floor-joists." She was of course repeating Mr. Bartlett's own words, +without close analysis of their actual meaning. Her mind only just +avoided associations of cricket. But poor Susan Burr--oh dear!--that was +much worse. "She has done wonderfully well, though," continued the old +lady, "and her case gave the greatest satisfaction to the Doctors at the +Hospital. She has written to me herself since leaving. And she must be +really better, because she has gone to her married niece at Clapham." It +seemed a sort of destiny that this niece's wifehood should always be +emphasized. It was almost implied that a less complete recovery would +have resulted in a journey to a single niece, at Clapham; or possibly, +only at Battersea. Widow Thrale was interested in the accident, but she +wanted to get back to Dave Wardle. "Then no one could live in the house, +ma'am," she said, "after it had fallen down?" + +"Not in my rooms upstairs, nor his Aunt M'riar's underneath. Only his +uncle stopped in, to keep the place. _His_ room was all safe. It was +like the front of two rooms, all down in the street as if it was an +earthquake. And no forewarning, above a crack or two! But the children +safe, God be thanked, and her young ladyship! Also her cousin, Miss +Grahame, down below with Aunt M'riar." + +"That lady we call Sister Nora?" + +"That lady. But I was so stunned and dazed with the start it gave me, +and the noise, that I had no measure of anything. They took me home with +them. I can just call to mind moving in the carriage, and the +lamplighter." Old Maisie recollected seeing the lamplighter, but she had +forgotten how she was got into that carriage. + +"Then you hardly saw the children?" + +"I was all mazed. I heard my Dolly cry, poor little soul! Her ladyship +says Dave took Dolly up very short for being such a coward. But he +kissed her, for comfort, and to keep her in heart." + +"_He_ didn't cry!" + +"Davy?--not he. Davy makes it a point to be afraid of nothing. His uncle +has taught him so. He was"--here some hesitation--"he belonged to what +they called the Prize Ring. A professional boxer." It sounded better +than "prizefighter"--more restrained. + +"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale. "Yes. I had heard that." + +"But he is a good man," said old Maisie, warming to the defence of Uncle +Mo. "He is indeed! He won't let Dave fight, only a little now and then. +But Dave says he told him, Uncle Mo did, that if ever he saw a boy hit a +little girl, he was to hit that boy at once, without stopping to think +how big he was. And he told him where! Is not that a good man?" + +"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale again, uneasily. "Won't Dave hit some boy +that's too strong for him, and get hurt?" + +"I think he may, ma'am. But then ... someone _may_ take his part! I +should pray." She went on to repeat an adventure of Dave's, when he +behaved as directed to a young monster who was stuffing some abomination +into a little girl's mouth. But it ended with the words:--"The boy ran +away." Perhaps Uncle Mo had judged rightly of the class of boy that he +had in mind, as almost sure to run away. + +The Pomona in Widow Thrale had gone behind a cloud during her misgivings +about Uncle Mo. The cloud passed, as the image of this boy fled from +Nemesis. He was a London boy, evidently, and up to date. The Feudal +System, as surviving at Chorlton, countenanced no such boys. The voice +of Pomona was cheerful again as she resumed Dave:--"Where, then, is the +boy, till he goes back home?" + +"His aunt has got him at her mother's, at Ealing. His real +grandmother's." Pomona had a subconsciousness that this made three; an +outrageous allowance of grandmothers for any boy! But she would not say +so, as this old lady might be sensitive about her own claims, which +might be called in question if Dave's list was revised. + +Ealing recalled an obscure passage in his letter, which was really an +insertion, in the text, of the address of his haven of refuge. It read, +transcribed literally:--"My grandMother is hEALing," and the +recollection of it reinforced the laugh with which Pomona pleaded to +misinterpretation. "Mother and I both thought she had cut herself," said +she. + +Old Maisie, amused at Dave, made answer:--"No!--it's where he is. Number +Two, Penkover Terrace, Ealing. Penkover is very hard to recollect. So do +write it down. Write it now. I shall very likely forget it directly; +because when I get tired with talking, I swim, and the room goes +round.... Oh no--I'm not tired yet, and you do me good to talk to." + +But the old lady had talked to the full extent of her tether. But even +in this short conversation the impression made upon her by this new +acquaintance was so favourable that she felt loth to let her depart; to +leave her, perhaps, to some memory of the past as painful as the one she +had interrupted. If she had spoken her exact mind she would have +said:--"No, don't go yet. I can't talk much, but it makes me happy to +sit here in the growing dusk and hear about Dave. It brings the child +back to me, and does my heart good." That was the upshot of her thought, +but she felt that their acquaintance was too short to warrant it. She +was bound to make an effort, if not to entertain, at least to bear her +share of the conversation. + +"Tell me more about Davy, when you had him at the Cottage. Did he talk +about me?" This followed her declaration that she was "not tired yet" in +a voice that lost force audibly. Her visitor chose a wiser course than +to make a parade of her readiness to take a hint and begone. She chatted +on about Dave's stay with her a year since, about little things the +story knows already, while the old lady vouched at intervals--quite +truly--that she heard every word, and that her closed eyes did not mean +sleep. The incident of Dave's having persisted--when he awaked and found +"mother" looking at him, the day after his first arrival--that it was +old Mrs. Picture upstairs, and how they thought the child was still +dreaming, was really worth the telling. Old Maisie showed her amusement, +and felt bound to rouse herself to say:--"The name is not really +Picture, but it doesn't matter. I like Dave's name--Mrs. Picture!" It +was an effort, and when she added:--"The name is really Prichard," her +voice lost strength, and her hearer lost the name. Fate seemed against +Dave's pronunciation being corrected. + +You know the game we used to call Magic Music--we oldsters, when we were +children? You know how, from your seat at the piano, you watched your +listener striving to take the hints you strove to give, and wandering +aimlessly away from the fire-irons he should have shouldered--the book +he should have read upside down--the little sister he should have kissed +or tickled--what not? You remember the obdurate pertinacity with which +he missed fire, and balked the triumphant outburst that should have +greeted his success? Surely, if some well-wisher among the choir of +Angels, harping with their harps, had been at Chorlton then and there, +under contract to guide Destiny, by playing loud and soft--not giving +unfair hints--to the reuniting of the long-lost sisters, that Angel +would have been hard tried to see how near the spark went to fire the +train, yet flickered down and died; how many a false scent crossed the +true one, and threw the tracker out! + +Old Maisie's powers of sustained attention were, of course, much less +than she supposed, and her visitor's pleasant voice, rippling on in the +growing dusk, was more an anodyne than a stimulant. She did not go to +sleep--people don't! But something that very nearly resembled sleep must +have come to her. Whatever it was, she got clear of it to find, with +surprise, that Mrs. Thrale, with her bonnet off, was making toast at +the glowing wood-embers; and that candles were burning and that, somehow +tea had germinated. + +"I thought I would make you some toast, more our sort.... Oh yes! What +the young lady has brought is very nice, but this will be hotter." The +real Pomona never looked about fifty--she was a goddess, you see!--but +if she had, and had made toast, she must have resembled Ruth Thrale. + +Then old Maisie became more vividly alive to her visitor, helped by the +fact that she had been unconscious in her presence. That was human +nature. The establishment of a common sympathy about Lupin, the +tea-purveyor, was social nature. Pomona had called Miss Lupin "the young +lady." This had placed Miss Lupin; she belonged to a superior class, and +her ministrations were a condescension. It was strange indeed that such +trivialities should have a force to span the huge gulf years had dug +between these two, and yet never show a rift in the black cloud of their +fraud-begotten ignorance. They _did_ draw them nearer together, beyond a +doubt; especially that recognition of Miss Lupin's position. Old Maisie +had never felt comfortable with the household, while always oppressed +with gratitude for its benevolences. She had felt that she had expressed +it very imperfectly to her young ladyship, to cause her to say:--"They +will get all you want, I dare say. But how _do_ they behave? That's the +point! Are they giving themselves airs, or being pretty to you?" For +this downright young beauty never minced matters. But naturally old +Maisie had felt that she could do nothing but show gratitude for the +attention of the household, especially as she could not for the life of +her define the sources of her discomfort in her relations with it. + +This saddler's widow from Chorlton, with all her village life upon her, +and her utter ignorance of the monstrous world of Maisie's own past +experience, came like a breath of fresh air. Was it Pomona though?--or +was it the tea? Reserve gave way to an impulse of informal speech:--"My +dear, you have had babies of your own?" + +Pomona's open-eyed smile seemed to spread to her very finger-tips. +"Babies? _Me?_" she exclaimed. "Yes, indeed! But not so very many, if +you count them. Five, all told! Two of my little girls I lost--'tis a +many years agone now. My two boys are aboard ship, one in the Black Sea, +one in the Baltic. My eldest on the _Agamemnon_. My second--he's but +sixteen--on the _Tithonus_. But he's seen service--he was at Bomarsund +in August. Please God, when the war is over, they'll come back with a +many tales for their mother and their granny! I lie awake and pray for +them, nights." + +The old lady kept her thoughts to herself--even spoke with unwarranted +confidence of these boys' return. She shied off the subject, +nevertheless. How about the other little girl, the one that still +remained undescribed? + +"My married daughter? She is my youngest. She's married to John +Costrell's son at Denby's farm. Maisie. Her first little boy is just +over a year old." + +Old Maisie brightened, interested, at the name. A young Maisie, so near +at hand! "My own name!" she said. "To think of that!" Yet, after all, +the name was a common one. + +"Called after her grandmother," said Ruth Thrale, equably--chattily. +"Mother has gone over to-day to make up for not going on his birthday." +Of course the "grandmother" alluded to was her own proper mother, the +young mother on whose head that old silver hair she was watching so +unconsciously had been golden brown, fifty years ago. For all that, Ruth +spoke of her aunt as "mother," automatically. What wonder that old +Maisie accepted Granny Marrable's Christian name as the same as her own. +"My name is the same as your mother's, then!" seemed worth saying, on +the whole, though it put nothing very uncommon on record. + +How near the spark was to the tinder!--how loud that Angel would have +had to play! For Ruth Thrale might easily have chanced to say:--"Yes, +the same that my mother's was." And that past tense might have spoken a +volume. + +But Destiny was at fault, and the Angel would have had to play +_pianissimo_. Miss Lupin came in, bearing a log that had taken twenty +years to grow and one to dry. The glowing embers were getting spent, and +the open hearth called for reimbursement. It seemed a shame those sweet +fresh lichens should burn; but then, it would never do to let the fire +out! Miss Lupin contrived to indicate condescension in her attitude, +while dealing with its reconstruction. No conversation could have +survived such an inroad, and by the time Miss Lupin had asked if she +should remove the tea etceteras, the review of Pomona's family was +forgotten, and Destiny was baffled. + +Another floating spark went even nearer to the tinder, when, going back +to Dave and Dolly, old Maisie talked of the pleasure of having the +little girl at home, now that Dave was so much away at school. She was +getting dim in thought and irresponsible when she gave Widow Thrale this +chance insight into her early days. It was a sort of slip of the mind +that betrayed her into saying:--"Ah, my dear, the little one makes me +think of my own little child I left behind me, that died--oh, such a +many years ago!..." Her voice broke into such audible distress that her +hearer could not pry behind her meaning; could only murmur a sympathetic +nothing. The old lady's words that followed seemed to revoke her +lapse:--"Long and long ago, before ever you were born, I should say. But +she was my only little girl, and I keep her in mind, even now." Had not +Widow Thrale hesitated, it might have come out that _her_ mother had +fled from her at the very time, and that her own name was Ruth. How +could suspicion have passed tiptoe over such a running stream of +possible surmise, and landed dryfoot? + +But nothing came of it. There was nothing in a child that died before +she was born, to provoke comparison of her own dim impressions of her +mother's departure--for old Phoebe had kept much of the tale in +abeyance--and her comments hung fire in a sympathetic murmur. She felt, +though, that the way she had appeased her thirst for infancy might be +told, appropriately; dwelling particularly on the pleasures of +nourishing convalescents up to kissing-point, as the ogress we have +compared her to might have done up to readiness for the table. Old +Maisie was quite ready to endorse all her views and experiences, +enjoying especially the account of Dave's rapid recovery, and his +neglected Ariadne. + +A conclusive sound crept into the conversation of Mrs. Solmes and the +housekeeper, always audible without. "I think I hear my Cousin Keziah +going," said Mrs. Thrale. "I must not keep her." + +"Thank you, my dear! I mean--thank you for coming to see me!" It was the +second time old Maisie had said "my dear" to this acquaintance of an +hour. But then, her face, that youth's comeliness still clung to, +invited it. + +"'Tis I should be the one to thank, ma'am, both for the pleasure, and +for the hearing tell of little Davy. Mother will be very content to get +a little news of the child. Oh, I can tell you she grudges her share of +Dave to anyone! If mother should take it into her head to come over and +hear some more, for herself, you will not take it amiss? It will be for +love of the child." Then, as a correction to what might have seemed a +stint of courtesy:--"And for the pleasure of a visit to you, ma'am." +Said old Maisie absently:--"I hope she will." And then Widow Thrale saw +that all this talking had been quite enough, and took her leave. + +This was the second time these two had parted, in half a century. They +shook hands, this time, and there was no glimmer in the mind of either, +of who or what the other was. Each remained as unconscious of the +other's identity as that sleeping child in her crib had been, fifty +years ago, of her mother's heart-broken beauty as she tore herself away, +with the kiss on her lips that dwelt there still. + +They shook hands, with affectionate cordiality, and the old lady, hoping +again that the visitor's "mother" would pay her a visit, settled back to +watching the fire creep along the lichens, one by one, on that beechen +log the squirrels had to themselves a year ago. + +Unconscious Widow Thrale had much to say of the pretty old lady as she +and Mrs. Solmes walked back to the Ranger's Cottage through the +nightfall. Fancy mother taking it into her head that Dave would be the +worse by such a nice old extra Granny as that! She must be very much +alone in the world though, to judge by what little she had told of her +life in Sapps Court. No single hint of kith and kin! Had Keziah not +heard a word about her antecedents? Well--nothing to ma'ak a stowery +on't! Housekeeper Masham had expressed herself ambiguously, saying that +her yoong la'adyship had lighted down upon the old lady in stra'ange +coompany; concerning which she, Masham, not being called upon to deliver +judgment, preferred to keep her mowuth shoot. Keziah contrived to convey +that this shutting of Mrs. Masham's mouth had carried all the weight of +speech, all tending to throw doubt on Mrs. Picture, without any clue to +the special causes of offence against her. + +Whatever misgivings about the old lady Widow Thrale allowed to re-enter +her mind were dispersed on arriving at the Cottage. For Toby and Seth, +being sought for to wash themselves and have their suppers, were not +forthcoming. They had vanished. They were found in the Verderer's Hall, +where they had concealed themselves with ingenuity, unnoticed by old +Stephen, whom they had followed in and allowed to depart, locking the +door after him and so locking them in. It was sheer original sin on +their part--the corruption of Man's heart. The joy of occasioning so +much anxiety more than compensated for delayed supper; and penalties +lapsed, owing to the satisfaction of finding that they had not both +tumbled into a well two hundred feet deep. Old Stephen's remark that, +had he been guilty of such conduct in his early youth, he would have +been all over wales, had an historical interest, but nothing further. +They seemed flattered by his opinion that they were a promussin' yoong +couple. However, the turmoil they created drove the previous events of +the day out of Widow Thrale's head. She slept very sound and--forgot all +about her interview with the old visitor at the Towers! + + * * * * * + +Old Maisie, alone in Francis Quarles as she had been so often in the +garret at Sapps Court, became again the mere silver-headed relic of the +past, waiting patiently, one would have said, for Death; content to +live, content to die; ready to love still; not strong enough to hate, +and ill-provided with an object now. Not for the former--no, indeed! +Were there not her Dave and her Dolly to go back to? She had not lost +them much, for they, too, were away from poor, half-ruined Sapps Court. +She would go back soon. But then, how about her Guardian Angel? She +would lose her--_must_ lose her, some time! Why not now? + +What had she, old Maisie, done to deserve such a +guardianship?--_friendship_ was hardly the word to use. An +overpresumption in one so humble! Who could have foreseen all this +bewilderment of Chance six weeks ago, when her great event of the day +was a visit of the two children. She resented a half-thought she could +not help, that called her gain in question. Was not Sapps Court her +proper place? Was she not too much out of keeping with her surroundings? +Could she even find comfort, when she returned to her old quarters, in +wearing these clothes her young ladyship had had made for her; so unlike +her own old wardrobe, scarcely a rag of it newer than Skillicks? She +fought against the ungenerous thought--the malice of some passing imp, +surely!--and welcomed another that had strength to banish it, the image +of her visitor of to-day. + +There she was again--at least, all that memory supplied! What was her +dress? Old Maisie could not recall this. The image supplied a +greeny-blue sort of plaid, but memory wavered over that. Her testimony +was clear about the hair; plenty of it, packed close with a ripple on +the suspicion of grey over the forehead, that seemed to have halted +there, unconfirmed. At any rate, there would be no more inside those +knot-twists behind, that still showed an autumnal golden brown, +Pomona-like. Yes, she had had abundance in the summer of her life, and +that was not so long ago. How old was she?--old Maisie asked herself. +Scarcely fifty yet, seemed a reasonable answer. She had forgotten to ask +her christened name, but she could make a guess at it--could fit her +with one to her liking. Margaret--Mary?--No, not exactly. Try Bertha.... +Yes--Bertha might do.... But she could think about her so much better in +the half-dark. She rose and blew the candles out, then went back to her +chair and the line of thought that had pleased her. + +How fortunate this good woman had been to hit upon the convalescent +idea! She, herself, when her worst loneliness clouded her horizon, might +have devised some such _modus vivendi_--as between herself and her +enemy, Solitude; not as mere means to live. But, indeed, Solitude had +intruded upon her first, disguised as a friend. The irksomeness of life +had come upon her later, when the sting of her son's wickedness began to +die away. Moreover, her delicacy of health had disqualified her for +active responsibilities. This Mrs. Marrable's antecedents had made no +inroads on _her_ constitution, evidently. + +See where the fire had crept over these lichens and devoured them! The +log would soon be black, when once the heat got a fair hold of it. Now, +the pent-up steam from some secret core, that had kept its moisture +through the warmth of a summer, hissed out in an angry jet, stung by the +conquering flame. There, see!--from some concealment in the bark, +mysteriously safe till now, a six-legged beetle, panic-struck and +doomed. Cosmic fires were at work upon his world--that world he thought +so safe! It was the end of the Universe for him--_his_ Universe! Old +Maisie would gladly have played the part of a merciful Divinity, and +worked a miraculous salvation. But alas!--the poor little fugitive was +too swift to his own combustion in the deadly fires below. Would it be +like that for us, when our world comes to an end? Old Maisie was sorry +for that little beetle, and would have liked to save him. + +She sat on, watching the tongues of flame creep up and up on the log +that seemed to defy ignition. The little beetle's fate had taken her +mind off her retrospect; off Dave and Dolly, and the pleasant image of +Pomona. She was glad of any sign of life, and the voices that reached +her from the kitchen or the servants' hall were welcome; and perhaps ... +_perhaps_ they were not quarrelling. But appearances were against them. +Nevertheless, the lull that followed made her sorry for the silence. A +wrangle toned down by distance and intervening doors is soothingly +suggestive of company--soothingly, because it fosters the distant +hearer's satisfaction at not being concerned in it. Old Maisie hoped +they would go on again soon, because she had blown those lights out +rashly, without being sure she could relight them. She could tear a +piece off the newspaper and light it at the fire of course. But--the +idea of tearing a newspaper! This, you see, was in fifty-four, and +tearing a number of the _Times_ was like tearing a book. No spills +offered themselves. She made an excursion into her bedroom for the +matchbox and felt her way to it. But it was empty! The futility of an +empty matchbox is as the effrontery of the celebrated misplaced +milestone. Expeditions for scraps of waste-paper in the dark, with her +eyesight, might end in burning somebody's will, or a cheque for pounds. +That was her feeling, at least. Never mind!--she could wait. She had +been told always to ring the bell when she wanted anything, but she had +never presumed on the permission. A lordly act, not for a denizen of +Sapps Court! Roxalana or Dejanira might pull bells. Very likely the log +would blaze directly, and she would come on a scrap of real waste-paper. + +Stop!... Was not that someone coming along the passage, from the +kitchen. Perhaps someone she could ask? She would not go back to her +chair till she heard who it was. She set the door "on the jar" timidly, +and listened. Yes--she knew the voices. It was Miss Lutwyche and one of +the housemaids. Not Lupin--the other one, Mary Anne, who seldom came +this way, and whom she hardly knew by sight. But what was it that they +were saying? + +Said Miss Lutwyche:--"Well, _I_ call her a plaguy old cat.... No, I +don't care if she _does_ hear me." However, she lowered her voice to +finish her speech, and much that followed was inaudible to old Maisie. +Who of course supposed _she_ was the plaguy old cat! + +Then Mary Anne became audible again, confirming this view:--"Is that her +room?" For the subject of the conversation had changed in that inaudible +phase--changed from Mrs. Masham to the queer old soul her young ladyship +had pitchforked down in the middle of the household. + +"That's her room now. Old Mashey has been turned out. She's next door. +She's supposed to look after her and see she wants for nothing.... _I_ +don't know. Perhaps she does. _I_ wash my hands." At this point the poor +old listener heard no more. What she _had_ heard was a great shock to +her; really almost as great a shock as the crash at Sapps Court. She +found her way back to her chair and sat and cried, in the darkened room. +She was a plaguy old cat, and Miss Lutwyche, with whom she had been on +very good terms in Cavendish Square, had washed her hands of her! Then, +when the servants here were attentive to her--and they were all right, +as far as that went--it was mere deceptiousness, and they were wishing +her at Jericho. + +She was conscious that the lady's-maid and Mary Anne came back, still +talking. But she had closed the door, and was glad she could not hear +what they were saying. A few minutes after, Mrs. Masham appeared from +her own room close by, having apparently recovered her temper. But, said +old Maisie to herself, all this was sheer hypocrisy; a mere timeserver's +assumption of civility towards a plaguy old cat! + +"You'll be feeling ready for your bit of supper, Mrs. Pilcher," said the +housekeeper; who, having been snubbed by Miss Lutwyche for saying +"Pilchard," had made compromise. She could not be expected to accept +"Picture." The bit of supper was behind her on a tray, borne by Lupin. +"Why--you're all in the dark!" She rebuked the servant-girl because +there were no matches, and on production of a box from the latter's +pocket, magnanimously lit the candles with her own hands, continuing the +while to reproach her subordinate for neglect of the guest entrusted to +her charge. That guest's thought being, meanwhile, what a shocking +hypocrite this woman was. Probably Mrs. Masham was no more a hypocrite +than old Maisie was an old cat. That is to say, if the latter +designation meant a termagant or scold. There must be now and again, in +Nature, a person without a hall-mark of either Heaven or Hell, and Mrs. +Masham may have had none. In that recent encounter in the kitchen which +old Maisie had been conscious of, she had lost her temper with Miss +Lutwyche; but so might anyone, if you came to that. Cook had come to +that, after Miss Lutwyche left the room, and her designation of that +young lady as a provocation, and a hussy, had done much to pacify Mrs. +Masham. + +Anyhow, Mrs. Masham was on even terms with herself, if not in a +treacle-jar, when she sat down by the fire to do--as she thought--her +duty by her young ladyship's _protégée_. She was that taken up, she +said, every minute of the day, that she did not get the opportunities +her heart longed for of cultivating the acquaintance of her guest. But +she was thankful to hear that Mrs. Pilcher had not been any the worse +for her talk with her visitor an hour since. Widow Thrale, living like +she did over at Chorlton, was a sort of stranger at the Towers. But only +a subacute stranger, as her husband, when living, was frequently in +evidence there, in connection with the stables. + +Old Maisie was interested to hear anything about her pleasant visitor. +What sort of aged woman did Mrs. Masham take her to be? Her voice, said +the old lady, was that of a much younger person than she seemed, to look +at. + +"How old would she be?" said the housekeeper. "Well--she might be a +child of twelve or thirteen when her mother came to Strides Cottage, and +married Farmer Marrable there...." + +"Then her name was never Marrable at all," said old Maisie. + +"No. Granny Marrable, she'd been married before, in Sussex. Now what +_was_ her first husband's name?... Well--I ought to be able to recollect +_that_! Ruth--Ruth--Ruth what?" She was trying to remember the name by +which she had known Widow Thrale in her childhood. Her effort to do so, +had it succeeded, would have made a complete disclosure almost +inevitable, owing to the peculiarity of Granny Marrable's first +husband's name. "I _ought_ to be able to recollect, but there!--I can't. +I suppose it would be because we always heard her spoken of as Mrs. +Marrable's Ruth. I saw but very little of her; only when I was a +child...." She paused a moment, arrested by old Maisie's expression, and +then said:--"Yes ... why?" ... and stopped. + +"Because if I had known she was Ruth I would have told her that my +little girl that died was Ruth. Just a fanciful idea!" But the speaker's +supper was getting cold. The housekeeper departed, telling Lupin to get +some scrapwood to make a blaze under that log, and make it show what a +real capacity it had as fuel, if only justice was done to its +combustibility. + +This chance passage of conversation between old Maisie and the +housekeeper ran near to sounding the one note needed to force the truth +of an incredible tale on the blank unsuspicion of its actors. A many +other little things may have gone as near. If so, none left any one of +its audience, or witnesses, more absolutely in the dark about it than +the solitary old woman who that evening watched that log, stimulated by +the scrapwood during her very perfunctory supper; first till it became a +roaring flame that laughed at those two candles, then till the flame +died down and left it all aglow; then till the fire reached its heart +and broke it, and it fell, and flickered up again and died, and slowly +resolved itself into a hillock of red ember and creeping incandescence, +a treasury still of memories of the woodlands and the coming of the +spring, and the growth of the leaves that perished. + +At about nine o'clock, Lupin, acting officially, came to offer her +services to see the old lady to bed. No!--if she might do so she would +rather sit up till her ladyship came in. She could shift for herself; in +fact, like most old people who have never been waited on, she greatly +preferred it. Only, of course, she did not say so. But Lupin _was_ +sitting up for her ladyship, with Miss Lutwyche, and would purvey hot +water then, in place of this, which would be cold. She brought a couple +of young loglets to keep a little life in the fire, and went away to +contribute to an everlasting wrangle in the servants' hall. + +The wind roared in the chimney and made old Maisie's thoughts go back to +the awful sea. Think of the wrecks this wind would cause! Of course she +was all wrong; one always is, indoors, with a huge chimney which is a +treasure-house of sound. Gwen was just saying at that moment, to Adrian +and his sister, what a delicious night it was to be out of doors! And +the grey mare, in a hurry to go, was undertaking through an interpreter +to be back in an hour and three-quarters easy. And then they were off, +Gwen laughing to scorn Irene's reproaches to her for not staying the +night. All that was part of Gwen's minimisation of her guilt in this +postponement of the separation test. The stars seemed to flash the +clearer in the heavens for such laughter as hers, in such a voice. But +all the while old Maisie was haunted with images of a chaise blown into +ditches and over bridges, and colliding with blown-down elms, in league +for mischief with blown-out lamps. Be advised, and _never_ fidget about +the absent! + +She would rather have gone on doing so than that the recollection should +come back to her of Lutwyche's odious designation that she had taken to +herself, so warrantably to all appearance. A _plaguy old cat_! What had +she ever done or said to Miss Lutwyche, or any of them, to deserve such +a name? And then that girl who was with her had seemed to accept it so +easily--certainly without any protest. She was ready to admit, though, +that her vituperators had concealed their animus well, the hypocrites +that they were! Look how amiable Mrs. Masham had made believe +to be, an hour ago! A shade of graciousness--an infinitesimal +condescension--certainly nothing worse than that! But the hypocrisy of +it! She had never been quite comfortable in her ill-assigned position of +guest undefined--dear, beautiful Gwen's fault! Never, since the +housekeeper on first introduction had jumped at her reluctance to taint +the servants' hall with Sapps Court, interpreting it as a personal +desire to be alone. But she had never suspected that she was a plaguy +old cat, and did not feel like her idea of one. + +Conceive the position of a lonely octogenarian, injudiciously thrust +into a community where she was not welcome--by a Guardian Angel surely, +but one who had never known the meaning of the word "obstacle." Conceive +that her poverty had never meant pauperisation, and that graciousness +and condescension are always tainted with benevolence, to the indigent. +She had done nothing to deserve having anything bestowed on her, and the +wing of a chicken she had supped upon would have stuck in her throat +with that qualification. Understand, too, that when this thought crossed +her mind, she recoiled from it and cried out upon her petty pride that +would call anything in question that had been _visé_ and endorsed by +that dear Guardian Angel. Use these helps towards a glimpse into her +heart as she watched the new wood go the way of the old, and say if you +wonder that she cried silently over it. Now if only that nice person +that came to-day could have stayed on, to pass the time with her until +the welcome sound should come of the chaise's homeward wheels and the +grey mare's splendid pace, bringing her what she knew would come if Gwen +was in it, a happy farewell interview with her idol before she went to +bed. Yes--how nice it would have been to have her here! Ruth +Thrale--yes, Ruth--her own little daughter's name of long ago! + +This Ruth _was_ her own daughter. But how to know it! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + HOW GWEN CAME BACK, AND FOUND THE "OLD CAT" ASLEEP. AND TOOK OFF + HER SABLES. A CANDLE-LIGHT JOURNEY THROUGH AN ANCIENT HOUSE, AND A + TELEGRAPHIC SUMMONS. HOW GWEN RUSHED AWAY BY A NIGHT-TRAIN, BECAUSE + HER COUSIN CLOTILDA SAID DON'T COME. HOW SHE LEFT A LETTER FOR + WIDOW THRALE AT THE RANGER'S LODGE + + +Just as the watched pot never boils, so the thing one waits for never +comes, so long as one waits _hard_. The harder one waits the longer it +is postponed. When one sits up to open the door to the latchkeyless, +there is only one sure way of bringing about his return, and that is to +drop asleep _à contre coeur_, and sleep too sound for furious knocks and +rings, gravel thrown at windows, and intemperate language, to arouse +you. Then he will come back, and be obliged to say he has only knocked +once, and you will say you had only just closed your eyes. + +Old Maisie was quite sure she had just closed hers, when of a sudden the +voice she longed for filled Heaven and Earth, and said:--"Oh, what a +shame to come and wake you out of such a beautiful sleep! But you +mustn't sleep all night in the arm-chair. Poor dear old Mrs. Picture! +What would Dave say! What would Mrs. Burr say!" And then old Maisie +waked from a dream about unmanageable shrimps, to utter the correct +formula with a conviction of its truth, this time. She _had_ only just +closed her eyes. Only just! + +Miss Lutwyche, in attendance, ventured on sympathetic familiarity. Mrs. +Picture would not get any beauty-sleep to-night, that was certain. For +it is well known that only sleep in bed deserves the name, and a clock +was putting its convictions about midnight on record, dogmatically. + +Gwen's laugh rang out soon enough to quash its last _ipse dixits_. "Then +the mischief's done, Lutwyche, and another five minutes doesn't matter. +Mrs. Picture's going to tell me all her news. Here--get this thing off! +Then you can go till I ring." The thing, or most of it, was an +unanswerable challenge to the coldest wind of night--the cast-off +raiment of full fifty little sables, that scoured the Russian woods in +times gone by. Surely the breezes had drenched it with the very soul of +the night air in that ride beneath the stars, and the foam of them was +shaken out of it as it released its owner. + +Then old Maisie was fully aware of her Guardian Angel, back again--no +dream, like those shrimps! And her voice was saying:--"So you had +company, Mrs. Picture dear. Lutwyche told me. The widow-woman from +Chorlton, wasn't it? How did you find her? Nice?" + +Yes, the widow-woman was very nice. She had stayed quite a long time, +and had tea. "I liked her very much," said old Maisie. "She was easy." +Then--said inference--somebody is difficult. Maisie did not catch this +remark, made by one of the most inaudible of speakers. "Yes," she said, +"she stayed quite a long time, and had tea. She is a very good young +woman"--for, naturally, eighty sees fifty-odd as youth, especially when +fifty-odd seems ten years less--"and we could talk about Dave. It was +like being home again." She used, without a trace of _arrière pensée_, a +phrase she could not have bettered had she tried to convey to Gwen her +distress at hearing she was a plaguy old cat. Then she suddenly saw its +possible import, and would have liked to withdraw it. "Only I would not +seek to be home again, my dear, when I am near you." She trembled in her +eagerness to get this said, and not to say it wrong. + +Gwen saw in an instant all she had overlooked, and indeed she _had_ +overlooked many things. It was, however, much too late at night to go +into the subject. She could only soothe it away now, but with intention +to amend matters next day; or, rather, next daylight. So she said:--"The +plaster will very soon be dry now in Sapps Court, dear Mrs. Picture, and +then you shall go back to Dave and Dolly, and I will come and see you +there. You must go to bed now. So must I--I suppose? I will come to you +to-morrow morning, and you will tell me a great deal more. Now +good-night!" That was what she said aloud. To herself she thought a +thought without words, that could only have been rendered, to do it +justice:--"The Devil fly away with Mrs. Masham, that she couldn't +contrive to make this dear old soul comfortable for a few weeks, just +long enough for some plaster to dry." She went near adding:--"And +myself, too, not to have foreseen what would happen!" But she bit this +into her underlip, and cancelled it. + +She rang the bell for Lutwyche, now the sole survivor in the kitchen +region. Who appeared, bearing hot water--some for the plaguy old cat. +Gwen said good-night again, kissing the old lady affectionately when +Lutwyche was not looking. Mistress and maid then, when the cat at her +own request was left to get herself into sleeping trim, started on the +long journey through corridors and state-rooms through which her young +ladyship's own quarters had to be reached. Corridors on whose floors one +walked up and down hill; great chambers full of memories, and here and +there indulging in a ghost. Tudor rooms with Holbeins between the +windows, invisible to man; Jacobean rooms with Van Dycks, nearly as +regrettably invisible; Lelys and Knellers, much more regrettably +visible. Across the landing the great staircase, where the Reynolds +hangs, which your _cicerone_ of this twentieth century will tell you was +the famous beauty of her time, and the grandmother of another famous +Victorian beauty, dead not a decade since. And on this staircase Gwen, +half pausing to glance at her departed prototype, started suddenly, and +exclaimed:--"What's that?" + +For a bell had broken the silence of the night--a bell that had enjoyed +doing so, and was slow to stop. Now a bell after midnight in a house +that stands alone in a great Park, two miles from the nearest village, +has to be accounted for, somehow. Not by Miss Lutwyche, who merely noted +that the household would hear and answer the summons. + +Her young ladyship was not so indifferent to human affairs as her +attendant. She said:--"I must know what that is. They won't send to tell +me. Come back!" She had said it, and started, before that bell gave in +and retired from public life. + +Past the Knellers and Lelys, among the Van Dycks, a scared figure, +bearing a missive. Miss Lupin, and no ghost--as she might have been--in +the farther door as her ladyship passes into the room. She has run +quickly with it, and is out of breath. "A telegraph for your ladyship!" +is all she can manage. She would have said "telegram" a few years later. + +A rapid vision, in Gwen's mind, of her father's remains, crushed by a +locomotive, itself pulverised by another--for these days were rich in +railway accidents--then a hope! It may be the fall of Sebastopol; a +military cousin had promised she should know it as soon as the Queen. +Give her the paper and end the doubt!... It is neither. + +It is serious, for all that. Who brought this?--that's the first +question, from Gwen. Lupin gives a hurried account. It is Mr. Sandys, +the station-master at Grantley Thorpe, who has galloped over himself to +make sure of delivery. Is he gone? No--he has taken his horse round to +Archibald at the Stables to refit for a quieter ride back. Very well. +Gwen must see him, and Tom Kettering must be stopped going to bed, and +must be ready to drive her over to Grantley, if there is still a chance +to catch the up-train for Euston. Lutwyche may get things ready at once, +on the chance, and not lose a minute. Lupin is off, hotfoot, to the +Stables, to catch Mr. Sandys, and bring him round. + +White and determined, after reading the message, Gwen retraces her +steps. Outside old Mrs. Picture's door comes a moment of irresolution, +but she quashes it and goes on. Old Maisie is not in bed yet--has not +really left that tempting fireside. She becomes conscious of a stir in +the house, following on a bell that she had supposed to be only a +belated absentee. She opens her door furtively and listens. + +That is Gwen's voice surely, beyond the servants' quarter, speaking with +a respectful man. The scraps of speech that reach the listener's ear go +to show that he assents to do something out of the common, to oblige her +ladyship. Something is to happen at three-fifteen, which he will abet, +and be responsible for. Only it must be three-fifteen sharp, because +something--probably a train--is liable to punctuality. + +Then a sound of an interview wound up, a completed compact. And that is +Gwen, returning. Old Maisie will not intrude on the event, whatever it +be. She must wait to hear to-morrow. So she closes her door, furtively, +as she opened it; and listens still, for the silences of the night to +reassert themselves. No more words are audible, but she is conscious +that voices continue, and that her Guardian Angel's is one. Then +footsteps, and a hand on the door. Then Gwen, white and determined +still, but speaking gently, to forestall alarm, and reassure misgiving. + +"Dear Mrs. Picture, it's nothing--nothing to be alarmed about. But I +have to go up to London by the night train. See!--I will tell you what +it is. I have had this telegraphic message. Is it not wonderful that +this should be sent from London, a hundred miles off, two hours ago, and +that I should have it here to read now? It is from my cousin, Miss +Grahame. I am afraid she is dangerously ill, and I must go to her +because she is alone.... Yes--Maggie is very good, and so is Dr. +Dalrymple. But some friend should be with her or near her. So I must +go." She did not read the message, or show it. + +"But my dear--my dear--is it right for you to go alone, in the dark.... +Oh, if I were only young!..." + +"I shall be all right. I shall have Lutwyche, you know. Don't trouble +about me. It is you I am thinking of--leaving you here. I am afraid I +may be away some days, and you may not be comfortable.... No--I can't +possibly take you with me. I have to get ready to go at once. The trap +will only just take me and Lutwyche, and our boxes. It must be Tom +Kettering and the trap. The carriage could not do it in the time. The +Scotch express passes Grantley Thorpe at three-fifteen--the +station-master can stop it for me.... What!--go beside the driver! Dear +old Mrs. Picture, the boxes have to go beside the driver, and Lutwyche +and I have to hold tight behind.... No, no!--you must stay here a day or +two--at least till we know the plaster's dry in Sapps Court. As soon as +I have been to see myself, one of the maids shall bring you back, and +you shall have Dave and Dolly--there! Now go to bed, that's an old dear, +and don't fret about me. I shall be all right. Now, go I must! +Good-bye!" She was hurrying from the room, leaving the old lady in a +great bewilderment, when she paused a moment to say:--"Stop a +minute!--I've an idea.... No, I haven't.... Yes, I have.... All +right!--nothing--never mind!" Then she was gone, and old Maisie felt +dreadfully alone. + +Arrived in her own room, where Lutwyche, rather gratified with her own +importance in this new freak of Circumstance, was endeavouring to make a +portmanteau hold double its contents, Gwen immediately sat down to write +a letter. It required five minutes for thought and eight minutes to +write; so that in thirteen minutes it was ready for its envelope. Gwen +re-read it, considered it, crossed a _t_ and dotted an _i_, folded it, +directed it, took it out to re-re-read, said thoughtfully:--"Can't do +any possible harm," concluded it past recall, and added "By bearer" on +the outside. It ran thus: + + "WIDOW THRALE, + + "I want you to do something for me, and I know you will do it. + To-morrow morning go to my old Mrs. Picture whom you saw to-day, + and make her go back with you and your boy to Strides Cottage, and + keep her there and take great care of her, till you hear from me. + She is a dear old thing and will give no trouble at all. Ask anyone + for anything you want for her--money or things--and I will settle + all the bills. Show this letter. She knows my address in London. I + am going there by the night express. + + "GWENDOLEN RIVERS." + +She slipped this letter into her pocket, and made a descent on Miss +Lutwyche for her packing, which she criticized severely. But packing, +unlike controversy, always ends; and in less than half an hour, both +were in their places behind Tom Kettering and the grey mare, who had +accepted the prospect of another fifteen miles without emotion; and Mrs. +Masham and Lupin were watching them off, and thinking how nice it would +be when they could get to bed. + +"Now you think the mare can do it, Tom Kettering?" + +"Twice and again, my lady, and a little over. And never be any the worse +to-morrow!" Thus Tom Kettering, with immovable confidence. The mare as +good as endorsed his words, swinging her head round to see, and striking +the crust of the earth a heavy blow with her off hind-hoof. + +"And we shall have time for you to get down at your Aunt Solmes's to +leave my letter?" + +"I count upon it, my lady, quite easy. We'll be at the Thorpe by three, +all told, without stepping out." And then the mare is on the road again, +doing her forty-first mile, quite happily. + +They stopped at the bridle-path to the Ranger's Cottage, and Tom walked +across with the letter--an unearthly hour for a visit!--and came back +within ten minutes. All right! Her ladyship's wishes should be attended +to! Then on through the starlight night, with the cold crisp air growing +colder and crisper towards morning. Then the railway-station where +Feudal tradition could still stop a train by signal, but only one or two +in the day ever stopped of their own accord, in the fifties. _Now_, as +you know, every train stops, and Spiers and Pond are there, and you can +lunch and have Bovril and Oxo. Then, the shoddy-mills were undreamed of, +where your old clothes are carefully sterilised before they are turned +into new wool; and the small-arms factory, where Cain buys an outfit +cheap; and the colour-works, that makes aniline dyes that last, if you +settle monthly, until you pay for them. Nothing was there then, and the +train that stopped by signal came through a smokeless night, with red +eyes and green that gazed up or down the line to please the Company; and +started surlily, in protest at the stoppage, but picked its spirits +slowly up, and got quite exhilarated before it was out of hearing, +perhaps because it was carrying Gwen to London. + +The dejection of its first start might have persevered and made its +full-fledged rapidity joyless, had it known the errand of its beautiful +first-class passenger. For the telegram Gwen had received, that had sent +her off on this wild journey to London in the small hours of the +morning, was this that follows, neither more nor less: + + "On no account come. Why run risks? You will not be admitted. Never + mind what Dr. Dalrymple says.--CLOTILDA." + +Just conceive this young lady off in such a mad way when it was +perfectly clear what had happened! She might at least have waited until +she received the letter this message had so manifestly outraced; Dr. +Dalrymple's letter, certain to come by the first post in the morning. +And she would have waited, no doubt, if she had not been Gwen. Being +Gwen, her first instinct was to get away before that letter came, +enjoining caution, and deprecating panic, and laying stress on this, +that, and the other--a parcel of nonsense all with one object, to +counsel pusillanimousness, to inspire trepidation. She knew that would +be the upshot. She knew also that Dr. Dalrymple would play double, +frightening her from coming, while assuring the patient that he had +vouched for the entire absence of danger and the mildness of the type of +the disorder, whatever it was. It would never do for Clotilda to know +that she--Gwen--was being kept away, for safety's sake. That was the sum +and substance of her reflections. And the inference was clear:--Push her +way on to Cavendish Square, and push her way in, if necessary! + +A thought crossed her mind as the train whirled away from Grantley +Station. Suppose it was smallpox, and she should catch it and have her +beauty spoiled! Well--in that case an ill wind would blow _somebody_ +good! Her darling blind man would never see it. Let us be grateful for +middle-sized mercies! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + HOW THAT WIDOW GOT THE "OLD CAT" AWAY TO STRIDES COTTAGE. MR. + BRANTOCK'S HORSE. ELIZABETH-NEXT-DOOR, AND THE BIT OF FIRE SHE + MADE. HOW TOFT THE GIPSY SPOTTED A LIKENESS, AND REPAIRED THE GLASS + TOBY HAD AIMED AT. HOW OLD MAISIE'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH HER DAUGHTER + GREW TO FRIENDSHIP. AND HER DAUGHTER SHOWED HER GRANDFATHER'S MILL. + HOW COULD THIS MILL BE YOUR GRANDFATHER'S, WHEN IT WAS MY FATHER'S? + BUT SEE HOW SMALL IT WAS! TWO ARMS LONG, FIFTY YEARS AGO! AND + NOW!... A RESTLESS WAKING AND A DARING EXCURSION. ONLY THE + HOUSE-DOG ABOUT! ON THE FENDER! SEE THERE--AN ARM AND A HALF LONG + ONLY--IN FACT, LESS! + + +Old Maisie waked late, and no wonder! Or, more properly, she slept late, +and had to be waked. Mrs. Masham did it, saying at the same time to a +person in her company:--"Oh no, Mrs. Thrale--_she's_ all right!--we've +no call to be frightened yet a while." She added, as signs of life began +to return:--"She'll be talking directly, you'll see." + +Then the sleeper became conscious, and roused herself, to the point of +exclaiming:--"Oh dear, what is it?" A second effort made her aware that +her agreeable visitor of yesterday was at her bed's foot, and that her +awakener was saying at her side:--"Now you tell her. She'll hear you +now." Mrs. Masham seemed to assume official rights as a go-between, with +special powers of interpretation. + +Widow Thrale looked more Pomona-like than ever in the bright sunshine +that was just getting the better of the hoar-frost. She held in her hand +a letter, to which she seemed to cling as a credential--a sort of letter +of marque, so to speak. "'Tis a bidding from her young ladyship," said +the interpreter collaterally. She herself said, in the soothing voice of +yesterday:--"From her young ladyship, who has gone to away London +unforetold, last night. She will have me get you to my mother's, to make +a stay with us for a while. And my mother will make you kindly welcome, +for the little boy Dave's sake, and for her ladyship's satisfaction." +She read the letter of marque, as far as "take great care of her, till +you hear from me." + +"I will get up and go," said the old lady. Then she appeared +disconcerted at her own alacrity, saying to the housekeeper:--"But you +have been so kind to me!" + +"What her young ladyship decides," said Mrs. Masham, "it is for us to +abide by." She referred to this as a sort of superseding truth, to which +all personal feelings--gratitude, ingratitude, resentment, +forgiveness--should be subordinated. It left open a claim to +magnanimity, on her part, somehow. Further, she said she would tell +Lupin to bring some breakfast for Mrs. Pilcher. + +The task of getting the old lady up to take it seemed to devolve +naturally on Widow Thrale, who accepted it discreetly and skilfully, +explaining that Mr. Brantock's cart would wait an hour to oblige, and +would go very easy along the road, not to shake. Old Maisie did not seem +alarmed, on that score. + +She had lain awake in the night in some terror of the day to come, alone +with a household which appeared to have decided, though without open +declaration, that she was a plaguy old cat. She had been roused from a +final deep sleep to find that her Guardian Angel's last benediction to +her had been to make the very arrangement she would have chosen for +herself had she been put to it to make choice. That her mind had never +mooted the point was a detail, which retrospect corrected. She was +ashamed to find she was so glad to fly from Mrs. Masham and Company, and +already began to be uneasy lest she had misjudged them. But then--a +plaguy old cat! + +However, the decision of this at present did not arise from the +circumstances. What did was that, in less than the hour Mr. Brantock's +cart could concede, she was seated therein, comfortably wrapped up, +beside this really very nice and congenial saddler's relict, having been +somehow dressed, breakfasted, and generally adjusted by hands which no +doubt had acquired the sort of skill a hospital nurse gets--without the +trenchant official demeanour which makes the patient shake in his shoes, +if any--by her considerable experience of convalescents of all sorts and +the smaller sizes. + +Mr. Brantock's cart jogged steadily on by cross-cuts and by-roads at the +dictation of parcels whose destinations Mr. Brantock's horse bore in +mind, and chose the nearest way to, allowing his so-called driver to +deliver them on condition that the consignees paid cash. His harness +stood in the way of his doing so himself. Think what it was that was +concealed from old Maisie and Widow Thrale respectively, as they +travelled in Mr. Brantock's cart. The intensity of this mother's and +daughter's ignorance of one another outwent the powers of mere language +to tell. + +To the mother the daughter was the very nice young--relatively +young--woman who had taken such good care of Dave last year, who was now +so very kind and civil as to take charge of an old encumbrance at the +bidding of a glorious Guardian Angel, who had dawned on these last days +suddenly, inexplicably! An encumbrance at least, and no doubt plaguy, or +she never would have been called an old cat. + +To the daughter the mother was a good old soul, to be made much of and +fostered; nursed if ill, entertained if well; borne with if, as might +be, she developed into a trial--turned peevish, irritable, what not! Had +not Gwen o' the Towers spoken, and was not the taint of Feudalism still +strong in Rocestershire half a century back? Gwen o' the Towers had +spoken, and that ended the matter. + +Otherwise they were no more conscious of each other's blood in their own +veins than was the convalescent Toby, who enlivened the dulness of the +journey by dwelling on the _menus_ he preferred for breakfast, dinner, +and supper respectively. He elicited information about Dave, and was +anxious to be informed which would lick. He put the question in this +ungarnished form, not supplying detailed conditions. When told that Dave +would, certainly, being nearly two years older, he threw doubt on the +good faith of his informant. + +But the journey came to an end, and though Widow Thrale had locked up +the Cottage when she came away yesterday, she had left the key with +Elizabeth-next-door--whoever she was; it does not matter--asking her to +look in about eleven and light a bit of fire against her, Widow +Thrale's, return. So next-door was applied to for the key, and the bit +of fire--a very large bit of a small fire, or a small bit of a very +large one--was found blazing on the hearth, and the cloth laid for +dinner and everything. + +According to Elizabeth-next-door, absolutely nothing had happened since +Mrs. Marrable went away yesterday. Routine does not happen; it flows in +a steady current which Event, the fidget, may interrupt for a while, but +seldom dams outright. Elizabeth's memory, however, admitted on +reconsideration that Toft the glazier had come to see for a job, and +that she had sought for broken windows in Strides Cottage and found +none. Toft was quite willing to mend any pane on his own responsibility, +neither appealing to the County Court to obtain payment, nor smashing +the pane in default of a cash settlement; a practice congenial to his +gipsy blood, although he was the loser by the price of the glass. Toft +had greatly desired to repair the glass front of the little case or +cabinet on the mantelshelf, but Elizabeth had not dared to sanction +interference with an heirloom. That was quite right, said Widow Thrale. +What would mother have said if any harm had been done to her model? +Besides, it did not matter! Because Toft would look in again to-day or +to-morrow, when he had finished on the conservatories at the Vicarage. + +None of this conversation reached old Maisie's ears at the time; only as +facts referred to afterwards. As soon as the key was produced by +Elizabeth-next-door, the old lady, treated as an invalid in the face of +her own remonstrance, was inducted through the big kitchen or +sitting-room, which she was sorry not to stop in, to a bedroom beyond, +and made to lie down and rest and drink fresh milk. When she got up to +join Widow Thrale's and Toby's midday meal, all reference to +glass-mending was at an end, and Toby was making such a noise about the +relative merits of brown potatoes in their skins, and potatoes _per se_ +potatoes, that you could not hear yourself speak. + +In spite of her separation from her beautiful new Guardian Angel, and +her uneasiness about the nature of that dangerous illness--for were not +people dying of cholera every day?--she felt happier at Strides Cottage +than in the ancient quarters Francis Quarles had occupied, where her +position had been too anomalous to be endurable. Gwen's scheme had been +that Mrs. Masham should play the part Widow Thrale seemed to fill so +easily. It had failed. The fact is that nothing but sympathy with +vulgarity gives what is called tact, and in this case the Guardian +Angel's scorn of the stupid reservations and distinctions of the +servantry at the Towers had quite prevented her stocking the article. + +Perhaps Mrs. Thrale fell so easily into the task of making old +Maisie happy and at ease because she was furnished with a means of +explaining her and accounting for her, by the popularity Dave Wardle +had achieved with the neighbours a year ago. Thus she had said to +Elizabeth-next-door:--"You'll call to mind our little Davy Wardle, a +twelvemonth back?--he that was nigh to being killed by the fire-engine? +Well--there then!--this old soul belongs with him. 'Tis she he called +his London Granny, and old Mrs. Picture. I would not speak to her exact +name, never having been told it--'tis something like Picture. Her young +ladyship at the Towers has given me the charge of her. She's a gentle +old soul, and sweet-spoken, to my thinking." So that when +Elizabeth-next-door came to converse with old Maisie, they had a topic +in common. Dave's blue eyes and courteous demeanour having left a strong +impression on next-door, and on all who came within his radius. Perhaps +if such a lubricant had existed at the Towers, the social machinery +would have worked easier, and heated bearings would have been avoided. + +It was the same with one or two others of the neighbours, who really +came in to learn something of the aged person with such silvery-white +hair, whom Widow Thrale had brought to the Cottage. Little memories of +Dave were a passport to her heart. What strikes us, who know the facts, +as strange, is that no one of these good women--all familiar with the +face of Granny Marrable--were alive to the resemblance between the two +sisters. And the more strange, that this likeness was actually detected +even in the half-dark, by an incomer much less habituated to her face +than many of them. + +This casual incomer was Toft, the vagrant glazier, and--so said chance +report, lacking confirmation--larcenous vagrant. His Assyrian appearance +may have been responsible for this. It gave rise to the belief that he +was either Hebrew or Egyptian. And, of course, no Jew or gipsy could be +an honest man. That saw itself, in a primitive English village. + +Toft had made his appearance at Strides Cottage just after dusk, +earnestly entreating to be allowed to replace the glass Toby's +chestnut-shot had broken, for nothing--yes, for nothing!--if Widow +Thrale was not inclined to go to fourpence for it. The reply was:--"'Tis +not the matter of the money, Master Toft. 'Tis because I grudge the +touching of a thing my mother sets store by, when she is not here +herself to overlook it." Now this was just after old Maisie had quitted +the room, to lie down and rest again before supper, having been led into +much talk about Dave. Toft had seen her. His answer to Widow Thrale +was:--"Will not the old wife come back, if I bide a bit for her coming?" +His mistake being explained to him, his comment was:--"Zookers! I'm all +in the wrong. But I tell ye true, mistress, I did think her hair was +gone white, against what I see on her head three months agone. And I was +of the mind she'd fell away a bit." Widow Thrale in the end consented to +allow the damage to be made good, she herself carefully removing the +precious treasure from its case, and locking it into a cupboard while +Toft replaced the broken glass. This done, under her unflagging +supervision, the model was replaced; fourpence changed hands, and the +glazier went his way, saying, as he made his exit:--"That _was_ a +chouse, mistress." + +But Toft was the only person who saw the likeness; or, at any rate, who +confessed to seeing it. It is, of course, not at loggerheads with human +nature, that others saw it too, but kept the discovery to themselves. It +was so out of the question that the resemblance _should_ exist, that the +fact that it _did_ stood condemned on its merits. Therefore, silence! +Another possibility is that the intensely white hair, and the seeming +greater age, of old Maisie, had more than their due weight in heading +off speculation. Old Phoebe's teeth, too, made a much better show than +her sister's. + +One thing is certain, that the person most concerned, Ruth Thrale +herself, remained absolutely blind to a fact which might have struck her +had she not been intensely familiar with her reputed mother's face. The +features of every day were things _per se_, not capable of comparison +with casual extramural samples. They never are, within family walls. + +That this was no mere inertness of observation, but a good strong +opacity of vision, was clear when, after leaving the convalescent Toby +to dreams of indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and victorious +encounters, she roused her old visitor to bring her into supper. + +"There now!--it _is_ strange that I should have company tonight. I never +thought to have the luck, yesterday, when you were giving me _my_ tea, +Mrs...." She stopped on the name, and supplied a cup thereof--supper was +a mixed meal at Strides Cottage--then continued:--"That brings to mind +to ask you, whether little Davy is in the right of it when he writes +your name 'Picture'?... Is he not, mayhap, calling you out of your name, +childlike?" + +"But of course he is, bless his little heart! My name is Prichard. +P-r-i-c-h--Prich." She spelt the first syllable, to make sure no _t_ got +in. "The Lady, Gwen, has taken it of him, to humour him and Dolly, just +as their young mouths speak it--Picture! But it isn't Picture; it's +Prichard." Old Maisie felt quite mendacious. She seldom had to state so +roundly that her assumed name was authentic. Widow Thrale made no +comment, only saying:--"I thought the child had made 'Picture' out of +his own head." The talk scarcely turned on the name for more than a +minute, as she went on to say:--"Now you must eat some supper, Mrs. +Prichard, because you hardly took anything for dinner. And see what a +ride you had!" She went on to make appeals on behalf of bacon, eggs, +bloaters, cold mutton and so on, with only a very small response from +the old lady, who seemed to live on nothing. A compromise was effected, +the latter promising to take some gruel just before going to bed. + +Two influences were at work to keep the antecedents of either out of +the conversation. Old Maisie fought shy of inquiries, which might have +produced counter-inquiry she could scarcely have met by silence; and +Mrs. Thrale shrank, with a true instinctive delicacy, from prying into a +record which had the word _poverty_ so legible on its title-page, and +signs of a former well-being so visible on its subject. Besides, how +about Sapps Court and Dave's uncle, the prizefighter? + +She felt curiosity, all the same. However, information might come, +unsought, as the ground thawed. A springlike mildness was in the +atmosphere of their acquaintance, and it began to tell on the ice, very +markedly, as they sat enjoying the firelight; candles blown out, and the +flicker of the wood-blaze making sport with visibility on the walls and +dresser--on the dominant willow-pattern of the latter, with its +occurrences of polished metal, and precious incidents of Worcester or +Bristol porcelain; or the pictorial wealth of the former, the portrait +of Lord Nelson, and the British Lion, and all the flags of all the world +in one frame; to say nothing of some rather woebegone Bible prints, +doing full justice to the beards of Susannah's elders, and the biceps of +Samson. On all these, and prominently on the sampler worked by Hephzibah +Marrable, 1672, a ship-of-war in full sail, with cannons firing off wool +in the same direction, and defeating the Dutch Fleet, presumably. +Perhaps the Duke of York's flagship. + +The two had talked of many things. Of the great bull-dog who was such a +safeguard against thieves that they never felt insecure at night, and +were very careless in consequence about bolts and bars; and who had +investigated the visitor very carefully on her first arrival, +suspiciously, but seemed now to have given her his complete sanction. Of +the cat on the hearth and the Family at the Towers--small things and +large; but with a great satisfaction for old Maisie, when the statement +was made with absolute confidence that Mr. Torrens, who was said to be +the man of her young ladyship's choice, would recover his eyesight. Mrs. +Lamprey's version of Dr. Nash's pronouncement was conclusive, and was +conscientiously repeated, without exaggeration; causing heartfelt joy to +old Maisie, with a tendency to consider how far Mr. Torrens deserved his +good fortune, the moment his image was endowed with eyesight. That, you +remember, was the effect of Mrs. Lamprey's first communication +yesterday. Then Widow Thrale had read a letter from her son on the +_Agamemnon_, in the Black Sea, cheerfully forecasting an early collapse +of Russia before the prowess of the Allies, and an early triumphant +return of the Fleet with unlimited prize-money. Old Maisie had to envy +perforce this mother's pride in this son, his daring and his chivalry, +his invincibility by foes, his generosity to the poor and weak. Her envy +was forced from her--how could it have been otherwise?--but her love +came with it. All her heart went out to the sweet, proud, contented face +as the firelight played on it, and made the treasured letter visible to +its reader. Then she had listened to particulars of the other son, in +the Baltic, of whom his mother was temperately proud, not rising to her +previous enthusiasm. He had, however, been in action; that was his +strong point, at present. By that time Mrs. Thrale's domestic record +only needed a word or two about her daughter, Mrs. Costrell, to be +complete for its purpose, a tentative enlightenment of its hearer, which +might induce counter-revelation. But the old lady did not respond, +clinging rather to inquiry about her informant's affairs. For which the +latter did not blame her, for who could say what reasons she might have +for her reticence. At any rate, _she_ would not try to break through it. + +All this talk, by the comfortable fireside, was nourishment to the +growing germ of old Maisie's affection for this chance acquaintance of a +day. Her faith in all her surroundings--her Guardian Angel apart--had +been sadly shaken by the expression "plaguy old cat." This woman could +be relied upon, she was sure. She could not be disappointed in her--how +could she doubt it? Whether their unknown kinship was a mysterious help +to this confidence is a question easy to ask. The story makes no attempt +to answer it. + +A bad disappointment was pending, however. After some chance references +to "mother," her great vigour in spite of her eighty years, the +distances she could walk, and so on--and some notes about +neighbours--Farmer Jones's Bull, mentioned as a local celebrity, +naturally led back to Dave. + +"The dear boy was never tired of telling about that Bull," said old +Maisie. "I thought perhaps he made up a little as he went, for children +will. Was it all true he told me about how he wasn't afraid to go up +close, and the Bull was good and quiet?" + +"Quite true," answered Mrs. Thrale. "Only we would never have given +permission, me and mother, only we knew the animal by his character. He +cannot abide grown men, and he's not to be trusted with women and little +girls. But little boys may pat him, and no offence given. It was all +quite true." + +"Well, now!--that is very nice to know. Was it true, too, all about the +horses and the wheelsacks, and the water-cart?" + +"Of course!--oh yes, of course it was! That was our model. Only it +should not have been wheelsacks. _Wheat_ sacks! And water-cart!--he +meant _water-wheel_. Bless the child!--he'd got it all topsy-turned. +There's the model on the mantel-shelf, with the cloth over it. I'll take +it off to show you. That won't do any harm. I only covered it so that no +one should touch the glass. Because Ben Toft said the putty would be +soft for a few days." A small bead-worked tablecloth, thick and +protective, had been wrapped round the model. + +Widow Thrale relighted the candles, which had been out of employment. +They did not give a very good light. The old lady was just beginning to +feel exhausted with so much talk. But she was bound to see this--Dave's +model, his presentment of which had been a source of speculation in +Sapps Court! Just fancy! Widow Thrale lifted it bodily from the +chimney-shelf, and placed it on the table. + +"Mother ought to tell you about it," said she, disengaging the covering, +"because she knows so much more about it than I do. You see, when the +water is poured in at the top and the clockwork is wound up, the mill +works and the sacks go up and down, and one has to pretend they are +taking grist up into the loft. It was working quite beautiful when +mother put the water in for Dave to see. And it doesn't go out of order +by standing; for, the last time before that, when mother set it going, +was for the sake of little Robert that we lost when he was little older +than Dave. Such a many years it seems since then!... What?" + +For as she chatted on about what she conceived would be her visitor's +interest in the model--Dave's interest, to wit--she had failed to hear +her question, asked in a tremulous and almost inaudible voice:--"Where +was it, the mill?... Whose mill?" A repetition of it, made with an +effort, caused her to look round. + +And then she saw that old Maisie's breath was coming fast, and that her +words caught in it and became gasps. Her conclusion was immediate, +disconnecting this agitation entirely from the subject of her speech. +The old lady had got upset with so much excitement, that was all. Just +think of all that perturbation last night, and the journey to-day! At +her time of life! Besides, she had eaten nothing. + +Evidently the proper course now was to induce her to go to bed, and get +her that gruel, which she had promised to take. "I am sure you would be +better in bed, Mrs. Prichard," said Mrs. Thrale. "Suppose you was to go +now, and I'll get you your gruel." + +Old Maisie gave way at once to the guidance of a persuasive hand, but +held to her question. "Whose mill was it?" + +"My grandfather's. Take care of the little step ... you shall see it +again to-morrow by daylight. Bed's the place for you, dear Mrs. +Prichard. Why--see!--you are shaking all over." + +So she was, but not to such an extent as to retard operations. The +old white head was soon on its pillow, but the old white face was +unusually flushed. And the voice was quite tremulous that said, +inexplicably:--"How came _your_ grandfather to be the owner of that +mill?" + +Even a younger and stronger person than old Maisie might have lost head +to the extent of not seeing that the best thing to say was:--"I have +seen this model before. I knew it in my childhood." But so dumfoundered +was she by what had been so suddenly sprung upon her that she could not +have thought of any right thing to say, to save her life. + +And how could Widow Thrale discern anything in what she _did_ say but +the effect of fatigue, excitement, and underfeeding on an octogenarian; +probably older, and certainly weaker, than her mother? How came _her_ +grandfather to be the owner of Darenth Mill, indeed! Well!--she could +get Dr. Nash round at half an hour's notice; that was one consolation. +Meanwhile, could she seriously answer such an inquiry? Indeed she +scarcely recognised that it _was_ an inquiry. It was a symptom. + +She spoke to the old head on the pillow, with eyes closed now. "Would +you dislike it very much, ma'am, if I was to put one spoonful of brandy +in the gruel? There is brandy without sending for it, because of +invalids." + +"Thank you, I think no brandy. It isn't good for me.... But I like to +have the gruel, you know." She would not unsay the gruel, because she +was sure this kind-hearted woman would take pleasure in getting it for +her. Not that she wanted it. + +Widow Thrale went back to the kitchen to see to the gruel. She was +absolutely free from any thought of the model, in relation to the old +lady's indisposition, or collapse, whichever it was. Lord Nelson +himself, on the wall, was not more completely detached from it. While +the gruel was arriving at maturity, she wrapped the covering again +carefully over the mill and the wheelsacks and the water-cart, and +Muggeridge, and replaced it on the chimney-shelf. + +Left alone, old Maisie, no longer seeing the model before her, began to +waver about the reality of the whole occurrence. Might it not have been +a dream, a delusion; at least, an exaggeration? There was a model, with +horses, and a waggon--yes! But was she quite sure it was _her_ old +mill--her father's? How could she be sure of anything, when it was all +so long ago? Especially when her pulse was thumping, like this. Besides, +there was a distinct fact that told against the identity of this model +and the one it was so bewilderingly like; to wit--the size of it. That +old model of sixty years ago was twice the size of this. She knew that, +because she could remember her own hand on it, flat at the top. Her hand +and Phoebe's together!--she remembered the incident plainly. + +Here was Mrs. Thrale back with the gruel. How dear and kind she was! But +a horrible thought kept creeping into old Maisie's mind. Was she--a +liar? Had she not said that it was her grandfather's mill? Now that +could _not_ be true. If she had said great-uncle.... Well!--would that +have made it any better? On reflection, certainly not! For _her_ father +had had neither brother nor sister. It was a relief to put speculation +aside and accept the gruel. + +She made one or two slight attempts to recur to the mill. But her +hostess made no response; merely discouraged conversation on every +topic. Mrs. Prichard had better not talk any more. The thing for her to +do was to take her gruel and go to sleep. Perhaps it was. A reaction of +fatigue added powerful arguments on the same side, and she was fain to +surrender at discretion. + +She must have slept for over six hours, for when the sudden sound of an +early bird awakened her the dawn was creeping into the house. The window +of her own room was shuttered and curtained, but she saw a line of +daylight under the door. No one was moving yet. She instantly remembered +all the events she had gone to sleep upon; the recollection of the +mill-model in particular rushing at her aggressively, almost producing +physical pain, like a blow. She knew there was another pain to come +behind it, as soon as her ideas became collected. Yes--there it was! +This dear lovable woman whom she had been so glad of, after the +duplicity of those servants at the Towers, was as untrustworthy as they, +and the whole world was a cheat! How else could it be, when she had +heard her with her own ears say that that mill had belonged to her +grandfather? + +She lay and chafed, a helpless nervous system dominated by a cruel idea. +Was there no way out? Only one--that she herself had been duped by her +own imagination. But then, how was that possible? Unless, indeed, she +was taking leave of her senses. Because, even supposing that she could +fancy that another model of another mill could deceive her by a chance +likeness; how about those two tiny figures of little girls in white +bonnets and lilac frocks? Oh, that she could but prove them phantoms of +an imagination stimulated by the first seeming identity of the building +and the water-wheel! After all, all water-mills were much alike. Yes, +the chances were large that she had cheated herself. But +certainty--certainty--_that_ was what she wanted. She felt sick with the +intensity of her longing for firm ground. + +Was it absolutely impossible that she should see for herself now--_now_? +She sat up in bed, looking longingly at the growing light of the +doorslip. After all, the model was but six paces beyond it, at the very +most. She would be back in bed in three minutes, and no harm done. No +need for a candle, with the light. + +The bird outside said again the thing he had said before, and it seemed +to her like: "Yes--do it." She got out of bed and found her slippers +easily; then a warm overall of Gwen's providing. Never since her +impoverishment had she worn such good clothes. + +Her feet might fail her--they had done so before now. But she would soon +find out, and would keep near the bed till she felt confidence.... Oh +yes--_they_ would be all right! + +The door-hasp shrieked like a mandrake--as door-hasps do, in +silence--but waked no one, apparently. There was the kitchen-door at the +end of the brick-paved lobby, letting through dawn's first decision +about the beginning of the day. Old Maisie went cautiously over the +herring-boned pavement, with a hand against the wall for steadiness. +This door before her had an old-fashioned latch. It would not shriek, +but it might clicket. + +Only a very little more, and then she was in the kitchen! + +There was more light than she had expected, for one of the windows was +not only shutterless, but without either blind or curtain. She was not +surprised, for she remembered what her hostess had said about the +housedog, and security from thieves. That was a source of alarm, for one +short moment. Might he not hear her, and bark? Then a touch of a cold +nose, exploring her feet, answered the question. He _had_ heard her, and +he would not bark. He seemed to decide that there was no cause for +active intervention, and returned to his quarters, wherever they were. + +But where was the sought-for model? Not on the table where she saw it +yesterday; the table was blank, but for the chrysanthemums in a pot of +water in the middle. On the chimney-piece then, back in its place, +rather high up--there it was, to be sure! But such a disappointment! She +could have _seen_ it there, though it was rather out of reach for her +eyesight. But alas!--it was wrapped up again in that cloth. It was a +grievous disappointment. + +Perhaps she might contrive to see a little behind it, by pulling it +aside. Yes--there!--she could _reach_ it, at any rate. But to pull it +aside was quite another matter. Its texture was prohibitive. Fancy a +strip of cocoanut matting, with an uncompromising selvage, wrapped round +a box of its own width, with its free end under the box! Then compare +the rigidity of beadwork and cocoanut matting. The position was +hopeless. It was quite beyond her strength to reach it down, and she +would have been afraid to do so in the most favourable circumstances +imaginable. + +Quite hopeless! But there was one thing she might satisfy herself +of--the relative sizes of her own hand and the case. Yes--by just +standing on the secure steel fender to gain the requisite four inches, +she could lay her two hands over the top, length for length, and the +finger-tips would not meet, any more than hers met Phoebe's when their +frock-cuffs were flush with the edge of her father's old model, all +those years and years ago. Because her mind was striving to discredit +the authenticity of this one. + +Slowly and cautiously, for rheumatism had its say in the matter, she got +a safe foothold on the fender and her hands up to the top, measuring. +See there! Exactly as she had foretold--half the size! She knew she +could not be mistaken about the frock-cuffs, and so far from the +finger-tips meeting, with the two middle fingers bickering a little +about their rights, there was an overlap as far as the second joint. The +hands had grown a little since those days, no doubt, but not to that +extent. She tried them both ways to make sure, left on right, and right +on left, lest she should be deceiving herself. She was quite unnerved +with self-mistrust, but so taken up with avoiding a mismeasurement now, +that she could not sift that question of the hands' growth. + +Probably everyone has detected outrageous errors in his own answers to +his own question:--How old was I when this, that, or the other +happened?--errors always in the direction of exaggeration of age. The +idea in old Maisie's mind, that she and Phoebe were at least grown +girls, was an utter delusion. Mere six-year-olds at the best! The two +hands, that she remembered, were the hands of babies, and the incident +had happened over seventy years ago. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + A QUIET RAILWAY-STATION. ONE PASSENGER, AND A SHAKEDOWN AT MOORE'S. + THE CONVICT DAVERILL'S SEARCH FOR HIS MOTHER. GRANNY MARRABLE'S + READING OF "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS." A MAN ON A STILE. SOME MEMORIES OF + NORFOLK ISLAND. A FINGER-JOINT. AN OATH ADMINISTERED BY AN AMATEUR, + WITHOUT A TESTAMENT. HOW DAVERILL SPOKE HIS NAME TWICE, AND THE + FIRST TIME UNDID THE SECOND. OFF THROUGH A HEDGE, FOLLOWED BY A + RESPECTABLE MAN. HOW OLD PHOEBE FOUND AN ENIGMA IN HER POCKET + + +In those days the great main lines of railway were liable to long +silences in the night. At the smaller stations particularly, after the +last train up and the last train down had passed without killing +somebody at a level crossing, or leaving you behind because you thought +it was sure to be late, and presumed upon that certainty, an almost holy +calm would reign for hours, and those really ill-used things, the +sleepers, seemed to have a chance at last. For after being baffled all +day by intermittent rushing fiends, and unwarrantable shuntings to and +fro, and droppings of sudden red-hot clinkers on their counterpanes, an +inexplicable click or two--apparently due to fidgety bull's-eyes +desirous of change--could scarcely be accounted a disturbance. + +No station in the world was more primevally still than Grantley Thorpe, +after the down three-thirty express--the train that crossed the +three-fifteen that carried Gwen to London--had stopped, that the word of +Bradshaw should be fulfilled; had deposited the smallest conceivable +number of passengers, and wondered, perhaps, why remaindermen in the +carriages always put their heads out to ask what station this was. On +this particular occasion, Bradshaw scored, for the down train entered +the station three minutes after the up train departed, twelve minutes +behind. Then the little station turned off lights, locked up doors of +offices and lids of boxes, and went to bed. All but a signalman, in a +box on a pole. + +There was one passenger, not a prepossessing one, who seemed morose. His +only luggage was a small handbag, and that was against him. It is not an +indictable offence to have no luggage, but if a referendum were taken +from railway-porters, it _would_ be. However, this man was, after all, +a third-class passenger, so perhaps he was excusable for carrying that +bag. + +"I suppose," said he, surrendering his ticket, "it's no part of your +duty to tell a cove where he can get a sleep for half a night. You ain't +paid for it." Whether this was churlishness, or a sort of humour, was +not clear, from the tone. + +Sandys, the station-master, one of the most good-humoured of mortals, +preferred the latter interpretation. "It don't add to our salary, but it +ought to. Very obliging we are, in these parts! How much do you look to +pay?" + +The man drew from his pocket, presumably, the fund he had to rely upon, +and appeared to count it, with dissatisfaction. "Two and a kick!" said +he. "I'll go to the tizzy, for sheets." This meant he would lay out the +tizzy, or kick, provided that his bed was furnished with sheets. He +added, with a growl, that he was not going to be put off with a +horserug, this time. The adjective he used to qualify the previous rug +showed that his experiences had been peculiar, and disagreeable. + +"You might ask at Moore's, along on your left where you see yonder +light. Show your money first, and offer to pay in advance. Cash first, +sleep afterwards. There's someone sitting up, or they wouldn't show a +light.... Here, Tommy, you're going that way. You p'int him out +Moore's." Thus the station-master, who then departed along a gravel +path, through a wicket-gate. It led to his private residence, which was +keeping up its spirits behind a small grove of sunflowers which were not +keeping up theirs. They had been once the admiration of passing trains, +with a bank of greensward below them with "Grantley Thorpe" on it in +flints, in very large caps. and now they were on the brink of their +graves in the earth so chilly, and didn't seem resigned. + +Tommy the porter did not relish his companion, evidently, as he walked +on, a pace ahead, along the road that led to the village. He never said +a word, and seemed justified in outstripping that slow, lurching, +indescribable pace, which was not lameness, in order to stimulate it by +example. + +"Yarnder's Mower's," said Tommy, nodding towards a small pothouse down a +blind alley. "You wo'ant find nowat to steal there, at Mower's." + +"What the Hell do you mean by that?" + +"What do I me'an--is that what you're asking?" Raised voice. + +"Ah--what do you mean by 'steal'?" + +"Just what a sa'ay! What do they me'an in London?" + +"London's a large place--too large for this time o' night. You come +along there one o' these days, and you'll find out what they mean." He +sketched the behaviour of Londoners towards rustic visitors +untruthfully--if our experience can be relied on--and in terms open to +censure; ending up:--"You'll find what they'll do, fast enough! Just you +show up there, one o' these fine days." He had only warped the subject +thus in order to introduce the idea of a humiliating and degrading +chastisement, as an insult to his hearer. + +He vanishes from the story at this point, in a discharge of Parthian +shafts by Tommy the young railwayman, not very energetically returned, +as if he thought the contest not worth prolonging. Vanishes, that is to +say, unless he was the same man who spoke with Mrs. Keziah Solmes at +about eleven o'clock the next morning, in the road close by the Ranger's +Cottage, close to where the grey mare started on her forty-first mile, +yesterday. If this person spoke truth when he said he had come from a +station much farther off than Grantley Thorpe, he was _not_ the same +man. Otherwise, the witnesses agreed in their description of him. + +Mrs. Solmes's testimony was that a man in rough grey suit--frieze or +homespun--addressed her while she was looking out for the mail-cart, +with possible letters, and asked to be directed to Ancester Towers; +which is, at this point, invisible from the road. She suspected him at +first of being a vagrant of some new sort--then of mere eccentricity. +For plenty of eccentrics came to get a sight of the Towers. She had +surmised that his object was to do so, and had told him, that as the +family were away, strangers could be admitted by orders obtainable of +Kiffin and Clewby, his lordship the Earl's agents at Grantley. He then +told her that he had walked over from Bridgport, where the Earl had no +agent. He did not wish to go over the Towers, but to inquire for a party +he was anxious to see; an old party by the name of Prichard. That was, +he said, his own name, and she was a relation of his--in fact, his +mother. He had not seen her for many a long year, and his coming would +be a bit of a surprise. He had been away in the Colonies, and had not +been able to play the part of a dutiful son, but by no choice of his +own. Coming back to England, his first thought had been to seek out the +old lady, "at the old address." But there he found the house had fallen +down, and she was gone away temporary, only she could be heard of at +Ancester Towers in Rocestershire. + +Mrs. Keziah was so touched by this tale of filial affection, that she +nipped in the bud a sprouting conviction that the man was no better than +he--and others--should be. She interested herself at once. "You wo'ant +need to ask at the Towers, master," said she. "I can tell you all they +can, up there. And very like a bit more. The old dame she's gone away +with my cousin, maybe an hour ago--may be more. She'll ta'ak she to her +mother's at Chorlton, and if ye keep along the straight road for +Grantley till ye come to sign-po'ast, sayun' 'To Dessington and +Chorlton,' then another three-qua'arters of an 'oor 'll ta'ak ye there, +easy." + +The dutiful son looked disappointed, but did not lose his equable and +not unpleasant manner. "I thought I was nigher my journey's end than +that, marm," said he. "I _was_ looking forward to the old lady giving me +a snack of breakfast.... But don't you mind me! I'll do all right. I got +a bit of bread coming along from Gridgport.... Ah!--Bridgport I should +have said." For he had begun to say Grantley. + +Even if Mrs. Solmes had not been on the point of offering rest and +refreshment, this disclaimer of the need of it would have suggested that +she should do so. After all, was he not the son of that nice old soul +her cousin Ruth Thrale had taken such a fancy to? If she came across the +old lady herself, how should she look her in the face, after letting her +toil-worn son add five miles to seven, on an all but empty stomach. Of +course, she immediately asked him in, going on ahead of him to explain +him to her husband, who looked rather narrowly at the newcomer, but +could not interpose upon a slice of cold beef and a glass of ale, +especially as it seemed to be unasked for, however welcome. + +"'Tis a tidy step afoot from Bridgport Ra'aby, afower breakfast," said +old Stephen, keeping his eye, nevertheless, on the man's face, with only +a half-welcome on his own. "But come ye in, and the missus 'll cast an +eye round the larder for ye. You be a stra-anger in these parts, I take +it." + +The beef and ale seemed very welcome, and the man was talkative. Did his +hosts know Mrs. Prichard personally? Only just seen her--was that it? +She must be gone very grey by now; why--she was going that way when he +saw her last, years ago. He never said how many years. He couldn't say +her age to a nicety, but she must be well on towards eighty. However did +she come to be at the country seat of the great Earl of Ancester?--that +was what puzzled him. + +Mrs. Solmes could not tell him everything, but she had a good deal to +tell. The old lady she had seen was very grey certainly, but had seemed +to her cousin Ruth Thrale, who had tea with her yesterday, quite in +possession of her faculties, and--oh dear yes!--able to get about, but +suffering from rheumatism. But then just think--nearly eighty! As for +how she came to be at the Towers, all that Mrs. Solmes knew was that it +was through a sort of fancy of her young ladyship, Lady Gwen Rivers, +reputed one of the most beautiful young ladies in England, who had +brought her from London after the accident already referred to, and who +had gone away by the night-train, leaving a request to her cousin Ruth +to take charge of her till her return. She could have repeated all she +had heard from Mrs. Thrale, but scarcely felt authorised to do so. + +One untoward incident happened. The infant Seth, summoned to show +himself, stood in a corner and pouted, turned red, and became +_intransigeant_; finally, when peremptorily told to go and speak to the +gentleman, shrank from and glared at him; only allowed his hand to be +taken under compulsion, and rushed away when released, roaring with +anger or terror, or both, and wiping the touch of the stranger off his +offended hand. This was entirely unlike Seth, whose defects of +character, disobedience to Law and Order, and love of destruction for +its own sake, were qualified by an impassioned affection for the human +race, causing him to attach himself to that race, as a sort of +rock-limpet, and even to supersede kisses by licks. His aversion to this +man was a new departure. + +He, for his part, expressed his surprise at Seth's attitude. He was +noted in his part of the world for his tenderness towards young +children. His circle of acquaintances suffered the little ones to come +unto him contrary to what you might have thought, he being but an ugly +customer to look at. But his heart was good--a rough diamond! When he +had expressed his gratitude and tramped away down the road, after +carefully writing down the address "Strides Cottage, Chorlton" and the +names of its occupants, old Stephen and Keziah looked each at the other, +as though seeking help towards a good opinion of this man, and seemed to +get none. + + * * * * * + +Old Granny Marrable always found a difficulty in getting away from her +granddaughter Maisie's, because her presence there was so very much +appreciated. Her great-grandson also, whose charms were developing more +rapidly than is ever the case in after-life, was becoming a strong +attraction to her. Moreover, a very old friend of hers, Mrs. Naunton, +residing a short mile away, at Dessington, had just pulled through +rheumatic fever, and was getting well enough to be read to out of +"Pilgrim's Progress." + +This afternoon, however, Mrs. Naunton did not prove well enough to keep +awake when read to, even for Mr. Greatheart to slay Giant Despair. In +fact, Mrs. Marrable caught her snoring, and read the rest to herself. It +was too good to lose. When the Giant was disposed of past all +recrudescence, she departed for her return journey instead of waiting +for her granddaughter's brother-in-law, a schoolboy with a holiday, to +come and see her home. She knew he would come by the short cut, across +the fields, so she took that way to intercept him, in spite of the +stiles. As a rule she preferred the highroad. + +The fields were very lonely, but what did that matter? How little one +feels the loneliness of an old familiar pathway! No one ever _had_ been +murdered in these fields, and no one ever would be. Granny Marrable +walked on with confidence. Nevertheless, had she had her choice, she +would have preferred the loneliness unalloyed by the presence of the man +on the stile, at the end of Farmer Naunton's twelve-acre pasture, if +only because she anticipated having to ask him to let her pass. For he +seemed to have made up his mind to wait to be asked; if approached from +behind, at any rate. She could not see his face or hands, only his +outline against the cold, purple distance, with a red ball that had been +the sun all day. "Might I trouble you, master?" she said. + +The man turned his head just as far as was necessary for his eyes, under +tension, to see the speaker; then got down, more deliberately than +courteously, on his own side of the stile. "Come along, missus," he +said. "Never mind legs. Yours ain't my sort. Over you go!" + +Safe in the next field, Granny Marrable turned to thank him. But not +before she had put three or four yards between them. Not that she +anticipated violence, but from mere dislike of what she would have +called sauciness in a boy, but which was, in a man of his time of life, +sheer brutal rudeness. "Thank you very kindly, master!" said she. "Sorry +to disturb you!" + +He ought to have said that she was kindly welcome, or that he was very +happy, but he said neither, only looking steadily at her. So she simply +turned to go away. + +She walked as far as the middle of the next field, not sorry to be out +of this man's reach; and rather glad that, when she was within it, she +was not a young girl, unprotected. That shows the impression he had +given her. Also that his steady look was concentrating to a glare as she +lost sight of his face, and that she would be glad when she was sure she +had seen the last of it. She walked a little quicker as soon as she +thought her doing so would attract no notice. + +"Hi--missus!" She quickened her pace as the words--a hoarse call--caught +her up. She even hoped she might be mistaken--had made a false +interpretation of some entirely different sound; not the cawing of one +of those rooks--that was against reason. But it might have been a dog's +bark at a distance, warped by imagination. She had known that to happen. +If so, it would come again. She stood and waited quietly. + +It came again, distinctly. "Hi--missus!" No dog's bark that, but that +man's voice, to a certainty, nearer. Then again "Hi--missus!" nearer +still--almost close--and the sound of his feet. A halting, +dot-and-go-one pace; not lame, but irregular. + +She was a courageous old woman, was old Granny Marrable. But the place +was a very lonely one, and.... Well--she did not mind about her money! +It was her treasured old gold watch, that her first husband gave her, +that she was thinking of.... + +There!--what a fool she was, to get into such a taking when, ten to one, +she had only dropped something, and he was running after her to restore +it. She faced about, and looked full at him. + +"Ah!" said he. "Take a good look! You've seen _me_ afore. No hurry--easy +does it!" His voice showed such entire conviction, and at the same time +such a complete freedom from anything threatening or aggressive, that +all her fear left her at once. It was a mistake--nothing worse! + +But was she absolutely sure, without her glasses? All she could see was +that the face was that of a hard man, close-cropped and close-shaved, +square and firm in the jaw. Not an ugly face, but certainly not an +attractive one. "I think, sir," she said conciliatorily, "you have +mistook me for someone else. I am sure." + +"Maybe, mother," said he, "you'll know me through your glasses. Got 'em +on you?... Ah--that's right! Fish 'em out of your pocket! Now!" As the +old lady fitted on her spectacles, which she only used for near objects +and reading, the man removed his hat and stood facing her, and repeated +the word "Now!" + +So absolutely convinced was she that he was merely under a +misconception, that she was really only putting on her glasses to humour +him, and give him time to find out his mistake. The fact that he had +addressed her as "mother" counted for absolutely nothing. Any man in the +village would address her as "mother," as often as not. It was +affectionate, respectful, conciliatory, but by no means a claim of +kinship. The word, moreover, had a distinct tendency to remove her +dislike of the speaker, which had not vanished with her fear of him, now +quite in abeyance. + +"Indeed, sir," said she, after looking carefully at his face, "I cannot +call you to mind. I cannot doubt but you have taken me for some other +person." Then she fancied that something the man said, half to himself, +was:--"That cock won't fight." + +But he seemed, she thought, to waver a little, too. And his voice had +not its first confidence, as it said:--"Do you mean to say, mother, that +you've forgotten my face? _My face!_" + +The familiar word "mother" still meant nothing to her--a mere epithet! +Just consider the discrepancies whose reconciliation alone would have +made it applicable! When she answered, some renewal of trepidation in +her voice was due to the man's earnestness, not to any apprehension of +his claim. "I am telling God's own truth, master," she said. "I have +never set eyes upon ye in my life, and if I had, I would have known it. +There be some mistake, indeed." Then timorously:--"Whom--whom--might ye +take me for?" + +The man raised his voice, more excitably than angrily. "What did I say +just now?--_mother!_--that's English, ain't it?" But his words had no +meaning to her; there was nothing in their structure to change her +acceptation of the word "mother," as an apostrophe. Then, in response to +the blank unrecognition of her face, he continued:--"What--still? I'm +not kidding myself, by God, am I?... No--don't you try it on! I ain't +going to have you running away. Not yet a while.... Ah--would you!" + +He caught her by the wrist to check her half-shown tendency to turn and +run; not, as she thought, from a malefactor, but a madman. A cry for +help was stopped by a change in his tone--possibly even by the way his +hand caught her wrist; for, though strong, it was not rough or ungentle. +Little enough force was needed to detain her, and no more was used. He +was mad, clearly, but not ferocious. "I'm not going to hurt ye, mother," +said he. "But you leave your eyes on me a minute, and see if I'm a +liar." He remained with his own fixed on hers, as one who waits +impatiently for what he knows must come. + +But no recognition followed. In vain did the old lady attempt--and +perfectly honestly--to detect some reminder of some face seen and +hitherto forgotten, in the hard cold eyes and thick-set jaw, the +mouth-disfiguring twist which flawed features, which, handsome enough in +themselves, would have otherwise gone near to compensate a repellent +countenance. The effort was the more hopeless from the fact that it was +a face that, once seen, might have been hard to forget. After complying +to the full with his suggestion of a thorough examination, she was +forced to acknowledge failure. "Indeed and indeed, sir," she said, "my +memory is all at fault. If ever I saw ye in my life, 'tis so long ago +I've forgotten it." + +"Ah--you may say long ago!" The madman--for to her he was one; some +lunatic at large--seemed to choke a moment over what he had to say, and +then it came. "Twenty years and more--ay!--twenty years, and five +over--and most of the time in Hell! Ah--run away, if you like--run away +from your own son!" He released her arm; but though the terror had come +back twofold, she would not run; for the most terrible maniac is pitiful +as well as terrible, and her pity for him put her thoughts on calming +and conciliating him. He went on, his speech breaking through something +that choked it back and made it half a cry in the end. "Fourteen years +of quod--fourteen years of prison-food--fourteen years of such a life +that * * * prayers, Sundays, and the * * * parson that read 'em was as +good as a holiday! Why--I tell you! It was so bad the lifers would try +it on again and again, to kill themselves, and were only kept off of +doing it by the cat, if they missed their tip." This was all the jargon +of delirium to the terror-stricken old woman; it may be clear enough to +the ordinary reader, with what followed. "I tell you I saw the man that +got away over the cliff, and shattered every bone in his body. I saw him +carried out o' hospital and tied up and flogged, for a caution, till the +blood run down and the doctor gave the word stop." He went on in a +voluble and disjointed way to tell how this man was "still there! There +where your son, mother, spent fourteen out of these twenty-five long +years past!" + +But the more he said, the more clear was it to Granny Marrable that he +was an escaped lunatic. There was, however, in all this sheer raving--as +she counted it--an entire absence of any note of personal danger to +herself. Her horror of him, and the condition of mind that his words +made plain, remained; her apprehension of violence, or intimidation to +make her surrender valuables, had given place to pity for his miserable +condition. His repeated use of the word "mother" had a reassuring effect +almost, while she accounted that of the word "son" as sheer +distemperature of the brain. But why should she not make use of it to +divert his mind from the terrible current of thought, whether delusion +or memory, into which he had fallen? "I never had but one son, sir," she +said, "and he has been dead twenty-three years this Christmas, and lies +buried beside his father in Chorlton church." + +The fugitive convict--for the story need not see him any longer from old +Phoebe's point of view only--face to face with such a quiet and +forcible disclaimer of identity, could not but be staggered, for all +that this old woman's face was his mother's; or rather, was the face he +had imaged to himself as hers, all due allowance being made--so he +thought--for change from sixty-five to eighty. Probably, had he seen the +two old sisters side by side, he would have chosen this one as his +mother. Her eighty was much nearer to her sixty than old Maisie's. She +was no beautiful old shadow, with that strange plenty of perfectly white +hair. Time's hand had left hers merely grey, as a set off against the +lesser quantity he had spared her. As Dave Wardle had noticed, her teeth +had suffered much less than his London Granny's. Altogether, she was +marvellously close to what the convict's preconception of "Mrs. +Prichard" had been. + +It is easy to see how this meeting came about. After he left the +hospitable cottage of the Solmes's, he had walked on in a leisurely way, +stopping at "The Old Truepenny, J. Hancock," to add another half-pint to +the rather short allowance he had consumed at the cottage. This was a +long half-pint, and took an hour; so that it was well on towards the +early November sunset before he started again for Chorlton. J. Hancock +had warned him not to go rowund by t' roo'ad, but to avail himself of +the cross-cut over the fields to Dessington. When old Phoebe overtook +him, he was beginning to wonder, as he sat on the stile, how he should +introduce himself at Strides Cottage. There might be men there. Then, of +a sudden, he had seen that the old woman who had disturbed his +cogitations, must be his mother! How could there be another old woman so +like her, so close at hand? + +Her placid, resolute, convincing denial checkmated his powers of +thought. As is often the case, details achieved what mere bald +asseveration of fact would have failed in. The circumstantial statement +that her son lay buried beside his father in Chorlton Churchyard +corroborated the denial past reasonable dispute. But nothing could +convince his eyesight, while his reason stood aghast at the way it was +deceiving him. + +"Give me hold of your fin, missus," he said. "I won't call you 'mother.' +Left-hand.... No--I'm not going for to hurt you. Don't you be +frightened!" He took the hand that, not without renewed trepidation and +misgiving, was stretched out to him, and did _not_ do with it what its +owner expected. For her mind, following his action, was assigning it to +some craze of Cheiromancy--what she would have called Fortune-telling. +It was no such thing. + +He did not take his eyes from her face, but holding her hand in his, +without roughness, felt over the fingers one by one, resting chiefly on +the middle finger. He took his time, saying nothing. At last he +relinquished the hand abruptly, and spoke. "No--missus--you're about +right. You're _not_ my mother." Then he said:--"You'll excuse me--half a +minute more! Same hand, please!" Then went again through the same +operation of feeling, and dropped it. He seemed bewildered, and saner in +bewilderment than in assurance. + +Old Phoebe was greatly relieved at his recognition of his mistake. "Was +it something in the hand ye knew by, master?" she said timidly. For she +did not feel quite safe yet. She began walking on, tentatively. + +He followed, but a pace behind--not close at her side. "Something in the +hand," said he. "That was it. Belike you may have seen, one time or +other, a finger cut through to the bone?" + +"Yes, indeed," said she, "and the more's the pity for it! My young +grandson shut his finger into his new knife. But he's in the Crimea +now." + +"Did the finger heal up linable, or a crotch in it?" + +"It's a bit crooked still. Only they say it won't last on to old age, +being so young a boy at the time." + +"Ah!--that's where it was. My mother was well on to fifty when I gave +her that chop, and _she_ got her hooky finger for life. All the ten +years I knew it, it never gave out." Old Phoebe said nothing. Why the +man should be so satisfied with this finger evidence she did not see. +But she was not going to revive his doubts. She kept moving on, +gradually to reach the road, but not to run from him. He kept near her, +but always hanging in the rear; so that she could not go quick without +seeming to do so. + +If she showed willingness to talk with him, he might follow quicker, and +they would reach the road sooner. "I'm rarely puzzled, master," she +said, "to think how you should take me for another person. But I would +not be prying to know...." + +"You would like to know who I mistook ye for, mayhap? Well--I'll tell +you as soon as not. I took you for my mother--just what I told you! +She's somewhere down in these parts--goes by the name of Prichard." Old +Phoebe wanted to know why she "went by" the name--was it not hers?--but +she checked a mere curiosity. "Maybe you can tell me where 'Strides +Cottage' is? That's where she got took in. So I understand." + +"Oh no!--you have the name wrong, for certain. My house where I live is +called Strides Cottage. There be no Mrs. Prichard there, to my +knowledge." + +"That's the name told to me, anyhow. Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps Court, +London." + +"Now who ever told ye such a tale as that? I know now who ye mean, +master. But she's not at Strides Cottage. She's up at the +Towers"--rather a hushed voice here--"by the wish and permission of her +young ladyship, Lady Gwendolen, and well cared for. Ye will only be +losing your time, master, to be looking for her at Strides." + +The convict looked at her fixedly. "Now which on ye is telling the +truth?--you or t'other old goody? That's the point." He spoke half to +himself, but then raised his voice, speaking direct to her. "I was there +a few hours back, nigh midday, afore I come on here. She ain't there--so +they told me." + +"At the Towers--the Castle?" + +"I saw no Castle. My sort ain't welcome in Castles. The party at the +house off the road--name of Keziah--she said Mrs. Prichard had been took +off to Chorlton by her cousin, Widow--Widow Thrale." + +"Yes, that is my daughter. Then Keziah Solmes knew?" + +"She talked like it. She said her cousin and Mrs. Prichard had gone away +better than two hours, in the carrier's cart. So it was no use me +inquiring for her at the Towers." He then produced the scrap of paper on +which he had scribbled the address. A little more talk showed Granny +Marrable all the story knows--that this sudden translation of her old +rival in the affections of Dave Wardle, from the Towers to her own home, +had been prompted by the sudden departure of her young ladyship for +London. The fact that the whole thing had come about at the bidding of +"Gwen o' the Towers" was absolute, final, decisive as to its entire +rectitude and expediency. But she could see that this strange son who +had not seen his mother for so long had identified her in the first +plausible octogenarian whom he chanced upon as soon as he was sure he +was getting close to the object of his search, and that he was not known +to her ladyship at all, while his proximity was probably unsuspected by +"old Mrs. Picture" herself. Besides, her faith in her daughter's +judgment was all-sufficient. She was quite satisfied about what she +would find on her return home. Nevertheless, this man was of unsound +mind. But he might be harmless. They often were, in spite of a +terrifying manner. + +His manner, however, had ceased to be terrifying by the time a short +interchange of explanations and inquiries had made Granny Marrable +cognisant of the facts. She was not the least alarmed that she should +have that curious rolling gait alongside of her. She was uneasy, for all +that, as to how a sudden visit of this man to Strides Cottage would +work, and cast about in her mind how she should best dissuade him from +making his presence known to his mother before she herself had had an +opportunity of sounding a note of preparation. She had not intended to +go home for a day or two, but she could get her son-in-law to drive her +over, and return the same day. His insanity, or what she had taken for +insanity, had given her such a shock that she was anxious to spare her +daughter a like experience. + +"I think, sir," she began diffidently, "that if I might make so bold as +to say so...." + +"Cut along, missis! If you was to make so bold as to say what?" + +"It did come across my mind that your good mother--not being hearty like +myself, but a bit frail and delicate--might easy feel your coming as an +upset. Now a word beforehand...." + +"What sort of a word?" said he, taking her meaning at once. "What'll you +say? No palavering won't make it any better. She'll do best to see me +first, and square me up after. What'll you make of the job?" + +Now the fact was that the offer to prepare the way for his proposed +visit which she had been on the point of making had been quite as much +in her daughter's interest as in his mother's. She found his question +difficult. All she could answer was:--"I could try." + +He shook his head doubtfully, walking beside her in silence. Then an +idea seemed to occur to him, and he said:--"Hold hard a minute!" causing +her to stop, as she took him literally. He also paused. "Strike a +bargain!" said he. "You do me a good turn, and I'll say yes. You give me +your word--your word afore God and the Bible--not to split upon me to +one other soul but the old woman herself, and I'll give you a free +ticket to say whatever you please to her when no one else is +eavesdropping. Afore God and the Bible!" + +Granny Marrable's fear of him began to revive. He might be mad after +all, with that manner on him, although his tale about Mrs. Prichard +might be correct. But there could be no reason for withholding a promise +to keep silence about things said to her under a false impression that +she was his mother. Her doubt would rather have been as to whether she +had any right to repeat them under any circumstances. "I will promise +you, sir, as you wish it, to say nothing of this only to Mrs. Prichard +herself. I promise." + +"Afore God and the Bible? The same as if there was a Bible handy?" + +"Surely, indeed! I would not tell a falsehood." + +"Atop of a Testament, like enough! But how when there's none, and no +Parson?" He looked at her with ugly suspicion on his face. And then an +idea seemed to strike him. "Look ye here, missus!" said he. "You say +Jesus Christ!" + +"Say what?--Oh why?" For blind obedience seemed to her irreverent. + +"No--you don't get out that way, by God! I hold you to that. You say +Jesus Christ!" He seemed to congratulate himself on his idea. + +Old Phoebe could not refuse. "Before Jesus Christ," she said reverently, +at the same time bending slightly, as she would have done in Chorlton +Church. + +The convict seemed gratified. He had got his security. "That warn't +bad!" said he. "The bob in partic'lar. Now I reckon you're made safe." + +"Indeed, you may rely on me. But would you kindly do one thing--just +this one! Give me your name and address, and wait to hear from me before +you come to the Cottage. 'Tis only for a short time--a day or two at +most." + +"Supposin' you don't write--how then?... Ah, well!--you look sharp about +it, and I'll be good for a day or two. Give you three days, if you want +'em." + +"I want your mother's leave...." + +"Leave for me to come? If she don't send it, it'll be took. Just you +tell her that! Now here's my name di-rected on this envelope. You can +tell me of a quiet pub where I can find a gaff, and you send me word +there. See? Quiet pub, a bit outside the village! Or stop a bit!--I'll +go to J. Hancock--the Old Truepenny, on the road I come here by. Rather +better than a mile along." Of course the old lady knew the Old +Truepenny. Everyone did, in those parts. She took the envelope with the +name, and as the twilight was now closing in to darkness, made no +attempt to read it, but slipped it carefully in her pocket. Then a +thought occurred to her, and she hesitated visibly on an inquiry. He +anticipated it, saying:--"Hay?--what's that?" + +"If Mrs. Prichard should seem not to know--not to recognise...." She +meant, suppose that Mrs. Prichard denies your claim to be her son, what +proof shall I produce? For any man could assume any name. + +The convict probably saw the need for some clear token of his identity. +"If the old woman kicks," said he, "just you remember this one or two +little things from me to tell her, to fetch her round. Tell her, I'm her +son Ralph, got away from Australia, where he's been on a visit these +twenty-five years past. Tell her.... Yes, you may tell her the girl's +name was Drax--Emma Drax. Got it?" + +"I can remember Emma Drax." + +"She'll remember Emma Drax, and something to spare. She was a little +devil we had some words about. _She'll_ remember her, and she'll know me +by her. Then you can tell her, just to top up--only she won't want any +more--that her name ain't Prichard at all, but Daverill.... What!--Well, +of course I meant making allowance for marrying again. Right you are, +missus! How the Hell should I have known, out there?" For he had +mistaken Granny Marrable's natural start at the too well-remembered name +she had scarcely heard for fifty years, for a prompt recognition of his +own rashness in assuming it had been intentionally discarded. + +She, for her part, although her hearing was good considering her age, +could not have been sure she had heard the name right, and was on the +edge of asking him to repeat it when his unfortunate allusion to +Hell--the merest colloquialism with him--struck her recovered equanimity +amidships, and made her hesitate. Only, however, for a moment, for her +curiosity about that name was uncontrollable. She found voice against a +beating heart to say:--"Would you, sir, say the name again for me? My +hearing is a bit old." + +"Her name, same as mine, Daver-hill." He made the mistake, fatal to +clear speech, of overdoing articulation. All the more that it caused a +false aspirate; not a frequent error with him, in spite of his long +association with defective speakers. It relieved her mind. Clearly a +surname and a prefix. She had not got it right yet, though. She forgot +she had it written down, already. + +"I did not hear the first name clear, sir. Would you mind saying it +again?" + +He did not answer at once. He was looking fixedly ahead, as though +something had caught his attention in the coppice they were approaching. +A moment later, without looking round, he answered rapidly:--"Same name +as mine--you've got it written down, on the paper I gave you." And then, +without another word, he turned and ran. He was so quick afoot, in spite +of the halting gait he had shown in walking, that he was through the +hedge he made for, across the grassland, and half-way over the +stubble-field that lay between it and a plantation, before she knew the +cause of his sudden scare. Then voices came from the coppice ahead--a +godsend to the poor old lady, whose courage had been sorely tried by the +interview--and she quickened her pace to meet them. She did not see the +fugitive vanish, but pressed on. + +Yes--just as she thought! One of the voices was that of Harry Costrell, +her grandson-in-law; another that of a stranger to her, a +respectable-looking man she was too upset to receive any other +impression of, at the moment; and the third that of her granddaughter. +Such a relief it was, to hear the cheerful ring of her greeting. + +"Why, Granny, we thought you strayed and we would have to look for ye in +Chorlton Pound.... Why, Granny darling, whatever is the matter? There--I +declare you're shaking all over!" + +Old Phoebe showed splendid discipline. It was impossible to conceal her +agitation, but she could make light of it. She had a motive. Remember +that that great grandchild of hers had been born over a twelvemonth ago! +"My dear," she said, "I've been just fritted out of my five wits by a +man with a limp, that took me for his mother and I never saw him in my +life." It did not seem to her that this was "splitting upon" the man. +After all, she would have to account for him somehow, and it was safest +to ascribe insanity to him. + +But the respectable-looking man had suddenly become an energy with a +purpose. "Which way's the man with the limp gone?" said he; adding to +himself, in the moment required for indicating accurately the fugitive's +vanishing-point in the plantation:--"He's my man!" Granny Marrable's +pointing finger sent him off in pursuit before either of the others +could ask a question or say a word. Harry, the grandson, wavered a +moment between grandfilial duty and the pleasures of the chase, and +chose the latter, utilising public spirit as an excuse for doing so. + +Maisie junior was not going to allow her grandmother to stay to see the +matter out, nor indeed did the old lady feel that her own strength could +bear any further trial. On the way home to the cottage at Dessington she +gave a reserved version of her strange interview, always laying stress +on the insanity she confidently ascribed to her terrifying companion. As +soon as he had died out of the immediate present, she began to find +commiseration for him. + +But then, how about the mission of the respectable man, who had, it +appeared, represented himself as a police-officer on the track of an +atrocious criminal, about the charges against whom he had almost kept +silence, merely saying that he was a returned convict, and liable to +arrest on that ground alone, but that he was "wanted" on several +accounts? He had followed his quarry to Grantley Thorpe, arriving by an +early train, to find that a man answering to his description had started +on foot a couple of hours previously, having asked his way to Ancester +Towers. He had followed him there in a hired gig; and, of course, found +the connecting clue at Solmes's cottage, and followed him on to +Dessington, calling at "T. Hancock's Old Truepenny" by the way, and +being guided by T. Hancock's information to run the gig round by the +road and intercept his man at the end of the short cut. The younger +Maisie and her young brother-in-law, coming by in search of her overdue +grandmother, had entered into conversation with him; and he had +accompanied them as far as the other side of the coppice wood, and given +them the particulars of his errand above stated. + +It was all very exciting, and rather horrible. But old Phoebe kept back +all her horrors, and even the man's claim to be the son of an old person +who had gone to Strides Cottage. Mrs. Prichard she said never a word of, +much as she longed to tell the whole story. But she was greatly consoled +for this by the succulence of her year-old great-grandson, whose grip, +even during sleep, was so powerful as to elicit a forecast of a +distinguished future for him, as a thieftaker. + +She never got that envelope out of her pocket, conceiving it to be +included in her pledge of secrecy. She would look at it before she went +to bed. But was it any wonder that she did not, and that her +granddaughter had to undress her and put her to bed like a tired child? +The last sound of which she was conscious was the voice of Harry +Costrell, returning after a long and futile chase, immensely excited and +pleased, and quite ready to submit to any sort of fragmentary supper. + +Then deep, deep sleep. Then an awakening to daylight, and all the +memories of yestereven crowding in upon her--among them an address and a +name in the pocket of the gown by the bedside. She could reach it +easily. + +There it was. She lay back in bed uncrumpling it, expecting nothing.... + +This was the fag-end of a dream, surely! But no--there the words were, +staring her in the face:--"Ralph Thornton Daverill!" And her mind +staggered back fifty years. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + A WORD FOR TYPHUS. DR. DALRYMPLE'S PECULIAR INTEREST IN THE CASE. + THE NURSE'S FRONT TOOTH. AN INVALID WHO MEANT BUSINESS. SAPPS COURT + AGAIN. HOW DAVE AND DOLLY LEFT THINGS BE IN MRS. PRICHARD'S ROOM. + DOLLY JUNIOR'S LEGS. QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT. MRS. BURR'S + RETURN. BUT SHE COULD GIVE AUNT M'RIAR A LIFT, IN SPITE OF HER + INSTEP. HOW THE WRITING-TABLE HAD LOST A LEG. WHAT IT WOULD COME TO + TO MAKE A SOUND JOB OF IT. BUT ONLY BY EMPTYING OUT THE THINGS + INSIDE OF THE DRAWER. WHO WOULD ACT AS BAILEE? HOW A VISION + VOLUNTEERED. HOW THE LOCK CAME OPEN QUITE EASY, AND MRS. BURR MADE + A NEAT PACKET OF WHAT IT RELEASED, TO BE TOOK CHARGE OF BY THE + VISION + + +It had got wind in Cavendish Square that Typhus had broken out at Number +One-hundred-and-two. That was the first form rumour gave to the result +of a challenge to gaol-fever, recklessly delivered by Miss Grahame in a +top-attic in Drury Lane. It was unfair to Typhus, who, if not +disqualified from saying a word on his own behalf, might have +replied:--"I am within my rights. I know my place, I hope. I never break +out in the homes of the Well-to-do. But if the Well-to-do come fussing +round in the homes of the Ill-to-be, they must just take their chance of +catching me. I wash my hands of all responsibility." + +And no doubt the excuse would have been allowed by all fair-minded +Nosologists. For although Typhus--many years before this--had laid +sacrilegious hands on a High Court of Justice, giving rise to what came +to be known as the "Black Assizes," all that had happened on that +occasion was in a fair way of business; good, straightforward, +old-fashioned contagion. If prison-warders did not sterilise +persons who had been awaiting their trial for weeks in Houses of +Detention--Pest-houses of Detention--you could not expect a putrid fever +to adopt new rules merely to accommodate legal prejudice. And in the +same way if Cavendish Square came sniffing up pestilential effluvia in +Drury Lane, it was The Square's look out, not Typhus's. + +Nevertheless, the Lares and Penates of The Square, who varied as +individuals but remained the same as inherent principles--its Policeman, +its Milk, its Wash, its Crossing-Sweeper--even after the germ of +contagion had been identified beyond a doubt as a resident in Drury +Lane, held fast to a belief that Typhus had been dormant at the corner +house since the days of the Regency, and had seized an opportunity when +nothing antiseptic was looking, to break out and send temperatures up to +106° F. For, said they, when was the windows of that house opened last? +Just you keep your house shut up--said they--the best part of a century, +and see if something don't happen! But the person addressed always +admitted everything, and never entered on the suggested experiment. + +Persons of Condition--all the real Residents, that is--did not allow +themselves to be needlessly alarmed, and refused to rush away into the +country. There was no occasion for panic, but they would take every +reasonable precaution, and give the children a little citrate of +magnesia, as it was just as well to be on the safe side. And they had +the drains properly seen to. Also they would be very careful not to let +themselves down. That was most important. They felt quite reassured when +Sir Polgey Bobson, for instance, told them that there was no risk +whatever three feet from the bedside of the patient. "And upwards, I +presume?" said a Wag. But Sir Polgey did not see the Wag's point. He was +one of your--and other people's--solemn men. + +Said Dr. Dalrymple--he whose name Dave Wardle had misremembered as +Damned Tinker--to Lady Gwen, arriving at Cavendish Square in the early +hours of the morning--still early, though she had been nearly four hours +on the road:--"I wish now I had told you positively _not_ to come.... +But stop a minute!--you can't have got my letter?" + +"Never mind that now. How is she?" + +"Impossible to say anything yet, except that it is unmistakable typhus, +and that there is nothing specially unfavourable. The fever won't be at +its height for the best part of a week. We can say nothing about a case +of this sort till the fever subsides. But you _can't_ have got my +letter--there has been no time." + +"Exactly. It may have arrived by now. Sometimes the post comes at eight. +I came because she telegraphed. Here's the paper." + +The doctor read it. "I see," said he. "She said don't come, so you came. +Creditable to your ladyship, but--excuse me!--quite mad. You are better +out of the way." + +"She has no friend with her." + +"Well--no--she hasn't! At least--yes--she has! I shall not leave her +except for special cases. They can do very well without me at the +Hospital. There are plenty of young fellows at the Hospital." + +Gwen appeared to apprehend something suddenly. "I see," she said. "I +quite understand. I had never guessed." + +He replied:--"How did you guess? I _said_ nothing. However, I won't +contradict you. Only understand right. This is all on my side. Miss +Grahame knows nothing about it--isn't in it." + +"Oh!" said Gwen incredulously. "Now suppose you tell me what your letter +said!" + +"You are _sure_ you understand?" + +"Oh dear, yes! It doesn't want much understanding. What did your letter +say?" + +Dr. Dalrymple's reply was substantially that it said what Gwen had +anticipated. The patient was in no danger whatever, at present, and with +reasonable precautions would infect nobody. He knew that her ladyship's +impulse to come to her friend would be very strong, but she could do no +good by coming. The wisest course would be for her to keep away, and +rely on his seeing to it that the patient received the utmost care that +skill and experience could provide. "I knew that if I said I should not +allow you to see her, you would come by the next train. Excuse my having +taken the liberty to interpret your character on a very slight +acquaintance." + +"Quite correct. Your interpretation did you credit. I should have come +immediately. The letter you did write _might_ have made me hesitate. +_Now_ I want to see her." + +The doctor acquiesced in the inevitable. "It's rash," he said, "and +unnecessary. But I suppose it's no use remonstrating?" + +"Not the slightest!" said Gwen. And, indeed, the supposition was a +forlorn hope, and a very spiritless one. Also, other agencies were at +work. A tap at the door, that was told to come in, revealed itself as an +obliging nurse whose upper front tooth was lifting her lip to look out +under it at the public. Her mission was to say that Miss Grahame had +heard the visitor's voice and she might speak to her through the door, +but on no account come into the room. A little more nonsense of this +sort, and Gwen was talking with her cousin at a respectful distance, to +comply with existing prejudices; but without the slightest belief that +her doing so would make any difference, one way or the other. The +dreadful flavour of fever was in everything, and lemons and hothouse +grapes were making believe they were cooling, and bottles that they +contained sedatives, and disinfectants that they were purifying the +atmosphere. It was all their gammon, and the fiend Typhus, invisible, +was chuckling over their preposterous claims, and looking forward to a +happy fortnight, with a favourable outcome from his point of view; or, +at least, the consolation of _sequelae_, and a retarded convalescence. + +There is a stage of fever when lassitude and uncertainty of movement and +eyesight have prostrated the patient and compelled him to surrender at +discretion to his nurses and medical advisers, but before the Valkyrie +of Delirium are scouring the fields of his understanding, to pounce on +the corpses of ideas their Odin had slain. That time was not due for +many hours yet, when Gwen got speech of her cousin. She immediately +appreciated that the patient was anxious to impress bystanders that this +illness was all in the way of business. Also, that she was watching the +development of her own symptoms as from a height apart, in the interest +of Science. + +"I knew I should catch it. But somebody had to, and I thought it might +as well be me. I caught it from a child. A mild case. That would not +make much difference. Being a woman is good. More men die than women. +It's only within the last few years that typhus has been distinguished +from typhoid...." After a few more useful particulars, she said:--"It +was very bad of you to come. I telegraphed to you not to come, last +week.... Wasn't it last week?... Well then--yesterday.... They ought +never to have let you in.... There!--I get muddled when I talk...." She +did, but it did not amount to wandering. + +Gwen made very fair essays towards the correct thing to say; the usual +exhortations to the patient to rely upon everything; acquiesce in +periodical doses; absorb nourishment, however distasteful it might be on +the palate, and place blind faith in everyone else, especially nurses. +It was very good for a beginner; indeed, her experience of this sort of +thing was almost _nil_. But all she got for it was:--"Don't be +irritating, Gwen dear! Sit down there, where you are. Yes, that far off, +because I've something to say I want to say.... No--more in front, so +that I needn't move my head to see you.... Oh no--my _head's_ all right +in itself; only, when I move it, the pain won't move with it, and it +drags.... Suppose I shuffle off this mortal coil?" + +Gwen immediately felt it her duty to point out the improbability of +anyone dying, but was a little handicapped by the circumstances +attendant on Typhus Fever. She had to be concise in unreason. "Don't +talk nonsense, Clo dear." The patient ignored the interruption. "Oh +dear!--give me another grape to suck without having to open my eyes.... +Ta!--now I can talk a little more." The obliging nurse headed Gwen off +to a proper distance, and herself supplied the grape. In doing this she +smiled so hard that the tooth got a good long look at Gwen, who looked +another way. The patient resumed, speaking very much from her lofty +position of lecturer by her own bedside. + +"You see, a percentage of cases recovers, but this one may not be in it. +However, the constitution is good.... No, Gwen dear, you know perfectly +well I may die, so where _is_ the use of pretending?" Whereupon Gwen +conceded the possibility of Death, and the patient seemed to be easier +in her mind; saying, as one who leaves trivialities, to settle down to +matters of business:--"I want to talk to you about my small boy, Dave +Wardle." + +"Shall I go and see him at Sapps Court?" + +"Yes--that's what I want. And then come back here and tell me ... +promise!" She was getting very indeterminate in speech, and the nurse +was signalling for the interview to close. So Gwen cut it short. But she +felt she had made a binding promise. She must go to Sapps Court. + +Said Gwen to Dr. Dalrymple, a few minutes later, in the +sitting-room:--"I hope she hasn't talked too much." The doctor appeared +to have taken temporary possession, and to have several letters to +write. + +"It makes very little difference," he said. "At present the decks are +only being cleared for action. In a few days we shall be in the thick of +it--pulse over a hundred--temperature a hundred and four--then a crisis. +When it's all over, we shall be able to see how many ships are sunk." + + * * * * * + +Sapps Court had resumed its tranquil routine of everyday life, and the +accident had nearly become a thing of the past. Not entirely, for Mrs. +Prichard's portion of No. 7 still remained unoccupied, even Susan Burr +remaining absent at her married niece's at Clapham. Aunt M'riar had +charge, and kept a bit of fire going in the front-room, so the plaster +should get a chance to dry out. Also she stood the front and back +windows wide to let through a good draught of air, except, of course, it +was pouring rain, and then it was no good. The front-room was a great +convenience to Aunt M'riar, who now and then was embarrassed with linen +to dry, relieving her from the necessity of rendering the kitchen +impassable with it in the morning till she came down and took it off of +the lines ready for ironing, and removed the cords on which she had hung +it overnight. + +Dave and Dolly were allowed upstairs during operations, on stringent +conditions; or, rather, it should be said, on a stringent condition. +They were to leave things be. This was honourably observed, especially +by Dave, who was the soul of honour when once he gave his word. As for +Dolly, she was still young, and if she did claw hold of a chemise and +bring down the whole line, why, it was only that once, and we was +children once ourselves. This was Uncle Mo, of course; he was that +easy-going. + +But whenever Aunt M'riar was not handicapping the desiccation of the +walls by overcharging the atmosphere with moisture of the very wettest +possible sort, Dolly and Dave could have the room to themselves, so long +as they kep' their hands off the clean wallpaper; which was included in +leaving be, obviously--not an intrusion of a new stipulation. They would +then, being alone, go great lengths in picturing to themselves and each +other the pending reappearance of Mrs. Picture and Mrs. Burr, and the +delights of resuming halcyon days of old. For this strangely compounded +clay, Man, scarcely waits to be quite sure he is landed in existence, +before he inaugurates a glorious fiction, the golden Past, which never +has been; between which and its resurrection into an equally golden +Future--which never will be--he sandwiches the pewter Present, which +always is, and which it is idle to pretend is worth twopence, by +comparison. + +"When old Mrs. Spicture comes back"--thus Dolly--"she shall set in her +own chair wiv scushions, and she shall set in her own chair wiv a 'igh +hup bact, and she shall set in her own chair wiv...." Here came a pause, +due to inanition of distinctive features. Dolly's style was disfigured +by vain repetitions, beyond a doubt. + +"When old Mrs. Spicture comes back"--thus Dave, accepting the offered +formula, somewhat in the spirit of the true ballad writer--"she's +a-going to set in her own chair with cushions, just _here_!" He sat down +with violence on a spot immediately below the proposed centre of gravity +of the chair. "And then oy shall bring her her tea." + +"No, you _s'arn't_! Mrs. Spicture shall set in her chair wiv scushions, +and me and dolly shall tite her her tea." + +Dave sat on the floor fixing two intelligent blue eyes on dolly junior's +unintelligent violet ones, and holding his toes. "Dorly carn't!" said he +contemptuously. "Her legs gives. Besides, she's no inside, only brand." +This was a new dolly, who had replaced Struvvel Peter, who perished in +the accident. His legs had been wooden, and swung several ways. This +one's calves were wax, and one had come off, like a shoe. But the legs +only bent one way. + +Dolly the mother did not reply to Dave's insinuations against his niece, +preferring the refrain of her thesis:--"When Mrs. Spicture comes back +and sets in her chair wiv scushions and an Aunt-Emma-Care-Saw, Mrs. Burr +she'll paw out the tea with only one lump of shoogy, and me and dolly +shall cally it acrost wivout a jop spilt, and me and dolly shall stand +it down on the little mognytoyble, and Mrs. Spicture she'll set in her +chair wiv scushions, and dolly hand her up the stoast." + +"Let me kitch her at it!" said Dave, with offensive male assumption. "Oy +shall see to Mrs. Spicture's toast, and see she gets it hot. And Mrs. +Burr she'll give leave to butter it, and say how much, and the soyde +edge trimmed round toydy with a knoyf." All these details, safely based +on items of past experience, were practically historical. + +Dolly always accepted Dave's masculine airisomeness with meek +equanimity, but invariably took no notice of it. This is nearly common +form in well-organized households. She went on to refer to other +gratifying revivals that would come about on Mrs. Picture's return. The +sofy should be stood back against the wall, for dolly to be put to sleep +on. And Queen Victoria she should go up on one nail, and Prince Halbert +on the other. These were beautiful coloured prints, smiling fixedly +across a full complement of stars and garters. The red piece of carpet +would go down against the fender, and the blue piece near the window, as +of yore. Dave looked forward with interest to the resurrection of Mrs. +Picture's wroyting toyble with a ployce for her Boyble to lie on, and to +the letters to his Granny Marrowbone in the country which would +certainly be wrote at it, directly or by dictation, in the blessed +revival of the past which was to come. Mrs. Burr's cat, who had +travelled by request in a hamper to her married niece's at Clapham, in +charge of Michael Ragstroar, would return and would then promptly have +kittens in spite of doubtful sex-qualifications suggested by the name of +Tommy; which kittens would belong to Dave and Dolly respectively, choice +being made as soon as ever it was seen what colour they meant to be. + +These speculations, which had made pleasant material for +castles-in-the-air in the undisturbed hours when the children were in +sole possession of the apartment, seemed to be within a measurable +distance of realisation when Aunt M'riar, acting on a communication from +Mrs. Burr at Clapham, proceeded to unearth the hidden furniture from the +bedroom where Mr. Bartlett's careful men had interred it, and where it +hadn't been getting any good, you might be sure. At least, so said Mrs. +Ragstroar, who was so obliging as to lend a hand getting the things +back in their places, and giving them a dust over to get the worst of +the mess off. And Uncle Mo he was able to make himself useful, with a +screw here and a tack there, and a glue-pot with quite a professional +smell to it, so that you might easy have took him for a carpenter and +joiner. For Mr. Bartlett's men, while doubtless justifying their +reputation for handling everything with care due to casualties with +compound fractures, had stultified their own efforts by shoving the +heavy goods right atop of the light ones, and lying things down on their +sides that should have been stood upright, and committing other errors +of judgment. It was a singular and unaccountable thing that these men +seemed to share the mantle of their employer and somehow to claim +forgiveness, and get it, on the score of the inner excellence of their +hearts and purity of their motives. + +So that within a day or two after her young ladyship's sudden appearance +at the fever-stricken mansion in Cavendish Square, Mrs. Burr put in her +first appearance at Sapps Court since she went away to the Hospital. She +was able to walk upon her foot, while convinced that a more rapid +recovery would have taken place but for the backward state of surgical +knowledge. She was confident they might have given her something at the +Hospital to bring it forward, and make some local application--"put +something on" was the expression. She seemed to have based an +unreasonable faith in bread poultices on their successful employment in +entirely different cases. + +"Now what, you, got, to, lay out for, the way I look at it, +ma'am,"--thus Mrs. Ragstroar, departing and bearing away the hand she +had lent, to get supper ready for her own inmates--"is to do no more +than you can 'elp, and eat as much as you can get." The good woman then +vanished, leaving the united company's chorus to her remarks still +unfinished when she reached her own door at the top of the Court. For +Uncle Mo, Mr. Alibone, Aunt M'riar, and Dolly and Dave as _claqueurs_, +were unanimous that Mrs. Burr should lie still for six months or so, +relying on her capital, if any; if none, on manna from Heaven. + +However, there was little likelihood of Mrs. Burr being in want of a +crust, which is the theoretical minimum needed to sustain life, so long +as Sapps Court recognised its liabilities when any component portion of +it, considered as a residential district, fell on and crushed one of its +residents' insteps. If Mr. Bartlett's repairs had come down on Mrs. Burr +in the fullest sense of the expression, she would certainly--unless she +outlived the impact of two hundred new stocks and three thousand old +bats and closures, deceptively arranged to seem like a wall--have had +the advantage, whatever it is, of decent burial, even if she had not had +a married niece at Clapham, or any other relative elsewhere. So she was +able to abstain without imprudence from immediate efforts to reinstate +her dressmaking connection; and was able, without overtaxing her instep, +to give substantial assistance to Aunt M'riar, who would have had to +refuse a good deal of work just at that time except for her opportune +assistance. + +It was a natural corollary of this that Mrs. Prichard's tenancy should +be utilised as a workshop, as Mrs. Burr was now its only occupant; and +that she herself should take her meals below, with Aunt M'riar and the +family. So the red and the blue carpet were not put down just yet a +while, and Uncle Mo he did what he could with the screw here and the +tack there, while Aunt M'riar and Mrs. Burr exercised mysterious +functions, with tucks and frills and gimpings and pinkings and +gaufferings, which it is beyond the powers of this story to describe +accurately. + +One mishap had occurred with the furniture which did not come within the +scope of Uncle Mo's skill to remedy. The treasured mahogany +writing-table that had so faithfully accompanied old Mrs. Picture +through all her misfortunes had lost a leg. A leg, but not a foot. For +the brass foot, which belonged, was found shoved away in the chest of +drawers, which was enough, and more than enough, to contain the whole of +the owner's scanty wardrobe. It was a cabinet-maker's job, and rather a +nice one at that, to provide a new and suitable leg and attach it +securely in the place of the old one. And it would come to +nineteen-and-sixpence to make a job of it. The exactness of this sum +will suggest the facts, that a young man in the trade, an acquaintance +of Uncle Mo at The Sun, he come round to oblige, and undertook to give +in a price as soon as he had the opportunity to mention it to his +governor. The opportunity occurred immediately he went back to the shop. +The sum was for a new leg, involving superhuman ingenuity in connecting +it firmly with the pelvis; but a reg'lar sound job. Of course, there was +another way of doing it, by tonguing on a new limb below the knee, and +inserting a dowell for to stiffen it up. But that would come to every +penny of fifteen shillings, and would be a reg'lar poor job, and would +show. Nothing like doing a thing while you were about it! It saved +expense in the end, and it was a fine old bit of furniture. Bit of old +Gillow's! + +But there was a point to be considered. The things must be took out of +the drawers and the attached desk, or the governor he'd never have it at +the shop. He was a person of the most delicate sensibility, who shrank +from making himself responsible for anything whatever. Them drawers must +be emptied out, or nothing could be done. Why--you'd only got to shake +the table to hear there was papers inside! + +This was a serious difficulty. It would, of course, be easy enough to +write to Mrs. Prichard for the key; which, said testimony, was very +small and always lived in her purse. But then all the milk would be out +of the cocoanut; that metaphorical fruit being, in this case, the +pleasure of surprising Mrs. Prichard with a writing-table as good as +new. Open it, of course, you could! It was a locksmith's job, but the +governor would send the shop's locksmith, who would do that for you +while you counted half-a-dozen. The counting was optional, and in no +sense necessary, nor even contributory, to the operation. + +The real crux of the difficulty was not one of mechanism, but of +responsibility. Who was qualified to decide on opening the desk and +drawers? Who would be answerable for the safety of those papers? The +only person who volunteered was Dolly, and Dolly's idea of taking care +of things was to carry them about with her everywhere, and if they were +in a parcel, to unpack it frequently at short intervals to make sure the +contents were still in evidence. Her offer was declined. + +The young man in the trade had numerous and absorbing engagements to +plead as a reason for his inability to 'ang about all day for parties to +make up their minds--the usurper's plea, by-the-by, for a _coup +d'état_--so perhaps some emissary might be found, to drop round to the +shop to leave word. This young man was anxious to oblige, but altruism +had its limits. Just then a knock at the door below led to Dave +receiving instructions to sift it and make sure it wasn't a mistake, +before a senior should descend to take it up seriously. It was not a +mistake, but a lady, reported by Dave, returning out of breath, to be +"one of Our Ladies,"--making the Church of Rome seem ill-off by +comparison. He was seeking for an intelligent distinction between Sister +Nora and Gwen, in reply to the question "Which?", when the dazzling +appearance of the latter answered it for him. + +"I thought I might come up without waiting to ask," said the +vision--which is what she seemed, for a moment, to Sapps Court. "So I +didn't ask. Is that Mrs. Picture's writing-table where Dave gets his +letters written?" + +Never was a more unhesitating plunge made _in medias res_. It had a +magical effect in setting Sapps Court at its ease, and everyone saw a +way to contribute to an answer, the substance of which was that the +table was Mrs. Prichard's, _but_ had lost its leg. The exact force of +the _but_ was not so clear as it might have been; this, however, was +unimportant. Gwen was immediately interested in the repair of the table. +Why shouldn't it be done while Mrs. Picture was away, before she came +back? + +A momentary frenzy of irrelevance seized Sapps Court, and a feverish +desire to fix the exact date when the table-leg was disintegrated. "It +wasn't broke, when it came from Skillicks," said Mrs. Burr. "That's all +I know! And if you was to promise me a guinea I could say no more." Said +Aunt M'riar:--"It's been stood up against the wall ever since I +remembered it, and Mr. Bartlett's men assured me every care was took in +moving." A murmur of testimony to Mr. Bartlett's unvarying sobriety and +that of his men threatened to undermine the coherency of the +conversation, but the position was saved by Uncle Mo, who seemed less +infatuated than others about them. "Bartlett's ain't neither here or +there," said he. "What I look at's like this,--the leg's off, and we've +got to clap on a new un. Here's a young man'll see to that, and it'll +come to nineteen-and-sixpence. Only who's going to take care of the +letters and odd belongings of the old lady the whilst? That's a point to +consider. I'd rather not, myself, if you ask me. Not without she sends +the key, and that won't work, as I see it." + +"I see," said Gwen. "You want to make Mrs. Picture a new table-leg, and +you can't do it without opening her desk. And you can't get the key from +her without saying why you want it. Isn't that it?" Universal assent. +"Very well, then! You get the lock opened, and I'll take everything out +with my own hands, and keep it safe for Mrs. Picture when she comes +back." + +This proposal was welcomed with only one reservation. None but a real +live locksmith could open a lock, any more than one who is not born a +turncock can release the waters that are under the earth through an +unexplained hole in the road. It was, however, all within the province +of the young man in the trade, who had not vanished when the vision +appeared, in spite of those pressing appointments. He would go back to +the shop, and send, or bring, a properly qualified operative. + +Pending which, an adjournment to the little parlour below, out of all +this mess, seemed desirable. Dave and Dolly were, of course, part of +this, but Mrs. Burr remained upstairs after answering inquiries about +her own health, and Mr. Alibone went away with the young man in search +of the locksmith. + +Gwen had to account for her sudden appearance. "I'm sorry to have bad +news to tell you about my cousin, Miss Grahame," said she, so seriously +that both her grown-up hearers spoke under their breaths to begin +asking:--"She's not...?"--the rest being easily understood. Gwen +replied:--"Oh no, she's not _dead_. But she's in the doctor's hands." +Uncle Mo looked as though he thought this was nearly as bad, and Aunt +M'riar was so expressive in sympathy without words that both the +children became appalled, and Dolly looked inclined to cry. Gwen +continued:--"She has caught a horrible fever in a dreadful place where +she went to see poor people, and nobody can say yet a while what will +happen. It _is_ Typhus Fever, I'm afraid." + +As Gwen uttered the deadly syllables, Uncle Mo turned away to the +window, leaving some exclamation truncated. Aunt M'riar's voice became +tremulous on the beginning of an unfinished sentence, and Dolly +concealed a disposition to weep, because she was afraid of what Dave +would say after. That young man remained stoical, but did not speak. + +Presently Uncle Mo turned from the window, and said, somewhat +huskily:--"I wish some of these here _poor people_, as they call +themselves, would either go away to Aymericay, or keep their premises a +bit cleaner; nobody wants 'em here that ever I've heard tell of, only +Phlarnthropists." + +Aunt M'riar's unfinished sentence had begun with "Gracious mercy!..." +Its sequel:--"Well now--to think of a lady like that! My word! And +Typhus Fever, too!"--was dependent on it, and contained an element of +resignation to Destiny. + +Dave struck in with irrelevant matter; as he frequently did, to throw +side-lights on obscurities. "The boy at the School had fever, and came +out sported all over with sports he was. You couldn't have told him from +any other boy." That the other boy would be similarly spotted was, of +course, understood. + +Having broken the news, Gwen went on to minimise its seriousness; a +time-honoured method, perhaps the best one. "Dr. Dalrymple is cheerful +enough about her at present, so we mustn't be frightened. He says only +very old persons never recover, and that a young woman like my cousin is +quite as likely to live as to die...." + +Uncle Mo caught her up with sudden shrewdness. "Then she's quite as +likely to die as to live?" said he. + +"Oh, Mo--Mo--don't ye say the word! Please God, Sister Nora may live +for many a long day yet!" Thus Aunt M'riar, true to the traditional +attitude of Life towards Death--denial of the Arch-fear to the very +threshold of the tomb. + +"So she may, M'riar, and many another on to that. But there's a good +plenty o' things would please us that don't please God, and He's got it +all His own way." + +Uncle Mo, after moving about the room in an unsettled fashion, as though +weighed upon by the news he had just heard, had come to an anchor at the +table opposite Gwen--obsessed by Dolly, but acquiescent. As he sat +there, she saw in his grizzled head against the light; in the strong +hand resting on the table, moving now and then as though keeping time to +some slow tune; in the other, motionless upon his knee, an image that +made her ask herself the question:--"What would Samuel Johnson have been +as a prizefighter?" She was not properly shocked, but perhaps that was +because she was quick-witted enough to perceive that Uncle Mo had only +said, in the blunt tongue of the secular world, what would have sounded +an impressive utterance, in another form, from the lips of the sage of +whom he had reminded her. She felt she _ought_ to say that the Lord +would assuredly--a solemn word that!--do what He liked with His own, +supplying capitals. She gave it up as out of her line, and went on to +business. + +"Any of us may die, at any minute, Mr. Wardle," said she. "But my cousin +is twenty times as likely to die as you or I, because she's got Typhus +Fever, and half the cases are fatal, more or less.... They told me how +many; I've forgotten.... What's that?--is it the locksmith man?" For a +knock had come at the street-door, and the sound was as the sound of an +operative who had to be back in half an hour or his Governor would cut +up rough. He was therefore directed to go upstairs and cast his eye on +the job, and the lady would come up in five minutes to see the things +took out of the drawer. + +"Stop a minute, Aunt M'riar," said the lady. "He mustn't make a mistake +and open it, till I come. Please tell him, to make sure!" And Aunt +M'riar would have started on her errand if she had not been stopped by +what followed. "Or--look here! Let Dave go. You go up, Dave, and say he +mustn't touch the lock till I come. Run along, and stop there to see +that he does as you tell him." Whereupon, off went Dave, shouting his +instructions as soon as he got to the second landing. He felt like a +Police-Inspector, or a Warden of the Marches. + +As soon as Dave had left tranquillity behind, Gwen set herself to +anticipate an anxiety she saw Aunt M'riar wanted to express, but was +hanging fire over. "You needn't be afraid about this chick, Aunt +M'riar," she said. "It isn't really infectious, only contagious. You can +only get it from the patient. Dr. Dalrymple says so. Like the thing you +can only buy of the maker. Besides, I've hardly been in the room; they +make such a fuss, and won't allow me. And I'm not living in the house at +all, but at my father's in Park Lane. And I've been there to-day since +Cavendish Square, so anyhow, if I give it to Dolly, my father and mother +will have it too.... Oh no--she's not rumpling me at all! I like it." It +was satisfactory to know that an Earl and Countess were pledged to have +Typhus if Dolly caught it. Dolly evidently thought the combination of +circumstances as good as a play, and a sprightly one. + +Gwen was not sorry when the young ambassador came rushing back, +shouting:--"The Man says--the Man says--the Man says it wouldn't take +above half a minute to do, and is the loydy a-coming up? +Because--because--because if the loydy _oyn't_ a-coming up +_he_--_has_--_to_--get back to the shop." This last was so draconically +delivered that Gwen exclaimed:--"Come along, Dolly, we've got our +orders!" And she actually carried that great child up all those stairs, +and she going to be four next birthday! + +Upstairs, the lock-expert was apologetic. "Ye see, miss," he explained, +"our governor he's the sort of man it don't do to disappynt him, not +however small the job may be. I don't reckon he can wait above a half an +hour for anything, 'cos it gets on his narves. So we studies not puttin' +of him out, at our shop." At which Gwen interrupted him, sacrificing her +own interest in the well-marked character of this governor, to the +business in hand; and the prospect, for him, of an early release from +his anxiety. + +As for the achievement which had been postponed, it really seemed a'most +ridiculous when you come to think of it. Such a fuss, and those two men +standing about the best part of an hour! At least, so Mrs. Burr said +afterwards. + +For the operation, all told, was merely this--that the young man +inserted a bent wire into the lock, thereby becoming aware of its +vitals. Withdrawing it, he slightly modified the prejudices of its tip; +after which its reinsertion caused the lock to spring open as by magic. +He wished to know, on receipt of a consideration from Gwen, whether she +hadn't anything smaller, because it only came to eighteenpence for his +time and his mate's, and he had no change in his pocket. Gwen explained +that none was needed owing to the proximity of Christmas, and obtained +thereby the good opinion of both. They expressed their feelings and +departed. + +And then--there was old Mrs. Picture's writing-table drawer, stood open! +But only a little way, to show. For the lady's hands alone were to open +it clear out, to remove the contents. Gwen felt that perhaps she had +undertaken this responsibility rashly. It is rather a ticklish matter to +tamper unbidden with locks. + +So confident was she that old Mrs. Picture would forgive her anything, +that she made no scruple of examining and reading whatever was visible. +There was little beyond pens and writing-paper in the drawer, but in a +desk which formed part of the table were some warrants held by the old +lady as a life-annuitant, and two or three packets of letters, one +carefully tied and apparently of considerable age. There was also a +packet marked "Hair," and a small cardboard box. Little enough to take +charge of, and soon made into a neat parcel by Mrs. Burr for Gwen to +carry away in her reticule, a receptacle which in those days was almost +invariably a portion of every lady's paraphernalia, high and low, rich +and poor. + +The desk opened with the drawer--or rather unrolled itself--a flexible +wood-flap running back when it was opened, and releasing a lid that made +one-half of the writing-pad when turned back. The letters were under the +other half, the old packet being in a small drawer with the parcel +marked "Hair." These were evidently precious. Never mind! Gwen would +keep them safe. + +Dave and Dolly were so delighted with the performance of opening and +shutting the drawer, and seeing the cylindrical sheath slip backwards +and forwards in its grooves, that they could scarcely drag themselves +away to accompany their Lady to the carriage that, it appeared, was +waiting for her in the beyond, outside Sapps Court. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + AN INTERVIEW AT THE TOP OF A HOUSE IN PARK LANE. THE COLOSSEUM. + PACTOLUS. KENSINGTON, AS NINEVEH. DERRY'S. TOMS'S. HELEN OF TROY. + THE PELLEWS. RECONSIDERATION, AND JILTING. GWEN'S LOVE OF METHOD, + AND HOW SHE WOULD GO TO VIENNA. A STARTLING LETTER. HOW HER FATHER + READ IT ALOUD. MRS. THRALE'S REPORT OF A BRAIN CASE. HER DOG. HOW + REASON REELED BEFORE THE OLD LADY'S ACCURACIES. GWEN'S GREAT-AUNT + EILEEN AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR. HOW THE EARL STRUCK THE SCENT. HIS + BIG EBONY CABINET. MR. NORBURY'S STORY. HOW AN EARL CAN DO A MEAN + ACTION, WITH A GOOD MOTIVE. THE FORGED LETTER SEES THE LIGHT. HOW + THE COUNTESS WOKE UP, AND THE EARL GOT TO BED AT LAST + + +When the Earl and Countess came to Park Lane, especially if their visit +was a short one, and unless it was supposed to be known to themselves +and their Maker only, they were on their _P_'s and _Q_'s. Why the new +identity that came over them on those occasions was so described by her +ladyship remained a secret; and, so far as we know, remains a secret +still. But that was the expression she made use of more than once in +conversation with her daughter. + +If her statements about herself were worthy of credence, her tastes were +Arcadian, and the satisfactions incidental to her position as a +Countess--wealth and position, with all the world at her feet, and a +most docile husband, ready to make any reasonable, and many +unreasonable, sacrifices to idols of her selection--were the merest +drops on the surface of Life's crucible. What her soul really longed for +was a modest competence of two or three thousand a year, with a not too +ostentatious house in town, say in Portland Place; or even in one of +those terraces near the Colosseum in Regent's Park, with a sweet little +place in Devonshire to go to and get away from the noise, concocted from +specifications from the poets, with a special clause about clotted cream +and new-laid eggs. Something of that sort! Then she would be able to +turn her mind to some elevating employment which it would be premature +to dwell on in detail to furnish a mere castle-in-the-air, but of which +particulars would be forthcoming in due course. Or rather, would have +been forthcoming. For now the die was cast, and a soul that could have +been pastorally satisfied with a lot of the humble type indicated, had +been caught in a whirl, or entangled in a mesh, or involved in a +complication--whichever you like--of Extravagance, or Worldliness, or +Society, or Mammon-worship, or Plutocracy, or Pactolus--or all the +lot--and there was an end of the matter! + +"All I can say is that I wonder you do it. I do indeed, mamma!" Thus +Gwen, a week later in the story, in her bedroom at the very top of the +house, which had once been a smoking-room and which it was her young +ladyship's caprice to inhabit, because it looked straight over the Park +towards the Palace, which still in those days was close to Kensington, +its godmother. The Palace is there still, but Kensington is gone. Look +about for it in the neighbourhood, if you have the heart to do so, and +see if this is a lie. You will find residential flats, and you will find +Barker's, and you will find Derry's, and you will find Toms's. But you +will _not_ find Kensington. + +"You may wonder, Gwen! But if ever you are a married woman with an +unmarried grown-up daughter in England and a married one at Vienna, and +a position to keep up--I suppose that is the right expression--you will +find how impossible everything is, and you will find something else to +wonder about. Why--only look at that dress you are trying on!" The +grown-up daughter was Gwen's elder sister, Lady Philippa, the wife of +Sir Theseus Brandon, the English Ambassador at the Court of Austria. +Otherwise, her ladyship was rather enigmatical. + +Gwen seemed to attach a meaning to her words. "I don't think we shall +ever have a daughter married to an Ambassador at Vienna. It would be too +odd a coincidence for anything." This was said in the most unconcerned +way, as a natural chat-sequel. What a mirror was saying about the dress, +a wonderful Oriental fabric that gleamed like green diamonds, was +absorbing the speaker's attention. The _modiste_ who was fitting it had +left the room to seek for pins, of which she had run dry. A low-class +dressmaker would have been able to produce them from her mouth. + +The Countess assumed a freezing import. It appeared to await explanation +of something that had shocked and surprised her. "_We!_" said her +ladyship, picking out the gravamen of this something. "Who are 'We' in +this case?... Perhaps I did not understand what you said?..." And went +on awaiting explanation, which any correct-minded British Matron will +see was imperatively called for. Young ladies are expected not to refer +too freely to Human Nature at any time, and to talk of "having a +daughter" was sailing near the wind. + +"Who are the 'We'? Why--me and Adrian, of course! At least, Adrian and +I!--because of grammar. Whom did you suppose?" + +The Countess underwent a sort of well-bred collapse. Her daughter did +not observe it, as she was glancing at what she mentioned to herself as +"The usual tight armhole, I suppose!" beneath an outstretched arm Helen +might have stabbed her for in Troy. Neither did she notice the +shoulder-shrug that came with the rally from this collapse, conveying an +intimation to Space that one could be surprised at nothing nowadays. But +the thing she ought not to have been surprised at was past discussion. +Decent interment was the only course. "Who? I? _I_ supposed nothing. No +doubt it's all right!" + +Gwen turned a puzzled face to her mother; then, after a moment came +illumination. "Oh--I see-ee!" said she. "It's the children--_our_ +children! Dear me--one has such innocent parents, it's really quite +embarrassing! Of course I shouldn't talk about them to papa, because +he's supposed to know nothing about such things. But really--one's own +mother!" + +"Well--at least don't talk so before the person.... She's coming +back--_sh!_" + +"My dear mamma, she's got six children of her own, so how could it +matter? Besides, she's French." That is to say, an Anglo-Grundy would +have no jurisdiction. + +The dazzling ball-dress, which the Countess had professedly climbed all +those stairs to see tried on, having been disposed of satisfactorily, +and carried away for finishing touches, her ladyship showed a +disposition to remain and talk to her daughter. These two were on very +good terms, in spite of the occasional strain which was put upon their +relations by the audacity of the daughter's flights in the face of her +old-fashioned mother's code of proprieties. + +As soon as normal conditions had been re-established, and Miss Lutwyche, +an essential to the trying on, had died respectfully away, her ladyship +settled down to a chat. + +"I've really hardly seen you, child, since you came tearing up from +Rocester in that frantic way in the middle of the night. It's always the +same in town, an absolute rush. And the way one has to mind one's _P_'s +and _Q_'s is trying to the last degree. If it was only Society, one +could see one's way. One can deal with Society, because there are rules. +But People are quite another thing.... Well, my dear, you may say they +are not, but look at Clotilda--there's a case in point! I assure you, +hardly a minute of the day passes but I feel I ought to do something. +But what? One may say it's her own fault, and so it no doubt is, in a +sense. No one is under any sort of obligation to go into these horrible +places, which the Authorities ought not to allow to exist. There ought +to be proper people to do this kind of thing, inoculated or something, +to be safe from infection.... But she _is_ going on all right?" + +"They wouldn't let me see her this morning. But Dr. Dalrymple said there +was no complication, so far...." + +"Oh, well, so long as there's no complication, that's all we can +expect." The Countess jumped at an excuse to breathe freely. But there +were other formidable contingencies. How about Constance and Cousin +Percy? "Yes--they've got to be got married, somehow," said her ladyship. +"It's impossible to shut one's eyes to it. I've been talking to +Constance about it, and what she says is certainly true. When one's +father has chronic gout, and one's stepmother severe nervous depression, +one knows without further particulars how difficult it would be to be +married from home. She says she simply won't be married from her +Porchhammer sister's, because she gushes, and it isn't fair to Percy. +Her other sister--the one with a name like Rattrap--doesn't gush, but +her husband's going to stand for Stockport." + +"I suppose," said Gwen, "those are both good reasons. Anyhow, you'll +have to accommodate the happy couple. I see that. I suppose papa will +have to give her away. If she allows Madame Pontet to groom her, she'll +look eighteen. I wonder whether they couldn't manage to...." + +"Couldn't manage to...?" + +"Oh no, I see it would be out of the question, because of the time. I +was going to say--wait for _us_. And then we could all have been married +together." Gwen had remembered the Self-denying Ordinance, which was to +last six months, and was not even inaugurated. She looked up at her +mother. "Come, dear mother of mine, there's nothing to be shocked at in +that!" + +The Countess had risen from her seat, as though to depart. She stood +looking across the wintry expanse of Hyde Park, seen through a +bow-window across a balcony, with shrubs in boxes getting the full +benefit of a seasonable nor'easter; and when at length she spoke, gave +no direct reply. "I came up here to talk to you about it," she said. +"But I see it would not be of any use. I may as well go. Did Dr. +Dalrymple say when Clotilda would be out of danger? Supposing that all +goes well, I mean." + +"How can he tell? I'm glad I'm not a doctor with a critical case, and +everyone trying to make me prophesy favourable results. It's worse for +him than it is for us, anyhow, poor man!" + +"Why? He's not a relation, is he?" + +"No. Oh no! Perhaps if he were one.... Well--perhaps if he were, he +wouldn't look so miserable.... No--they are only very old friends." The +Countess had not asked; this was all brain-wave, helped by shades of +expression. "I'm not supposed to _know_ anything, you know," added Gwen, +to adjust matters. + +"Well--I suppose we must hope for the best," said her mother, with an +implied recognition of Providence in the background; a mere civility! +"Now I'm going." + +"Very well then--go!" was what Gwen did _not_ say in reply. She only +thought that, if she _had_ said it, it would have served mamma right. +What she did say was:--"I know what you meant to say when you came +upstairs, and you had better say it. Only I shall do nothing of the +sort." + +"I wish, my dear, you would be less positive. How can you know what I +meant to say? Of _what_ sort?" + +"Reconsidering Adrian. Jilting him, in fact!" + +"How can you know that?" + +"Because you said it would not be any use talking to me about it. Just +before you stopped looking out of the window, and said you might as well +go." + +Driven to bay, the Countess had a sudden _accès_ of argumentative power. +"Is there nothing it would be no use to talk to you about except this +mad love-affair of yours?" + +"Nothing so big. This is the big one. Besides, you know you did mean +Adrian." As her ladyship did, she held her tongue. + +Presently, having in the meantime resumed her seat, thereby admitting +that her daughter was substantially right, she went on to what might be +considered official publication. + +"Your father and I, my dear, have had a good deal of talk about this +unfortunate affair...." + +"What unfortunate affair?" + +"This unfortunate ... love-affair." + +"Cousin Percy and Aunt Constance?" + +"My dear! How can you be so ridiculous? Of course I am referring to you +and Mr. Torrens." + +"To me and Adrian. Precisely what I said, mamma dear! So now we can go +on." The young lady managed somehow to express, by seating herself +negligently on a chair with its back to her mother, that she meant to +pay no attention whatever to any maternal precept. She could look at her +over it, to comply with her duties as a respectful listener. But not to +overdo them, she could play the treble of Haydn's Gipsy Rondo on the +chair back with fingers that would have put a finishing touch on the +exasperation of Helen of Troy. + +Her ladyship continued:--"We are speaking of the same thing. Your father +and I have had several conversations about it. As I was saying when you +interrupted me--pray do not do so again!--he agrees with me _entirely_. +In fact, he told me of his own accord that he wished you to come away +with me for six months.... Yes--six! Three's ridiculous.... And that it +should be quite distinctly understood that no binding engagement exists +between Mr. Torrens and yourself." + +"All right. I've no objection to anything being distinctly understood, +so long as it is also distinctly understood that it doesn't make a +particle of difference to either of us.... Yes--come in! Put them on the +writing-table." This was to Miss Lutwyche, who came in, bearing letters. + +"To either of you! You answer for Mr. Torrens, my dear, with a good deal +of confidence. Now, do consider that the circumstances are peculiar. +Suppose he were to recover his eyesight!" + +"You mean he wouldn't be able to bear the shock of finding out what he'd +got to marry...." She was interrupted by her mother exhibiting +consciousness of the presence of Lutwyche, whose exit was overdue. A +very trustworthy young woman, no doubt; but a line had to be drawn. +"What are you fiddling with my letters for, Lutwyche?" said Gwen. "Do +please get done and go!" + +"Yes, my lady." Discreet retirement of Miss Lutwyche. + +"She didn't hear, mamma. You needn't fuss." + +"I was not fussing, my dear, but it's as well to.... Yes, go on with +what you were saying." Because Lutwyche, being extinct, might be +forgotten. + +Gwen was looking round at the mirror. If Helen of Troy had seen herself +in a mirror, all else being alike, what would her verdict have been? +Gwen seemed fairly satisfied. "You meant Adrian might be disgusted?" +said she. + +The mother could not resist the pleasure of a satisfied glance at her +daughter's reflection, which was not looking at _her_. "I meant nothing +of the sort," she said. "But your father agreed with me--indeed, I am +repeating his own words--that Mr. Torrens may have a false impression, +having only really seen you once, under very peculiar circumstances. It +is only human nature, and one has to make allowance for human nature. +Now all that I am saying, and all that your father is saying, is that +the circumstances _are_ peculiar. Without some sort of reasonable +guarantee that Mr. Torrens cannot recover his eyesight, I do contend +that it would be in the highest degree rash to take an irrevocable step, +and to condemn one--perhaps both, for I assure you I am thinking of Mr. +Torrens's welfare as well as your own--to a lifetime of repentance." + +"Mamma dear, don't be a humbug! You are only putting in Adrian's welfare +for the sake of appearances. Much better let it alone!" + +"My dear, it is not the point. If you choose to think me inhumane, you +must do so. Only I must say this, that apart from the fact that I have +nothing whatever against Mr. Torrens personally--except his religious +views, which are lamentable--that his parents...." + +"I thought you said you never knew his mother." + +"No--perhaps not his mother." Her ladyship intensified the parenthetical +character of this lady by putting her into smaller type and omitting +punctuation:--"I can't say I ever really knew his mother and indeed +hardly anything about her except that she was a Miss Abercrombie and +goes plaguing on about negroes. But"--here she became normal again--"as +for his father...." + +"As for his father?" + +"He was a constant visitor at my mother's, and I remember him very well. +So there is no feeling on my part against him or his family." Her +ladyship felt she had come very cleverly out of a bramble-bush she had +got entangled in unawares, but she wanted to leave it behind on the +road, and pushed on, speaking more earnestly:--"Indeed, my dearest +child, it is of you and your happiness that I am thinking--although I +know you won't believe me, and it's no use my saying anything...." At +this point feelings were threatened; and Gwen, between whom and her +mother there was plenty of affection, of a sort, hastened to allay--or +perhaps avert--them. She shifted her seat to the sofa beside her mother, +which made daughterliness more possible. A short episode of mutual +extenuations followed; for had not a flavour of battle--not tigerish, +but contentious--pervaded the interview? + +"Very well, then, dear mother of mine," said Gwen, when this episode +had come to an end. "Suppose we consider it settled that way! I'm to be +tractability itself, on the distinct understanding that it commits me to +nothing whatever. As for the six months' penal servitude, you and papa +shall have it your own way. Only play fair--make a fair start, I mean! I +like method. You have only to say when--any time after Christmas--and +Adrian and I will tear ourselves asunder for six months. And then I'll +accompany my mamma to Vienna, because I know that's what she wants. Only +mind--honour bright!--as soon as I have dutifully forgotten Adrian for +six whole months, there's to be an end of the nonsense, and I'm to marry +Adrian ... and _vice versa_, of course! Oh no--he shan't be a cipher--I +won't allow it...." + +"My dear Gwendolen, I wish I could persuade you to be more serious." But +her ladyship, as she rose to depart, was congratulating herself on +having scored. The idea of any young lady's love-fancies surviving six +months of Viennese life! She knew that fascinating capital well, and she +knew also what a powerful ally she would find in her elder daughter, the +Ambassadress, who was glittering there all this while as a distinct +constellation. + +She might just as well have retired satisfied with this brilliant +prospect; only that she had, like so many of us, the postscript vice. +This is the one that never will allow a conversation to be at an end. +She turned to Gwen, who was already opening a letter to read, to +say:--"You used the expressions 'reconsidering' and 'jilting' just now, +my dear, as if they were synonymous. I think you were forgetting that it +is impossible to 'jilt'--if I understand that term rightly--any man +until after you have become formally engaged to him, and therefore.... +However, if your letter is so very important, I can go. We can talk +another time." This rather stiffly, Gwen having opened the letter, and +been caught and held, apparently, by something in a legible handwriting. +Whatever it was, Gwen put it down with reluctance, that she might show +her sense of the importance of her mother's departure, whom she kissed +and olive-branched, beyond what she accounted her lawful claims, in +order to wind her up. She went with her as far as the landing, where +cramped stairs ended and gradients became indulgent, and then got back +as fast as she could to the reading of that letter. + +It _was_ an important letter, there could be no doubt of that, as a +thick one from Irene--practically from Adrian--lay unopened on the table +while she read through something on many pages that made her face go +paler at each new paragraph. On its late envelope, lying opened by +Irene's, was the postmark "Chorlton-under-Bradbury." But it was in a +handwriting Gwen was unfamiliar with. It was _not_ old Mrs. Picture's, +which she knew quite well. For which reasons the thought had crossed her +mind, when she first saw the envelope, that the old lady was seriously +ill--perhaps suddenly dead. It was so very possible. Think of those +delicate transparent hands, that frame whose old tenant had outstayed so +many a notice to quit. Gwen's cousin, Percy Pellew, had said to her when +he carried it upstairs in Cavendish Square, that it weighed absolutely +nothing. + +But this letter said nothing of death, nor of illness with danger of +death. And yet Gwen was so disturbed by it that there was scarcely a +brilliant visitor to her mother's that afternoon but said to some other +brilliant visitor:--"What can be the matter with Gwen? She's not +herself!" And then each corrected the other's false impression that it +was the dangerous condition of her most intimate cousin and friend, Miss +Clotilda Grahame; or screws loose and jammed bearings in the machinery +of her love-affair, already the property of Rumour. And as each +brilliant visitor was fain to seem better informed than his or her +neighbour, a very large allowance of inaccuracy and misapprehension was +added to the usual stock-in-trade of tittle-tattle on both these points. + +There was only a short interregnum between the last departures of this +brilliant throng, and the arrival of a quiet half-dozen to dinner; not a +party, only a soothing half-dozen after all that noise and turmoil. So +that Gwen got no chance of a talk with her father, which was what she +felt very much in need of. That interregnum was only just enough to +allow of a few minutes' rest before dressing for dinner. But the quiet +half-dozen came, dined, and went away early; perhaps the earlier that +their hostess's confessions of fatigue amounted to an appeal _ad +misericordiam_; and Gwen was reserved and silent. When the last of the +half-dozen had departed, Gwen got her opportunity. "Don't keep your +father up too long, child," said the Countess, over the stair-rail. "It +makes him sleep in the day, and it's bad for him." And vanished, with a +well-bred yawn-noise, a trochee, the short syllable being the apology +for the long one. + +The Earl had allowed the quiet three, who remained with him at the +dinner-table after their three quiet better-halves had retired with his +wife and daughter, to do all the smoking, and had saved up for his own +cigar by himself. It was his way. So Gwen knew she need not hurry +through preliminaries. Of course he wanted to know about the Typhus +patient, and she gave a good report, without stint. "_That's_ all +right," said he, in the tone of rejoicing which implies a double +satisfaction, one for the patient's sake, one for one's own, as it is no +longer a duty to be anxious. + +"Why are you glaring at me so, papa darling?" said his daughter. It was +a most placid glare. She should have said "looking." + +"Your mamma tells me," said he, without modifying the glare, "that she +has persuaded you to go with her to Vienna for six months." + +"She said you wished me to go." + +"She wishes you to go herself, and I wish what she wishes." This was not +mere submissiveness. It was just as much loyalty and chivalry. "Is it a +very terrible trial, the Self-denying Ordinance?" + +Gwen answered rather stonily. "It isn't pleasant, but if you and my +mother think it necessary--why, what must be, must! I'm ready to go any +time. Only I must go and wind up with Adrian first ... just to console +him a little! It's worse for him than for me! Just fancy him left alone +for six months and never seeing me!... Oh dear!--you know what I mean." +For she had made the slip that was so usual. She brushed it aside as a +thing that could not be helped, and would even be sure to happen again, +and continued:--"Irene has just written to me. I got her letter to-day." + +"Well?" + +"She makes what I think a very good suggestion--for me to go to Pensham +to stay a week after Christmas, and then go in for.... What do you call +it?... the Self-denying Ordinance in earnest afterwards. You don't +mind?" + +"Not in the least, as long as your mother agrees. Is that Miss +Torrens's--Irene's--letter?" + +"No. It's another one I want to speak to you about. Wait with +patience!... I was going to say what exasperating parents I have +inherited ... from somewhere!" + +"From your grandparents, I suppose! But why?" + +"Because when I say, may I do this or may I say that, you always say, +'Yes if your mother,' etcetera, and then mamma quotes you to squash me. +I don't think it's playing the game." + +"I think I gather from your statement, which is a little obscure, that +your mamma and I are like the two proctors in Dickens's novel. +Well!--it's a time-honoured arrangement as between parents, though I +admit it may be exasperating to their young. What's the other letter?" + +"I want to tell you about it first," said Gwen. She then told, without +obscurity this time, the events which had followed the Earl's departure +from the Towers a week since. "And then comes this letter," she +concluded. "Isn't it terrible?" + +"Let's see the letter," said the Earl. She handed it to him; and then, +going behind his high chair, looked over him as he read. No one ever +waits really patiently for another to read what he or she has already +read. So Gwen did not. She changed the elbow she leaned on, restlessly; +bit her lips, turn and turn about; pulled her bracelets round and round, +and watched keenly for any chance of interposing an abbreviated _précis_ +of the text, to expedite the reading. Her father preferred to understand +the letter, rather than to get through it in a hurry and try back; so he +went deliberately on with it, reading it half aloud, with comments: + + +"AT STRIDES COTTAGE, +"CHORLTON-UNDER-BRADBURY, +"_November 22, 1854_. + + "MY LADY, + + "I have followed your instructions, and brought the old Mrs. + Prichard here to stay until you may please to make another + arrangement. My mother will gladly remain at my daughter's at her + husband's farm, near Dessington, till such time as may be suitable + for Mrs. Prichard to return. This I do not wish to say because I + want to lose this old lady, for if your ladyship will pardon the + liberty I take in saying so, she is a dear old person, and I do in + truth love her, and am glad to have charge of her." + +"She seems always to make conquests," said the Earl. "I acknowledge to +having been _épris_ myself." + +"Yes, she really is an old darling. But go on and don't talk. It's what +comes next." She pointed out the place over his shoulder, and he took +the opportunity to rub his cheek against her arm, which she requited by +kissing the top of his head. He read on: + + "Nor yet would my mother's return make any difference, for we could + accommodate, and I would take no other children just yet a while. + Toby goes home to-morrow. But I will tell you there is something, + and it is this, only your ladyship may be aware of it, that the old + lady has delusions and a strange turn to them, in which Dr. Nash + agrees with me it is more than old age, and recommends my mother, + being old too, not to come back till she goes, for it would not be + good for her, for anything of this sort is most trying to the + nerves, and my mother is eighty-one this Christmas, just old Mrs. + Prichard's own age." + +"I think that's the end of the sentence," said the Earl. "I take it that +Nash, who's a very sharp fellow in his own line, is quite alive to the +influence of insanity on some temperaments, and knows old Mrs. Marrable +well enough to say she ought not to be in the way of a lunatic.... +What's that?" + +"A lunatic!" For Gwen had started and shuddered at the word. + +"I see no use in mincing matters. That's what the good woman is driving +at. What comes next?" He read on: + + "I will tell all what happened, my lady, from when she first + entered the house, asking pardon for my length. It began when I was + showing the toy water-mill on our mantel-shelf, which your ladyship + saw with Miss Grahame. I noticed she was very agitated, but did not + put it down to the sight of this toy till she said how ever could + it have been _my_ grandfather's mill, and then I only took it for + so many words, and got her away to bed, and would have thought it + only an upset, but for next morning, when I found her out of bed + before six, no one else being up but me, measuring over the toy + with her hands where it stood on the shelf, and I should not have + seen her only for our dog calling attention, though a dumb animal, + being as I was in the yard outside." + +"I think I follow that," said the Earl. "The dog pulled her skirts, and +had a lot to say and couldn't say it." + +"That was it," said Gwen. "Just like Adrian's Achilles. I don't mean +he's like Achilles personally. The most awful bulldog, to look at, with +turn-up tusks and a nose like a cup. But go on and you'll see. 'Yard +outside.'" + + "I would have thought her sleep-walking, but she saw me and spoke + clear, saying she could not sleep for thinking of a model of her + father's mill in Essex as like this as two peas, and thought it + must be the same model, only now she had laid her hands on it again + she could see how small it was. She seemed so reasonable that I was + in a fright directly, particularly it frightened me she should say + Essex, because my grandfather's mill was in Essex, showing it was + all an idea of her own...." + +"I can't exactly follow that," said the Earl, and re-read the words +deliberately. + +"Oh, can't you see?" said Gwen. "_I_ see. If she had said the other mill +was in Lancashire, it would have seemed _possible_. But--both in +Essex!" + +"I suppose that's it. Two models of mills exactly alike, and both in +Essex, is too great a tax on human credulity. On we go again! Where are +we? Oh--'idea of her own.'" + + "But I got her back to bed, and got her some breakfast an hour + later, begging she would not talk, and she was very good and said + no more. After this I moved the model out of the way, that nothing + might remind her, and she was quiet and happy. So I did not send + for Dr. Nash then. But when it came to afternoon, I saw it coming + back. She got restless to see the model I had put by out of sight, + saying she could not make out this and that, particular the two + little girls. And then it was she gave me a great fright, for when + I told her the two little girls was my mother and my aunt, being + children under ten, over seventy years ago, and twins, she had + quite a bad attack, such as I have never seen, shaking all over, + and crying out, 'What is it?--What is it?' So then I sent Elizabeth + next door for Dr. Nash, who came and was most kind, and Mrs. Nash + after. He gave her a sedative, and said not to let her talk. He + said, too, not to write to you just yet, for she might get quite + right in a little while, and then he would tell you himself." + +"Poor darling old Mrs. Picture!" said Gwen. "Fancy her going off like +this! But I think I can see what has done it. You know, she has told me +how she was one of twins, and how her father had a flour-mill in Essex." + +"Did she say the name?" + +"No--she's very odd about that. She never tells any names, except that +her sister was Phoebe. She told me _that_.... Oh yes--she told me her +little girl's name was Ruth." Gwen did not know the christened name of +either Granny Marrable or Widow Thrale, when she said this. + +"Phoebe and Ruth," said the Earl. "Pretty names! But _what_ has done it? +What can you see?... You said just now?..." + +"Oh, I understand. Of course, it's the twins and the flour-mill in +Essex. Such a coincidence! Enough to upset anybody's reason, let alone +an old woman of eighty! Poor dear old Mrs. Picture!--she's as sane as +you or I." + +"Suppose we finish the letter. Where were we? 'Tell you himself'--is +that it? All right!" + + "Then she was quiet again, quite a long time. But when we was + sitting together in the firelight after supper, she had it come on + again, and I fear by my own fault, for Dr. Nash says I was in the + wrong to say a word to her of any bygones. And yet it was but to + clear her mind of the mixing together of Darenth Mill and this + mill she remembers. For I had but just said the name of ours, and + that my grandfather's name was Isaac Runciman when I saw it was + coming on, she shaking and trembling and crying out like before, + 'Oh, what is it? Only tell me what it _is_!' And then 'Our mill was + Darenth Mill,' and 'Isaac Runciman was my father.' And other things + she could not have known that had been no word of mine, only Dr. + Nash found out why, all these things having been told to little + Dave Wardle last year, and doubtless repeated childlike. And yet, + my lady, though I know well where the dear old soul has gotten all + these histories, seeing there is no other way possible, it is I do + assure you enough to turn my own reason to hear her go on telling + and telling of one thing and another all what our little boy we had + here has made into tales for his amusement, such-like as Mr. Pitt + and Mr. Fox our horses, and she had just remembered the foreman's + name Muggeridge when she saw the model; it makes my head fairly + spin to hear. Only I take this for my comfort, that I can see + behind her words to know the tale is not of her making, but only + Dave, like when she said Dave must have meant Muggeridge in his + last letter, and would I find it to show her, only I could not. And + like when she talked of her old piano at her father's, there I + could see was our old piano my mother bought at a sale, now stood + in a corner here where I had talked of it the evening I had the old + lady here first. I am naming all these things that your ladyship + may see I do right to keep my mother away from Strides till Mrs. + Prichard goes. But I do wish to say again that that day when it + comes will be a sad one for me, for I do love her dearly and that + is the truth, though it is but a week and a day, and Dr. Nash does + not wonder at this." + +"If I remember right," said the Earl, stopping, "Nash has made some +study of Insanity--written about it. He knows how very charming lunatics +can be. You know your Great-Aunt Eileen fairly bewitched the Lord +Chancellor when he interviewed her...." + +"Did he see the lunatics himself?..." + +"When they were fascinating and female--yes!... Well, what happened was +that she waited to be sure he had refused to issue the Commission, and +then went straight for Lady Lostwithiel's throat--her sister-in-law, you +know...." + +"Did that show she was mad?" + +"Let us keep to the point. What does 'Muggeridge' mean?" + +"I was thinking. 'Muggeridge'! But _I've_ got Dave's last letter. I'll +get it." And she was off before the Earl could say that to-morrow would +do as well. + +He went on smoking the bitter--and bitten--end of his cigar, which had +gone slowly, owing to the reading. Instead of finishing up the letter, +he went back, carefully re-reading the whole with absorbed attention. So +absorbed, that Gwen, coming in quietly with a fresh handful of letters, +was behind his chair unobserved, and had said:--"Well, and what do you +make of it?" before he looked up at her. + +"Verdict in accordance with the medical opinion, I _think_. But let's +see Dave's letter." He took and read to himself. "_I_ see," said he. +"The cross stood for Dolly's love. A mere proxy. But _he_ sends the real +article. I like the 'homliburst,' too. Why did Dolly's lady want to +_towel_ Mrs. Spicture?... Oh, I see, it's the name of our house ... +h'm--h'm--h'm!... Now where do we come to Muggeridge?... Oh, here we +are! I've got it. Well--that's plain enough. Muggeridge. M, U, one G, E, +R, I, J for D, G, E. That's quite plain. Can't see what you want more." + +"Oh yes, it's all very easy for you, now you've been told. _I_ couldn't +make head or tail of it. And I don't wonder dear old Mrs. Picture +couldn't...." + +The Earl looked up suddenly. "Stop a bit!" said he. "Now where was it in +Mrs. Thrale's letter. I had it just now ... here it is! 'The old lady +had just remembered the foreman's name when she saw the model.' Got +_that_?" + +"Yes--but I don't see...." + +"No--but listen! Dr. Nash found out that all these particulars were of +Dave's communicating. Got that?" + +"Yes--but still I don't see...." + +"Don't chatterbox! Listen to your father. Keep those two points in mind, +and then consider that when you read her Dave's letter she could not +identify his misspelt name, which seems perfectly obvious and easy to +me, now I know it. How _could_ she forget it so as not to be reminded of +it by a misspelt version? Can you conceive that she should fail, if she +had heard the name from the child so clearly as to have it on the tip of +her tongue the moment she saw the mill she only knew from Dave's +description?" + +"No--it certainly does seem very funny!" + +"Very funny. Now let's see what the rest of the letter says." He went on +reading: + + "I know your ladyship will pardon the liberty I take to write at + such length, seeing the cause of it, and also if I may suggest that + your ladyship might send for Mrs. Bird, who lives with Mrs. + Prichard, or for the parents of the little Dave Wardle, to inquire + of them has she been subject to attacks or is this new. I should + tell you that she has now been free from any aberration of mind, so + Dr. Nash says, for nearly two days, mostly knitting quietly to + herself, without talk, and sometimes laying down the needles like + to think. Dr. Nash says to talk to her when she talks, but to keep + her off of bygones, and the like. She has asked for things to write + you a letter herself, and I have promised as soon as this is done. + But I will not wait for hers to post this, as Dr. Nash says the + sooner you know the better. I will now stop, again asking pardon + for so long a letter, and remain, my lady, your obedient and + faithful servant. + + "R. THRALE" + +"How very like what everyone else does!" said the Earl. "This good woman +writes so close to economize paper that she leaves no room for her +signature and goes in for her initial. I was wanting to know her +Christian name. Do you know it? And see--she has to take more paper +after all! Here's a postscript." + + "P.S.--There is another reason why it is better not to have my + mother back till Mrs. Prichard goes, she herself having been much + upset by a man who said he was Mrs. Prichard's son, and was looking + for his mother. My son-in-law, John Costrell, came over to tell me. + This man had startled and alarmed my mother _very much_. I should + be sorry he should come here to make Mrs. Prichard worse, but my + mother is no doubt best away. I am not afraid of him myself, + because of our dog." + +"That dog is a treasure," said the Earl, re-enveloping the letter. "What +are those other letters? Irene's?... And what?" + +"I was trying to think of Mrs. Thrale's Christian name. I don't think I +know it.... Yes--Irene's, and some papers I want you to lock up, for +me." Gwen went on to tell of the inroad on Mrs. Prichard's _secrétaire_, +and explained that she was absolutely certain of forgiveness. "Only you +will keep them safer than I shall, in your big ebony cabinet. I think I +can trust you to give them back." She laid them on the table, gave her +father an affectionate double-barrelled kiss, and went away to bed. It +was very late indeed. + +Mr. Norbury, in London, always outlived everyone else at night. The Earl +rather found a satisfaction, at the Towers, in being the last to leave +port, on a voyage over the Ocean of Sleep. In London it was otherwise, +but not explicably. The genesis of usage in households is a very +interesting subject, but the mere chronicler can only accept facts, not +inquire into causes. Mr. Norbury always _did_ give the Earl a send-off +towards Dreamland, and saw the house deserted, before he vanished to a +secret den in the basement. + +"Norbury," said the Earl, sending the pilot off, metaphorically. "You +know the two widows, mother and daughter, at Chorlton-under-Bradbury? +Strides Cottage." + +"Yes, indeed, my lord! All my life. I knew the old lady when she came +from Darenth, in Essex, to marry her second husband, Marrable." Norbury +gave other particulars which the story knows. + +"Then Widow Thrale is not Granny Marrable's daughter, though she calls +her mother?" + +"That is the case, my lord. She was a pretty little girl--maybe eleven +years old--and was her mother's bridesmaid.... I should say her aunt's." + +"Who was her mother?" + +"I have understood it was a twin sister." + +"Who was her father?" + +Mr. Norbury hesitated. "If your lordship would excuse, I would prefer +not to say. The story came to me through two persons. My own informant +had it from Thrale. But it's near twenty years ago, and I could not +charge my memory, to a certainty." + +"Something you don't like to tell?" + +"Not except I could speak to a certainty." Mr. Norbury, evidently +embarrassed, wavered respectfully. + +"Was there a convict in it, certain or uncertain?" + +"There was, my lord. Certain, I fear. But I am uncertain about his name. +Peverell, or Deverell." + +"What was he convicted of? What offence?" + +"I rather think it was forgery, my lord, but I may be wrong about that. +The story said his wife followed him to Van Diemen's Land, and died +there?" + +"That was Thrale's story?" + +"Thrale's story." + +"He must have known." + +"Oh, he knew!" + +"What is old Mrs. Marrable's Christian name?" + +"I believe she was always called Phoebe. Her first married name was a +very unusual one, Cropredy." + +"And Widow Thrale's?" + +"Ruth--Keziah Solmes calls her, I think." + +His lordship made no reply; and, indeed, said never a word until he +released Mr. Norbury in his dressing-room ten minutes later, being then +as it were wound up for a good night's rest, and safe to go till +morning. Even then the current of serious thought into which he seemed +to have plunged seemed too engrossing to allow of his making a start. He +remained sitting in the easy-chair before the fire, with intently +knitted brows and a gaze divided between the vigorous flare to which Mr. +Norbury's final benediction had incited it, and the packet of letters +Gwen had given him, which he had placed on the table beside him. Behind +him was what Gwen had spoken of as his big ebony cabinet. If a ghost +that could not speak was then and there haunting that chamber, its +tongue must have itched to remind his lordship what a satisfaction it +would be to a disembodied bystander to get a peep into the cinquecento +recesses of that complicated storehouse of ancient documents, which was +never opened in the presence of anyone but its owner. + +Gradually Gwen's packet absorbed more than its fair share of the Earl's +attention; finally, seemed to engross it completely. He ended by cutting +the outer string, taking the contents out, and placing them before him +on the table, assorting them in groups, like with like. + +There were the printed formal warrants, variously signed and attested, +of some assignments or transfers--things of no interest or moment. Put +them by! There were one or two new sheets covered with a child's printed +efforts towards a handwriting manifestly the same as the one recently +under discussion, even without the signature, "dAve wARdLe." There was a +substantial accumulation of folded missives in an educated man's hand, +and another in a woman's; of which last the outermost--being a folded +sheet that made its own envelope--showed a receipt postmark "Macquarie. +June 24, 1807," and a less visible despatch-stamp "Darenth. Nov. 30, +1806," telling its tale of over six months on the road. Then one, +directed in another hand, a man's, but with the same postmarks, both of +1808, with the months undecipherable. This last seemed the most +important, being tied with tape. It was the elder Daverill's successful +forgery, treasured by old Maisie as the last letter from her family in +England, telling of her sister Phoebe's death. All the letters were +addressed to "Mrs. Thornton Daverill," the directions being only partly +visible, owing to the folding. + +Lest the reader should be inclined to blame the accidental possessor of +these letters for doing what this story must perforce put on record, and +to say that his action disgraced the Earldom of Ancester, let it remind +him what the facts were that were already in his lordship's possession, +and ask him whether he himself, so circumstanced, might not have felt +as the Earl did--that the case was one for a sacrifice of punctilios in +the face of the issues that turned upon their maintenance. Had he any +right to connive at the procrastination of some wicked secret--for he +had the clue--when a trivial sacrifice of self-respect might bring it to +light? He could see that Mrs. Prichard _must_ be the twin sister, +somehow. But he did not see how, as yet; and he wanted confirmation and +elucidation. These letters would contain both, or correction and +guidance. Was he to bewilder Gwen with his own partial insights, or take +on himself to sift the grist clean before he milled it for her +consumption? He was not long in deciding. + +Two or three slippered turns up and down the room, very cautious lest +they should wake her ladyship in the adjoining one, were all the case +required. Then he resumed his seat, and, deliberately taking up the +taped letter, opened it and read: + + "MY DEAR DAUGHTER MAISIE, + + "It is with great pain that I take up my pen to acquaint you of the + fatal calamity which has befallen your sister Phoebe and her + husband, as well as I grieve to say of your own child Ruth, my + granddaughter, all three of whom there is every reason to fear have + lost their lives at sea on the sailing-packet _Scheldt_, from + Antwerp to London, which is believed to have gone down with every + soul on board in the great gale of September 30, now nearly two + months since. + + "You will be surprised that your sister and little girl should be + on the seas, but that this should be so was doubtless the Will of + God, and in compliance with His ordinances, though directly + contrary to my own advice. Had due attention been paid to my wishes + this might have been avoided. Here is the account of how it + happened, from which you may judge for yourself: + + "Your brother-in-law Cropredy's imprudence is no doubt to answer + for it, he having run the risk of travelling abroad to put himself + in personal communication with a house of business at Malines, a + most unwholesome place for an Englishman, though no doubt healthy + for foreigners. As I had forewarned him, he contracted fever in the + heat of August, when ill-fed on a foreign diet, which, however + suitable to them, is fatal to an English stomach, and little better + than in France. The news of this illness coming to your sister, she + would not be resigned to the Will of Providence, to which we should + all bow rather than rashly endanger our lives, but took upon + herself to decide, contrary to my remonstrance, to cross the + Channel with the little girl, of whom I could have taken charge + here at my own home. Merciful to say, the fever left him, having a + good constitution from English living, and all was promise of a + safe return, seeing the weather was favourable when the ship left + the quay, and a fair wind. But of that ship no further is known, + only she has not been heard of since, and doubtless is gone to the + bottom in the great gale which sprung up in mid-channel, for so + many have done the like. Even as the ships of Jehosaphat were + broken that they were not able to go to Tarshish (Chron. II. xx. + 37). + + "There is, I fear, no room for hope that, short of a miracle, for + the sea will not give up its dead (Rev. xx. 13), any remains should + be recovered, but you may rest assured that if any come to the + surface and are identified they shall be interred in the family + grave where your sainted mother was laid, and reposes in the Lord, + in a sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection (Acts xxiii. + 6). + + "Believe me, my dear daughter, to remain your affectionate father + + "ISAAC RUNCIMAN. + + "I have no message for my son-in-law, nor do I retain any + resentment towards him, forgiving him as I wish to be forgiven + (Luke vi. 37). + +"DARENTH MILL, + _Oct. 16, 1807_." + +The Earl read this letter through twice--three times--and apparently his +bewilderment only increased as he re-read it. At last he refolded it, as +though no more light could come from more reading, and sat a moment +still, thinking intently. Then he suddenly exclaimed aloud:--"Amazing," +adding under his voice:--"But perfectly inexplicable!" Then, going on +even less audibly:--"I must see what Hawtrey can make of this...." At +which point he was taken aback by a voice through the door from the next +room:--"What _are_ you talking to yourself so for? Can't you get to +bed?" Palpably the voice of an awakened Countess! He replied in a +conciliatory spirit, and accepted the suggestion, first putting the +letters safely away in the ebony cabinet. + + * * * * * + +Anyone who reads this forged letter with a full knowledge of all the +circumstances will see that it was at best, from the literary and +dramatic point of view, a bungling composition. But style was not called +for so long as the statements were coherent. For what did the forger's +wife know of what her father's style would be under these or any +abnormal circumstances? Had she ever had a letter at all from him +before? Even that is doubtful. The shock, moreover, was enough to +unbalance the most critical judgment. + +Two things are very noticeable in the letter. One that it fights shy of +strong expressions of feeling, as though its fabricator had felt that +danger lay that way; the other that he manifestly enjoyed his Scripture +references, familiar to him by his long experience of gaol-chaplains, +and warranted by his knowledge of his father-in-law. We--who write +this--have referred to the passages indicated, and found the connection +of ideas to be about an average sample, as coherency goes when quotation +from Scripture is afoot. No doubt Maisie's husband found their selection +entertaining. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + THE LEGAL ACUMEN OF THOTHMES. OF COURSE IT WAS ISAAC RUNCIMAN'S + SIGNATURE. THE ANTIPODEAN INK. HOW LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS WAS MADE OF + WOOD. HOW GWEN AND HER FATHER CAME OFF THEIR P'S AND Q'S. THE + RIDDLE AS GOOD AS SOLVED. HOW GWEN GOT A LIFT TO CAVENDISH SQUARE + AND HER MOTHER WENT ON TO HELP TO ABOLISH SOUTH CAROLINA. ANOTHER + LIFT, IN A PILL-BOX. SAPPS COURT'S VIEWS OF THE WAR. MICHAEL + RAGSTROAR'S HALF-SISTER'S BROTHER-IN-LAW. LIVE EELS. BALL'S POND. + MRS. RILEY'S ELEVEN RELATIVES. MRS. TAPPING'S NAVAL CONNECTIONS. + OLD BILLY. RUM SHRUB. LOUIS NAPOLEON AND KING SOLOMON. A PARTY IN + THE BAR. WHICH WAY DID HE GO? + + +Said his lordship next morning to Mr. Norbury, bringing him preliminary +tea at eight o'clock:--"I want to catch Mr. Hawtrey before he goes to +Lincoln's Inn. Send round to say.... No--give me one of my cards and a +pencil.... There!--send that round at once, because he goes early." + +The result was that Mr. Hawtrey was announced while the Earl was having +real breakfast with Gwen and her mother at ten, and was shown into the +library. Also that the real breakfast was hurried and frustrated, that +Mr. Hawtrey should not be kept waiting. For the Earl counter-ordered his +last cup of tea, and went away with his fast half broken. So her +ladyship sent the cup after him to the library. He sent a message back +to Gwen. Would her ladyship be sure not to go out without seeing him? +She would. + +Mr. Hawtrey was known to Gwen as the Earl's solicitor, a man of +perfectly incredible weight and importance. He was deep in the Lord +Chancellor's confidence, and had boxes in tiers in his office, to read +the names on which was a Whig and Tory education. If all the acres of +land that had made Mr. Hawtrey's acquaintance, somehow or other, had +been totalled on condition that it was fair to count twice over, the +total total would have been as large as Asia, at a rough guess. His +clerks--or his firm's, Humphrey and Hawtrey's--had witnessed leases, +wills, transfers, and powers of attorney, numerous enough to fill the +Rolls Office, but so far as was known none of them had ever been called +on to attest his own signature. Personally, Mr. Hawtrey had always +seemed to Gwen very like an Egyptian God or King, and she would speak of +him as Thothmes and Rameses freely. Her father admitted the likeness, +but protested against her levity, as this gentleman was his most trusted +adviser, inherited with his title and estates. The Earldom of Ancester +had always been in the habit of consulting Mr. Hawtrey about all sorts +of things, not necessarily legal. + +So when Gwen was sent for to her father's sanctum, and went, she was not +surprised to hear that he had given Mr. Hawtrey all the particulars she +had told him of Mrs. Prichard's history, and a clear outline of the +incidents up to that date, ending with the seeming insanity of the old +lady. "But," said the Earl, who appeared very serious, "I have given no +names. I have sent for you now, Gwen, to get your consent to my making +no reserves with Mr. Hawtrey, in whose advice I have great confidence." +Mr. Hawtrey acknowledged this testimony, and Gwen acknowledged that +gentleman's desert; each by a bow, but Gwen's was the more flexible +performance. + +She just hung back perceptibly over giving the _carte blanche_ asked +for. "I suppose no harm can come of it--to anybody?" said she. None +whatever, apparently; so she assented. + +"Very good," said the Earl. "And now, my dear, I want you, before I show +it to Mr. Hawtrey, to read this letter, which I have opened on my own +responsibility--nobody to blame but me! I found it among your old lady's +letters you gave me to take care of." + +"Oh dear!" said Gwen. + +"I shall not show it to Mr. Hawtrey, unless you like. Take it and read +it. No hurry." Gwen was conscious that the solicitor sat as still as his +prototype Thothmes at the British Museum, and with as immovable a +countenance. + +She took the letter, glancing at the cover. "Who is Mrs. Thornton +Daverill?" said she, quite in the dark. + +"Go on and read," said the Earl. + +Gwen read half to herself:--"'My dear daughter Maisie,'" and then said +aloud:--"But that is Mrs. Prichard's name!" + +"Read through to the end," said the Earl. And Gwen, with a painful +feeling of bewilderment, obeyed orders, puzzling over phrases and +sentences to find the thing she was to read for, and staggered a moment +by the name "Cropredy," which she thought she must have misread. There +was no clue in the letter itself, as she did not know who "Phoebe" and +"Ruth" were. + +Her father's observation of her face quickened as she visibly neared the +end. She was quite taken aback by the signature, the moment it caught +her eye. "Isaac Runciman!" she exclaimed. "Why--that's--that's ..." + +"That's the name of Mrs. Marrable's father that old Mrs. Prichard lays +claim to for hers," said the Earl quietly. "And this letter is written +to his daughter, Mrs. Thornton Daverill, whose name is Maisie.... And +old Mrs. Prichard's name is Maisie.... And this letter is in the keeping +of old Mrs. Prichard." He left gaps, for his hearer to understand. + +"Good God!" exclaimed Gwen. "Then old Mrs. Prichard is _not_ mad." She +could only see that much for the moment--no details. "Oh, be quiet a +moment and let me think." She dropped the letter, and sat with her face +in her hands, as though to shut thought in and work the puzzle out. Her +father remained silent, watching her. + +Presently he said, quietly still, as though to help her:--"Norbury told +me last night what we did not know, that old Mrs. Marrable's name is +Phoebe, and that Widow Thrale's is Ruth...." + +"That old Mrs. Marrable is Phoebe and her daughter is Ruth." Gwen +repeated his words, as though learning a lesson, still with her fingers +crushing her eyes. + +"And that Ruth is not really Phoebe's daughter but her niece. And, +according to Norbury, she is the daughter of a twin sister, whose +husband was transported for forgery, and who followed him to Van +Diemen's Land, and died there." He raised his voice slightly to say +this. + +A more amazed face than Gwen's when she withdrew her fingers to fix her +startled eyes upon her father, would have been almost as hard to find as +a more beautiful one. + +"But that _is_ Mrs. Prichard, papa dear," she gasped. "Don't you _know_? +The story I told you!" + +"Exactly!" said the Earl. + +"But the letter--the letter! Phoebe and Ruth in the letter _cannot_ be +drowned, if they are Granny Marrable and Widow Thrale." A rapid +phantasmagoria of possibilities and impossibilities shot through her +mind. How could order come of such a chaos? + +"Excuse me," said Thothmes, speaking for the first time. "Do I +understand--I assume I am admitted to confidence--do I understand that +the letter states that these two women were drowned?" + +"Crossing from Antwerp. Yes!" + +"Then the letter is a falsehood, probably written with a bad motive." + +"But by their father--their father! Impossible!" + +"How does your ladyship know it was written by their father?" + +"It is signed by their father--at Darenth Mill in Essex. Both say Isaac +Runciman was their father." + +"It is signed with Isaac Runciman's name--so I understand. Is it certain +that it was signed by Isaac Runciman? May I now see the letter? _And_ +the envelope, please!--oh, the direction is on the back, of course." He +held the letter in front of him, but apparently took very little notice +of it. "As if," thought Gwen to herself, "he was thinking about his +Dynasty." + +"What do you make of it, Hawtrey?" said the Earl, but, getting no +answer, waited. Silence ensued. + +"_Yes_," said the lawyer, breaking it suddenly. He seemed to have seen +his way. "Now may I ask whether we have any means of knowing what the +forgery was for which this man was transported?" + +"Oh yes!" said Gwen. "Old Mrs. Prichard told me what he was accused of, +at least. Forging an acceptance--if that's right? I think that was it." + +"But whose signature? Did she say?" + +"Oh yes--I made her tell me, her father's." Then Gwen fitted the name, +just heard, into its place in old Mrs. Prichard's tale, and was +illuminated. "I see what you think, Mr. Hawtrey," said she, interrupting +herself. The lawyer was examining the direction on the letter-sheet. + +"I think I did right to pry into the letter, Gwennie," said her father; +seeking, nevertheless, a salve for conscience. + +"Of course you did, you darling old thing!... What, Mr. Hawtrey? You +were going to say?..." + +"I was going to say had you seen an odd thing in the direction. Have you +noticed that the word _Hobart_ has kept black, and all the rest has +faded to the colour of the writing inside?" So it had, without a doubt, +inexplicably. Mr. Hawtrey's impression was that the word was written in +a different hand, perhaps filled in by someone who had been able to +supply the name correctly, having been entrusted the letter to forward. + +"But," said he, "the person who wrote Hobart must have been in England, +and the forger of the letter was certainly in Van Diemen's Land." + +"Why 'must have been in England'?" + +"Bless the girl!" said the girl's father. "Why--_I_ can see that! Of +course, an Australian convict, who could do such a fine piece of +forgery, would never ask another person to spell the name of an +Australian town. Do you suppose he sent it to England to get an +accomplice to spell 'Hobart' right for him? No--no, Hawtrey, your theory +won't hold water." + +"That is the case," said Thothmes, more immovably than ever. "I see I +was mistaken. That point must wait. Or ... stop one minute!... may we +examine the other letters?" + +"I had thought," said the Earl, "of leaving them unopened. We have got +what we want." + +"Very proper. But I only wish to read the directions." No harm in this, +anyhow. A second packet was opened. It was the one in the woman's hand, +all postmarked "Darenth Mill" and "Macquarie." Then it was that +Thothmes, with impassive shrewdness, made up for his blunder, with +interest. He saw why the ink of one word of the forged direction was +black. It was the same ink as the English directions, and, on close +examination, the same hand. This had not been clear at first, as the +word was mixed with the English postmark, "Darenth Mill"--so much so as +not to clash with the pale hand of the forgery. "That word," said +Thothmes, "was never written in Van Diemen's Land. The English stamp is +on the top of it." + +Gwen took it from him, and saw that this was true. "But then the rest of +the direction was written in Australia," said she, "if this man wrote it +at all! Oh dear, I am so puzzled." And indeed she was at her wit's end. + +"I won't say another word," said Mr. Hawtrey. "I have made one blunder, +and won't run any further risks. I must think about this. If you will +trust me with the letter, you shall have it back to-morrow morning. I +dare say your lordship will now excuse me. I have an appointment at the +High Court at eleven, and it's now a quarter past.... Oh no--it's not a +hanging matter.... I shall make my man drive fast.... So I will wish +your ladyship a very good morning. I wish those two old ladies could +have known this earlier. But better late than never!" + +The Earl accompanied his legal adviser to the head of the stairs to give +him a civil send off, while his daughter, white with tension of +excitement and impatience, awaited his return. Coming back, he was not +the least surprised that she should fall into his arms with a tempest of +tears, crying out:--"Oh, papa dearest--fifty years!--think of it! All +their lives! Oh, my darling old Mrs. Prichard! and Granny Marrable +too--it's the same for both! Oh, think, that they were girls--yes, +nearly girls, only a few years older than me, when they parted! And the +_horrible_ wickedness of the trick--the horrible, horrible wickedness! +And then the dear old darling's own daughter, who has almost never seen +her, thinks her _mad_!... No, papa dear, don't shish me down, because +cry I _must_! Let me have a good cry over it, and I shall be better. Sit +down by me, and don't let go--there!--here on the sofa, like that.... Oh +dear, I wish I was made of wood, like some people, and could say better +late than never!" This was the wind-up of a good deal more, and similar, +expression of feeling. For tears and speech come easily to a generous +impulsive nature like Gwen's, when strong sympathy and sorrow for others +bid them come, though its own affliction might have made it stupefied +and dumb. + +Her father soothed and calmed her as he would a child; for was she not a +child to him--in the nursery only the other day? "I'm not made of wood, +darling, am I?" said he. And Gwen replied, refitting spars in calmer +water:--"No, dear, that you are not, but Lincoln's Inn Fields is. +Sitting there like an Egyptian God, with his hands on his knees!" She +repacked a stray flood of gold that had escaped from its restraints--the +most conspicuous record of the recent gale--and reassured her father +with a liberal kiss. Then she thawed towards the legal mind. "I'm sure +he's very good and kind and all that--Lincoln's Inn Fields, I mean, +is--because people _are_. Only it's at heart they are, and I want it to +come out like a rash." No doubt an interview with Dr. Dalrymple +yesterday was answerable for this, having reference to the Typhus Fever +patient. The eruption, he said, was subsiding favourably, and he was +hourly expecting a fall in the temperature. But he had made a stand +against her seeing the patient. + +"If Hawtrey came out in a rash over all his clients' botherations," said +the Earl, "he would very soon be in a state of confluent smallpox. What +he's wanted for now is his brains. You'll see we shall have a letter +from him, clearing it all up...." + +"And you know what he'll say, I suppose? That is, if he's as clever as +you think him!" + +"I can't say that I feel absolutely certain. What do you suppose?" + +Then Gwen gave a very fair conjectural review of the facts as this story +knows them; saying, whenever she felt the ground insecure beneath her +feet, that of course it was this way and not the other. A blessed +expression that, to reinforce one's convictions! + +However, she was not far wrong on any point, if the letter her father +received next day from "Lincoln's Inn Fields" was right. It came by +messenger, just as the family were sitting down to lunch with two or +three friends, and his lordship said, "Will you excuse me?" without +waiting for an answer, though one of his guests was a Rajah. Then he +read the letter through, intently, while his Countess looked +thunderclouds at him. "'Fore God, they are both of a tale!" said he, +quoting. Then he sent it to Gwen by Norbury, who was embarrassed by her +ladyship the Countess saying stiffly:--"Surely afterwards would do." But +Gwen cut in with:--"No--I can't wait. Give it to me, Norbury!" And took +it and read it as intently as her father had done. Having finished, she +telegraphed to him, all the length of the table:--"Isn't that just what +I said?" And then things went on as before. Only the Earl and his +daughter had come off their _P_'s and _Q_'s, most lawlessly. + +Here is the letter each had read, when off them: + +"My dear Lord Ancester, + +"I have thoroughly considered the letter, and return it herewith. I am +satisfied that it is a forgery by the hand of the convict Daverill, but +it is difficult to see what his object can have been, malice apart. It +is clear, however, that it was to influence his wife, to what end it is +impossible to say. + +"The only theory I can have about the black ink is far-fetched. It is +that a letter from England of that date was erased to make way for the +forgery, these few black letters having been allowed to remain, not to +disturb the English postmark, which partly-obscures them. You may notice +some compromise or accommodation in the handwriting of the direction, +evidently to slur over the difference. I suggest that the letter should +be referred to some specialist in palimpsests, who may be able to detect +some of the underlying original, which is absolutely invisible to me. + +"If you meet with any other letter written by this ingenious penman, I +suspect it will be in the pale ink of the forgery, which no doubt was as +black as the English ink, when new. + +"Believe me, my lord, your very faithful and obedient servant, + +"JAMES HAWTREY." + +"There can't be another letter of the ingenious penman's in the lot we +left tied up, because he and his wife were living together, and not +writing each other letters." So said Gwen afterwards, deprecating a +suggestion of her father's that the packet should be opened and +examined. But he replied:--"It is only to look at the colour of the ink. +We won't read old Mrs. Prichard's love-letters." However, nothing was +found, all these letters having been written in England except the one +from Sydney inviting her to come out, which was referred to early in +this story. The Sydney ink had been different--that was all. + +So all the letters were tied up again and placed _pro tem_. in the +cinquecento cabinet, to be quite safe. They had been just about to +vanish therein when the Earl made his suggestion. Nothing having come of +it, the documents were put away, honourably unread, and Gwen hurried off +to be given a lift to Cavendish Square by her mother. Her father exacted +a promise from her that she would not force her way past Dr. Dalrymple +into the patient's presence, come what might! She accompanied her mother +in the carriage as far as her own destination. The Countess was on a +card-leaving mission in Harley Street, and devoutly hoped that Lady +Blank would not be at home. In that case she might take advantage of her +liberty to go to a meeting at the Duchess of Sutherland's to abolish +this horrible negro slavery in America, so as not to be exceptional, +which was odious; and your father--Gwen's to wit--never would exert +himself about anything, and was simply wrapped up in old violins and +majolica. Of course it was right to put an end to slavery, and people +_ought_ to exert themselves. Her ladyship waited in the carriage at the +door till Gwen could supply an intensely authentic report--not what the +servants were told to say to everybody; that was no use--of the precise +condition of the patient, including the figures of the pulse and +temperature, and whether she had had a good night. Gwen came back with a +report from the nurse, to find Dr. Dalrymple conversing with her mother +at the carriage door, and to be exhorted by him to follow her maternal +example in matters of prudence. For the good lady had furnished herself +with a smelling-bottle and was inhaling it religiously, as a +prophylactic. + +When she had departed, leaving Gwen wondering why on earth she was +seized with such a desire just now to abolish negro slavery, Gwen +returned into the house to await the doctor's last word about her +friend. Waiting for him in the sitting-room, she read the _Times_, and +naturally turned to the news from the Seat of War--it was then at its +height--and became engrossed in the details of the Balaklava charge, a +month since. The tragedy of the Crimea--every war is a tragedy--was at +this time the all-engrossing topic in London and Paris, and men hung +eagerly on every word that passed current as news. The reason it has so +little place in this story is obvious--none of the essential events +intersect. All our narrative has to tell relates to occurrences +predetermined by a past that was forgotten long before Sebastopol was +anticipated. + +Gwen read the story of the great historical charge with a breathless +interest certainly, but only as part of the playbill of a terrible +drama, where the curtain was to fall on fireworks and a triumph for her +own nationality; and, of course, its ally--_ça se vit_. Dr. Dalrymple +reappeared, looking hopeful, with a good report, but too engrossed in +his ease to be moved even by the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the +state of the hospitals at Scutari. Where was Gwen going? To Sapps +Court--where was that? Oh yes, just beyond his own destination, so he +could give her a lift. And the carriage could take her on to hers and +wait for her, just as easily as go home and come back for him. He might +be detained a long time at the Hospital. Gwen accepted his offer +gratefully, as a private brougham and a coachman made a sort of convoy. +In those days young ladies were not so much at their ease without an +escort, as they have been of late years. According to some authorities, +the new régime is entirely due to the bicycle. + + * * * * * + +Sapps Court had not been itself since the exciting event of the +accident; at least, so said Aunt M'riar, referring to the disappearance +of Mrs. Prichard chiefly. For the identity of Sapps depended a good deal +on the identity of its inhabitants, and its interests penetrated very +little into the great world without. It was very little affected even by +the news of the War, favourable or the reverse: its patriotism was too +great for that. This must be taken to mean that its confidence in its +country's power of routing its foes was so deep-seated that an equally +firm belief that its armies were starving and stricken with epidemics, +and armed with guns that would not go off, and commanded by the lame, +halt, and blind in their second childhood, did not in the least +interfere with its stability. Whatever happened, the indomitable courage +of Tommy Atkins and Jack would triumph over foes, who, when all was said +and done, were only foreigners. Sapps Court's faith in Jack was so great +that his position was even above Tommy's. When Jack was reported to have +gone ashore at Balaklava to help Tommy to get his effete and useless +artillery to bear on the walls of Sebastopol, Sapps Court drew a long +breath of relief. Misgivings were germinating in its bosom as to whether +cholera patients _could_ take fortresses on an empty stomach. But it +would be all right now! + +No doubt the Court's philosophical endurance of its share of the anxiety +about the War was partly due to the fact that it hadn't got no relations +there; or, at least, none to speak of. Michael Ragstroar's 'arf-sister's +brother-in-law had certainly took the shilling, but Michael's father had +expressed the opinion that this young man wouldn't do no good +soldiering, and would only be in the way. Which had led Michael to say +that this connection of his by marriage would ultimately get himself +cashiered by Court Martial, for 'inderin'. Much better have stuck to +chopping up live heels and makin' of 'em into pies at Ball's Pond, than +go seeking glory at the cannon's mouth! Michael had not reflected on the +comparative freedom of his own life, contrasted with the monotonous lot +of this ill-starred young man; if, indeed, we may safely accept Micky's +description of it as accurate. Sapps Court did so, and went on in the +belief that the Ball's Pond recruit would prove a _gêne_ upon the +movements of the allied troops in the Crimea. + +The interest of the Court, therefore, in the contemporary events which +were thrilling the remainder of Europe, was ethical or strategical, and +one had to go outside its limits to be brought into touch with personal +connecting links. But they were to be met with near at hand, for Mrs. +Riley had ilivin relatives at the Sate of War, sivin of her own name, +thray Donnigans, and one O'Rourke, a swate boy, though indade only a +fosther-brother of her nayce Kathleen McDermott. Mrs. Tapping was unable +to enumerate any near relations serving Her Majesty, but laid claim to +consanguinity with distinguished officers, Generals of Division and +Captains of three-deckers, all of whom had an exalted opinion of her own +branch of the Family. + +In the main, Sapps regarded the War as a mere Thing in the Newspapers, +of which Uncle Mo heard more accurate details, at The Sun. There is +nothing more unaccountable than the alacrity with which the human mind +receives any statement in print, unless it is its readiness to surrender +its belief on hearing a positive contradiction from a person who cannot +possibly know anything about the matter. One sometimes feels forced to +the conclusion that an absolute disqualification to speak on any subject +is a condition precedent of procuring belief. Certainly a claim to +inspiration enlists disciples quicker than the most subtle argument; +acts, so to speak, as an aperient to the mind--a sort of intellectual +Epsom Salts. Uncle Mo, in the simplicity of his heart, went every day +for an hour to The Sun parlour, taking with him a profound belief in the +latest news from the Seat of War, to have it shattered for him by the +positive statements of persons who had probably not read the papers at +all, and sometimes couldn't. For in those happy days there were still +people who were unable to read or write. + +Perhaps the only other customer in the parlour at The Sun, when Uncle Mo +was smoking his pipe there, on the afternoon which saw the Countess +interest herself in negro slavery, _was_ able to read and write, unknown +to his friends, who had never seen him do either. They, however, knew, +or professed to feel assured, that old Billy--for that was his only +ascertainable name--knew everything. This may have been their vulgar +fun; but if it was, old Billy's own convictions of his omniscience were +not shaken by it, any more than a creed he professed, that small doses +of rum shrub, took reg'lar, kept off old age. In a certain sense he took +them regularly, counting the same number in every bar, with nearly the +same pauses between each dose. Whether they were really helping him +against Time and Decay or not, they were making him pink and dropsical, +and had not prevented, if they had not helped to produce, a baldness as +of an eggshell. This he would cover in, to counteract the draughty +character which he ascribed to all bar parlours alike, with a cloth cap +having ear-flaps, as soon as ever he had hung up a beaver hat which he +might have inherited from a coaching ancestor. + +This afternoon he was eloquent on foreign policy. Closing one eye to +accentuate the shrewd vision of the other, and shaking his head +continuously to express the steadiness and persistency of his +convictions, he indicted Louis Napoleon as the _bête noire_ of European +politics. "Don't you let yourself be took in, Mr. Moses," he said, "by +any of these here noospapers. They're a bad lot. This here Nicholas, +he's a Rooshian--so him I say nothin' about. Nor yet these here +Turkeys--them and their Constant Eye No Pulls!"--this with great scorn. +"None of 'em no better, I lay, than Goard A'mighty see fit to make 'em, +so it ain't, so as you might say, their own fault, not in a manner of +speaking. But this Louis Sneapoleum, _he's_ your sly customer. He's as +bad as the whole lot, all boiled up together in a stoo! Don't you be +took in by him, Mr. Moses. Calls hisself a Coodytar! _I_ call him ..." +etcetera _de rigueur_, as some of old Billy's comparisons were +unsavoury. + +"Can't foller you all the way down the lane, Willy-um," said Uncle Mo, +who could hardly be expected to identify Billy's variant of _Coup +d'Etat_. "Ain't he our ally?" + +"That's the p'int, Mr. Moses, the very p'int to not lose sight on, or +where are we? He's got hisself made our ally for to get between him and +the Rooshians. What he's a-drivin' at is to get us to fight his battles +for him, and him to sit snug and accoomulate cucumbers like King +Solomons." + +Uncle Moses felt he ought to interpose on this revision of the +Authorised Version of Scripture. "You haven't hit the word in the +middle, mate," said he, and supplied it, correctly enough. "You can keep +it in mind by thinking of them spiky beggars at the So-logical +Gardens--porky pines--them as get their backs up when wexed and +bristle." + +"Well--corkupines, then! Have it your own way, old Mo! My back'd get up +and bristle, if I was some of them! Only when it's womankind, the likes +of us can't jedge, especially when French. All I can say is, him and +them's got to settle it between 'em, and if _they_ can stand his +blooming moostarsh, why, it's no affair of mine." Which was so obviously +true that old Billy need not have gone on muttering to himself to the +same effect. One would have thought that the Tuileries had applied to +him to accept an appointment as _Censor Morum_. + +"What's old Billy grizzlin' on about?" said Mr. Jeffcoat, the host of +The Sun, bringing in another go of the shrub, and a modest small pewter +of mild for Uncle Mo, who was welcome at this hostelry even when, as +sometimes happened, he drank nothing; so powerful was his moral +influence on its status. In fact, the Sporting World, which drank +freely, frequented its parlour merely to touch the hand of the great +heavyweight of other days, however much he was faded and all his glories +past. Then would Uncle Mo give a sketch of his celebrated scrap with Bob +Brettle, which ended in neither coming to Time, simultaneously. Mo would +complain of an absurd newspaper report of the fight, which said the +Umpires stopped the fight. "No such a thing!" said Uncle Mo. "I stopped +Bob and he stopped me, fair and square. And there we was, come to grass, +and stopping there." Perhaps the old boy was dreaming back on something +of this sort, rather than listening to boozy old Billy's reflections on +Imperial Morality, that Mr. Jeffcoat should have repeated +again:--"What's old Billy grizzling about? You pay for both, Mr. Moses? +Fourpence halfpenny, thank you!" + +"He's letting out at the Emperor of the French, is Billy. He'd do his +dags for him, Billy would, if he could get at him. Wouldn't you, Billy? +I say, Tim, whose voice was that I heard in the Bar just now, naming me +by name?" + +"Ah, I was just on telling you. He walks in and he says to me, when does +Moses Wardle come in here, he says, and how long does he stop, mostly? +And I says to him ..." + +"What sort of a feller to look at?" said Uncle Mo, interrupting. "Old or +young? Long? Short? Anything about him to go by?" + +This called for consideration. "Not what you would call an average +party. His gills was too much slewed to one side." This was illustrated +by a finger hooking down the corner of the mouth. "Looked as if his best +clothes was being took care of for him." + +"What did he want o' me?" Uncle Mo's interest seemed roused. + +"I was telling of you. When did you come and how long did you stop? Best +part of an hour, I says, and you was here now. You'll find him in the +parlour, I says. Go in and see, I says. And I thought to find him in +here, having took my eyes off him for the moment." + +"He's not been in here," said Uncle Mo, emptying his pipe prematurely, +and apparently hurrying off without taking his half of mild. "Which way +did he go?" + +"Which way did the party go, Soozann?" said the host to his wife in the +bar. Who replied:--"Couldn't say. Said he'd be back in half an hour, and +went. Fancy he went to the right, but couldn't say." + +"_He_ won't be back in half an hour," said Uncle Mo. "Not if he's the +man I take him for. You see, he's one of these here chaps that tells +lies. You've heard o' them; seen one, p'r'aps?" Mr. Jeffcoat testified +that he had, in his youth, and that rumours of their existence still +reached him at odd times. Those who listen about in the byways of London +will hear endless conversation on this model, always conducted with the +most solemn gravity, with a perfect understanding of its inversions and +perversions. + +Uncle Mo hurried away, leaving instructions that his half-pint should be +bestowed on any person whose tastes lay in that direction. Mr. Jeffcoat +might meet with such a one. You never could tell. He hastened home as +fast as his enemy Gout permitted, and saw when he turned into the short +street at the end of which Sapps lay hidden, that something abnormal was +afoot. There stood Dr. Dalrymple's pill-box, wondering, no doubt, why it +had carried a segment of an upper circle to such a Court as this. If it +had been the Doctor himself, it would not have given a thought to the +matter, for it used to bear its owner to all sorts of places, from St. +James's Palace to Seven Dials. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + HOW UNCLE MO WAS JUST TOO LATE. THE SHINY LADY. THE TURN THE MAN + HAD GIVEN AUNT M'RIAR, AND HER APOLOGIES. DOLLY'S INTENDED + HOSPITALITY TO MRS. PRICHARD ON HER RETURN. DOLLY'S DOLLY'S NEW + NAME. AN ARRANGEMENT, COMMITTING NEITHER PARTY. GUINEVERE, + LANCELOT, AND THE CAKE. MRS. PRICHARD INSANE?--THE IDEA! HOW GWEN + READ THE LETTER ALL BUT THE POSTSCRIPT. NOTHING FOR IT BUT TO TELL! + BUT HOW? FUN, TELLING THE CHILDREN. ANOTHER RECHRISTENING OF DOLLY. + GWEN'S LAST EXIT FROM MRS. PRICHARD'S APARTMENTS. JOAN OF ARC'S + SWORD'S SOUL. THE POSTSCRIPT. WIDOW THRALE'S DOG. WHAT THE CONVICT + HAD SAID. HOW LONG DOES BONA-FIDE OMNIPOTENCE TAKE OVER A JOB? + + +Gwen, leaving her convoy to wait for her in the antechamber of Sapps +Court, and approach No. 7 alone, heard as she knocked at the door an +altercation within; Aunt M'riar's voice and a strange one, with terror +in the former and threat in the latter. Had all sounded peaceful, she +might have held back, to allow the interview to terminate. But catching +the sound of fear in the woman's voice, and having none in her own +composition, she immediately delivered a double-knock of the most +unflinching sort, and followed it by pushing open the door. + +She could hear Dave above, at the top window, recognising her as "The +Lady." As she entered, a man who was coming out flinched before her +meanly for a moment, then brushed past brutally. Aunt M'riar's face was +visible where she stood back near the staircase; it was white with +terror. She gasped out:--"Let him go; I'll come directly!" and ran +upstairs. Gwen heard her call to the children, more collectedly, to come +down, as the lady was there, and then apparently retreat into her room, +shutting the door. Thereon the children came rushing down, and before +she could get attention to her inquiry as to who that hideous man was, +Uncle Mo had pushed the door open. He had not asked that pill-box to +explain itself, but had gone straight on to No. 7. Dave met him on the +threshold, in a tempest of excitement, exclaiming: --"Oy say, Uncle +Mo!--the lady's here. The shoyny one. And oy say, Uncle Mo, the Man's +been." The last words were in a tone to themselves, quite unlike what +came before. It was as though Dave had said:--"The millennium has come, +but the crops are spoiled." He added:--"Oy saw the Man, out of the top +window, going away." + +Uncle Mo let the millennium stand over. "Which man, old Peppermint +Drops?" said he, improvising a name to express an aroma he had detected +in his nephew, when he stooped to make sure he was getting his last +words right. + +"Whoy, the Man," Dave continued, in an undertone that might have related +to the Man with the Iron Mask, "the Man me and Micky we sore in Hoyde +Park, and said he was a-going to rip Micky up, and Micky he said he +should call the Police-Orficers, and the gentleman said...." + +"That'll do prime!" said Uncle Mo. For Dave's torrent of identification +was superfluous. "I would have laid a guinea I knew his game," added he +to himself. Then to Gwen, inside the house with Dolly on her +knee:--"You'll excuse me, miss, my lady, these young customers they do +insert theirselves--it's none so easy to find a way round 'em, as I say +to M'riar.... M'riar gone out?" For it was a surprise to find the +children alone entertaining company--and such company! + +"There, Dolly, you hear?" said Gwen. "You're not to insert yourself +between me and your uncle. Suppose we sit quiet for five minutes!" Dolly +subsided. "How do you do, Mr. Wardle!... No, Aunt Maria isn't here, and +I'm afraid that man coming worried her. Dave's man.... Oh yes--I saw +him. He came out as I came in, three minutes ago. What _is_ the man? +Didn't I hear Dave telling how Micky said he should give him to the +Police? I wish Micky had, and the Police had found out who he's +murdered. Because he's murdered somebody, that man! I saw it in his +eyes." + +"He's a bad character," said Mo. "If he don't get locked up, it won't be +any fault of mine. On'y that'll be after I've squared a little account I +have against him--private affair of my own. If you'll excuse me half a +minute, I'll go up and see what's got M'riar." But Uncle Mo was stopped +at the stair-foot by the reappearance of Aunt M'riar at the stair-top. +As they met halfway up, both paused, and Gwen heard what it was easy to +guess was Aunt M'riar's tale of "the Man's" visit, and Uncle Mo's +indignation. They must have conversed thus in earnest undertones for +full five minutes, before Aunt M'riar said audibly:--"Now we mustn't +keep the lady waiting no longer, Mo"; and both returned, making profuse +apologies. The interval of their absence had been successfully and +profitably filled in by an account of how Mrs. Picture had been taken to +see Jones's Bull, with a rough sketch of the Bull's demeanour in her +company. + +Aunt M'riar made amends to the best of her abilities for her desertion. +Perhaps the young lady knew what she meant when she said she had been +giv' rather a turn? The young lady did indeed. Aunt M'riar hoped she had +not been alarmed by her exit. Nor by the person who had gone out? +No--Gwen's nerves had survived both, though certainly the person wasn't +a beauty. She went on to hope that the effects of the turn he had given +Aunt M'riar would not be permanent. These being pooh-poohed by both +Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar, became negligible and lapsed. + +"The children came running down directly after you went, Aunt Maria," +said Gwen. "So I can assure you I didn't lose my temper at being left +alone. I wasn't alone two minutes!" Then she gave, in reply to a general +inquiry after the fever patient, inaugurated by Dave with:--"Oy say, +how's Sister Nora?"--the very favourable report she had just received +from Dr. Dalrymple. + +Then Mrs. Prichard was rushed into the conversation by a sudden +inexplicable statement of Dolly's. "When Mrs. Spicture comes back," said +she, "Granny Marrowbone is to pour out Mrs. Spicture's tea. And real +Cake. And stoast cut in sloyces wiv real butter." + +"Don't get excited, Dolly dear," said Gwen, protesting against the +amount of leg-action that accompanied this ukase. "Tell us again! _Why_ +is Granny Marrable to make tea? Granny Marrable's at her house in the +country. She's not coming here with Mrs. Spicture." + +"There, now, Dolly!" said Aunt M'riar. "Why don't you tell clear, a bit +at a time, and get yourself understood? Granny Marrowbone's the new +name, my lady, she's christened her doll, Dolly. So she should be known +apart, Dolly being, as you might say, Dolly herself. Because her uncle +he pointed out to her, 'Dolly,' he said, 'you're in for thinkin' out +some new name for this here baby of yours, to say which is which. Or 'us +you'll get that mixed up, nobody'll know!'" + +"I put my oar in," said Uncle Mo, "for to avoid what they call +coarmplications nowadays." He never lost an opportunity of hinting at +the fallings off of the Age. "So she and Dave they turns to and thinks +one out. I should have felt more like Sally or Sooky or Martilda myself. +Or Queen Wictoria." The last was a gracious concession to Her Majesty; +who, in the eyes of Uncle Mo, had recently come to the throne. + +"No!" said Dolly firmly. "Gwanny Mawwowbone!" This was very articulately +delivered, the previous, or slipshod, pronunciation having been more +nearly Granny Mallowbone. + +"Certainly!" said Gwen, assenting. "Dolly's dolly Dolly shall be Granny +Marrowbone. Only it makes Dolly out rather old." + +Dolly seemed to take exception to this. "I _was_ four on my birfday," +said she. "I shan't be five not till my _next_ birfday, such a long, +long, long, long time." + +"And you'll stop four till you're five," said Gwen. "Won't you, Dolly +dear? What very blue eyes the little person has!" They were fixed on the +speaker with all the solemnity the contemplation of a geological period +of Time inspires. The little person nodded gravely--about the Time, not +about her eyes--and said:--"Ass!" + +Dave thrust himself forward as an interpreter of Dolly's secret wishes, +saying, to the astonishment of his aunt and uncle:--"Dorly wants to take +_her_ upstairs to show _her_ where the tea's to be set out when Mrs. +Spicture comes back." + +Remonstrance was absolutely necessary, but what form could it take? Aunt +M'riar was forced back on her usual resource, her lack of previous +experience of a similar enormity:--"Well, I'm sure, a big boy like you +to call a lady _her_! I never did, in all my born days!" Uncle Mo meanly +threw the responsibility of the terms of an absolutely necessary +amendment on the culprit himself, saying:--"You're a nice young monkey! +Where's your manners? Is that what they larn you to say at school? +What's a lady's name when you speak to her?" He had no one but himself +to thank for the consequences. Dave, who, jointly with Dolly, was just +then on the most intimate footing with the young lady, responded +point-blank:--"Well--_Gwen_, then! _She_ said so. Sister Gwen." + +Her young ladyship's laugh rang out with such musical cordiality that +the two horror-stricken faces relaxed, and Uncle Mo's got so far as the +beginning of a smile. "It's all quite right," said Gwen. "I told Dave I +was Gwen just this minute when you were upstairs. He's made it +'sister'--so we shan't be compromised, either of us." Whereupon Dave, +quite in the dark, assented from sheer courtesy. + +Aunt M'riar seemed to think it a reasonable arrangement, and Uncle Mo, +with a twinkle in his eye, said:--"It's better than hollerin' out 'she' +and 'her,' like a porter at a railway-station." + +But her ladyship had not come solely to have a symposium with Dave and +Dolly. So she suggested that both should go upstairs and rehearse the +slaughter of the fatted calf; that is to say, distribute the apparatus +of the banquet that was to welcome Mrs. Picture back. Dave demurred at +first, on the score of his maturity, but gave way when an appeal was +made to some equivalent of patriotism whose existence was taken for +granted; and consented, as it were, to act on the Committee. + +"Now, don't you come running down to say it's ready, not till I give +leave," said Aunt M'riar, having misgivings that the apparatus might not +be sufficiently--suppose we affect a knowledge of Horace, and say +"Persian"--to keep the Committee employed. + +"They'll be quiet enough for a bit," said Uncle Mo. Who showed insight +by adding:--"They won't agree about where the things are to be put, nor +what's to be the cake." For a proxy had to be found, to represent the +cake. Even so Lancelot stood at the altar with Guinevere, as Arthur's +understudy for the part of bridegroom. + +"Do please now all sit down and be comfortable," said Gwen, as soon as +tranquillity reigned. "Because I want to talk a great deal.... +Yes--about Mrs. Prichard. I really should be comfortabler if you sat +down.... Well--Mr. Wardle can sit on the table if he likes." So that +compromise was made, and Gwen got to business. "I really hardly know how +to begin telling you," she said. "What has happened is so very _odd_.... +Oh no--I have seen to _that_. The woman she is with will take every care +of her.... You know--Widow Thrale, Dave's Granny's daughter, who had +charge of Dave--Strides Cottage, of course! I'm sure she'll be all right +as far as that goes. But the whole thing is so _odd_.... Stop a +minute!--perhaps the best way would be for me to read you Mrs. Thrale's +letter that she has written me. She must be very nice." This throwing of +the burden of disclosure on her correspondent seemed to Gwen to be on +the line of least resistance. She was feeling bewildered already as to +how on earth the two old sisters could be revealed to one another, and +her mind was casting about for any and every guidance from any quarter +that could lead her to the revelation naturally. There _was_ no quarter +but Sapps Court. So try it, at least! + +She read straight on without interruption, except for expressions of +approval or concurrence from her hearers when they heard the writer's +declaration of how _impressionnée_ she had been by the old lady, until +she came to the first reference to the gist of the letter, her mental +soundness. Then both broke into protest. "Delusions!" they exclaimed at +once. Old Mrs. Prichard subject to delusions? Not she! Never was a saner +woman, of her years, than old Mrs. Prichard! + +"I only wish," said Uncle Mo, "that I may never be no madder than Goody +Prichard. Why, it's enough to convince you she's in her senses only to +hear her say good-arternoon!" This meant that Uncle Mo's visits upstairs +had always been late in the day, and that her greeting to him would have +impressed him with her sanity, had it ever been called in question. + +"On'y fancy!" said Aunt M'riar indignantly. "To say Mrs. Prichard's +deluded, and her living upstairs with Mrs. Burr this three years past, +and Skillicks for more than that, afore ever she come here!" This only +wanted the addition that Mrs. Burr had seen no sign of insanity in all +these years, to be logical and intelligible. + +Gwen found no fault, because she saw what was meant. But there was need +for a caution. "You won't say anything of this till I tell you," said +she. "Not even to Mrs. Burr. It would only make her uncomfortable." For +why should all the old lady's belongings be put on the alert to discover +flaws in her understanding? Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar gave the pledge +asked for, and Gwen went on reading. They just recognised the water-mill +as an acquaintance of last year--not as a subject of frequent +conversation with Dave. Aunt M'riar seemed greatly impressed with the +old lady's excursion out of bed to get at the mill-model, especially at +its having occurred before six in the morning. Also by the dog. + +Uncle Mo was more practically observant. When the reading came to the +two mills in Essex, he turned to Aunt M'riar, saying:--"She said summat +about Essex--you told me." Aunt M'riar said:--"Well, now, I couldn't +say!" in the true manner of a disappointing witness. But when, some +sentences later, the reference came to the two little girl twins, Uncle +Mo suddenly broke in with:--"Hullo!... Never mind!--go on"; as +apologizing for his interruption. Later still, unable to constrain +himself any longer:--"Didn't--you--tell--me, M'riar, that Mrs. P. she +told you her father lived at Darenth in Essex?" + +"No, Mo, that's not the name. _Durrant_ was the name she said." Aunt +M'riar was straining at a gnat. However, solemn bigwigs have done that +before now. + +"Nigh enough for most folks," said Uncle Mo. "Just you think a bit and +see what she said her father's name was." + +"She never said his name, Mo. She never said a single name to me, not +that I can call to mind, not except it was Durrant." + +"Very well, then, M'riar! Now I come to my point. +Didn't--you--tell--me--a'most the very first time you did +anything--didn't you tell me Mrs. P. she said she was a _twin_. And Dave +he made enquiries." + +"She _was_ a twin." + +"I'm stumped," said Uncle Mo. "I was always groggy over the guessing of +co-nundrums. Now, miss--my lady--what does your ladyship make of it?" + +"Let me read to the end," said Gwen. "It's not very long now. Then I'll +tell you." She read on and finished the letter, all but the postscript. +She was saying to herself:--"If I stick so over telling these good +people now, what will it be when the crisis comes?" It would be good +practice, anyhow, to drive it home to Aunt M'riar. When she had quite +finished what she meant to read, she went straight on, as she had +promised, ignoring obstacles:--"The explanation is that Mrs. Marrable +and Mrs. Prichard are twin sisters, who parted fifty years ago. About +five years later Mrs. Prichard was deceived by a forged letter, telling +her that her sister was drowned. My father and I found it among her +papers, and read it. This Mrs. Thrale who writes to me is her own +daughter, whom she left in England nearly fifty years since--a baby!... +And now she thinks her mother mad--her own mother!... Oh dear!--how will +they ever know? Who will tell them?" + +A low whistle and a gasp respectively were all that Uncle Mo and Aunt +M'riar were good for. A reissue of the gasp might have become "Merciful +Gracious!" or some equivalent, if Uncle Mo had not nipped it in the bud, +thereby to provide a fulcrum for his own speech. "'Arf a minute, M'riar! +Your turn next. I want to be clear, miss--my lady--that I've got the +record ack-rate. These here two ladies have been twins all their lives, +unbeknown...." Uncle Mo was so bewildered that this amount of confusion +was excusable. + +Gwen took his meaning, instead of criticizing his form. "Not _all_ their +lives," she said. "Fifty years ago they were thirty, and it's all +happened since then." She went over the ground again, not letting her +hearers off even the most incredible of the facts. She was surprised and +relieved to find that they seemed able to receive them, only noticing +that they appeared to lean on her superior judgment. They were +dumfoundered, of course; but they _could_ believe, with such a helper +for their unbelief. Were not the deep-rooted faiths of maturity, once, +the child's readiness to believe its parents infallible, and would not +any other indoctrination have held as firmly? Even so the rather +childish minds of Dave's guardians made no question of the credibility +of the tale, coming as it did from such an informant--one without a +shadow of interest in the fabrication of it. + +Aunt M'riar made no attempt at anything beyond mere exclamation; until, +after the second detailed review of the facts, Gwen was taken aback by +her saying suddenly:--"Won't it be a'most cruel, when you come to think +of it?..." + +"Won't what be cruel, Aunt M'riar?" + +"For to tell 'em. Two such very elderly parties, and all the time gone +by! _I_ say, let the rest go! I should think twice about it. But it +ain't for me to say." She seemed to have a sudden inspiration towards +decision of opinion, a thing rare with her. It was due, no doubt, to her +own recent experience of an unwelcome resurrection from the Past. + +"'Tain't any consarn of ours to choose, M'riar. Just you go over to +their side o' the hedge for a minute. Suppose you was Goody Prichard, +and Goody Prichard was you!" + +"Well! Suppose!" + +"Which would you like? Her to bottle up, or tell?" Aunt M'riar wavered. +A momentary hope of Gwen's, that perhaps Aunt M'riar's way out of the +difficulty might hold good, died at its birth, killed by Uncle Mo's +question. + +Which _would_ Gwen have liked, herself, in Mrs. Prichard's place? Aunt +M'riar was evidently looking to her for an answer. + +"I'm afraid there's no help for it, Aunt Maria," said she. "She _must_ +be told. But don't be afraid I shall leave the telling to you. I shall +go back and tell her myself in a day or two." + +"Will she come back here?" This question raised a new doubt. Would +either of the two old twins care to leave the other, after that +formidable disclosure had been achieved? It was looking too far ahead. +Gwen felt that the evil of the hour was sufficient for the day, or +indeed the next three weeks for that matter, and evaded the question +with an answer to that effect. + +Then, as no more was to be gained by talking, seeing that she could not +give all her proofs in detail, she suggested that she should go up to +Mrs. Prichard's room to say good-bye to Dave and Dolly. Promises could +not be ignored between honourable people. Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar +quite concurred. "But," said they, almost in the same breath, "are the +children to know?" + +Gwen had not considered the point. "No--yes--_no!_" she said, and then +revoked. "Really, though, I don't know, after all, why they shouldn't! +What harm _can_ it do?" + +What harm indeed? Mo and M'riar looked the question at each other, and +neither looked a negative reply. Very good, then! Dave and Dolly were to +know, but who was to tell? + +Gwen considered again. Then it flashed across her mind that the +disclosure of the relationship of his two Grannies could have no +distressing effect on Dave. Time and Change and Death are only names, to +a chick not eight years old, and nothing need be told of the means by +which the sisters' lives had been cut apart. As for Dolly, she would +either weep or laugh at a piece of news, according to the suggestions of +her informant. Passionless narrative would leave her unaffected either +way. Told as good news, this would be accepted as good, and it would be +a pleasure to tell it to those babies. + +"I'll tell them myself," said she. "Don't you come up. Is Mrs. Burr +there?" No--Mrs. Burr was at Mrs. Ragstroar's, attending to a little job +for her. Gwen vanished up the stairs, and her welcome was audible below. + +She did not mince matters, and the two young folks were soon crowing +with delight at her statement, made with equanimity, that she knew that +Granny Marrowbone was really old Mrs. Picture's sister. She saw no +reason for making the announcement thrilling. It was enough to say that +each of them had been told wicked lies about the other, and been +deceived by bad people, such as there was every reason to hope were not +to be found in Sapps Court, or the neighbourhood. "And each of them," +she added, "thought the other was dead and buried, a long time ago!" +Inexplicably, she felt it easier to say dead and buried, than merely +dead. + +Dolly, having been recently in collision with Time, saw her way to +profitable comparison. "A long, long, long time, like my birfday!" she +said, suggestively but unstructurally. + +"Heaps longer," said Gwen. "Heaps and heaps!" Dolly was impressed, +almost cowed. She could not be even with these aeons and eras and epochs, +at her time of life. + +Dave burst into a shout of unrestrained glee at the discovery that his +London and country Grannies were sisters. "Oy shall wroyte to say me and +Dolly are glad. Ever such long letters to bofe." A moment later his +face had clouded over. "Oy say!" said he, "will they be glad or sorry?" + +"Glad," said Gwen venturesomely. "Why should they be sorry? You must +write them very, very long letters." The mine would be sprung, she +thought, before even a short letter was finished. But it was as well to +be on the safe side. + +Dave was feeling the germination in his mind of hitherto unexperienced +thoughts about Death and Time, and he remained speechless. He shook his +head with closed lips and puzzled blue eyes fixed on his questioner. She +saw a little way into his mind as he looked up at her, and pinched his +cheek slightly, for sympathy, with the hand that was round his neck, but +said nothing. Children are so funny! + +"I fink," said Dolly, "old Mrs. Spicture shall bring old Granny +Marrowbone back wiv her when she comes back and sets in her harm-chair +wiv scushions, and Mrs. Burr cuts the reel cake, wiv splums, in sloyces, +in big sloyces and little sloyces, and Mrs. Burr pawses milluck in my +little jug, and Mrs. Burr pawses tea in my little pot--ass, hot +tea!--and ven Doyvy shall cally round the scups and sources, but me to +paw it out"--this clause was merely to assert the supremacy of Woman in +household matters--"and ven all ve persons to help veirself to shoogy +..." etc., etc. Which might have run on musically for ever, but that a +difficulty arose about the names of the guests and their entertainer. It +was most unfortunate that the latter should have been rechristened +lately after one of the former. Her owner interpreted her to express +readiness to accept another name, and that of Gweng was selected, as a +compliment to the visitor. + +Then it really became time for that young lady to depart. Think of that +doctor's pill-box waiting all this while round the corner! So she ended +what she did not suspect was her last look at old Mrs. Picture's +apartment, with the fire's last spasmodic flicker helping the gas-lamp +below in the Court to show Dolly, unable to tear herself away from the +glorious array of preparation on the floor. There it stood, just under +the empty chair with cushions, still waiting--waiting for its occupant +to come again; and meanwhile a Godsend to the cat, who resumed her place +the moment the intruder rose from it, with an implication that her +forbearance had been great indeed to endure exclusion for so long. There +was no more misgiving on the face of that little maid, putting the +fiftieth touch on the perfection of her tea-cup arrangements, that her +ideal entertainment would never compass realisation, than there was on +the faces of the Royal Pair in their robes and decorations, gazing +firmly across at Joan of Arc and St. George, in plaster, but done over +bronze so you couldn't tell; precious possessions of Mrs. Burr, who was +always inquiring what it would cost to repair Joan's sword--which had +disintegrated and laid bare the wire in its soul--and never getting an +estimate. Nor on the face of Mrs. Burr herself, coming upstairs from her +job out at Mrs. Ragstroar's, and beaming--prosaically, but still +beaming--on the young lady that had come to see her at the Hospital. + + * * * * * + +"Oh, I remember, by-the-by," said that young lady, three minutes later, +having really said adieu all round to the family; including Dolly, who +had suddenly awakened to the position, and overtaken her at the foot of +the stairs. "I remember there _was_ something else I wanted to ask you, +Aunt Maria. Did Mrs. Prichard ever talk to you about her son?" + +Was it wonderful that Aunt M'riar should start and flinch from speech, +and that Uncle Mo should look preoccupied about everything outside the +conversation? Can you imagine the sort of feeling an intensely truthful +person like Aunt M'riar would have under such circumstances? How could +she, without feeling like duplicity itself, talk about this son as +though he were unknown to her, when his foul presence still hung about +the room he had quitted less than an hour since? That fact, and that she +had seen him, then and there, face to face with her beautiful +questioner, weighed heavier on her at that moment than her own terrible +relation to him, a discarded wife oppressed by an uncancelled marriage. + +She had got to answer that question. "Mrs. Prichard _has_ a son," she +said. "But _he's_ no good." This came with a jerk--perhaps with a weak +hope that it might eject him from the conversation. + +"She hasn't set eyes on him, didn't she say, for years past?" said old +Mo, seeing that M'riar wanted help. Also with a hope of eliminating the +convict. "Didn't even know whether he was living or dead, did she?" + +The reply, after consideration, was:--"No-o! She said that." + +And then Gwen looked from one to the other. "Oh-h!" said she. "Then +probably the man _was_ her son.... Look here! I must read you the +postscript I left out." She reopened Mrs. Thrale's letter, and read that +the writer's mother had been much upset by a man who laid claim to being +Mrs. Prichard's son. As her eyes were on the letter, she did not see the +glance of reciprocal intelligence that passed between her two listeners. +But she looked up after the last word of the postscript in time to see +the effect of the dog at Strides Cottage. Even as her father had been +influenced, so was Uncle Mo. He appeared to breathe freer for that dog. +It struck Gwen that Aunt M'riar seemed a little unenquiring and +uncommunicative about this son of Mrs. Prichard's, considering all the +circumstances. + +When Gwen had departed, Aunt M'riar, seeing perhaps interrogation in +Mo's eyes, stopped it by saying:--"Don't you ask me no more questions, +not till these children are clear off to bed. I'll tell after supper." +And then, just that moment, Mr. Alibone looked in, and was greatly +impressed by Dave and Dolly's dramatic account of their visitor. "I've +seen her, don't you know?" he said. "When you was put about to get that +lock open t'other day. She's one among a million. If I was a blooming +young Marquish, I should just knock at her door till she had me moved +on. That's what, Mo. So might you, old man." To which Uncle Mo +replied:--"They've stood us over too long, Jerry. If they don't look +alive, they won't get a chance to make either of us a Marquish. I expect +they're just marking time." Which Dave listened to with silent, +large-eyed gravity. Some time after he expressed curiosity about the +prospects of these Marquisates, and made inquiry touching the relation +"marking time" had to them. Uncle Mo responded that it wouldn't be so +very long now, and described the ceremonies that would accompany +it--something like Lord Mayor's Show, with a flavour of Guy Fawkes Day. + +However, Dave and Dolly went to bed this evening without even that +inaccurate enlightenment. And presently Mr. Alibone, detecting his +friend's meaning when he said he was deadly sleepy somehow to-night, +took his leave and went away to finish his last pipe at The Sun. + +And then Mo and M'riar were left to resume the day, and make out its +meaning. "How long had the feller been here?" he asked, in order to +begin somewhere. + +Aunt M'riar took the question too much to heart, and embarked on an +intensely accurate answer. "I couldn't say not to a minute," she said. +"But if you was to put it at ten minutes, I'd have felt it safer at +seven. The nearer seven the better, _I_ should say." + +"Anyhow--not a twelvemonth!" said Mo. "And there he was skearing you out +of your wits, when the lady came in and di-verted of him off. Where was +the two young scaramouches all the while?" + +"Them I'd sent upstairs when I see who it was outside. Dave he never see +him, not to look at!" + +"He see him out of the top window, and knew him again. What had the +beggar got to say for hisself?" This was the gist of the matter, and +Uncle Mo settled down to hear it. + +"He'd been to look after his mother in the country, at the place I told +him--and the more fool me for telling--and he thought he spotted her, +but it was some other old woman, and while he was talking to her, there +to be sure and if he didn't see a police-officer after him!" + +"What did he do on that?" + +"Oh, he run for it, and was all but took. But he got away to the +railway, and the officer followed him. And when he saw him coming up, he +jumped in the wrong train, that was just starting, and got carried to +Manchester. And he got back to London by the night train." + +"And then he come on here, and found I was in the parlour--round at Joe +Jeffcoat's. He thought he see his way to another half-a-sovereign out of +you, M'riar, and that's what he come for. He thought I was safe for just +the du-ration of a pipe or two." + +"What brought you back, Mo?" + +"Well, ye see, I heard his ugly voice out in the front bar, askin' for +me. And I only thought he was a sporting c'rackter come to see what the +old scrapper looked like in his old age. Then I couldn't think for a +minute or two because of old Billy's clapper going, but when I did, his +face came back to me atop of his voice. More by token when he never +showed up! Ye see?" Aunt M'riar nodded an exact understanding of what +had happened. "And then I take it he come sneaking down here to see for +some cash, if he could get it. He'll come again, old girl, he'll come +again! And Simeon Rowe shall put on a man in plain clothes, to watch for +him when I'm away." + +"Oh, Mo, don'tee say that! It was only his make-believe to frighten me. +Anyone could tell that only to see him flourishin' out his knife." + +"Hay--what's that?--his knife? You never told me o' that." + +"Why, Mo, don't ye see, I only took it for bounce." + +"What was it about his knife?" + +"Just this, Mo dear! Now, don't you be excited. He says to me +again:--'What are you good for, Polly Daverill?' And then I see he was +handling a big knife with a buckhorn handle." M'riar was tremulous and +tearful. "Oh, Mo!" she said. "Do consider! He wasn't that earnest, to be +took at a chance word. He ain't so bad as you think of him. He was only +showin' off like, to get the most he could." + +"That's a queer way of showin' off--with a knife! P'r'aps it warn't +open, though?" But it _was_, by M'riar's silence. "Anyways," Mo +continued, "he won't come back so long as he thinks I'm here. To-morrow +morning first thing I shall just drop round to the Station, and tip 'em +a wink. Can't have this sort o' thing goin' on!" + +M'riar's lighting of a candle seemed to hang fire. Said she:--"You'd +think it a queer thing to say, if I was to say it, Mo!" And then, in +reply to the natural question:--"Think what?" she continued:--"A woman's +husband ain't like any other man. She's never quite done with him, as if +he was nobody. It don't make any odds how bad he's been, nor yet how +long ago it was.... It makes one creep to think...." She stopped +abruptly, and shuddered. + +"What he'll catch if he gets his deserts." Mo supplied an end for the +sentence, gravely. + +"Ah!--he might be.... What _would_ it be, Mo, if he was tried and found +guilty?" + +"Without a recommendation to mercy? It was a capital offence. I never +told it ye. Shall I tell it?" + +"No--for God's sake!" Aunt M'riar stopped her ears tight as she had done +before. "Don't you tell me nothing, Mo, more than I know already. That's +plenty." Uncle Mo nodded, pointed to tightly closed lips to express +assent, and she resumed speech with hearing. "Capital offence means ... +means?..." + +"Means he would go to the scragging-post, arter breakfast one morning. +There's no steering out o' _that_ fix, M'riar. He's just got to, one +day, and there's an end of it!" + +"And how ever could I be off knowing it at the time? Oh, but it makes me +sick to think of! The night before--the night before, Mo! Supposin' I +wake in the night, and think of him, and hear the clocks strike! He'll +hear them too, Mo." + +"Can't be off it, M'riar! But what of that? _He_ won't be a penny the +worse, and he'll know what o'clock it is." Remember that Uncle Mo had +some particulars of Daverill's career that Aunt M'riar had not. For all +she knew, the criminal's capital offence might have been an innocent +murder--a miscarriage in the redistribution of some property--a too +zealous garrotting of some fat old stockjobber. "I'm thinkin' a bit of +the other party, M'riar," said Mo. He might have said more, but he was +brought up short by his pledge to say nothing of the convict's last +atrocity. How could he speak the thought in his mind, of the mother of +the victim in a madhouse? For that had made part of the tale, as it had +reached him through the police-sergeant. So he ended his speech by +saying:--"What I do lies at my own door, M'riar. You're out of it. So I +shan't say another word of what I will do or won't do. Only I tell you +this, that if I could get a quiet half an hour with the gentleman, I'd +... _What_ would I do?... Well!--I'd save him from the gallows--I +_would_! Ah!--and old as I am, I'd let him keep a hold on his knife.... +There--there, old lass! I do wrong to frighten ye, givin' way to bad +temper. Easy does it!" + +For a double terror of the woman's position was bred of that mysterious, +inextinguishable love that never turns to hate, however hateful its +object may become; and her dread that if this good, unwieldy giant--that +was what Mo seemed--crossed his path, that jack-knife might add another +to her husband's many crimes. This dread and counter-dread had sent all +Aunt M'riar's blood to her heart, and she might have fallen, but that +Mo's strong hand caught her in time, and landed her in a chair. "I was +wrong--I was wrong!" said he gently. All the fires had died down before +the pallor of her face, and his only thought was how could _she_ be +spared if the destroyer of her life was brought to justice. + +They said no more; what more was there to be said? Aunt M'riar came +round, refusing restoratives. Oh no, she would be all right! It was only +a turn she got--that common event! They adjourned, respectively, to +where Dolly and Dave were sleeping balmily, profoundly. + +But Uncle Mo was discontented with the handiwork of Creation. Why should +a cruel, two-edged torture be invented for, and inflicted on, an +inoffensive person like M'riar? There didn't seem any sense in it. "If +only," said he to his inner soul, "they'd a-let _me_ be God A'mighty for +five minutes at the first go-off, I'd a-seen to it no such a thing +shouldn't happen." Less than five minutes would have been necessary, if +a full and unreserved concession of omnipotence had been made. + + * * * * * + +Dave was a man of his word, though a very young one. He seized the +earliest opportunity to indite two letters of congratulation to his +honorary grandmothers, including Dolly in his rejoicing at the discovery +of their relationship. He wrote as though such discoveries were an +everyday occurrence. + +His mistakes in spelling were few, the principal one arising from an old +habit of thought connecting the words sister and cistern, which had +survived Aunt M'riar's frequent attempts at correction. When he +exhibited his Identical Notes to the Powers for their sanction and +approval, this was pointed out to him, and an allegation that he was +acting up to previous instructions disallowed _nem. con._ He endeavoured +to lay to heart that for the future _cistern_ was to be spelt _sister_, +except out on the leads. A holographic adjustment of the _c_, and +erasure of the _n_, was scarcely a great success, but the Powers +supposed it would do. Uncle Mo opposed Aunt M'riar's suggestion that the +two letters should go in one cover to Strides Cottage, for economy, as +mean-spirited and parsimonious, although he had quite understood that +the two Grannies were under one roof; otherwise Dave would have directed +to Mrs. Picture at the Towers. So to Strides Cottage they went, some +three days later. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER DAUGHTER WENT BACK TO THE TOWERS, AND GWEN + READ HER LETTERS IN THE TRAIN. THE TORPEYS, THE RECTOR, AND THE + BISHOP. HOW THE COUNTESS SHUT HER EYES, AND GWEN HARANGUED. WHO WAS + LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS? THE UP-EXPRESS, AND ITS VIRUS. HOW GWEN + RESOLVED TO RUSH THE POSITION. AT STRIDES COTTAGE. HOW GWEN BECAME + MORE AND MORE ALIVE TO HER DIFFICULTIES. HOW SHE WENT TO SEE DR. + NASH. HIS INCREDULITY. AND HIS CONVERSION. HOW HE WOULD SEE GRANNY + MARRABLE, BY ALL MEANS. BUT! HOWEVER, BY GOOD LUCK, MUGGERIDGE HAD + FORGOTTEN HIS MARRIAGE VOWS, HALF A CENTURY AGO AND MORE + + +It was written in the Book of Fate, and printed in the _Morning Post_, +that the Countess of Ancester was leaving for Rocestershire, and would +remain over Christmas. After which she would probably pay a visit to her +daughter, Lady Philippa Brandon, at Vienna. The Earl would join her at +the Towers after a short stay at Bath, according to his lordship's +annual custom. The _Post_ did not commit itself as to his lordship's +future movements, because Fate had not allowed the Editor to look in her +Book. + +And the Countess herself seemed to know no more than the _Post_. For +when her daughter, in the railway-carriage on the way to the Towers, +looked up from a letter she was reading over and over again, to say:--"I +suppose it's no use trying to persuade papa to come to Vienna, after +all?" her mother's answer was:--"You can try, my dear. _You_ may have +some influence with him. _I_ have none. I suppose when we're gone, +he'll just get wrapped up in his fiddles and books and old gim-cracks, +as he always does the minute my eyes are off him." Gwen made no comment +upon inconsistencies, becoming reabsorbed in her letter. But surely a +Countess whose eyes prevent an Earl getting wrapped up in fiddles is not +absolutely without influence over him. + +Gwen's absorbing letter was from Irene, incorporating dictation from +Adrian. The writer had found the accepted Official form:--"I am to say," +convenient in practice. Thus, for instance, "I am to say that he is not +counting the hours till your return, as it seems to him that the total, +when reached, will be of no use to him or anyone else. He prefers to +accept our estimate of the interval as authentic, and to deduct each +hour as it passes. He is at eighty-six now, and expects to be at +sixty-two at this time to-morrow, assuming that he can trust the clock +while he's asleep." Gwen inferred that the amanuensis had protested, to +go on to a more interesting point, as the letter continued:--"Adrian and +I have been talking over what do you think, Gwen dear? Try and guess +before you turn over this page I'm just at the end of...." Dots ended +the page, and the next began:--"Give it up? Well--only, if I tell you, +you must throw this letter in the fire when you have read it--I'm more +than half convinced that there was once a _tendresse_, to put it mildly, +between our respective papa and mamma--that is, our respective papa and +your respective mamma--not the other way, that's ridiculous! And Adrian +is coming to my way of thinking, after what happened yesterday. It was +at dessert, and papa was quite loquacious, for him--in his best form, +saying:--'Niggers, niggers, niggers! What does that blessed Duchess of +Sutherland want to liberate niggers for? Much better wollop 'em!' The +Duchess was, he said, an hysterical female. Mamma was unmoved and +superior. Perhaps papa would call Lady Ancester hysterical, too. _She_ +was at Stafford House, and was _most enthusiastic_. She had promised to +drive over as soon as she came back, to talk about Negro slavery, and +see if something could not be done in the neighbourhood. Mamma hoped she +would interest the Torpeys and the Rector and the Bishop. Only the point +was that the moment _our_ mamma mentioned _yours_, papa shut up with a +snap, and never said another word. It struck me exactly as it struck +Adrian. And when we came to talk it over we agreed that, if it were, it +would account for our having been such strangers till last year." + +Gwen was roused from weighing the possibilities of the truth of this +surmise by the voice of one of its subjects. "How very engrossing our +letters seem to be this morning!" said the Countess, with a certain air +of courteous toleration, as of seniority on Olympus. "But perhaps I have +no right to inquire." This with _empressement_. + +"Don't be so civil, mamma dear, please!" said Gwen. "I do hate +civility.... No, there's nothing of interest. Yes--there is. Lady +Torrens says she hopes you won't forget your promise to come and talk +about abolishing negroes. I didn't know you were going to." + +The Countess skipped details. "Let me see the letter," said she, +forsaking her detached superiority. She began to polish a double +eyeglass prematurely. + +"Can't show the letter," said Gwen equably, as one secure in her rights. +"That's all--what I've told you! Says you promised to drive over and +talk, and she hoped to interest you--oh no!--it's not you, it's the +Torpeys are to be interested." + +"Oh--the Torpeys," said the Countess freezingly. Because it was +humiliating to have to put away those double eyeglasses. "Perhaps if +there is anything else of interest you will tell me. Do not trouble to +read the whole." + +"But _did_ you promise to drive over to Pensham? Because, if you did, we +may just as well go together. With all those men at the Towers, I shall +have to bespeak Tom Kettering and the mare." + +"I think something _was_ said about my going over. But I certainly made +no promise." Her ladyship reflected a moment, and then said:--"I think +we had better be free lances. I am most uncertain. It's a long drive. If +I do go, I shall lunch at the Parysforts, which is more than half-way, +and go on in the afternoon to your aunt at Poynders. Then I need not +come back till the day after. I could call at Pensham by the way." + +"I won't go to old Goody Parysforts--so that settles the matter! When +shall I tell Adrian's mamma you are coming?" + +"Are you going there at once?" + +"Yes--to-morrow. I must see Adrian to talk to him about my old ladies, +before I talk to either of them." Thereupon the Countess became +prodigiously interested in the story of the twins, a subject about which +she had been languid hitherto, and her daughter was not sorry, because +she did not want to be asked again what Irene had said, which might have +involved her in reading that young lady's text aloud, with extemporised +emendations, possibly complex. She put that letter away, to re-read +another time, and took out another one. "I've had _this_," she said, +"from old Mrs. Prichard. But there's nothing in it!" + +"Nothing in it?" + +"Nothing about what Widow Thrale told us in hers. Nothing about Mrs. +Thrale thinking she had gone dotty." + +The Countess, with a passing rebuke of her daughter's phraseology, asked +to be reminded of the story. Gwen, embarking on a _résumé_, was +interrupted by a tunnel, and then had hardly begun again when the train +rushed into a second section of it, which had slipped or been blown +further along the line. However, Peace ensued, in a land where, to all +appearance, notice-boards were dictating slow speeds from interested +motives, as there was no reason in life against quick ones. Gwen took +advantage of it to read Mrs. Prichard's letter aloud, with comments. +This was the letter:-- + + "'MY DEAR LADY, + + "'I am looking forward to your return, and longing for it, for I + have much to tell you. I cannot tell of it all now, but I can tell + you what is such a happiness to tell, of the sweet kindness of this + dear young woman who takes such care of me. A many have been very + very kind to me, and what return have I to make, since my dear + husband died?'... + +"Her dear husband, don't you see, mamma, was the infamous monster that +wrote the forged letter that did it all.... Papa read it to you, didn't +he?" + +"My dear, it's no use asking me what your father read or did not read to +me, for really the last few days have been such a whirl. It always is, +in London. However, go on! I know the letter you mean--what you were +telling me about. Only I can't say I made head or tail of it at the +time. Go on!" Her ladyship composed herself to listen with her eyes +shut, and Gwen read on:-- + + "'But never, no never, was such patient kindness to a tiresome old + woman, because that is what I am, and I know, my dear. I know, my + dear, that I owe this to you, and it is for your sake, but it ought + to be, and that is right. I do not say things always like I want + to. She says her own mother is no use to her, because she is so + strong and never ill, and I am good to nurse. But she is coming + back very soon, and I shall see her. She is my Davy's other Granny, + you know, and I am sure she must be good. I cannot write more, but + oh, how good you have been to me! + +"'Your loving and dutiful +"'MAISIE PRICHARD. + + "'I must say this to you, that she lets me call her her name Ruth. + That was my child's I left at our Dolly's age, who was drowned.' + +"Now are you sure, mamma," said Gwen, not without severity, "that you +quite understand that it's _the same Ruth_? That this Widow Thrale _is_ +the little girl that old Mrs. Prichard has gone on believing drowned, +all these years? Are you quite clear that old Granny Marrable actually +_is_ the twin sister she has not seen for fifty years? Are you +certain...?" + +"My dear Gwen, I beg you won't harangue. Besides, I can't hear you +because the train's going quick again. It always does, just here.... +No--I understand perfectly. These two old persons have not seen each +other for fifty years, and it's very interesting. Only I don't see what +they have to complain of. They have only got to be told, and made to +understand how the mistake came about. I think they _ought_ to be told, +you know." + +"Oh dear, what funny things maternal parents are! Mamma dear, you are +just like Thothmes, who said:--'Better late than never'!" + +"Who is 'Thothmes'?" Her ladyship knew perfectly well. + +"Well--Lincoln's Inn Fields--if you prefer it! Mr. Hawtrey. He's like a +cork that won't come out. I cannot understand people like you and Mr. +Hawtrey. I suppose you will say that you and he are not in it, and I +am?" + +"I shall say _nothing_, my dear. I never do." The Countess retired to +the Zenith, meekly. The train was picking up its spirits, audibly, but +cautiously. The flank fire of hints about speed had subsided, and it had +all the world before it, subject to keeping on the line and screeching +when called on to do so by the Company. + +"I wonder," said Gwen, "whether you have realised that that dear old +soul is calling her own daughter Ruth 'Ruth,' without knowing who she +is." + +"Oh dear yes--perfectly! But suppose she is--what does it matter?" The +conversation was cut short by the more than hysterical violence of the +up-express, which was probably the thing that passed, invisible owing to +its speed, before its victims could do more than quail and shiver. When +it had shrieked and rattled itself out of hearing, it was evident that +it had bitten Gwen's engine and poisoned its disposition, for madness +set in, and it dragged her train over oily lines and clicketty lines +alike at a speed that made conversation impossible. + +Gwen was panting to start upon the bewildering task she had before her, +but only to put it to the proof, and end the tension. It was +_impossible_ to keep the two old twins in the dark, and it seemed to her +that delay might make matters worse. As for ingenious schemes to reveal +the strange story gradually, some did occur to her, but none bore +reconsideration. Probably disaster lay in ambush behind over-ingenuity. +Go gently but firmly to the point--that seemed to her a safe rule for +guidance. If she could only anchor her dear old fairy godmother in a +haven of calm knowledge of the facts, she was less distressingly +concerned about the sister and daughter. The former of these was the +more prickly thorn of anxiety. Still, she was a wonderfully strong old +lady--not like old Mrs. Picture, a semi-invalid. As for the latter, she +scarcely deserved to be thought a thorn at all. She might even be relied +on to put her feelings in her pocket and help. + +Yes--that was an idea! How would it be to make Widow Thrale know the +truth first, and then simply tell her that help she _must_, and there an +end! Gwen acted on the impulse produced in her mind during the last +twenty minutes of her journey, in which conversation with her mother +continued a discomfort, owing to the strong effect which the poisoned +tooth or bad example of the down-train express had produced on her own +hitherto temperate and reasonable engine. On arriving at Grantley Thorpe +she changed her mind about seeing Adrian before visiting Strides +Cottage, and petitioned Mr. Sandys, the Station-master, for writing +materials, and asked him to send the letter she then and there wrote, by +bearer, to Widow Thrale at Chorlton; not because the distance of Strides +Cottage from the main road was a serious obstacle to its personal +delivery on the way home, but because she wished to avoid seeing any of +its occupants until a full interview was possible. Also, she wanted +Widow Thrale to be prepared for something unusual. Her letter was:--"I +am coming to you to-morrow. I want to talk about dear old Mrs. Prichard, +but do not show her this or say anything till I see you. And do not be +uneasy or alarmed." She half fancied when she had written it that the +last words were too soothing. But this was a mistake. Nothing rouses +alarm alike reassurance. + +It was a relief to her, between this and an early start for Chorlton +next day, to be dragged forcibly away from her dominant anxiety. The +Colonel's shooting-party was still in possession at the Towers, though +its numbers were dwindling daily. It had never had its full complement, +as so many who might have gone to swell it were fighting in the ranks +before Sebastopol, or in hospital at Balaklava, cholera-stricken +perhaps; or, nominally, waiting till resurrection-time in the cemetery +there, or by the Alma, for the grass of a new year to cover them in; but +maybe actually--and likelier too--in some strange inconceivable Hades; +poor cold ghosts in the dark, marvelling at the crass stupidity of Cain, +and even throwing doubts on "glory." + +The Colonel's party, belonging to the class that is ready to send all +its sons that can bag game or ride to hounds, to be food for powder +themselves in any dispute made and provided, was sadly denuded of the +young man element, and he himself was fretting with impatience at the +medical verdict that had disqualified him for rejoining his regiment +with a half-healed lung. But the middle-aged majority, and the civilian +juniors--including a shooting parson--could talk of nothing but the War. + +Some of us who are old enough will recall easily their own consciousness +of the universal war-cloud at this time, when reminded that the details +of Inkerman were only lately to hand, and that Florence Nightingale had +not long begun to work in the hospital at Scutari. But the immediate +excitement of the moment, when the two ladies joined the dinner-party +that evening at the Towers, was the frightful storm of which Gwen had +already had the first news, which had strewn the coast of the Chersonese +with over thirty English wrecks, and sent stores and war material +costing millions to the bottom of the Black Sea. She was glad, however, +to hear that it was certain that the Agamemnon had been got off the +rocks at Balaklava, as she had understood that Granny Marrable had a +grandson on the ship. + + * * * * * + +The time was close at hand, within an hour, when Gwen would have to find +words to tell her strange impossible story, if not to that dear old +silver hair--to those grave peaceful eyes,--at least to one whose +measure of her whole life must perforce be changed by it. What would it +mean, to Widow Thrale, to have such a subversive fact suddenly sprung +upon her? + +More than once in her ride to Chorlton it needed all her courage to +crush the impulse to tell Tom Kettering to turn the mare round and drive +back to the Towers. It would have been so easy to forge some excuse to +save her face, and postpone the embarrassing hour till to-morrow. But to +what end? It would be absolutely out of the question to leave the +sisters in ignorance of each other, even supposing the circumstances +made continued ignorance possible. The risks to the health or +brain-power of either would surely be greater if the _éclaircissement_ +were left to haphazard, than if she were controlling it with a previous +knowledge of all the facts. Perhaps Gwen was not aware how much her +inborn temperament had to do with her conclusions. Had she been a +soldier, she would have volunteered to go on every forlorn hope, on +principle. No doubt an "hysterical" temperament, as it is so common +among women! But it is a form of hysteria that exists also among men. + +Whether or no, here she was at the gate of Strides Cottage, and it was +now too late to think of going back. Tom Kettering was requesting the +mare, in stable language, not to kick _terra firma_, or otherwise object +to standing, till he had assisted the lady down. She was down without +assistance before the mare was convinced of sin, so Tom touched his hat +vaguely, but committed himself to nothing. He appeared to understand--as +he didn't say he didn't, when instructed--that he was to wait five +minutes; and then, if nothing appeared to the contrary, employ himself +and the mare in any way they could agree upon, for an hour; and then +return to pick her up. + +The cat, the only inmate visible at Strides, rose from the threshold to +welcome the visitor, with explanations perfectly clear to Gwen--who +understood cats--that if it had been within her power to reach the +door-latch, she would have opened the door, entirely to accommodate her +ladyship. She had no mixture of motives, arising from having been shut +out. Gwen threw doubt on this; as, having rung the bell, she waited. She +might have rung again but for Elizabeth-next-door; who, coming out with +advisory powers, said that Mrs. Thrale was probably engaged with the old +lady, but that she herself would go straight in if she was her ladyship. +Not being able to reach the latch herself over the privet-hedge between +them, the good woman was coming round to open the door, but went back +when Gwen anticipated her, and entering the empty front-room, heard the +voices in the bedroom behind. How strange it seemed to her, to wait +there, overhearing them, and knowing that the old voice was that of a +mother speaking to her unknown daughter, and that each was unsuspicious +of the other. + +The dog who trotted in from the passage between the rooms or beyond it, +was no doubt the one Gwen had heard of. He examined her slightly, seemed +satisfied, and disappeared as he had come. The cat chose the most +comfortable corner by the fire, and went to sleep in it without +hesitation. The fire crackled with new dry wood, and exploded a chance +wet billet into jets of steam, under a kettle whose lid was tremulous +from intermittent stress below. + +Otherwise, nothing interfered with the two voices in the room beyond; +the mother's, weak with age, but cheerful enough, no unhappy sound about +it; the daughter's, cheerful, robust, and musical, rallying and +encouraging her as a child, perhaps about some dress obstacle or +mystery. The effect on Gwen of listening to them was painful. To hear +them, knowing the truth, made that knowledge almost unendurable. Could +she possess her soul in peace until what she supposed to be the old +lady's toilette was complete? + +The question was decided by the dog, who was applying for admission at +the door beyond the passage, somewhat diffidently and cautiously. Gwen +could just see him, exploring along the door-crack with his nose. +Presently, remaining unnoticed from within, he made his voice +audible--barely audible, not to create alarm needlessly. It was only to +oblige; he had no misgivings about the visitor. + +Then Gwen, conceiving that a change in the voices implied that his +application had been heard, helped the applicant, by a word or two to +identify herself; adding that she was in no hurry, and would wait. Then +followed more change in the voices; the mother's exclamation of +pleasure; the daughter's recognition of her visitor's dues of courtesy +and deference, and their claim for a prompt discharge. Then an opened +door, and Widow Thrale herself, not too much overpowered by her +obligations to leave the dog's explanations and apologies +unacknowledged. The utter unconsciousness this showed of the thing that +was to come almost made Gwen feel that the strain on her powers of +self-control might become greater than she could bear, and that she +might break out with some premature disclosure which would only seem +sheer madness to her unprepared hearer. + +She could hold out a little yet, though.... Well!--she had got to manage +it, by hook or by crook. So--courage! Five minutes of normal +_causeries_, mere currencies of speech, and then the match to the train! + +She evolved, with some difficulty, the manner which would be correct in +their relative positions; accepted the curtsey before stretching out a +hand, guaranteed Olympian, to the plains below. "My dear Mrs. Thrale," +said she, choking back excitement to chat-point, "I really am more +grateful to you than I can say for taking charge of this dear old lady. +I was quite at my wits' end what to do with her. You see, I had to go up +to London, because of my cousin's illness--Sister Nora, you know--and it +was in the middle of the night, and I was afraid the dear old soul +would be uncomfortable at the Towers." She made some pretence of languid +indifference to conventional precisions, and of complete superiority to +scruples about confessing an error, by adding:--"Most likely I was +wrong. One is, usually. But it never seems to matter.... Let's see--what +was I saying? Oh--how very kind it was of you to solve the difficulty +for me.... Well--to help me out of the scrape!" For Mrs. Thrale had +looked the doubt in her mind--_could_ Gurth the Swineherd "solve a +difficulty" for Coeur de Lion? She could only do Anglo-Saxon things, +legitimately. The point was, however, covered by Gwen's amendment. + +Mrs. Thrale had begun a smile of approbation at the phrase "dear old +lady," and had felt bound to suspend it for Sister Nora's illness. That +was a parenthesis, soon disposed of. The revival of the smile was easy, +on the words "dear old soul." She was that, there was no doubt of it, +said Mrs. Thrale, adding:--"'Tis for me to be grateful to your ladyship +for allowing me the charge of her. I hope your ladyship may not be +thinking of taking her away, just yet-a-while?" + +"I think not, just at present.... We shall be able to talk of that.... +Tell me--how has she been? Because of your letter." + +"There now!--when I got your ladyship's note last night I felt a'most +ashamed of writing that I had been uneasy or alarmed." Gwen saw that her +yesterday's attempt at premonition had missed fire, and Mrs. Thrale +added:--"Because--_not a word!_" + +"How do you mean? I don't quite understand." + +"She's never said a word since. Not that sort of word! She's just never +spoke of the mill, nor Muggeridge, nor my grandfather. And I have said +nothing to her, by reason of Dr. Nash's advice. 'Never you talk to a +mental patient about their delusions!'--that's what Dr. Nash says. So I +never said one word." + +Gwen felt sorry she had not made her note of alarm more definite. For +the absolute faith of the speaker in her own belief and Dr. Nash's +professional infallibility, that a dropped voice and confidential manner +seemed to erect as a barrier to enlightenment, made her feel more at a +loss than ever how to act. Would it not, after all, be easiest to risk +the whole, and speak at once to the old lady herself? She prefigured in +her mind the greater ease of telling her story when she could make her +own love a palliative to the shock of the revelation, could take on her +bosom the old head, stunned and dumfoundered; could soothe the weakness +of the poor old hand with the strength and youth of her own. But into +that image came a disturbing whim--call it so!--a question from without, +not bred of her own mind:--"Is not this the daughter's right?--the +prerogative of the flesh and blood that stands before you?" Perhaps Gwen +_was_ whimsical sometimes. + +If Widow Thrale had said one word to pave the way--had spoken, for +instance, of the unaccountableness of the old lady's memories--Gwen +might have seen daylight through the wood. But this placid immovable +ascription of the whole of them to brain-disorder was an Ituri forest of +preconceptions, shutting out every gleam of suggested truth. + +A sudden idea occurred to her. Her father had spoken well of Dr. +Nash--of his abilities, at least--and he seemed very much in Mrs. +Thrale's good books. Could she not get _him_ to help, or at least to +take his measure as a confidant in her difficulty before condemning him +as impossible? + +So quickly did all this pass through her mind that the words "I think I +should like to see Dr. Nash" seemed to follow naturally. Mrs. Thrale +welcomed the idea. + +"But he'll be gone," said she. "He goes to see his patient at Dessington +Manor at eleven. And if he was sent for it is very like he could not +come, even for your ladyship. Because his sick folk he sees at the +surgery they will have their money's worth. Indeed, I think the poor +man's worked off his legs." + +"I see," said Gwen. "I shall go and see him myself, at once." She +breathed freer for the respite, and the prospect of help. "But there's +plenty of time if I look sharp. Would you tell Tom outside that he's not +to run away. I shall want him? May I go through to see her? Is she +getting up?" + +She was up, apparently, in the accepted sense of the word; though she +had collapsed with the effort of becoming so; and was now down, in the +literal sense, lying on the bed under contract not to move till Mrs. +Thrale returned with a cup of supplementary arrowroot. She had had a +very poor breakfast. Certainly, her ladyship might go in. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear, I am so glad you are come!" It was the voice of a +great relief that came from the figure on the bed; the voice of one who +had waited long, of a traveller who sees his haven, a castaway adrift +who spies a sail. + +"Now, dear Mrs. Picture, you are not to get up, but lie still till I +come back. I'm going to try to catch Dr. Nash, and must hurry off. But I +_am_ coming back." + +"Oh--all right!" There was disappointment in her tone, but it was +docility itself. She added, however, with the barest trace of +remonstrance:--"I'm quite _well_, you know. I don't _want_ the doctor." + +Gwen laughed. "Oh no--it's not for you! I've ... I've a message for him. +I shall soon be back." An excusable fiction, she thought, under the +circumstances. + +She was only just in time to catch Dr. Nash, whose gig was already in +possession of him at his garden-gate with a palpably medical lamp over +it, and a "surgery bell" whose polish seemed to guarantee its owner's +prescriptions. "Get down and talk to me in the house," said her young +ladyship. "Who is it you were going to? Anyone serious?" + +"Only Sir Cropton Fuller." + +"He can wait.... Can't he?" + +"He'll have to. No hurry!" The doctor found time to add, between the +gate and the house:--"I go to see him every day to prevent his taking +medicine. He's extremely well. I don't get many cases of illness, among +my patients." He turned round to look at Gwen, on the doorstep. "Your +ladyship doesn't look very bad," said he. + +Gwen shook her head. "It's nothing to do with me," she said. "Nor with +illness! It's old Mrs. Prichard at Strides Cottage." + +The doctor stood a moment, latchkey in hand. "The old lady whose mind is +giving way?" said he. He had knitted his brows a little; and, having +spoken, he knitted his lips a little. + +"We are speaking of the same person," said Gwen. She followed the doctor +into his parlour, and accepted the seat he offered. He stood facing her, +not relaxing his expression, which worked out as a sort of mild +grimness, tempered by a tune which his thumbs in the armpits of his +waistcoat enabled him to play on its top-pockets. It was a slow tune. +Gwen continued:--"But her mind is _not_ giving way." + +The doctor let that expression subside into mere seriousness. He took a +chair, to say:--"Your ladyship has, perhaps, not heard all particulars +of the case." + +"Every word." + +"You surprise me. Are you aware that this poor old person is under a +delusion about her own parentage? She fancies herself the daughter of +Isaac Runciman, the father of old Mrs. Marrable, the mother of Widow +Thrale." + +"She _is_ his daughter." + +The doctor nearly sprang out of his chair with surprise, but an insecure +foothold made the chair jump instead. + +"But it's impossible--it's _impossible_!" he cried. "How could Mrs. +Marrable have a sister alive and not know it?" + +"That is what I am going to explain to you, Dr. Nash. And Sir Cropton +Fuller will have to wait, as you said." + +"But the thing's impossible in _itself_. Only look at this!..." + +"Please consider Sir Cropton Fuller. You won't think it so impossible +when you know it has happened." The doctor listened for the symptoms +with perceptibly less than his normal appearance of knowing it all +beforehand. Gwen proceeded, and told with creditable brevity and +clearness, the succession of events the story has given, for its own +reasons, by fits and starts. + +It could not be accepted as it stood, consistently with male dignity. +The superior judicial powers of that estimable sex called for assertion. +First, suspension of opinion--no hasty judgments! "A most extraordinary +story! A _most_ extra_or_dinary story! But scarcely to be accepted.... +You'll excuse my plain speech?..." + +"Please don't use any other! The matter's too serious." + +"Scarcely to be accepted without a close examination of the evidence." + +"Unquestionably. Does any point occur to you?" + +Now Dr. Nash had nothing ready. "Well," he said, dubiously, "in such a +very difficult matter it might be rash...." Then he thought of something +to say, suddenly. "Well--_yes!_ It certainly does occur to me that ... +No--perhaps not--perhaps not!..." + +"What were you going to say?" + +"That there is no direct proof that the forged letter was ever sent to +Australia." This sounded well, and appeared like a tribute to +correctness and caution. It meant nothing whatever. + +"Only the Australian postmark," said Gwen. "I have got it here, but it's +rather alarming--the responsibility." + +"If it was written, as you say, over an effaced original, it might have +been done just as easily in England." The doctor was reading the +direction, not opening the letter. + +"Not by a forger at the Antipodes!" said Gwen. + +"I meant afterwards--when--when Mrs. Prichard was in England?" + +"She brought the letter with her when she came. It couldn't have been +forged afterwards." + +The doctor gave it up. Masculine superiority would have to stand over. +But he couldn't see his way, on human grounds, profundity apart. "What +is so horribly staggering," said he, "is that after fifty years these +two should actually see each other and still be in the dark. And the way +it came about! The amazing coincidences!" The doctor spoke as if such +unblushing coincidences ought to be ashamed of themselves. + +Gwen took this to be his meaning, apparently. "_I_ can't help it, Dr. +Nash," she said. "If they had told me they were going to happen, I might +have been able to do something. Besides, there was only one, if you come +to think of it--the little boy being sent to Widow Thrale's to +convalesce. It was my cousin, Miss Grahame, who did it.... Yes, thank +you!--she is going on very well, and Dr. Dalrymple hopes she will make a +very good recovery. He fussed a good deal about her lungs, but they seem +all right...." The conversation fluctuated to Typhus Fever for a moment, +but was soon recalled by the young lady, whose visit had a definite +purpose. "Now, Dr. Nash, I have a favour to ask of you, which is what I +came for. It occurred to me when I heard that you would be going to +Dessington Manor this morning." The doctor professed his readiness, or +eagerness, to do anything in his power to oblige Lady Gwendolen Rivers, +but evidently had no idea what it could possibly be. "You will be close +to Costrell's farm, where the other old lady is staying with her +granddaughter?" + +"I shall. But what can I do?" + +"You can, perhaps, help me in the very difficult job of making the truth +known to her and her sister. I say perhaps, because you may find you can +do nothing. I shall not blame you if you fail. But you can at least +try." + +It would have been difficult to refuse anything to the animated beauty +of his petitioner, even if she had been the humblest of his village +patients. The doctor pledged himself to make the attempt, without +hesitation, saying to himself as he did so that this would be a +wonderful woman some day, with a little more experience and maturity. +"But," said he, "I never promised to do anything with a vaguer idea of +what I was to do, nor how I was to set about it." + +Gwen's earnestness had no pause for a smile. "It is easier than you +think," she said, "if you only make up your mind to it. It is easy for +you, because your medical interest in old Mrs. Prichard's case makes it +possible for you to _entamer_ the conversation. You see what I mean?" + +"Perfectly--I _think_. But I don't see how that will _entamer___ old +Mrs. Marrable. Won't the conversation end where it began?" + +"I think not--not necessarily. I will forgive you if it does. Consider +that the apparent proof of delusion in my old lady's mind is that she +has told things about her childhood which are either _bona-fide_ +recollections, or have been derived from the little boy...." + +"Dave Wardle. So I understood from Widow Thrale. She has told me all the +things as they happened. In fact, I have been able to call in every day. +The case seemed very interesting as a case of delusion, because some of +the common characteristics were wanting. It loses that interest now, +certainly, but.... However, you were saying, when I interrupted?..." + +"I was saying that unless these ideas could be traced to Dave Wardle, +they must have come out of Mrs. Prichard's own head. Is it not natural +that you should want to hear from Granny Marrable what she recollects +having said to the child?" + +The doctor cogitated a moment, then gave a short staccato nod. "I see," +said he, in a short staccato manner. "_Yes._ That might do something for +us. At any rate, I can try it.... I beg your pardon." + +Gwen had just begun again, but paused as the doctor looked at his watch. +She continued:--"I cannot find anything that she might not have easily +said to a small boy. I wish I could. Her recollection of _not_ having +said anything won't be certainty. But even inquiring about what she +_doesn't_ recollect would give an opening. Did Mrs. Prichard say nothing +to you about her early life at the mill?" + +"She said a good deal, because I encouraged her to talk, to convince +myself of her delusion.... Could I recollect some of it? I think so. Or +stay--I have my notes of the case." He produced a book. "Here we are. +'Mrs. Maisie Prichard, eighty-one. Has delusions. Thinks mill was her +father's. It was Widow Thrale's grandfather's. Knows horses Pitt and +Fox. Knows Muggeridge waggoner. Has names correct. Qy.:--from child +Wardle last year? M. was dismissed soon after. Asked try recollect what +for.' I am giving your ladyship the abbreviations as written." + +"Quite right. Is there more?" For evidently there was. Gwen could see +the page. + +"She remembered that he was dismissed for ... irregularity." + +Gwen suspected suppression. "What sort? Did he drink? Let me see the +book. I won't read the other cases." And so all-powerful was beauty, or +the traces of Feudalism, that this middle-aged M.R.C.S. actually +surrendered his private notes of cases into these most unprofessional +hands. Gwen pointed to the unread sequel, triumphantly. "There!" she +exclaimed. "The very thing we want! You may be sure that neither Granny +Marrable nor her daughter ever told a chick of seven years old of +_that_ defect in Mr. Muggeridge's character." For what Gwen had _not_ +read aloud was:--"_Mug. broke 7th: Comm:_" + +The doctor was perhaps feeling that masculine profundity had not shone, +and that he ought to do something to redeem its credit. For his comment, +rather judicial in tone, was:--"Yes--but Widow Thrale was not able to +confirm this ... blemish on Mr. Muggeridge's reputation." + +"Now, my dear Dr. Nash, why _should_ she be able to confirm a thing that +happened when her mother was ten years old?" + +The doctor surrendered at discretion--perhaps resolved not to repeat the +attempt to reinstate the male intellect. "Of course not!" said he. +"Perfectly correct. Very good! I'll try, then, to make use of that. I +understand your object to be that old Granny Marrable shall come to know +that she and Mrs. Prichard are sisters, as gradually as possible. I may +not succeed, but I'll do my best. Ticklish job, rather! Now I suppose I +ought to look after Sir Cropton Fuller." + +Five minutes after saying which the doctor's gig was doing its best to +arrive in time to prevent that valetudinarian swallowing five grains of +calomel, or something of the sort, on his own responsibility. + + * * * * * + +Gwen had felt a misgiving that her expedition to Dr. Nash had really +been a cowardly undertaking, because she had flinched from her task at +the critical moment. Well--suppose she had! It might turn out a +fortunate piece of poltroonery, if Dr. Nash contrived to break the ice +for her with the other old sister. But the cowardice was beginning +again, now that every stride of the mare was taking her nearer to her +formidable task. Desperation was taking the place of mere Resolve, +thrusting her aside as too weak for service in the field, useless +outside the ramparts. Oh, but if only some happy accident would pave the +way for speech, would enable her to say to herself:--"I have said the +first word! I cannot go back now, if I would!" + +On the way to Strides Cottage again! Nearer and nearer now, that moment +that must come, and put an end to all this puling hesitation. She could +not help the thought that rose in her mind:--"This that I do--this +reuniting of two souls long parted by a living death--may it not be what +Death does every day for many a world-worn survivor of a half-forgotten +parting in a remote past?" For, indeed, it seemed to her that these two +had risen from the dead, and that for all she knew each might say of +the other:--"It is not she." For what is Death but the withdrawal from +sight and touch and hearing of the evidence of Some One Else? What less +had come to pass for old Maisie and Phoebe, fifty years ago? How is it +with us all in that mysterious Beyond, that for the want of a better +name we call a Hereafter, when ghost meets ghost, and either lacks the +means of recognition? + +She knew the trick of that latch now, and went in. + +The room was empty of all but the cat, who seemed self-absorbed; silent +but for a singing kettle and a chirping cricket. Probably Widow Thrale +was in the bedroom. Gwen crossed the passage, and gently opening the +door, looked in. Only the old lady herself was there, upon the bed, so +still that Gwen half feared at first she had died in her sleep. No--all +was well! She wondered a moment at the silver hair, the motionless +hands, alabaster but for the blue veins, the frailty of the whole, and +its long past of eighty years, those years of strange vicissitude. And +through them all no one thing so strange as what she was to know on +waking! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + HOW GWEN HEARD WIDOW THRALE'S REPORT AND HOW SHE ROSE TO THE + OCCASION. HOW WIDOW THRALE WAS IN FAVOUR OF SILENCE. HOW GWEN HAD + TO SHOW THE FORGED LETTER. THE LINSTOCK AT THE BREECH. BUT MY NAME + WAS RUTH DAVERILL! THE GUN GOES OFF. GWEN'S COOLNESS IN ACTION. BUT + WHY IN MRS. PRICHARD'S LETTER? A CRISIS AND AN AWAKENING. WHO WILL + TELL MOTHER? HOW GWEN GOT FIRST SPEECH OF MRS. PRICHARD. THE + DELUSION CASE'S REPORT OF ITSELF. ANOTHER IMPENETRABLE FORTRESS. + THE STAGE METHOD, AS A LAST RESOURCE. AN _IMPASSE_. "BAS AN AIR + EACHIN." HOW MRS. PRICHARD WANTED TO TELL MRS. MARRABLE ABOUT HER + DEAD SISTER, STILL ALIVE. GWEN'S FORCES SCATTERED, AND A RALLY. + ANOTHER CRISIS, AND SUCCESS. WHO FORGED THAT LETTER? + + +That had been a quick interview with Dr. Nash in spite of its +importance. For the church clock had been striking eleven when the mare, +four minutes after leaving Dr. Nash, reached Strides Cottage. A great +deal of talk may be got through in a very little time, as the playwright +knows to his cost. + +Widow Thrale had been talking with Elizabeth-next-door when the mare +stopped, disappointed at the short run. She heard the arrival, and came +out to find that her ladyship had preceded her into the house. Tom +Kettering, having communicated this, stooped down from his elevation to +add in confidence:--"Her ladyship's not looking her best, this short +while past. You have an eye to her, mistress. Asking pardon!" It was a +concession to speech, on Tom's part, and he seemed determined it should +go no farther, for he made a whip-flick tell the mare to walk up and +down, and forget the grass rim she had noticed on the footpath. Mrs. +Thrale hurried into the house. She, too, had seen how white Gwen was +looking, before she started to go to Dr. Nash. + +She met her coming from the bedroom, whiter still this time. Her +exclamation:--"Dearie me, my lady, how!..." was stopped by:--"It is not +illness, Mrs. Thrale. I am perfectly well," said with self-command, +though with a visible effort to achieve it. But it was clear that the +thing that was not illness was a serious thing. + +"I was afraid for your ladyship," said Mrs. Thrale. And she remained +uneasy visibly. + +"I see she is very sound asleep. Will she remain so for awhile?... Has +not been sleeping at night, did you say? That explains it.... No, I +won't take anything, thank you!... Yes, I will. I'll have some water. I +see it on the dresser. That's plenty--thanks!" Thus Gwen's part of what +followed. She moistened her lips, and speech was easier to her. They had +been so dry and hot. She continued, feeling that the moment had +come:--"I want your help, Mrs. Thrale. I have something I must tell you +about Mrs. Prichard." + +The convict, nearly forgotten since last year, and of course never +revived for Widow Thrale, suddenly leaped into her mind out of the past, +and menaced evil to her ideal of Mrs. Prichard. She was on her defence +directly. "Nay, then--if it is bad, 'tis no fault of the dear old +soul's. That I be mortal sure of!" + +"Fault of _hers_. No, indeed! It is something I have to tell her. And to +tell you." This was the first real attempt to hint at her hearer's +personal concern in the something. Would it reach her mind? + +Scarcely. To judge by her puzzled eyes fixed on Gwen, and the grave +concern of her face, her heart was rich with ready sympathy for whoever +should suffer by this unknown thing, but without a clue to its near +connection with herself. "Will it be a great sorrow to her to be told +it?" said she uneasily. But all on her old guest's account--none on her +own. + +Gwen felt that her first attempt to breach the fortress of +unconsciousness, had failed. She must lay a new sap, at another angle; +a slower approach, but a surer. + +"Not a great sorrow so much as a great shock. You can help me to tell it +her so as to spare her." Gwen felt at this point the advantages of the +Feudal System. This good woman would never presume to hurry disclosure. +"You can help me, Mrs. Thrale, and I will tell you the whole. But I want +to know one or two things about what she said." Gwen produced Mrs. +Thrale's own letter from a dainty gilded wallet, and opened it. "I +understand that the very first appearance of these delusions--or +whatever they were--was when she saw the mill-model. Quite the very +first?" + +"That was, like, the beginning of it," said Mrs. Thrale, recollecting. +"She asks me, was little Dave in the right about the wheel-sacks and the +water-cart, and I say to her the child is right, but should have said +wheat-sacks and water-mill. And then I get it down.... Yes, I get it +down and show it to her"--this slowly and reminiscently. "And then, my +lady, I look round, and there's the poor old soul, all of a twitter!" +This was accelerated, for dramatic force. + +"You did not put it down to her seeing the mill?" + +"No, my lady; I took it she was upset and tired, at her age. I've seen +the like before. Not my mother, but old Mrs. Dunage at the Rectory. +'Twas when the news came her mother was killed on the railway. She went +quite unconscious, and I helped to nurse her round. She was gone of +seventy-seven at the time." + +"_That_ was a shock, then?" Gwen felt, although Widow Thrale did not +seem to have connected the two things together, that the mill had been +the agency that upset Mrs. Prichard. + +But she had underestimated the strength of the fortress again. Mrs. +Thrale took it as a discrimination between the two cases. "Yes, my +lady," said she quietly. "That was a _shock_. But so you might say, this +was a shock, too. By reason of an idea, got on the mind. Dr. Nash said, +next day, certainly!" + +"Very likely," said Gwen. "But what came next?" + +"Well, now--how was it? I was seeing her to bed, unconscious like, and +she says to me, on the sudden:--'_Whose_ mill was it?' And then, of +course, I say grandfather's. For indeed, my lady, that is so! Mother has +had this model all her life, from when grandfather died, and it could be +no one else's mill." The irresistible amusement at the absurdity that +spread over Ruth's face, and the undercurrent of laughter in her voice, +were secret miseries to Gwen, so explicit were they in their tale of the +unconsciousness that allowed them. She was relieved when the speaker's +voice went back to its tone of serious concern. "And there, now--if the +dear old soul didn't say to me, 'How came this mill to be your +grandfather's mill?'!" + +"And after that?" + +"Oh--then I saw plain! But I thought--best say nothing! So I got her off +to bed, and she went nicely to sleep, and no more trouble. But next +morning early there she was out of bed, hunting for the mill, and +feeling round it on the mantelshelf." + +"And you still thought it was a delusion?" Gwen said this believing that +it _must_ excite suspicion of her object. But again unconsciousness, +perfectly placid and immovable, had the best of it, where scepticism +would have been alert in its defence. + +"Well, I did hope next day, talking it over with Dr. Nash, that it was +just some confusion of hers with another's mill, a bit like ours; and at +her age, no wonder! Because of what she said herself." + +"Said herself?" + +"Yes--touching the size of her mill being double. That is, the model. +But ah--dear me! It was all gone next day, and she talking quite wild +like!" A note of fresh distress in her voice ended in a sigh. Then came +a resurrection of hopefulness. "But she has not gone back to it now for +some while, and Dr. Nash is hopeful it may pass off." + +Gwen began to fear for her own sanity if this was to go on long. To sit +there, facing this calm, sweet assurance of that dear old woman's flesh +and blood, her own daughter, thick-panoplied in impenetrable ignorance; +to hear her unfaltering condemnation of what she must soon inevitably +know to be true; to note above all the tender solicitude and affection +her every word was showing for this unknown mother--all this made Gwen's +brain reel. Unless some natural resolution of the discord came, Heaven +help her, and keep her from some sudden cruel open operation on the +heart of Truth, some unconvincing vivisection of a soul! For belief in +the incredible, however true, flies from forced nurture in the hothouse +of impatience. + +Gwen felt for a new opportunity. "When you say that next day she began +to talk wildly.... What sort of wildly? Are you sure it was so wild?" + +Mrs. Thrale lowered her voice to an intense assurance, a heartfelt +certainty. "Oh yes, my lady--yes, _indeed_! There was no doubt +_possible_. When she was looking at the mill model she had got sight of +two little figures--just dollies--that were meant for mother, and her +sister who died in Australia--my real mother, you know, only I was but +four years old--and the dear old soul went quite mazed about it, saying +that was herself and _her_ sister that died in England, and they were +twins the same as mother and _her_ sister. And it was not till she said +names Dr. Nash found out how it was all made up of what we told little +Davy last year...." + +"And you made sure," said Gwen, interrupting, "that you remembered +telling little Davy all these things last year?" It took all Gwen's +self-command to say this. She was glad to reach the last word. + +Widow Thrale looked hurt, almost indignant. "Why, my lady," said she, +"we _must_ have! Else how could she have known them?" Do not censure her +line of argument. Probably at this very hour it is being uttered by a +hundred mouths, even as--so says a claimant to knowledge--thirteen +earthquakes are always busy, somewhere in the world, at every moment of +the day. + +Gwen could never give up the attempt, having got thus far. But she could +see that hints were useless. "I think I can tell you," said she. And +then she pitied the dawn of bewilderment on the unconscious face before +her, even while she tried to fortify herself with the thought that what +she had to tell was not bad in itself--only a revelation of a lost +past.... Well--why not let it go? Dust and ashes, dead and done with!... +But this vacillation was short-lived. + +Mrs. Thrale's bewilderment found words. "You can ... _tell_ me!" she +said, not much above a whisper. How could she hint at calling her +ladyship's words in question, above her breath? + +Gwen, very pale but collected, rose to the occasion. "I can tell you +what has come to my knowledge about Mrs. Prichard's history. I cannot +doubt its correctness." It crossed her mind then that the telling of it +would come easier if she ignored what knowledge she had of the other +twin sister. So far as Widow Thrale knew, there was nothing outside what +had come to light through this incident. She went steadily on, not +daring to look at her hearer. "Mrs. Prichard was one of two sisters, +whose father owned a flour-mill near London. She married, and her +husband committed forgery and was transported. He was sent to Van +Diemen's Land--the penal settlement." Gwen looked up furtively. No sign +on the unconscious face yet of anything beyond mere perplexity! She +resumed after the slightest pause:--"His young wife followed him out +there"--she wanted to say that a child of four was left behind, but her +courage failed her--"and lived with him. He was out of prison on what +is called ticket-of-leave." + +She looked up again. Still no sign! But then--consider! Ruth Thrale had +always been kept in the dark about the convict. Gwen could not know +this, and was puzzled. Was there, after all, some other solution to the +problem? Anyhow, there was nothing for it now but to get on. "She lived +with him many years, and then, for some reason or other, we can't tell +what, he forged a letter from her father in England, saying that her +sister and her husband and her own child that she had left behind were +all drowned at sea." + +At this point Gwen was quite taken aback by Mrs. Thrale saying:--"But +they were _not_ drowned?" It stirred up a wasps' nest of perplexities. A +moment later, she saw that it was a question, not a statement. She +herself had only said the letter was forged, not that it contained a +lie. How could she vouch for the falsehood of the letter without +claiming knowledge prematurely, and rushing into her disclosure too +quickly? An additional embarrassment was that, when again she looked up +at her hearer, she saw no sign of a clue caught--not even additional +bewilderment; rather the reverse. + +She could, however, reply to a question:--"Mrs. Prichard believed that +they were, and continued to believe it. My father, whom I have told all +about it--all that I know--is of opinion that her husband managed to +prevent her receiving letters from her sister, and destroyed those that +came, which would have shown that she was still alive." + +"Oh, God be good to us!" cried Widow Thrale. "That such wickedness +should be!" + +"He was a monster--a human devil! And _why_ he did it Heaven only knows. +My father can think of nothing but that his wife wanted to return to her +family, and he wanted her to stay. Now, Widow Thrale, you will see why I +want you to help me. I think you will agree with me that it would be +right that the dear old lady should be undeceived." + +Mrs. Thrale fidgeted uneasily. "Your ladyship knows best," she said. + +"You think, perhaps," said Gwen, "that it would only give her needless +pain to know it now, when she has nothing to gain by it?" + +"Yes--that is right." That was said as though Gwen's question had worded +a thought the speaker herself had found hard to express. + +"_Has_ she nothing to gain by it? I do so want you to think over this +quietly.... I wish you would sit down...." Mrs. Thrale did so. "Thank +you!--that _is_ comfortabler. Now, just consider this! There is no +evidence at all that the young daughter whom she left behind with her +sister is not still living, though of course the chances are that the +sister herself is dead. This daughter may be.... What's that?" + +"I thought I heard her waking up. Will your ladyship excuse me one +moment?..." She rose and went to the bedroom. But the old lady was, it +seemed, still sleeping soundly, and she came back and resumed her seat. + +Of all the clues Gwen had thrown out to arouse suspicion of the truth, +and make full announcement possible, not one had entered the unreceptive +mind. Was this to go on until the sleeper really waked? Gwen felt, +during that one moment alone, how painfully this would add to the +embarrassment, and resolved on an act of desperation. + +"I think," said she, speaking very slowly, and fighting hard to hide the +effort speech cost her. "I think I should like you to see this horrible +forged letter. I brought it on purpose.... Oh--here it is!... By-the-by, +I ought to have told you. Prichard is not her real name." A look like +disappointment came on Widow Thrale's face. An _alias_ is always an +uncomfortable thing. Gwen interpreted this look rightly. "It's no blame +to her, you know," she said hastily. "Remember that her proper +name--that on the direction there--belonged to a convict! You or I might +have done the same." + +And then, as the eyes of the daughter turned unsuspicious to her +mother's name--forged by her father, to imitate the handwriting of her +grandfather--Gwen sat and waited as he who has fired a train that leads +to a mine awaits the crash of the rifted rock and its pillar of dust and +smoke against the heavens. + +"But _my_ name was Daverill--Ruth Daverill!" Was the train ill-laid +then, that this woman should be able to sit quite still, content to fix +a puzzled look upon the wicked penmanship of fifty years ago? + +"And your mother's, Ruth Daverill? What was hers?" + +"Maisie Daverill." She answered mechanically, with an implication +of "And why not?" unspoken. She was still dwelling on the +direction, the first name in which was not over-legible, no doubt +owing to the accommodation due to the non-erasure of the first +syllable by the falsifier. Gwen saw this, and said, quietly but +distinctly:--"Thornton." + +The end was gained, for better, for worse. Ruth Thrale gave a sudden +start and cry, uttering almost her mother's words at first sight of the +mill:--"What can this be? What can this be? Tell me, oh, tell me!" + +Gwen, hard put to it during suspense, now cool and self-possessed at the +first gunshot, rose and stood by the panic-stricken woman. Nothing could +soften the shock of her amazement now. Pull her through!--that was the +only chance. And the sooner she knew the whole now, the better! + +It might have been cruelty to a bad end that made such beauty so pale +and resolute as Gwen's, as she said without faltering:--"The name is +your mother's name--Mrs. Thornton Daverill. Your father's name was +Thornton. Now open the letter and read!" + +"Oh--my lady--it makes me afraid!... What can it be?" + +"Open the letter and read!" But Ruth Thrale _could_ not; her hand was +too tremulous; her heart was beating too fast. Gwen took the letter from +her, quietly, firmly; opened it before her eyes; stood by her, pointing +to the words. "Now read!"--she said. + +And then Ruth Thrale read as a child reads a lesson:--"My ... dear ... +daughter ... Maisie ..." and a few words more, her voice shaking badly, +then suddenly stopped. "But my mother's name was Maisie," she said. She +had wavered on some false scent caused by the married name. + +"Read on!" said Gwen remorselessly. Social relation said that her +ladyship _must_ be obeyed first; madness fought against after. Ruth +Thrale read on, for the moment quite mechanically. The story of the +shipwreck did not seem to assume its meaning. She read on, trembling, +clinging to the hand that Gwen had given her to hold. + +Suddenly came an exclamation--a cry. "But what is this about Mrs. +Prichard? This is _not_ Mrs. Prichard. Why is mother's old name in this +letter?" She was pointing to the word Cropredy, Phoebe's first married +name; a name staggering in the force of its identity. She had not yet +seen the signature. + +Gwen turned the page and pointed to it:--"Isaac Runciman," clear and +unmistakable. Incisiveness was a duty now. Said she, deliberately:--"Why +is this forged letter signed with your grandfather's name?" A pause, +with only a sort of puzzled moan in answer. "I will tell you, and you +will have to hear it. Because it was forged by your father, fifty years +ago." Again a pause; not so much as a moan to break the silence! Gwen +made her voice even clearer, even more deliberate, to say:--"Because he +forged it to deceive your mother, and it deceived her, and she believed +you dead. For years she believed you and her sister dead. And when she +returned to England...." + +She was interrupted by a poor dumfoundered effort at speech, more seen +in the face she was intently watching than heard. She waited for it, and +it came at last, in gasps:--"But it is to Mrs. Prichard--the +letter--Mrs. Prichard's letter--oh, why?--oh, why?..." And Ruth Thrale +caught at her head with her hands, as though she felt it near to +bursting. + +The surgeon's knife is most merciful when most resolutely used. + +"Because old Mrs. Prichard _is_ your mother," said Gwen, all her heart +so given to the task before her that she quite forgot, in a sense, her +own existence. "Because she _is_ your mother, whom you have always +thought dead, and who has always thought you dead. Because she _is_ your +mother, who has been living here in England--oh, for so many years +past!--and never found you out!" + +Ruth Thrale's hands fell helpless in her lap, and she sat on, dumb, +looking straight in front of her. Gwen would have been frightened at her +look, but she caught sight of a tear running down her face, and felt +that this was, for the moment, the best that might be. That tear +reassured her. She might safely leave the convulsion that had caused it +to subside. If only the sleeper in the next room would remain asleep a +little longer! + +She did right to be silent and wait. Presently the two motionless hands +began moving uneasily; and, surely, those were sighs, long drawn out? +That had the sound of tension relieved. Then Ruth Thrale turned her eyes +full on the beautiful face that was watching hers so anxiously, and +spoke suddenly. + +"I must go to her at once." + +"But think!--is it well to do so? She knows nothing." + +"My lady--is there need she should? Nor I cannot tell her now, for I +barely know, myself. But I _want_ her--oh, I want her! Oh, all these +cruel years! Poor Mrs. Prichard! But who will tell mother?" She was +stopped by a new bewilderment, perhaps a worse one. + +"_I_ will tell mother." Gwen took the task upon herself, recklessly. +Well!--it had to be gone through with, by someone. And she would do +anything to spare this poor mother and daughter. _She_ would tell Granny +Marrable! She did, however, hope that Dr. Nash had broken the ice for +her. + +A sound came from the other room. The old lady had awaked and was +moving. Mrs. Thrale said in a frightened whisper:--"She will come in +here. She always does. She likes to move about a little by herself. But +she is soon tired." + +Said Gwen:--"Will she come in here? Let me see her alone! Do! It will +only be for a few minutes. Run in next door, and leave me to talk to +her. I have a reason for asking you." She heard the bedroom door open, +beyond the passage. + +"When shall I come back, my lady?" This reluctance to go seemed passing +strange to Gwen. But it yielded to persuasion, or to feudal inheritance. +Gwen watched her vanish slowly into Elizabeth-next-door's; and then, +perceiving that the mare had sighted the transaction, and was bearing +down towards her, she delayed a moment to say:--"Not yet, Tom! +Wait!"--and returned into the house. + + * * * * * + +"My dear, God has been good to let you come. Oh, how I have prayed to +see your face again, and hear your dear voice!" Thus old Mrs. Picture, +crying with joy. She could not cling close enough to that beautiful +hand, nor kiss it quite to her heart's content. + +Gwen left her in possession of it. "But, dear Mrs. Picture," she said, +"I thought your letter said you were so comfortable, and that Mrs. +Thrale was so kind?" + +"What, my Ruth!--that is how I've got to call her--my Ruth is more than +kind. No daughter could be kinder to a mother. You know--I told you--my +child was Ruth. Long ago--long, long ago! She was asleep when I kissed +her. I can feel it still." Gwen fancied her speech sounded wandering, as +she sat down in Granny Marrable's vacant chair. + +This story often feels that the pen that writes it must resent the +improbabilities it is called on to chronicle. That old Maisie should +call her own child by the name she gave her, and think her someone else! + +"Tell me, dear, what it was--all about it!" Thus Gwen, getting the old +lady comfortably settled, and finding a footstool for herself, as in +Francis Quarles at the Towers. She had made up her mind to tell all if +she possibly could. But it had to be all or nothing. It would be better +not to speak till she saw her way. Let Mrs. Picture tell her own tale +first! + +"I want to tell you." She possessed herself again of the precious +hand, surrendered to assist in resettling a strayed head-cushion. +"Only, tell me first--did you know...?"--She paused and dropped her +voice--" ... Did you know that they thought me...?" + +"Thought you what?" + +"Did you know that they thought me _mad_?" + +"They were wrong if they did. But Mrs. Thrale does not think you mad +now. I know she does not." + +"Oh, I am glad." Gwen's white and strained look then caught her +attention, and she paused for reassurance. It was nothing, Gwen was +tired. It was the jolting of a quick drive, and so on. Mrs. Prichard got +back to her topic. "They _did_ think me mad, though. Do you know, my +dear"--she dropped her voice almost to a whisper--"I went near to +thinking myself mad. It was so strange! It was the mill-model. I wish +she had let me see it again. That might have set it all to rights. But +thinking like she did, maybe she was in the right. For see what it is +when the head goes wrong! I was calling to mind, all next day, when I +found out what they thought...." + +"But they did not tell you they thought you mad. How did you know?" + +"It came out by little things--odd talk at times.... It got in the air, +and then I saw the word on their lips.... I never _heard_ it, you +know.... What was I saying?" + +"You were calling something to mind, all next day, you said. What was +that?" + +"A man my husband would talk about, in Macquarie Gaol, whose head would +be all right so long as no cat came anigh him. So the others would find +a cat to start him off. Only my Ruth thought to take away what upset +_me_. 'Tis the same thing, turned about like." + +Gwen allowed the illustration. "But why _did_ Mrs. Thrale think you mad, +over the mill-model?" + +"My dear, because to her I must have _seemed_ mad, to say that was my +father's mill, and not her grandfather's." + +Gwen kept a lock on her tongue. How easy to have said:--"Your father +_was_ her grandfather!" She said nothing. + +"And yet, you know, how could I be off the thought it was so, with it +there before me, seeming like it did? I do assure you, there it seemed +to be--the very mill! There was my father, only small, and not much to +know him by, smoking. And there was our man, Muggeridge, that saw to the +waggon. And there was Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, our horses. And there was +the great wheel the water shot below, to turn it, and the still water +above where Phoebe saw the heron, and called me--but it was gone!" +Tears were filling the old eyes, as the old lips recalled that +long-forgotten past. Then, as she went on, her voice broke to a sob, and +failed of utterance. But it came. "And there--and there--were I and my +darling, my Phoebe, that died in the cruel sea! Oh, my dear--that I +might have seen her once again! But once again!..." She stopped to +recover calm speech; and did it, bravely. "It was all in the seeming of +it, my dear, but all the same hard for me to understand. Very like, my +dear Ruth here was right and wise to keep it away from me. It might have +set me off again. I'm not what I was, and things get on my mind.... +There now--my dear. See how I've made you cry!" + +Gwen felt that this could not go on much longer without producing some +premature outbreak of her overtaxed patience; but she could sit still +and say nothing; for a little time yet, certainly. "I'm not crying, dear +Mrs. Picture," said she. "It was riding against the cold wind. Go on and +tell me more." Then a thought occurred to her--a means to an end. "Tell +me about your father. You have never told me about him. When did he +die?" + +"My father? That I could not tell you, my dear, for certain. For no +letter reached me when he died, nor yet any letter since his own, that +told me of Phoebe's death. Oh, but it is a place for letters to go +astray! Why, before they gave my husband charge over the posts, and made +him responsible, the carrier would leave letters for the farm on a +tree-stump two miles away, and we were bound to send for them there--no +other way! And there was none I knew to write to, for news, when Phoebe +was gone, and our little Ruth, and Uncle Nick. Such an odd name he had. +I never told it you. Nicholas Cropredy." + +"I knew it," said Gwen heedlessly. Then, to recover her +foothold:--"Somehow or other! You _must_ have told it me. Else how could +I have known?" + +"I _must_ have.... No, I never knew when my father died. But I should +have known. For I stood by his grave when I came back. Such a many years +ago now--even that! But I read it wrong. 'May, 1808....' How did I know +it was wrong, what I read? Because I looked at his own letter, telling +me of the wreck, and it was that very year--but June, not May. And my +son was with me then, and he looked at the letter, too, and said it must +have been 1818--eighteen, not eight." + +Gwen saw the way of this. Phoebe's letter, effaced to make way for the +forgery, was to announce Isaac Runciman's death, and was probably +written during the first week of June, and posted even later. The +English postmark showed two figures for the date; indistinct, as a +postmark usually is. Could she utilise this date in any way to sow the +seeds of doubt of the authenticity of the letter? She saw no way open. +The letter was a thing familiar to Mrs. Prichard, but a sudden +thunderbolt to Ruth Thrale. Had Gwen been in possession of Daverill's +letter announcing Maisie's own death, she might have shown it to her. +But _could_ such old eyes have read it, or would she have understood it? + +No--it was impossible to do anything but speak. The next opportunity +_must_ be seized, for talk seemed only to erect new obstacles to action. +The perplexities close at hand, there in Strides Cottage, were the +things to dwell on. Better go back to them! "But Mrs. Thrale did not +think you mad only because you thought that about the mill," Gwen said +this to coax the conversation back. + +"No, my dear! I think, for all I found to say that night, she might have +thought it no more than a touch of fever. And little wonder, too, for +her to hear me doubt her grandfather's mill being his own. But what put +me past was to see how the bare truth I told of my father's name, and my +sister's, and the name of the mill my father would say was older than +the church-tower itself--just that and no more--to make her"--here the +old lady lowered her voice, and glanced round as though to be sure they +were alone--"to make her turn and run from me, quite in a maze, as +though I was a ghost to frighten her, that was what unsettled me!" She +fixed her eyes on Gwen, and her hands were restless with her distressing +eagerness to get some clue to a solution of her perplexity. + +Gwen could say nothing, short of everything. She simply dared not try to +tell the whole truth, with a rush, to a hearer so frail and delicate. It +seemed that any shock must kill. The musical voice went on, its +appealing tone becoming harder and harder for her hearer to bear. +"Why--oh why--when I was telling just the truth, that my father's name +was Isaac Runciman, and my sister was Phoebe, and our mill was Darenth +Mill, why should she not have heard me through to the end, to make it +all clear? Indeed, my dear, she put me on thinking I was not saying the +words I thought, and I was all awake and clear the whole time. Was I +not?" + +Gwen's response:--"I will ask her what it was," contained, as a +temporary palliative, as much falsehood as she dared to use; just to +soothe back the tears that were beginning to get the better of speech. +She felt vaguely about for a straw to catch at--something that might +soften the revelation that had to come. "Did you tell her your sister +was Phoebe?" + +"I told her Phoebe--only Phoebe. I never said her married name." + +"Did you tell her you and your sister were twins?" + +"Oh yes--I told her that. And I think she understood. But she did not +say." + +"I think, dear Mrs. Picture, I can tell you why she was astonished. It +was because _her_ mother had a twin sister." + +The old lady's pathetic look of perplexity remained unchanged. "Was that +enough?" she said. The mere coincidence of the twinship did not seem to +her to have warranted the effect it produced. + +"I am not sure that it was not. There are other things. Did she ever +tell you her mother's story? I suppose she told you she is only her +mother by adoption? You know what I mean?" + +"Oh yes, perfectly! No--Ruth has not told me that. We have not talked +much of old Mrs. Marrable, but I shall see her before I go back to Sapps +Court. Shall I not? My Davy's other Granny in the country!" It did her +good to think and speak of Dave. + +"You shall go back to Davy," said Gwen. "Or Davy shall come to you. You +may like to stay on longer with Mrs. Thrale." + +"Oh, indeed I should ... if only ... if only ..." + +"If only she hadn't thought you had delusions!--isn't that it?... Well, +let me go on and tell you some more about her mother--or aunt, really. +It is quite true that she was one of twin sisters, and the sister +married and went abroad." + +Mrs. Prichard was immensely relieved--almost laughed. "There now!--if +she had told me _that_, instead of running away with ideas! We would +have found it all out, by now." + +Gwen felt quite despairing. She had actually lost ground. Was it +conceivable that the whole tale should become known to Mrs. Prichard--or +to both sisters, for that matter--and be discredited on its merits, with +applause for its achievements in coincidence? It looked like it! Despair +bred an idea in her mind; a mad one, perhaps, a stagey one certainly. +How would it be to tell Maisie Phoebe's story, seen from Phoebe's point +of view? + +Whenever an exciting time comes back to us in after-life, the incident +most vividly revived is usually one of its lesser ones. Years after, +when Gwen's thoughts went back to this trying hour at Strides Cottage, +this moment would outstep its importance by reminding her how, in spite +of the pressure and complexity of her embarrassment, an absurd memory +_would_ intrude itself of an operatic tenor singing to the soprano the +story of how she was changed at birth, and so forth, the _diva_ +listening operatically the while. It went so far with her now, for all +this tension, as to make a comment waver about her innermost thought, +concerning the strange susceptibility of that soprano to conviction on +insufficient evidence. Then she felt a fear that her own power of +serious effort might be waning, and she concentrated again on her +problem. But no solution presented itself better than the stagey one. Is +the stage right, after all? + +"The sister married and went abroad. Her husband was a bad man, whom she +had married against the consent of her family." Gwen looked to see if +these words had had any effect. But nothing came of them. She +continued:--"Poor girl! her head was turned, I suppose." + +"My dear--'twas the like case with me! 'Tis not for me, at least, to sit +in judgment." + +"No, dear Mrs. Picture, nor any of us. But if she had been as bad as the +worst, she could hardly have deserved what came about. I told you she +had married a bad man, and I am going to tell you how bad he was." It +was as well that Gwen should rouse her hearer's attention by a sure and +effective expedient, for it was flagging slightly. Dave's other Granny's +sister's misadventures seemed to have so little to do with the recent +mystery of the mill-model. But a genuine bad man enthrals us all. + +"What did he do?" said his unconscious widow. + +"He forged a letter to his own wife, saying that her sister was dead, +and she believed it." + +"But did her sister never write, to say she was alive?" + +"Old Mrs. Marrable? No--because she received a letter at the same time +saying that _her_ sister.... You see which I mean?..." + +"Oh yes--the bad man's wife, who was abroad." + +"... Was also dead. Do you think you see how it was? He told each sister +the other was dead." + +"Oh, I see _that_! But did they both believe it?" + +"Both believed it." + +"Then did Mrs. Marrable's sister die without knowing?" + +Gwen had it on her lips to say:--"She is not dead," before she had had +time to foresee the consequences. She had almost said it when an +apprehension struck across her speech and cut it short. How could she +account to Mrs. Prichard for this knowledge of Mrs. Marrable's sister +without narrowing the issue to the simple question:--"Who and where is +she?" And if those grave old eyes, at rest now that the topic had become +so impersonal to them, were fixed upon her waiting for the answer, how +could she find it in her heart to make the only answer possible, futile +fiction apart:--"It is _you_ I am speaking of--_you_ are Mrs. Marrable's +sister, and each has falsely thought the other dead for a lifetime"? All +her elaborate preparation had ended in an _impasse_, blocked by a dead +wall whose removal was only possible to the bluntest declaration of the +truth, almost more cruel now than it would have been before this +factitious abatement of the agitation in which Gwen had found her. + +And then the long tension that had kept Gwen on the rack, more or less, +since the revelation of the letter, keenly in this last hour or so, +began to tell upon her, and her soul came through into her words. "Oh +no--oh no! Mrs. Marrable's sister did not die without knowing--at least, +I mean ... I mean she has not died.... She may ..." She was stopped by +the danger of inexplicable tears, in time as she thought. + +But old Mrs. Prichard, always on the alert for her Guardian Angel, +caught the slight modulation of her voice, and was alive with ready +sympathy. "Why--oh why--why this?..." she began, wanting to say:--"Why +such concern on Mrs. Marrable's account?" and finding herself at fault +for words, came to a dead stop. + +"You mean, why should _I_ fret because of Mrs. Marrable's sister? Is it +not that?" + +"Ye-es. I think ... I think that is what I meant to say." + +Gwen nerved herself for a great effort. She took both the old hands in +hers, and all her beauty was in the eyes that looked up at the old face, +as she said:--"I will tell you. It is because--_I_--have to tell _her_ +to-day ... that she is ... that she is ... Mrs. Marrable's sister!" The +last words might have been a cry for pity. + +Could old Maisie fail to catch a gleam of the truth? She did. She only +saw that her sweet Guardian Angel was in trouble, and thought to +herself:--"Can I not help her?" She immediately said, quite quietly and +clearly:--"My dear--my dear! But it will give you such pain. Why not let +_me_ tell her? I am old, and my time is at hand. It would be nothing to +me. For see what trouble I have had myself. And I could say to her ..." + +"What could you say to her?" Desperation was in Gwen's voice. How could +this awful barrier be passed? Could it be past at all--ever? + +"I could tell her of all the trouble of my own life, long ago. I do +think, if I told her and said, 'See--it might have been me,' that might +make it easy." The suggestion was based on a perfectly reasonable idea. +Gwen felt that her own task would have been more achievable had her own +record been one of sorrow and defeat. Old Maisie took her silence--which +was helplessness against new difficulties--for an encouragement to her +proposal, and continued:--"Why, my dear, look at it this way! If my dear +sister Phoebe had lived, anyone bad enough out there in the Colony, +might have written a lie that I was dead, and who would have known?... +But, my dear, you are ill? You are shaking." + +It was a climax. The perfect serenity, the absolute unconsciousness, of +the speaker had told the tale of Gwen's failure more plainly than any +previous rebuff. And here was the old lady trying to get up from her +chair to summon Widow Thrale! Gwen detained her gently; as, having risen +from the stool at her feet, she kneeled beside her. + +"No, no--I am not ill.... I will tell you directly." + +Moments passed that, to Gwen's impatience for speech she could neither +frame nor utter, might have been hours. Old Maisie's growing wonderment +was bringing back the look she had had over that mill-model. But she +said nothing. + +Gwen's voice came at last, audibly to herself, scarcely more. "I want +you--I want you to tell me something...." + +"What, my dear?... Oh--to tell you something! Yes--what is it?" + +Was the moment at hand, at last? Gwen managed to raise her voice. "I +want you to tell me this:--Has Mrs. Thrale ever told you her mother's +name--I mean her aunt's--Granny Marrable's?" + +"Her christened name?--her own name?" + +"Yes!" + +"No!" + +"Shall I tell it you?" + +"Why not?... Oh, I am frightened to see you so white. My dear!" + +"Listen, dear Mrs. Picture, and try to understand. Mrs. Thrale's aunt's +name is Phoebe." + +"_Is Phoebe!_" + +"Is Phoebe." Gwen repeated it again, looking fixedly at the old face, +now rapidly resuming its former utter bewilderment. + +"Is ... Phoebe!" Old Maisie sat on, after echoing back the word, and +Gwen left her to the mercy of its suggestion. She had done her best, and +could do no more. + +She saw that some new thought was at work. But it had to plough its way +through stony ground. Give it time! + +Watching her intently, she could see the critical moment when the new +light broke. A moment later the hand she held clutched at hers beyond +its strength, and its owner's voice was forcing its way through gasps. +"But ... but ... but ... Widow Thrale's name is _Ruth_!" + +"Is Ruth." Yes--leave the fact there, and wait! That was Gwen's +decision. + +A moment later what she waited for had come. Old Maisie started, crying +out aloud:--"Oh, what is this--what _is_ it?" as she had done when she +first saw the mill-model. Then on a sudden a paroxysm seized on the +frail body, so terrifying to Gwen that her heart fairly stood still to +see it. + +It did not kill. It seemed to pass, and leave a chance for speech. But +not just yet. Only a long-drawn breath or two, ending always in a moan! + +Then, with a sudden vehemence:--"Who was it--who was it--that forged the +letter that came--_that came to my husband and me_?" Her voice rose to a +shriek under the sting of that terrible new knowledge. But she had +missed a main point in Gwen's tale. Her mind had received the forgery, +but not its authorship. + +Gwen saw nothing to wonder at in this. The thing was done, and that was +enough. "It was your husband himself," said she, and would have gone on +to ask forgiveness for her own half-distortion of the facts, and told +how she came to the knowledge. But the look on her hearer's face showed +her that this must be told later, if indeed it were ever told at all. +She was but just in time to prevent old Maisie falling forward from her +chair in a dead swoon. She could not leave her, and called aloud for +help. + +She did not need to call twice. For Widow Thrale, unable to keep out of +hearing through an interview so much longer than her anticipation of it, +had come into the house from the back, and was already in the passage; +had, indeed, been waiting in feverish anxiety for leave to enter. + +"Take her--take her!" cried Gwen. "No--never mind me!" And then she saw, +almost as in a dream, how the daughter's strong arms clasped her mother, +and raising the slight unconscious figure, that lay as if dead, bore it +away towards the door. "Yes," said she, "that is right! Lay her on the +bed!" + +What followed she scarcely knew, except that she caught at a chair to +save herself from falling. For a reaction came upon her with the +knowledge that her task was done, and she felt dizzy and sick. Probably +she was, for a minute or more, practically unconscious; then recovered +herself; and, though feeling very insecure on her feet, followed those +two strange victims of a sin half a century old. Not quite without a +sense of self-reproach for weakness; for see how bravely the daughter +was bearing herself, and how immeasurably worse it was for her! + +She could not but falter between the doors, still standing open. How +could she dare to enter the room where she might find the mother dead? +That was her fear. And a more skilful, a gentler revelation, might have +left her a few years with the other little twin of the mill-model, still +perhaps with a decade of life to come. + +She heard the undertones of the daughter's voice, using the name of +mother. What was she saying? + +"My mother--my mother--my mother!" And then, with a strange acceptance +of the name in another sense:--"But when will mother know?" + +Gwen entered noiselessly, and stood by the bedside. She began to speak, +but shrank from her last word:--"She is not...?" + +Widow Thrale looked up from the inanimate form she was clasping so +closely in her arms, to say, quite firmly:--"No, she is not dead." Then +back again, repeating the words:--"My mother!" as though they were to be +the first the unconscious ears should hear on their revival. Then once +more to Gwen, as in discharge of a duty omitted:--"God bless you, my +lady, for your goodness to us!" + +Gwen's irresistible vice of anticlimax nearly made her say:--"Oh +bother!" It was stopped by a sound she thought she heard. "Is she not +speaking?" she said. + +Both listened, and Widow Thrale heard, being the nearer, "Who called you +her mother?" she repeated. "_I_ did." And then Gwen said, clearly and +fearlessly:--"Your daughter Ruth!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + SIR CROPTON FULLER'S LUNCH. LAZARUS'S FAMILY. HOW HIS GREAT-GRANNY + CATECHIZED A TOOTHLESS HUMAN PUPPY THIRTEEN MONTHS OLD. HOW DR. + NASH DRAGGED MRS. PRICHARD IN. A VERY TAKING OLD PERSON, BUT QUITE + CRACKED. GOD'S MERCY IN LEAVING US OUR NATURAL FACULTIES. THAT WAS + A SEVERE CASE AMONG THE TOMBS. HOW DR. NASH HAD ALL THE MODEL STORY + OUT AGAIN, AND ABOUT MUGGERIDGE'S DON GIOVANITIES. MRS. PRICHARD + HAD KNOWN MAISIE, CLEARLY. EVERYTHING EXPLAINED. THE FUTILITY OF + HYPOTHESES. HOW A MEMORY OF HER MADMAN-CONVICT MADE OLD PHOEBE + FEEL BEWITCHED. OBSTINATE PATERNITY. THE MEASUREMENT OF THAT MODEL. + WHY ARM-MEASUREMENT? KID'S JARGON. MR. BARLOW. DAVE'S LETTER + DELIVERED. A SORT OF FAINT. VINEGAR. DR. NASH PURSUED AND BROUGHT + BACK. HOW OLD PHOEBE CAME TO KNOW THE TRUTH THROUGH A CHILD'S + DIRECT SPEECH. HER PRESENCE OF MIND. AND HOW SHE WENT STRAIGHT + HOME, TO LOOK BACK ON FIFTY LOST YEARS + + +The madman who had claimed as his mother the old woman at Strides +Cottage, whom Granny Marrable had not yet seen, had certainly no +statutory powers to impose an oath. But this did not stand in the way of +her keeping hers, religiously. That is to say, she kept her tongue +silent on every point that she could reasonably suppose to call for +secrecy, whether from his point of view or this old Mrs. Prichard's. + +She felt at liberty to repeat what she remembered of his shocking +ravings about his prison life, and to dwell on the fact that he appeared +to have mistaken her for his mother. But this could be told without +connecting him with any person in or near the village. He was a returned +convict who had not seen his mother for twenty years, and meeting an old +woman who closely resembled her, or his idea of what she must have +become, had made a decisive mistake in identity. + +As to the name he had written down for her, she simply shrank from it; +and destroyed it promptly, as soon as she collected her faculties after +the shock it gave her. She framed a satisfactory theory to account for +it, out of materials collected by foraging among her memories of fifty +years ago. It turned on these facts:--That the name Ralph Thornton +Daverill was the baptismal name of her sister's little boy that died in +England, and that Maisie had repeated to her what her husband had said +after the child's death, that the name would do over again if ever she +had another son; but had added that she herself would never consent to +its adoption. Granny Marrable was sure on both these points, but so +uncertain about what she had heard of the christenings of her nephews +born in Van Diemen's Land, that she had no scruple in deciding that her +sister had dissuaded her brother-in-law from his intention. For this +madman was clearly not Maisie's son, if Mrs. Prichard was his mother. +But what would be more natural and probable than that if Daverill +married again, he should make use of the name a second time? He might +have married again more than once, for anything Granny Marrable knew. So +might his widow--might have married a man named Prichard. Why not? Those +were considerations she need not weigh or speculate about. + +Nevertheless, though she had destroyed the signed name, it was a cobweb +in her memory she would have gladly brushed away altogether. How she +would have liked to tell the whole to Ruth, when--as once or twice +happened--she walked over from Chorlton to get a report of progress, +leaving old Mrs. Prichard in charge of that loyal dog, supported by +Elizabeth-next-door, if need were. But she was sworn to silence on +matters she dared not provoke inquiry about. So her tale of her meeting +with the convict was minimised. + +On the other hand, Ruth was scrupulously uncommunicative of everything +connected with Mrs. Prichard's supposed delusions. So was Dr. Nash, on +the one or two occasions when he looked in at Costrell's Farm, +prophylactically. Where was the use of upsetting Juno Lucina by telling +her that her daughter had taken a lunatic inmate? All the circumstances +considered, he would have much preferred that Mrs. Maisie's mother +should take charge of her. But this young woman liked to have her own +way. + +The doctor was almost sorry, after Gwen drove away, that he had not +pointed out what an unpropitious moment it was for an upsetting +revelation, and suggested postponement. It was too late to do anything, +by the time he thought of it. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and +perceived that what was done couldn't be undone. Then he drove as fast +as he could to Sir Cropton Fuller, who asked him to stay to lunch. This +meant a long unemployed delay, but he compromised. He would see another +patient, and return to lunch, after which he would go to Costrell's +Farm. It was only a short drive from the Manor House, but if he had +gone there direct, he knew the mid-day meal at the Farm would cut across +what might prove a long conversation with Granny Marrable. Suppose +circumstances should favour a full communication of the extraordinary +disclosure he had it in his power to make to her, he would not feel any +hesitation about making it. In fact, he hoped that might prove the +natural order of events, although he was quite prepared to act on Lady +Gwendolen's suggestion that he should merely lay the train, not fire it, +if that should prove possible. But, said he to himself, that will be +neither fish nor flesh. Mysterious hints--so ran his reflections--will +only terrify the old body out of her seven senses and gain no end. Get +the job over!--that was the sacramental word. It took him all the period +of his drive to Sir Cropton's, and all the blank bars betwixt +prescription and prescription, to get--as it were--to this phrase in the +music. + +But by the time Sir Cropton had given him lunch, it had become the +dominant theme of his reflections. Get the job done--if possible! More +especially because he did not want Juno Lucina's nerves to be upset at a +critical moment, and that was exactly what might happen if the +revelation were delayed too long. If she were told now, and disabled by +the shock, there would at least be time to make sure of a capable +substitute. + +However, he must be guided by his prognosis on arriving at Costrell's. +It is just possible, too, that the doctor was alive to the interest of +the case on its own account, and not being himself personally involved, +felt a sort of scientific curiosity in the issue--What would the old +lady say or do, in face of such an extraordinary revelation? What were +the feelings of the family of Lazarus when he was raised from the tomb? +Or rather, what would they have been, had he been dead half a century? + +The males at the farm would be away at this time of day; that was +satisfactory. He wanted to talk to Granny Marrable alone, if possible. +He could easily get his patient out of the way--that was a trifle. But +it would be a bore to have that young brother hanging round. In that +case he would have to negotiate a private conversation with Juno Lucina, +as such, and to use the opportunity professional mystery would give. + +However, events smiled upon his purpose. Only Mrs. Maisie, a perfect +image of roseate health, was there alone with Granny; the two of them +appreciating last year's output, unconscious in his cradle, enjoying the +fourteenth month of his career in this world, having postponed teething +almost beyond precedent. His young mother derided her doctor's advice to +go and lie down and rest, but ultimately gave way to it, backed as it +was by public opinion. + +"We seem to be going on very well, Mrs. Marrable," said the doctor, when +this end was achieved. The doctor shared a first person plural with each +of his patients. "_And_ yourself? You're not _looking_ amiss." + +"No, thank God! And for all that I be eighty-one this Christmas, if I +live to see the New Year in, I might be twenty-eight." She then very +absurdly referred to the baby, who had waked up and made his presence +felt, as to whether this was, or was not, an exaggeration, suggesting +that he had roused himself to confirm it. Did he, she asked, want to say +his great-Granny was as young as the best, and was he a blessed little +cherub? She accommodated her pronunciation to the powers of +understanding she imputed to him, calling him, _e.g._, a bessed ickle +chezub. He seemed impatient of personalities; but accepted, as a pipe of +peace, an elastic tube that yielded milk. Whereupon Granny Marrable made +no more attempts to father opinions on him. "Indeed, doctor," said she, +speaking English again, "I wish every soul over fifty felt as young as I +do. We shouldn't hear such a many complaints." + +"Very bad for the profession, Mrs. Marrable! This isn't a good part of +the world for my trade, as it is, and if everyone was like you, I should +have to put the shutters up. Well!--you see how it is? Look at Miss +Grahame--Sister Nora! Goes up to London the picture of health, and gets +fever! Old lady from some nasty unwholesome corner by Tottenham Court +Road comes down to Chorlton, and gets younger every day!" + +"I was going to ask about Sister Nora, doctor--what the latest news was +saying." + +"She'll make a good recovery, as things go. But that means she won't be +herself again for a twelvemonth, if then!" Granny Marrable looked so +unhappy over this, that the doctor took in a reef. "Less if we're +lucky--less if we're lucky!" said he. "She's being very well looked +after. Dalrymple's a good man." + +"I'm glad you should know him to speak well of, for the lady's sake. +She's a good lady, and kind. It was through her the little boy Davy came +to the Cottage. My little Davy, I always call him." + +"So does t'other old lady--she your daughter's got there now. You'll +scratch each other's eyes out over that young monkey when you come to +meet, Mrs. Marrable." + +"There now, doctor, you will always have your joke. Ruth--my +daughter--is quite beside her judgment about the old soul. What like is +she, doctor, to your thinking?" + +"Well--your daughter's right about her." He paused a moment, and then +added, meaningly:--"So far as being a very--very _taking_ sort of old +person goes." + +Granny Marrable, rather absorbed in her descendant's relations with his +bottle, found in due course an opportunity to answer, looking up at the +doctor:--"A very taking old person? But what, then, is to seek in her? +Unless she be bad of heart or dishonest." Her old misgivings about +Dave's home influences, revived, had more share in the earnestness of +her tone than any misgivings about her daughter. And was not there the +awful background of the convict? + +"Not a bit of it--not a bit of it! Right as a trivet, I should say, as +far as that goes! But ..." He stopped and touched his forehead, +portentously. + +"Ah--the poor soul! Now is that true?" + +"I think you may take it of me that is so." The doctor threw his +professional manner into this. After a moment he added, as a mere human +creature:--"Off her chump! Loose in the top story!" A moment after, for +professional reassurance:--"But quite harmless--quite harmless!" + +Granny Marrable was grave and oppressed by this news. "The poor old +soul!--think of it!" said she. "Oh, but how many's the time I've thanked +God in His mercy for sparing me my senses! To think we might any of us +be no better off, but for Him, than the man our Lord found naked in the +tombs, in the country of the Gadarenes! But she is not bad like that, +this Mrs. Prichard?" + +"Oh no!--that was a severe case, with complications. Not a legion of +devils, this time! One or two little ones. Just simple delusions. Might +have yielded to Treatment, taken younger. Too late, now, altogether. +Wastage of the brain, no doubt! She's quite happy, you know." + +Although Dr. Nash had not shone as a reasoner forming square to resist +evidence, he had shrewd compartments in his mind, and in one of them a +clear idea that he would do ill to thrust forward the details of the +supposed simple delusions. This old lady must not be led to infer that +he was interested in _them_--mere scientific curiosities! She was sure +to ask for them in time; he knew that. And it was much better that he +should seem to attach no weight whatever to them. + +Granny Marrable seemed to entertain doubts of the patient's happiness. +"I could never be happy," she said, "if I had been in a delusion." + +"Not if you came to know it was a delusion. Very likely not!" + +"But does not--does not--poor old Mrs. Prichard ever come to know she +has been in a delusion?" + +"Not she! What she fancies she just goes on fancying. Sticks to it like +grim death." + +"What sort of things now, doctor?" + +This was a bite. But the doctor would play his fish. No hurry. +"_Perfectly_ crazy things! Oh--crack-brained! Has not your daughter told +you?... Oh, by-the-by!--yes!--I did tell her she had better not.... I +don't think it matters, though." + +"But not if you would rather not, doctor!" This clearly meant the +reverse. + +"Well now--there was the first thing that happened, about that little +model thing that stands on your mantelshelf at the cottage." + +"What--my father's mill? Davy's mill, we call it now, because the child +took to it so, and would have me tell him again and again about +Muggeridge and the horses...." + +"Ah--you told him about Muggeridge and the horses!" + +"Yes, sure! And I lay, now, he'd told Mrs. Prichard all about _that_!" + +"Trust him! Anyhow, he _did_. And she knew all about it before ever she +came to Chorlton. But her mind got a queer twist over it, and she forgot +it was all Master Dave's telling, and thought it had happened to +herself." + +"Thought what had?" + +"I mean, thought _she_ had been one of those two little kiddies in +violet frocks...." + +"Ah, dear me--my dear sister that died out in Australia--my darling +Maisie!" + +"Hay--what's that? Your darling what? What name did you say?" + +"Maisie." + +"There we have it--Maisie!" The doctor threw his forefinger to Granny +Marrable, in theory; it remained attached to his hand in practice. +"That's _her_ name. That's what it was all cooked up out of. Maisie!" He +was so satisfied with this little piece of shrewd detective insight that +he forgot for the moment how thoroughly he knew the contrary. + +Granny Marrable seemed to demur a little, but was brought to order by +the drastic argument that it _must_ have been that, _because_ it could +not have been anything else. By this time the doctor had recollected +that he was not in a position to indulge in the luxury of incredulity. + +"At least," said he, "I should have said so, only it doesn't do to be +rash. One has to look at a thing of this sort all round." He paused a +moment with his eyes on the ceiling, while his fingers played on the arm +of his chair the tune, possibly, of a Hymn to Circumspection. Then he +looked suddenly at the old lady. "You must have told the small boy a +great deal about the mill-model. _You_ told him about Muggeridge, didn't +you say, and the horses? Not your daughter, I mean?" + +"Sure! Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox." + +"Tell him anything else about Muggeridge?" + +"Well, now--did I?... No--I should say not.... I was trying to think +what I would have remembered to tell. For you must bear in mind, doctor, +we were but young children when Muggeridge went away, and Axtell came, +after that.... No. I could _not_ speak to having said a word about +Muggeridge, beyond his bare name. That I could not." + +The doctor did not interrupt his witness's browsings in the pastures of +memory; but when she deserted them, saying she had found nothing to +crop, said suddenly:--"Didn't tell him about Muggeridge and the other +lady, who wasn't Mrs. Muggeridge?" + +"Now Lard a mercy, doctor, whatever do ye take me for? And all these +years you've known me! Only the _idea_ of it!--to tell a young child +that story! Why--what would the baby have thought I meant? Fie for shame +of yourself, that's what _I_ say!" A very small amount of indignation +leavened a good deal of hilarity in this. The old lady enjoyed the joke +immensely. That she, at eighty, should tell a child of seven a tale of +nuptial infidelity! She took her great-grandson into her confidence +about it, asking him:--"Did they say his great-grandmother told shocking +stories to innocent little boys?"--and so forth. + +The doctor had to interpose upon this utter unconsciousness, and the +task was not altogether an easy one; indeed, its difficulties seemed to +him to grow. He let her have her laugh out, and then said quietly:--"But +where did Mrs. Prichard get the story?" + +Granny Marrable had lost sight of this, and was disconcerted. +"What--why--yes--where _did_ she get it? Mrs. Prichard, of course! Now, +wherever could Mrs. Prichard have got it?..." It called for thought. + +Dr. Nash's idea was to give facts gradually, and let them work their own +way. "Perhaps she knew Mr. Muggeridge herself," said he. "When did he +die?" + +"Mercy me, doctor, where's the use of asking _me_? Before _you_ were +born, anyhow! That's him, a man of forty, with the horses and me a child +under ten! Seventy years ago, and a little to spare!" + +"_That_ cock won't fight, then. As I make out, old Mrs. Prichard didn't +come from Van Diemen's Land above five-and-twenty years ago." + +"_Where_ did Mrs. Prichard come from?" + +"From Van Diemen's Land. In Australia. Where the convicts go." + +"There now! Only to think of that! Why--I see it all!" Granny Marrable +seemed pleased. + +"What do you see, Mrs. Marrable?" The doctor was puzzled. He had quite +expected that at this point suspicion of the facts _must_ dawn, however +dimly. + +"Because that is where my dear sister was, that died. Oh, so many long +years ago!" Whenever old Phoebe mentioned Maisie, the same note of +pathos came in her voice. The doctor felt he was operating for the +patient's sake; but it would be the knife, without an anaesthetic. He had +not indefinite time to spare for this operation. + +"I am going to ask what will seem a very absurd question," said he, in +the dry, professional manner in which he was wont to intrude upon his +patients' private internal affairs. "But you must remember I am an +outsider--quite in the dark." + +A slight puzzled look on the strong old face before him, with--yes--a +faint suspicion of alarm! But oh, how faint! Perhaps he was mistaken, +though. For Granny Marrable let no sign of alarm come in her voice, if +she felt any. "What were ye wishing to be told, doctor?" she cheerfully +said. "If it's a secret, I won't tell it ye. You may take my word for +that." + +He fixed his eyes attentively on her face. "You are absolutely certain," +said he, "that the news of your sister's death was ..." He was going to +say "authentic," but was arrested by an ebullition of unparalleled fury +in the baby, who became fairly crumpled up with indignation, presumably +at being unable to hold more than a definite amount of milk. It was a +case that called for the promptest and humblest apologies from the human +race, represented by his great-grandmother. She had assuaged the natural +exasperation of two previous generations, and had the trick of it. He +subsided, accepting as his birthright a heavenly sleep, with dreams of +further milk. + +Then Granny Marrable, released, looked the doctor in the face, +saying:--"'That the news of my sister's death was?...'" and stopped for +him to finish the sentence. + +"Authentic," said he. He did not know whether her look meant that she +did not understand the word, and added:--"Trustworthy." + +"I know what you mean," she said. "Go on and say why?" + +The doctor was fairly frightened at his own temerity. Probably the +difficulties of his task had never fully dawned upon him. Would it not +be safer to back out of it now, leaving what he had suggested to +fructify? He would have fulfilled his promise to Lady Gwendolen, and +made it easier for her to word the actual disclosure of the facts. "I +was merely trying to think what anyone would say who wanted to make out +that this old Mrs. Prichard was not under a delusion." + +"The poor old soul! What would they say, indeed?" This was no help. +Commiseration of Mrs. Prichard was not the doctor's object. But the +position was improved when she added:--"But there's ne'er a one _wants_ +to make it out." + +He thought of saying:--"But suppose there were!" and gave it up, knowing +that his hearer, though fairly educated, would regard hypotheses as +intense intellectual luxuries, prized academically, but without a place +in the sane world without. He decided on saying:--"Of course, you would +have documentary evidence." Then he felt that his tone had been +ill-chosen--a curfew of the day's discussions, a last will and testament +of the one in hand. + +So it was, for the moment. Granny Marrable wanted the subject to drop. +On whatever pretext it was revived, the story of her sister's life and +death was still painful to her. But "documentary evidence" was too +sesquipedalian to submit to without a protest. "I should have her +husband's letter," said she, "telling of her death." + +"Yes, you would have his letters." + +"There was but two." Her intense truthfulness could not let that plural +pass. "He was a strange man--and a bad one, doctor, if ye want to +know--and he never wrote to me again, not after answering my letter I +wrote to tell him of my father's death. But I've a long letter from him, +saying how Maisie died, and her message to me, giving me--like you might +say--her girl for my own. That is my Ruth, you know, at Strides Cottage, +this little man's own granny. But I've never heard his name since ... +not till ... not till ..." + +"What's the matter? Anything wrong?" For Granny Marrable had stopped +with a jerk, and her look was one of the greatest bewilderment. The +memory of the name the madman who said he was Mrs. Prichard's son had +given her as his own had come upon her with a sudden shock, +having--strangely enough--been dormant throughout this interview. She +was confronted with a host of perplexities, which--mark you!--had no +possible solution except the one her mind could not receive, and which +therefore never presented itself at all. + +"Indeed, doctor, I think I be bewitched outright," said she. "I never +was so put to it, all the days of my life.... No, don't ye ask me no +questions! I haven't the liberty to tell above half of it, and maybe +better say nothing at all." + +"I see--matter of confidence! Well--I mustn't ask questions." This was +really because he was certain the answer would come without asking. +Granny Marrable would never let the matter drop, with that look on her +face. + +So it turned out. In a moment she looked up from the baby, whom she had +been redistributing, to his advantage. "I'll tell ye this much, doctor," +she said. "There was a crazy man in yonder field near by, when I was +coming back from Jane Naunton's--just a few days since...." + +"I've heard of him." + +"What do they say of him?" + +"I only heard the police were after him. Go on." + +"Well--the name he called himself by was my sister's husband's, and he +said he came from Australia." + +"That might be, and no witchcraft. When did your sister die?" + +"Five-and-forty--six-and-forty--years ago!" + +"Any children left? Boys?" + +"Boys?--Lord, no! At least, yes--two boys! What I mean is, not by this +name." + +"What were the boys' names?" + +"One, I call to mind, was Isaac. For Maisie wrote me what work she had +to persuade her husband to the name...." She had meant to say more, +giving reasons why, but changed her speech abruptly. "The youngest boy's +name I let slip. But I know it was never this name that man gave me." + +"You remember it near enough for that?" + +Granny Marrable's intense truthfulness would not allow margins. +"No--it's clean slipped my memory, and I could not make oath I never +knew it. It was all out of reach, beyond the seas." + +"That seems reasonable. Five-and-forty years! Now, can I remember +anything as long back as that?... However, I was two, so that doesn't +count." + +"Maisie's son never bore this name. That's out of doubt!" + +"Why?" + +"Because her first was christened by it, and died at Darenth Mill, after +... after his father went away." + +"Roger Trufitt's son is Roger. But both his brothers who died before he +was born were named Roger. There's no law against it. You know old +Trufitt, the landlord at the Five Bells? He says that if this son died, +he would marry again to have another and call him Roger. He's a very +obstinate man, old Trufitt." + +Granny Marrable sat silent while the doctor chatted, watching her +changes of countenance. Her conscience was vacillating. Could she +interpret her oath of silence as leaving her free to speak of the +convict's claim to Mrs. Prichard as a parent? The extenuation of bad +faith would lie in the purely exceptional nature of the depository of +her secret. Could a disclosure to a professional ear, which secrets +entered every day, be accounted "splitting"? She thought she saw her way +to a limited revelation, which would meet the case without breach of +confidence. + +"Maybe!" said she, putting old Trufitt out of court. "But I can tell ye +another reason why he's no son of my sister's. Though he might be, mind +you, a son of her husband. My brother-in-law, most like, married again. +How should I know?" + +"What's the other reason?" + +"He told me his mother's name. But I am not free to tell it, by reason I +promised not to." + +This struck the doctor as odd. "How came you to be talking to a stray +tramp about his mother, Granny Marrable?" he asked shrewdly. + +"Because he took me for his mother, and would have it I should know +him." This was no doubt included in what she had promised not to tell, +but the question had taken her by surprise. + +A light broke on Dr. Nash. All through the interview he had been +wondering at himself for never having before observed the likeness +between the two old women, which he now saw plainly by the light of the +information Gwen had given him. He might have seen it before, had he +heard of the gipsy's mistake, but Ruth Thrale had never mentioned this. +He remembered, too, in Gwen's story, some slight reference to a son of +Mrs. Prichard who was a _mauvais sujet_. He determined on a daring +_coup_. "Are you sure Mrs. Prichard is not the mother he was looking +for?" said he. + +Granny Marrable was struck with his cleverness. "Now, how _ever_ did you +come to find _that_ out, doctor?" said she. + +"We're a clever lot, us doctors! We've got to be clever.... Let's see, +now--where are we? Mrs. Prichard has a son who is called by your +brother-in-law's name, but who is _not_ your sister's son. Because if he +were, Mrs. Prichard would be your sister. Which is impossible. But Mrs. +Prichard has got muddled about her own identity, and thinks she is. What +can we do to cure such a delusion? I've seen a great deal of this sort +of thing--I've had charge of lunatics--and the only thing I know of for +the case is to stimulate memory of the patient's actual past life. But +we know nothing about Mrs. Prichard. Who the dickens _is_ Mrs. +Prichard?" + +Granny Marrable had looked really pleased at the _reductio ad +absurdum_--always exhilarating when one knows what's impossible--but +looked perplexed over Mrs. Prichard's real identity. "No, indeed, poor +dear soul!" she said. "'Tisn't as if there was any would tell us about +her." + +"I have found, and so has your daughter, that she goes back and back in +these dreams of her own childhood, which no doubt are made up of ... +which no doubt may have been told her by ..." He stopped intentionally. +He wanted to stagger her immobility by making her recite the nonsense +about Mrs. Prichard's informants. + +She was quite amenable. "By little Davy," said she contentedly. + +"And what she had from your sister in Australia, years ago," said the +doctor, and saw her content waver. He had his clue, and resolved to act +on it. "For instance, Mr. Muggeridge's gallivantings. You're sure you +never told the child?" + +"Sure?... Merciful gracious me! _That_ baby?" + +"And how you and she measured the mill-model? That _must_ have come from +your sister." + +She started. "What was that?" she said. "You never told me." + +He did not look at her--only at his watch. He really had to be off, he +said, but would tell her about the measurements. Thought she knew it +before. He went on to narrate the incident referred to, which is already +familiar to the story. Then he got up from his chair as though to take +leave. If this did not land the suspicion of the truth in her +unreceptive mind, it could only be done by a sort of point-blank +directness that he shrank from employing, and that he had made it +difficult to adopt by his implied pretence of unconcern. He would +sooner, if that was to be the way of it, come to her at the outset as +the herald of something serious, and ask her to prepare herself for a +great shock. His manner had not pointed to an open operation, and such a +variation of it would be the sudden production of the knife. Perhaps the +dentist is sometimes right who brings his pliers from behind his back +when the patient fancies he is only scouting; but he runs a risk, +always. Dr. Nash was not at all confident in this case. + +But he could venture a little farther with mere suggestion. "Certainly," +said he, "it is a very curious phase of delusion, that this old lady +should go back on a statement of your sister's, made a lifetime ago, to +no apparent end. But the whole subject of the action of the brain is a +mystery." He looked up at his hearer's face. + +She was sitting motionless, with a sort of fixed look. Had he injured +her--struck at the heart of her understanding? Well, it had got to come, +for better, for worse. Moreover, the look implied self-command. No, he +need not be frightened. + +"What strikes me about this arm-measurement," said he, "is the strength +of her conviction. If she had only _spoken_ of it, well! But to get up, +at six in the morning, the day after she saw it!" + +The old lady's eyes met his. "Why arm-measurement?" she asked, speaking +quite steadily and clearly. + +"Because that was the way it was done. I don't know if I described it +right. Look here--it was like this...." He took her right wrist, as he +stood facing her, with his left hand. "You stretch out your fingers +straight," said he, and brought the tip of the middle finger of his own +right hand to meet hers. "Now, what Mrs. Prichard fancies she +remembers--what your sister told her in Australia, you know--is that you +and she, being girls, tried the length of your two arms together on the +top of the mill-case, from the elbow down. Just like ours now." He +determined to make the most of this incident, for his impression was +that her mind was already in revolt against the gross improbability of +her sister having dwelt on it to a new acquaintance in the Colony. He +had made Mrs. Prichard linger over the telling of it; it was such a +strange phase of delusion. In fact, he had said to himself that it must +be a genuine memory, ascribed to the wrong persons. He went on to a +cold-blooded use of her minutest details, still keeping the hand he held +in his. "You see, Mrs. Prichard's point was this--don't take your hand +away; I haven't quite done with it--her point was that your arm and your +sister's were exactly of a size...." + +"We were twins." + +"Precisely. And your two little paws, being young kids, or youngish...." + +"We were just children. I mind it well. 'Twas a sort of game, to see how +our hands grew. But...." + +"Let me finish. This old woman, when she went touring about to have a +look at the model that had given her such a turn overnight, found that +her own arm was well two-thirds the length of it, and something over. +She was cocksure the two small arms only just covered it, because unless +one cheated and pushed her elbow over the edge, your middle fingers +wouldn't jam and go cleck--like this.... That's why I wanted your hand +for--that'll do!... There was such a funny name she called it by--the +finger-tips jamming, I mean...." + +Granny Marrable was pressing the released hand on her eyes and forehead. +"You fairly make my head spin, doctor, digging up of old-time memories. +But whatever was the funny name? Can't ye recollect?" + +"It was sheer gibberish, you know...." + +"Can't ye call the gibberish to mind?" This was asked earnestly, and +made Dr. Nash feel he was on the right tack. + +"One can't speak positively to gibberish. The nearest I can go to the +word Mrs. Prichard used is"--the doctor paused under the weight of his +responsibility for accuracy--"the, nearest, I, can, go is ... +_spud-clicket_." He waited, really anxiously. If, rather than admit a +suspicion of the truth, she could believe that such a piece of infant +jargon could dwell correctly for decades in the mind of a chance hearer, +she could believe anything. + +He was utterly taken aback when equable and easy speech, with a sound of +relief in every word, came from lips which he thought must at least be +tremulous. "Well--there now! Doesn't that show? Only Maisie _could_ have +told her that word. It's all right. But I'm none so sure, mind you, that +I could have remembered it right, myself." + +It seemed perfectly hopeless. So said the doctor to himself. Surely, in +this long interview, he had tried all that suggestion could do to get a +fulcrum to raise the dead weight of conviction that years of an accepted +error had built up undisturbed. How easy it would have been had the tale +of Daverill's audacious fraud been a few months old; or a few years, for +that matter! It was that appalling lapse of time. + +What could the doctor do to carry out his rash promise to Lady +Gwendolen, more than what he had done? He was already overdue at the +house of another patient, three miles off. The alternatives before him +were:--To rush the position, saying, "Look here, Granny Marrable, +neither you nor your sister are dead, but you were each told of the +other's death by the worst scoundrel God ever made." To do this or to +throw up the sponge and hurry off to his waiting patient! He chose the +latter. After all, he had striven hard to fulfil his promise to her +young ladyship, and only been repulsed from an impregnable fortress. But +he would have a parting shot. + +"You must be very curious to see this queer old Mrs. Prichard, Mrs. +Marrable?" said he. + +The old lady did not warm up to this at all. "Indeed, doctor, if I tell +the truth, I could not say I am. For to hear the poor old soul fancy +herself my sister, dead now five-and-forty years and more! Not for the +pain to myself, but for the great pity for a poor demented soul, and no +blessed Saviour near to bid the evil spirit begone. No, indeed--I will +hope she may be well on her way home before ever I return to Strides. +But my daughter says she'll be loath to part with her, so I'm not bound +to hurry back." + +"Well--I rather hope she'll stop on long enough for you to get a sight +of her. You would be interested.... There's the postman." For they were +standing at the farm-gate by this time, leading into the lane. + +"Yes, it be John Barlow on his new mail-cart. He's brought something for +the farm, or he wouldn't come this way.... Good-evening to you, John +Barlow!... What--three letters! And one of them for the old 'oman.... So +'tis!--'tis a letter from my little man Davy, bless his heart!" + +"One fower th' ma'aster," said Mr. Barlow's strong rustic accent. "One +fower th' mistress. And one fower the granny. It be directed Strides, +but Widow Thrale she says, 'Ta'ak it along, to moother at Costrell's.' +And now ye've gotten it, Granny Marrable." + +"There's no denying that, Master John. I'll say good-bye, doctor." But +what the letter-carrier was saying caught her ear, and she paused before +re-entering the house, holding the letters in her hand. + +"There was anoother letter for th' Cottage, the vairy fetch of yowern, +Granny, all but th' neam. Th' neam on't was Mrs. Picture, and on yowern +Mrs. Marrowbone, and if th' neam had been sa'am on both, 'twould have +ta'aken Loondon Town to tell 'em apart." + +"And you left one at the Cottage, and brought the other on here? Was +that it? Sharp man!" The doctor was pulling on his thick driving-gloves, +to depart. Granny Marrable was opening her letter already. "Bless the +boy," said she, "he's writing to both his Grannies with the same pen, so +they may not be jealous!" + +"You may call me a sha'arp ma'an for soomat else, doctor," said Mr. +Barlow, locking his undelivered letters into the inner core of the new +mail-cart. "This time I be no cleverer than my letters. 'Twas Joe +Kerridge's wife, next dower the cottage, said, 'Ta'ak it on to the +Granny at Dessington.' And says I to her, 'They'm gotten the sa'am yoong +ma'an to write 'em love-letters,' I says. 'You couldn't tell they two +letters apart, but for the neams on 'em.' And then Mrs. Lisbeth she says +to me, 'Some do say they have to keep their eyes open to tell the old +la'adies apart,' she says. 'But I'm anoother way o' thinking mysen,' she +says, 'by reason of this Mrs. Prichard's white head o' hair.' And then I +handed all the letters to Lisbeth for Strides, as well as her own, +seeing ne'er one came out at door for knocking, and brought yowern on +with Farmer Costrell's." Mr. Barlow had been spoken of in the village +more than once as a woundy chatterbox. + +The doctor glanced at Granny Marrable to see how she had taken the +reference to her resemblance to Mrs. Prichard, but was just too late to +see her face. She had turned to go into the house, and the only evidence +he had that it had perturbed her at all was that she said good-night to +no one. He felt that he had more than fulfilled his promise to Lady +Gwendolen, having done everything short of forcing the pace. His other +patient was no doubt already execrating him for not coming to time, so +he drove off briskly; at least, so his pony flattered himself. Ideas of +speed differ. + +The horse whose quick step the doctor heard overhauling him, about a +mile on his road, had another ideal, evidently. It did not concern him; +so he ignored it until, as its nearer approach caused him to edge close +to the margin of the narrow road, the voice of its driver shouted to +him, and he pulled up to see why. Perhaps Mr. Barlow, the shouter, had +lighted on an overlooked letter for him, and had preferred this method +of delivery. + +"They're asking for ye ba'ack at t' hoose--ba'ack to Costrell's Varm.... +Noa, noa, doctor--'tis the old Granny, not the yoong wench. She's gone +off in a sowart of fayunt." + +Dr. Nash turned his pony's head without a word, nodded and started. Mr. +Barlow called out, as Parthian information, as many particulars as he +thought would be audible, and sped on his course, to stand and deliver +at every cottage on the route susceptible to correspondence. + +"She was looking queer," said the doctor to himself, stimulating his +pony's concept of a maximum velocity. "But I never thought of this. The +Devil fly away with the Australian twin! Why couldn't she wait six +weeks?" + +He was immensely relieved to find the old lady sitting up, with her +granddaughter applying vinegar to her forehead. She was discountenancing +this remedy, or any remedy, as needless, in an unconvincingly weak +voice. She would come round if left to herself. She rallied her forces +at sight of the doctor, rather resenting him as superfluous. However, +his knowledge of the cause of her upset made him an ally, a fact she +probably became aware of. He suggested, after exhibiting two or three +drops of hartshorn in a wineglass of water, that she should be taken at +her word. + +While she came round, left to herself in the big armchair, with her eyes +shut and a pillow to lean back on, Maisie the granddaughter told her +tale--the occurrence as she had seen it. Hearing the doctor's sounds of +departure, she had discontinued a fiction of repose--not admitted as +fiction, however--to come down and see what on earth Granny and he had +been talking their tongues off for. Granny was reading her letter from +Dave Wardle, and just the moment she saw her, gave a cry and fell back +in her chair; whereon Maisie, running out, told Mr. Barlow to catch the +doctor and send him back, then returned to her grandmother. She herself +did not seem seriously upset, though much puzzled and surprised. + +The doctor saw something. "Where's the letter?" said he. + +"Here on the baby," said Mrs. Maisie. And there on the baby, enjoying, +in a holy sleep, deep draughts of imaginary milk, was Dave's large +round-hand epistle. + +The doctor glanced at it, and had the presence of mind to +say:--"Ho!--letter from a kid!" and suppress it. "Your Granny wants +something," said he, diverting Mrs. Costrell's attention from it. The +old lady was rallying visibly. She was, in fact, making an heroic +struggle against a sudden overwhelming shock. + + * * * * * + +Recent theories of a double consciousness--an inner self--that have been +worked hard of late years to account for everything Psychology is at a +loss about, might be appealed to to throw light on the changes in Granny +Marrable's state of mind in this past hour. Although to all appearance +the whole of Dr. Nash's efforts to put it on the track had been thrown +away, some of the forces his suggestions had set in motion had told +upon it; and, just as a swift, mysterious impatience in the few clouds +of a blue sky, and a muttered omen from Heaven-knows-what horizon, +precedes the thunder-clap that makes us run for shelter, so this +underself of hers may have vibrated in response to the strange hints he +had thrown out, and become susceptible to an impression from Mr. +Barlow's reference to her likeness to Mrs. Prichard, which otherwise +would have slipped off it like water off a duck's back. We have to +consider how in those happy years of her youth this almost +indistinguishable twinship of the sisters had been a daily topic with +all their near surroundings. To hear herself spoken of as a duplicate +again, after fifty years, carried with it an inexplicable thrill. Oh, +how the hours came trooping back from those long-forgotten days of old, +each with its appeal to that underself alone; which she, the old Phoebe +of this living world, suspected only to disallow! How she might have let +the memories of the old mill and the ever-running wheels; of the still +backwater where she failed to see the heron she could even now hear her +sister's sweet voice calling to her to come--come quickly to!--or she +would miss it; of that dear vanished sister's sweet beauty she could +dwell upon, forgetful that it also was her own,--how she might have let +these memories run riot in her heart, and break it, but that the very +thing that provoked them was also their profanation--Mrs. Prichard at +Strides Cottage! Who or what was Mrs. Prichard? A poor old crazypate, a +victim of delusions.... + +Yes, but _what_ delusions? That was the question her inner self could +not ignore, however much her living mind might cancel it. She could run +for shelter from it, but the storm would come. She flinched from hearing +another word of Mr. Barlow's woundy chatter, and fled into the house, +actually bearing in her hand the lightning-flash whose thunder-clap was +in a moment to shake the foundations of her soul. + +It came with a terrible suddenness when she read Dave's large, roundhand +script. "MY DEAR GRANEY MAROBONE--Me and Dolly are so Glad because Gweng +has been here To say Mrs. Picture is reely Your Cistern." This is as +written first. Old Phoebe deciphered the corrections without +illumination; sheltered, perhaps, by some bias of her inner soul to an +idea that Mrs. Prichard was a second wife of her convict +brother-in-law--a sort of washed-out sister-in-law. The child might have +cooked it up out of that. It would explain many things. + +Then came the thunderclap. "Gweng says Bad people told you bofe Lies +heaps longer ago than dolly's birfday, so you bofe thort you was dead +and buried." Straight to the heart of the subject, as perhaps none but a +child could have phrased it. Granny Marrable's sight grew dim as she +read:--"Gweng says you will be glad, not sory." Then she felt quite +sick, and heard her granddaughter coming downstairs. How to tell her +nothing of all this, how to pretend nothing was happening--that was what +had to be done! But the world vanished as she fell back in her chair +beside the cradle. + + * * * * * + +"Yes, Granny dear, what is it?... The letter?--oh, the doctor's got the +letter. Does it matter?... Never mind the letter! You sit still! I must +get you something. What shall I get for her, doctor?" + +"Get me nothing, Maisie. I shall be all right directly...." And it +really seemed as if she would. Indeed, her revival was amazingly sudden. +"I tell you what I should _like_," said she, quite firmly. "I should +like a little air. Is not John come in?" John was Mr. Costrell, her +grandson-in-law--the farmer. + +"I think I just heard him, outside." Maisie had heard him drive up to +the door, a familiar sound. + +"Then let him drive me over to the Cottage." + +"_Yes_," said the doctor, with emphasis. "Good idea!" And Maisie left +the room to speak to her husband. + +Then old Phoebe, on her feet now, and speaking clearly, with a strange +ring of determination in her voice, said to him:--"Have you the young +child's letter?" He drew it from his pocket. "If what that letter says +is true, this is my sister Maisie, risen from the grave." + +He marvelled at her strength. There was no need for reserve; he could +speak plainly now. "The letter is all true, Mrs. Marrable," said he. +"Mrs. Prichard is your sister Maisie, but she is not risen from the +grave. She is ill, and probably knows by now what you know, but for all +the shock she has had, she may have years of life before her. You cannot +do better than go to her at once. And remember that she will need all +your strength to help her. For she is not strong, like you." + +The old face relaxed from its tension, and a gleam of happiness was in +the life of it. But she only said:--"Maisie": said it twice, as for the +pleasure in the name. Then she held out her hand, to take the letter +from the doctor. + +He handed it to her. "I have been telling fibs, Mrs. Marrable," said he, +"or using them, which is the same thing, in trying to tell you this. +You will forgive that, I know?" She nodded assent. "Shall I tell you the +facts, as far as they are known to me?" + +"Please!" She seemed well able to understand. + +"Her husband was a damnable scoundrel...." + +"He was." + +"... And for some motive we can throw no light on, wrote two letters, +one a forgery with your father's signature--a letter to his wife--saying +that you, with your own husband and her child were drowned at sea. The +other to yourself, telling you that she was dead in Australia." + +The blank horror on old Phoebe's face remained in the doctor's memory, +long after that. She just found voice to say:--"God help us all!" But +there was no sign of another collapse, though he was watching for it. + +He continued:--"He must have had some means of suppressing your letters +to one another, to be safe in this deception...." + +"He was the postmaster." + +"Oh--was that it? Mrs. Costrell is coming back, and I shall have to +stop.... But I must just tell you this. The whole story has come out +through Lady Gwendolen Rivers, who is keenly interested in your sister." +Old Phoebe gave a visible start at this first mention of Mrs. Prichard's +relationship as a certainty. It was like the bather's gasp when the cold +water comes level with his heart. "Lady Gwendolen seems to have taken +charge of the old lady's writing-desk in London, and his lordship, her +father, it appears, opened and read them, having his suspicions...." + +"Oh, but his lordship had the right...." + +"Surely! No one would question his lordship's actions.... Here comes +your granddaughter back. I must stop. But that is really the whole." +Mrs. Costrell came back to say that John was mending a buckle in the +harness, but would be ready to drive Granny in a few minutes. How much +better Granny was looking! What was it, doctor? It wasn't like Granny. + +"Stomach, probably," said the doctor, resorting to a time-honoured +subterfuge. "I'll send her something to take directly after meals." + +"No, Maisie," said the old lady, somewhat to the doctor's surprise. "You +shall not be told any stories, with my consent. I've had a piece of +news--a blessed piece of news as ever came to an old woman!--and it gave +me a jump. But I shan't tell ye a word of it yet a while. Ye may just be +busy over guessing what it is till I come back." The doctor was obliged +to confess to himself that this was a wonderful stroke of policy on the +old lady's part, and resolved to back it up through thick and thin. + +But although the young wife's good-humoured face showed every sign of +rebellion against her arbitrary exclusion from the enjoyment of this +mystery, her protest had to stand over. For baby waked up suddenly in a +storm of rage, and called Heaven and Earth to witness the grievous +injury and neglect of his family in not being ready with a prompt +bottle. The doctor hurried away to that patient, and what sort of +reception he got the story can only imagine. It hopes the case was not +urgent. + +The last he saw that day of Granny Marrable was her back, almost as +upright at eighty as the young farmer's beside her at thirty, just +starting on the short journey that was to end in such an amazing +interview. His thought for a moment was how he would like to be there to +see it! Reconsideration made him say to himself:--"Well, now, should I?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + HOW LADY ANCESTER CALLED ON LADY TORRENS, WHO WAS KEEPING HER ROOM. + BUT SHE SAW THE BART. A QUEER AND TICKLISH INTERVIEW. MAURICE AND + KATHLEEN TYRAWLEY. NO NEED FOR HUMBUG BETWEEN _US_! THE COUNTESS'S + GROUNDS FOR OPPOSING THE MARRIAGE. HOW ADRIAN, WITH EYES IN HIS + HEAD, WOULD HAVE BEEN MOST ACCEPTABLE. BUT HOW ABOUT JEPHTHA'S + DAUGHTER? OUGHT WE, THOUGH, TO MEDDLE BETWEEN YOUNG LOVERS? AN + AWKWARD TOPIC. HOW ROMEO _DIDN'T_ FEEL, ABOUT _HIS_ EX-JULIET! HOW + COUNTY PARIS MIGHT HAVE WASHED, AND ROSALINE MIGHT HAVE MARRIED A + POPULAR PREACHER. THE SAME LIPS. THE COUNTESS'S COURAGE. A GOOD + SHAKE AND NO FLINCHING. CHRISTIAN-NAMING UNDER TUTELAGE. HOW SIR + HAMILTON INDULGED IN A FIRESIDE REVERIE OVER HIS PAST, AND HIS SON + AND DAUGHTER CAME BACK. HOW MISS SCATCHERD HAD BEEN SEEN BY BOTH. A + FLASH OF EYESIGHT, AND HOPE. HOW THE SQUIRE TOOK THE NEXT + OPPORTUNITY THAT EVENING. CUPID's NAME NOT DANIEL. WHAT AN IMAGE OF + THE COUNTESS SAID TO ADRIAN + + +Sir Hamilton Torrens is at home, because when a messenger rode from the +Towers in the morning with a note from the Countess to say that her +ladyship was driving over to Poynders in the afternoon, and could manage +a previous visit at Pensham by coming an hour earlier, his wife +instructed him that it would never do for him to be absent, seeing that +there was no knowing how indisposed she herself might be. There never +is, with nerve cases, and she was a nerve case. So Sir Hamilton really +must arrange to stay at home just this one afternoon, that Lady +Ancester's visit should not be absolutely sterile. If the nerve case's +plight and Sir Hamilton's isolation were communicated to her on her +arrival, she could choose for herself whether to come in or go on to +Poynders. She chose to come in and interview Sir Hamilton. So consider +that the lady of the house is indisposed, and is keeping her room, and +that the blind man and his sister, and Achilles, have gone to visit a +neighbour. + +The Countess was acting on her resolution made in the train to be a free +lance. She had been scheming an interview with Adrian's father before +the next meeting of the lovers, if possible; and now she had caught at +the opportunity afforded by her daughter's absence at Chorlton. Hers was +a resolution that deserved the name, in view of its special object--the +organizing and conduct of what might be a most embarrassing negotiation, +or effort of diplomacy. + +These two, three decades back, had behaved when they met like lovers on +the stage who are carried away by their parts and forget the audience. +Unless indeed _they_ had an audience, in which case they had to wait, +and did it with a parade of indifference which deceived no one. + +And now! Here was the gentleman making believe that the lady was +bitterly disappointed at not seeing his amiable wife, who was, after +all, only the Miss Abercrombie he married at about the same time that +she herself became a Countess. And here was she adding to an insincere +acceptance of the position of chief mourner a groundless pretext that +the two or three decades were four or five--or anything you please +outside King Memory's Statutes of Limitations!--and those endearments +too long ago to count. And that the nerve case upstairs, if you please, +had no existence for her ladyship as the Miss Abercrombie she heard +Hamilton was engaged to marry, and felt rather curious about at the +time, but was a most interesting individuality, saturated with public +spirit, whose enthusiasm about the Abolition of Slavery had stirred her +sympathetic soul to the quick. + +Endless speculation is possible over the feelings of a man and woman so +related, coming together under such changed circumstances, without the +lubricant to easy intercourse of the presence of others. The Countess +would not have faced the possible embarrassments, but would have driven +on to her cousin's house, Poynders, if she had not had a specific +purpose. As it was, it was the very thing she wanted, and she welcomed +it. She had the stronger position, and was prepared for all +contingencies. + +Sir Hamilton had very few demeanours open to him. The most obvious one +was that of the courteous host, flattered to receive such a visitor on +any terms, especially proud and cordial in view of the prospect of a +connection between the families. He maintained a penitential attitude +under the depressing shadow of the absence of his better half, which +certainly was made the most of by both; somewhat artificially, a +perceptive visitor might have said, if one had been there to see. The +jeremiads over this unfortunate misadventure must have lasted fully ten +minutes before a lull came; for the gentleman could catch no other wind +in his sails, and had to let out every reef to move at all. + +Lady Ancester was not inclined to lose time. "I am particularly sorry +not to see Lady Torrens," she said, "because I really wanted to have a +serious talk with her.... Yes, about the boy and girl--your boy and my +girl." A curious consciousness almost made her wince. Think how easily +either of the young lovers might have been a joint possession! If one, +then both, surely, minus their identities and the _status quo_? It was +like sudden unexpected lemon in a made dish. + +The worst of it was--not that each thought the same thing at the same +moment; that was inevitable--but that each knew the other's thought. The +Baronet fell back on mere self-subordination. Automatically +non-existent, he would be safe. "Same thing--same thing--Lady Torrens +and myself! Comes to the same thing whether you say it to me or to her. +Repeat every word!... Of course--easier to talk to her! But comes to the +same thing." He abated himself to a go-between, and was entrenched. + +The Countess affected an easy languor to say:--"I really don't feel able +to say what I want straight off. You know I never used to be able"--she +laughed a deprecatory laugh--"in the old Clarges Street days. Besides, +your man is coming in and out with tea and things. When he's done, I'll +go on." + +The sudden reference to the time-when of that old passionate +relation contained an implication that it was not unspeakable _per +se_--although its threat had been that it would do its worst as a +cupboard-skeleton--but only owing to the childish silliness of a mere +calf-love, a reciprocal misapprehension soon forgotten. Treated with +contempt, its pretensions to skeletonhood fell through. Moreover, that +pending tea had helped to a pause; showing the speaker to be quite +collected, and mistress of the situation. + +The little episode had put the Baronet more at his ease. He thought he +might endeavour to contribute to general lubrication on the same lines. +By-the-by, he had met Maurice Tyrawley last week in London--just back +from India--been away much longer than our men usually--Lady Ancester +would remember Maurice Tyrawley--man with a slight stammer--sister ran +away with her father's groom? Her ladyship remembered Maurice very well. +And was that really true about Kathleen Tyrawley? Well--that was +interesting! Was she alive? Oh dear yes--living in Tavistock +Square--fellah made money, somehow. That was _very_ interesting. If the +Countess had Kathleen's address, she would try to call on her, some +time. What was her name? Hopkins. Oh--Hopkins! She felt discouraged, and +not at all sure she should call on her, any time. But she did not say +so. An entry of Mrs. Hopkins's address and full name followed, on some +painfully minute ivory tablets. The Countess was sure to find the place, +owing to her coachman's phenomenal bump of locality. Was Colonel +Tyrawley married?... Oh--Major Tyrawley! Yes, he was married, and had +some rumpus with his wife. Etcetera, etcetera. + +This sort of thing served its turn, as did the tea. But both became +things of the past, and left the course clear. Provided always that the +servant did not recrudesce! "Is he gone?" said the Countess. "If he +isn't, I can wait." + +"He won't come back now." + +"Very well. Then I can go on. I want to talk about our girl and boy.... +I don't think there need be any nonsense between Us, Sir Hamilton?" + +"About our boy and girl? Why should there?" Best not to add:--"Or +anything else," on the whole! + +"I am speaking of his eyesight only. Please understand that I should not +oppose my daughter's wishes on any other ground." + +"But I am to understand that you _do_ oppose them?" + +The Countess held back her answer a few seconds, to take a last look at +it before sending it to press. Then she said decisively:--"Yes." She +made no softening reservation. She had already said why. + +He considered it his duty to soften it for her. "On the ground of his +eyesight.... This is a sad business.... I gather that you empower me to +repeat to my wife that you are--quite naturally, I admit--are +unreconciled.... Or, at least, only partly reconciled to----" + +"Unreconciled. I won't make any pretences, Sir Hamilton. I do _not_ +think there need be any nonsense between us. I am the girl's mother, and +it is my duty to speak plain, for her sake." + +"My wife will entirely agree with you." + +"I hope so. But I am not sorry that I should have an opportunity of +speaking freely to you. This is the first I have had. I wish you to know +without disguise exactly how this marriage of Gwen and your Adrian--if +it ever comes off--will present itself to me, as the girl's mother." + +Sir Hamilton inclined his head slightly, which may have meant:--"I am +prepared to listen to you as the boy's father, and his mother's proxy." + +"As the girl's mother," repeated the lady. "I shall continue to think, +as I think now, that there is an _unreal_ element in my daughter's ... a +... regard for your son." + +"An unreal element! Very often is, in young ladies' predilections for +young gentlemen." + +The Countess rushed on to avoid a complex abstract subject, with +pitfalls galore. "Which may very well endanger her future.... Well!--may +endanger the happiness of both.... I don't mean that she isn't in love +with him--whatever the word means, and sometimes one hardly knows. I +mean now that she is under an influence which may last, or may not, but +which might never have existed but for ... but for the accident." + +"My wife has said the same thing, more than once." Her ladyship could +have dispensed with this constant reference to the late Miss +Abercrombie. She felt that it put her at a disadvantage. + +"And the Earl entirely agrees with me," said she. For why should her +ladyship not play a card of the same suit? "There is something I want to +say, and I don't know how to say it. But _he_ said it the other day, and +I felt exactly as he did. He said, as near as I recollect:--'If I had +twenty daughters to give away, I would not grudge one to poor Adrian, if +I thought it would do something to make up for the wrong I have done +him....'" + +Sir Hamilton interrupted warmly. "No, Lady Ancester, no! I cannot allow +that to be said! We have never thought of it that way. We do not think +of it that way. We never shall think of it that way. It was an accident, +pure and simple. It might have happened to _his_ son, on my bit of +preserved land. All the owners about shoot stray dogs." + +"But if it had, and you had had a mad daughter--because Gwen is a mad +girl, if ever there was one--who got a Quixotic idea like this in her +head, you would have felt exactly as my husband does." + +"Should I? Well--I suppose I should. No, I don't think I should.... +Well--at least...!" + +"At least, what?" + +"At least, if I had supposed that ... that Irene, for instance"--Sir +Hamilton's mind required a tangible reality to rest upon--"that Irene +was head over ears in love with some man...." He did not seem to have +his conclusion ready. + +"And you _are_ convinced that my daughter is head over ears, in love +with your son? Is that it?" The Countess spoke rather coldly, and Sir +Hamilton felt uncomfortable. "It seems to me that the whole thing turns +on that. Are you certain that you have not _allowed_ yourself to be +convinced?" + +"Allowed myself--I'm not sure I understand." + +"With less proof, I mean, than her parents have a right to ask for--less +than you would have asked yourself in the reverse case?" + +Sir Hamilton felt more uncomfortable. He ought to have answered that he +was very far from certain. But an Englishman is nothing if not a +prevaricator; he calls it being scrupulously truthful. "I have no right +to catechize Lady Gwendolen," said he. + +"And her parents have, of course. I see. But if her parents, _are_ +convinced--as I certainly am in this case, and I think my husband is, +almost--that there is an unreal element on Gwen's side, it ought to ... +to carry weight with you." + +"It would carry weight. It does carry weight. But ... However, I must +talk to Lady Torrens about this." He appeared very uncomfortable indeed, +and was visibly flushed. But that may have been the red glow of a dying +fire in the half-light, or half-darkness, striking his face as he rested +his elbow on the chimney-piece, while its hand wandered from his brow to +his chin, expressing irresolute perplexity. Until, as she sat silent, as +though satisfied that he could have now no doubt about her wishes, he +spoke again, abruptly. "I wish you would tell me exactly what you +suppose to be the case." + +She addressed herself to explicit statement. "I believe Gwen is acting +under an unselfish impulse, and I do not believe in unselfish impulses. +If a girl is to run counter to the wishes of her parents, and to obvious +common sense, at least let her impulse be a selfish one. Let her act +entirely for her own sake. Gwen made your son's acquaintance under +peculiar circumstances--romantic circumstances--and, as I know, +instantly saw that his eyesight might be destroyed and that the blame +would rest with her family...." + +"No, L-Lady Ancester"--he stumbled somehow over the name, for no +apparent reason--"I deny that. I protest against it...." + +"We need not settle that point. Your feeling is a generous one. But do +let us keep to Gwen and Adrian." Her ladyship went on to develop her +view of the case, not at all illogically. Her objection to the marriage +turned entirely on Adrian's blindness--had not a particle of personal +feeling in it. On the contrary, she and her husband saw every reason to +believe that the young man, with eyes in his head, would have met with a +most affectionate welcome as a son-in-law. This applied especially to +the Earl, who, of course, had seen more of Adrian than herself. He had, +in fact, conceived an extraordinary _entichement_ for him; so much so +that he would sooner, for his own sake purely, that the marriage should +come off, as the blindness would affect him very little. But his duty to +his daughter remained exactly the same. If there was the slightest +reason to suppose that Gwen was immolating herself as a +sacrifice--something was implied of an analogy in the case of Jephtha's +daughter, but not pressed home owing to obvious weak points--he had no +choice, and she had no choice, but to protect the victim from herself. +If they did not do so, what was there to prevent an irrevocable step +being taken which might easily lead to disastrous consequences for both? +"You must see," said Gwen's mother very earnestly, "that if my daughter +is acting, as my husband and I suppose, from a Quixotic desire to make +up to your son for the terrible injury we have done him ... No protests, +please!... it is our business to protect her from the consequences of +her own rashness--to stand between her and a possible lifelong +unhappiness!" + +"But what," said the perplexed Baronet, "can _I_ do?" A reasonable +question! + +"If you can do nothing, no one can. The Earl and myself are so +handicapped by our sense of the fearful injury that we have--however +unintentionally--inflicted on your son, that we are really tied hand and +foot. But you can at least place the case before Adrian as I have placed +it before you, and I appeal to you to do so. I am sure you will see that +it is impossible for my husband or myself to say the same thing to him." + +"But to what end? What do you suppose will come of it? What ... a ... +what difference will it make?" + +"It _will_ make a difference. It _must_ make a difference, if your son +is made fully aware--he is not, now--of the motives that may be +influencing Gwen." The Countess was not at all confident of her case, in +respect of any definite change it would produce in the bearing of Adrian +towards his _fiancée_, and still less of any effect such change would +produce upon that headstrong young lady, if once she suspected its +cause. But she had confidence in her memories of the rather stupid +middle-aged gentleman of whom, as a young dragoon, she had had such very +intimate experience. He was still sensitively honourable, as in those +old days--she was sure of that. Unless, indeed, he had changed very much +morally, as he had certainly done physically. He would shrink from the +idea of his son profiting by an heroic self-devotion of the daughter of +a man who was no more to blame for his son's mishap than he himself +would have been in the counter-case he had supposed. And he would +impress her view of the position on his son. It would have no visible +and immediate result now, but how about the six months at Vienna? Might +it not be utilised to undermine that position during those six months of +fascinating change? She pictured to herself an abatement of what her +mind thought of as "the heroics" in the first six weeks. + +At least, she could see, at this moment, that she had gained her +immediate end. The uneasiness of the Baronet was visible in all that can +show uneasiness in a not very expressive exterior--restlessness of hand +and lips, and the fixed brow of perplexity. "Very good--very good!" he +was saying, "I will talk to my wife about it. You may depend on me to do +what I can. Only--if you are mistaken...." + +"About Gwen? If I am, things must take their own course. But I think it +will turn out that I am right.... That is all, is it not? I am truly +sorry not to have seen Lady Torrens. I hope she will be better.... Oh +yes--it's all right about the time. They know I am coming, at Poynders. +And I should have time to dress for dinner, anyhow. Good-bye!" Her +ladyship held out a decisive hand, that said:--"Curtain." + +But Sir Hamilton did not seem so sure the performance was over. "Half a +minute more, L-Lady Ancester," said he; and he again half-stumbled over +her name. "I am rather slow in expressing myself, but I have something I +want to say." + +"I am not in a hurry." + +"I can only do exactly what you have asked me to do--place the case +before my son as you have placed it before me." + +"I have not asked for anything else." + +"Well, then, I can do that, after I have talked over it with his mother. +But I can't ... I can't undertake to _influence_ him." + +"Is he so intractable?... However, young men _are_." + +"I did not mean that. I ... I don't exactly know how to say it...." + +"Why should you hesitate to say what you were going to say?... Do you +suppose I don't know what it was?" For he had begun to anticipate it +with some weakening reservation. "I could tell you exactly. You were +going to say, was it right to influence young people's futures and so +on, and wasn't it taking a great responsibility, and so on? Now, were +you not?" + +"I had some such thought." + +"Exactly. You mean you thought what I said you thought." + +"And you think me mistaken?" + +"Not always. In the present case, yes--if you consider that it would be +influencing. I don't. It would only be refraining from keeping silence +about--about something it may never occur to your son to think +possible." It may have struck her hearer that to call shouting a fact on +the house-tops "refraining from keeping silence" about it was straining +phraseology; but it was not easy to formulate the idea, offhand. It was +easier to hold his tongue. The Countess might have done better to hold +hers, at this point. But she must needs be discriminating, to show how +clear-sighted she was. "Of course, it is quite a different thing to try +to bring about a marriage. That is certainly taking a grave +responsibility." She stopped with a jerk, for she caught herself +denouncing the very course of action which well-meaning friends had +adopted successfully in the case of herself and her husband. If it had +not been for the jerk, Sir Hamilton would not have known the comparison +that was passing in her mind. She recovered herself to continue:--"Of +course, trying to bring about a marriage is a grave responsibility, but +mere testing of the strength of links that bind may be no more than bare +prudence. A breaking strain on lovers' vows may be acknowledged by them +as an untold blessing in after-years." Here she began to feel she was +not improving matters, and continued, with misgivings:--"I am scarcely +asking you to do even that. I am only appealing to you to suggest to +your son a fact that is obvious to myself and my husband, because it is +almost impossible for us, under the circumstances, to make such an +appeal to him ourselves." + +"Are you so confident of the grounds of your suspicions ... about ... +about the motives that are influencing your daughter?" + +"They are not suspicions. They are certainties. At least, I am +convinced--and I am her mother--that her chief motive in accepting your +son was vitiated--yes, vitiated!--by a mistaken zeal for--suppose we +call it poetical justice. I am not going to say the girl does not fancy +herself in love." She laughed a maternal sort of laugh--the laugh that +seniority, undeceived by life's realities, laughs at the crazy dawn of +passion in infatuated children. "Of course she does. But knowing what I +do, am I not right to make an attempt at least to protect her from +herself?" She lowered her voice to an increase of earnestness, as though +she had found a way to go nearer to the heart of her subject. "Does any +woman know--_can_ any woman know--better than I do, the value of a +girl's first love?" + +It was a daring recognition of their old relation, and the veil of the +thin pretence that it could be successfully ignored had fallen from +between them. + +The Baronet was a Man of the World. "Women do not take these things to +heart as men do." And then, the moment after, was in a cold perspiration +to think in what a delicate position it would have landed him. Just +think!--with the Miss Abercrombie he had married cherishing her nervous +system upstairs, and the pending reappearance of a son and daughter who +were very liable to amusement with a parent whom they scarcely took +seriously--for _him_ to be hinting at the remains of an undying passion +for this lady! He could only accept her estimate of girls by +stammering:--"P-possibly! Young people--yes!" + +But his embarrassment and hesitation were so visible that the Countess +had little choice between flinching or charging bravely up to the guns. + +She chose the courageous course, influenced perhaps by the thought that +if the marriage came off, there would be a long perspective of +reciprocal consciousnesses in the future for herself and this man, who +had an unfortunate knack of transparency. Could not she nip the first in +the bud, and sterilise the rest? It was worth the attempt. + +"Listen to me, Hamilton," said she; and she was perfectly cool and +collected. "Did I not say to you that there need be no nonsense between +_us_?... How funny men are! Why should you jump because I called you by +name? Do you know that twice since we have been talking here you have +all but called me the name you used to me as a girl?... Yes--you began +saying 'Lip,' and made it Lady Ancester. Please say it all another time. +I shall not bite you.... Look here!--I want you to help me to laugh at +the mistake we made when we were young folks; not to look solemn at it. +We were ridiculous.... You were going to say, 'Why?' Well--I don't +exactly know. Young folks always _are_." The fact is, the Countess was +beginning to feel comfortably detached, and could treat the subject in a +free and easy manner. + +The Baronet could not bring himself to allow that he had ever been +ridiculous, without protest. The Man within him rose in rebellion +against such an admission. He felt a little indignant at her +unceremonious pooh-poohing of their early infatuation. He would have +accorded it respectful obsequies at least. But what protest could he +enter that would not lay him open to suspicions of that undying passion? +It appeared to him absolutely impossible to say anything, either way. So +he looked as dignified as he could, consistently with being glad the +room was half dark, because he knew he was red. + +His uncomfortable silence, instead of the response in kind her ladyship +had hoped for, interfered a little with the development of her +detachment. She judged it better to wind up the interview, and did it +with spirit. "There, now, Hamilton, _don't talk_--because I know exactly +what you are going to say. Shake hands upon it--a good shake, you +know!--don't throw it away!" + +How very different are those two ways of offering a hand, the tender one +and the graspy one. The Countess's stopped out of its glove to emphasize +the latter, and did it so frankly and effectually that it cleared the +air, in which the smell of fire had been perceptible, as in a room where +a match has gone out. + +He had, as she said, twice very nearly called her by her old familiar +name of the Romeo and Juliet days. Nevertheless, when he gave her his +hand, saying:--"Perfectly right--perfectly right, Lip! That's the way to +look at it," he threw in the name stiffly. It was under tutelage, not +spontaneously uttered. Letting it come before would have given him a +better position. But then, how if she had disallowed it? There was no +end to the ticklishness of their relation. + +A _modus vivendi_ was, however, established. She could recapitulate +without endangering it. "You _will_ try to make Adrian see Gwen's +motives as I see them. It is quite possible that it will make no +difference in the end. If so, we must bow to the decrees of Providence, +I suppose. But I am sure you agree with me that he ought not to remain +in the dark. As I dare say you know, I am taking Gwen to Vienna for a +time. If they are both of a mind at the end of that time--well, I +suppose it can't be helped! But you must not be--I see you are +not--surprised at my view of the case." + +Sir Hamilton assented to everything, promised everything, saw the lady +into her carriage, and returned, uncomfortable, to review his position +before the drawing-room fire in solitude. He did not go upstairs to the +nerve case. He would let his visitor die down before he discharged that +liability. He broke a large coal, and made a flare, and rang the bell +for lights, to show how little the late interview had thrown him out of +gear. But it _had_ done so. In spite of the fact that Lady Ancester was +well over five-and-forty, and that he himself was four or five years +older, and that she had all but hinted that the sight of him would have +disillusioned her if the Earl had not--for that was what he read between +her lines--she had left something indefinable behind, which he was +pleased to condemn as sentimental nonsense. No doubt it was, but it was +_there_, for all that. + +Just one little tender squeeze of that beautiful hand, instead of that +candid, overwhelming wrestler's grip and double-knock handshake, would +have been so delightful. + +He caught himself thinking more of his handsome visitor and her easy +self-mastery, compared with his own awkwardness and embarrassment, than +of her errand and the troublesome task she had devolved on him of +illuminating his son's mind about the possible self-sacrificial motives +of her daughter. His thoughts _would_ wander back to their Romeo and +Juliet period, and make comparisons between this _now_ of worldly-wise +maturities and the days when he would have been the glove upon that +hand, that he might touch that cheek. He recalled his first meeting with +the fascinating young beauty in her first season, at a moonlight dance +on a lawn dangerously flanked with lonely sheltered avenues and +whispering trees; and the soft rose-laden air of a dawn that broke on +tired musicians and unexhausted dissipation, and his headlong reckless +surrender to her irresistible intoxication; and, to say the truth, the +Juliet-like acknowledgment it met with. He would have been better +pleased, with the world as it was now, if less of that Juliet had been +recognisable in this mature dame. The thought made him bite his lip. He +exclaimed against his recognition perforce, and compelled himself to +think of the question before the house. + +Yes--he could quite understand why the girl's parents should find it +difficult to say to his son:--"We know that Gwen is giving her love to +make amends for a wrong, as she thinks, done by ourselves; and whatever +personal sacrifice we should be glad to make as compensation for it, we +have no right to allow our daughter to imperil her happiness." But he +had a hazy recollection of Adrian's telling him something of the Earl +himself having mooted this view of the subject at the outset of the +engagement; and, hearing no more of it, had supposed the point to be +disposed of. Why did Lady Ancester wish to impress it on him now? + +Then it gradually became clearer, as he thought it out, that it would +have been impossible to form conclusions at once. The Earl had no doubt +expressed a suspicion at first. But his daughter would never have +confessed her motives to _him_. What more likely than that her mother +should gradually command her confidence, and see that Adrian could not +arrive at a full appreciation of them without an ungracious persistence +on the part of herself and her husband, unless it were impressed on him +by some member of the young man's family? His father, naturally. + +He felt perceptibly gratified that Gwen's mother should take it for +granted that he would feel as she did about the injustice to her +daughter of allowing her to sacrifice herself to make amends for a fault +of her parents. It was a question of sensitive honour, and she had +credited him rightly with possessing it. At least, he hoped so. And +though he was certainly not a clever man, the Squire of Pensham was the +very soul of fair play. His division of the County knew both facts. Now, +it seemed to him that it would be fairer play on his part to throw his +influence into the scale on the side of the Countess, and protest +against the marriage unless some guarantee could be found that there was +no heroic taint in the bride's motives. In this he was consciously +influenced by the thought that _his_ side would suffer by his own +action, so his own motives were tainted. A chivalric instinct, +unbalanced by reasoning power, is so very apt to decide--on +principle--against its owner's interests. Behind this there may have +been a saving clause, to the effect that the young people might be +relied on to pay no attention to their seniors' wishes, or anything +else. Gwen was on her way to twenty-one, and then parental authority +would expire. Meanwhile a little delay would do no harm. For the +present, he could only rub the facts into his son, and leave them to do +their worst. He would speak to him at the next opportunity. + + * * * * * + +Home came Adrian and Irene, and filled the silence of the house with +voices. Something was afoot, clearly; something not unpleasant, to judge +by the laugh of the latter. The room-door, whose hasp never bit +properly--causing Adrian to perpetrate an atrocious joke about a +disappointed Cleopatra--swung wide with an unseen cause, which was +revealed by a soft nose, a dog's, in contact with Sir Hamilton's hand. +He acknowledged Achilles, who trotted away satisfied, to complete an +examination of all the other inmates of the house, his invariable custom +after an outing. He would ratify or sanction them, and drop asleep with +a clear conscience. + +"Hay? What's all that? What's all the rumpus?" says the Baronet, outside +at the stair-top. The sounds of the voices are pleasant and welcome to +him, and he courts their banishment of the past his old _fiancée_ had +dragged from its sepulchre. Bury it again and forget it! "What's all the +noise about? What's all the chatterboxing?" For the good gentleman +always imputes to his offspring a volubility and a plethora of language +far in excess of any meaning it conveys. His own attitude, he implies, +is one of weighty consideration and temperate but forcible judgment. + +"What's the chatterboxing?" says the beautiful daughter, who kisses him +on both sides--and she and her skirts and her voice fill the discreet +country-house to the brim, and make its owner insignificant. "What's the +chatterboxing, indeed? Why,--it's good news for a silly old daddy! +That's what it is. Now come in and I'll sit on his knee and tell him." +And by the time Adrian has felt his way to the drawing-room, the good +news has been sprung upon his father by a Moenad who has dragged off her +head-gear--so as not to scratch--and flung it on the sofa. And a tide of +released black hair has burst loose about him. And--oh dear!--_how_ that +garden of auld lang syne has vanished! + +It behoves a Baronet and a J.P., however, to bring all this excitement +down to the level of mature consideration. "Well--well--well--well!" +says he. "Now let's have it all over again. Begin _at_ the beginning. +You and your brother were walking up Pratchet's Lane. What were you +doing in Pratchet's Lane?" + +"Walking up it. You _can_ only walk up it or down it. Very well. We were +just by the big holly-tree ..." + +"Which big holly-tree? One--thing--at--a time!" + +"Don't interrupt! There is only one big holly-tree. Now you know! Well! +Ply ran on in front because he caught sight of Miss Scatcherd ..." + +"Easy--easy--easy! Where was Miss Scatcherd?" + +"In front, of course! Ply dotes on Miss Scatcherd, although she's +forty-seven." + +"I don't know about the 'of course,'" says Adrian, leaning on his +father's arm-chair. "Because I _don't_ dote on Miss Scatcherd. Miss +Scatcherd might have been coming up behind. In which case, if I had been +Ply, I should have run on in front." + +"Don't be spiteful! However, I know she's bony. Well--am I to get on +with my story, or not?... Very good! Where did I leave off? Oh--at Miss +Scatcherd! Now, papa dear, be good, and don't be solemn." + +"Well--fire away!" + +"Indeed, it really happened just as I told you: as we were going to the +Rectory, Ply ran on in front, and I went on to rescue Miss Scatcherd, +because she doesn't like being knocked down by a dog, however +affectionate. And it was just then that I heard Adrian speak...." + +"Did I speak?" + +"Perhaps I ought to say gasp. I heard Adrian gasp. And when I turned +round to see why, he was rubbing his eyes. Because he had _seen_ Miss +Scatcherd." + +"How did you know?" The interest of this has made Sir Hamilton lapse his +disciplines for the moment. He takes advantage of a pause, due to his +son and daughter beginning to answer both at once, and each stopping for +the other, to say:--"This would be the second time--the second time! +Something might come of this." + +"You go on!" says Irene, nodding to her brother. "Say what you said." + +Adrian accepts the prolocutorship. "To the best of my recollection I +said:--'Stop Ply knocking Miss Scatcherd down again!' Because he did it +before, you know.... Oh yes, entirely from love, no doubt! Then I heard +you say:--'How do you know it's Miss Scatcherd?' And I told you." + +"Yes--yes--yes--yes! But how _did_ you?... How much did you see?" The +Baronet is excited and roused. + +"Quite as much as I wished. I think I mentioned that I did _not_ dote on +Miss Scatcherd." For, the moment a piece of perversity is possible, this +young man jumps at it. + +"Oh, Adrian dear, don't be paradoxical and capricious when papa's so +anxious. Do say what you saw!" Thus urged by his sister, the blind man +describes the occurrence from his point of view, carefully and +conscientiously. The care and conscience are chiefly needed to limit and +circumscribe a sudden image of a lady of irreproachable demeanour +besieged by an unexpected dog. So sudden that it merely appeared as a +fact in space, without a background or a foothold. It came and went in a +flash, Adrian said, leaving him far more puzzled to account for its +disappearance than its sudden reasonless intrusion on his darkness. + +As soon as the narrative ended, perversity set in. It was gratifying, +said Adrian, to listen while Hope told flattering tales, but was it not +as well to be on our guard against rash conclusions? Even a partial +restoration of eyesight was a thing to look forward to, but would not +the extent of the benefits it conferred vary according to the nature of +its own limitations? For instance, it might enable him to see everything +in a mist, without outlines; or, for that matter, upside down. That, +however, would not signify, so long as everything else was upside down. +Indeed, who could say for certain that anything ever was, or ever had +been, right side up? It all turned on which side "up" was, and on +whether there was a wrong side at all. + +"All nonsense!" said Irene. + +"Shut up, 'Re," said Adrian. "These things want thinking out. A limited +vision might be restricted in other ways than by mere stupid opaque fog, +and bald, insipid position in Space. Consider how much more aggravating +it would be--from the point of view of Providence--to limit the vision +to the selection of peculiar objects which would give offence to the +Taste or Religious Convictions of its owner! Suppose that Miss +Scatcherd's eyes, for instance, could only distinguish gentlemen of +Unsound opinions, and couldn't see a Curate if it was ever so! And, _per +contra_, suppose that it should only prove possible to me to receive an +image of Miss Scatcherd, or her congeners ..." + +"Is that eels?" said Irene, who wasn't listening, but getting out +writing-materials. "You may go on talking, but don't expect me to +answer, because I shan't. I'm going to write to Gwen all about it." + +Her brother started, and became suddenly serious. "No, 'Re!" he +exclaimed. "At least, not yet. I don't want Gwen to know anything about +it. Don't let's have any more false hopes than we can help. Ten to one +it's only a flash in the pan!... Don't cry about it, ducky darling! If +it was real, it won't stop there, and we shall have something worth +telling." + +So Irene did not write her letter. + + * * * * * + +That evening the Squire was very silent, saying nothing about the long +conversation he had had with Gwen's mother. His good lady did not come +down to dinner, and if she asked him any questions about it, it was when +he went up to dress; not in the hearing of his son or daughter. They +only knew that their mother had not seen Lady Ancester when she called, +and curiosity about the visitor had merged in the absorbing interest of +Miss Scatcherd's sudden visibility. + +But no sooner had Irene--who was the ladies, this time--departed to +alleviate the lot of her excellent mamma, who may have been very ill, +for anything the story knows, than Sir Hamilton told the pervading +attendant-in-chief to look alive with the coffee, and get that door +shut, and keep it shut, conveying his desire for undisturbed seclusion. +Then he was observed by his son to be humming and hawing, somewhat in +the manner of ourselves when asked to say a few words at a public +dinner. This was Adrian's report to Irene later. + +"Had a visitor to-day--s'pose they told you--Lady Ancester. Sorry your +mother wasn't up to seeing her." + +"I know. We passed her coming away. Said how-d'ye-do in a hurry. What +had her ladyship got to say for herself?" Thus far was mere recognition +of a self-assertion of the Baronet's, as against female triviality. He +always treated any topic mooted in the presence of womankind as mere +froth, and resumed it as a male interest, as though it had never been +mentioned, as soon as the opposite sex had died down. + +"We had some talk. Did you know she was coming?" + +"Well--yes--after a fashion. Gwen's last letter said we might expect a +descent from her mamma. But I had no idea she was going to be so +prompt." + +"She sent over to tell us, this morning. They took the letter up to your +mother. I had gone over to the Hanger, to prevent Akers cutting down a +tree. Man's a fool! I rather got let in for seeing her ladyship. Your +mother arranged it." + +"I didn't hear of it. I should have stopped. So would 'Re." + +"Yes--it rather let me in for a ... _tête-à-tête_." Why did Sir Hamilton +feel that this expression was an edged tool, that might cut his fingers? +He did. + +"I should have been in the way." + +Another time this might have procured a rebuke for levity. Sir Hamilton +perceived in it a stepping-stone to his text. "Perhaps you might," he +said. But he wavered, lest that stone should not bear; adding, +indecisively:--"Well--we had some talk!" + +"About?" said his son. But he knew perfectly well what about. + +"About Gwen and yourself. That conversation of yours with the Earl. You +remember it? You told me." + +"I remember it, certainly. He was perfectly right--the Earl. He's the +sort of man that is right. I was horribly ashamed of myself. But Gwen +set me up in my own conceit again." + +His father persevered. "I understood his view to be that Gwen was under +the influence of ... was influenced by ... a distorted view ... a +mistaken imagination...." + +"Not a doubt of it, I should think. My _amour propre_ keeps on +suggesting to me that Gwen may be of sound mind. My strong common sense +replies that my _amour propre_ may be blowed!" + +"Adrian, I wish to talk to you seriously. What did you suppose I was +referring to?" + +"To Gwen's distorted view of your humble servant--a clear case of +mistaken imagination. That, however, is a condition precedent of the +position. Dan Cupid would be hard up, otherwise." + +"Dan Who?" + +"The little God of Love ... not Daniel Anybody! Wasn't that what the +Earl meant?" + +"Not at all! I was referring to his view of ... a ... his daughter's +view ... of the accident ... some idea of her making up to you for ..." +No wonder he hesitated. It _was_ difficult to talk to his son about it. + +Adrian cleared the air with a ringing laugh. "I know! What Gwen calls +the Self-Denying Ordinance!--her daddy's expression, I believe." He +settled down to a more restrained and serious tone. "The subject has not +been mentioned, since Lord Ancester's first conversation with me--in the +consulship of Mrs. Bailey, at the Towers--not mentioned by anyone. And +though the thought of it won't accept any suggestions towards its +extinction, from myself, I don't see my way to ... to making it a +subject of general conversation. In fact, I cannot do anything but hold +my tongue. I am sure you would not wish me to say to Gwen:--'Hence! +Begone! I forbid you to sacrifice yourself at My Shrine.' Now, would +you?" + +The Squire was at liberty to ignore poetry. He took no notice of the +question, but proceeded to his second head. "Lady Ancester has a strong +opinion on the subject." He never said much at a time, and this being +difficult conversation, his part of it came in short lengths. + +"To the effect that her daughter is throwing herself away. Quite right! +It is so. She _is_ throwing herself away." + +"Lady Ancester expressed no opinion to that effect. She considers that +Gwen is not acting under the influence of ... under the usual motives. +That's all she said. Spoke very well of you, my boy!--I must say that." + +"But...?" + +"But thought Gwen ought to act only for her own sake." + +"Of course she ought. Of course she ought. I see the whole turn out. Her +mother considers, quite rightly, that Jephtha, Judge of Israel, ought to +have been jolly well ashamed of himself. Perhaps he was. But that's +neither here nor there. What does Gwen's mammy think I ought to +do--ought to say--ought to pretend? That's what it comes to. Am I to +refuse to accompany Gwen to the altar till she can give sureties that +she is really in love, and plead the highest Spartan principles to +justify my conduct? Am I to make believe that I cannot, cannot love a +woman unless she produces certificates of affection based solely on the +desirability of my inestimable self? I should never make anyone believe +_that_. Why--if I thought Gwen hated me worse than poison, but was +marrying me on high moral grounds to square accounts, I don't think I +could humbug successfully, to that extent." + +"Well, my dear boy, I am bound to confess that I do not see what you can +_do_. I can only repeat to you her ladyship's conviction, and tell you +that I believe it to be--what she says it is. I mean that she speaks +because she is certain Gwen is under the influence of this--of this +Quixotic motive. I can only tell you so, at her wish, and--and leave it +to you. I tell you frankly that if I were in her place, I should oppose +the marriage, under the circumstances." + +"Why doesn't she tackle me about it herself?" + +"H'm--well--h'm! I think if you look at it from her point of view ... +from her point of view, you'll see there would be many difficulties ... +many difficulties. Done your cigar? I suppose we ought to go and pay +your mother a visit." + +Yes--Adrian saw the difficulties! On his way upstairs a vivid scene +passed through his head, in which an image of the Countess addressed +him thus:--"My dear Mr. Torrens, Gwen does not really love you. She +is only pretending, because she considers her family are responsible +for your blindness. All her assurances of affection for you are +untrustworthy--just her fibs! She could not play her part without them. +I appeal to you as an honourable man to disbelieve every word she says, +and to respect the true instinct of a maternal parent. No one grieves +more sincerely than I do for your great misfortune, or is more contrite +than my husband and myself because it was our keeper that shot you, but +there are limits! We must draw the line at our daughter marrying a +scribbler with his eyes out, on high principles." At this point the +image may be said to have got the bit in its teeth, for it added:--"If +Gwen squinted and had a wooden leg, nothing would please us better. +But...!" + +How did the growing hope of a revival of sight bear on the question? +Well--both ways! May not Gwen's pity for his calamity have had +_something_ to do with her feelings towards him, without any motive that +the most stodgy prose could call Quixotic? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + A DABBLER IN IMMORTALITY. _ALL_ THEIR LIVES! WILL PHOEBE KNOW ME? + STAY TO TELL HER THIS IS ME. THAT POOR OLD PERSON. HOW GWEN MET + GRANNY MARRABLE ON HER WAY HOME. HER DREAD OF MORE DISCLOSINGS, AND + A GREAT RELIEF. _MACTE VIRTUTE_, DR. NASH! GRANNY MARRABLE'S + FORTITUDE. HOW GWEN NOTICED THE LIKENESS TOO, FOR THE FIRST TIME! A + SHORT CHAT THE COUNTESS HAD HAD WITH SIR HAMILTON. HOW SHE WAS + UNFEELING ABOUT THE OLD TWINS. WHY NOT SETTLE DOWN AND TALK IT + OVER? NO AUTHENTICATED GHOST APPEARS TO A PERFECT STRANGER. A + DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT. SIR SPENCER DERRICK AND THE OPENSHAWS. + GWEN'S LETTER TO HER FATHER. HOW SHE DID NOT GO TO PENSHAM, BUT + BACK TO STRIDES COTTAGE + + +When Gwen's task came to an end, she had to think of herself. The day +had been more trying even than her worst anticipations of it. But now at +last she had stormed that citadel of Impossible Belief in the mind of +both mother and daughter, and nothing she could do could bring them, +strained and distracted by the incredible revelation, nearer to a haven +of repose. She had spoken the word: the rest lay with the powers of +Nature. Probably she felt what far different circumstances have caused +many of us to feel, on whom the unwelcome task has devolved of bringing +the news of a death. How consciously helpless we were--was it not +so?--when the tale was told, and we had to leave the heart of our hearer +to its lonely struggle in the dark! + +This that Gwen had told was not news of death, but news of life; +nevertheless, it might kill. She had little fear for the daughter or the +sister; much for this new-found object of her affection who had survived +so many troubles. For Gwen had to acknowledge that "old Mrs. Picture" +had acquired a mysteriously strong hold upon her--its strangeness lying +in its sudden development. She could, however, do nothing now to help +the old tempest-tossed bark into smooth water, that would not be done as +well or better by her equally storm-beaten consort, whose rigging and +spars had been in such much better trim than hers when the gale struck +both alike. Gwen felt, too, a great faith that the daughter's love would +be, as it were, the beacon of the mother's salvation; the pilot to a +sheltered haven where the seas would be at rest. She herself could do no +more. + +After the old lady's consciousness returned, it was long before she +spoke, and Gwen had felt half afraid her speech might be gone. But +then--could she herself speak? Scarcely! And Ruth Thrale, the daughter, +seemed in like plight, sitting beside her mother on the bed, her usually +rosy cheeks gone ashy white, her eyes fixed on the old face before her +with a look that seemed to Gwen one of wonder even more than love. The +stress of the hour, surely! For all the tenderness of her heart was in +the hand that wandered caressingly about the mass of silver hair on the +pillow, and smoothed it away from the eyes that turned from the one to +the other half questioningly, but content without reply. The mother +seemed physically overwhelmed by the shock, and ready to accept absolute +collapse, if not indeed incapable of movement. She made no attempt to +speak till later. + +During the hour or half-hour that followed, Gwen and Ruth Thrale spoke +but once or twice, beneath their breath. Neither could have said why. +Who can say why the dwellers in a house where Death is pending speak in +undertones? Not from fear of disturbance to the dying man, whose sight +and hearing are waning fast. This was a silence of a like sort, though +it was rather resurrection than death that imposed it. + +The great clock in the kitchen, which had struck twelve when Gwen was +showing the forged letter to Widow Thrale, had followed on to one and +two, unnoticed. And now, when it struck three, she doubted it, and +looked at her watch. "Yes," said she, bewildered. "It's right! It's +actually three o'clock. I must go. I wish I could stay." She stooped +over the old face on the pillow, and kissed it lovingly. "You know, +dear, what has happened. Phoebe is coming--your sister Phoebe." She had +a strange feeling, as she said this, of dabbling in immortality--of +tampering with the grave. + +Then old Maisie spoke for the first time; slowly, but clearly enough, +though softly. "I think--I know--what has happened.... _All_ our +lives?... But Phoebe will come. My Ruth will fetch her. Will you not, +dear?" + +"Mother will come, very soon." + +"That is it. She is mother--my Ruth's mother!... But I am your mother, +too, dear!" + +"Indeed yes--my mother--my mother--my mother!" + +"I kissed you in your crib, asleep, and was not ashamed to go and leave +you. I went away in the moonlight, with the little red bag that was _my_ +mother's--Phoebe's and mine! I was not ashamed to go, for the love of +your father, on the cruel sea! Fifty years agone, my darling!" Gwen saw +that she was speaking of her husband, and her heart stirred with anger +that such undying love should still be his, the miscreant's, the cause +of all. She afterwards thought that old Maisie's mind had somehow +refused to receive the story of the forgery. Could she, else, have +spoken thus, and gone on, as she did, to say to Gwen:--"Come here, my +dear! God bless you!"? She held her hand, pressing it close to her. "I +want to say to you what it is that is fretting me. Will Phoebe know me, +for the girl that went away? Oh, see how I am changed!" + +The last thing Gwen had expected was that the old woman should master +the facts. It made her hesitate to accept this seeming ability to look +them in the face as genuine. It would break down, she was convinced, and +the coming of a working recognition of them would be a slow affair. But +she could not say so. She could only make believe. "Why should she not +know you?" she said. "She has changed, herself." + +"When will she come?" said old Maisie restlessly. "She will come when +you are gone. Oh, how I wish you could stay, to tell her that this is +me!" + +"Do you think she will doubt it? She will not, when she hears you talk +of the--of your old time. I am sorry I must go, but I must." And indeed +she thought so, for she did not know that her own mother had gone away +from the Towers, and fancied that that good lady would resent her +desertion. This affair had lasted longer than her anticipation of it. + +Then old Maisie showed how partial the illumination of her mind had +been. "Oh yes, my dear," she said, "I know. You have to go, of course, +because of that poor old person. The old person you told me of--whom you +have to tell--to tell of her sister she thought dead--what was it?" She +had recovered consciousness so far as to know that Phoebe was somehow to +reappear risen from the dead; and that this Ruth whom she had taken so +much to heart was somehow entitled to call her mother; but what that +_how_ was, and why, was becoming a mystery as her vigour fell away and +an inevitable reaction began to tell upon her. + +Gwen heard it in the dazed sound of her voice; and, to her thought, +assent was best to whatever the dumfoundered mind dwelt upon most +readily. "Yes," said she, "I must go and tell her. She must know." Then +she beckoned Widow Thrale away from the bedside. "It was her own sister +I told her of," said she in an undertone. "I thought she would see +quickest that way.... Do you quite understand?" A quick nod showed that +her hearer had quite understood. Gwen thanked Heaven that at least she +had no lack of faculties to deal with there. "Listen!" said she. "You +must get her food now. You must _make_ her eat, whether she likes it or +no." She saw that for Ruth herself the kindest thing was the immediate +imposition of duties, and was glad to find her so alive to the needs of +the case. + +Two voices of women in the kitchen without. One, Elizabeth-next-door; +the other, surely, Keziah Solmes from the Towers. So much the better! "I +may tell it them, my lady?" said Widow Thrale. Gwen had to think a +moment, before saying:--"_Yes_--but they must not talk of it in the +village--not yet! Go out and tell them. I will remain with your mother." +It was the first time Ruth Thrale had had the fact she had succeeded in +knowing in theory forced roughly upon her in practice. She started, but +recovered herself to do her ladyship's bidding. + +The utter amazement of Keziah and Elizabeth-next-door, as Gwen heard it, +was a thing to be remembered. But she paid little attention to it. She +was bidding farewell to old Mrs. Picture. The last speech she heard from +her seemed to be:--"Tell my little boy and Dolly. Say I will come back +to them." Then she appeared to fall asleep. + +"You must get some food down her throat, somehow, Mrs. Thrale, or we +shall have her sinking from exhaustion. You will stop to help, Keziah? +Stop till to-morrow. I will look in at the Lodge to tell your husband. I +must go now. Is Tom Kettering there?" Gwen felt she would like an +affectionate farewell of Ruth Thrale, but a slight recrudescence of the +Norman Conquest came in the way, due to the presence of Keziah and +Elizabeth-next-door; so she had to give it up. + +Tom Kettering was not there, but was reproducible at pleasure by +whistles, evolved from some agent close at hand and willing to assist. +Tom and the mare appeared unchanged by their long vigil, and showed +neither joy nor sorrow at its coming to an end. A violent shake the +latter indulged in was a mere report of progress, and Tom only touched +his hat as a convention from time immemorial. There was not a trace of +irony in his "Home, my lady?" though a sarcastic Jehu might have seemed +to be expressing a doubt whether her ladyship meant ever to go home at +all. + +The road to Costrell's turned off Gwen's line of route, the main road to +the Towers. A cart was just coming in sight, at the corner. Farmer +Costrell's cart, driven by himself. An old woman, by his side--Granny +Marrable, surely? + +Gwen was simply frightened. She felt absolutely unfit for another +high-tension interview. Her head might give way and she might do +something foolish. But it was impossible to turn and run. It was, +however, easy enough to go quickly by, with ordinary salutations. Still, +it was repugnant to her to do so. But, then, what else could she do? It +was settled for her. + +Said Granny Marrable to her grandson-in-law:--"'Tis Gwen o' th' Towers, +John, in Tom Kettering's gig. Bide here till they come up, that I may +get speech of her ladyship." + +"Will she stand still on th' high roo-ad, to talk to we?" + +"She'll never pass me by if she sees me wishful to speak with her. Her +ladyship has too good a heart." + +"Vairy well, Gra-anny." John Costrell reined in his horse, and the cart +and gig came abreast. + +Granny Marrable spoke at once. Her voice was firm, but her face was pale +and hard set. "I have been told strange news, my lady, but it _must_ be +true. It cannot be else." + +"It _is_ true. Dr. Nash told you." + +"That is so. Our Dr. Nash." + +"But how much? Has he told you all?" + +"I will tell your ladyship." The old woman's firmness and strength were +marvellous to Gwen. "He has told me that my sister that was dead is +risen from the grave...." + +"God's my life, Granny, what will ye be for saying next to her +ladyship?" John Costrell had heard none of the story. + +"It's all quite right, Mr. Costrell," said Gwen. "Granny Marrable +doesn't mean really dead. She _thought_ her dead--her sister.... Go on, +Granny! That is quite right. And has Dr. Nash told you where your sister +is now?" + +"At my own home at Chorlton, my lady. And I am on my way there now, and +will see her once more, God willing, before we die." + +"Go to her--go to her! The sooner the better!... I must tell you one +thing, though. She is not strong--not like you and your daughter Ruth. +But you will see." The old lady began with something about her gratitude +to Gwen and to her father, but Gwen cut her short. What did that matter, +now? Then she assured her that old Maisie had been told everything, and +was only uneasy lest her sister should not know her again, and would +even doubt her identity. "But that is impossible," said Gwen. "Because +she _is_ your sister, and remembers all your childhood together." + +After they had parted company, and Gwen was on her way again, relieved +beyond measure to find that Dr. Nash had contrived to carry out his +mission so well--though how he had done it was a mystery to her as +yet--she had a misgiving that she ought to have produced the forged +letter to show to Granny Marrable. Perhaps, however, she had done no +harm by keeping it; as if the conviction of the two sisters of each +other's identity was to turn on what is called "evidence," what would be +its value to either? They would either know each other, or not; and if +they did _not_, enough "evidence" to hang a dozen men would not stand +against the deep-rooted belief in each other's death through those long +years. + +Besides, like Dr. Nash, she had just been quite taken aback to see--now +that she came to look for it, mind you!--the amazing likeness between +the old twin sisters. How came it that she had not seen it before?--for +instance, when they were face to face in her presence at the door of +Strides Cottage, but two or three weeks since. She dismissed the forged +letter, to dwell on the enormous relief of not having another disclosure +problem before her; and also on the satisfaction she would have in +telling her father what a successful outcome had followed his venial +transgression of opening and reading it. Altogether, her feelings were +those of triumph, trampling underfoot the recollection that she had had +nothing to eat since breakfast, and making a good stand against +brain-whirl caused by the almost unbearable strangeness of the story. + +On arriving at the Towers, she was disconcerted to find that all her +solicitude about her mother's loneliness in her absence had been thrown +away. She whispered to herself that it served her right for fidgeting +about other people. Adrian had been perfectly justified when he said +that interest in one's relations was the worst investment possible for +opulent Altruism. + +Well--she was better off now than she had been in the early morning, +when there was all that terrible disclosure ahead. It was _done_--ended; +for better, for worse! She might indulge now in a cowardice that shrank +from seeing the two old sisters again until they were familiarised with +the position. If only she might find them, on her next visit, habituated +to a new _modus vivendi_, with the possibility of peaceful years +together, to live down the long separation into nothingness! If only +that might be! But was it possible? Was it conceivable even? + +Anyhow, she deserved a well-earned rest from tension. And presently she +would tell the whole strange story to Adrian, and show him that clever +forgery.... No!--thought stopped with a cruel jerk, and her heart +said:--"Shall I ever _show_ him anything! Never! Never!" + + * * * * * + +"You went to Pensham, mamma?" said Gwen to her mother, the next day, as +soon as an opportunity came for quiet talk. + +"On my way to Poynders," said the Countess yawnfully. "But it was +unlucky. Lady Torrens was keeping her room. Some sort of nervous attack. +I didn't get any particulars." + +Gwen suspected reticence. "You didn't see her, then?" + +"Oh dear no! How should I? She was in bed, I believe." + +"You saw _somebody_?" + +"Only Sir Hamilton, for a few minutes. He doesn't seem uneasy. I don't +suppose it's anything serious." + +"Did you see 'Re?" + +"Miss Torrens and her brother were out. Didn't come back." Her ladyship +here perceived that reticence, overdone, would excite suspicion, and +provoke exhaustive inquiry. "I had a short chat with Sir Hamilton. Who +gave me a very good cup of tea." The excellence of the tea was, so to +speak, a red herring. + +Gwen refused to be thrown off the scent. "He's an old friend of yours, +isn't he?" said she suggestively. + +"Oh dear yes! Ages ago. He told me about some people I haven't heard of +for years. I must try and call on that Mrs. What's-her-name. Do you know +where Tavistock Square is?" + +"Of course I do. Everybody does. Who is it lives there?" + +The Countess had consulted the undersized tablets, and was repocketing +them. "Mrs. Enniscorthy Hopkins," said she, in the most collateral way +possible to humanity. "_You_ wouldn't know anything about her." + +"This tea has been standing," said Gwen. She refused to rise to Mrs. +Enniscorthy Hopkins, whom she suspected of red-herringhood. + +The Countess was compelled to be less collateral. "She was Kathleen +Tyrawley," said she. "But I quite lost sight of her. One does." + +"Was she interesting?" + +"Ye-es.... N-no ... not very. Pretty--of that sort!" + +"What sort?" + +"Well--very fond of horses." + +"So am I--the darlings!" + +"Yes--but a girl may be very fond of horses, and yet not marry a ... +Don't put milk in--only cream...." + +"Marry a what?" + +"Marry her riding-master." Her ladyship softened down Miss Tyrawley's +groom to presentability. "But it was before you were born, child. +However, no doubt it is the same, in principle." + +"Hope so! Is that tea right?" + +"The tea? Oh yes, the tea ... will do. No, I only saw Sir Hamilton. The +son and daughter were away." + +"Now, mamma, that is being unkind, and you know it. 'The son and +daughter!' As if they were people!" + +"Well--and what are they?" + +"You know perfectly well what I mean." + +As the Countess did, she averted discussion. "We won't rake the subject +up, my dear Gwendolen," she said, in a manner which embodied moderation, +while asserting dignity. "You know my feelings on the matter, which +would, I am sure, be those of any parent--of any _mother_, certainly. +And I may mention to you--only, _please_ no discussion!--that Sir +Hamilton _entirely shares_ my views. He expressed himself quite clearly +on the subject yesterday." + +"You must have seen him for more than a few minutes to get as far as +_that_." This was a shell in the enemy's powder-magazine. + +The Countess had to adopt retrocessive strategy. "I think, my dear," she +said, with dignity at a maximum, "that I have made it sufficiently clear +that I do not wish to rediscuss your engagement, as your father persists +in calling it. We must retain our opinions. If at the end of six +months--_if_--it turns out that I am entirely mistaken, why, then you +and your father must just settle it your own way. Now let us talk no +more about it." + +This conversation took place in the late afternoon of the day following +Gwen's visit to Strides Cottage, and the Countess's to Pensham. All +through the morning of that day her young ladyship had been feeling the +effects of the strain of the previous one, followed by a night of +despairing sleeplessness due to excitement. An afternoon nap, a most +unusual thing with her, had rallied her to the point of sending a +special invitation to her mother to join her at tea in her own private +apartment; which was reasonable, as all the guests were away killing +innocent birds, or hares. The Countess was aware of her daughter's +fatigue and upset, but persisted in regarding its cause as +over-estimated--a great deal too much made of a very simple matter. +"Then that is satisfactorily settled, and there need be no further +fuss." These were her words of comment on her daughter's detailed +account of her day's adventures, which made themselves of use to keep +hostilities in abeyance. + +"I think you are unfeeling, mamma; that's flat!" was Gwen's +unceremonious rejoinder. + +The Countess repeated the last word impassively. It was rather as though +she said to Space:--"Here is an expression. If you are by way of +containing any Intelligences capable of supplying an explanation, I will +hear them impartially." Receiving no reply from any Point of the +Compass, she continued:--"I really cannot see what these two old ... +persons have to complain of. They have every reason to be thankful that +they have been spared so long. The death of either would have made all +your exertions on their behalf useless. Why they cannot settle down on +each side of that big fireplace at Strides Cottage, and talk it all +over, I cannot imagine. It has been engraved in the _Illustrated London +News_." This was marginal, not in the text. "They will have plenty to +tell each other after such a long time." + +"Mamma dear, you are hopeless!" + +"Well, my dear, ask any sensible person. They have had the narrowest +escape of finding it all out after each other's death, and then I +suppose we should never have heard the end of it.... Yes, perhaps the +way I put it _was_ a little confused. But really the subject is so +complex." Gwen complicated it still more by introducing its relations to +Immortality; to which her mother took exception:--"If they were both +ghosts, we should probably know nothing of them. No ghost appears to a +perfect stranger--no authenticated ghost! Besides, one hopes they would +be at peace in their graves." + +"Oh, ah, yes, by-the-by!" said Gwen, "there wasn't to be anything till +the Day of Judgment." + +"I wish you wouldn't drag in Religion," said her mother. "You pick up +these dreadful Freethinking ways of speech from ..." + +"From Adrian? Of course I do. But _you_ began it, by talking about Death +and Ghosts." + +"My dear, neither Death nor Ghosts are Religion, but the Day of Judgment +is. Ask anybody!" + +"Very well, then! Cut the Day of Judgment out, and go on with Death and +Ghosts." + +"We will talk," said the Countess coldly, "of something else. I do not +like the tone of the conversation. What are your plans for to-morrow?" + +"I don't think I shall go to Chorlton to-morrow. I shall leave the old +ladies alone for a while. I think it's the best way. Don't you?" + +"I don't think it can matter much, either way." The Countess was not +going to come down from Olympus, for trifles. "But what _are_ you going +to do to-morrow? Go to church, I _suppose_?" + +"Is it necessary to settle?" + +"By no means. Perhaps I was wrong in taking it for granted. No doubt I +should have done well--in your case--to ask for information. _Are_ you +going to church?" + +"Possibly. I can settle when the time comes." Her mother made no reply, +but she made it so ostentatiously that to skip off to another subject +would have been to accept a wager of battle. Gwen was prepared to be +conciliatory. "Is anything coming off?" she asked irreverently. "Any +Bishop or anything?" + +Her mother replied, with a Pacific Ocean of endurance in her +voice:--"Dr. Tuxford Somers is preaching at the Abbey. If you come, pray +do not be late. The carriage will be ready at a quarter to ten." + +"Well--I shall have to go once or twice, so I suppose now will do for +once. There's Christmas Day, of course--I don't mind that. I shall go to +Chorlton, and look at the two old ladies in church. I hope Mrs. Picture +will be well enough by then." + +"I am sure I hope so. A whole week!" The Countess's _parti pris_, that +the experience of the old twins was nothing to make such a fuss over, +showed itself plainly in this. She passed on to a more important +subject. "I understand," said she, "that you intend to go to Pensham on +Monday--and stay!" + +"I do," said Gwen uncompromisingly. But her mother's expression became +so stony that Gwen anticipated her spoken protest, saying:--"Now, mamma +dear, you know I've agreed, and we are to go abroad for six whole +months. So don't look like a martyr!" + +"When will you be back?" said the martyr. The fact is, she was well +aware that this was a case of _quid pro quo_; and that Gwen was +entitled, by treaty, to a perfect Saturnalia of sweet-hearting till +after Christmas, in exchange for the six months of penal servitude to +follow. But she preferred to indicate that the terms of the treaty had +disappointed her. + +"Quite uncertain," said Gwen. "I shall stop till Thursday, anyhow. And +Adrian and Irene are to come here on Christmas Eve. I suppose they'll +have to share the paternal plum-pudding on Christmas Day. That can't be +helped. And I shall have to be here. _That_ can't be helped either. _I_ +think it a pity the whole clan-jamfray shouldn't come here for +Christmas." + +"That is out of the question. Sir Hamilton has his own social +obligations. Besides, it would look as if you and Mr. Torrens were +definitely engaged. Which you are not." + +"Suppose we talk of something else." + +"Suppose we do." Her ladyship could only assent; for had she not, +Shylockwise, taught her daughter that word? + +The agreement that another topic should be resorted to was sufficiently +complied with by a short pause before resuming the antecedent one. Gwen +did this by saying:--"You will be all right without me for a few days, +because Sir Spencer Derrick and his wife are due to-night, and the +Openshaws, and the Pellews will be here on Monday." + +"Gwendolen!" In a shocked tone of voice. + +"Well--Aunt C. and Cousin Percy, then. If they are not the Pellews, they +very soon will be. They are coming on Monday, anyhow." + +"But not by the same train!" + +"_I_ should come by the same train, if I were they. And in the same +carriage. And tip the guard to keep everybody else out. Much better do +it candidly than pretend they've met by accident. _I_ should." + +The Countess thought she really _had_ better change to another subject. +She dropped this one as far off as possible. "When do you expect to see +your two old interesting twins again?" said she conciliatorily. For she +felt that reasoning with her beautiful but irregular daughter was +hopeless. The young lady explained that her next visit to Chorlton would +be by way of an expedition from Pensham. Adrian and Irene would drive +her over. It was not morally much farther from Pensham than from the +Towers, although some arithmetical appearances were against it. And she +particularly wanted Adrian to see old Mrs. Picture. And then, like a +sudden sad cadence in music, came the thought:--"But he cannot see old +Mrs. Picture." + + * * * * * + +Keziah Solmes did not come back till quite late in the evening. Her +report of the state of things at Strides Cottage was manifestly vitiated +by an unrestrained optimism. If she was to be believed, the sudden +revelation to each other of the old twin sisters had had no specially +perturbing effect on either. Gwen spent much of the evening writing a +long letter to her father at Bath, giving a full account of her day's +work, and ending:--"I do hope the dear old soul will bear it. Mrs. +Solmes has just given me a most promising report of her. I cannot +suppose her constant references to the Benevolence of Providence to be +altogether euphemisms in the interest of the Almighty. I am borrowing +Adrian's language--you will see that. I think Keziah is convinced that +Mrs. Prichard will rally, and that the twins may live to be +nonagenarians together. I must confess to being very anxious about her +myself. She looked to me as if a breath of air might blow her away. I +shall not see her again for a day or two, but I know they will send for +me if I am wanted. Dr. Nash is to see to that. What a serviceable man he +is!" She went on to say, after a few more particulars of Keziah's +report, that she was going to Pensham on Monday, and should not come +back before the Earl's own return to the Towers. Mamma would do +perfectly well without her, and it was only fair, considering her own +concessions. + +But Gwen did not go to church next day. + +Dr. Nash had been sent for to Strides Cottage at a very early hour, +having been prevented from fulfilling a promise to go overnight. He must +have seen some new cause for uneasiness, although he disclaimed any +grounds of alarm. For he wrote off at once to her young ladyship, after +a careful examination of his patient:--"Mrs. Prichard certainly is very +feeble. I think it only right that you should know this at once. But you +need not be frightened. Probably it is no more than was to be expected." +That was the wording of his letter, received by Gwen as she sat at +breakfast with some new arrivals and the Colonel, and the dregs of the +shooting-party. She was not at all sorry to get a complete change of +ideas and associations, although the subjects of conversation were +painful enough, turning on the reports of mixed disaster and success in +the Crimea that were making the close of '54 lurid and memorable for +future history. Gwen glanced at Dr. Nash's letter, gave hurried +directions to the servant to tell Tom Kettering to be in readiness to +drive her at once to Chorlton, and made short work of breakfast and her +_adieux_ to the assembled company. + + * * * * * + +If events would only pay attention to the convenience of storytellers, +they would never happen at the same time. It would make consecutive +narrative much more practicable. It would have been better--some may +say--for this story to follow Granny Marrable to Strides Cottage, and to +leave Gwen to come to Dr. Nash's summons next day. It might then have +harked back to the foregoing chat between her and her mother, or omitted +it altogether. Its author prefers the course it has taken. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + WHAT DID GRANNY MARRABLE THINK ON THE ROAD? HER ARRIVAL, AND HOW + KEZIAH TOLD JOHN COSTRELL, WHO WHISTLED. THE MEETING, WHICH NONE + SAW. HOW COULD THIS BE MAISIE? GRANNY MARRABLE'S SHAKEN FAITH, + RUTH'S MIXED FILIALITIES. HOW OLD MAISIE AWOKE AND FELT CHILLY. HOW + SHE SLEPT TEN SECONDS MORE AND DREAMED FOR HOURS. HOW OLD PHOEBE + HAD DRAWN A VERY SMALL TOOTH OF MAISIE'S, OVER SIXTY YEARS AGO + + +Keziah Solmes was literal, not imaginative. She was able to describe any +outward seeming of old Phoebe, or of Ruth. But what could she know, or +guess, of the stunned bewilderment of their minds? When asked by Gwen +what each of the old twins had said at sight of the other--for she had +been present, if not at their meeting, a few moments later--she seemed +at a loss for a report of definite speech. But, oh yes!--in reply to a +suggestion from Gwen--they had called each other by name, that for sure +they did! "But 'twas a wonderment to me, my lady, that neither one +should cry out loud, for the sorrow of all that long time ago." So said +old Keziah, sounding a true note in this reference to the sadness +inherent in mere lapse of years. Gwen could and did endorse Keziah, on +that score; but there was no wonderment in _her_ mind at their silence. +Rather, she was at a loss to conceive or invent a single phrase that +either could or would have spoken. + +Least of all could independent thought imagine the anticipations of old +Phoebe during that strange ride through the falling twilight of the +short winter's day. Did she articulate to herself that each minute on +the road was bringing her nearer to a strange mystery that was in +truth--that _must_ be--the very selfsame sister that her eyes last saw +now fifty years ago, even the very same that had called her, a mere +baby, to see the heron that flew away? Yes--the same Maisie as much as +she herself was the same Phoebe! Did her brain reel to think of the days +when she took her own image in an unexpected mirror for her +sister--kissed the cold glass with a shudder of horror before she found +her mistake? Did she wonder now if this Mrs. Prichard could seem to her +another self, as Maisie had wondered would _she_ seem to _her_? Would +all be changed and chill, and the old music of their past be silence, or +at best the jangle of a broken chord? Would this latter end of Life, for +both, be nothing but a joint anticipation of the grave? Gwen tried to +sound the plummet of thought in an inconceivable surrounding, to guess +at something she herself might think were she impossibly conditioned +thus, and failed. + +The story, too, must be content to fail. All it can guarantee is facts; +and speculation recoils from the attempt to see into old Phoebe's soul +as she dismounts from the farmer's cart, at the door beyond which was +the thing to baffle all belief; to stultify all those bygone years, and +stamp them as delusions. + +Whatever she thought, her words were clear and free from trepidation, +and John Costrell repeated them after her, making them the equivalent of +printed instructions. "If yow are ba-adly wanted, Granny, I'm to coom +for ye with ne'er a minute's loss o' time. That wull I. And for what I +be to tell the missus, I bean't to say owt." + +No--that would not do! The early return of the cart, without the Granny, +had to be somehow accounted for. Nothing had been said to Maisie junior, +by her, of not returning to supper. "Bide there a minute till I tell ye, +John," said she, and went towards the door. + +Keziah Solmes was coming out, having heard the cart. She started, with +the exclamation:--"Why, God-a-mercy, 'tis the Granny herself!" and made +as though to beat a retreat into the house, no doubt thinking to warn +Widow Thrale within. Old Phoebe stopped her, saying, quite firmly:--"_I_ +know, Cousin Keziah. Tell me, how is Mrs. Prichard?" + +Keziah, taken aback, lost presence of mind. "What can ye know o' Mrs. +Prichard, Granny?" said she sillily. She said this because she could not +see how the information had travelled. + +"How is she?" old Phoebe repeated. And something in her voice +said:--"Answer straight!" At least, so Keziah thought, and +replied:--"The worser by the bad shake she's had, I lay." Neither made +any reference to Mrs. Prichard's newly discovered identity. For though, +as we have seen, Keziah knew all about it, she felt that the time had +not yet come for free speech. Granny Marrable turned to John Costrell, +saying in the same clear, unhesitating way:--"You may say to Maisie that +her mother wants a helping hand with old Mrs. Prichard, but I'll come in +the morning. You'll say no further than that, John;"--and passed on into +the house. + +John replied:--"I'll see to it, Granny," and grasped the situation, +evidently. Keziah remained, and as soon as the old lady was out of +hearing, said to him:--"This be a stra-ange stary coom to light, Master +Costrell. Only to think of it! The Gra-anny's twin, thought dead now, +fowerty years agone!" + +"Thou'lt be knowing mower o' the stary than I, belike, Mrs. Solmes," +said John. "I'm only the better by a bare word or so, so far, from +speech o' the Gra-anny with her yoong la-adyship o' the Towers, but now, +on the roo-ad. The Gra-anny she was main silent, coom'n' along." + +"There's nowt to wonder at in that, Master Costrell. For there's th' +stary, as I tell it ye. Fowerty years agone and more, she was dead by +all accounts, out in the Colonies, and counted her sister dead as well. +And twenty years past she's been living in London town, and ne'er a one +known it. And now she's come by a chance to this very house!" + +"She'd never coom anigh to this place?" + +"Sakes alive, no! 'Twas all afower Gra-anny Marrable come here to marry +Farmer Marrable--he was her second, ye know. I was a bit of a chit then. +And Ruth Thrale was fower or five years yoonger. She was all one as if +she was the Gra-anny's own child. But she was noa such a thing." + +Then it became clear that the word or so had been very bare indeed. "She +was an orphan, I ta-ak it," said John indifferently. + +"There, now!" said Keziah. "I was ma-akin' a'most sure you didn't see +the right of it, Master Costrell. And I wasn't far wrong, that once!" + +"Maybe I'm out, but I do-an't see rightly where. A girl's an orphan, +with ne'er a fa-ather nor a moother. Maybe one o' them was living? Will +that square it?" + +"One o' them's living still. And none so vairy far from where we stand. +Can ye ma-ak nowt o' that, Master Costrell?" + +John _was_ a little slow; it was his bucolic mind. "None so vairy far +from where we stand?" he repeated, in the dark. + +"Hearken to me tell ye, man alive! She's in yander cottage, in the +bedroom out across th' pa-assage. And the two o' them they've met by +now. Are ye any nearer, Master Costrell?" + +For a moment no idea fructified. Then astonishment caught and held him. +"Not unless," he exclaimed, "not unless you are meaning that this old +la-ady is Widow Thrale's mother!" + +"You've gotten hold of it now, Master Costrell." + +"But 'tis impossible--'tis _impossible_! If she were she would be my +wife's grandmother!--her grandmother that died in Australia.... Well, +Keziah Solmes, ye may nod and look wise--but ..." + +"But that is th' vairy thing she is, safe and sure, John Costrell. I +told ye--Australia. Australia be the Colonies." + +John gave the longest whistle a single breath would support. Why he was +ready to accept the relation of old Phoebe and Maisie, and revolt +against his wife's inevitable granddaughtership, Heaven only knows! "But +I'm not to say a word of it to the mistress," said he, meaning his wife. + +"The Gra-anny said so, and she'll be right.... Was that her voice?..." A +sound had come from the cottage. Keziah might be wanted. She wished the +farmer good-night; and he drove off, no longer mystified, but +dumfoundered with what had removed his mystification. + + * * * * * + +Old Phoebe had passed on into the house. She was satisfied that her +message would account quite reasonably for the vacant seat in the +returning cart. Besides, medical sanction--Dr. Nash's--had been given +for her absence. + +Now that the moment was close, a great terror came upon her, and she +trembled. She knew that Ruth, her daughter for so long, was beyond that +closed door across the passage, with ... With whom? With what? + +Who can say except he be a twin that has lost a twin, what more of +soul-stress had to be borne by these two than would have been his lot, +or ours, in their place? And the severance of Death itself could not +have been more complete than theirs for forty-odd years past; nor the +reunion beyond the grave, that Gwen had likened theirs to, be stranger. +Indeed, one is tempted to imagine that inconceivable palliations may +attend conditions of which our ignorance can form no image. On this side +one only knows that such a meeting is all the sadder for the shadow of +Decay. + +She could hardly believe herself the same as when, so few days since, +she quitted this old room, that still remained unchanged; so intensely +the same as when she, and her memories in it were left alone with a Past +that seemed unchangeable, but for the ever-growing cloud of Time. There +was the old clock, ticking by the dresser, not missing its record of the +short life of every second that would never come again. There on the +hearth was the log that might seem cold, but always treasured a spark to +be rekindled; and the indomitable bellows, time-defying, that never +failed to find it out and make it grow to flame. There was the old iron +kettle, all blackness without and crystal purity within, singing the +same song that it began a long lifetime since, and showing the same +impatience under neglect. There on the dresser was the same +dinner-service that had survived till breakage and neglect of its +brethren had made it a rarity; and on the wall that persevering naval +battle her husband's great-grandmother's needle had immortalised a +century and a half ago. The only change she saw was the beadwork +tablecloth wrapped over the mill-model, in its place above the hearth. +Otherwise there was no change. + +And here was she, face to face with resurrection--that was how she +thought of it--all her brain in a whirl, unfit to allot its proper place +to the most insignificant fact; all her heart stunned by a cataclysm she +had no wits to give a name to. She had come with a rare courage and +endurance to be at close quarters with this mystery, whatever it was, at +once. On the very verge of full knowledge of it, this terror had come +upon her, and she stood trembling, sick with dread undefined, glad she +need not speak or call out. It would pass, and then she would call to +Ruth, whose voice she could hear in the room beyond. There was another +voice, too, a musical one, and low. Whose could it be? Not her lost +sister's--not Maisie's! Her voice was never like that. + +The cat came purring round her to welcome her back. The great bulldog +trotted in from the yard behind, considered her a moment, and passed out +to the front, attracted by the voices of Keziah and John Costrell. +Having weighed them, duly and carefully, he trotted back past Granny +Marrable, to give one short bark at the bedroom door, and return to the +yard behind, his usual headquarters. Then Ruth came from the bedroom, +hearing the movement and speech without. + +She was terribly taken aback. "Oh, mother dearest," she said, betrayed +into speaking her inner thought, "you have come too soon. You cannot +know." + +"_I_ know," said Granny Marrable. "I will tell you presently. Now take +me to her." + +Ruth saw she meant that she could not trust her feet. What wonder at +that? If she really knew the truth, what wonder at anything? She gave +the support of her arm to the door, across the passage. Then the need +for it seemed to cease, and the Granny, becoming her strong old self +again, said with her own voice:--"That will do, dear child! Leave me to +go on." She seemed to mean:--"Go on alone." That was what Ruth took her +speech for. She herself held back; so none saw the first meeting between +the twins. + +Presently, as she stood there in suspense, she heard the words:--"Who is +it outside, Ruth?" in Mrs. Prichard's voice, weak but controlled. Then +the reply, through a breath that caught:--"Ruth is outside." Then the +weaker voice, questioning:--"Then who?... then who?..." But no answer +was given. + +For, to Ruth's great wonderment, Granny Marrable came back in extreme +trepidation, crying out through sobs:--"Oh, how can this be Maisie? Oh, +how can this be Maisie?" To which Ruth's reply was:--"Oh, mother dear, +who can she be if she is not my mother?" And though the wording was at +fault, it is hard to see how she could have framed her question +otherwise. + +But old Phoebe had cried out loud enough to be heard by Keziah, speaking +with John Costrell out in front, and it was quite audible in the room +she had just left. That was easy to understand. But it was less so that +old Maisie should have risen unassisted from the bed where she had lain +since morning, and followed her. + +"Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe darling, do not say that! Do not look at me to deny +me, dearest. I know that this is you, and that we are here, together. +Wait--wait and _it will come_!" This was what Keziah remembered hearing +as she came back into the house. She crossed the kitchen, and saw, +beyond Widow Thrale in the passage, that the two old sisters were in +each other's arms. + +Old Phoebe, strong in self-command and moral fortitude, and at the same +time unable to stand against the overwhelming evidence of an almost +incredible fact, had nevertheless been unprepared, by any distinct image +of what the beautiful young creature of fifty years ago had become, to +accept the reality that encountered her when at last she met it face to +face. + +Old Maisie's position was different. She had already fought and won her +battle against the changes Time had brought about, and her mind no +longer recoiled from the ruinous discolorations of decay. She had been +helped in this battle by a strong ally, the love engendered for her own +daughter while she was still ignorant of her identity. She had found her +outward seeming a stepping-stone to a true conception of the +octogenarian, last seen in the early summer of a glorious womanhood. +Ruth Thrale's autumn, however much she still retained of a comely +maturity, had been in those days the budding springtime of a child of +four. Come what come might of the ravages of Time and Change, old Maisie +was prepared for it, after accepting such a change as that. Did she +know, and acknowledge to herself the advantage this had been to her, +that time when she had said to Gwen:--"How I wish you could stay, to +tell her that this is me!" + +But the momentary unexpected strength that had enabled old Maisie to +rise from the bed could not last. She had only just power left to +say:--"I _am_ Maisie! I _am_ Maisie!" before speech failed; and her +daughter had to be prompt, close at hand though she was, to prevent her +falling. They got her back to the bed, frightened by what seemed +unconsciousness, but relieved a moment after by her saying:--"I was only +dizzy. Is this Phoebe's hand?" They were not seriously alarmed about her +then. + +She remained very still, a hand of her sister and daughter in each of +hers, and the twilight grew, but none spoke a word. Keziah, at a hint +from Ruth, attended to the preparation of supper in the front-room. This +living unfed through hours of tension had to come to an end sometime. +They knew that _her_ silence was by choice, from a pressure of the hand +of either from time to time. It seemed to repeat her last words:--"I +_am_ Maisie. I _am_ Maisie." + +That silence was welcome to them, for neither would have said a word by +choice. They could but sit speechless, stunned by the Past. Would they +ever be able to talk of it at all? A short parting gives those who +travel together on the road through Life a good spell of cheerful chat, +and each is overbrimming with the tale of adventure, grave or gay, of +the folk they have chanced upon, the inns they have slept at, a many +trifles with a leaven of seriousness not too weighty for speech. How is +it when the ways divided half a century ago, and no tidings came to hand +of either for the most part of a lifetime? How when either has believed +the other dead, through all those years? Neither old Phoebe nor Ruth +could possibly have felt the thing otherwise. But, that apart, silence +was easiest. + +Presently, it was evident that she was sleeping, peacefully enough, +still holding her sister and daughter by the hand. As soon as Ruth felt +the fingers slacken, she spoke, under her breath: + +"How came you to know of it?" + +"Dr. Nash. I spoke with her ladyship on the way, and she said it was +true." + +"What did she say was true?" + +Granny Marrable had to think. What was it Gwen had said? She continued, +feeling for her memories:--"I said to Gwen o' the Towers 'twas my dead +sister come from the grave, and Dr. Nash had spoken to it. And John +Costrell would have me unsay my word, but her ladyship bore me out, +though 'twas but a way of speech." She paused a moment; then, before +Ruth could frame an inquiry as to how much she knew of the story from +either Dr. Nash or Gwen, went on, her eyes fixed, with a look that had +terror in it, on the figure on the bed:--"If this be Maisie, was she not +dead to me--my sister? Oh, how can this be Maisie?" Her mind was still +in a turmoil of bewilderment and doubt. + +Then Ruth's speech was again at fault, and yet she saw nothing strange +in it. "Oh, mother dearest, this _must_ be my mother. How else could she +know? Had you but heard her talk as I did, of the old mill!--and there +she was a-knowing of it all, and I could think her mad! Oh, mother dear, +the fool that I was not to see she _must_ be my mother!" + +"It comes and goes, child," said Granny Marrable tremulously, "that she +is your mother, not dead as I have known her. But it is all your life. I +mind how the letter came that told it. After your grandfather's death. +And all a lie!" + +"Her ladyship will tell you that, mother, as she told it to me. I have +not the heart to think it, but it was my father's work. God have mercy +on him!" + +"God have mercy on him, for his sin! But how had he the cruelty? What +wrong had I done him?" + +"Mother, I pray that I may one day see the light upon it. God spare us a +while, just for to know the meaning of it all." It was a confession of +the hopelessness of any attempt to grapple with it then. + +Keziah Solmes, while preparing some supper, looked in once, twice, at +the watchers beside the still sleeping figure on the bed. They were not +speaking, and never took their eyes from the placid, colourless face and +snow-white hair loose on the pillow; but they gave her the idea of dazed +bewilderment, waiting for the mists to clear and let them dare to move +again. The fog-bound steamer on the ocean stands still, or barely cuts +the water. It is known, on board, that the path will reopen--but when? + +The third time Keziah looked in at them, the room being all dark but for +a wood-flicker from an unreplenished grate, she gathered courage to say +that supper was ready. Ruth Thrale started up from where she half sat, +half lay, beside the sleeper, exclaiming:--"She's eaten nothing since +the morning. Mother, she'll sink for want of food." + +"Now, the Lord forgive me!" said Granny Marrable. "To think I've had my +dinner to-day, and she's been starving!" For, of course, the midday meal +was all over at Costrell's, in normal peace, when Dr. Nash came in laden +with the strange news, and at a loss to tell it. + +The withdrawal of her daughter's hand waked the sleeper with a start. "I +was dreaming so nicely," said she. "But I'm cold. Oh dear--what is +it?... I thought I was in Sapps Court, with my little Dave and +Dolly...." She seemed slow to catch again the thread of the life she had +fallen asleep on. Vitality was very low, evidently, and she met an +admonition that she must eat something with:--"Nothing but milk, +please!" It refreshed her, for though she fell back on the pillow with +her eyes closed, she spoke again a moment after. + +The thing happened thus. Keziah, authoritatively, insistent, would have +Ruth eat, or try to eat, some supper. Old Phoebe was in no need of it, +and sat on beside old Maisie, who must have dreamed again--one of those +sudden long experiences a few seconds will give to a momentary sleep. +For she opened her eyes to say, with a much greater strength in her +voice:--"I was dreaming of Dolly again, but Dolly wasn't Dolly this time +... only, she _was_ Dolly, somehow!..." Then it was clear that she was +quite in the dark, for the time being, about the events of the past few +hours. For she continued:--"She was Dolly and my sister Phoebe--both at +once--when Phoebe was a little girl--my Phoebe that was drowned. But +Phoebe was older than that when she drew my tooth, as Dolly did in my +dream." + +Old Phoebe, it must be borne in mind, although intellectually convinced +that this could be none other than her sister, had never experienced the +conviction that only the revival of joint memories could bring. This +reference to an incident only known to themselves, long forgotten by her +and now flashed suddenly on her out of the past, made her faith that +this was Maisie, in very truth, a reality. But she could not speak. + +The dream-gods kept their hold on the half-awakened mind, too old for +any alacrity in shaking them off. The old voice wandered on, every word +telling on its hearer and rousing a memory. "We must have been eight +then. Phoebe tied a thread of silk round the tooth, and the other end to +the drawer-knob ... it was such a little tooth ... long and long before +you were born, my dear...." Her knowledge of the present was on its way +back, and she thought the hand that held hers was her new-found +daughter's. "It was the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept." + +If you who read this are old, can you not remember among the +surroundings of your childhood things too trivial for the maturities of +that date to give a passing thought to, that nevertheless bulked large +to you then, and have never quite lost their impressiveness since? Such +a one, to old Phoebe, was "the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept." +Some trifle of the sort was sure to strike home its proof of her +sister's identity. Chance lighted on this one, and it served its turn. + +Ruth heard her cry out--a cry cut short by her mother's:--"Oh, Phoebe, +Phoebe, I know it all now, and you'll know me." She started up from a +hurried compliance with her Cousin Keziah's wish that she should eat, +and went back quickly to the bedroom, to see the two old sisters again +locked in each other's arms. + +They may have been but dimly alive to how it all had come about, but +they knew themselves and each other--twins wrenched asunder half a +century since, each of whom had thought the other dead for over forty +years. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + HOW GRANNY MARRABLE THOUGHT SHE OUGHT NOT TO GO TO SLEEP, BUT DID. + HOW A CRICKET WAS STILL AT IT, WHEN SHE WAKED. HOW MAISIE WAKED + TOO. HOW THEY REMEMBERED THINGS TOGETHER, IN THE NIGHT. A SKULL + TWENTY-SEVEN INCHES ROUND. HOW PHOEBE COULD NOT FORGIVE HER + BROTHER-IN-LAW, GOD OR NO! HOW IT HAD ALL BEEN MAISIE'S FAULT. THE + OTHER LETTER, IN THE WORKBOX, BEHIND THE SCISSORS. THE STORY OF THE + SCORPION. ALL TRUE! ONLY IT WAS MRS. STENNIS, WHO DIED IN AGONY. + ELIZABETH-NEXT-DOOR'S IMMOVABLE HUSBAND. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE WAS + RELIEVED ABOUT THAT SCORPION. HOW MAISIE'S HUSBAND HAD REALLY HAD A + DEVIL--A BLACK MAN'S--WHICH MAISIE'S SON HAD INHERITED. A NEW + INFECTION IN THINE EYE. HOW RUTH WENT FOR THE DOCTOR. HOW HE + RECOMMENDED GWEN, AS WELL AS THE MIXTURE + + +The two old twins knew it all now, so far as it would ever be a matter +of knowledge. They had got at the heart of each other's identity, before +either really understood the cruel machination that had cancelled the +life of either for the other. + +Ruth Thrale left them alone together, and went back to force herself to +eat. Keziah wanted to get back to her old man, and how could she go, +unless Ruth kept in trim to attend to her two charges? Who could say +that old Phoebe, at eighty, would not give in under the strain? Ruth had +always a happy faculty of self-forgetfulness; and now, badly as she had +felt the shock, she so completely lost sight of herself in the thought +of the greater trouble of the principal actors, as to be fully alive to +the one great need ahead, that of guarding and preserving what was left +of the old life, the tending of which had come so strangely upon her. +She refused Keziah's offer to remain on. Elizabeth-next-door, she said, +was always at hand for emergencies. + +Keziah stayed late enough to see all arranged for the night, ending with +a more or less successful effort to get old Maisie to swallow arrowroot. +She helped Ruth to establish the Granny in her own high-backed chair +beside her sister--for neither would relinquish the other's hand--and +took advantage of a very late return of Brantock, the carrier, to convey +her home, where she arrived after midnight. + +All know the feeling that surely must have been that of at least one of +the old sisters, that sleep ought to be for some mysterious reason +combated, or nonsuited rather, when the mind is at odds with grave +events. One rises rebellious against its power, when it steals a march +on wakefulness, catching the keenest vigilance unawares. There was no +reason why Granny Marrable should not sleep in her own arm-chair--which +she would say was every bit as good as bed, and used accordingly--except +that yielding meant surrender of the faculties to unconsciousness of a +problem not yet understood, with the sickening prospect of finding it +unanswered on awakening. That seemed to be reason enough for many +resentful recoils from the very portals of sleep; serving no end, as +Maisie had been overcome without a contest, and lay still as an effigy +on a tomb. A vague fear that she might die unwatched, looking so like +Death already, may have touched Phoebe's mind. But fears and unsolved +riddles alike melted away and vanished in the end; and when Ruth Thrale, +an hour later, starting restless from her own couch near by, looked in +to satisfy herself that all was well, both might have been leagues away +in a dream-world, for any consciousness they showed of her presence. + +That was on the stroke of one; and for two full hours after all was +silence, but for the records of the clock at its intervals, and the +cricket dwelling on the same theme our forefathers heard and gave no +heed to, a thousand years ago. Then old Phoebe woke to wonder, for a +blank moment, what had happened that she should be sitting there alone, +with the lazy flicker of a charred faggot helping out a dim, industrious +rushlight in a shade. But only till she saw that she was _not_ alone. It +all came back then. The figure on the bed!--not _dead_, surely? + +No--for the hand she held was warm enough to reassure her. It had been +the terror of a moment, that this changed creature, with memories that +none but Maisie could have known, had flashed into her life to vanish +from it, and leave her bewildered, almost without a word of that +inexplicable past. Only of a moment, for the hand she held tightened on +hers, and the still face that was, and was not, her dead sister's turned +to her, looked at her open-eyed, and spoke. + +"I think I am not dreaming now, but I was.... I was dreaming of Phoebe, +years ago.... But _you_ are Phoebe. Say that I am Maisie, that I may +hear you. Say it!" + +"Oh, my darling!--I know you are Maisie. But it is so hard to know." + +"Yes--it is all so hard to know--so hard to think! But I know it is +true.... Oh, Phoebe, where do you think I was but now, in my dream?... +Yes, where?--What place?... Guess!" + +"I cannot tell ... back in the old time?" + +"Back in the old time--back in the old place. I was shelling peas to +help old Keturah--old Keturah that had had three husbands, and her old +husband then was the sexton, and he had buried them all three! We were +there, under her porch ... with the honeysuckle all in flower--and, oh, +the smell of it in the heat!--it was all there in my dream! And you were +there. Oh, Phoebe darling, how beautiful you were! We were seventeen." + +"Ah, my dear, I know when that was. 'Twas the day _they_ came--came +first. Oh, God be good to us!" + +"Oh, Phoebe dear, why be so heartbroken? It was a merry time. Thank God +for it with me, darling!... Ay, I know--all over now!..." + +"I mind it well, dear. They came up on their horses." + +"Thornton and Ralph. And made a pretext they would like to see inside +the Church. Because old Keturah had the key." + +"But 'twas an untruth! Little care they had for inside the Church! 'Twas +ourselves, and they knew it." + +"Oh, Phoebe!--but _we_ knew it too! I had no chance to dream how we +showed them the Church and the crypt, for I woke up. Ah, but 'tis long +ago now!--sixty-two--sixty-three years! I wonder, is the stack of bones +in the crypt now that was then? There was a big skull that measured +twenty-seven inches." + +"That it was! Twenty-seven. Now, to think of us young creatures handling +those old bones!" + +"Then it was not long but they came again on their horses, and this time +it was that their father the Squire would see father righted in his +lawsuit about the upper waters of the millstream. That was how Thornton +made a friend of father. And then it was we played them our trick, to +say which was which. We changed our frocks, and they were none the +wiser." + +A recollection stirred in old Phoebe's mind, that could almost bring a +smile to her lips, even now. "Ralph never was any the wiser. He went +away to the Indies, and died there.... But not afore he told to my +husband how Thornton came to tell us apart.... How did he? Why, darling, +'twas the way you would give him all your hand, and I stinted him of +mine." + +"You never loved him, Phoebe." + +"Was I not in the right of it, Maisie?" She then felt the words were +hasty, and would have been glad to recall them. She waited for an +answer, but none came. The fire was all but out, and the morning chill +was in the air. She rose from the bedside and crossed the room to help +it from extinction. But she felt very shaky on her feet. + +A little rearrangement convinced the fire that it had been premature; +and an outlying faggot, brought into hotchpot, decided as an +after-thought that it could flare. "I am coming back," said Granny +Marrable. She was afraid her sister would think she was going to be left +alone. But there was no need, for when she reached her chair again--and +she was glad to do so--old Maisie was just as she had left her, quite +tranquil and seeming collected, but with her eyes open, watching the +welcome light of the new flicker. One strange thing in this interview +was that her weakness seemed better able to endure the strain of the +position than her sister's strength. + +She picked up the thread of the conversation where that interlude of the +fire had left it. "You never loved Thornton, Phoebe dearest. But he was +mine, for my love. He was kind and good to me, all those days out there +in the bush, till I lost him. He was a lawbreaker, I know, but he paid +his penalty. And was I not to forgive, when I loved him? God forgives, +Phoebe." Half of what she had come to know had slipped away from her +already; and, though she was accepting her sister as a living reality, +the forged letter, the cause of all, was forgotten. + +Granny Marrable, on the contrary, kept in all her bewilderment a firm +hold on the wickedness of Daverill the father. It was he that had done +it all, and no other. Conceivably, her having set eyes on Daverill the +son had made this hold the firmer. To her the name meant treachery and +cruelty. Even in this worst plight of a mind in Chaos, she could not +bear to see the rugged edges of a truth trimmed off, to soften judgment +of a wicked deed. But had she been at her best, she might have borne it +this time to spare her sister the pain of sharing her knowledge, if such +ignorance was possible. As it was, she could not help saying:--"God +forgives, Maisie, and I would have forgiven, if I could have had you +back when he was past the need of you. Oh, to think of the long years we +might still have had, but for his deception!" + +"My dear, it may be you are right. But all my head is gone for thinking. +You are there, and that is all I know. How could I?... What _is_ it +all?" + +The despair in her voice did not unnerve her sister more. Rather, if +anything, it strengthened her, as did anything that drew her own mind +out of itself to think only of her fellow-sufferer. She could but +answer, hesitatingly:--"My dear, was I not here all the while you +thought me dead?... If you had known ... oh, if you had known!... you +might have come." She could not keep back the sound of her despair in +her own voice. + +Maisie started spasmodically from her pillow. + +"Oh, God have mercy on me! Save me, Phoebe, save me!" she cried. She +clung with both hands to her sister, and gasped for breath. Then the +paroxysm of her excitement passed, and she sank back, whispering aloud +in broken speech:--"I mean ... it came back to me ... the tale ... the +letter.... Oh, but it cannot be true!... Tell it me again--tell me what +you know." + +Phoebe's response flagged. What could her old brain be said to _know_, +yet, in such a whirl? "I'll try, my dear, to say it out right, for you +to hear. But 'tis a hard thing to know, and 'tis hard to have to know +it. Dr. Nash said it to me, that it was Thornton, your husband. And our +young lady of the Towers--she, my dear, you know, that is Lady Gwendolen +Rivers--said it to me again." Old Maisie clung closer to the hand she +held, and trembled so that Phoebe stopped, saying:--"Ought I to tell?" + +"Yes--go on! You know, dear, I know it all--half know it--but I cannot +hold it for long--it goes. Go on!" + +"He wrote to me--he wrote to you--saying, we were dead. O God, forgive +him for his cruelty! Why, oh why?" She fixed her eyes on her sister, and +seemed to wait for an answer to the question. + +And yet she wondered in her heart when the answer came. It came with a +light that broke through the speaker's face, a sound of relief in her +words:--"It was his love for me, Phoebe dearest--it was his love for me! +He would not have me go from him to my sister in England, even for the +time I would have wanted, to see her again. The fault was mine, dear, +the fault was mine! I was ever on at him--plaguing--plaguing him to +spare me for the time. Oh--'twas I that did it!" + +Let her believe it! Let her see a merit in it for the man she loved! +That was Phoebe's thought. + +"He was always good to me," Maisie continued. "He never thought of what +might come of it. All his desire was I should not leave him. Oh, +Phoebe, Phoebe, if only I might have died there and then, out in the +Colony!" + +"To see me no more? Not this once? I thank God that has spared ye to me, +Maisie, just but to hear your voice and hold your hand and kiss your +face. If I be dreaming, I be dreaming. Only I would not wake, not I. But +I can scarce bear myself for the wonderment of it all. How could you +come back alone--my Maisie, alone and old!--back again to England--in a +ship--through the storms?" For all the mind that Granny Marrable had +left after the bewildering shock was aching to know more. + +Old Maisie was almost too weak for anything like curiosity about the +past; she simply submitted--acquiesced. This was her sister, not dead by +some miracle. When in dreams we see again the departed, do we speak of +the interim? Surely never? Neither did Maisie. She could not even look +forward to knowing more. She could talk on, with no difficulty of +speech--indeed, seemed talkative. She could reply now to Phoebe's +question:--"But, my dear, I was not alone, nor old. I was not much older +than my Ruth that I have found.... Where is she?--she is not gone?" She +looked round, frightened, trying to raise herself. + +"She is gone away to sleep. It is night, you know. There goes the clock. +Four. She will come again.... But, oh, Maisie, was it as long ago as +that? 'Tis but a very little while back Ruth turned fifty." + +"Is my girl turned of fifty, then?--yes! it must be so. Fifty years past +I landed ashore in Hobart Town, and it was a babe of four I had to leave +behind. Well--I was a bit older. I was fifty-seven when I lost my son." +This seemed to mean the death of some son unknown to Granny Marrable. +The convict was never farther from her mind. "'Tis twenty-five years I +have been in England--all of twenty-five years, Phoebe." + +"Oh, God have pity on us all! Twenty-five years!" It was a cry of pain +turned into words. Had she had to say what stung her most, she would +probably have said the thought that Maisie might have seen her +daughter's wedding, or at least the babyhood of her children. So much +there was to tell!--would she live to hear it? And so much to +hear!--would she live to tell it? She could not understand her sister's +words that followed:--"All of twenty years alone," referring to the +period since her son's transportation. It was really longer. But memory +of figures is insecure in hours of trial. + +Maisie continued:--"When I came back, I went straight to our old home, +long ago--to Darenth Mill, to hear what I might, and old Keturah was +dead, and her husband was dead, and ne'er a soul knew aught to tell me. +And there was father's grave in the churchyard, and no other. So what +could I think but what the letter said, that all were drowned in the +cruel sea, your husband Nicholas, and my little one, all three?" + +"And the letter said that--the letter he made up?" + +"The letter said that, and I read it. It had black seals, and I broke +them and read it. And it was from father, and said you were drowned ... +drowned ... Yes!--Phoebe drowned ... and my little Ruth, and ... Oh, +Phoebe, how can this be you?" The panic came again in her voice, and +again she clutched spasmodically at the hand she held. But it passed, +leaving her only able to speak faintly. "I kept it in my +table-drawer.... It must be there still." She had only half got the +truth. + +Granny Marrable tried to make it clear, so far as she could. "You +forget, dear. Her ladyship has the letter, and Dr. Nash knows. Lady +Gwendolen who brought you here...." + +It was a happy reference. A light broke over the old face on the pillow, +and there was ease in the voice that said:--"She is one of God's Angels. +I knew it by her golden hair. When will she come?" + +"Very soon. To-morrow, perhaps. 'Twas her ladyship told you--was it not? +Oh, you remember?" + +"My dear, she told it me like a story, and her face was white. But it +was all clear to me then, for I could not know who the bad man was--the +bad man who made two sisters each think the other dead. And I was for +helping her to tell them. Oh, may God bless her for her beautiful +face--so pale it was! And then she told me 'twas written by my husband." +Some new puzzle confronted her, and she repeated, haltingly:--"By ... my +... husband!" Then quite suddenly, struck by a new idea:--"But was it? +How could she know?" + +"My dear, she showed it to her father, the Earl, and they were of one +mind. His lordship read the letter. Dr. Nash told me. But it was +Thornton's own letter to me that said _you_ were dead. I have got it +still." She was stopped by the return of Ruth Thrale, who had been half +waked by her mother's raised voice five minutes since, and had struggled +to complete consciousness under the sense of some burden of duty +awaiting her outside the happy oblivion of her stinted sleep. "How has +she been?" was her question on entering. + +Granny Marrable could not give any clear account of the past hour of +talk; it was growing hazy to her, as reaction after excitement told, +more and more. Ruth asked no further questions, and urged her to go and +lie down--was ready to force her to do it, but she conceded the point, +and was just going, when her sister stopped her, speaking clearly, +without moving on the pillow. + +"What was the letter?" + +"What letter is she speaking of?" said Ruth. + +Granny Marrable said with an effort:--"The letter that said she was +dead." + +"Show it to me--show it me now, with the light! You have got it." + +"Yes. I said to her that I had got it. But it is put away." This was +under Granny Marrable's breath, that old Maisie should not hear. + +But she heard, and turned her head. "Oh, Phoebe, let me see it! Can it +not be got? Cannot Ruth get it?" She seemed feverishly alive, for the +moment, to all that was passing. + +Ruth, thinking it would be better to satisfy her if possible, said:--"Is +it hard to find? Could I not get it?" To which old Phoebe replied:--"I +know where it is to lay hands on at once. But I grudge setting eyes on +it now, and that's the truth." Ruth wondered at this--it made her +mother's eagerness to see it seem the stranger. The story is always on +the edge of calling old Maisie Ruth's "new mother." Her mind was reeling +under the consciousness of two mothers with a like claim--a bewildering +thought! She wavered between them, and was relieved when the speaker +continued:--"You may unlock my old workbox over yonder. The letter be +inside the lid, behind the scissors. I'll begone to lie down a bit on +your bed, child!" Was old Phoebe running away from that letter? + +Ruth knew the trick of that workbox of old. It brought back her early +childhood to find the key concealed in a little slot beneath it; hidden +behind a corner of green cloth beyond suspicion; that opened, for all +that, when the edge was coaxed with a finger-nail. It had been her first +experience of a secret, and a fascination hung about it still. That +confused image of a second mother, growing dimmer year by year in spite +of a perfunctory system of messages maintained in the correspondence of +the parted twins, had never utterly vanished; and it had clung about +this workbox, a present from Maisie to Phoebe, even into these later +years. It crossed Ruth's mind as she found the key, how, a year ago, +when the interior of this box was shown to Dave Wardle by his country +Granny, his delight in it, and its smell of otto of roses that never +failed, had stirred forgotten memories; and this recollection, with the +mystery of that vanished mother still on earth--close at hand, there in +the room!--made her almost dread to raise the box-lid. But she dared it, +and found the letter, though her brain whirled at the entanglements of +life and time, and she winced at the past as though scorched by a +spiritual flame. It took her breath away to think what she had sought +and found; the hideous instrument of a wickedness almost +inconceivable--her own father's! + +"Oh, how I hope it is that! Bring it--bring it, my dear, my Ruth--my +Ruth for me, now! Yes--show it me with the light, like that." Thus old +Maisie, struggling to raise herself on the bed, but with a dangerous +spot of colour on her cheek, lately so pale, that said fever. Ruth +trembled to admit the word to her mind; for, think of her mother's age, +and the strain upon her, worse than her own! + +Nevertheless, it was best to indulge this strong wish; might, indeed, be +dangerous to oppose it. Ruth bolstered up the weak old frame with +pillows, and lit two candles to give the letter its best chance to be +read. She found her mother's spectacles, though in doubt whether they +could enable her to read the dim writing, written with a vanishing ink, +even paler than the forged letter Gwen and her father had unearthed. +Possibly the ink had run short, and was diluted. + +Old Maisie strove to read the writing, gasping with an eagerness her +daughter found it hard to understand; but failed to decipher anything +beyond, "My dear Sister-in-law." She dropped the letter, saying +feebly:--"Read--you read!" + +Then Ruth read:-- + + "'I take up my pen to write you fuller particulars of the great + calamity that has befallen me. For I am, as my previous letter will + have told you, if it has reached you ere this, a widower. I am + endeavouring to bear with resignation the lot it has pleased God to + visit upon me, but in the first agonies of my grief at the loss of + my beloved helpmeet I was so overwhelmed as to be scarce able to + put pen to paper. I am now more calm and resigned to His will, and + will endeavour to supply the omission. + + "'My dear Maisie was in perfect health and spirits when she went to + visit a friend, Mary Ann Stennis, the wife of a sheep-farmer, less + than thirty miles from where I now write, on the Upper Derwent, one + of the few women in this wild country that was a fit associate for + her. She was to have started home in a few days' time, but the + horse that should have carried her, the only one she could ride, + being a timid horsewoman, went lame and made a delay, but for which + delay it may be God would have spared her to me. But His will be + done! It seems she was playing with the baby of a native black, + there being a camp or tribe of them near at hand, she being greatly + diverted with the little monster, when its sister, but little older + than itself, found a scorpion beneath a stone, and set it to bite + its little brother. Thereupon Maisie, always courageous and + kindhearted, must needs snatch at this most dangerous vermin, to + throw it at a distance from the children....'" + +Old Maisie interrupted the reader. Her face was intent, and her eyes +gleamed with an unhealthy, feverish light. "Stop, my dear," said she. +"This is all true." + +"All true!" Surely her mind was giving way. So thought Ruth, and +shuddered at the gruesome thought. "Mother--mother--how _can_ it be +true?" + +"All quite true, my dear, but for one thing! All true but for who it +was! It was not I--it was Mary Ann was at play with little Saku. And the +scorpion bit _her_ hand, and she died of the bite.... Yes--go on! Read +it all!" For Ruth had begun:--"Shall I--_must I_?" as though the reading +it was unendurable. + +She resumed, with an effort:-- + + "'But got bitten in the arm. At first she made light of the wound, + for the reptile was so small. But it became badly inflamed, and no + doctor was at hand. The black mother of Saku, the baby, prayed to + be allowed to summon the conjurer doctor of the tribe, who would + suck the wound. But Maisie would not have this, so only external + applications were made ...'" + +Old Maisie interrupted:--"That is not so," she said. "Roomoro, the +doctor, sucked hard at the bite, and spat out the poison in a hole in +the ground, to bury the evil spirit. But it was no good. Poor Mary Ann +Stennis died a week after. I mind it well." + +Ruth thought to herself:--"Is this a feverish dream?" and wavered on the +answer. The tale her mother told of the black medicine-man was +nightmare-like. All this, fifty years ago! Her head swam too much for +speech, reading apart. She could continue, mechanically:-- + + "' ... Only external applications were made, which proved useless, + as is almost invariably the case with poisonous bites. Next day it + became evident that the poison was spreading up the arm, and a + black runner was despatched to summon me, but he could not cover + the ground in less than three hours, and when he arrived I was on + my way to Bothwell, some twenty miles in another direction, so he + did not overtake me until the evening. I was then detained a day, + so that it was over forty-eight hours before I arrived at + Stennis's. It was then too late for effectual remedy, and my dear + wife died in my arms within a week of the scorpion bite....'" + +"That is not true--it was over a week." Was Maisie really alive to the +facts, to be caught by so small a point? She had seen a simple thing +that could be said. That is all the story can think. + +Ruth said:--"Here is more--only a little!" and continued:-- + + "'I am thankful to say that, considering the nature of the case, + her sufferings were slight, and she passed away peacefully, + desiring with her last breath that I should convey to you the + assurance of her unchanged affection.' + +"It is untrue--it is untrue!" moaned Maisie. "Mary Ann died in great +pain, from the poison of the bite working in the blood." She seemed to +grasp very little of the facts, for she added:--"But was he not good, to +hide the pain for Phoebe's sake?" Her mind was catching at fragments, to +understand, and failed. + +There was another letter, which Ruth opened, of an earlier date. It was +a merely formal announcement of the death. She put back the letters in +the workbox-lid, behind the scissors; replaced the workbox on its table +as before, and returned to her mother. She was glad to find her still, +with her eyes closed; but with that red spot on her cheek, unchanged. It +was best to favour every approach of sleep, and this might be one. Ruth +sat silent, all her faculties crippled, and every feeling stunned, by +what she had gone through since Gwen's first arrival yesterday. + +This terrible night had worn itself out, and she knew that that +clock-warning meant six, when the stroke should come. But there +was no daylight yet. Those movements in the kitchen must be +Elizabeth-next-door, come according to promise. That was what the +guardian-dog from without meant, pushing his way through the +bedroom-door, reporting an incomer whom he knew, and had sanctioned. He +communicated the fact to his satisfaction, and returned to his post, +leaving his mistress the better for his human sympathy, which seemed to +claim knowledge of passing event. It comforted her to feel that the day +was in hand, and that its light would come. Who could say but its ending +might find her convinced that this was all true? Blank, sickening doubts +of the meaning of everything flitted across her mind, and she longed to +settle down to realities, to be able to love this new mother without +flinching. For that was what she felt, that the mystery of this +resurrection seared or burnt her. One thing only soothed her--that this +was dear old Mrs. Prichard whom she had learned to love before its +bewilderments were sprung upon her. That made it easier to bear. + +Presently she roused herself, for, was not this morning? A grey +twilight, not over-misty for the time of year, was what a raised +window-curtain showed her, and she let it fall to deal with it in +earnest, and relieve the blind from duty. Then she made sure, by the new +light, that all was well with old Maisie--mere silence, no +insensibility--and went out to speak with Elizabeth-next-door, and get +more wood for the fire. But first she blew out the candles and the +rushlight, already dying spasmodically. + +Elizabeth-next-door was a strengthening influence, able to look facts in +the face. She almost elided forewords and inquiries, to come to her +strong point, the way she had used the strange story to produce surprise +in her husband; a worthy man, but imperturbable by anything short of +earthquakes or thunderbolts. "Ye may sa-ay your vairy worst to Sam," +said Elizabeth, "and he'll just sa-ay back, 'Think a doan't knaw that,' +he'll say, 'afower ever yow were born?' and just gwarn with his sooper. +And I give ye my word, Widow Thrale, I no swooner told it him than there +he sat! An' if he come down on our ta-able wi' th' fla-at of his ha-and +once, that he did thrice and mower, afower he could sa-ay one word. He +_did_, and went nigh to break it, but it be o-ak two-inch thick +a'mo-ast. Then a said, 'twas enough to wa-aken oop a ma-an all through +the night, he did!" He seemed, however, not to have suffered in this +way, for his wife added:--"Wa-aken him oop? Not Sam, I lay! Ta-akes a +souse o' cold pig to wa-aken up Sam afower t' marnin!" Ruth felt braced +by this bringing of the event within human possibilities. Improbable +possibilities surprise. Impossible events stun. + +She co-operated in domesticities with her useful neighbour, glancing +once or twice at the figure on the bed, and reinforced in the belief +that all was safe there, for the time. For she saw what seemed slight +natural movement, for ease. Presently she went to hear how it fared with +her other mother, her normal one. The cross purposes of her relations to +the two old sisters were an entanglement of perplexities. + +Granny Marrable, asleep when Ruth looked stealthily in at her, was waked +by a creak with which the door just contrived to disappoint hopes of a +noiseless escape. She called after her:--"Yes, who's that?" Whereupon +Ruth returned. It was their first real word alone since the disclosure. + +"Oh, mother, have you slept?" She kissed the old worn-out face tenderly; +feeling somehow the reserve of strength behind the response she met. +"Oh, can you--_can_ you--make it out?... Yes, she is lying still. She +has seen that letter." She dropped her voice, and shuddered to name it. + +"My dear," said Granny Marrable, answering her question, "I cannot say +truly yet that I can make it out. But I thank God for letting me be able +to know that this must be Maisie. For I know her for Maisie, when she +talks of the bygone time. And that letter--God is good, for that! For it +was that told of how she died--that wicked poison-bite! My child, it has +never gone quite out of my heart to think your mother died so far away +in such pain--never in all these years! And now I know it for an +untruth. I thank God for that, at least!" + +"_She_ says," said Ruth, checkmated in an attempt to use any name she +could call her real mother by, without some self-blame for the +utterance, "_she_ says the story is one-half true, but 'twas her best +friend died of the bite--not she! But she died in great suffering." + +"Ah--the poor thing! Mary Ann Stennis." + +"That was the name." + +"Will she be able to tell more? Will she tell us who her husband was?" + +"Her husband!" Ruth thought this was new trouble--that the Granny's head +had given way under the strain. "Her husband was my father, mother," +said she. "Think!" + +But old Phoebe was quite clear. "I am all right, child," said she +reassuringly. "Her _second_ husband. Marrable was _my_ second, you know, +else I would still have been Cropredy. Why is she not Daverill?" + +Ruth was really the less clear of the two. "Oh yes!" said she +wonderingly. "She is Mrs. Prichard, still." + +"Please God we shall know all!... What was that?" + +"I must go to her.... Come!" For old Maisie had called out. Her daughter +went back to her quickly, and Granny Marrable followed, not far behind. + +"Come, dear, come.... I called for you to know.... Come, Phoebe, come +near, and let me tell you.... He was not so wicked.... Oh no, oh no--it +was none of his own doing--I shall be able ... directly...." Thus old +Maisie, gasping for breath, and falling back on the pillow from which +she had part risen. The hectic flush in her face was greater, and her +eyes were wild under her tangle of beautiful silver hair. Both were +afraid for her, for each knew what fever might, mean. They might lose +her, almost without a renewal of life together. + +Still, it might be no more than the agitation of a moment, a passing +phase. They tried to pacify her. How _could_ the letter be none of +Daverill's own doing? But she would not be soothed--would say the thing +she had set her mind to say, but failed to find the words or breath for. +What was it she was trying to say? Was it about the letter? + +Elizabeth-next-door came into the room, tentatively. Ostensible reason, +inquiry about breakfast; actual reason, curiosity. Sounds of speech +under stress had aroused, and a glance at old Maisie intensified it. +Widow Thrale would come directly, but for the moment was intent on +hearing what Mrs. Prichard was saying. To Elizabeth, Maisie continued +Mrs. Prichard. + +She would not leave unsaid this thing she was bent on:--"No, dear! No, +dear! It does not hurt me to talk, but I want time.... I will tell you +... I must tell you.... I know it.... It was not his own doing.... He +was set on to do it by a devil that possessed him.... There are devils +loose among the blacks...." + +The pulse in the hand Ruth held was easy to find. Yes, that _was_ fever! +Ruth left her to speak with Elizabeth, and the hand went over to its +fellow, in Granny Marrable's. + +"Phoebe, dearest, that is so--and in those days there were a many +blacks. But they were fewer and fewer after that, and none in our part +when we came away, my son and I.... Phoebe!" + +"What, dearest?" + +"You must say nothing of _him_ to Ruth. He was her brother." + +"Say nothing of him to Ruth--why not?" She had lost sight of her +adventure with the convict, and did not identify him. She may have +fancied some other son accompanied her sister home. + +"Yes--yes--nothing to _her_! He is not fit to speak of--not fit to think +of.... Do not ask about him. Forget him! I do not know if he be alive or +dead." + +Then an image of the convict, or madman, flashed across Phoebe's mind. +She dared not talk of him now, with that wild light and hectic flush in +her sister's face; it would only make bad worse. But a recollection of +her first association of him with the maniac in the Gadarene tombs was +quick on the heels of this image, and prompted her to say:--"Had no evil +spirit power over _him_, then, as well as his father?" + +The wild expression on old Maisie's face died down, and gave place to +one that was peace itself by comparison. "I see it all now," said she. +"Yes--you are right! It was after his father's death he became so +wicked." It was the devil that possessed his father, driven out to seek +a home, and finding it in the son. That was apparently what her words +implied, but there was too much of delirium in her speech and seeming to +justify their being taken as expressing a serious thought. + +Old Phoebe sat beside her, trying now and again with quiet voice and +manner to soothe and hush away the terrible memories of the audacious +deception to which each owed a lifelong loss of the other. But when +fever seizes on the blood, it will not relax its hold for words. + +One effect of this was good, in a sense. It _is_ true, as the poet said, +that one fire burns out another's burning--or at any rate that one pain +is deadened by another anguish--and it was a Godsend to Granny Marrable +and Ruth Thrale that an acupression of immediate anxiety should come to +counteract their bewilderment, and to extinguish for the time the +conflagration of a thousand questions--whys, whens, and wherefores +innumerable--in their overburdened minds. Visible fever in the delicate +frame, to which it seemed the slightest shock might mean death, was a +summons to them to put aside every possible thought but that of +preserving what Time had spared so long, though Chance had been so cruel +an oppressor. It would be the cruellest stroke of all that she should be +thus strangely restored to them, only to be snatched away in an hour. + +Presently she seemed quieter; the fever came in gusts, and rose and +fell. She had once or twice seemed almost incoherent, but it passed +away. Meanwhile Granny Marrable's memory of that madman or criminal, who +had at least known the woman he claimed as his mother well enough to be +mystified by her twin sister, rankled in her mind, and made it harder +and harder for her to postpone speech about him. She would not tell the +incident--she was clear of _that_--but would it harm Maisie to talk of +him? She asked herself the question the next time her sister referred to +him, and could not refrain from letting her speech about him finish. + +It came of her mind drifting back to that crazy notion of an evil spirit +wandering to seek a home; as the hermit-crab, dispossessed of one shell, +goes in search of another. After a lull which had looked for a moment +like coming sleep, she said with an astonishing calmness:--"But do you +not see, Phoebe dear, do you not see how good his father must have been, +to do no worse than he did? See what the devil that possessed him could +do with Ralph--my youngest, he was; Isaac died--a good boy, quite a good +boy, till I lost his father! Oh--see what he came to do!" + +"He ... he was sent to prison, was he not?" After saying it, old Phoebe +was afraid she might have to tell the whole tale of how she knew it. +But she need not have feared. Old Maisie was in a kind of dreamland, +only half-cognisant of what was going on about her. + +Her faint voice wandered on. "I was not thinking of that. That was +nothing! He stole some money, and it cost him dear.... No!--it was worse +than that--a bad thing!... It was _not_ the girl's fault.... Emma was a +good girl...." + +Granny Marrable was injudicious. But it was an automatic want of +judgment, bred of mind-strain. She could not help saying:--"Was that +Emma Drax?" For the name, which she had heard from the convict, had hung +on her mind, always setting her to work to fashion some horrible story +for its owner. + +"Yes--Emma Drax.... They found her guilty.... I do not mean that.... +What is it I mean?... I mean they laid it all at her door.... Men do!" +This seemed half wandering, and Granny Marrable hoped it meant a return +of sleep. She was disappointed. For old Maisie became more restless and +hot, starting convulsively, catching at her hand, and exclaiming:--"But +how came you to know?--how came you to know? You were not there then. +Oh, Phoebe dearest, you were not there _then_." She kept on saying this, +and Granny Marrable despaired of finding words to explain, under such +circumstances. The tale of her meeting with the convict was too complex. +She thought to herself that she might say that Maisie had spoken the +name as a dream-word, waking. But that would have been a fib, and fibs +were not her line. + + * * * * * + +"I went myself to get him," said Ruth, reappearing after a longer +absence than old Phoebe had anticipated. She was removing an out-of-door +cloak, and an extempore headwrap, when she entered the room. "How is +she?" she asked. + +Old Phoebe shook her head doubtfully. "Whom did you go for, child? The +doctor? I'm glad." + +"I thought it better.... Mother darling!--how are you?" She knelt by the +bed, held the burning hands, looked into the wild eyes. "Yes--I did +quite right," she said. + + * * * * * + +Dr. Nash came, not many minutes later. Whether the mixture to be taken +every two hours, fifty years ago, was the same as would have been given +now, does not concern the story. It, or the reassurance of the doctor's +visit, had a sedative effect; and old Maisie seemed to sleep, to the +great satisfaction of her nurses. What really did credit to his +professional skill was that he perceived that a visit from Lady +Gwendolen would be beneficial. A message was sent at once to John +Costrell, saying that an accompanying letter was to be taken promptly to +the Towers, to catch her ladyship before she went out. We have seen that +it reached her in time. + +"You found that all I told you was true, Granny Marrable," said the +doctor, after promising to return in time to catch her ladyship. + +"I shall live to believe it true, doctor, please God!" + +"Tut tut! You see that it _is_ true." + +"Yes, indeed, and I know that yonder is Maisie, come back to life. I +know it by thinking; but 'tis all I can do, not to think her still +dead." + +"She can talk, I suppose--recollects things? Things when you were kids?" + +"God 'a' mercy, yes, doctor! Why--hasn't she told me how she drew my +tooth, with a bit of silk and a candle, and knew which drawer-knob it +was, and the days she saw her husband first, a-horseback?... Oh, +merciful Heavens, how had he the heart?" + +"Some chaps have the Devil in 'em, and that's the truth!" + +"That's what she says. She just made my flesh creep, a-telling how the +devils come out of the black savages, to seize on Christians!" + +But the doctor was not prepared to be taken at his word, in this way. +Devils are good toys for speech, but they are not to be real. "Lot of +rum superstitions in those parts!" said he. "Now look you here, ma'am! +When I come back, I shall expect to hear that you and your daughter.... +Oh ah!--she's not your daughter! What the deuce is she?" + +"Ruth has always been my niece, but we have gone near to forget it, +times and again. 'Tis so many a long year!" + +"Well--I shall expect to hear that you and your niece have had a +substantial breakfast. You understand--_substantial!_ And you must make +_her_ take milk, or gruel. You'll find she won't eat." + +"Beef-tea?" + +"No--at least, have some ready, in case. But her temperature is too +high. Especially at her time of life!" The doctor walked briskly away. +He had not had the gig out, for such a short distance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + CHRISTMAS AND THE GREEK KALENDS. O NOBIS PRAETERITOS! THE + WRITING-TABLE BACK. AN INFLEXIBLE GOVERNOR. HOW MR. JERRY DID NOT + GO TO THE WORKHOUSE. BUT HOW CAME M'RIAR TO BE SO SHORT? THE + EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. UNCLE MO'S COLDBATH FIELDS FRIEND, AND HIS + ALLOWANCE. UNCLE MO ON KEEPING ONE'S WORD. AND KEEPING ITS MEANING. + JERRY'S CONSCIENTIOUS TREACHERY, AND HIS INTERVIEW WITH MR. ROWE. + HOW M'RIAR HAD PROMISED LOVE, HONOUR, AND OBEDIENCE TO A THING A + DEVIL HAD TAKEN A LONG LEASE OF. HOW SHE SENT A NOTE TO IT, BY + MICHAEL RAGSTROAR. WHO REALISED THREE-HALFPENCE. HOW MISS HAWKINS, + JEALOUSY MAD, TINKERED AUNT M'RIAR'S NOTE. EVE'S CIVILITY TO THE + SERPENT. MUCH ABOUT NORFOLK ISLAND. DAVERILL'S SECOND VISIT TO + ENGLAND, AND ITS CAUSES + + +Sapps Court was looking forward to Christmas with mixed feelings, +considered as a Court. The feelings of each resident were in some cases +quite defined or definable; as for instance Dave's and Dolly's. The +children had required from their seniors a trustworthy assurance of the +date of Mrs. Prichard's return, and had only succeeded in obtaining from +Aunt M'riar a vague statement. Mrs. Prichard was a-coming some day, and +that was plenty for children to know at their time of life. They might +have remained humbly contented with their ignorance, if Uncle Mo had not +added:--"So's Christmas!" meaning thereby the metaphorical Christmas +used as an equivalent of the Greek Kalends. He overlooked, for +rhetorical purposes, the near approach of the actual festival; and Dave +and Dolly accepted this as fixing the date of Mrs. Prichard's return, to +a nicety. The event was looked forward to as millennial; as a +restoration of a golden age before her departure. For no child is so +young as not to _laudare_ a _tempus actum_; indeed, it is a fiction that +almost begins with speech, that the restoration of the Past is the first +duty of the Future. + +Dolly never tired of recasting the arrangement of the tea-festivity that +was to celebrate the event, discovering in each new disposition of the +insufficient cups and unstable teapot a fresh satisfaction to gloat +over, and imputing feelings in sympathy with her own to her offspring +Gweng. It was fortunate for Gweng that her mamma understood her so +thoroughly, as otherwise her fixed expression of a maximum of joy at +all things in Heaven and Earth gave no clue to any emotions due to +events of the moment. Even when her eyes were closed by manipulation of +her spinal cord, and opened suddenly on a new and brilliant combination, +any candid spectator must have admitted her stoicism--rapturous perhaps, +but still stoicism. It was alleged--by her mamma--that she shed tears +when Dave selfishly obstructed her line of sight. This was disputed by +Dave, whom contact with an unfeeling World was hardening to a cruel +literalism. + +Dave, when he was not scheming a display of recent Academical +acquirements to Mrs. Prichard, dwelt a good deal on the bad faith of the +postman, who had not brought him the two letters he certainly had a +right to expect, one from each of his Grannies. He had treasured the +anticipation of reading their respective expressions of joyful gratitude +at their discovery of their relationship, and no letter had come! Small +blame to Dave that he laid this at the door of the postman; others have +done the self-same thing, on the other side of their teens! The only +adverse possibility that crossed his infant mind was that his Grannies +were sorry, not glad; because really grown-up people were so queer, you +never could be even with them. The laceration of a lost half-century was +a thing that could not enter into the calculations of a septennarian. He +had not tried Time, and Time had not tried him. He had odd misgivings, +now and again, that there might be in this matter something outside his +experience. But he did not indulge in useless speculation. The proximity +of Christmas made it unnecessary. + +Mrs. Burr and Aunt M'riar accepted the season as one beneficial to +trade; production taking the form of a profusion of little muslin +dresses for small girls at Christmas Trees and parties with a +Conjurer--dresses in which the fullest possibilities of the human +flounce became accomplished facts, and the last word was said about bows +of coloured ribbons. To look at them was to breathe an involuntary +prayer for eiderdown enclosures that would keep the poppet inside warm +without disparagement to her glorious finery. Sapps Court under their +influence became eloquent of quadrilles; "_Les Rats_" and the Lancers, +jangled by four hands eternally on pianos no powers of sleep could +outwit, and no execration do justice to. They murmured tales of crackers +with mottoes; also of too much rich cake and trifle and lemonade, and +consequences. So much space was needed to preserve them unsoiled and +uncrushed until consigned to their purchasers, that Mrs. Burr and Aunt +M'riar felt grateful for the unrestricted run of Mrs. Prichard's +apartment, although both also felt anxious to see her at home again. + +Mrs. Prichard's writing-table came back, done beautiful. Only the young +man he refused to leave it without the money. He was compelled to this +course by the idiosyncrasies of his employer. "You see," said he to +Uncle Mo, with an appearance of concentrating accuracy by a shrewd +insight, "it's like this it is, just like I tell you. Our Governor he's +as good a feller--in _hisself_ mind you!--as you'll come across this +side o' Whitechapel. Only he's just got this one pecooliarity--like a +bee has in his bonnet, as the sayin' is--he won't give no credit, not so +much as to his own wife; or his medical adwiser, if you come to that. +'Cash across invoice'--that's his motter. And as for moving of him, you +might just as easy move Mongblong." It is not impossible that this young +man's familiarity with Mont Blanc was more apparent than real; perhaps +founded on Albert Smith's entertainment of that name, which was popular +at that time in London. The young man went on to say that he himself was +trustful to a fault, and that if it depended on him, a'most any +arrangement could be come to. But you had to take a party as you found +him, and there it was! + +Uncle Mo said:--"If you'd said you was a-coming with it, mate, I'd have +made a p'int of having the cash ready. My salary's doo to-morrow." He +was looking rather ruefully at an insufficient sum in the palm of his +hand, the scrapings of more than one pocket. + +The young man said:--"It's the Governor, Mr. Moses. But if you'll square +the 'ire of the trolley, I'll run it back to the shop, and you can say +when you're ready for it." + +Uncle Mo seemed very reluctant to allow the bird to go back into the +bush. He went to the stairfoot, and called to Aunt M'riar, upstairs, +making ribbons into rosettes, and giving Dolly the snippings. He never +took his eye off the coins in his palm, as though to maintain them as +integral factors of the business in hand. "Got any small change, +M'riar?" said he. + +"How much do you want, Mo?" + +"Six. _And_ three. Can you do six-and three?" + +"Stop till I see, Mo." Aunt M'riar descended from above, and went into +her bedroom. But she did not find six-and-three. For she came out +saying:--"I can't only do five-and-nine, Mo. Can't you make out with +that?" + +Uncle Mo still looked at the twelve-and-nine he already had in hand, as +though it was a peculiar twelve-and-nine, that might consent for once +to make nineteen shillings, the sum required, when added to Aunt +M'riar's contribution; but he was obliged to yield to the inflexible +nature of Arithmetic. "Sixpence short, I make it," said he. Then to the +young man whose employer was like Mont Blanc:--"You'll have to fetch it +round again to-morrow, any time after two o'clock." This was, however, +rendered unnecessary by the appearance of Mr. Jerry, who was able to +contribute the six-and-three, without, as he said, going to the +workhouse. So Mrs. Prichard's old table, with a new leg so nobody could +ever have told, and a touch of fresh polish as good as new, was restored +to its old place, to join in the general anticipation of its owner's +return. + +But however M'riar come to be so short of cash Uncle Mo, smoking an +afternoon pipe as of old with Mr. Jerry, could not say, not if the +Emperor of Roosher was to ask him. Not that shortness of cash was +unusual in Sapps Court, but that he had supposed that M'riar was rather +better off than usual, owing to recent liquidations by the firm for whom +she and Mrs. Burr were at work upstairs. Mr. Jerry urged him on no +account to fret his kidneys about mundane trifles of this sort. +Everything, without exception, came to the same thing in the end, and +weak concessions to monetary anxiety only provided food for Repentance. + +Uncle Mo explained that his uneasiness was not due to ways and means, or +the want of them, but to a misgiving that Aunt M'riar's money was "got +from her." + +Now in his frequent confabs with Mr. Jerry, Uncle Mo had let fall many +suggestions of the sinister influence at work on Aunt M'riar; and Mr. +Jerry, being a shrewd observer, and collating these suggestions with +what had come to him otherwise, had formed his own opinions about the +nature of this influence. So it was no wonder that in answer to Uncle Mo +he nodded his head very frequently, as one who not only assents to a +fact, but rather lays claim to having been its first discoverer. "What +did I tell you, Mo?" said he. + +"Concernuating? Of? What?" said Uncle Mo in three separate sentences, +each one accompanied by a tap of his pipe-bowl on the wooden table at +The Sun parlour. The third qualified it for refilling. You will see, if +you are attentive and observant, that this was Mo's first pipe that +afternoon; as, if the ashes had been hot, he would not have emptied them +on that table, but rather on the hob, or in the brazen spittoon. + +"Him," said Mr. Jerry, too briefly. For he felt bound to add:--"Coldbath +Fields. Anyone giving information that will lead to apprehension of, +will receive the above reward. Your friend, you know!" + +"My friend's the man, Jerry. Supposin'--just for argewment--I fist that +friend o' mine Monday morning, I'll make him an allowance'll last him +over Sunday. You wouldn't think it of me, Jerry, but I'm a bad-tempered +man, underneath the skin. And when I see our old girl M'riar run away +with like by an infernal scoundrel.... Well, Jerry, I lose my temper! +That I do." And Uncle Mo seemed to need the pipe he was lighting, to +calm him. + +"He's where her money goes, Mo--that's it, ain't it?" + +"That's about it, sir. So p'hraps when I say I don't know how M'riar +come to be so short of cash, I ought to say I _do_ know. Because I _do_ +know, as flat as ever so much Gospel." So the Emperor of Russia might +not have remained unenlightened. + +Mr. Jerry reflected. "You say he hasn't been near the Court again, Mo?" + +"Not since that last time I told you about. What M'riar told me of. When +he showed his knife to frighten her. I couldn't be off telling Sim Rowe, +at the Station, about it, because of the children; and he's keeping an +eye. But the beggar's not been anigh the Court since. Nor I don't +suppose he'll come." + +"But when ever does he see M'riar, to get at her savings?--that's what +I'd like to know. Eh, Mo?" + +"M'riar ain't tied to the house. She's free to come and go. I don't take +kindly to prying and spying on her." + +A long chat which followed evolved a clear view of the position. After +Mo's interview with Aunt M'riar just before Gwen's visit, he had applied +to his friend the Police-Inspector, with the result that the Court had +been the subject of a continuous veiled vigilance. He had, however, been +so far swayed by the distress of Aunt M'riar at the possibility that she +might actually witness the capture of her criminal husband, that he +never revealed to Simeon Rowe that she had an interest in defeating his +enterprise. The consequence was that every plain-clothes emissary put +himself into direct personal communication with her, thereby ensuring +the absence of Daverill from Sapps Court. She was of course guilty of a +certain amount of duplicity in all this, and it weighed heavily on her +conscience. But there was something to be said by way of excuse. He +was--or had been--her husband, and she did _not_ know the worst of his +crimes. Had she done so, she might possibly have been ready to give him +up to justice. But as Mo had told her this much, that his last +achievement might lead him to the condemned cell, and its sequel, and +she nevertheless shrank from betraying him, probably nothing short of +the knowledge of the age and sex of his last victim would have caused +her to do so. She had in her mind an image of a good, honest, +old-fashioned murder; a strained episode in some burglary; perhaps not +premeditated, but brought about by an indiscreet interruption of a fussy +householder. There are felonies and felonies. + +Mr. Jerry's conversation with Uncle Mo in the Sun parlour gave him an +insight into this. "Look'ee here, Mo," said he. "So long as the Court's +watched, so long this here gentleman won't come anigh it. He's dodged +the London police long enough to be too clever for that. But so long as +he keeps touch with M'riar, you've got touch of him." + +Uncle Mo seemed to consider this profoundly. "Not if I keep square with +M'riar," said he at last. + +"How do you make that out, Mo?" + +"I've as good as promised the old girl that she shan't have any hand in +it. She's out of it." + +"Then keep her out of it. But only you give the tip to Sim Rowe that +M'riar's in with him, and that he's putting the screw on her, and Sim +he'll do the rest. Twig?" Conscious casuistry always closes one eye, and +Mr. Jerry closed his. + +"That's one idea of keeping square, Jerry, but it ain't mine." + +"What's wrong with it, Mo?" Mr. Jerry's confidence in his suggestion had +flagged, and his eye had reopened slowly. + +"M'riar's not to have _any_ hand in it--that's her stipulation. +According-ly to my ideas, Jerry, either you take advantage, or you +don't. _Don't's_ the word, this time. If I bring M'riar in _at all_, +it's all one which of two ways I do it. She's out of it." + +Mr. Jerry began, feebly:--"You can't do more than keep your word, +Mo...." + +"Yes, you can, Jerry. You can keep your meanin'. And you can do more +than that. You can keep to what the other party thought you meant, when +you know. _I_ know, this time. I ain't in a Court o' Justice, Jerry, +dodgin' about, and I know when I'm square, by the feel. M'riar's out of +it, and she shall stop out." Uncle Mo was not referring only to the +evasions of witnesses on oath, which he regarded as natural, but to a +general habit of untruth, and subtle perversion of obvious meanings, +which he ascribed not only to counsel learned in the Law, but to the +Bench itself. + +"Don't you want this chap to dance the Newgate hornpipe, Mo?" + +"Don't I, neither?" Uncle Mo smoked peacefully, gazing on the fire. The +silhouette of a hanged man, kicking, floated before his mind's eye, and +soothed him. But he made a reservation. "After him and me have had a +quiet half-an-hour together!" + +Mr. Jerry was suddenly conscious of a new danger. "I say, Mo," said he. +"None of that, if _you_ please!" + +"None o' what?" + +"This customer's not your sort. He's a bad kind. Bad before he was first +lagged, and none the better for the company he's kept since! You're an +elderly man now, Mo, and I'll go bail you haven't so much as put on the +gloves for ten years past. And suppose you had, ever so! Who's to know +he hasn't got a Colt in his pocket, or a bowie-knife?" Those of us who +remember the fifties will recall how tightly revolvers clung to the name +of their patentee, and the sort of moral turpitude that attached to +their use. They were regarded as giving a mean advantage to murderers; +who otherwise, if they murdered fair, and were respectably hanged, +merely filled _rôles_ necessary to History and the Drama. + +"Couldn't say about the barking-iron," said Uncle Mo. "He's got a nasty +sort of a knife, because he was flourishing of it out once to frighten +M'riar. I'll give him that." Meaning--the advantage of the weapon. A +trivial concession from a survivor of the best days of the Fancy! "Ye +see, Jerry," he continued, "he'll have to come within arm's length, to +use it. _I'll_ see to him! Him and his carving-knives!" + +But Mr. Jerry was far from easy about his friend, who seemed to him +over-confident. He had passed his life in sporting circles, and though +he himself had seen more of jockeys than prizefighters, their respective +circumferences intersected; and more than one case had come to his +knowledge of a veteran of the Ring unconscious of his decadence, who had +boastfully defied a junior, and made the painful discovery of the degree +to which youth can outclass age. This was scarcely a case of youth or +extreme age, but the twenty years that parted them were all-sufficient. + +He began to seek in his inner conscience excuses for a course of action +which would--he was quite candid with himself--have a close resemblance +to treachery. But would not a little straightforward treachery be not +only very expedient, but rather moral? Were high principles a _sine qua +non_ to such a humble individual as himself, a "bookmaker" on +race-courses, a billiard-marker elsewhere in their breathing-times? +Though indeed Mr. Jerry in his chequered life had seen many other phases +of employment--chiefly, whenever he had the choice, within the zone of +horsiness. For he had a mysterious sympathetic knowledge of the horse. +If pressed to give an account of himself, he was often compelled to +admit that he was doing nothing particular, but was on the lookout. He +might indicate that he was getting sick of this sort of thing, and would +take the next chance that turned up; would, as it were, close with Fate. +There had never been a moment in his sixty odd years of life--for he was +very little Uncle Mo's junior--when he had not been on the eve of a +lucrative permanency. It had never come; and never could, in the nature +of things. Nevertheless, the evanescencies that came and went and +chequered his career were not quite unremunerative, though they were +hardly lucrative. If he was ever hard up, he certainly never confessed +to it. + +He, however, looking back on his own antecedents to determine from them +how straitlaced a morality conscience called for, decided, in view of +the possibility of a collision between his friend and this ex-convict, +that he would be quite justified in treating Aunt M'riar's feelings as +negligible, set against the risk incurred by deferring to them as his +friend had done. No doubt Mo's confidence had been reposed in him under +the seal of an honourable secrecy, but to honour it under the +circumstances seemed to him to be "cutting it rather fine." He resolved +to sacrifice his integrity on the altar of friendship, and sought out +Mr. Simeon Rowe, who will be remembered as the Thames Policeman who was +rowing stroke at Hammersmith that day when his chief, Ibbetson, lost his +life in the attempt to capture Daverill; and who had more recently been +identified by Mo as the son of an old friend. Jerry made a full +communication of the case as known to him; giving as his own motive for +doing so, the wish to shield Mo from the possible consequences of his +own rash over-confidence. + +"I collect from what you tell me," said the Police-Inspector, "that my +men have been going on the wrong tack. That's about it, Mr. Alibone, +isn't it?" + +"That's one way of putting it, Mr. Rowe. Anyhow, they were bound to be +let in. Why, who was to guess Aunt M'riar? _And_ the reason!" + +"They'll have to look a little sharper, that's all." It suited the +Inspector to lay the blame of failure on his subordinates. This is a +prerogative of seniors in office. Successes are officially credited to +the foresight of headquarters--failures debited to the incompetence of +subordinates. Mr. Rowe's attitude was merely human. He expressed as much +acknowledgment of indebtedness to Mr. Jerry as was consistent with +official dignity, adding without emotion:--"I've been suspecting some +game of the kind." However, he unbent so far as to admit that this +culprit had given a sight of trouble; and, as Mr. Jerry was an old +acquaintance, resumed some incidents of the convict's career, not +without admiration. But it was admiration of a purely professional sort, +consistent with strong moral loathing of its object. "He's a born devil, +if ever there was one," said he. "I must say I like him. Why--look how +he slipped through their fingers at Clerkenwell! That was after we +caught him at Hammersmith. That was genius, sir, nothing short of +genius!" + +"Dressed himself in his own warder's clothes, didn't he, and just walked +over the course? What's become of your man he knocked on the head with +his leg-iron?" + +"Oh--him? He's got his pension, you know. But he's not good for any sort +of work. He's alive--that's all! Yes--when Mr. Wix pays his next visit +at the Old Bailey, there'll be several charges against him. He'll make a +good show. I'll give him three months." By which he meant that, with all +allowances made for detention and trial, Mr. Wix would end his career at +the time stated. He went on to refer to other incidents of which the +story has cognisance. He had been inclined to be down on his old chief +Ibbetson, who was drowned in his attempt to capture Wix, because he had +availed himself of a helping hand held out to him to drag its owner into +custody. Well--he would think so still if it had not been for some +delicate shades of character Mr. Wix had revealed since. How did he, +Simeon Rowe, know what Ibbetson knew against the ex-convict? Some +Walthamstow business, as like as not! It was wonderful what a faculty +this man had for slipping through your fingers. He had been all but +caught by one of our men, in the country, only the other day. He was at +the railway-station waiting for the up-train, due in a quarter of an +hour, and he saw our man driving up in a gig. At this point Mr. Rowe +stopped, looking amused. + +"Did he run?" said Mr. Jerry. + +"Not he! He made a mistake in his train. Jumped into the Manchester +express that was just leaving, and got carried off before our man +reached the station. At Manchester he explained his mistake, and used +his return ticket without extra charge to come back to London. Our man +knew he would do that, and waited for him at Euston. But _he_ knew one +better. Missed his train again at Harrow--just got out for a minute, you +know, when it stopped--and walked the rest of the way!" + +Ralph Daverill must have had a curious insight into human nature, to +know by the amount of his inspection of that police-officer--the one who +had ridden after him from Grantley Thorpe--whether he would pursue him +to Manchester or try to capture him at Euston. How could he tell that +the officer was not clever enough to know exactly how clever his quarry +would decide he was? + + * * * * * + +Aunt M'riar, haunted always by a nightmare--by the terrible dream of a +scaffold, and on it the man who had been her husband, with all the +attendant horrors familiar to an age when public executions still +gratified its human, or inhuman interest--was unable to get relief by +confiding her trouble to others. She dared to say no more than what she +had already said to Uncle Mo, as she knew he was in communication with +his friend the police-officer and she wanted only just as much to be +disclosed about the convict as would safeguard Sapps Court from another +of his visits, but at the same time would not lead to his capture. If +she had thought his suggestions of intimidation serious, no doubt she +would have put aside her scruples, and made it her first object that he +should be brought to justice. But she regarded them as empty threats, +uttered solely to extort money. + +She knew she could rely on Mo's kindness of heart to stretch many points +to meet her feelings, but she felt very uncertain whether even his +kind-heartedness would go the length of her demand for it. He might +consider that a wife's feelings for a husband--and _such_ a +husband!--might be carried too far, might even be classified as +superstition, that last infirmity of incorrect minds. If she could only +make sure that the convict should never show his face again in Sapps +Court, she would sacrifice her small remainders of money, earned in runs +of luck, to keep him at a distance. An attitude of compromise between +complete repudiation of him, and misleading his pursuers, was at least +possible. But it involved a slight amount of duplicity in dealing with +Mo, and this made Aunt M'riar supremely uncomfortable. She was perfectly +miserable about it. But there!--had she not committed herself to an +impracticable constancy, with a real altar and a real parson? That was +it. She had promised, five-and-twenty years ago, to love, honour, and +obey a self-engrossed pleasure-seeker, and time and crime and the canker +of a gaol had developed a devil in him, who was by now a fine +representative sample--a "record devil" our modern advanced speech might +have called him--who had fairly stamped out whatever uncongenial trace +of good may have existed originally in the premises he had secured on +an indefinite lease. It _was_ superstition on Aunt M'riar's part, but of +a sort that is aided and abetted by a system that has served the +purposes of the priesthoods all the world over since the world began, +and means to last your time and mine--the more's the pity! + +It was the day after her conversation with Mo about the convict--the +day, that is, after Gwen's last visit to Sapps Court--that Aunt M'riar +said to Dave, just departing to absorb erudition at his School, that if +he should see Michael Ragstroar he might tell him she had a note for +his, Michael's, aunt at Hammersmith; and if he was a-going there Sunday, +he might just every bit as well make himself useful, and carry it and +save the postage. Dave said:--"Whoy shouldn't oy carry it?" An +aspiration crushed by Aunt M'riar with:--"Because you're seven!" So +Dave, whose nature was as docile as his eyes were blue, undertook to +deliver the message; and Michael presented himself in consequence, just +after Uncle Mo had took a turn out to see for a newspaper, for to know +some more of what was going on in the Crimaera. It was just as well +Uncle Mo had, because when it's two, you don't have to consider. If this +is obscure, Aunt M'riar, who used the phrase, is responsible, not the +story. Its opinion is, that she meant that the absence of a third person +left her freer to speak. Perhaps if Mo had been present she would merely +have handed Micky the letter directed to his aunt, which would have been +palpably no concern of Uncle Mo's, inquirin' and askin' questions. + +As it was, she accompanied it with verbal instructions:--"Now you know +what you've got to do, young Micky. You've just got to give this letter +to your great-aunt Treadwell. And when she sees inside of it, she'll +find it ain't for her, but a party." + +"What sort of a party, that's the p'int? Don't b'leeve my great-aunt +knows no parties. Them she knows is inside of her farmily. Nevoos, +sim'lar to myself as you might say. Or hequal value." An Academical +degree would have qualified Micky to say "or its equivalent." The +expression he used had its source in exchange transactions of turnips +and carrots and greens, anticipating varied calls for each in different +markets. + +"She may know the address of the lady she'll find in this envelope. And +if she don't, all _you_ got to do is to bring the letter back." + +"Suppose she don't know the address and I do, am I to tell her, or 'old +my tongue?" + +"Now which do you think? I do declare you boys I never! Nor yet anyone +else! Why, if she don't know the address and you do, all you got to do +then is take the letter and leave it." + +"Without any address wrote? Wery good! 'Ave it your own way, missis. +'And it over." + +Aunt M'riar handed it over. But before Micky was half-way up the Court, +she called him back. "Maybe you know the party's name? Miss Julia +Hawkins--on the waterside, Hammersmith." + +"Her! Not know her! Juliarawkins. Why, she's next door!" + +"But do you know her--to speak to?" + +"Rarther! We're on torkin terms, me and Juliar. Werry often stop I do, +to pass the time of day with Jooli_ar_." An intensification in the +accent on the name seemed to add to his claim to familiarity with its +owner. "Keeps the little tiddley-wink next door. Licensed 'ouse. That's +where they took Wix--him as got out of quod--him as come down the Court +to look up a widder." + +Aunt M'riar considered a moment whether it would not be better to +instruct Micky to find out Daverill and deliver her letter to him in +person. She decided on adhering to the convict's instructions. If she +had understood his past relations with Miss Hawkins she might have +decided otherwise. She affected not to hear Micky's allusion to him, +merely enjoining the boy to hand her letter in over the bar to its +Egeria. "You won't have any call for to trouble your aunt," said she. +For she felt that the fewer the cooks, the better the broth. Questioned +as to when he would deliver the letter, Micky appeared to turn over in +his mind a voluminous register of appointments. But he could stand them +all over, to oblige, and would see if he couldn't make it convenient to +go over Sunday morning. Nothing was impossible to a good business head. + +As the appointments had absolutely no existence except in his +imagination--though perhaps costermonging, at its lowest ebb, still +claimed his services--he was able to make it very convenient indeed to +visit his Aunt Elizabeth. History repeats itself, and the incident of +the half-and-half happened again, point for point, until settlement-time +came, and then a variation crept in. + +"I got a letter for you, missis," said Micky. + +"Sure it ain't for somebody else? Let's have a look at it." + +"No 'urry! Tork it over first--that's my marxim! Look ye here. Miss +Juliar, this is my way of putting of it. Here's three-halfpence, over +the beer. Here's the corner of the letter, stickin' out of my porket. +Now which'll you have, the letter or the three-halfpence? Make your +ch'ice. All square and no deception!" + +"Well--the impidence of the child! Who's to know the letter's for me +onlest I see the direction? Who gave it you to give me?" + +"Miss Wardle down our Court. Same I told you of--where the old +widder-woman hangs out. Him the police are after's mother!" Micky was so +confident of the success of this communication that he began picking up +the three-halfpence to restore them to his pocket, and stood holding the +corner of the letter to draw it out as soon as his terms were accepted. +The acceptance came unconditionally, with a nod; and Micky departed with +his jug. + +What were the contents of this letter to Mr. Wix, care of Miss Julia +Hawkins, at The Pigeons? That was all the direction on the envelope, +originally covered by another, addressed to Micky's great-aunt. It was +worded as Daverill had worded it in a hurried parting word to Aunt +M'riar, given when Gwen's knock had cut his visit short. This letter, in +an uneducated woman's hand, excited Miss Hawkins's curiosity. Of course +it might only be from the old woman he supposed to be his mother. If so, +there did not seem to be any reasonable objection to her reading it. If +otherwise, she felt that there were many reasonable objections to +leaving it unread. Anyhow there was a kettle steaming on the fire in the +bar, and if she held the letter over the spout to see if it would open +easy, she would be still in a position to shut it up again and deliver +it with a guiltless conscience. Eve, no doubt, felt that she could +handle the apple and go on resisting temptation, so as not to seem rude +to the Serpent. The steam was not wanted for long, the envelope flap +curling up in a most obliging manner, and leaving all clear for +investigation. Miss Hawkins laid the letter down to dry quite dry, +before fingering it. Remember to bear this in mind in opening other +people's letters this way. The slightest touch on paper moistened by +steam may remain as a tell-tale. + +This woman was so cautious that she left the paper untouched where she +had laid it on the table while she conferred with a recently installed +potboy on points of commercial economy. When she returned it was dry +beyond suspicion, and she drew the letter out to see if it contained +anything she need hesitate to read. She felt that she was keeping in +view what is due to the sensitive conscience of an honourable person. + +The note she read was short, written so that the lines fell thus:-- + +"RALPH DAVERILL--The police are +on the look out for you and it is now not +safe to come to the Court--This is written +by your wife to say you will run +great risk of being took if you come-- +For you to know who I am I write my name-- + +POLLY DAVERILL. +Sapps Court Dec 9 1854." + +The lines were ill-spaced, so that blanks were left as shown. At the end +of the second, a crowded line, the word _not_ was blurred on the +paper-edge, and looked like a repetition of the previous word. + +One does not see without thought, why this letter sent its reader's +heart beating furiously. Why should she turn scarlet with anger and all +but draw blood from a bitten lip? She knew perfectly well that this +gutter Don Juan's depravity could boast as many victims as his enforced +prison life had left possible to him. But no particular one had ever +become concrete to her, and jealousy of a multitude, no one better off +than herself, had never rankled. Jealousy of Heaven-knows-who is a +wishy-washy passion. Supply a definite object, and it may become +vitriolic. Polly Daverill, whoever she was, was definite, and might be +the wife the convict had acknowledged--or rather claimed--when he first +made Miss Julia's acquaintance, over twenty years ago. + +The lip was perhaps saved from bloodletting by an idea which crossed the +mind of the biter. A look of satisfaction grew and grew as she +contemplated the letter; not for its meaning--that was soon clear. It +was something in the handwriting; something that made her hide +half-words with a finger-point, and vary her angle of inspection. Then +she said, aloud to herself:--"Yes!" as though she had come to a +decision. + +She examined an inkstand that the dried ink of ages had encrusted, +beyond redemption, in a sunken cavity of restraint in an inktray +overstocked with extinct and senile pens. Its residuum of black fluid +had been glutinous ever since Miss Julia had known it; ever since she +had written, as a student, that Bounty Commanded Esteem all down one +page of a copybook. The pens were quill pens past mending, or +overwhelmed by too heartfelt nibs; or magnum bonums whose upstrokes were +morally as wide as Portland Place, or parvum malums that perforated +syllables and spluttered. The penwiper was non-absorbent, and generally +contrived to return the drop it refused to partake of on the hands of +incautious scribes, who rarely obtained soap and hot water time enough +to do any good. + +Miss Julia first remedied the ink. A memory of breakfast unremoved still +hung about the parlour table--a teapot and a slop basin. The former +supplied a diluent, the latter a haven for the indisputably used-up +quill whose feather served to incorporate it with the black coagulum. +With the resultant fluid you could make a mark about the same blackness +as what the letter was, using by preference the newest magnum bonum pen, +which was all right in itself, only stuck on an old wooden handle that +scribes of recent years had gnawed. + +What this woman's jealous violence was prompting her to do was to alter +this letter so as to encourage its recipient to put himself in danger of +capture. It was an easy task, as the only words she had to insert could +be copies from what was already written. The first line required the +word _not_ at the end, the fourth the word _no_. The only other change +needed was the erasure of the word _not_, in the second line, which +already looked like an accidental repetition of _now_. Was an erasure +advisable? she decided against it, cleverly. She merely drew her pen +through the _not_, leaving the first two letters intentionally visible, +and blurring the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much pleased +with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to accompany it; then +hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed it to W. +at the Post Office, East Croydon. This was the last address the convict +had given. Where he was actually living she did not know. + +Her own letter to him was:--"The enclosed has come for you. I write this +in pencil because I cannot find any ink." It was a little stroke of +genius worthy of her correspondent's father. Nothing but clairvoyance +could have bred suspicion in him. Micky reappeared that evening in Sapps +Court, and found an opportunity to convey to Aunt M'riar that he had +obeyed his instructions. He did so with an air of mystery and an +undertone of intelligence, saying briefly:--"That party, missis! She's +got the letter." + +"Did you give it her?" said Aunt M'riar. + +"I see to it that she got it," said Micky with reserve. "You'll find it +all correct, just as I say." This attitude was more important than the +bald, unqualified statement that he had left the letter when he fetched +the beer, and Micky enjoyed himself over it proportionately. + + * * * * * + +Aunt M'riar was easier in her mind, as she felt pretty confident that +the letter would reach its destination. She had killed two birds with +one stone--so she believed. She had saved Daverill from the police, so +far at least as their watchfulness of Sapps Court was concerned, and +had also saved Uncle Mo from possible collision with him, an event she +dreaded even more than a repetition of those hideous interviews with a +creature that neither was nor was not her husband; a thing with a +spurious identity; a horrible outgrowth from a stem on which her own +life had once been grafted. Could woman think a worse thought of man +than hers of him, when she thanked God that at least the only fruit of +that graft had been nipped in the bud? And yet no such thought had +crossed her mind in all these years in which he had been to her no more +than a memory. A memory of a dissolute, imperfect creature--yes! but +lovable enough for all that. Not indeed without a sort of charm for any +passing friend, quite short of any spell akin to love. How could this +monstrous personality have grown upon him, yet left him indisputably the +same man? The dreadful change in the identity of the maniac--the maniac +proper, the victim of brain-disease--is at least complete; so complete +often as to force the idea of possession on minds reluctant to receive +it. This man remained himself, but it was as though this identity had +been saturated with evil--had soaked it up as the sponge soaks water. +There was nothing in the old self M'riar remembered to make her glad his +child was not born alive. There was everything in his seeming of to-day +to make her shudder at the thought that it might have lived. + +The cause of the change is not far to seek. He had lived for twenty +years in Norfolk Island as a convict; for fourteen years certainly as an +inmate of the prisons, even if a period of qualified liberty preceded +his discharge and return to Sydney. He was by that time practically +damned beyond redemption, and his brilliant career as a bushranger +followed as a matter of course. + +Those who have read anything of the story of the penal settlements in +the early part of last century may--even _must_--remember the tale told +by the Catholic priest who went to give absolution to a whole gang of +convicts who were to be hanged for mutiny. He carried with him a boon--a +message of mercy--for half the number; for they had been _pardoned_; +that is to say, had permission now to live on as denizens of a hell on +earth. As it turned out, the only message of mercy he had to give was +the one contained or implied in an official absolution from sin, and it +is possible that belief in its validity occasioned the outburst of +rejoicing that greeted its announcement. For there was no rejoicing +among the recipients of His Majesty's clemency--heart-broken silence +alone, and chill despair! For they were to remain on the rack, while +their more fortunate fellows could look forward to a joyous gallows, +with possibilities beyond, from which Hell had been officially excluded. +It is but right to add that the Reverend Father did _not_ ascribe the +exultant satisfaction of his clients--if that is the word--to anything +but the anticipation of escape from torture. He was too truthful. + +If the nearest dates the story has obtained are trustworthy, Daverill's +actual term in Norfolk Island may have been fourteen years; it certainly +came to an end in the early forties. But he must have been there at the +time of the above incident, as it happened _circa_ 1836-37. The powers +of the sea-girt tropical Paradise to sterilise every Divine impulse must +have been at their best in his time, and he seems to have been a +favourable subject for the _virus_ of diabolism, which was got by Good +Intentions out of Expediency. The latter must have been carrying on with +Cowardice, though, to account for Respectability's choice, for her +convicts, of an excruciating life rather than a painless death. Possibly +the Cowardice of the whole Christian world, which accounts Death the +greatest of possible evils. + +The life of a bushranger in New South Wales, which fills in the end of +his Australian career, did not tend to the development of any stray germ +of a soul that the prison-fires had not scorched out of old Maisie's +son. Small wonder it was so! Conceive the glorious freedom of wickedness +unrestrained, after the stived-up atmosphere of the gaol, with its +maddening Sunday chapel and its hideous possibilities of public torture +for any revolt against the unendurable routine. We, nowadays, read with +a shudder of the enormities that were common in the prisons of past +times--we, who only know of their modern substitutes. For the last +traces of torture, such as was common long after the _moyen âge_, as +generally understood, have vanished from the administration of our gaols +before a vivified spirit of Christianity, and the enlightenment +consequent on the Advance of Science.[A] After fourteen years of such a +life, how glorious must have been the opportunities the freedom of the +Bush afforded to an instinctive miscreant, still in the prime of life, +and artificially debarred for so long from the indulgence of a natural +bent for wickedness; not yet _ennuyé_ by the monotony of crime in +practice, which often leads to a reaction, occasionally accompanied by +worldly success. There was, however, about Daverill a redeeming point. +He was incorrigibly bad. He never played false to his father the Devil, +and the lusts of his father he did do, to the very last, never +disgracing himself by the slightest wavering towards repentance. + +[Footnote A: This appears to have been written about 1910.] + +Probably his return from Sydney to England was as much an escape from +his own associates in crime, with whom some dishonourable transactions +had made him unpopular, as a flight from the officers of Justice. A +story is told, too intricate to follow out, of a close resemblance +between himself and a friend in his line of business. This was utilised +ingeniously for the establishment of alibi's, the name of Wix being +adopted by both. Daverill had, however, really behaved in a very shady +way, having achieved this man's execution for a capital crime of his +own. Ibbetson, the Thames police-sergeant whose death he occasioned +later, was no doubt in Sydney at this time, and may have identified him +from having been present at the hanging of his counterpart, whose +protestations that he was the wrong man of course received no attention, +and whose attempt to prove an alibi failed miserably. Daverill had +supplied the defence with a perfectly fictitious account of himself and +his whereabouts at the time of the commission of the crime, which of +course fell to pieces on the testimony of witnesses implicated, who knew +nothing whatever of the events described. + +There is no reason whatever to suppose that a desire to see his mother +again had anything to do with his return. The probability is that he +never gave her a thought until the money he had brought with him ran +out--or, more accurately, the money he got by selling, at a great +sacrifice, the jewels he brought from Australia sewed into the belt he +wore in lieu of braces. The most valuable diamond ring should have +brought him thousands, but he had to be content with hundreds. He had +drawn it off an amputated finger, whose owner he left to bleed to death +in the bush. It had already been stolen twice, and in each case had +brought ill-luck to its new possessor. + +All this of Daverill is irrelevant to the story, except in so far as it +absolves Aunt M'riar of the slightest selfish motive in her conduct +throughout. The man, as he stood, could only be an object of horror and +aversion to her. The memory of what he had once been remained; and +crystallized, as it were, into a fixed idea of a sacramental obligation +towards a man whose sole claim upon her was his gratification at her +expense. She had been instructed that marriage was God's ordinance, and +so forth; and was _per se_ reciprocal. She had sacrificed herself to +him; _therefore_ he had sacrificed himself to her. A halo of mysterious +sanctity hung about her obligations to him, and seemed to forbid too +close an analysis of their nature. An old conjugation of the indicative +mood, present tense, backed by the third person singular's capital, +floated justifications from Holy Writ of the worst stereotyped iniquity +of civilisation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + HOW GWEN STAYED AWAY FROM CHURCH, BUT SENT HER LOVE TO LADY + MILLICENT ANSTIE-DUNCOMBE. HOW TOM MIGHT COME AGAIN AT FIVE, AND + GAVE MRS. LAMPREY A LIFT. NOT EXACTLY DELIRIUM. THE BLACK + WITCH-DOCTOR. WERE DAVE AND DOLLY ALL TRUE? WHAT GWEN HAD TO + PRETEND. DAVE'S OTHER LETTER. STARING FACTS IN THE FACE. GWEN'S + COMPARISON OF THE TWINS. MIGHT GWEN SEE THE AUSTRALIAN LETTER? OLD + KETURAH'S HUSBAND THE SEXTON. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE AND RUTH WENT TO + CHURCH, BY REQUEST, AND HOW RUTH SAW THE LIKENESS. HOW OLD MAISIE + COULD NOT BE EVEN WITH UNCLE NICHOLAS. CHAOS. HOW OLD MRS. PICTURE + RECEIVED DAVE'S INVITATION TO TEA. JONES'S BULL + + +"You'll have to attend divine service without your daughter, mamma," +said Gwen, speaking through the door of her mother's apartment, _en +passant_. It was a compliance with a rule of domestic courtesy which was +always observed by this singular couple. A sort of affection seemed to +maintain itself between them as a legitimate basis for dissension, a +luxury which they could not otherwise have enjoyed. "I'm called away to +my old lady." + +"Is she ill?" + +"Well--Dr. Nash has written to say that I need not be frightened." + +"But then--why go? If he says you need not be frightened?" + +"That's exactly why I'm going. As if I didn't understand doctors!" + +"I knew you wouldn't come to Church. Am I to give your love to Lady +Millicent Anstie-Duncombe if I see her, or not? She's sure to ask after +you." + +"Some of it. Not too much. Give the rest to Dr. Tuxford Somers." The +Countess's suggestion of entire despair at this daughter was almost +imperceptible, but entirely conclusive. + +"Well--he's married! Why shouldn't I?" + +"As you please, my dear!" + +The Countess appeared to decline further discussion. She said:--"Don't +be very late--you are coming back to lunch, of course?" + +"If I can. It depends." + +"My dear! With Sir Spencer Derrick here, and the Openshaws!" + +"I'll be back if I can. Can't say more than that! Good-bye!" And the +Countess had to be content. The story is rather sorry for her, for it +_is_ a bore to have a lot of guests on one's hands, without due family +support. + + * * * * * + +The grey mare's long stride left John Costrell's fat cob a mile behind, +in less than two. Her hoofs made music on the hard road for another two, +and then were _assourdi_ by a swansdown coverlid of large snowflakes +that disappointed the day's hopes of being fine, and made her sulky with +the sun, extinguishing his light. The gig drew up at Strides Cottage in +a whitening world, and Tom Kettering had to button up the seats under +their oilskin passenger-cases, in anticipation of a long wait. + +But Tom had not a long wait, for in a quarter of an hour after her young +ladyship had vanished into Strides Cottage, she returned, telling him +she was going to be late, and should not want him. He might drive back +to the Towers, and--stop a minute!--might give this card to her mother. +She scribbled on one of her own cards that she would not be back to +lunch, and told Tom he might come again about five. Tom touched his hat +as a warrior might have touched his sword-hilt. + +Widow Thrale, who had accompanied Gwen, and returned with her into the +house, was the very ghost of her past self of yesterday morning. +Twenty-four hours ago she looked less than her real age by ten years; +now she had overpassed it by half that time at least. So said to Tom +Kettering a young woman with a sharp manner, whom he picked up and gave +a lift to on his way back. Tom's taciturnity abated in conversation with +Mrs. Lamprey, and he really seemed to come out of his Trappist seclusion +to hear what she had to tell about this mystery at the Cottage. She had +plenty, founded on conversations between the doctor and his sister, +whose housekeeper you will remember she was. + +"Why--I'd only just left Widow Thrale when you drove past. Your aunt she +stayed till ever so late last night,"--Tom was Mrs. Solmes's +nephew--"and went home with Carrier Brantock. Didn't you see her?" + +"Just for a word, this morning. She hadn't so much to tell as you'd +think. But it come to this--that this old Goody Prichard's own sister to +Granny Marrable. Got lost in Australia somehow. Anyhow, she's there now, +at the Cottage. No getting out o' that! Only what bothers me is--how +ever she came to turn up in her sister's house, and ne'er a one of 'em +to know the other from Queen Anne!" + +"We've got to take that in the lump, Thomas. I expect your Aunt Keziah +she'll say it was Providence. I say it was just a chance, and Dr. Nash +he says the same. You ask him!" + +Tom considered thoughtfully, and decided. "I expect it was just a +chance," said he. "Things happen of theirselves, if you let 'em alone. +Anyhow, it hasn't happened above this once." That was a great relief, +and Tom seemed to breathe the freer for it. + +"I haven't a word to say against Providence," said Mrs. Lamprey. "On the +contrary I go to Church every Sunday, and no one can find fault. So does +Dr. Nash, to please Miss Euphemia. But one has to consider what's +reasonable. What I say is:--if it was Providence, what was to prevent +its happening twenty years ago? Nothing stood in the way, that I see." + +Tom shook his head, to show that neither did he see what stood in the +way of a more sensible and practical Divine ordination of events. "Might +have took place any time ago, in reason," said he. "Anyhow, it hasn't. +It's happened now." Tom seemed always to be seeking relief from +oppressive problems, and looking facts in the face. "I'm not so sure," +he continued, abating the mare slightly to favour conversation, "that +I've got all the scoring right. This old lady she went out to +Australia?" + +"Yes--fifty years ago." Mrs. Lamprey told what she knew, but not nearly +all the facts as the story knows them. She had not got the convict +incidents correctly from the conversation of Dr. Nash with his sister. +Remember that he had only known it since yesterday morning. Mrs. +Lamprey's version did not take long to tell. + +"What I look at is this," said Tom, seeming to stroke with his whiplash +the thing he looked at, on the mare's back. "Won't it turn old Granny +Marrable wrong-side-up, seeing her time of life. Not the other old +Goody--she's been all the way to Australia and back!" This only meant +that nothing could surprise one who had such an experience. As to the +effect on Granny Marrable, Mrs. Lamprey said no--quite the reverse. Once +it was Providence, there you stuck, and there was no moving you! There +was some obscurity about this saying; but no doubt its esoteric meaning +was, that once you accounted for anything by direct Divine +interposition, you stood committed to a controversial attitude which +would render you an obstructive to liberal thought. + +This little conversation was presently cut short by Mrs. Lamprey's +arrival at her destination, a roadside inn where she had an aunt by +marriage. + + * * * * * + +Ruth Thrale had a bad report to give as she and her young ladyship +recrossed the kitchen. It was summed up in the word Fever, restrained by +"Not exactly delirium." Granny Marrable came out to meet them, and threw +in a word or two of additional restraint. What they had at first thought +delirium had turned out quite temperate and sane on closer examination. + +"A deal about Australia, and the black witch-doctor," said Granny +Marrable. "Now, if one could turn her mind off that, it might be best +for her, and she would drop off, quiet." Perhaps her ladyship coming +would do her good. The old lady ended with concession about the +fever--was not quite sure Maisie had known her just now when she spoke +to her. + +"Poor old darling!" said Gwen. "You know, Granny, we must expect a +little of this sort of thing. We couldn't hope to get off scot-free. +Have you had some sleep, yourself? Has she slept, Ruth?" + +"Oh yes. Mother got some sleep in the chair beside--beside _her_, till +four o'clock. Then she lay down, and had a good sleep, lying down. +Didn't you, mother?" + +"You may be easy about me, child. I've done very well." + +"And yourself, Ruth?" By now, Gwen always called Widow Thrale "Ruth." + +"Who--I? I had quite a long sleep, while mother sat by--by _her_." This +dreadful difficulty of what to call old Maisie! Her daughter was always +at odds with it. + +Gwen passed on into the bedroom. Just at the door she paused. "You wait +outside, and hear," said she. They held back, in the passage, silent. + +Old Maisie's voice, on the pillow; audible, not articulate. Two frail +hands stretched out in welcome. Two grave eyes, made wild by the +surrounding tangle of loose white hair. Those were Gwen's impressions as +she approached the bed. + +The voice grew articulate. "Oh, my darling, I knew you would come. I +want you close, to tell me...." + +"Yes, dear!--to tell you what?" + +"I want you to tell me whether one of the things is a dream." + +"One of which things, dear?" One has to be a hard old stager not to feel +his flesh creep at delirium. Gwen had to fight against a shudder. + +"There are so many, you know, now that they all come back at once. Tell +me, darling, were my little boy and girl real, who came up into my room +and played and gave me tea out of small cups? I called them Dave and +Dolly. Dolly was very small. Oh, Dolly!" Dolly's size, and her +tenderness on one's knee, were, so to speak, audible in the voice that +became tender to apostrophise her. + +"Dave and Dolly Wardle? Of course they are real! As real as you or me! +There they are in Sapps Court, with Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar. And Susan +Burr," Then such a nice scheme crossed Gwen's mind. + +But old Maisie seemed adrift, not able to be sure of any memory; past +and present at war in her mind, either intolerant of the other. "Then +tell me, dear," said she. "Is the other real too? Is it not a thing I +have dreamed, a thing I have dreamed in the night, here in Widow +Thrale's cottage ... where I came in the cart ... where I came from the +great house where the sweet old gentleman was, that was your father ... +where I could see out over the tree lands ... where my Ruth came to +me?..." The affection for her daughter, that had struck root firmly in +her heart, remained a solid fact, whether she was thinking of her as +before or after the revelation of her identity. + +Gwen sat beside her on the bed-edge, her arm round her head on its +pillow, her free hand soothing the restless fingers that would not be +still. "What is it you think you have dreamed, Mrs. Picture dear?" said +she. + +"It was all a dream, I think. Just a mad dream--but then--but then--did +not my Ruth think I was mad?..." + +"But what was it? Tell it to me, now, quietly." + +"It was that my Phoebe--my sister--oh, my dear sister!--dead so many +years ago--sat by me here, as you sit now--and we talked and talked of +the old time--and our young Squire, so beautiful, upon his horse.... Oh, +but then--but then!..." She checked herself suddenly, and a look of +horror came in her face; then went on:--"No, listen! There was an awful +thing in the dream--a bad thing--about a letter.... Oh, how can I tell +it?..." + +Gwen caught at the pause to speak, saying gently but firmly:--"Dear Mrs. +Picture, it was no dream, but all true. Believe me, I know. When you are +quite well and strong, I will tell you all over again about the letter, +and how my dear old father found it all out for you. And I tell you +what! You shall come and live here with your sister and daughter, +instead of Sapps Court.... Oh no--you shall have Dave and Dolly. They +shall come too." This was Gwen's scheme, but it was no older than the +mention just made of it. "I can do these things," she added. "Papa lets +me do what I choose." + +Old Maisie lay back, looking at the beautiful face in a kind of +wonderment. The feeling it gave her that she was in the hands of some +superior power was the most favourable one possible in a case where +fever was the result of mental disquiet. Presently the strain on the +face abated, and the wild look in the eyes. The lids drooped, then +closed over them. Something like sleep followed, leaving Gwen free to +rejoin old Phoebe and Ruth, outside. They were still close at hand. + +"Did you hear all that?" said Gwen. It appeared that they had, or the +greater part. The account of how the night had passed was postponed, +owing to the arrival of Dr. Nash. + +"I would sooner give her no drugs of any sort," said he, when he had +taken a good look at the patient. "I will leave something for her to +take if she doesn't get sleep naturally. Otherwise the choice is between +giving her something harmless to make her believe she is taking +medicine, and telling her she has nothing whatever the matter with her. +I incline to the last. Get her to take food whenever you can. Always +have something ready for her whenever's there a chance. I expect you to +see to that, Widow Thrale. And, Lady Gwendolen, _you_ are good for +her--remember that! You've got to pretend you're God Almighty--do you +understand?" It goes without saying that by this time no one else was +within hearing. + +"I understand perfectly," said Gwen. "That little doze she had just now +was because I pledged myself and my father to the reality of the whole +thing. She had got to think it was all a dream." + +She suppressed, as the sort of thing for London, a thought that came +into her head at this moment, that it was the first time the family +coronet had been of the slightest use to any living creature! Not here, +with the hush of the Feudal System still on the land, and the old church +at Chorlton's monotonous belfry calling its flock to celebrate the Third +Sunday in Advent. For next Sunday was Christmas Eve, and old Maisie's +eighty-first birthday. Next Monday was old Phoebe's, with just the +stroke of midnight between them. + +Gwen seized the opportunity to get from Dr. Nash a fuller account of his +disclosure to old Phoebe. He told her what we know already. + +"Only I'm due at the other end of the village," said he, ending up. He +looked at his watch. "I've got five minutes.... Yes--it was the small +boy's letter that did the job. I had been hammering away at the old lady +to get the thin of the wedge in, and I assure you it was useless. Worse +than useless! So I gave it up. But I suspect that some shot of mine hit +the mark, without my seeing it. Something had made her susceptible. And +when the kid's letter came, that did it. I wasn't there." + +"Oh--then you only heard...." + +"I was called back. I found the old body gone off in a faint, and the +letter on the floor--at least, on the baby. I've got it in my pocket, I +do believe.... No, I haven't!" + +"What's this on the window-ledge? This is Dave's hand." But Gwen saw +that it was directed to "Old Mrs. Picture Strides Cotage Chorlton under +bradBury." She opened it without remorse, and the doctor said:--"Of +course! He wrote two. That one's to t'other old lady. Just the same, I +expect." + +It was, word for word. But it had a short postscript:--"When you come +back me and Dolly shall give you tea it is stood ready and grany +maroBone too." + +"Poor little people!" said Gwen. "How they will feel it! But I mustn't +keep you, doctor." + +And then, after a word or two to Widow Thrale, Dr. Nash drove off +through the snow, now thickening. + +Gwen, you see, was quite alive to the situation; perhaps indeed she was +ready to put a worse construction on it than the doctor. He had seen so +many a spark of life, far nearer extinction than old Maisie's, flicker +up and grow and grow, and end by steady burning through its appointed +time, that no amount of mere attenuation frightened him. Gwen, on the +other hand, could not bring herself to believe that any creature so +frail would stand the strain of such an earthquake of sensibilities. +Unless indeed some change for the better showed itself in a few hours, +she _must_ succumb. Probably she was only relieving the tension of her +own feelings by looking facts fiercely in the face. It is a common +attitude of inexperience, under like circumstances. Dr. Nash certainly +had said to her that "the strength was well maintained." But do we not +all of us accept that phrase as an ill-omen--a vulture in the desert? +No--no! Look the facts in the face! Glare at them! + +Returning to the bedside, where Granny Marrable was sitting in her +arm-chair beside her sister, who was quiet--possibly sleeping--she took +the opportunity to note the changes that Time had wrought in each twin. +The moment she came to look for them, she began to marvel that she had +never seen the similarities; for instance, scarcely a month since, when +the two were face to face outside this house, and each looked at the +other, and neither said or thought:--"How like myself!" Was it possible +that they were really _more_ unlike then?--that the storm which had +passed over both had told more, relatively, on the healthy village dame, +kept blooming by a life whose cares were little more than healthy +excitements, than on the mere derelict of so many storms, any one enough +to send it to the bottom? There was little work left for Time or +Calamity to do on that old face on the pillow; while even this +four-and-twenty-hours of overwrought excitement had left its mark upon +old Phoebe. Gwen saw that the faces _were_ the same, past dispute, as +soon as she compared them point by point. + +Once seen, the thing grew, and became strange and unearthly, almost a +discomfort. Gwen went back into the kitchen, where she found Ruth, +affecting some housework but without much heart in it. She too was +showing the effects of the night and day just passed, her heavy eyelids +fighting with their weight, not successfully; her restless hands +protesting against yawns; trying to curb rebellious lips, in vain. + +"I can see the likeness now," said Gwen, thinking it best to talk. + +"Between mother and--my mother?" was Ruth's reply. How else could she +have said it, without beginning to call old Phoebe her aunt? + +Gwen saw the embarrassment, and skipped explanation. "Why not call her +Mrs. Picture--little Dave's name?" Then she felt this was a mistake, and +added:--"No, I suppose that wouldn't do!" + +"Something will come, to say, in time. One's head goes, now." Ruth went +on to speak of her childish recollection of the news of her mother's +death--quite a vivid memory--when she was nearly nine years old. "I was +quite a big little maid when the letter came. We got it out, you know, +just now. And, oh, how sick it made me!" + +"I should like so much to see it," said Gwen. Her young ladyship's +lightest wish was law, and Ruth nearly went to seek the letter. Gwen had +to be very emphatic that another time would do, to stop her. + +"Then I will get it out presently, and give it to your ladyship to take +away and read," said Ruth, and went back to what she was saying. "That +is how I came to be able to call her my mother, at once. I mean the +moment I knew she was not Mrs. Prichard. Now that I know it, I keep +looking at her dear old face to make it out the same face that I kept on +thinking my mother in Australia had, all the time I thought she was +living there away from us. And if I had never known she died--I mean +had we never thought her dead--I would have gone on thinking the same +face. Oh, such a beautiful young face! Exactly like what mother's was +then!--the same face for her that it was when I last saw it...." + +"I see. And when you look at your--your aunt's face, you naturally do +not look for what she was forty years ago." + +"That is it, your ladyship. Because I have had mother to go by, all the +time. She has always been the same she was last week--last month--last +year--any time. What must it be to _her_, to see me what I am!" + +"I don't believe it is harder for her to think about than it is for you. +She is feverish now, and that makes her wander. People are always worse +in the morning. Dr. Nash says so. I thought yesterday she seemed so +clear--almost understood it all." Thus Gwen, not over-sure of her facts. + +"She was worse," said Ruth, thinking back into the recent events, "that +evening I showed her the mill. That was her bad time. Who knows but that +has made it easier for her now? I shouldn't wonder.... And to think that +I thought her mad, and never guessed who I was, myself, all that time." + +"Was that the model?" said Gwen, thinking that anything the mind could +rest on might make the thing more real for Ruth. "Do you know I have +only half seen it? I should so like to see it again. Why have you +covered it up?" A few words explained this, and the mill was again put +on the table. If the little dolly figures had only possessed faculties, +they would have wondered why, after all these years, they were awakening +such an interest among the big movable creatures outside the glass. How +they would have wondered at Gwen's next words:--"And those two have +lived to be eighty years old and are in the next room!" + +Then she was not sure she had not made matters worse. "Oh dear!" said +Widow Thrale, "it is all impossible--_impossible_! This was old when I +was a child." + +Gwen was not prepared to submit to Time's tyranny. "What does it +matter?" said she intrepidly. "There is no need for _possibility_, that +I can see. She _is_ here, and the thing to think of now is--how can we +keep her? It will all seem natural in three weeks. See now, how they +know one another, and talk of old times already. She may live another +five--ten--fifteen years. Who can say?" + +"She _is_ talking to mother now, I think," said Widow Thrale, listening. +For the voices of the twins came from the bedroom. "Suppose we go +back!" + +"Yes--and you look at the two faces together, this time." + +"I will look," was the reply, with a shade of doubt in it that +added:--"I may not see the resemblance." + +Gwen went first. The two old faces were close together as they entered, +and she could see, more plainly than she had ever seen it yet, their +amazing similarity. She could see how much thinner old Maisie was of the +two. It was very visible in the hand that touched her sister's, which +was strong and substantial by comparison. + +The monotonous bells at Chorlton Church had said all they could to +convince its congregation that the time had come for praise and prayer; +and had broken into impatient thrills and jerks that seemed to say:--"If +you don't come for this, nothing will fetch you!" The wicked man who had +been waiting to go for a brisk walk as soon as the others had turned +away from their wickedness, and were safe in their pews making the +responses, was getting on his thickest overcoat and choosing which stick +he would have, or had already decided that the coast was clear, and had +started. Old Maisie's face on the pillow was attentive to the bells. She +looked less feverish, and they were giving her pleasure. + +What was that she was saying, about some bells? "Old Keturah's husband +the sexton used to ring them. You remember him, Phoebe darling?--him and +his wart. We thought it would slice off with a knife, like the topnoddy +on a new loaf if one was greedy.... And you remember how we went up his +ladder into the belfry, and I was frightened because it jumped?" + +Old Phoebe remembered. "Yes, indeed! And old Jacob saying if he could +clamber up at ninety-four, we could at fourteen. Then we pulled the +bells. After that he would let us ring the curfew." + +Just at that moment the last jerk cut off the last thrill of the chimes +at Chorlton, and the big bell started thoughtfully to say it was eleven +o'clock. Old Maisie seemed suddenly disquieted. "Phoebe darling!" she +said. And then, touching her sister's hand, with a frightened +voice:--"This _is_ Phoebe, is it not?... No, it is not my eyes--it is my +head goes!" For Gwen had said:--"Yes, this is your sister. Do you not +see her?" She then went on:--"My dear--my dear!--I am keeping you from +church. I want not to. I want _not_ to." + +"Never mind church for one day, dear," said Granny Marrable. "Parson he +won't blame me, stopping away this once. More by token, if he does miss +seeing me, he'll just think I'm at Denby's." + +"But, Phoebe--Phoebe!--think of long ago, how I would try to persuade +you to stop away just once, to please me--just only once! And now ..." +She seemed to have set her heart on her sister's going; a sort of not +very explicable tribute to "auld lang syne." + +Gwen caught what seemed a clue to her meaning. "I see," said she. "You +want to make up for it now. Isn't that it?" + +"Yes--yes--yes! And Ruth must go with her to take care of her.... Oh, +Phoebe, why should you be so much stronger than me?" She meant perhaps, +why should her sister's strength be taken for granted? + +Gwen looked at Granny Marrable, who was hesitating. Her look +meant:--"Yes--go! Why not?" A nod thrown in meant:--"Better go!" She +looked round for Ruth, to get her sanction or support, but Ruth was no +longer in the room. "What has become of Mrs. Thrale?" said Gwen. + +Ruth had vanished into the front-room, and there Gwen found her, looking +white. "I saw it," said she. "And it frightened me. I am a fool--why +have I not seen it before?" + +Gwen said:--"Oh, I see! You mean the likeness? Yes--it's--it's +startling!" Then she told of old Maisie's sudden whim about the service +at Chorlton Church. "As your ladyship thinks best!" said Ruth. Her +ladyship did think it best, on the whole. It would be best to comply +with every whim--could only have a sedative effect. She herself would +remain beside "your mother" while the two were away. Would they not be +very late? Oh, that didn't matter! Besides, everyone was late. Granny +Marrable and Ruth were soon in trim for a hasty departure. But as they +went away Ruth slipped into Lady Gwen's hand the accursed letter, as +promised. She had brought it out into the daylight again, unwillingly +enough. + +That was how it came about that Gwen found herself alone with old Maisie +that morning. + +"My dear--my dear!" said the old lady, as soon as Gwen was settled down +beside her, "if it had not been for you, I should have died and never +seen them--my sister and my Ruth.... I think I am sure that it is they, +come back.... It is--oh, it is--my Phoebe and my little girl.... Oh, +_say_ it is. I like you to say it." She caught Gwen by the arm, speaking +low and quickly, almost whispering. + +"Of course it is. And they have gone to church. They will be back to +dinner at one. Perhaps you will be strong enough to sit up at table.... +Oh no!--that certainly is not them back again. I think it is +Elizabeth--from next door; I don't know her name--putting the meat down +to roast.... Yes--she has her own Sunday dinner to attend to, but she +says she can be in both houses at once. I heard her say so to your +sister." Gwen felt it desirable to dwell on the relationship, when +chances occurred. + +"Elizabeth-next-door. I remember her when Ruth was Widow Thrale--it +seems so long ago now!... Yes--I wished Phoebe to go to church, because +she always wished to go. Besides, it made it like _then_." + +"'Made it like then?'" Gwen was not sure she followed this. + +"Yes--like then, when the mill was, and our father. Only before I +married and went away he made us go with him, always. He was very +strict. It was after that I would persuade Phoebe to leave me behind +when she went on Sunday. It was when she was married to Uncle Nicholas +who was drowned. We always called him Uncle Nicholas, because of my +little Ruth." + +Gwen thought a moment whether anything would be gained by clearing up +this confusion. Old Maisie's belief in "Uncle Nicholas's" death by +drowning, fifty years ago, clung to her mind, as a portion of a chaotic +past no visible surrounding challenged. It was quite negligible--that +was Gwen's decision. She held her tongue. + +But nothing of the Chaos was negligible. Every memory was entangled with +another. A sort of affright seemed to seize upon old Maisie, making her +hand tighten suddenly on Gwen's arm. "Oh, how was that--how was that?" +she cried. "They were together--all together!" + +"It was only what the letter said," answered Gwen. "It was all a made-up +story. Uncle Nicholas was not drowned, any more than your sister, or +your child." + +"Oh dear!" Old Maisie's hand went to her forehead, as though it stunned +her to think. + +"They will tell you when he died, soon, when you have got more settled. +_I_ don't know." + +"He must be dead, because Phoebe is a widow." + +"She is the widow of the husband she married after his death. That is +why her name is Marrable, not ... Cropworthy--was it?" + +"Not Cropworthy--Cropredy. Such a funny name we thought it.... But +then--Phoebe must think...." + +"Think what?" + +"Must think _I_ married again. Because I am Mrs. Prichard." + +"Perhaps she does think so. Why are you Mrs. Prichard? Don't tell me now +if it tires you to talk." + +"It does not tire me. It is easier to talk than to think. I took the +name of Prichard because I wanted it all forgotten." + +"About your husband having been--in prison?" + +"Oh no, no! I was not ashamed about that. He was wrong, but it was only +money. It was my son.... Oh yes--he was transported too--but that was +after.... It was only a theft. I cannot talk about my son." Gwen felt +that she shuddered, and that danger lay that way. The fever might +return. She cast about for anything that would divert the conversation +from that terrible son. Dave and Dolly, naturally. + +"Stop a minute," said she. "You have never seen Dave's letter that he +wrote to say he knew all about it." And she went away to the front room +to get it. + +A peaceful joint was turning both ways at the right speed by itself. The +cat, uninterested, was consulting her own comfort, and the cricket was +persevering for ever in his original statement. Saucepans were simmering +in conformity, with perfect faith in the reappearance of the human +disposer of their events, in due course. Dave's letter lay where Gwen +had left it, between the flower-pots on the window-shelf. She picked it +up and went back with it to the bedside. + +"You must have your spectacles and read it yourself. Can you? Where +shall I find them?" + +"I think my Ruth has put them in the watch-pocket with my watch, over my +head here." She could make no effort to reach them, but Gwen drew out +both watch and glasses. "What a pretty old watch!" said she. + +It pleased the old lady to hear her watch admired. "I had it when I went +out to my husband." She added inexplicably:--"The man brought it back to +me for the reward. He had not sold it." Then she told, clearly enough, +the tale you may remember her telling to Aunt M'riar; about the convict +at Chatham, who brought her a letter from her husband on the river hulk. +"Over fifty years ago now, and it still goes. Only it loses--and +gains.... But show me my boy's letter." She got her glasses on, with +Gwen's help, and read. The word "cistern" was obscure. She quite +understood what followed, saying:--"Oh, yes--so much longer ago than +Dolly's birthday! And we did--we did--think we were dead and buried. The +darling boy!" + +"He means each thought the other was. I told him." Gwen saw that the old +face looked happy, and was pleased. She began to think she would be easy +in her mind at Pensham, to-morrow, about old Mrs. Picture, and able to +tell the story to her blind lover with a light heart. + +Old Maisie had come to the postscript. "What is this at the end?" said +she. "'The tea is stood ready' for me. And for Granny Marrowbone too." +Gwen saw the old face looking happier than she had seen it yet, and was +glad to answer:--"Yes--I saw the tea 'stood ready' by your chair. All +but the real sugar and milk. Dolly sits beside it on the floor--all her +leisure time I believe--and dreams of bliss to come. Dave sympathizes at +heart, but affects superiority. It's his manhood." Old Maisie said +again:--"The darling children!" and kept on looking at the letter. + +Gwen's satisfaction at this was to be dashed slightly. For she found +herself asked, to her surprise, "Who is Granny Marrowbone?" She +replied:--"Of course Dave wants his other Granny, from the country." She +waited for an assent, but none came. + +Instead, old Maisie said reflectively, as though recalling an incident +of some interest:--"Oh yes!--Granny Marrowbone was his other Granny in +the country, where he went to stay, and saw Jones's Bull. I think she +must be a nice old lady." Gwen said nothing. Better pass this by; it +would be forgotten. + +But the strong individuality of that Bull came in the way. Had not they +visited him together only the other day? He struck confusion into memory +and oblivion alike. The face Gwen saw, when the letter that hid it fell +on the coverlid, was almost terrified. "Oh, see the things I say!" cried +old Maisie, in great distress of mind. "How am I ever to know it right?" +She clung to Gwen's hand in a sort of panic. In a few moments she said, +in an awed sort of voice:--"Was that Phoebe, then, that I saw when we +stopped at the Cottage, in the carriage, after the Bull?" + +"Yes, dear! And you are in the Cottage now. And Phoebe is coming back +soon. And Ruth." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + CATHERINE WHEELS. CENTIPEDES. CENTENARIANS. BACKGAMMON. IT. + HEREAFTER CORNER. LADY KATHERINE STUARTLAVEROCK. BISHOP BERKELEY. + THE COUNTESS'S VISIT REVIEWED. A CODEX OF HUMAN WEAKNESS. AN + EXPOSITION OF SELFISHNESS. HOW ADRIAN WOULD HOLD ON LIKE GRIM + DEATH. A BELDAM, CRONE, HAG, OR DOWDY. SUICIDE. THE LITTLE BOTTLE + OF INDIAN POISON. MORE SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. GWEN'S DAILY BULLETINS. + ONESIMUS. TURTLE SOUP AND CHAMPAGNE. FOXBOURNE. HOW THEY WENT TO + CHORLTON, AND ANOTHER DOG SMELT ACHILLES + + +As he who has godfathered a Catherine Wheel stands at a respectful +distance while it spits and fizzes, so may the story that reunites +lovers who have been more than a week apart. The parallel, however, does +not hold good throughout, for the Catherine Wheel usually gets stuck +after ignition, and has to be stimulated judiciously, while lovers--if +worth the name--go off at sight. In many cases--oh, so many!--the +behaviour of the Catherine Wheel is painfully true to life. Its +fire-spin flags and dies and perishes, and nothing is left of it but a +pitiful black core that gives a last spasmodic jump and is for ever +still! + +Fireworks are only referred to here in connection with the former +property. When Gwen reappeared at Pensham, Miss Torrens--this is her own +expression--"cleared out" until her brother and her visitor "came to +their senses." The Catherine Wheel, in their case, had by that time +settled down from a tempest of flame-spray to a steady lamplight, +endurable by bystanders. The story need not wait quite so long, but may +avail itself of the first return of sanity. + +"Dearest--are you really going to stop till Saturday?" + +"If you think we shan't quarrel. Four whole days and a bit at each end! +_I_ think it's tempting Providence." + +"Why not stop over Sunday, and make an honourable week of it and no +stinting?" + +"Because I have a papa coming back to his ancestral home, on Saturday +evening, and he will come back boiled and low from Bath waters, inside +and out, and he'll want a daughter to give him tone. He gets rid of the +gout, but ..." + +"But. Exactly! It's the insoluble residuum that comes back. However, you +_will_ be here till Friday night." + +"Can't even promise that! I may be sent for." + +"Why?... Oh, I know--the old lady. How is she? Tell me more about her. +Tell me lots about her." + +Whereupon Gwen, who had been looking forward to doing so, started on an +exhaustive narrative of her visit to Strides Cottage. She had not got +far when Irene thought it safe to return--hearing probably the narrative +tone of voice--and then she had to tell it all over again. + +"When I left the Cottage yesterday at about three o'clock," said Gwen, +in conclusion, "she was so much better that I felt quite hopeful about +her." + +"Quite hopeful about her?" Irene repeated. "But if she has nothing the +matter with her, except old age, why be anything but hopeful?" + +"You would see if you saw her. She looks as if a puff of wind would blow +her away like thistledown." + +"That," Adrian said, "is a good sign. There is no guarantee of a long +life like attenuation. Bloated people die shortly after you make their +acquaintance. No, no--for true vitality, give me your skeleton! A +healthy old age really sets in as soon as one is spoken of as still +living." + +"Oh dear, yes!" said Irene. "I'm sure Gwen's description sounds exactly +like this old lady becoming a ... There!--I've forgotten the word! +Something between a centipede and a Unitarian...." + +"Centenarian?" + +"Exactly. See what a good thing it is to have a brother that knows +things. A person a hundred years old. I tell you, Gwen dear, my own +belief is these two old ladies mean to be centenarians, and if we live +long enough we shall read about them in the newspapers. And they will +have a letter from Royalty!" + +In the evening Gwen got Adrian, whose sanguine expressions were not +serious, on a more sane and responsible line of thought. His +lady-mother, with whom this story is destined never to become +acquainted, retired early, after shedding a lurid radiance of symptoms +on the family circle; and it, as a dutiful circle, had given her its +blessing and dropped a tear by implication over her early departure from +it. Sir Hamilton had involved his daughter in a vortex of backgammon, a +game draught-players detest, and _vice versa_, because the two games are +even as Box and Cox, in homes possessing only one board. So Gwen and +Adrian had themselves to themselves, and wanted nothing more. Her eyes +rested now and then with a new curiosity on the Baronet, deep in his +game at the far end of the room. She was looking at him by the light of +his handsome daughter's saucy speculation about that romantic passage in +the lives of himself and her mamma. Suppose--she was saying to herself, +with monstrous logic--he had been _my_ papa, and _I_ had had to play +backgammon with him! + +She was recalled from one such excursion of fancy by Adrian +saying:--"Are you sure it would not have been better for the old +twins--or one of them--to die and the other never be any the wiser?" + +Said Gwen:--"I am not sure. How can I be? But it was absolutely +impossible to leave them there, knowing it, unconscious of each other's +existence." + +Adrian replied:--"It _was_ impossible. I see that. But suppose they +_had_ remained in ignorance--in the natural order of events I mean--and +the London one had died unknown to her sister, would it not have been +better than this reunion, with all its tempest of pain and raking up of +old memories, and quite possibly an early separation by death?" + +"I think not, on the whole. Because, suppose one had died, and the other +had come to know of her death afterwards!" + +"I am supposing the contrary. Suppose both had continued in ignorance! +How then?" + +It was not a question to answer off-hand. Gwen pondered; then said +abruptly:--"It depends on whether we go on or stop. Now doesn't it?" + +"As bogys? That question always crops up. If we stop I don't see how +there can be any doubt on the matter. Much better they should have died +in ignorance. The old Australian goody was quite contented, as I +understand, at Scraps Court, with her little boy and girl to make tea +for her. And the old body at Chorlton and her daughter would have gone +on quite happily. They didn't want to be excoriated by a discovery." + +"Yes--that is what it has been. Excoriation by a discovery. I'm not at +all sure you're right--but I'll make you a present of it. Let's consider +it settled that death in ignorance would have been the best thing for +them." + +"Very well!--what next?" + +"What next? Why, of course, suppose we don't stop, but go on! You often +say it is ten to one against it." + +"So it is. I can't say I'm sorry, on the whole." + +"That's neither here nor there. Ten to one against is one to ten for. +Any man on the turf will tell you that." + +"And any Senior Wrangler will confirm it." + +"Very well, then! There we are. Suppose my dear old Mrs. Picture and +Granny Marrable had turned up as ghosts, on the other side...." + +"I see. You've got me in Hereafter Corner, and you don't intend to let +me out." + +"Not till you tell me whether they would have been happy or miserable +about it, those two ghosts. In your opinion, of course! Don't run away +with the idea that I think you infallible." + +"There are occasions on which I do not think myself infallible. For +instance, when I have to decide an apparently insoluble problem without +data of any sort. Your expression 'turned up as ghosts, on the other +side,' immediately suggests one." + +"You can say whether you think they would have been happy or miserable +about having been in England together over twenty years, and never known +it. _That's_ simple enough!" + +"Don't be in a hurry! There are complications. If they knew they were +ghosts, they might become interested in the novelty of their position, +and be inclined to accept accomplished facts. Recrimination would be +waste of time. If they didn't know ..." + +"Goose!--they would be sure to know." + +"The only information I have goes to prove the contrary. When Voltaire's +ghost came and spirit-rapped, or whatever you call it ..." + +"I know. One turns tables, and it's very silly." + +"... they said triumphantly that they supposed, now he was dead, he was +convinced of another existence. And he--or it--rapped out:--'There is +only one existence. I am not dead.' So he didn't know he was a ghost." + +Gwen seemed tolerant of Voltaire, as a _pourparler_. "Perhaps," she said +thoughtfully, "he found he jammed up against the other ghosts instead of +coinciding with them.... You know Lady Katherine Stuartlaverock tried to +kiss her lover's ghost, and he gave, and she went through." + +"A very interesting incident," said Adrian. "If she had been a ghost, +too, she would, as you say, have jammed. If Dr. Johnson had known that +story, he would have been more reasonable about Bishop Berkeley.... What +did he say about _him_? Why, he kicked a cask, and said if the Bishop +could do that, and not be convinced of the reality of matter, he would +be a fool, Sir. I wonder if one said 'Sir,' as often as Dr. Johnson, one +would be allowed to talk as much nonsense." + +"Boswell must have made that story." + +"Very likely. But Boswell made Sam Johnson. Just as we only know of the +existence of Matter through our senses, so we only know of Sam's +existence through Bozzy. I am conscious that I am becoming prosy. Let's +get back to the old ladies." + +"Well--it was you that doddered away from them, to talk about Voltaire's +bogy. If they _didn't_ know they were ghosts, what then?" + +"If they didn't know they were ghosts, the discovery would have been +just as excoriating as it has been here. Possibly worse, because--what +does one know? Now your full-blown disembodied spirit ... Mind you, this +is only my idea, and may be quite groundless!..." + +"Now you've apologized, go on! 'Your full-blown disembodied spirit' ..." + +"... may be so absorbed in the sudden and strange surprise of the +change--Browning--as to be quite unable to partake of excruciation, even +with a twin sister.... It is very disagreeable to think of, I admit. +But so is nearly every concrete form in which one clothes an imaginary +other-worldliness." + +"Why is it disagreeable to think of being able to shake off one's +troubles, and forget all about them. _I_ like it." + +"Well, I admit that I was beginning to say that I thought these two +venerable ladies, meeting as ghosts--not spectres you know, in which +case each would frighten t'other and both would run away--would probably +be as superior to painful memories on this side as the emancipated +butterfly is to its forgotten wiggles as a chrysalis. But it has dawned +upon me that Perfect Beings won't wash, and that the Blessed have +drawbacks, and that their Choir would pall. I am inclined to back out, +and decide that the two of them would have been more miserable if the +discovery had come upon them post mortem than they will be now--in a +little time at least. At first of course it must be maddening to think +of the twenty odd years they have been cheated out of. Really the Divine +Disposer of Events might have had a little consideration for the +Dramatis Personae." He jumped to another topic. "You know your mamma paid +our papa a visit last--last Thursday, wasn't it?--yes, Thursday!" + +"Oh yes--I heard all about it. She had a short chat with him, and he +gave her a very good cup of tea. He told her about some very old +acquaintances whom she hadn't heard of for years who live in Tavistock +Square." + +"Was _that_ all?" + +"No. The lady very-old acquaintance had been a Miss Tyrawley, and had +married her riding-master." + +"Was _that_ all?" + +"No. She called you and 'Re 'the son and daughter.' Then she talked of +our 'engagement as your father persists in calling it.' My blood boiled +for quite five minutes." + +"All that sounds--very usual! Was there nothing else? That was very +little for such a long visit." + +"How long was the visit?" + +"Much too long for what you've told me. Think of something else!" + +Now Gwen had been keeping something back. Under pressure she let it out. +"Well--mamma thought fit to say that your father entirely shared her +views! Was that true?" + +"Which of her views?... I suppose I know, though! I should say it was +half-true--truish, suppose we call it!" Then Adrian began to feel he had +been rash. How was he to explain to Gwen that his father thought she was +perhaps--to borrow his own phrase--"sacrificing herself on his shrine"? +It would be like calling on her to attest her passion for _him_. Now a +young lady is at liberty to make any quantity of ardent protestations +_off her own bat_, as the cricketers say; but a lover cannot solicit +testimonials, to be produced if called for by parents or guardians. +However, Gwen had no intention of leaving explanation to him. She +continued:-- + +"When my mother said that your father entirely shared her views, I know +which she meant, perfectly well. She has got a foolish idea into her +head--and so has my dear old papa, so she's not alone--that I am +marrying you to make up to you for ... for the accident." She found it +harder and harder to speak of the nature of the accident. This once, she +must do it, _coûte que coûte_. She went on, speaking low that nothing +should reach the backgammon-players. "They say it was _our_ fault that +old Stephen shot you.... Well!--it _was_...." + +"My darling, I have frequently pointed out the large share the Primum +Mobile had in the matter, to say nothing of the undoubted influence of +Destiny...." + +"Silly man--I am talking seriously. I don't know that it really matters +whether it was or wasn't--wasn't our fault, I mean--so long as they +think I think it was. That's the point. Now, the question is, did or did +not my superior mamma descend on your _comme-il-faut_ parent to drum +this idea into him, and get him on her side?" + +"Am I supposed to know?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I will be frank with you. Always be frank with mad bulls who butt +you into corners and won't let you out. Your mamma's communications with +my papa had the effect you indicate, and he took me into his confidence +the same evening. He too questions the purity of your motives in +marrying me, alleging that they are vitiated by a spirit of +self-sacrifice, tainted by the baneful influence of unselfishness. He is +alive to the possibility that you hate me cordially, but are +pretending." + +"Oh, my dearest, I wish I _did_ hate you.... Why?--why of course then it +would really _be_ a sacrifice, and something to boast of. As it is.... +Well--I'm consulting my own convenience, and I ... I am the best judge +of my own affairs. It suits me to ... to lead you to the altar, and I +shall do it. As for what other people think, all I can say is, I will +thank Europe to mind its own business." + +Then Adrian said:--"I am conscious of the purity of my own motives. I +believe it would be impossible to discover a case of a Selfishness more +unalloyed than mine, if all the records of Human Weakness were carefully +re-read by experts at the British Museum. I am assuming the existence of +some Digest or Codex of the rather extensive material...." + +"Don't go off to that. I always have such difficulty in keeping you to +the point. How selfish are you, and why?" + +"I doubt if I can succeed in telling you how selfish I am, but there's +no harm in trying." Speech hung fire for a moment, to seek for words; +then found them. "I am a thing in the dark, with an object, and I call +it Gwen. I am an atom adrift in a huge black silence, and it crushes my +soul, and I am misery itself. Then I hear the voice that I call Gwen's, +and forthwith I am happy beyond the wildest dreams of the Poets--though +really that isn't saying much, because their wildest dreams are usually +unintelligible, and frequently ungrammatical...." + +"Never mind them! Go on with how selfish you are." + +"Can't you let a poor beggar get to the end of his parenthesis? I was +endeavouring to sketch the situation, as a preliminary to going on with +how selfish I am. I was remarking that however dissatisfied I feel with +the Most High, however sulky I am with the want of foresight in the +Primum Mobile--or his indifference to my interests; it comes to the same +thing--however inclined to cry out against the darkness, the darkness +that once was light, I no sooner hear that voice that I call Gwen's than +I am at least in the seven-hundredth heaven of happiness. When I hear +that voice, I am all Christian forgiveness towards my Maker. When it +goes, my heart is dumb and the darkness gains upon me. That I beg to +state, is a simple prosaic statement of an everyday fact. When I have +added that the powers that I ascribe to the voice that I know to be +Gwen's are also inherent in the hand that I believe to be Gwen's.... +Don't pull it away!" + +"I only wanted to look at it. Just to see why you shouldn't know it was +mine, as well as the voice." + +"I _know_ I couldn't be mistaken about the voice. I don't _think_ I +could be wrong about the hand, but I don't know that I couldn't." + +"Well--now you've got it again! Now go on. Go on to how selfish you +are--that's what I want!" + +"I will endeavour to do so. I hope my imperfect indication of my view of +my own position...." + +"Don't be prosy. It is not fair to expect any girl to keep a popular +lecturer's head in her lap...." + +"I agree--I agree. It was my desire to be strictly practical. I will +come to the point. I want to make it perfectly clear that you _are_ my +life...." + +"Don't get too loud!" + +"All right!... that you are my life--my life--my glorious life! I want +you to see and know that but for you I am nothing--a wisp of straw blown +about by all the winds of Heaven--a mere unit of consciousness in a +blank, black void. See what comes of it! Here was I, before this +unfortunate result of what is from my point of view a lamentable +miscarriage of Destiny, a tolerably well-informed ... English male!... +Well--what else am I?... Sonneteer, suppose we say...." + +"Goose--suppose we say--or gander!" + +"All right! Here was I, before this mishap, not a scrap more brutally +self-indulgent and inconsiderate of everybody else than the ruck of my +fellow-ganders, and now look at me!" + +"Well--I'm looking at you!" + +"Am I showing the slightest consideration for you? Am I not showing the +most cynical disregard of your welfare in life?" + +"How?" + +"By allowing you to throw yourself away upon me." + +"It is no concern of yours what I do with myself. I do not intend you to +have any voice in the matter. Besides--just be good enough to tell me, +please!--suppose you made up your mind _not_ to allow me, how would you +set about it?" + +This was a poser, and the gentleman was practically obliged to +acknowledge it. "I couldn't say off-hand," said he. "I should have to +consult materfamiliases in Good Society, and look up precedents. Several +will occur at once to the student of Lemprière, some of which might be +more to the point than anything Holy Writ offers in illustration. But +all the cases I can recall at a moment's notice are vitiated by the +motives of their male actors. These motives were pure--they were pure +self-indulgence. In fact, their attitude towards their would-be charmers +had the character of a _sauve-qui-peut_. It was founded on strong +personal dislike, and has lent itself to Composition in the hands of the +Old Masters...." + +"Now I don't know what you are talking about. Answer my question and +don't prevaricate. How would you set about it?" + +"How indeed?" There was a note of seriousness in Adrian's voice, and +Gwen welcomed it, saying:--"That's right!--stop talking nonsense and +tell me." It became more audible as he continued:--"You are only asking +me because you know I cannot answer. Was ever a case known of a man who +cried off because the lady's relatives thought she didn't care about +him? What did he do? Did he write her a letter, asking her to consider +everything at an end between them until she could produce satisfactory +evidence of an unequivocal _sehnsucht_ of the exactly right +quality--_premier crû_--when her restatement of the case would receive +careful consideration? Rubbish!" + +"Not rubbish at all! He wrote her that letter and she wrote back +requesting him to look out for another young woman at his earliest +convenience, because she wasn't his sort. She did, indeed! But she +certainly was rather an unfortunate young woman, to be trothplight to +such a very good and conscientious young man." + +"_Rem tetigisti acu_," said Adrian. "Never mind what that means. It's +Latin.... Well then!--it means you've hit it. The whole gist of the +matter lies in my being neither good nor conscientious. I am a mass of +double-dyed selfishness. I would not give you up--it's very sad, but +it's true!--even for your own sake. I would not lose a word from your +lips, a touch of your hand, an hour of your presence, to have back my +eyesight and with it all else the world has to give, all else than this +dear self that I may never see...." + +"I'm glad you said _may_." + +"Yes, of course it's _may_. We mustn't forget that. But, dearest, I tell +you this, that if I were to get my sight again, and your august mammy's +impression were to turn out true after all, and you come to be aware +that, pity apart, your humble servant was not such a very...." + +"What should you do if I did?" + +"Shall I tell you? I should show the cloven foot. I should betray the +unreasoning greed of my soul. I should never let you go, even if I had +to resort to the brutality of keeping you to your word. I should simply +hold on like grim death. Would you hate me for it?" + +"N-no! I'm not sure that I should. We should see." Certainly the +beautiful face that looked down at the eyes that could not see it showed +no visible displeasure--quite the reverse. "But suppose I did! _Suppose_ +is a game that two can play at." + +"Very proper, and shows you understand the nature of an hypothesis. What +should I do?... What _should_ I do?" + +Gwen offered help to his perplexity. "And suppose that when _you_ came +to see _your_ bargain you had found out your mistake! Suppose that +Arthur's Bridge turned out all an Arabian Night! Suppose that the ... +well--satisfactory _personnel_ your imagination has concocted turned +out to be that of a beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy! How then?" + +Instead of replying, Adrian drew his hands gently over the face above +him, caressingly over the glorious mass of golden hair and round the +columnar throat Bronzino would have left reluctantly alone. Said Irene, +from the other end of the room:--"Are you trying Mesmeric experiments, +you two?" + +"He's only doing it to make sure I'm not a beldam," said Gwen +innocently. But to Adrian she added under her breath:--"It's only Irene, +so it doesn't matter. Only it shows how cautious one has to be." The +Baronet, attracted for one moment from his fascinating dice, contributed +a fragment to the conversation, and died away into backgammon. +"Hey--eh!--what's that?" said he. "Mesmerism--Mesmerism--why, you don't +mean to say you believe in _that_ nonsense!" After which Gwen and Adrian +were free to go on wherever they left off, if they could find the place. + +She found it first. "Yes--I know. 'Beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy!' Of +course. What I mean is--if it dawned on you that you were mistaken about +my identity ... I want you to be serious, because the thing is possible +... what would you do?" + +"There are so many _supposes_. Suppose you hated me and I thought you a +beldam! Practice would seem to suggest fresh fields and pastures new.... +But oh, the muddy, damp fields and the desolate, barren pastures.... I +know one thing I should do. I should wish myself back here in the dark, +with my feet spoiling the sofa cushion, and my head in the lap of my +dear delusion--my heavenly delusion. God avert my disillusionment! I +would not have my eyesight back at the price." + +"Don't get excited! Remember we are only pretending." + +"Not at all! I am being serious, because the thing is possible. Do you +know I can imagine nothing worse than waking from a dream such as I have +dreamt. It would be really _the worst_--worse than if _you_ were to die, +or change...." + +"I can't see that." + +"Clearly. I should not have the one great resource." + +"What resource?... Oh, I see!--you are working round to suicide. I +thought we should come to that." + +"Naturally, one who is not alive to the purely imaginary evil of +non-existence turns to his _felo de se_ as his sheet-anchor. Persons who +conceive that the large number of non-existent persons have a legitimate +grievance, on the score of never having been created at all, will think +otherwise. We must agree to differ." + +"But how very unreasonable of you not to kill yourself!--I mean in the +case of my not--not visualising well...." + +"Quite the reverse. Most reasonable. We are supposing three courses open +to Destiny. One, to kill you, lawlessly--Destiny being notoriously +lawless. Another to make you change your mind. A third to make me change +mine. The reasonableness of suicide in the first case is obvious, if +Death is not annihilation. I should catch you up. In the second, all the +Hereafters in the Universe would be no worse for me than Life in the +dark, without you, here and now. In the third case I should have no one +but myself to thank for a weak concession to Destiny, and it would be +most unfair to kill myself without your consent, freely given. And I am +by no means sure that by giving that consent you would not be legally an +accomplice in my _felo de se_. Themis is a colossal Meddlesome Matty +with her fingers in every pie." + +"Bother Themis! What a lot of nonsense! However, there was one gleam of +reason. You are alive to the fact that I should not consent to your +suicide. Or anyone else's. _I_ think it's wrong to kill oneself." + +"So do I. But it might be a luxury I should not deny myself under some +circumstances. I don't know that Hamlet would influence me. A certain +amount of nervousness about Eternity is inseparable from our want of +authentic information. I should hope for a healthy and effectual +extinction. Failing that, I should disclaim all responsibility. I should +point out that it lay, not with me, but my Maker. I should dwell on the +fact that Creators that make Hereafters are alone answerable for the +consequences; that I had never been consulted as to my own wishes about +birth and parentage; and that I should be equally contented to be +annulled, and, as Mrs. Bailey would have said, ill-convenience +nobody...." + +"Do you know why I am letting you go on?" + +"Because of my Religious Tone? Because of my Good Taste? Or why?" + +"Because I sometimes suspect you of being in earnest about suicide." + +"I am quite in earnest." + +"Very well, then. Now attend to me. I'm going to insist on your making +me a promise." + +"Then I shall have to make it. But I don't know till I hear it whether I +shall promise to keep it." + +"That's included." + +"But no promise to keep my promise to keep it's included." + +"Yes it is. If you keep on, I shall keep on. So you had better stop. +What you've got to promise is not to commit suicide under any +circumstances whatever." + +"Not under any circumstances whatever? That seems to me rather harsh and +arbitrary." + +"Not at all. Give me your promise." + +"H'm--well!--I'm an amiable, tractable sort of cove.... But I think I am +entitled to one little reservation." + +"It must be a very little one." + +"Anything one gives one's _fiancée_ is returned when she breaks one off. +When you break me off I shall consider the promise given +back--cancelled." + +"Ye-es! Perhaps that _is_ fair, on the whole. Only I think I deserve a +small consideration for allowing it." + +"I can't refuse to hear what it is." + +"Give me that little bottle of Indian poison. To take care of for you, +you know. I'll give it back if I break you off. Honour bright!" + +"I shouldn't want it till then, probably. And if I did, I could afford +sixpence for Prussic acid. Fancy being able to kill oneself, or one's +friends, for sixpence! It must have come to a lot more than that in the +Middle Ages. We have every reason to be thankful we are Modern...." + +"Don't go from the point. Will you give up the little bottle of Indian +poison, or not?" + +"Not. At least, not now! If I hand it to you at the altar, when you have +led me there won't that do?" + +Gwen considered, judicially, and appeared to be in favour of accepting +the compromise. "Only remember!" said she, "if you don't produce that +bottle at the altar--with the poison in it still; no cheating!--I shall +cry off, in the very jaws of matrimony." She paused a moment, lest she +should have left a flaw in the contract, then added:--"Whether I have +led you there or not, you know! Very likely you will walk up the aisle +by yourself." + +If Adrian had really determined to conceal the Miss Scatcherd incident +from Gwen, so as not to foster false hopes, he should have worded his +reply differently. For no sooner had he said:--"Well--we are all hoping +so," than Gwen exclaimed:--"_Then_ there has been more Septimius +Severus." Adrian accepted this without protest, as ordinary human +speech; and the story feels confident that if its reader will be on the +watch, he will very soon chance across something quite as unlike +book-talk in Nature. Adrian merely said:--"How on earth did you guess +that?" Gwen replied:--"Because you said, 'We are all hoping so'--not +'We hope so.' Can't you see the difference?" + +Anyway, Gwen's guess was an accomplished fact, and it was no use +pretending it was wrong. Said Adrian therefore:--"Yes--there _was_ a +little more Septimius Severus. I had rather made up my mind not to talk +about it, in case you should think too much of it." He then narrated the +Miss Scatcherd incident, checked and corrected by Irene from afar. The +narrator minimised the points in favour of his flash of vision, while +his commentator's corrections showed an opposite bias. + +Gwen was, strange to say, really uneasy about that little bottle of +Indian poison. Whether there was anything prophetic in this uneasiness, +it is difficult to determine. The decision of common sense will probably +be that she knew that Poets were not to be trusted, and she wished to be +on the safe side. By "common sense" we mean the faculty which +instinctively selects the common prejudices of its age as oriflammes to +follow on Life's battlefield. Hopkins the witch-finder's common sense +suggested pricking all over to find an insensible flesh-patch, in which +case the prickee was a witch. We prefer to keep an open mind about Lady +Gwendolen Rivers' foreboding anent that little bottle of Indian poison, +until vivisection has shown us, more plainly than at present, how brain +secretes Man's soul. We are aware that this language is Browning's. + + * * * * * + +Gwen remained at Pensham until the end of the week. Events occurred, no +doubt, but, with one exception, they are outside the story. That +exception was a visit to Chorlton, in order that Adrian should not +remain a stranger to the interesting old twins. His interest would have +been stronger no doubt could he have really seen them. Even as it was he +was keenly alive to the way in which old Mrs. Prichard seemed to have +fascinated Gwen, and was eager to make as much acquaintance with her as +his limitations left possible to him. + +Gwen contrived to arrange that she should receive every day from +Chorlton not only a line from Ruth Thrale, but an official bulletin from +Dr. Nash. + +The first of these despatches arrived on the Tuesday afternoon, she +having told her correspondents that that would be soon enough. It +disappointed her. She had left the old lady so much revived by the small +quantity of provisions that did duty for a Sunday dinner, that she had +jumped to the conclusion that another day would see her sitting up +before the fire as she had seen her in the celebrated chair with +cushions at Sapps Court. It was therefore rather a damper to be told by +Dr. Nash that he had felt that absolute rest continued necessary, and +that he had not been able to sanction any attempt to get Mrs. Prichard +up for any length of time. + +Gwen turned for consolation to Widow Thrale's letter. It was a model of +reserve--would not say too much. "My mother" had talked a good deal with +herself and "mother" till late, but had slept fairly well, and if she +was tired this morning it was no more than Dr. Nash said we were to +expect. She had had a "peaceful day" yesterday, talking constantly with +"mother" of their childhood, but never referring to "my father" nor +Australia. Dr. Nash had said the improvement would be slow. No reference +was made to any possibility of getting her into her clothes and a return +to normal life. + +Gwen recognised the bearer of the letters, a young native of Chorlton, +when she gave him the reply she had written, with a special letter she +had ready for "dear old Mrs. Picture." "I know you," said she. "How's +your Bull? I hope he won't kill Farmer Jones or anyone while you're not +there to whistle to him." To which the youth answered:--"Who-ap not! +Sarve they roi-ut, if they dwoan't let un bid in a's stall. A penned un +in afower a coomed away." Gwen thought to herself that life at Jones's +farm must be painfully volcanic, and despatched the Bull's guardian +genius on his cob with the largest sum of money in his pocket that he +had ever possessed in his life, after learning his name, which was +Onesimus. + +When Onesimus reappeared with a second despatch on the afternoon of the +next day, Wednesday, Gwen opened it with a beating heart in a hurry for +its contents. She did as one does with letters containing news, reading +persistently through to the end and taking no notice at all of Irene's +interrogatory "Well?" which of course was uttered long before the +quickest reader could master the shortest letter's contents. When the +end came, she said with evident relief:--"Oh yes, _that's_ all _right_! +Now if we drive over to-morrow, she will probably be up." + +"Is that what the letter says?" Adrian spoke, and Gwen, saying "He won't +believe my report, you see! You read it!"--threw the letter over to +Irene, who read it aloud to her brother, while Gwen looked at the other +letter, from Widow Thrale. + +What Irene read did not seem so very conclusive. Mrs. Prichard had had a +better night, having slept six hours without a break. But the great +weakness continued. If she could take a very little stimulant it would +be an assistance, as it might enable her to eat more. But she had an +unconquerable aversion to wine and spirits in any form, and Dr. Nash was +very reluctant to force her against her will. + +So said Adrian:--"What she wants is real turtle soup and champagne. _I_ +know." Whereupon his father, who was behind the _Times_--meaning, not +the Age, but the "Jupiter" of our boyhood, looked over its title, and +said:--"Champagne--champagne? There's plenty in the bin--end of the +cellar--Tweedie knows. You'll find my keys on the desk there"--and went +back to an absorbing leader, denouncing the defective Commissariat in +the Crimea. A moment later, he remembered a thing he had forgotten--his +son's blindness. "Stop a minute," he said. "I have to go, myself, later, +and I may as well go now." And presently was heard discussing +cellar-economics, afar, with Tweedie the butler. + +The lady of the house wanted the carriage and pair next day to drive +over to Foxbourne in the afternoon and wait to bring her back after the +meeting. The story merely gives the bold wording used to notify the +fact: it does not know what Foxbourne was, nor why there was a meeting. +Its only reason for referring to them is that the party for Chorlton had +to change its plans and go by the up-train from St. Everall's to +Grantley Thorpe, and make it stop there specially. St. Everall's, you +may remember, is the horrible new place about two miles from Pensham. +The carriage could take them there and be back in plenty of time, and +there was always a groggy old concern to be had at the Crown at Grantley +that would run them over to Strides Cottage in half an hour. If it had +been favourable weather, no doubt the long drive would have been much +pleasanter; but with the chance of a heavy downfall of snow making the +roads difficult, the short drives and short railway journey had +advantages. + +Therefore when the groggy old concern, which had seen better days--early +Georgian days, probably--pulled up at Strides Cottage in the afternoon, +with a black pall of cloud, whose white heralds were already coming +thick and fast ahead of it, hanging over Chorlton Down, two at least of +the travellers who alighted from it had misgivings that if their visit +was a prolonged one, its grogginess and antiquity might stand in its way +on a thick-snowed track in the dark, and might end in their being late +for the down-train at six. The third of their number saw nothing, and +only said:--"Hullo--snowing!" when on getting free of the concern one of +the heralds aforesaid perished to convince him of its veracity; gave up +the ghost between his shirt-collar and his epidermis. "Yes," he +continued, addressing the first inhabitant of the cottage who greeted +him. "You are quite right. I am the owner of a dog, and you do perfectly +right to inquire about him. His nose is singularly unlike yours. He will +detect your flavour when I return, and I shall have to allay his +jealousy. It is his fault. We are none of us perfect." The dog gave a +short bark which might have meant that Adrian had better hold his +tongue, as anything he said might be used against him. + +"Now you are in the kitchen and sitting-room I've told you of, because +it's both," said Gwen. "And here is Granny Marrable herself." + +"Give me hold of your hand, Granny. Because I can't see you, more's the +pity! I shall hope to see you some day--like people when they want you +not to call. At present my looks don't flatter me. People think I'm +humbugging when I say I can't see them. I _can't_!" + +"'Tis a small wonder, sir," said Granny Marrable, "people should be hard +of belief. I would not have thought you could not, myself. But being +your eyes are spared, by God's mercy, they be ready for the sight to +return, when His will is." + +"That's all, Granny. It's only the sight that's wanting. The eyes are as +good as any in the kingdom, in themselves." This made Gwen feel +dreadfully afraid Granny Marrable would think the gentleman was laughing +at her. But Adrian had taken a better measure of the Granny's childlike +simplicity and directness than hers. He ran on, as though it was all +quite right. "Anyhow, don't run away from us to Kingdom Come just yet a +while, Granny, and see if I don't come to see you and your sister--real +eyesight, you know; not this make-believe! I hope she's picking up." + +"She's better--because Dr. Nash says she's better. Only I wish it would +come out so we might see it. But it may be I'm a bit impatient. 'Tis the +time of life does it, no doubt." + +Ruth Thrale returned from the inner room. "She would like her ladyship +to go to her," said she. Gwen could not help noticing that +somehow--Heaven knows how, but quite perceptibly--the next room seemed +to claim for itself the status of an invalid chamber. She accompanied +Widow Thrale, who closed the room-door behind her, apparently to secure +unheard speech in the passage. "She isn't any _worse_, you know," said +Ruth, in a reassuring manner, which made her hearer look scared, and +start. "Only when she gets away to thinking of beyond the seas--that +place where she was--that _is_ bad for her, say how we may! Not that +she minds talking of my father, nor my brother that died, nor any tale +of the land and the people; but 'tis the coming back to make it all +fit." + +Gwen quite understood this, and re-worded it, for elucidation. "Of +course everything clashes, and the poor old dear can't make head or tail +of it! Has there been any particular thing, lately?" The reply +was:--"Yes--early this morning. She woke up talking about Mrs. Skillick, +the name sounded like, and how kind she was to bring her the fresh +lettuces. And then she found me by her and knew I was Ruth, but was all +in a maze why! Then it all seemed to come on her again, and she was in a +bad upset for a while. But I did not tell mother of that. I am glad you +have come, my lady. It will make her better." + +"Skillick wasn't Australia," said Gwen. "It was some person she lived +with here in England--not so long ago. Somewhere near London. What did +you do to quiet her?" + +"I talked to her about Dave and Dolly. That is always good for her--it +seems to steady her. Shall we go in, my lady? I think she heard you." +Again Gwen had an impression that concession had been made to the +inexorable, and that whereas four days ago it was taken for granted that +old Mrs. Picture's collapse was only to be temporary, a permanency of +invalidism was now accepted as a working hypothesis. Only a temporary +permanency, of course, to last till further notice! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + HOW GWEN INTRODUCED MR. TORRENS, AND MRS. PICTURE TOOK HOLD OF HIS + HAND. OF MR. TORREN'S FIRM FAITH IN DEVILS, AND OLD MAISIE'S + HAPPINESS THEREAT. THE DOCTOR'S MEMORY OF ADRIAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE + AS A CORPSE. THE LAXITY OF GENERAL PRACTIOTIONERS. HIS WISH TO + INTOXICATE MRS. PRICHARD. HOW GWEN SANG GLUCK TO ADRIAN, AND + ONESIMUS BROUGHT HER A LETTER. QUITE A GOOD REPORT. HOW GWEN WASN'T + ANXIOUS. OF ADRIAN'S INVISIBLE MOTHER. HER SELECTNESS, AND HIGH + BREEDING. ADRIAN'S VIEWS ABOUT SUICIDES. SURVIVORS' SELFISHNESS + TOWARDS THEM, HOW HE TALKED ABOUT THAT DEVIL, AND LET OUT THAT THE + OLD LADY HAD FLASHED ACROSS HIS RETINA. HOW HE HAD CLOTHED EACH + TWIN'S HEAD WITH THE OTHER'S HAIR + + +Has it not been the experience of all of us, many a time, that a few +days' clear absence from an invalid has been needed, to distinguish a +slow change, invisible to the watchers by the bedside? And all the +while, have not the daily bulletins made out a case for indefinable +slight improvements, negligible gains scarcely worth naming, whose total +some mysterious flaw of calculation persistently calls loss? + +There may have been very little actual change; there was room for so +little. But Gwen had been building up hopes of an improvement. And now +she had to see her house of cards tremble and portend collapse. She +saved the structure--as one has done in real card-life--by gingerly +removing a top storey, in terror of a cataclysm. She would not hope so +much--indeed, indeed!--if Fate would only leave some of her structure +standing. But she was at fault for a greeting, all but a disjointed word +or two, when Ruth, falling back, left her to enter the bedroom alone. + +It was a consolation to hear the old lady's voice. "My dear--my dear--I +knew you would come. I woke in the night, and thought to myself--she +will come, my lady. Then I rang, and my Ruth came. She comes so quick." + +"And then that was just as good as me," said Gwen. "Wasn't it?" + +"She is my child--my Ruth. And Phoebe is my Phoebe--years ago! But I +have to think so much, to make it all fit. You are not like that.' + +"What am I like?" + +"You are the same all through. You came upstairs to me in my room--did +you not?--where my little Dave and Dolly were...." + +"Yes--I fetched Dolly." + +"And then you put Dolly down? And I said for shame!--what a big girl to +be carried!" + +"Yes--and Dolly was carrying little dolly, with her eyes wide open. And +when I put her down on the floor, she repeated what you said all over +again, to little dolly:--'For same, what a bid dirl to be tallied!'" + +A gleam came on old Maisie's face as she lay there letting the idea of +Dolly soak into her heart. Presently she said, without opening her +eyes:--"I wonder, if Dolly lives to be eighty, will she remember old +Mrs. Picture. I should like her to. Only she is small." + +"Dear Mrs. Picture, you are talking as if you were not to have Dolly +again. Don't you remember what I told you on Sunday? I'm going to get +both the children down here, and Aunt M'riar. Unless, when you are +better, you like to go back to Sapps Court. You shall, you know!" + +Another memory attacked old Maisie. "Oh dear," said she, "I thought our +Court was all tumbled down. Was it not?" + +"Yes--the day I came. And then I carried you off to Cavendish Square. +Don't you remember?--where Miss Grahame was--Sister Nora." She went on +to tell of the promptitude and efficiency with which the repairs had +been carried out. For, strange to say, the power Mr. Bartlett possessed +of impressing Europe with his integrity and professional ability had +extended itself to Gwen, a perfect stranger, during that short visit to +the Court, and she was mysteriously ready to vouch for his sobriety and +good faith. Presently old Maisie grew curious about the voices in the +next room. + +"Is that a gentleman's voice, through the door, talking? It isn't Dr. +Nash. Dr. Nash doesn't laugh like that." + +"No--that is my blind man I have brought to see you. I told you about +him, you know. But he must not tire you too much." + +"But _can_ he see me?" + +"I didn't mean _see_, that way. I meant see to talk to. Some day he will +_really_ see you--with his eyes. We are sure of it, now. He shall come +and sit by you, and talk." + +"Yes--and I may hold his hand. And may I speak to him about ... about +..." + +"About his blindness and the accident? Oh dear yes! _You_ won't _see_ +that he's blind, you know." + +"His eyes look like eyes?" + +"Like beautiful eyes. I shall go and fetch him." She knew she was +straining facts in her prediction of their recovery of sight, but she +liked the sound of her own voice as she said it, though she knew she +would not have gone so far except to give her hearer pleasure. + + * * * * * + +Said old Maisie to Adrian, whom Gwen brought back to sit by her, giving +him the chair she had occupied beside the bed:--"You, sir, are very +happy! But oh, how I grieve for your eyes!" + +"Is Lady Gwendolen here in the room still?" said Adrian. + +"She has just gone away, to the other room," said old Maisie. For Gwen +had withdrawn. One at a time was the rule. + +"Very well, dear Mrs. Picture. Then I'll tell you. There never was a +better bargain driven than mine. I would not have my eyesight back, to +lose what I have got. No--not for fifty pairs of eyes." And he evidently +meant it. + +"May I hold your hand?" + +"Do. Here it is. I am sure you are a dear old lady, and can see what she +is. When I had eyes, I never saw anything worth looking at, till I saw +Gwen." + +"But is it a rule?" + +Adrian was perplexed for a moment. "Oh, I see what you mean," said he. +"No--of course not! I may have my eyesight back." Then he seemed to +speak more to himself than to her. "Men _have_ been as fortunate, even +as that, before now." + +"But tell me--is that what the doctor says? Or only guessing?" + +"It's what the doctor says, and guessing too. Doctors only guess. He's +guessing." + +"But don't they guess right, oftener than people?" + +"A little oftener. If they didn't, what use would they be?" + +"But you have seen _her_?" + +"Yes--once! Only once. And now I know she is there, as I saw her.... But +I want to know about you, Mrs. Picture dear. Because I'm so sorry for +you." + +"There is no need for sorrow for me, I am so happy to know my sister was +not drowned. And my little girl I left behind when I went away over the +great sea, and the wind blew, and I saw the stars change each night, +till they were all new. And then I found my dear husband, and lived with +him many, many happy years. God has been good to me, for I have had much +happiness." There was nothing but contentment and rest in her voice; but +then some of the tranquillity may have been due to exhaustion. + +Adrian made the mistake of saying:--"And all the while you thought your +sister dead." + +He felt a thrill in her hand as it tightened on his, and heard it in her +voice. "Oh, could it have been?" she said. "But I was told so--in a +letter." + +It was useless for Adrian to affect ignorance of the story; and, indeed, +that would have made matters worse, for it would have put it on her to +attempt the retelling of it. + +Perhaps he did his best to say:--"Lady Gwendolen has told me the whole +story. So I know. Don't think about it!... Well--that's nonsense! One +can't help thinking. I mean--think as little as possible!" It did not +mend matters much. + +Her mind had got back to the letter, and could not leave it. "I have to +think of it," she said, "because it was my husband that wrote that +letter. I know why he wrote it. It was not himself. It was a devil. It +came out of Roomoro the black witch-doctor and got a place inside my +husband. _He_ did not write that letter to Phoebe. _It_ wrote it. For +see how it had learned all the story when Roomoro sucked the little +scorpion's poison out of Mary Ann Stennis's arm!" + +To Adrian all this was half-feverish wandering; the limited delirium of +extreme weakness. No doubt these were real persons--Roomoro and Mary Ann +Stennis. It was their drama that was fictitious. He saw one thing +plainly. It was to be humoured, not reasoned with. So whatever was the +cause of a slight start and disconcertment of his manner when she +stopped to ask suddenly:--"But you do not believe in devils, +perhaps?"--it was not the one she had ascribed it to. In fact he was +quite ready with a semi-conscientious affirmative. "Indeed I do. Tell me +exactly how you suppose it happened, again. Roomoro was a native +conjurer or medicine-man, I suppose?" + +Then old Maisie recapitulated the tale her imagination had constructed +to whitewash the husband who had ruined her whole life, adding some +details, not without an interest for students of folklore, about the +devil that had come from Roomoro. She connected it with the fact that +Roomoro had eaten the flesh of the little black Dasyurus, christened the +"Native Devil" by the first Tasmanian colonists, from the excessive +shortness of its temper. The soul of this devil had been driven from the +witch-doctor by the poison of the scorpion, and had made for the nearest +human organisation. Adrian listened with as courteous a gravity as +either of us would show to a Reincarnationist's extremest doctrines. + +It was an immense consolation to old Maisie, evidently, to be taken in +such good faith. Having made up his mind that his conscience should not +stand between him and any fiction that would benefit this dear old lady, +Adrian was not going to do the thing by halves. He launched out into +reminiscences of his own experiences on the Essequibo and elsewhere, and +was able without straining points to dwell on the remarkable +similarities of the Magians of all primitive races. As he afterwards +told Gwen, he was surprised at the way in which the actual facts +smoothed the way for misrepresentation. He stuck at nothing in +professions of belief in unseen agencies, good and bad; apologizing +afterwards to Gwen for doing so by representing the ease of believing in +them just for a short time, to square matters. Optional belief was no +invention of his own, he said, but an ancient and honourable resource of +priesthoods all the world over. + +It was the only little contribution he was able to make towards the +peace of mind without which it seemed almost impossible so old a +constitution could rally against such a shock. And it was of real +value, for old Maisie sorely needed help against her most awful +discovery of all, the hideous guilt of the man whom she had loved +ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it only this. It palliated her son's +crimes. But then there was a difference between the son and the father. +The latter had apparently done nothing to arouse his wife's detestation. +Forgery is a delinquency--not a diabolism! + +They talked more--talked a good deal in fact--but only of what we know. +Then Gwen came back, bringing Irene to make acquaintance. This young +lady behaved very nicely, but admitted afterwards that she had once or +twice been a little at a loss what to say. + +As when for instance the old lady, with her tender, sad, grey eyes fixed +on Miss Torrens, said:--"Come near, my dear, that I may see you close." +And drew her old hand, tremulously, over the mass of rich black hair +which the almost nominal bonnet of that day left uncovered, with the +reticular arrangement that confined it, and went on speaking, +dreamily:--"It is very beautiful, but _my_ lady's hair is golden, and +shines like the sun." Thereon Gwen to lubricate matters:--"Yes--look +here! But I know which I like best." She managed to collate a handful of +her own glory of gold and her friend's rich black, in one hand. "I know +which _I_ like best," said Irene. And Gwen laughed her musical laugh +that filled the place. "No head of hair is a prophet in its own +country," said she. + +Old Maisie was trying to speak, but her voice had gone low with fatigue. +"Phoebe and I," she was saying, "long ago, when we were girls.... It was +a trick, you know, a game ... we would mix our hair like that, and make +little Jacky Wetherall guess whose hair he had hold of. When he guessed +right he had sugar. He was three. His mother used to lend him to us when +she went out to scrub, and he never cried...." She went on like this, +dwelling on scraps of her girlhood, for some time; then her voice went +very faint to say:--"Phoebe was there then. Phoebe is back +now--somehow--how is it?" Gwen saw she had talked enough, and took Irene +away; and then Ruth Thrale went to sit with her mother. + + * * * * * + +Dr. Nash, who arrived during their absence, had been greeted by Adrian +after his "first appearance as a corpse," last summer. He would have +known the doctor's voice anywhere. "You never _were_ a corpse," said +that gentleman. To which Mr. Torrens replied:--"You _thought_ I was a +corpse, doctor, you know you did!" + +Dr. Nash, being unable to deny it, shifted the responsibility. "Well," +said he, "Sir Coupland thought so too. The fact is, we had quite given +you up. When he came out and said to me:--'Come back. I want you to see +something,' I said to him:--'Is that why the dog barked?' Because your +dog had given a sudden queer sort of a bark. And he said to me:--'It +isn't only the dog. It's Lady Gwen Rivers.'" + +"What did he mean by that?" said Gwen. + +"He meant that your ladyship's strong impression that the body.... +Excuse my referring to you, Mr. Torrens, as...." + +"As 'the body'? Not at all! I mean, don't apologize." + +"The--a--subject, say, still retained vitality. No doubt we _might_ have +found out--probably _should_...." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Gwen remorselessly. "You would have buried +him alive if it hadn't been for me. You doctors are the most careless, +casual creatures. It was me and the dog--so now Mr. Torrens knows what +he has to be thankful for!" + +"Well--as a matter of fact, it was the strong impression of your +ladyship that did the job. We doctors are, as your ladyship says, an +incautious, irresponsible lot. I hope you found Mrs. Prichard going on +well." + +Gwen hesitated. "I wish she looked a little--thicker," said she. + +Dr. Nash looked serious. "We mustn't be in too great a hurry. Remember +her age, and the fact that she is eating almost nothing. She won't take +regular meals again--or what she calls regular meals--till the tension +of this excitement subsides...." + +Said Adrian:--"It's perfectly extraordinary to me, not seeing her, to +hear her talk as she does. Because it doesn't give the impression of +such weakness as that. Her hands feel very thin, of course." + +Said the doctor:--"I wish I could get her to take some stimulant; then +she would begin eating again. If she could only be slightly intoxicated! +But she's very obdurate on that point--I told you?--and refuses even Sir +Cropton Fuller's old tawny port. I talked about her to him, and he sent +me half a dozen the same evening. A good-natured old chap!--wants to +make everyone else as dyspeptic as himself...." + +"That reminds me!" said Gwen. "We forgot the champagne." + +"No, we didn't," said Irene. "It was put in the carriage, I know. In a +basket. Two bottles lying down. And it was taken out, because I saw it." + +"But _was_ it put in the railway carriage?" + +"I meant the railway carriage." + +"I believe it's in the old Noah's Ark we came here in, all the while." + +Granny Marrable said:--"I am sure there has nothing been brought into +the Cottage. Because we should have seen. There is only the door +through, to go in and out." + +"You see, Dr. Nash," said Gwen, "when you said that in your letter, +about her wanting stimulant, champagne immediately occurred to Sir +Hamilton. So we brought a couple of bottles of the King of Prussia's +favourite Clicquot, and a little screwy thing to milk the bottles with, +like a cow, a glass at a time. Miss Torrens and I are quite agreed that +very often one can get quite pleasantly and healthily drunk on champagne +when other intoxicants only give one a headache and make one ill. Isn't +it so, 'Re?" Miss Torrens and her brother both testified that this was +their experience, and Dr. Nash assented, saying that there would at +least be no harm in trying the experiment. + +As for dear old Granny Marrable, her opinion was simply that whatever +her ladyship from the Towers, and the young lady from Pensham and her +brother, were agreed upon, was beyond question right; and even if +medical sanction had not been forthcoming she would have supported them. +"I am sure," said she, "my dear sister will drink some when she knows +your ladyship brought it for her." + +The reappearance of the Noah's Ark, when due, confirmed Gwen's view as +to the whereabouts of the basket, and was followed by a hasty departure +of the gentlefolks to catch the downtrain from London. As Granny +Marrable watched it lurching away into the fast-increasing snow, it +looked, she thought, as if it could not catch anything. But if old +Pirbright, who had been on the road since last century, did not know, +nobody did. + + * * * * * + +The day after this visit, when Gwen was singing to Adrian airs from +Gluck's "Alceste," Irene and her father being both absent on Christmas +business, social or charitable, the butler brought in a letter from Ruth +Thrale in the very middle of a _sostenuto_ note,--for when did any +servant, however intelligent, allow music to stop before proceeding to +extremities?--and said, respectfully but firmly, that it was the same +boy, and he would wait. He seemed to imply that the boy's quality of +identity was a sort of guarantee of his waiting--a good previous +character for permanency. Gwen left "Alceste" in C minor, and opened her +letter, thanking Mr. Tweedie cordially, but not able to say he might go, +because he was another family's butler. Adrian said:--"Is that from the +old lady?" And when Gwen said:--"Yes--it's Onesimus. I wonder he was +able to get there, over the snow,"--he dismissed Mr. Tweedie with the +instruction that he should see that Onesimus got plenty to eat. The +butler ignored this instruction as superfluous, and died away. + +Then Gwen spun round on the music-stool to read aloud. "'Honoured +lady';--Oh dear, I wish she could say 'dear Gwen'; but I suppose it +wouldn't do.--'I am thankful to be able to write a really good report of +my mother'.... You'll see in a minute she'll have to speak of Granny +Marrable and she'll call her 'mother' without the 'my.' See if she +doesn't!... 'Dr. Nash said she might have some champagne, and we said +she really must when you so kindly brought it. So she said indeed yes, +and we gave it her up to the cuts.' That means," said Gwen, "the cuts of +the wineglass." She glanced on in the letter, and when Adrian +said:--"Well--that's not all!"--apologized with:--"I was looking on +ahead, to see that she got some more later. It's all right. '... up to +the cuts, and presently', as Dr. Nash said, was minded to eat something. +So I got her the sweetbread she would not have for dinner, which warmed +up well. Then we persuaded her to take a little more champagne, but Dr. +Nash said be careful for fear of reaction. Then she was very chatty and +cheerful, and would go back a great deal on old times with mother....' I +told you she would," said Gwen, breaking off abruptly. + +"Of course she will always go back on old times," said Adrian. + +"I didn't mean that. I meant call her aunt 'mother' without the 'my.' +Let me go on. Don't interrupt! '... old times with mother, and one thing +in particular, their hair. Mother pleased her, because she could +remember a little child Jacky they would puzzle to tell which hair was +which, saying if she held them like that Jacky could tell, and have +sugar. For their hair now is quite strong white and grey instead of both +the same....' She was telling us about Jacky--me and Irene--yesterday, +and I suppose that was what set her off.... 'She slept very sound and +talked, and then slept well at night. So we are in good spirits about +her, and thank God she may be better and get stronger. That is all I +have to tell now and remain dutifully yours....' Isn't that delightful? +Quite a good report!" Instructions followed to Onesimus not to bring any +further news to Pensham, but to take his next instalment to the Towers. + +These things occurred on the Friday, the day after the visit to +Chorlton. Certainly that letter of Widow Thrale's justified Lady +Gwendolen in feeling at ease about Mrs. Picture during the remainder of +her visit to Pensham, and the blame she apportioned to herself for an +imagined neglect afterwards was quite undeserved. + +Adrian Torrens ought to have been in the seventh heaven during the +remainder of an almost uninterrupted afternoon. Not that it was +absolutely uninterrupted, because evidences of a chaperon in abeyance +were not wanting. A mysterious voice, of unparalleled selectness, or +_bon-ton_, or gentility, emanated from a neighbouring retreat with an +accidentally open door, where the lady of the house was corresponding +with philanthropists in spite of interruptions. It said:--"What _is_ +that? I know it _so_ well," or, "That air is very familiar to me," or, +"I cannot help thinking Catalani would have taken that slower." To all +of which Gwen returned suitable replies, tending to encourage a belief +in her questioner's mind that its early youth had been passed in a +German principality with Kapellmeisters and Conservatoriums and a Court +Opera Company. This excellent lady was in the habit of implying that she +had been fostered in various _anciens régimes_, and that the parentage +of anything so outlandish and radical as her son and daughter was quite +out of her line, and a freak of Fate at the suggestion of her husband. + +Intermittent emanations from Superiority-in-the-Bush were small +drawbacks to what might perhaps prove the last unalloyed interview of +these two lovers before their six months' separation--that terrible +Self-Denying Ordinance--to which they had assented with a true prevision +of how very unwelcome it would be when the time came. It was impossible +to go back on their consent now. Gwen might have hoisted a standard of +revolt against her mother. But she could not look her father in the face +and cry off from the fulfilment of a condition-precedent of his consent +to the perfect freedom of association of which she and Adrian had +availed themselves to the uttermost, always under the plea that the +terms of the contract were going to be honourably observed. As for +Adrian, he was even more strongly bound. That appeal from the Countess +that his father had repeated and confirmed was made direct to his +honour; and while he could say unanswerably:--"What would you have me +do?" nothing in the world could justify his rebelling against so +reasonable a condition as that their sentiments should continue +reciprocal after six months of separation. + +His own mind was made up. For his views about suicide, however much he +spoke of them with levity, were perfectly serious. If he lost Gwen, he +would be virtually non-existent already. The end would have come, and +the thing left to put an end to would no longer be a Life. It would +only be a sensibility to pain, with an ample supply of it. A bare bodkin +would do the business, but did not recommend itself. The right +proportion of Prussic Acid had much to say on its own behalf. It was +cheap, clean, certain, and the taste of ratafia was far from unpleasant. +But he had a lingering favourable impression of the Warroo medicine-man, +whose faith in the efficacy and painlessness of his nostrum was evident, +however much was uncertain in his version of its _provenance_. + +As to any misgivings about awakening in another world, if any occurred +to Adrian he had but one answer--he had _been dead_, and had found death +unattended with any sort of inconvenience. Resuscitation had certainly +been painful, but he did not propose to leave any possibility of it, +this time. His death, _that_ time, had been a sudden shock, followed +instantly by the voice of Gwen herself, which he had recognised as the +last his ears had heard. If Death could be so easily negotiated, why +fuss? The only serious objection to suicide was its unpopularity with +survivors. But were they not sometimes a little selfish? Was this +selfishness not shown to demonstration by the gratitude--felt, beyond a +doubt--to the suicide who weights his pockets when he jumps into +mid-ocean, contrasted with the dissatisfaction, to say the least of it, +which the proprietor of a respectable first-class hotel feels when a +visitor poisons himself with the door locked, and engages the attention +of the Coroner. There was Irene certainly--and others--but after all it +would be a great gain to them, when the first grief was over, to have +got rid of a terrible encumbrance. + +Therefore Adrian was quite at his ease about the Self-Denying Ordinance; +at least, if a clear resolve and a mind made up can give ease. He said +not a word of his views and intentions beyond what the story has already +recorded. What right had he to say anything to Gwen that would put +pressure on her inclinations? Had he not really said too much already? +At any rate, no more! + +Nevertheless, the foregoing made up the background of his reflections as +he listened to more "Alceste," resumed after a short note had been +written for Onesimus to carry back over the frost-bound roads to +Chorlton. And he was able to trace the revival in his mind of suicide by +poison to Mrs. Picture's narration of the Dasyurus and the witch-doctor +who had cooked and eaten its body. This fiction of her fever-ridden +thoughts had set him a-thinking again of the Warroo conjurer. He had not +repeated any of it to Gwen, lest she should be alarmed on old Maisie's +behalf. For it had a very insane sound. + +But after such a prosperous report of her condition, above all, of the +magical effect of that champagne, it seemed overnice to be making a +to-do about what was probably a mere effect of overheated fancy, such as +the circumstances might have produced in many a younger and stronger +person. So when Alceste had provided her last soprano song, and the +singer was looking for "Ifigenia in Aulide," Adrian felt at liberty to +say that old Mrs. Picture's ideas about possession were very funny and +interesting. + +"Isn't it curious?" said Gwen. "She really believes it all, you know, +like Gospel. All that about the devil that had possession of her +husband! And how when he died, he passed his devil on to his son, who +was worse than himself." + +"That's good, though," said Adrian. "Only she never told me about the +son. I had it all about the witch-doctor whose devil came out because he +couldn't fancy the little scorpion's flavour. And all about the original +devil--a sort of opossum they call a devil...." + +"She didn't tell me about him." + +"They've got one at the Zoological Gardens. He's an ugly customer. The +keeper said he was a limb, if ever there was one. The old lady evidently +thought her idea that the doctor's devil was this little beggar's soul, +eaten up with his flesh, was indisputable. I told her I thought it had +every intrinsic possibility, and I'm sure she was pleased. But the +horror of her face when she spoke of him was really...." + +"Adrian!" + +"What, dearest? Anything the matter?" + +"Only the way you put it. It was so odd. 'The horror of her face'! Just +as if you had _seen_ it!" Indeed, Gwen was looking quite disconcerted +and taken aback. + +"There now!" said Adrian. "See what a fool I am! I never meant to tell +of that. Because I thought it threw a doubt on Scatcherd. I've been +wanting to make the most of Scatcherd. I never thought much of Septimius +Severus. Anyone might have said in my hearing that the bust was moved, +and it was just as I was waking. But I'll swear no one said anything +about Scatcherd. Why--there _was_ only Irene!" + +Gwen went and sat by him on the sofa. "Listen, darling!" said she. "I +want to know what you are talking about. What was it happened, and why +did it throw a doubt on Miss Scatcherd?" + +"It wasn't anything, either way, you know." + +"I know. But what was it, that wasn't anything, either way?" + +"It was only an impression. You mustn't attach any weight to it." + +"Are you going to tell what it was, or _not_?" + +"Going to. Plenty of time! It was when the old lady began telling me +about the devil. Her tone of conviction gave me a strong impression what +she was looking like, and made an image of her flash across my retina. +By which I mean, flash across the hole I used to see through when I had +a retina. It was almost as strong and life-like as real seeing. But I +knew it _wasn't_." + +"But how--how--how?" cried Gwen, excited. "_How_ did you know that it +wasn't?" + +"Because of the very white hair. It was snow-white--the image's. I +suppose I had forgotten which was which, of the two old ladies--had put +the saddle on the wrong horse." + +Gwen looked for a moment completely bewildered. "What on, earth, can, +he, mean?" said she, addressing Space very slowly. Then, speaking as one +who has to show patience with a stiff problem:--"Dearest man--dearest +incoherency!--do try and explain. Which of the old ladies do you suppose +has white hair, and which grey?" + +"Old Granny Marrable, I thought." + +"Yes--but _which hair_? Which? Which? Which?" + +"White, I thought, not grey." Whereupon Gwen, seeing how much hung upon +the impression her lover had been under hitherto about these two tints +of hair, kept down a growing excitement to ask him quietly for an exact, +undisjointed statement, and got this for answer:--"I have always thought +of Granny Marrable's as snow-white, and the old Australian's as grey. +Was that wrong?" + +"Quite wrong! It's the other way round. The Granny's is grey and old +Mrs. Picture's is silvery white." + +Adrian gave a long whistle, for astonishment, and was silent. So was +Gwen. For this was the third incident of the sort, and what might not +happen? Presently he broke the silence, to say:--"At any rate, that +leaves Scatcherd a chance. I thought if this was a make-up of my own, it +smashed _her_." + +"Foolish man! There is more in it than that. You _saw_ old Mrs. Picture. +It was no make-up.... Well?" She paused for his reply. + +It came after a studied silence, a dumbness of set purpose. "Oh +why--why--is it always Mrs. Picture, or Scatcherd, or Septimius Severus? +Why can it never be Gwen--Gwen--Gwen?" + +The attenuated _chaperonage_ of the lady of the house may have been +moved by a certain demonstrativeness of her son's at this point, to say +from afar:--"I _hope_ we are going to have some 'Ifigenia in Aulide.' +Because I _should_ have enjoyed _that_." Which carried an implication +that the musical world had been palming off an inferior article on a +public deeply impressible by the higher aspects of Opera. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + HOW THE EARL ASKED AFTER THE OLD TWINS. MERENESS. RECUPERATIVE + POWER. HOW THE HOUSEHOLD HAD ITS ANNUAL DANCE. HOW THE COUNTESS HAD + A CRACKED LIP. HOW WAS DR. TUXFORD SOMERS? SIR SPENCER DERRICK. + GENERAL RAWNSLEY. HE AND GWEN'S INTENDED GREAT GRANDMOTHER-IN-LAW. + GWEN HAD NEVER HAD TWINS BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. THE + GENERAL'S BROTHER PHILIP. SUPERANNUATED COCKS AND HENS. HOW GWEN + HAD DREAMED SHE WAS TO MARRY A KETTLE-HOLDER. HOW MRS. LAMPREY HAD + A LETTER FOR GWEN, WHICH TOOK GWEN OFF TO CHORLTON AT MIDNIGHT + + +When the Earl of Ancester came back to the Towers next day he certainly +did look a little boiled down; otherwise, cheerful and collected. "I am +quite prepared to endure another Christmas," said he resignedly to Gwen. +"But a little seclusion and meditation is good to prepare one for the +ordeal, and Bath certainly deserves the character everybody gives it, +that you never meet anybody else there. I suppose Coventry and Jericho +have something in common with Bath. I wonder if outcasts can be +identified in either. Nothing distinguishes them in Bath from the +favourites of Fortune. How are the old ladies?" + +This was in the study, where the Earl and his daughter got a quiet ten +minutes to recapitulate the story of each during the other's absence. It +was late in the afternoon, two hours after his arrival from London. He +had been there a day or two to make a show of fulfilling his obligations +towards politics; had sat through a debate or two, and had taken part in +a division or two, much to the satisfaction of his conscience. "But," +said he to Gwen, "if you ask me which I have felt most interest in, your +old ladies or the Foreign Enlistment Act, I should certainly say the old +ladies." So it was no wonder his inquiry about them came early in this +recapitulation. + +Gwen found herself, to her surprise, committed to an apologetic tone +about old Mrs. Picture's health, and maintaining that she was _really_ +better intrinsically, although evidently some person or persons unnamed +must have said she was worse. She started on her report with every +good-will to make it a prosperous one, and got entangled in some +trivialities that told against her purpose. Perhaps her last letter to +her father, written from Pensham on the night of her arrival there, had +given too rose-coloured an account of her visit to Chorlton, and had +caused the rather serious headshake which greeted her admission that old +Maisie was still a quasi-invalid, on her back from the merest--quite the +merest--weakness. The Earl admitted that, as a general rule, weakness +might be mere enough to be negligible; but then it should be the +weakness of young and strong people, possessed of that delightful +property "recuperative power," which does such wonders when it comes to +the scratch. Never be without it, if you can help. + +The episode of the champagne was reassuring, and gave Hope a helping +hand. Moreover, Gwen had just got another letter from Ruth Thrale, +brought by Onesimus the bull-cajoler, which gave a very good account on +the whole, though one phrase had a damping effect. We were not "to rely +on the champagne," as it was "not nourishment, but stimulus." She _must_ +be got to take food regularly, said Dr. Nash, however small the +quantity. This seemed to suggest that she had fallen back on that +vicious practice of starvation. But "my mother" was constantly talking +with "mother" about old times, and it was giving "mother" pleasure. + +"I wish," said Gwen, as her father went back to "Honoured Lady" for +second reading, and possibly second impressions, "I wish that Dr. Nash +had written separately. I want to know what he thinks, and I want to +know what Ruth thinks. I can mix them up for myself." + +The Earl read to the end, and suspended judgment, visibly. "Eighty-one!" +said he. "And how did Granny Marrable take it? You never said in your +letters." + +"Because I did not see her. Dr. Nash told--at least, he tried to. But I +told you about the little boy's letter. She knew it from that." + +"I remember.... Well!--we must hope." And then they spoke of matters +nearer home; the impending journey to Vienna; a perplexity created by a +promise rashly given to Aunt Constance that she should be married from +the Ancester town-residence--two things which clashed, for how could +this wedding wait till the Countess's return?--and ultimately of Gwen's +own prospects. Then she told her father the incident of Adrian's +apparent vision of old Mrs. Picture, and both pretended that it was too +slight to build upon; but both used it for a superstructure of private +imaginings. Neither encouraged the other. + +Adrian and his sister were to have returned with Gwen to the Towers to +stay till Monday, which was Christmas Day, when their own plum-pudding +and mistletoe would claim them at Pensham. This arrangement was not +carried out, possibly in deference to the Countess, who was anxious to +reduce to a minimum everything that tended to focus the public gaze on +the lovers. Gwen was under a social obligation, inherited perhaps from +Feudalism, to be present at the Servants' Ball, which would have been on +Christmas Eve had that day not fallen on a Sunday. Hence the necessity +for her return on the Saturday, and the interview with her father just +recorded. The quiet ten minutes filled the half-hour between tea and +dressing for a dinner which might prove a scratch meal in itself, but +was distinguished by its sequel. A general adjournment was to follow to +the great ball-room, which was given over without reserve on this +occasion to the revellers and their friends from the environs; for at +the Towers nothing was done by halves in those days. There the august +heads of the household were expected to walk solemnly through a +quadrille with the housekeeper and head butler. Mrs. Masham's and Mr. +Norbury's sense of responsibility on these occasions can neither be +imagined nor described. This great event made conscientious dressing for +dinner more than usually necessary, however defective the excitement of +the household might make the preparation and service thereof. + +These exigencies were what limited Gwen's quiet ten minutes with her +father within the narrow bounds of half an hour, leaving no margin at +all for more than three words with her mother on her way to her own +interview with Miss Lutwyche. She exceeded her estimate almost before +her ladyship's dressing-room door had swung to behind her. + +"Well, mamma dear, I hope you're satisfied." + +"I am, my dear. At least, I am not dissatisfied.... Don't kiss me in +front, please, because I have a little crack on the corner of my lip." +The Countess accepted her daughter's _accolade_ on an unsympathetic +cheek-bone. "What are you referring to?" + +"Why--Adrian not coming till to-morrow, of course. What did you suppose +I meant?" + +"I did not suppose. Some day you will live to acknowledge--I am +convinced of it--that what your father and I thought best was dictated +by simple common sense and prudence. I am sure Sir Hamilton will not +misinterpret our motives. Nor Lady Torrens." + +"He's a nice old Bart, the Bart. We are great friends. He likes it. He +gets all the kissing for nothing.... What?" + +The Countess may have contemplated some protest against the pronounced +ratification implied of fatherdom-in-law. She gave it up, and said:--"I +was not going to say anything. Go on!" + +The way in which these two guessed each other's thoughts was phenomenal. +Gwen knew all about it. "Come, mamma!" said she. "You know the Bart +would not have liked it half so much if I had been a dowdy." + +"I cannot pretend to have thought upon the subject." If her ladyship +threw a greater severity into her manner than the occasion seemed to +call for, it was not merely because she disapproved of her beautiful +daughter's want of _retenue_, or questionable style, or doubtful taste, +or defective breeding. You must bear all the circumstances in mind as +they presented themselves to her. Conceive what the "nice old Bart" had +been to her over five-and-twenty years ago, when she herself was a +dazzling young beauty of another generation! Think how strange it must +have been, to hear the audacities of this new creature, undreamed of +then, spoken so placidly through an amused smile, as she watched the +firelight serenely from the arm-chair she had subsided on--an anchorage +"three words" would never have warranted, even the most unbridled +polysyllables. "Do you not think"--her dignified mamma continued--"you +had better be getting ready for dinner? You are always longer than me." + +"I'm going directly. Lutwyche is never ready. I suppose I ought to go, +though.... You are not asking after my old lady, and I think you might." + +"Oh yes," said her ladyship negligently. "I haven't seen you since you +didn't go to church with me. How _is_ your old lady?" + +"You don't care, so it doesn't matter. How was Dr. Tuxford Somers?" + +"My dear--don't be nonsensical! How can you expect me to gush over about +an old person I have not so much as seen?" She added as an +afterthought:--"However worthy she may be!" + +"You could have seen her quite well, when she was here. Papa did. +Besides, one can show a human interest, without gushing over." + +"My dear, I hope I am never wanting in human interest. How is Mrs.... +Mrs....?" + +"Mrs. Prichard?" + +"Yes--how is she? Is she coming back here?" + +"Is it likely? Besides, she can't be moved." + +"Oh--it's as bad as that!" + +"My dear mamma, haven't I told you fifty times?" This was not exactly +the case; but it passed, in conversation. "The darling old thing was all +but killed by being told...." + +"By being told?... Oh yes, I remember! They were sisters, in Van +Diemen's Land.... But she's better again now?" + +"Yes--better. Oh, here's Starfield, and there's papa in his room. I can +hear him. I must go." + +At dinner that evening nobody was in any way new or remarkable, unless +indeed Sir Spencer and Lady Derrick, who had been in Canada, counted. +There was one guest, not new, but of interest to Gwen. Do you happen to +remember General Rawnsley, who was at the Towers in July, when Adrian +had his gunshot accident? It was he who was nearly killed by a Mahratta, +at Assaye, when he was a young lieutenant. Gwen had issued orders that +he should take her in to dinner, when she heard on her arrival that he +had accepted her mother's invitation for Christmas. + +Consider dinner despatched--the word is suitable, for an approach to +haste was countenanced or tolerated, in consideration of the household's +festivity elsewhere--and so much talking going on that the old General +could say to Gwen without fear of being overheard:--"Now tell me some +more about your fellow.... Adrian, isn't he?... He _is_ your fellow, +isn't he?--no compliments necessary?" + +"He's my fellow, General, to you and all my _dear_ friends. You saw him +in July, I think?" + +"Just saw him--just saw him! Hardly spoke to him--only a word or two. +Your father took me in to see him, because I was in love with his +great-grandmother, once upon a time." + +"His _great_-grandmother, General? You must mean his grandmother." + +"Not a bit of it, my dear! It's all quite right. I was a boy of +eighteen. I'm eighty-four. Sixty-six years ago. If Mary Tracy was alive +now, she'd make up to eighty-six. Nothing out of the way in that. She +was a girl of twenty then." + +"Was it serious, General?" + +"God bless me, my dear, serious? I should rather think it was! Why--we +ran away together, and went capering over the country looking for a +parson to marry us! Serious? Rather! At least, it might have been." + +"Oh, General, do tell me what came of it. Did you find the parson?" + +"That was just it. We found the Rector of Threckingham--it was in +Lincolnshire--and he promised to marry us in a week if he could find +someone to give the bride away. He took possession of the young lady. +Then a day or two after down comes Sir Marmaduke and Lady Tracy, black +in the face with rage, and we were torn asunder, threatening suicide as +soon as there was a chance. I was such a jolly innocent boy that I never +suspected the Rector of treachery. Never guessed it at all! He told me +thirty years after--a little more. Saw him when the Allied Sovereigns +were in London--before Waterloo." + +"And that young thing was Adrian's _great_-grandmother!" said Gwen. Then +she felt bound in honour to add:--"She was old enough to know better." + +"She didn't," said the General. "What's so mighty funny to me now is to +think that all that happened about the time of the Revolution in Paris. +Rather before." + +Gwen's imagination felt the vertigo of such a rough grapple with the +Past. These things make brains reel. "When my old twins were two little +girls in lilac frocks," said she. + +"Your _what_?" Perhaps it was no wonder--so Gwen said afterwards--that +the General was a little taken aback. She would have been so very old to +have had twins before the French Revolution. She was able to assign a +reasonable meaning to her words, and the old boy became deeply +interested in the story of the sisters. So much so that when the ladies +rose to go, she said calmly to her mother:--"I'm not coming this time. +You can all go, and I'll come when we have to start the dancing. I want +to talk to General Rawnsley." And the Countess had to surrender, with an +implication that it was the only course open in dealing with a lunatic. +She could, however, palliate the position by a reference to the abnormal +circumstances. "We are quite in a state of chaos to-day," said she to +her chief lady-guest. And then to the Earl:--"Don't be more than five +minutes.... Well!--no longer than you can help." + +The moment the last lady had been carefully shut out by the young +gentleman nearest the door, Gwen drove a nail in up to the head, _more +suo_. Suppose General Rawnsley had lost a twin brother fifty years ago, +and she, Gwen, had come to him and told him it had all been a mistake, +and the brother was still living! What would that feel like? What would +he have done? + +"Asked for it all over again," said the General, after consideration. +"Should have liked being told, you see! Shouldn't have cared so very +much about the brother." + +"No--do be serious! Try to think what it would have felt like. To oblige +me!" + +The General tried. But without much success. For he only shook his head +over an undisclosed result. He could, however, be serious. "I suppose," +said he, "the twinnery--twinship--whatever you call it...." + +"Isn't _de rigueur_?" Gwen struck in. "Of course it isn't! Any real +fraternity would do as well. Now try!" + +"That makes a difference. But I'm still in a fix. Your old ladies were +grown up when one went off--and then she wrote letters?..." + +"Can't you manage a grown-up brother?" + +"Nothing over fourteen. Poor Phil was fourteen when he was drowned. +Under the ice on the Serpentine. He had just been licking me for boning +a strap of his skate. I was doing the best way I could without it ... to +get mine on, you see ... when I heard a stop in the grinding noise--what +goes on all day, you know--and a sort of clicky slooshing, and I looked +up, and there were a hundred people under the ice, all at once. There +was a f'ler who couldn't stop or turn, and I saw him follow the rest of +'em under. Bad sort of job altogether!" The General seemed to be +enjoying his port, all the same. + +Said Gwen:--"But he used to lick you, so you couldn't love him." + +"Couldn't I? I was awfully fond of Phil. So was he of me. I expect Cain +was very fond of Abel. They loved each other like brothers. Not like +other people!" + +"But Phil isn't a fair instance. Can't you do any better than Phil? +Never mind Cain and Abel." + +"H'm--no, I can't! Phil's not a bad instance. It's longer ago--but the +same thing in principle. If I were to hear that Phil was really +resuscitated, and some other boy was buried by mistake for him, I should +... I should...." The General hung fire. + +"What should you do? That's what I want to know.... Come now, +confess--it's not so easy to say, after all!" + +"No--it's not easy. But it would depend on the way how. If it was like +the Day of Judgement, and he rose from the grave, as we are taught in +the Bible, just the same as he was buried.... Well--you know--it +wouldn't be fair play! _I_ should know _him_, though I expect I should +think him jolly small." + +"But he wouldn't know you?" + +"No. He would be saying to himself, who the dooce is this superannuated +old cock? And it would be no use my saying I was his little brother, or +he was my big one." + +"But suppose it wasn't like the Day of Judgement at all, but real, like +my old ladies. Suppose he was another superannuated old cock! My old +ladies are superannuated old hens, I suppose." + +"I suppose so. But I understand from what you tell me that they _have_ +come to know one another again. They talk together and recall old times? +Isn't that so?" + +"Oh dear yes, and each knows the other quite well by now. Only I believe +they are still quite bewildered about what has happened." + +"Then I suppose it would be the same with me and my redivivus +brother--on the superannuated-old-cock theory, not the Day of Judgement +one." + +"Yes--but I want you not to draw inferences from _them_, but to say what +you would feel ... of yourself ... out of your own head." + +The General wanted time to think. The question required thought, and he +was taking it seriously. The Earl, seeing him thinking, and Gwen waiting +for the outcome, came round from his end of the table, and took the seat +the Countess had vacated. He ought to have been there before, but it +seemed as though Gwen's _escapade_ had thrown all formalities out of +gear. He was just in time for the General's conclusion:--"Give it up! +Heaven only knows what I should do! Or anyone else!" + +Gwen restated the problem, for her father's benefit. "I am with you, +General," said he. "I cannot speculate on what I should do. I am +inclined to think that the twinship has had something to do with the +comparative rapidity of the ... recohesion...." + +"Very good word, papa! Quite suits the case." + +"... recohesion of these two old ladies. When we consider how very early +in life they took their meals together...." The General murmured _sotto +voce_:--"Before they were born." "... we must admit that their case is +absolutely exceptional--absolutely!" + +"You mean," said Gwen, "that if they had not been twins they would not +have swallowed each other down, as they have done." + +"Exactly," said the Earl. + +"And yet," Gwen continued, "they never remember things as they happened. +In fact, they are still in a sort of fog about what _has_ happened. But +they are quite sure they are Maisie and Phoebe. I do think, though, +there is only one thing about Maisie's Australian life that Granny +Marrable believes, and that is the devil that got possession of the +convict husband.... _Why_ does she? Because devils are in the Bible, of +course." Here the devil story was retold for the benefit of the General, +who did not know it. + +The Earl did, so he did not listen. He employed himself thinking over +practicable answers to the question before the house, and was just in +time to avert a polemic about the authenticity of the Bible, a subject +on which the General held strong views. "What helps me to an idea of a +possible attitude of mind before a resurrection of this sort," he said, +"is what sometimes happens when you wake up from a dream years long, a +dream as long as a lifetime. Just the first moment of all, you can +hardly believe yourself free of the horrid entanglement you had got +involved in...." + +"I know," said Gwen. "The other night I dreamed I was going to be +married to a young gentleman I had known from childhood. Only he was a +kettle-holder with a parrot on it." + +"Didn't I object?" said the Earl. + +"You were upstairs. Don't ask explanations. That was all there was in +the dream. You were upstairs. And the dream had been all my life. Don't +fidget about particulars." + +"I won't. That's the sort of dream I mean. It seems all perfectly right +and sound until your waking life comes back, and then vanishes. You only +regret your friends in the dream for a few seconds, and then--they are +nobody!" + +"Don't quite see the parallel, yet. These old ladies haven't waked from +a dream, that I see." Thus the General, and Gwen told him he was a +military martinet, and lacking in insight. + +Her father continued:--"Each of them has dreamed the other was dead, for +half a century. _Now_ they are awake. But I suspect, from what Gwen +says, that the discovery of the dream has thrown a doubt on all the rest +of the fifty years." + +"That's it," said Gwen. "If the whole story of the two deaths is false, +why should Van Diemen's Land be true? Why should the convict and the +forgery be true?" + +"Husbands and families are hard nuts to crack," said the General. "Can't +be forgotten or disbelieved in, try 'em any side up!" + +At this point a remonstrance from the drawing-room at the delay of the +appearance of the males caused a stampede and ended the discussion. Gwen +rejoined her own sex unabashed, and the company adjourned to the scene +of the household festivity. It is not certain that the presence of his +lordship and his Countess, and the remainder of the party _in esse_ at +the Towers really added to the hilarity of the occasion. But it was an +ancient usage, and the sky might have fallen if it had been rashly +discontinued. The compromise in use at this date under which the +magnates, after walking through a quadrille, melted away imperceptibly +to their normal quarters, was no doubt the result of a belief on their +part that the household would begin to enjoy itself as soon as +formalities had been complied with, and it was left to do so at its own +free-will and pleasure. Nevertheless, a hint at abolition would have +been blasphemy, and however eager the rank and file of the establishment +may have been for the disappearance of the bigwigs, not one of them--and +still more not one of their many invited neighbours--ever breathed a +hint of it to another. + +Shortly after ten Gwen and some of the younger members of the party +wound up a fairly successful attempt to make the materials at their +disposal dance the Lancers, and got away without advertising their +departure. It was a great satisfaction to overhear the outbreak of +unchecked roystering that followed. Said Gwen to Miss Dickenson and Mr. +Pellew, who had entered into the spirit of the thing and co-operated +with her efforts to the last:--"They will be at bear-garden point in +half an hour. Poor respectable Masham!" To which Aunt Constance +replied:--"I suppose they won't go on into Sunday?" The answer was:--"Oh +no--not till Sunday! But Sunday is a _day_, after all, not a night." Mr. +Pellew said:--"Sunrise at eight," and Gwen said:--"I think Masham will +make it Sunday about two o'clock. We shan't have breakfast till eleven. +You'll see!" + +They were in the great gallery with the Van Dycks when Gwen stopped, as +one stops who thinks suddenly of an omission, and said, as to herself, +more than to her hearers:--"I wonder whether she meant me." + +"Whether who meant you?" said both, sharing the question. + +"Nothing.... Very likely I was mistaken.... No--it was this. You saw +that rather _piquante_, dry young woman? You know which I mean?" + +"Danced with that good-looking young groom?..." + +"Yes--my Tom--Tom Kettering. It was what I heard her say to Lutwyche ... +some time ago.... 'Remember she's not to have it till to-morrow +morning.' It just crossed my mind, did she mean me? I dare say it was +nothing." + +"I heard that. It was a letter." Mr. Pellew said this. + +"Had you any impression about it?" + +"I thought it was some joke among the servants." + +Gwen was disquieted, evidently. "I wish I hadn't heard it," said she, +"if it isn't to be delivered till to-morrow. That young woman is Dr. +Nash's housekeeper--Dr. Nash at Chorlton." She was speaking to ears that +had heard all about the twin sisters. She interrupted any answer that +meant to follow "Oh!" and "H'm!" by saying abruptly:--"I must see +Lutwyche and find out." + +They turned with her, and retraced their steps, remarking that no doubt +it was nothing, but these things made one uncomfortable. Much better to +find out, and know! + +A casual just entering to rejoin the revels stood aside to allow them to +pass, but was captured and utilised. "Go in and tell Miss Lutwyche I +want to speak to her out here." Gwen knew all about local class +distinctions, and was aware her maid would not be "Lutwyche" to a +village baker's daughter. The girl, awed into some qualification of mere +assent, which might have been presumptuous, said:--"Yes, my lady, if you +please." + +Lutwyche was captured and came out. "What was it I was not to have till +to-morrow morning, Lutwyche? You know quite well what I mean. What was +the letter?" + +The waiting-woman had a blank stare in preparation, to prevaricate with, +but had to give up using it. "Oh yes--there _was_ a _note_," she said. +"It was only a note. Mrs. Lamprey brought it from Dr. Nash. He wished +your ladyship to have it to-morrow." + +"I will have it at once, thank you! Have you got it there? Just get it, +and bring it to me at once." + +"I hope your ladyship does not blame me. I was only obeying orders." + +"Get it, please, and don't talk." Her ladyship was rather incensed with +the young woman, but not for obeying orders. It was because of the +attempt to minimise the letter. It was just like Lutwyche. Nothing would +make that woman _really_ truthful! + +Lutwyche caught up the party, which had not stopped for the finding of +the letter, at the drawing-room door. Gwen opened it as she entered the +room, saying, to anyone within hearing:--"Excuse my reading this." She +dropped on a sofa at hand, close to a chandelier rich with wax lights in +the lampless drawing-room. Percy Pellew and his _fiancée_ stood waiting +to share the letter's contents, if permitted. + +The world, engaged with its own affairs, took no notice. The Earl and +the General were listening to tales of Canada from Sir Spencer Derrick. +The Countess was pretending to listen to other versions of the same +tales from that gentleman's wife. The others were talking about the war, +or Louis Napoleon, or Florence Nightingale, or hoping the frost would +continue, because nothing was more odious than a thaw in the country. +One guest became very unpopular by maintaining that a thaw had already +set in, alleging infallible instincts needing no confirmation from +thermometers. + +The Countess had said, speaking at her daughter across the room:--"I +hope we are going to have some music;" and the Colonel had said:--"Ah, +give us a song, Gwen;" without eliciting any notice from their +beautiful hearer, before anyone but Miss Dickenson and Mr. Pellew +noticed the effect this letter was producing. Then the Earl, glancing at +the reader's face, saw, even from where he sat, how white it had become, +and how tense was its expression. He caught Mr. Pellew's attention. "Do +you know what it is, Percy?" said he. Mr. Pellew crossed the room +quickly, to reply under his breath:--"I am afraid it is some bad news of +her old lady at Chorlton.... Oh no--not _that_"--for the Earl had made +the syllable _dead_ with his lips, inaudibly--"but an alarm of some +sort. The doctor's housekeeper there brought the letter." + +The Earl left Mr. Pellew, reiterating what he had said to the General, +and went over to his daughter. "Let me have it to see," said he, and +took the letter from her. He read little scraps, half-aloud, "'Was much +better all yesterday, but improvement has not continued.' ... 'Am taking +advantage of my housekeeper's visit to the Towers to send this.' ... +'Not to have it till to-morrow.' ... How was that?" Gwen explained +briefly, and he said:--"Looks as if the doctor took it for granted you +would come at once." + +"Yes," said Gwen, "on receipt of the letter." + +The Countess said, as one whose patience is sorely and undeservedly +tried:--"What _is_ it all about? I suppose we are to know." The war and +Louis Napoleon and Florence Nightingale lulled, and each asked his +neighbour what it was, and was answered:--"Don't know." The Colonel, a +man of the fewest possible words, said to the General:--"Rum! Not young +Torrens, I suppose?" And the General replied:--"No, no! Old lady of +eighty." Which the Colonel seemed to think was all right, and didn't +matter. + +"I think, if I were you, I should see the woman who brought it," said +the Earl, after reading the letter twice; once quickly and once slowly. +Gwen answered:--"Yes, I think so,"--and left the room abruptly. Her +father took the letter, which he had retained, to show to her mother, +who read it once and handed it back to him. "I cannot advise," said she, +speaking a little from Olympus. She came down the mountain, however, to +say:--"See that she doesn't do anything mad. You have some influence +with her," and left the case--one of _dementia_--to her husband. + +"I think," said he, "if you will excuse me, my dear, I will speak to +this woman myself." + +Her ladyship demurred. "Isn't it almost making the matter of too much +importance?" said she, looking at her finger-diamonds as though to +protest against any idea that she was giving her mind to the case of +_dementia_. + +"I think not, my dear," said the Earl, meekly but firmly, and followed +his daughter out of the room. + + * * * * * + +Very late that night, or rather very early next day, in the smoking-room +to which such males as it pleased to do so retired for a last cigar, +sundry of the younger members of the vanishing shooting-party, and one +or two unexplained nondescripts, came to the knowledge of a fact that +made one of them say--"Hookey!"; another--"Crikey!"; and a third and +fourth that they were blowed. All considered, more or less, that Mr. +Norbury, their informant, who had come to see the lights out, didn't +mean to say what he had said. He, however, adhered to his statement, +which was that Lady Gwendolen had had alarming news about an old lady +whom she was much interested in, and had been driven away in the closed +brougham by Tom Kettering to Chorlton, more than two hours ago. "I +thought it looked queer, when she didn't come back," said one of the +gentlemen who was blowed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + HOW GWEN AND MRS. LAMPREY RODE TO STRIDES COTTAGE, AND FOUND DR. + NASH THERE. OF A LETTER FROM MAISIE'S SON, AND HOW IT HAD THROWN + HER BACK. AN ANXIOUS NIGHT WATCH. IMAGINATIONS OF SAPPS COURT. + PETER JACKSON'S NAMESAKE. HOW GWEN DREAMED OF DOLLY ON GENERAL + RAWNSLEY'S KNEE, AND WAS WAKED BY A SCREAM. READ ME ALOUD WHAT MY + SON SAYS! WHAT IS CALLED SNEERING. A MAG. A FLIMSY. HOW GWEN WAS + GOT TO BED, HALF ASLEEP. OLD MAISIE'S WILL. NOT UPSTAIRS OUT OF A + CARRIAGE, DOWNSTAIRS INTO A CARRIAGE. TWO STEPS BACK AND ONE + FORWARD. BEFORE THAT CLOCK STRIKES. _THEIR_ DAUGHTER + + +Whoever detected a thaw outside the house, by instinct at work within, +was an accurate weather-gauge. A wet, despairing moon was watching a +soaking world from a misty heaven; and chilly avalanches of undisguised +slush, that had been snow when the sun went down, were slipping on +acclivities and roofs, and clinging in vain to overhanging boughs, to +vanish utterly in pools and gutters and increasing rivulets. The +carriage-lamps of Gwen's conveyance, a closed brougham her father had +made a _sine qua non_ of her departure, shone on a highway that had seen +little traffic since the thaw set in, and that still had on it a memory +of fallen snow, and on either side of it the yielding shroud that had +made the land so white and would soon leave it so black. Never +mind!--the road was a better road, for all that it was heavier. No risk +now of a stumble on the ice, with the contingencies of a broken knee for +the horse, and an hour's tramp for its quorum! + +The yew-tree in the little churchyard at Chorlton had still some +_coagulum_ of thaw-frost on it when the brougham plashed past the closed +lichgate, and left its ingrained melancholy to make the most of its +loneliness. Strides Cottage was just on ahead--five minutes at the most, +even on such a road. "They will be sure to be up, I suppose--one of them +at least," said Gwen to the woman in the carriage with her. It was Mrs. +Lamprey, whom Tom Kettering was to have driven back in any case, but not +in the brougham. Gwen had overruled her attempt to ride on the box, and +was sorry when she had done so. For she could not say afterwards:--"I'm +sure you would rather be up there, with Tom." + +"I doubt they'll have gone to bed, my lady, either of them. Nor yet I +won't be quite sure we shan't find the doctor there." Thus Mrs. Lamprey, +making Gwen's heart sink. For what but very critical circumstances could +have kept Dr. Nash at the Cottage till past one in the morning? But +then, these circumstances must be recent. Else he could never have +wished the letter kept back till to-morrow. She said something to this +effect to her companion, who replied:--"No doubt your ladyship knows!" + +There was a light in the front-room, and someone was moving about. The +arrival of the carriage caused the dog to bark, once but not more, as +though for recognition or warning; not as a dog who resented it--merely +as a janitor, officially. The doorbell, in response to a temperate pull, +grated on the silence of the night, overdoing its duty and suggesting +that the puller's want of restraint was to blame. Then came a footstep, +but no noise of bolt or bar withdrawn. Then Ruth Thrale's voice, +wondering who this could be. And then her surprise when she saw her +visitor, whose words to her were:--"I thought it best to come at once!" + +"Oh, but she is better! Indeed we think she is better. Dr. Nash was to +write and tell you, so you should know--not to hurry to come too soon." +Thus Ruth, much distressed at this result of the doctor's despatch. + +"Never mind me! You are sure she _is_ better? Is that Dr. Nash's voice?" +Yes--it was. He had been there since eleven, and was just going. + +Ruth went in to tell Granny Marrable it was her ladyship, as Dr. Nash +came out. "I'm to blame, Lady Gwendolen," said he. "I'm to blame for +being in too great a hurry. It was a blunder. But I can't pretend to be +sorry I made it--that's the truth!" + +"You mean that she isn't out of the wood?" + +"That kind of thing. She _isn't_." + +"Oh dear!" Gwen sank into a chair, looking white. Hope had flared up, to +be damped down. How often the stokers--nurses or doctors--have to pile +wet ashes on a too eager blaze! How seldom they dare to add fresh fuel! + +"I will tell you," said the doctor. "She was very much better all +Friday, taking some nourishment. And there is no doubt the champagne did +her good--just a spoonful at a time, you know, not more. She isn't +halfway through the bottle yet. I thought she was on her way to pull +through, triumphantly. Then something upset her." + +"Well, but--_what_?" For the doctor had paused at some obstacle, +unexplained. + +"That I can't tell you. You must ask Granny Marrable about that. Not her +daughter--niece--whatever she is. Don't say anything to _her_. She is +not to know." + +Granny Marrable was audible in the passage without. "Can't you tell me +what _sort_ of thing?" said Gwen, under her voice. + +"It was in a letter that came to her from Snaps--Sapps Court. The Granny +wouldn't tell me what was in it, and begged I would say nothing of it to +Widow Thrale. But the old soul was badly upset by it, shaking all over +and asking for you...." + +"Was she asking for me? Then I'm so glad you sent for me. I would not +have been away on any account." + +"It had nothing to do with my writing. I should have written for you to +come to-morrow anyhow.... Here comes Granny Marrable." They had been +talking alone, as Mrs. Lamprey had gone outside to speak to Tom. + +"Still asleep, Granny?" said the doctor. Yes--she was, said the old +lady; nicely asleep. "Then I'll be off, as it's late." Gwen suggested +that Tom might drive him home, with Mrs. Lamprey, and call back for +instructions. + +Said Granny Marrable then, not as one under any new stress:--"My lady, +God bless you for coming, though I would have been glad it had been +daylight. To think of your ladyship out in the cold and damp, for our +sakes!" + +"Never mind me, Granny! I'll go to bed to-morrow night. Now tell me +about this letter.... Is Ruth safe in there?" Yes, she was; and would +stay there by her dear mother. Gwen continued: --"Dr. Nash has just +told me there was some letter. But he did not know what was in it." + +"He was not to know. But _you_ were, my lady. This is it. Can you see +with the candle?" + +Gwen took the letter, and turned to the signature before reading it. It +was from "Ralph Thornton Daverill, _alias_ Rix," which she read quite +easily, for the handwriting was educated enough, and clear. "I see no +date," said she. "Why did Dr. Nash say it had come from Sapps Court?" + +"Because, my lady, he saw the envelope. Perhaps your ladyship knows of +'Aunt Maria.' She is little Dave's aunt, in London." + +"Oh yes--I know 'Aunt M'riar.' I know her, herself. Why does she write +her name on a letter from this man?" + +"I do not know. There is all we know, in the letter, as you have it." + +"Whom do you suppose Ralph Thornton Daverill to be, Granny?" + +"I know, unhappily. He is her son." + +"_The_ son.... Oh yes--I knew of him. She has told me of _him_. Besides, +I knew her name was Daverill, from the letters." Granny Marrable was +going on to say something, but Gwen stopped her, saying:--"First let me +read this." Then the Granny was silent, while the young lady read, half +aloud and half to herself, this following letter:-- + + "MOTHER--You will be surprised to get this letter from me. Are you + sorry I am not dead? Can't say I'm glad. I have been His Majesty's + guest for one long spell, and Her Majesty's for another, since you + saw the last of me. I'm none so sure I wasn't better off then, but + I couldn't trust H.M.'s hospitality again. It might run to a rope's + end. Dodging blood-hounds is my lay now, and I lead the life of a + cat in hell. But I'm proud--proud I am. You read the newspaper + scrap I send along with this, and you'll be proud of your son. I'm + a chip of the old block, and when my Newgate-frisk comes, I'll die + game. Do you long to see your loving son? If you don't, send him a + quid or two--or put it at a fiver. Just for to enable him to lead + an honest life, which is my ambition. You can come to a fiver. Or + would you rather have your loving son come and ask for it? How + would you like it, if you were an honest man without a mag in his + pocket, and screwpulls of conscience? You send on a flimsy to + M'riar. She'll see I get it. I'll come for more when I want it--you + be easy. So no more at present from your dutiful son:-- + +RALPH THORNTON DAVERILL, _alias_ RIX." + +"P.S.--You can do it--or _ask a kind friend_ to help." + + +"What a perfectly intolerable letter!" said Gwen. "What does he mean by +a newspaper scrap?... Oh, is that it?" She took from the old lady a +printed cutting, and read it aloud. "Fancy his being _that_ man," said +she. "It made quite a talk last winter--was in all the papers." It was +the paragraph Uncle Mo had come upon in the _Star_. + +"I have seen that man," said Granny Marrable. And so sharp was Gwen in +linking up clues, that she exclaimed at once:--"What--the madman? Dr. +Nash told me of _him_. Didn't he come to hunt her up?" + +"That was it, my lady. And he was all but caught. But I have never +spoken of my meeting him, and she has barely spoken of him, till this +letter came yesterday. And then we could speak of him together. But not +Ruth. She was to know nothing. She was not here, by good luck, just the +moment that it came." + +"And my dear old Mrs. Picture? Oh, Granny--what a letter for her to +get!" + +"Indeed, my lady, she was very badly shaken by it. I would have been +glad if I might have read it myself first, to tell her of it gently." +Granny Marrable was entirely mistaken. "Break it gently," sounds so +well! What is it worth in practice? + +"Could she understand the letter. _I_ couldn't, at first." + +"She understood it better than I did. But it set her in a trembling, and +then she got lost-like, and we thought it best to go for Dr. Nash.... +No--Ruth never knew anything of the letter, not a word. And her mother +said never a word to her. For he was her brother." + +"I cannot understand some things in the letter now, but I see he is +thoroughly vile. One thing is good, though! What he wants is money." + +"Will that...?" + +"Keep him quiet and out of the way? Yes--of course it will. Let me take +the letter to show to my father. He will know what to do." She knew that +her father's first thought might be to use the clue to catch the man, +but she also knew he would not act upon it if his doing so was likely to +shorten the span of life still left to old Maisie. "What was he like?" +said she to Granny Marrable. + +"Some might call him good-looking," was the cautious answer. + +"You think _I_ shouldn't, evidently?" Evidently. + +"It is not the face itself. It is in the shape of it. A twist. I took +him for mad, but he is not." + +"How came you to know him for your sister's son?" + +"Ah, my lady, how could I? For Maisie was still dead then, for me. I +could know he was Mrs. Prichard's son, for he said so." + +"I see. It was before. But you talk about him to her now?" + +"She cannot talk of much else, when Ruth is away. She will talk of him +to you, when she wakes.... Hush--I think Ruth is coming!" Gwen slipped +the letter in her pocket, to be out of the way. + +No change in her mother--that was Ruth's report. She had not stirred in +her sleep. You could hardly hear her breathe. This was to show that you +_could_ hear her breathe, by listening. It covered any possible alarm +about the nature of so moveless a sleep, without granting discussion of +the point. + +Gwen had told Tom Kettering to return shortly, but only for orders. Her +own mind was quite made up--not to leave the old lady until alarms had +died down. If the clouds cleared, she would think about it. Tom must +drive back at once to the Towers; and if anyone was still out of bed +whose concern it was to know, he might explain that she was not coming +back at present. Or stop a minute!--she would write a short line to her +father. Ruth and Granny Marrable lodged a formal protest. But how glad +they were to have her there, on any terms! + +She had really come prepared to stay the night; but until she could hear +how the land lay had not disclosed her valise. Tom, returning for +orders, deposited it in the front-room, and departed, leaving it to be +carefully examined by the dog, who could not disguise his interest in +leather. + +The only obstacle to an arrangement for one of the three to be always +close at hand when the sleeper waked was the usual one. In such cases +everyone wants to be the sentinel on the first watch, and not on any +account to sleep. A dictator is needed, and Gwen assumed the office. Her +will was not to be disputed. She told Granny Marrable and Ruth to go to +bed or at least to go and lie down, and she would call one of them if it +was necessary. They looked at each other and obeyed. She herself could +lie down and sleep, if she chose, on the big bed beside the old lady, +and she might choose. The end would be gained. There would then be no +fear of old Maisie awakening alone in the dark, a prey to horrible +memories and apprehensions, this last one worst of all--this nightmare +son with his hideous gaol-bird past and his veiled threats for the +future. That was more important than the meat-jelly, beef-tea, +stimulants, what not? They would probably be refused. Still they were to +be reckoned with, and Ruth was within call to supply them. + +In the darkness and the silence of the night, a solitary, discouraged +candle in a shade protesting feebly against the one, and every chance +sound that day would have ignored emphasizing the other, the stillness +of the figure on the bed became a mystery and an oppression. How Gwen +would have welcomed a recurrence of the faintest breath, to keep alive +her confidence that this was only sleep--sleep to be welcomed as the +surest herald of life and strength! How she longed to touch the +blue-veined wrist upon the coverlid, but once, just for a certainty of a +beating pulse, however faint! She dared not, even when a heavy avalanche +of melted snow from the eaves without, that made her start, left the +sleeper undisturbed; even when a sudden faggot in the fireplace, +responsive to the snowfall, broke and fell into the smouldering red +below, and crackled into flame without awakening her. For Gwen knew the +shrewd powers of a finger-touch to rouse the deepest sleeper. But she +was grateful for that illumination, for it showed her a silver thread of +hair near enough to the nostril to be stirred to and fro by the breath +that went and came. And by its light the delicate transparency of the +wrist showed the regular pulsation of the heart. All was well. + +She had plenty to occupy her thoughts. She could sit and think of the +strangeness of her own life, and its extraordinary inequalities. What +could clash more discordantly than this moment and a memory of a month +ago that rushed into her mind for no apparent reason but to make a +parade of its own incongruity. Do you remember that brilliant dress of +Madame Pontet that she tried on at Park Lane, with "the usual tight +armhole"? That dress had figured as a notable achievement of the +_modiste's_ art, worthy of its wearer's surpassing beauty, in a dazzling +crowd of Stars and Garters and flashing diamonds, and loveliness that +was old enough for Society, and valour that was too old for the field of +battle; and much of the wit of the time and a little of the learning, +trappings of well-mounted _dramatis personae_ on the World's stage. That +dress and its contents had made many a woman jealous, and been tenacious +of many a man's memory, young and old, for weeks after. Here was the +wearer, watching in the night beside a convict's relict, a worse +convict's mother, a waif and stray picked up in a London Court off +Tottenham Court Road! And the heart of the watcher was praying for only +one little act of grace in Destiny, to grant a short span yet of life, +were it no more than a year, to this frail survivor of a long and cruel +separation from one whose youth had been another self to her own. + +And as for that other affair, what _did_ she really recollect of it? +Well--she could remember that tight armhole, certainly, and was far from +sure she should ever forget it. + +The chance that had brought the sisters back to each other was so +strange that the story of their deception and the loss of every clue to +its remedy seemed credible by comparison--a negligible improbability. +Would they necessarily have recognised one another at all if that letter +had not come into the hands of her father? She herself would never have +dared to open it; or, if she had, would she have understood its +contents? Without that letter, what would the course of events have +been? Go back and think of it! Imagine old Mrs. Picture in charge of +Widow Thrale, groundedly suspected of lunacy, miserable under the fear +that the suspicion might be true--for who can gauge his own sanity? +Imagine Granny Marrable, kept away at Denby by her daughter, that her +old age should not be afflicted by a lunatic. Imagine the longing of +Sapps Court to have Mrs. Picture back, and the chair with cushions, in +the top garret, that yawned for her. Imagine these, and remember that +probably old Maisie, to seem sane at any cost, would have gone on +indefinitely keeping silence about her own past life, whatever +temptation she may have been under to speak again of the mill-model, +invisible in its carpet-roll above the fireplace. Remember that what Dr. +Nash elicited from her, as an interesting case of _dementia_, was not +necessarily repeated to Mrs. Thrale, and would have been a dead letter +in the columns of the _Lancet_ later on. Certainly the chances of an +_éclaircissement_ were at a minimum when Gwen returned from London, her +own newly acquired knowledge of its materials apart. But then, how about +the poor crazy old soul's daughter's new-born love for her unrecognised +mother, and her mysteriously heart-whole return for it? + +That _might_ have brought the end about. But to Gwen it seemed +speculative and uncertain, and to point to no more than a possible +return to London of the mother, accompanied by her unknown and unknowing +daughter. A curious vision flashed across her mind of Ruth Thrale, +entertained at Sapps by old Mrs. Picture; and there, by the window, the +table with the new leg; and, in the drawer of it ... what? A letter +written five-and-forty years ago, that had changed the lives of both! +Gwen's imagination restored the unread letter to its place, with rigid +honesty. But--how strange! + +Then her imagination came downstairs, and glanced in on the way at the +room where the mysterious fireman, who came from the sky, had deposited +the half-insensible old lady, after the cataclysm. It was Uncle Mo's +room, on the safe side of the house; and the walls were enriched with +prints of heroes of the Ring in old time; Figg and Broughton, Belcher +and Bendigo, sparring for ever in close-fitting pants by themselves on a +very fine day. She recalled how the unmoved fireman, departing, had +shown a human interest in one of these, remarking that it was a namesake +of his. Suppose that fireman had not been at hand, how would old Maisie +have been got downstairs? Suppose that she herself had been flattened +under the ruins, would all things now have been quite otherwise? See how +much had turned on that visit to Cavendish Square! No--a hundred things +had happened, the absence of any one of which might have changed the +current of events, and left old Maisie to end her days undeceived; and +perhaps the whole tale of her lonely life and poverty to come to light +afterwards, and cast a gloom without a chance of solace over the last +hours of her surviving twin.... + +Was that the movement of a long-drawn breath, the precursor of an +unspoken farewell to the land of dreams? Scarcely! Nothing but a fancy, +this time, bred of watching too closely in the silence! Wait for the +clear signs of awakening, sure to come, in time! + +It was so still, Gwen could hear the swift tick-tick-tick in the +watch-pocket at the bed's head; and, when she listened to it, her +consciousness that the big clock in the kitchen was at odds with the +hearth-cricket, rebuking his speed solemnly, grew less and less. For the +sound we look to hear comes out of the silence, when no other sound has +in it the force to speak on its own behalf. Two closed doors made the +kitchen-chorus dim. The new faggot had said its say, and given in to +mere red heat, with a stray flicker at the end. Drip and trickle were +without, and now and then a plash that said:--"Keep in doors, because of +me!" Gwen closed her eyes, as, since she was so wakeful, she could do so +with perfect safety; and listened to that industrious little watch. + +It had become Dolly reciting the days of the week, before she knew her +vigilance was in danger. Gwen was certainly not asleep long, because +Dolly had only got to the second Tundy, when a scream awoke her, close +at hand to where Dolly was seated on General Rawnsley's knee. But it was +quick work, to think out where she was, and to throw her arms round the +frail, trembling form that was starting up from some terror of dreamland +unexplained, on the bed beside her. + +"What is it, dear, what is it? Don't be frightened. See, I'm Gwen! I +brought you here, you know. There--there! Now it's all right." She spoke +as one speaks to a frightened child. + +Old Maisie was trembling all over, and did not know where she was, at +first. "Don't let him come--don't let him come!" was what she kept +saying, over and over again. This passed off, and she knew Gwen, but was +far from clear about time and place. Questioned as to who it was that +was not to come, she had forgotten, but was aware she had been asleep +and dreaming. "Did I make a great noise and shout out?" said she. + +Ruth Thrale appeared, waked by the cry. It had not added to her +uneasiness. "She was like this, all yesterday," said she. "All on the +jar. Dr. Nash hopes it will pass off." Ruth, of course, knew nothing of +the coming of the son's letter, and regarded her mother's state as only +a fluctuation. She had a quiet self-command that refused to be +panic-struck. In fact, she had held back from coming, long enough to +make sure that Granny Marrable had slept through the scream. That was +all right. Gwen urged her to go back to bed, and prevailed over her by +adopting a positive tone. She agreed to go when she had made "her +mother" swallow something to sustain life. Gwen asked if the champagne +had continued in favour. "She doesn't fancy it alone," said Ruth. "But I +put it in milk, and she takes it down without knowing it." Probably +nurses are the most fraudulent people in the world. + +Old Maisie kept silence resolutely about the letter until Ruth had gone +back; which she only did unwillingly, as concession to a _force +majeure_. Then the old lady said:--"Is she gone? I would not have her +see her brother's letter. But I would be glad you should see it, my +dear." She was exploring feebly under her pillow and bolster, to find +it. Gwen understood. "It's not there," said she. "I have it here. Granny +Marrable got at it to show to me." She hoped the old lady was not going +to insist on having that letter re-read. It made the foulness of the +criminal world, unknown to her except as material for the legitimate +drama, a horrible reality, and bred misgivings that the things in the +newspapers were really true. + +Old Maisie disappointed her. "Read me aloud what my son says," said she. +Then Gwen understood what Granny Marrable had meant when she said that, +of the two, her sister had understood it the better. For as she uttered +the letter's repulsive expressions, reluctantly enough, a side-glance +showed her old Maisie's listening face and closed eyes, nowise disturbed +at her son's rather telling description of his hunted life. At the +reference to the "newspaper scrap" she said:--"Yes, Phoebe read me that +with her glasses. He got away." Gwen felt that that strange past life, +in a land where almost every settler had the prison taint on him, had +left old Maisie abler to endure the flavour of the gaol-bird's speech +about himself. It was as though an Angel who had been in Hell might know +all its ways, and yet remain unsullied by the knowledge. + +But at the words:--"Do you long to see your loving son?" she moved and +spoke uneasily. "What does he mean? Oh, what does he mean? Was it all +his devil?" She seemed ill able to find words for her meaning, but Gwen +took it that she was trying to express some hint of a better self in +this son, perhaps latent behind the evil spirit that possessed him. + +Her comment was:--"Oh dear no! What he means is that he will come and +frighten you to death if you don't send him money. It is only a threat +to get money. Dear Mrs. Picture, don't you fret about him. Leave him to +me and my father.... What does he mean by a quid? A hundred pounds, I +suppose? And a fiver, five hundred?... is that it?" + +"Oh no--he would never ask me for all that money! A quid is a +guinea--only there are no guineas now. He means a five-pound-note by a +fiver." Her voice died from weakness. The "Please go on!" that followed, +was barely audible. + +Gwen read on:--"'Just for to enable him to lead an honest life.' Dear +Mrs. Picture, I must tell you I think this is what is called _sneering_. +You know what that means? He is not in earnest." + +"Oh yes--I know. I am afraid you are right. But is it _himself_?" That +idea of the devil again! + +Gwen evaded the devil. "We must hope not," said she. She went on, +learning by the way what a "mag" was, and a "flimsy." She paused on Aunt +M'riar. Why was "M'riar" to act as this man's agent? She wished Thothmes +was there, with his legal acumen. But old Maisie might be able to tell +_something_. She questioned her gently. How did she suppose Aunt Maria +came to know anything of her son? She had to wait for the answer. + +It came in time. "Not Aunt M'riar. Someone else." + +"No--Aunt Maria. She wrote her name on the envelope; to show where it +came from, I suppose." The perplexity suggested silenced old Maisie. +Gwen compared the handwritings of the letter and direction. They were +the same--a man's hand, clearly. "From Aunt Maria" was in a woman's +hand. Gwen did not attempt to clear up the mystery. She was too anxious +about the old lady, and, indeed, was feeling the strain of this +irregular night. For, strong as she was, she was human. + +Her anxiety kept the irresistible powers of Sleep at bay for a while; +and then, when it was clear that old Maisie was slumbering again, with +evil dreams in abeyance, she surrendered at discretion. All the world +became dim, and when the clock struck four, ten seconds later, she did +not hear the last stroke. + + * * * * * + +When Gwen awoke six hours after, she had the haziest recollections of +the night. How it had come about that she found herself in another room, +warmly covered up, and pillowed on luxury itself, with a smell of +lavender in it that alone was bliss, she could infer from Ruth Thrale's +report. This went to show that when Ruth and Granny Marrable came into +the room at about six, they found her ladyship undisguisedly asleep +beside old Maisie; and when she half woke, persuaded her away to more +comfortable quarters. She had no distinct memory of details, but found +them easy of belief, told by eyewitnesses. + +How was the dear old soul herself? Had she slept sound, or been roused +again by nightmares? Well--she had certainly done better than on the +previous afternoon and evening, after the receipt of that letter. Thus +Granny Marrable, in conference with her ladyship at the isolated +breakfast of the latter. Ruth, to whom the contents of the letter were +still unknown, was keeping guard by her mother. + +"We put it all down to your ladyship," said the Granny, with grave +truthfulness--not a trace of flattery. "She can never tire of telling +the good it does her to see you." This was the nearest she could go, +without personality, to a hint at the effect the sheer beauty of her +hearer had on the common object of their anxiety. + +Gwen knew perfectly well what she meant. She was used to this sort of +thing. "She likes my hair," said she, to lubricate the talk; and gave +the mass of unparalleled gold an illustrative shake. Then, to steer the +ship into less perilous, more impersonal waters:--"I must have another +of those delightful little hot rolls, if I die for it. Mr. Torrens's +mother--him I brought here, you know; he's got a mother--says new bread +at breakfast is sudden death. _I_ don't care!" + +The Granny was fain to soften any implied doubt of a County Magnate's +infallibility, even when uttered by one still greater. "A many," said +she, "do not find them unwholesome." This left the question pleasantly +open. But she was at a loss to express something she wanted to say. It +_is_ difficult to tell your guest, however surpassingly beautiful, that +she has been mistaken for an Angel, even when the mistake has been made +by failing powers or delirium, or both together. Yet that was what +Granny Marrable's perfect truthfulness and literal thought were hanging +fire over. Old Maisie had said to her, in speech as passionate as her +weakness allowed:--"Phoebe, dearest Phoebe, my lady is God's Angel, come +from Heaven to drive the fiend out of the heart of my poor son." And +Phoebe, to whom everything like concealment was hateful, wanted sorely +to repeat to her ladyship the conversation which ended in this climax. +Otherwise, how could the young lady come to know what was passing in +Maisie's mind? + +She approached the subject with caution. "My dear sister's mind," said +she, "has been greatly tried. So we must think the less of exciting +fancies. But I would not say her nay in anything she would have me +think." + +Gwen's attention was caught. "What sort of things?" said she. "Yes--some +more coffee, please, and a great deal of sugar!" + +"Strange, odd things. Stories, about Van Diemen's Land." + +Gwen had a clue, from her tone. "Has she been telling you about the +witch-doctor, and the devil, and the scorpion, and the little beast?" + +"They were in her story. It made my flesh creep to hear so outlandish a +tale. And she told your ladyship?" + +"Oh dear yes! She has told me all about it! And not only me, but Mr. +Torrens. The old darling! Did she tell you of the little polecat beast +the doctor ate, who was called a devil, and how he possessed the +doctor--no getting rid of him?" + +"She told me something like that." + +"And what did you say to her?" + +"I said that Our Lord cast out devils that possessed the swine, and had +He cast them again out of the swine, they might have possessed +Christians. For I thought, to please Maisie, I might be forgiven such +speech." + +"Why not? That was all right." Gwen could not understand why Scripture +should be inadmissible, or prohibited. + +Granny Marrable seemed to think it might be the latter. "I would not be +thought," she said, "to compare what we are taught in the Bible with ... +with _things_. Our Lord was in Galilee, and we are taught what came to +pass. This was in The Colonies, where any one of us might be, to-day or +to-morrow." + +Gwen appreciated the distinction. It would clearly be irreverent to +mention a nowadays-devil, close at hand, in the same breath as the +remoter Gadarenes. She said nothing about Galilee being there still, +with perhaps the identical breed of swine, and even madmen. The Granny's +inner vision of Scripture history was unsullied by realisms--a true +history, of course, but clear of vulgar actualities. Still, something +was on her mind that she was bound to speak about to her ladyship, and +she was forced to use the Gospel account of an incident "we were taught" +to believe no longer possible, as a means of communicating to Gwen what +she herself held to be no more than a feverish dream of her sister's +weakness. Gwen detected in her tone its protest against the confusion of +vulgar occurrences, in all their coarse authenticity, with the events of +Holy Writ, and forthwith launched out in an attempt to find the +underlying cause of it. "Did the old darling," said she, "tell you how +Rookaroo, or whatever his name was, passed his devil on to her husband +and son?" + +"I think, my lady, she has that idea." + +"It seems to me a very reasonable idea," said Gwen. "Once you have a +devil at all, why not? And it was to be like the madman in the tombs in +the land of the Gadarenes! Poor old darling Mrs. Picture!" + +Old Phoebe felt very uncomfortable, for Gwen was not taking the devil +seriously. Although scarcely prepared to have Scripture used to +substantiate a vulgar Colonial sample, the old lady was even less ready +to have such a one doubted, if the doubt was to recoil on his prototype. +"Maisie is of the mind to fancy this evil spirit might even now be +driven from her son's heart, and bring him to repentance. But I told her +a many things might be, in the days of our blessed Lord, in the Holy +Land, that were forbidden now. It was just his own wickedness, I told +her, and no devil to be cast out. But she was so bent on the idea, that +I could not find it in me to say this man might not repent and turn to +Godliness yet, by your ladyship's influence, or Parson Dunage's." This +introduction of the incumbent of Chorlton was an afterthought. The fact +is, Granny Marrable was endeavouring to suggest a rationalistic +interpretation of her sister's undisguised mysticism; fever-bred, no +doubt, but scarcely to be condemned as delusion outright without +impugning devils, who are standard institutions. Good influences, +brought to bear on perverted human hearts, are quite correct and modern. + +Granny Marrable's words left Gwen unsuspicious that powers of exorcism +had been imputed to her. The ascription of them might be--certainly +was--nothing but an outcome of the overstrain and tension of the last +few days, but the repetition of it in cold blood to its subject might +have been taken to mean that it was a symptom of insanity. Gwen did not +press her to tell more, as Dr. Nash made his appearance. The frequency +of his visits was a source of uneasiness to her. She would have liked to +hear him say there was now no need for him to come again till he was +sent for. + +"Any fresh developments?" said he, as Granny Marrable left the room to +herald his arrival. He heard Gwen's account of her own experience in the +night, and seemed disquieted. "I wish," said he abruptly, "that people +would keep their letters to themselves. I am not to be told what was in +the letter, I understand?" For Gwen had skipped the contents of it, +merely saying that Mrs. Picture had asked to hear her letter read +through again. + +Then Widow Thrale came in, saying her mother was ready to see the +doctor. Mother was with her mother, she said. The doctor departed into +the bedroom. + +"How long has your mother been awake?" asked Gwen under no drawback +about the designation. + +"Quite half an hour. I told her your ladyship was having a little +breakfast. She always asks for you." + +"I heard that she was talking, through the door. What has she been +talking about?" + +Ruth's memory went back conscientiously, for a starting-point. "About +her annuity," she said, "first. Then about the young children--little +Dave and Dolly. That's mother's little Dave, only it's all so strange to +think of. And then she talked about the accident." + +"What about her annuity? I'm curious about that. I wonder who sends it +to her?" + +"She says it comes from the Office, because they know her address. She +says Susan Burr took them the new address, when they left Skillick's. +She says she writes her name on the back...." + +"It's a cheque, I suppose?" + +"Your ladyship would know. Susan Burr takes it to the Bank and brings +back the money." Ruth hesitated over saying:--"I would be happier my +mother should not fret so about herself ... she was for making her will, +and I told her there would be time for that." + +"Oh yes--plenty!" Gwen thought to herself that old Mrs. Picture's +testamentary arrangements were of less importance than tranquillity, as +matters stood at present. "What did she say of Dave and Dolly?" + +"She was put about to think how they would be told, if she died." + +"How would they be told?... I can't think." Gwen asked herself the +question, and parried it. + +Ruth Thrale escaped in a commonplace. The dear children would have to +be told, but they would not grieve for long. Children didn't. + +Gwen hoped she was right--always a good thing to do. But what had her +mother said about the accident? Oh--the accident! Well--she remembered +very little of it. She did not know why she should have become half +unconscious. The last thing she could be clear about was that Dave was +shouting for joy, and Dolly frightened and crying. Then a gentleman +carried her upstairs out of a carriage. + +"No!" said Gwen. "Carried her downstairs into a carriage.... Oh no!--I +know what she meant. It was my cousin Percy, not the fireman." + +At this point Dr. Nash returned from the bedroom. Gwen began hoping that +he had found his patient really better, but something stopped her +speech, and she said:--"Oh!" Ruth Thrale was outside the room by then, +far enough to miss the disappointment in her voice. + +Dr. Nash glanced round to make sure she was out of hearing, and closed +the door. "I don't like to say much, either way," said he. + +Gwen turned pale. "You need not be afraid to tell me," she said. + +"I see you know what I mean," said he, reading into her thoughts. +"Miracle apart, one knows what to expect. I don't believe in any +miracle, though certainly she has everything in her favour for it, in +one sense." + +"Meaning?" said Gwen interrogatively. + +"Meaning that she has absolutely nothing the matter with her. If she has +any active disorder, all I can say is it has baffled me to find it out." + +"But, then, why?..." + +"Why be frightened? Listen, and I'll tell you.... We gain nothing, you +know, by not looking the facts in the face." + +"I know. Go on." Gwen sat down, and waited. Some faces lose under stress +of emotion. It was a peculiarity of this young lady's that every fresh +tension added to the surpassing beauty of hers. + +"I want you," said the doctor, speaking in a dry, businesslike way--"I +want you to go back to when you brought her down here from London. Think +of her then." + +"I am thinking of her. I can remember her then, perfectly." And Gwen, +thinking of that journey, saw her old companion plainly enough. A very +old delicate woman, in need of consideration and care. No bedridden +invalid! "When did the change show itself?" The doctor took the image +in her mind for granted, successfully. + +Then Gwen cast about to find an answer. "I think it must have been ..." +said she, and stopped. + +"When did you _see_ it?" + +"When I came back, first. After I told her, still more." + +"After that?" + +"I thought she was improving, every day." + +"I thought you thought so." + +"And you mean that it was a mistake. Oh dear!" + +The doctor shook his head, slowly and sadly. "Yesterday, at this time," +said he, "she could sit up in bed. With an exertion, you know! To-day +she can't do it at all." Both remained silent, and seemed to accept a +conclusion that did not need words. Then the doctor resumed, speaking +very quietly:--"It is always like this. Two steps back and one +forward--two steps back and one forward. We see the one step on because +we want to. We don't want to see what's unwelcome. So we don't discount +the losses." + +Then Gwen, with that quiet resolution which he had known to be part of +her character, or he would scarcely have been so explicit, said:--"What +will she die of?" + +"Old age, accelerated by mental perturbation." + +"Can you at all guess when?" + +"If she had any definite malady, I could guess better. She may linger on +for weeks. It won't go to months, in any case. Or she may pop off before +that clock strikes." + +"Shall we tell them?" + +"I say no. _No._ They will probably have her the longer for not knowing. +And, mind you, she is keeping her faculties. She's wonderfully bright, +and is suffering absolutely nothing." + +"You are sure of that?" + +"Absolutely sure. Go in and talk to her now. You'll find her quite +herself, but for a little fancifulness at times. It really is no more +than that.... By-the-by!..." + +"What?" + +"Do _you_ know what was in the letter that upset her so? The old Granny +did not say what was in it, and charged me to say nothing to her +daughter." The doctor had all but said:--"To _their_ daughter!" + +"I know what was in the letter." Gwen paused a moment to consider how +much she should tell, and then took the doctor into her confidence; not +exhaustively, but sufficiently. "You are supposed to know nothing about +it," said she. "But I don't think it much matters, so long as +Ruth--Widow Thrale--does not know. That is her mother's wish. I don't +suppose she really minds, about you." + +"All I can say is, I wish to God this infernal scoundrel's devil would +fly away with him. Good-morning. I shall be round again about six +o'clock." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + HOW SPARROWS GORMANDISE. DAVE'S CISTERN. DOLLY AND JONES'S BULL. + THE LETTER HAD DONE IT. HOW TOM KETTERING DROVE WIDOW THRALE TO + DENBY'S FARM, AND MAISIE WOKE UP. HOW DAVE ATE TOO MANY MULBERRIES. + OLD JASPER. OLD GOSSET AND CULLODEN. HIS TOES. HOW MAISIE ASKED TO + SEE THE OLD MODEL AGAIN, AND HAD IT OUT BESIDE THE BED. DID IT GO + ROUND, OR WAS DAVE MISTAKEN? THE GLASS WATER, AND HOW MAISIE HAD + BROKEN A PIECE OFF, SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW A RATCHET-SPRING STRUCK + WORK. WAS IT TOBY OR TOFT? BARNABY. BRAINTREE. ST. PAUL'S. + BARNABY'S CO-RESPONDENCE. OLD CHIPSTONE. HOW PHOEBE NEARLY LOST + HER EYE. OLD MARTHA PRICHARD. A REVERIE OF GWEN'S, ENDING IN + LAZARUS. MAISIE'S PURSE + + +Has it ever been your lot--you who read this--to be told that Life is +ebbing, slowly, slowly, every clock-tick telling on the hours that are +left before the end--the end of all that has made your fellow in the +flesh more than an image and a name? In so many hours, so many minutes, +that image as it was will be vanishing, that name will be a memory. All +that made either of them ours to love or hate, to be thought of as +friend or foe, will have ceased for all time--for all the time we +anticipate; more, or less as may be, than Oblivion's period, named in +her pact with Destiny. In so many hours, so many minutes, that unseen +mystery, the thing we call our friend's, our foe's, own _self_ will make +no sign to show that this is he. And we shall determine that he is no +more, or agree that he has departed, much as we have been taught to +think, but little as we have learned to know. + +If you yourself have outlived other lives, and yet borne the +foreknowledge of Death unmoved, you will not understand why Gwen's heart +within her, when she heard Dr. Nash's words and took their meaning, +should be likened to a great stifled sob, nor why she had to summon all +her powers afield to bear arms against her tears. They came at her call, +and fought so well that the enemy had fled before she had to show dry +eyes, and speak with normal voice, to Ruth Thrale, who came in to say +that her mother was asking for her ladyship. Come what might, she must +keep her gloomy knowledge from Ruth. + +"What a fuss about old me!" says the voice from the pillow, speaking +low, but with happy contentment. "Would not anyone think I was dying?" + +Now, if only Dr. Nash would have kept those prophecies to himself, Gwen +would have thought her better. She could have discounted the weakness, +or laid it down to imperfect nourishment. She could not trust herself to +much speech, saying only:--"We shall have you walking about soon, and +what will the doctor say then?" + +She looked across at the old sister, grave and silent, whom she had +supposed unoppressed, so far, by medical verdicts. But the invitation of +a smile she achieved, mechanically, to help towards incredulity of +Death, only met a half-response. "Indeed, my lady," said Granny +Marrable, "we shall have some time to wait for that, if she will still +eat nothing. A sparrow could not live upon the little food she takes." + +What was old Maisie saying? She could live on less than a sparrow's +food--that was the upshot. The sparrow was a greedy little bird, and she +had seen him gormandise in Sapps Court. "My darling Dave and Dolly," she +said, "would feed them, on the leads at the back, out of my bedroom +window, where the cistern is." Gwen perceived the source of a +misapprehension of Dave's. + +"He's to come here," said she. "Him and Dolly. And then they can feed +the cocks and hens." + +"When I'm up," said old Maisie. She had no misgivings. + +"When you're up." + +"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull?" + +"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull." + +"But not Dolly, because she would be frightened." + +"Not Dolly, then. Dolly is small, to see Bulls." Old Maisie closed her +eyes upon this, and enjoyed the thought of Dave's rapture at that +appalling Bull. + +Granny Marrable indicated by two glances, one at Gwen, the other at the +white face on the pillow, that her sister might sleep, given silence. +Gwen watched for the slackening of the hand that held hers, to get +gently free. Old Phoebe did the same, and drew the bed-curtain +noiselessly, to hide the window-light. Both stole away, leaving what +might have been an alabaster image, scarcely breathing, on the bed. + +"It is the letter that has done it. Oh, _how_ unfortunate!" So Gwen +spoke, to the Granny, in the kitchen: for Ruth, though attending to the +Sunday dinner, was for the moment absent. So the letter could be +referred to. + +"I fear what your ladyship says is true." + +"But at least we know what it is that has done it. That is _something_." +Granny Marrable seemed slow to understand. "I mean, if it had not been +for the letter, she certainly need not have been any worse than she was +last Sunday. She was getting on so well, Ruth said, on Friday, after the +champagne. Oh dear!" + +"It will be as God wills, my lady. If my dear sister is again to be +taken from me...." + +"Oh, Granny, do not let us talk like that!" But Gwen could put little +heart into her protest. The doctor had taken all the wind out of her +sails. + +Old Phoebe let the interruption pass. "If Maisie dies ..." said she, and +stopped. + +"If Maisie dies...?" said Gwen, and waited. + +The answer came, but not at once. "It is the second time." + +"I don't think I quite understand, Granny," said Gwen gently. Which was +meant, that this made it easier to bear, or harder? + +"I am slow to speak what I think, my lady. I would like to find words to +say it.... I lost Maisie forty-five--yes!--forty-six years ago, and the +grief of her loss is with me still. Had she died here, near at hand, so +I might have known where they laid her, I would have kept fresh flowers +on her grave till now. But she was dead, far away across the sea. I am +too old now for what has come of it. But I can see what-like it all is. +Maisie is with me again, from the tomb--for a little while, and then to +go. She will go first, and I shall soon follow; it cannot be long. +No--it cannot be long! The light will come. And God be praised for His +goodness! We shall lie in one grave, Maisie and I. We shall not be +parted in Death." These last words Gwen accepted as conventional. She +listened, somewhat as in a dream, to Granny Marrable's voice, going +quietly on, with no very audible undertone of pain in it:--"It is not of +myself I am thinking, but my child. She has found her mother, and loved +her, before she knew it was herself, risen from the grave.... Oh +no--no--no, my lady, I know it all well. My head is right. Maisie has +been at hand these long years past, all unknown to me--oh, how cruelly +unknown!" Here her words broke a little, with audible pain. "Her coming +to us has been a resurrection from the tomb. It is little to me now, I +am so near the end. But my heart goes out to my child, who will lose +her mother.... Hush, she is coming back!" + +The thought in Gwen's heart was:--"Pity me too, Granny, for I too--I, +with all the wealth of the world at my feet!--shall feel a heartstring +snap when this frail old waif and stray, so strangely found by me in a +London slum, so strangely brought back by me into your life again, has +passed away into the unknown." For she had scarcely been alive till now +to the whole of her mysterious affection for dear old Mrs. Picture. + +Ruth Thrale came back, and the day went on. Old Maisie remained asleep, +sleeping as the effigy sleeps upon a tomb, but always with regular +breath, barely sensible, and the same slow pulse. Now and again it might +have seemed that breath had ceased. But it was not so. If the powers of +life were on the wane, it was very slowly. + + * * * * * + +Tom Kettering returned at the appointed time, to a minute, and took no +notice of his own arrival beyond socketing his whip in its stall, in +token of its abdication. He had been told to come and wait, and he +proceeded to wait, _sine die_. Gwen interrupted him in this employment, +by coming out to tell him that she was stopping on, and that he was to +go back to the Towers and say so. He looked so depressed at this that +she bethought her of a compensation. She knew that Ruth Thrale had cause +for anxiety about her own daughter; and, so far as could be seen, her +immediate presence was not necessary, for no change appeared imminent. +So she persuaded, or half-commanded, Ruth to be driven over to Denby's +Farm by Tom Kettering, to remain there two or three hours, and be +brought back by him or otherwise, as might be convenient. Her son-in-law +might drive her back, and Tom might return to the Towers. It would make +her mind easier to see Maisie junior, and get a forecast of +probabilities at the farm. Ruth was not hard to prevail upon to do this, +and was driven away by Tom over slushy roads, through the irresolute +Winter's unseasonable Christmas Eve, after delegating some of her +functions to Elizabeth-next-door. + +Old Maisie still remained asleep, and almost motionless. With some help +from Elizabeth-next-door the perfunctory midday meal had been served, +very little more than looked at, and cleared away; then the motionless +figure on the bed stirred visibly, breathed almost audibly. At this time +of the day vitality is at its best, with most of us. Gwen, standing by +the bedside, saw the lips move, and, bending forward, heard speech. + +When she said, a moment after:--"I think I must have been asleep. I'm +awake now,"--she uttered the words much as Gwen had always heard her +speak. Yet another moment, and she said:--"I was dreaming, Phoebe dear, +dreaming of our mill. And I was asking for you in my dream. Because Dave +was up in our mulberry-tree, and wouldn't come down." She showed how +perfectly clear her head was, by saying to Gwen:--"My dear, if I could +have kept asleep, I would have seen Phoebe young again. You would never +think how young she was then." + +Gwen felt that she was nowise bound to dwell on the futility of dreams, +and said, as she caressed the old hand's weak hold on her own:--"Was +Dave eating too many mulberries in that tree?" + +Old Maisie smiled happily at the thought of Dave. "His hands were quite +purple with the juice," she said. "But he wouldn't come down, and went +on eating the mulberries. It was the tree by itself behind the house, +near the big hole where the sunflowers grew." + +Granny Marrable's memory spanned the chasm--seventy years or so! "The +biggest mulberry," she said, "was Old Jasper, in the front garden, near +the wall.... It was always called Old Jasper." This replied to a look of +Gwen's. Why _should_ a mulberry-tree be called Old Jasper? Well--why +should anything be called anything? + +"I can smell the honeysuckle," said old Mrs. Picture. And her face +looked quite serene and happy. "But the pigeons used to get all the +mulberries on that tree, because they were close by." + +"It stood by itself," said Granny Marrable. "And all the fruit-trees +were in the orchard. So old Gosset with the wooden leg was always on +that side with his clapper, never out in front." + +"Old Gosset--who lost his leg at the battle of Culloden! I remember him +so well. He said he could feel his toes all the same as if they was ten. +He said it broke his heart to see the many cherries the birds got, for +all the noise he made. He said they got bold, when they found he had a +wooden leg...." She paused, hesitating, and then asked for Ruth. + +Gwen told her how Ruth had gone to her own daughter, who was married, +and how a second grandchild was overdue. In telling this, she feared she +might not be understood. So she was pleased to hear old Mrs. Picture say +quite clearly:--"Oh, but I know. A long while ago--my child--my +Ruth--when she was Widow Thrale ... told me all that...." + +"Yes, yes!" Gwen struck in. "_I_ know. When you were here at the +cottage, before ..." she hesitated. + +"Yes, before," said old Mrs. Picture. "When she showed me our old +model, and did not know. That was the time she thought me mad. Phoebe--I +want you ... I want you...." Her voice was getting weaker; as it would +do, after much talking. + +"What?--I wonder!" said Granny Marrable, and waited. + +Gwen guessed. "You want to see the old model again? Is that it?" Yes, +she did. That was a good guess. + +"Maisie dearest, I will fetch you the model to the bedside, and light +candles, so you shall see it. Only you will eat something first--to +please me--to please my lady--will you not? Then you may be able to sit +up, you know, and look at it." Granny Marrable jumped at the opportunity +to get some food--ever so little--down her sister's throat. _She_ had +not given up hope of her reviving, if only for a while. Bear in mind +that she was still in the dark about the doctor's real opinion. + +The attempt at refection had a poor show of success, its only triumph +worth mentioning being the exhibition of a driblet of champagne in milk. +Almost before the patient had swallowed it, she had fallen back on her +pillow in a drowsy half-sleep, with what seemed an increased colour, to +eyes that were on the watch for it. She remained so until after the +doctor's visit at six o'clock. + +The doctor admitted that she _had_ picked up a very little, and when she +awoke would probably have another spell of brightness. But.... Speaking +with Gwen alone on his way out, he ended on this monosyllable. + +"What does that 'but' mean, doctor?" + +"Means that you mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know that the +mildest stimulant means reaction." + +"I don't know that I ever thought about it, but I'll take your word for +it." + +"Well--you may. And you may take my word for this. When the vital powers +are near their end--without disease, you know, without disease...." + +"I know. She has nothing the matter with her." + +"You can intensify vitality for a moment. But the reaction will come, +and must hasten the end. You might halve the outstanding time of Life by +doubling the vitality. If you employ any artificial stimulant, you only +use up the heart-beats that are left. The upshot of it is--don't go +beyond a tablespoonful twice a day with that liquor." + +"I don't suppose she has had so much." + +"Well--don't go beyond it. There is always the possibility--the bare +possibility, even at eighty--of a definite revival. But...." + +"_But_, again, doctor!" + +"But again! Let it stop at that. I shall do no better by saying more. If +I foresaw ... anything--within the next twelve hours, I would stay on to +see your ladyship through. But there is nothing to go by. Quite +impossible to predict!" + +"Why do you say 'to see me through'? Why not her sister and daughter?" + +"Because they _are_ her sister and daughter. It's all in their day's +work. Good-night, Lady Gwendolen." Gwen watched the doctor's gig down +the road into the darkness, and saw that a man riding stopped him, as +though to give a message. After which she thought he whipped up his +pony, which also felt the influence of the rider's cob alongside, and +threw off its usual apathy. + + * * * * * + +Old Maisie must have waked up just as the doctor departed, for there +were voices in the bedroom, and Granny Marrable was coming out. The old +lady had an end in view. She was bent on getting down the mill-model +from over the fireplace. "My dear sister has a great fancy to see it +once more," she said. "And I would be loth to say nay to her." Gwen +said:--"Anything to keep her mind off that brute of a son!" And then +between them they got the model down, and unwrapped the cloth from it. +Elizabeth-next-door, coming in at this moment, left Gwen free to go back +to old Maisie in the bedroom, who seemed roused to expectation. The +doctor was clearly wrong, and all was going to be well. Mrs. Picture was +not quite herself again, perhaps; but was mending. + +"My dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But Phoebe is so +kind, to take every little word I say." + +"She likes doing it, Mrs. Picture dear. We've got down the mill to show +you, and she will get it in here by the bed, so that you shall see +without getting up. Elizabeth from next door is there to help her." So +the mill-model, that had so much to answer for, was got out from behind +its glass, and placed on the little table beside the bed. + +Old Maisie's voice had rallied so much that surely her power of movement +should have done so too. But no!--she could not raise herself in bed. It +was an easy task to place her to the best advantage, but the sense of +her helplessness was painful to Gwen, who raised her like a child with +scarcely an effort, while Granny Marrable multiplied pillows to support +her. The slightest attempt on her part towards movement would have been +reassuring, but none came. + +"I wonder now," she said vaguely. "Was it only Dave?" + +"What about Dave, dear? What did Dave say?" + +"Was it Dave who said it went round? I had the thought it went round. +Which was it?" + +"I showed it to Dave," said Granny Marrable, "and then it went, the same +as new. I could try it again, only then I must take out the glass water, +and put in real. And wind it up." + +Old Mrs. Picture almost laughed, and the pleasure in her voice was good +to hear. "Why, now I have it all back!" she said. "And there is father! +Oh, Phoebe, do you remember how angry father was with me for breaking a +piece off the glass water?" + +Granny Marrable was looking for something, in the penetralia of the +model. "Oh, I know," said she. "It's in behind the glass water.... I was +looking for the piece.... I'll take the glass water out." She did so, +and its missing fraction was found, stowed away behind the main +cataract, a portion of which appeared to have stopped dead in mid-air. + +"Oh, Phoebe darling," said old Maisie, "we can have it mended." + +"Of course we can," said Gwen. "Do let us make it go round. I want to +make it go round, too." Her heart was rejoicing at what seemed so like +revival. + +Granny Marrable poured water into what stood for "the sleepy pool above +the dam," and found the key to wind up the clockwork. "I remember," said +old Maisie, "the water first, and then the key!" Her face was as happy +as Dave's had been, watching it. + +But alas for the uncertainty of all things human!--machinery +particularly. The key ran back as fast as it was wound up, and the water +slept on above the dam. What a disappointment! "Oh dear," said Gwen, +"it's gone wrong. Couldn't we find a man in the village who could set it +right, though it _is_ Sunday?" No--certainly not at eight o'clock in the +evening. + +"I fear, my lady," said Granny Marrable, "that it was injured when the +little boy Toby aimed a chestnut at it. And had I known of the damage +done, I should have allowed him no sugar in his tea. But it may have +been Toft, when he repaired the glass, for indeed he is little better +than a heathen." She examined it and tried the key again. It was +hopeless. + +"Never mind, Phoebe dearest! I would have loved to see the millwheel +turn again, as it did in the old days. Now we must wait for it to be put +to rights. I shall see it one day." If she felt that she was sinking, +she did not show it. She went on speaking at intervals. "Let me lie here +and look at it.... Yes, put the candle near.... That was the deep hole, +below the wheel, where the fish leapt.... Father would not allow us +near it, for the danger.... There were steps up, and so many nettles.... +Then above we got to the big pool where the alders were ... where the +herons came...." A pause; then:--"Phoebe dearest!..." + +"What, darling?" + +"I was not mad.... You were not here, or you would have known me.... +Would you not?" + +"I would have known you, Maisie dearest--I would have known you, in +time. Not at the first. But when I came to think of it, would I have +dared to say the word?" + +Gwen remembered this answer of old Phoebe's later, and saw its +reasonableness. She only saw the practical side at the moment. "Why, +Granny," she said--"if it hadn't been the mill, it would have been +something else." + +"But I was not mad," Maisie continued. "Only I must have frightened my +Ruth.... I went up _there_ once, Phoebe. Barnaby took me up one day...." + +"Up where, Mrs. Picture dear?" Gwen left the old right hand free to show +her meaning, but it fell back after a languid effort. The strength was +near zero, though no one would have guessed it from the voice. + +"Up _there_--in the roof--where the trap comes out.... Phoebe would not +come, because of the dust.... It was so hot too.... Barnaby pulled up a +flour-sack, to show me, and would have let me out on the trap, only I +was frightened, it was so high! I could see all the way over to +Braintree.... And Barnaby said on a clear day you could see St. +Paul's.... I liked Barnaby--I disliked old Muggeridge.... Do you know, +Phoebe dear, I used to think Barnaby's wife was old Muggeridge's sister, +because her name had been Muggeridge?" + +Old Phoebe threw light on the affair. Barnaby's wife was young Mrs. +Muggeridge, who had exchanged into another regiment--was not really +Barnaby's wife! that is to say, not his legal wife. + +"But there now!" said old Phoebe, when she had ended this, "if that was +not the very first of it all with me, when Dr. Nash he set me +a-thinking, by telling of Muggeridge! For how would I ever have said a +word of that old sinner to our little Dave?" + +Old Maisie's attention was still on the mill-model. "You would not come +up into the corn-loft, Phoebe," said she, "because of all the white +dust. It was on everything, up there. When I went up with Barnaby the +mill was not going, because the stones were out for old Chipstone to +dress their faces. His real name was not Chipstone, but Chepstow. He +could do two stones in one day, he worked so quick. So both were got +out when he came, and the mill was stopped. Oh, Phoebe, do you remember +when a chip flew in your eye, you were so bad?" + +"Now, to think of that!" said Granny Marrable. "And me clean forgot it +all these years! Old Chipstone, with glasses to shelter his eyesight; +like blinkers on a horse. 'Tis all come back to me now, like last week. +And I might have been a one-eyed girl all my days, the doctor said, only +the chip just came a little out of true. To think that all these years I +have forgotten it, and never thanked God once!" + +"'Tis the sight of the mill brings it all back," said old Maisie. "I +mind it so well, and the guy you looked, dear Phoebe, with a bandage to +keep out the light. It was wolfsbane did it good, beat up in water quite +fine." + +"Be sure. Only 'twas none of Dr. Adlam's remedies, I lay.... Wasn't it +Martha's--our old Martha?... There, now!--I've let go her name.... 'Twas +on the tip of my tongue to say it...." + +Old Maisie's voice was getting faint as she said:--"Old Martha Prichard +... the name I go by now, Phoebe darling.... I took it to ... to keep a +memory...." + +She was speaking in such a dying voice that Gwen struck in to put an end +to her exerting it. "I see what you mean," she said. "You mean you took +the name to bring back old times. Now be quiet and rest, dear! You are +talking more than is good for you. Indeed you are!" + +Thereon Granny Marrable, though she had never felt clear about the +reason of this change of name, and now thought she saw enlightenment +ahead, followed in compliance with what she conceived to be Lady +Gwendolen's wishes. "Now you rest quiet, Maisie dearest, as her ladyship +says. What would Dr. Nash think of such a talking?" + +Ruth might not be back till very late, and as she had not reappeared it +might be taken for granted she had stayed to sup with her daughter. Gwen +suggested rather timidly--for it was going outside her beat--that the +grandchild might have chosen its birthday. The Granny said, with a +curious certainty, that there was no likelihood of that for a day or two +yet, and went to summon Elizabeth from next door, to help with their own +supper. She herself was rather old and slow, she said, in matters of +house-service. + + * * * * * + +Gwen was not sorry to be left for a while to her own reflections before +the smouldering red log on the kitchen fire. + +The great bulldog from the lobby without, as though his courtesy could +not tolerate such a distinguished guest being left alone, paid her a +visit in her hostess's absence. He showed his consciousness of her +identity by licking her hand at once. He would have smelt a stranger +carefully all round before bestowing such an honour. Gwen addressed a +few words to him of appreciation, and expressed her confidence in his +integrity. He seemed pleased, and discovered a suitable attitude at her +feet, after consideration of several. He looked up from his forepaws, on +which his chin rested, with an expression that might have meant anything +respectful, from civility to adoration. The cat, with her usual +hypocrisy, came outside her fender to profess that she had been on +Gwen's side all along, whatever the issue. Her method of explaining this +was the sort that trips you up--that curls round your ankles and purrs. +The cricket was too preoccupied to enter into the affairs of fussy, +uncontinuous mortals, and the kettle was cool and detached, but ready to +act when called on. The steady purpose of the clock, from which nothing +but its own key could turn it, was to strike nine next, and the cloth +was laid for supper. Supper was ready for incarnation, somewhere, and +smelt of something that would have appealed to Dave, but had no charm +for Gwen. + +For she was sick at heart, and the moment that a pause left her free to +admit it, heavy-eyed from an outcrop of head-oppression on the lids. It +might have come away in tears, but her tissues grudged an outlet. She +saw no balm in Gilead, but she could sit on a little in the silence, for +rest. She could hear the voices of the two old sisters through the +doors, and knew that Mrs. Picture was again awake, and talking. That was +well!--leave them to each other, for all the time that might still be +theirs, this side the grave. + +What a whirl of strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since +... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the +beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the +end of that long rainy day in July, when the sunset flamed upon the +Towers, and she saw a trespasser in the Park, with a dog. She could feel +again the unscrupulous paws of Achilles on her bosom, could hear his +master's indignant voice calling him off, and then could see those +beautiful dark eyes fixed on what their owner could not dream was his +for ever, but which those eyes might never see again. She could watch +the retiring figure, striding away through the bracken, and wonder that +she should have stood there without a thought of the future. Why could +she not have seized him and held him in her arms, and baffled all the +cruelty of Fate? For was he not, even then, hers--hers--hers beyond a +doubt? Could she not see now that her heart had said "I love you" even +as he looked up from that peccant dog-collar, the source of all the +mischief? + +That was what began it. It was that which led her to stay with her +cousin in Cavendish Square, and to a certain impatience with +conventional "social duties," making her welcome as a change in +excitements an excursion or two into unexplored regions, of which Sapps +Court was to be the introductory sample. It was that which had brought +into her life this sweet old woman with the glorious hair. No wonder she +loved her! She never thought of her engrossing affection as strange or +to be wondered at. That it should have been bestowed on the twin sister +of an old villager in her father's little kingdom in Rocestershire was +where the miracle came in. + +And such a strange story as the one she had disinterred and brought to a +climax! And then, when all might have gone so well--when a very few +years of peace might have done so much to heal the lifelong wounds of +the two souls so cruelly wrenched apart half a century ago, that the +frail earthly tenement of the one should be too dilapidated to give its +tenant shelter! So small an extension of the lease of life would have +made such a difference. + +But if it was hard for her to bear, what would it be to the survivor, +the old sister who had borne so bravely and well what seemed to Gwen +almost harder to endure than a loss; a resurrection from the tomb, or +its equivalent? She had often shuddered to think what the family of +Lazarus must have felt; and found no ease from the reflection that they +were in the Bible and it was quite a different thing. _They_ did not +know they were in the Bible. + +She helped the parallel a little farther, while the cricket chirped +unmoved. Suppose that Lazarus had died again in earnest from the +shock--and suppose, too, please, that he was deeply beloved, which may +not have been the case! How would the wife, mother, sisters, who had +said one farewell to him, have borne to see him die a second time? Of +course, Gwen was alive to the fact that it would be bad religious form +to suggest that this contingency was not covered by some special +arrangement. But put it as an hypothesis, like the lady she had ascribed +Adrian's ring to! + +She could hear Granny Marrable's voice and Elizabeth's afar, in +conference. That was satisfactory. It made her certain that the +slightest sound from old Maisie, so much nearer, would reach her. Her +door stood wide, and the other door was just ajar. + +But she did not hear the slightest sound. The dog did, for he flashed +into sudden vitality and attention, and was out of the room in an +instant. He was unable to say to Granny Marrable:--"I heard your invalid +move in the bedroom, and I think you had better go and see if she wants +you," but he must have gone very near it. For Gwen heard the old lady's +step come quicker than her wont along the passage, and she reached the +kitchen-door just in time to see her pass into the room opposite. "Is +she all right?" she said. + +"I hope she is still asleep, my lady," said old Phoebe. + +But she was not asleep, and said so. Her voice was clear, and the hand +Gwen took--so she thought--closed on hers with a greater strength than +before. If only she had stirred in bed, it would have seemed a return of +living power. But this slight vitality in the hands alone seemed to +count for so little. She wanted something, evidently, and both her +nurses tried to get a clue to it. It was not food; though, to please +them, she promised to take some. Gwen's thought that possibly she had +something for her ear alone--which she had hesitated to communicate to +old Phoebe--was confirmed when the latter left the room to get the +beef-tea, and so forth, which was always within reach if needed. For old +Maisie said plainly:--"_Now_ I can tell you--my dear!" + +"What about, dear Mrs. Picture?" said Gwen, caressing the hand she held, +and smoothing back the silver locks from the grave grey eyes so +earnestly fixed on hers. "Tell me what." + +"My son," said old Maisie. "I have a son, have I not?"--this in a +frightened way, as though again in doubt of her own sanity--"and he is +bad, is he not, and has written me a letter?" + +"That's all right. I've got the letter, to show to my father." + +"Oh yes--do show it--to the old gentleman I saw. He is your father...." + +"You would like to say something about your son, dear Mrs. +Picture--something we can do for you. Now try and tell me just what you +would like." + +"I want you, my dear, to find me my purse out of the other watch-pocket. +I asked my Ruth to put it there.... She is Widow Thrale ... is she not?" +Every effort at thought of her surroundings was a strain to her mind, +plainly enough. + +"There it is!" said Gwen. "Soon found!... Now, am I to see how much +money you've got in it?" + +"Yes, please!" It was an old knitted silk purse with a slip-ring. In the +early fifties the leather purses with snaps, that leak at the seam and +let half-sovereigns through before you find it out, were rare in the +pockets of old people. + +"Six new pounds, and one, two, three, four shillings in silver, and two +sixpences, and one fourpence, and a halfpenny! Shall I keep it for you, +to be safe?" + +"No, dear! I want--I want ..." + +"I hope," thought Gwen to herself, "she's not going to have it sent to +her execrable son. Yes, dear, what is it you want done with it?" + +"I want three of the pounds to go to Susan Burr, for her to pay eight +weeks of the rent. It's seven-and-sixpence a week." + +"And the rest--shall I keep it?" + +"Tell me--my son Ralph's letter ... Did it not say that he wanted +money?" + +"Yes, it did. But I'm going to see about that--I and my father." + +Old Maisie's voice became beseeching, gaining strength from earnestness. +"Oh my dear--do let me! And, after all, is it not his money? For I had +nothing of my own when I came back. I might have gone to the workhouse, +but for him." What followed, disjointedly, was an attempt to tell the +portion of her story that related to the miscarriage of her husband's +will. + +"Very well, dear! It shall all be done as you wish it. I'll see to that. +The money shall be sent to Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court, to give to him." + +"Why is it Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court? I know Aunt M'riar." Do what she +would, she could not grapple with these relativities. And, indeed, this +one was a mystery she could not have solved in any case. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + HOW A BOOMER GOT AWAY. GRANNY MARRABLE'S THEISM. COLD FEET. HOW + GRANNY MARRABLE LOST HER HEAD. ADRIAN ON RESIGNATION. THE SHOP + OPPOSITE. HOW MAISIE HEARD HER SON'S LETTER, AND WISHED HIM TO KNOW + HE WAS POSSESSED. LADY ANCESTER'S REMONSTRANCE. HOW EMILY AND FANNY + WOULDED THAT THEIR LOVE. HOW MAISIE WANTED PETER, AND DOLLY MIGHT + NOT BE FRIGHTENED OF LAMBS. HOW SUSAN BURR WAS TO HAVE THE + FURNITURE. LAST MESSAGE TO DAVE AND DOLLY. MAISIE'S DEATH. HOW + GRANNY MARRABLE WENT AWAY TO SEE TO A NEWCOMER. HOW GWEN SLEPT, AND + WAKED, AND HOW THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE EMPTY ROOM WHERE MRS. + PICTURE HAD BEEN, ON THE BED. HOW THE CONVICT CALLED TO INTRODUCE + HIMSELF. A DOG WHO HAD KILLED A MAN, WORTH FORTY POUNDS. HOW THE + CONVICT SAW WHAT WAS ON THE BED. THE CUT FINGER. INSPECTOR + THOMPSON. HOW RUTH HAD PASSED A TRAMP, ON THE ROAD + + +"Has she not talked at all about Australia, Granny?... No, thanks! I'm +sure it's a beautiful ham--but I shall do very nicely with this. One +very big lump of sugar, please, and plenty of milk, or I shall lie +awake." Thus Gwen, and the influence of Strides Cottage is visible in +her speech. + +Old Maisie was again asleep, and they had left her and gone into the +front-room; as much to speak together without disturbing her as to get +their own suppers. They were doing this last, however, in a grudging +sort of fashion; for the pleasures of the table are no match for a +heartache. Gwen found it a solace to make her own toast with a long +toasting-fork, an experience which her career as an Earl's daughter had +denied to her. + +"Maisie has talked many times of Australia, my lady. She talks on, so I +could not repeat much." + +"You mean she jumps from one thing to another?" + +"Yes, so I cannot always follow her. But she has told me a many things +of her life there. How at first she would never see a soul at the farm +from week's end to week's end, and her husband got to own all the land +about." + +"Do you think she is really alive to her husband's villainy? _I_ +sometimes think she forgets all about it." + +"Please God she does so! 'Tis better for her she should. I would have +felt happier if she could have known me, and Ruth, and never had the +tale of his wickedness." + +"But that was impossible, Granny. She _must_ have known, in the end." + +"That is so, I know, my lady. But when I hear her forget it all, it +makes my heart glad. When she gets to telling of the old time, on the +farm, her mind is off it, and I thank God that it should be so, for her +sake! Friday last she was talking so happy, you could not have known her +for the same." + +"About the farm and the convicts? Do recollect some of the things she +told you!" + +"There was a creature they hunt with dogs, that leaps on its hind-legs +to any height." + +"Oh yes--the Kangaroo." + +"She called it something else--something like 'Boomer.'" This did not +matter. Granny Marrable went on to repeat how a "boomer," chased by the +dogs, had made straight for her sister's husband, whose gun, missing +fire, had killed his best dog; while the quarry, unterrified by the +report, sprang at a bound over his head and got away scathless. This, +and other incidents of the convict's after-life in Van Diemen's Land, +told without leading to the crime of the forged letter, had shown how +completely separate in Maisie's mind were the memories of her not +unhappy life with her husband in the past, and that of the recent +revelation of his iniquity. She somehow dissociated the two images of +him, and her mind could dwell easily on _his_ identity as it had +appeared to her during her thirty years of widowhood, without losing the +new-found consciousness of Phoebe's. + +But Granny Marrable had taken special note of the fact that her sister +never referred to the son who had come with her from Australia, and had +herself been scrupulously careful not to do so. She did not really know +whether Maisie was alive to the possibility of his reappearance at any +moment; and, indeed, could not have said positively whether allusion had +or had not been made to her own alarming experience of him. Her own +shock and confusion had been too great for accurate recollection. +Silence about him was to her thought the wisest course, and she had +remained silent. + +She seemed to Gwen a wonderful old woman, this Granny Marrable. Her +untiring patience and strength, at her great age; her simple theism, +constantly in evidence; her resolute calmness in facing a second time +the harrowing grief of a twin sister's death--for that she saw it at +hand, Gwen was convinced--were surely the material of which heroism is +made, when heroism is in the making. To Gwen's thought, the miraculous +news that had been broken to her so suddenly might easily have +prostrated many a younger person, even without that mysterious unknown +factor, the twinship, the force of which could only be estimated by the +two concerned. As the old lady sat there at the supper-table, breaking +her resumptions of her sister's Australian tales by gaps of listening to +catch any sound from the bedroom, she seemed to Gwen a duplicate of the +old Mrs. Prichard of Sapps Court, spared by time or with some reserve of +constitutional energy, grey rather than white, resolute rather than +resigned. The different inflexion of voice helped Gwen against that +perplexing sense of her likeness to her twin, which would assert itself +whenever she became silent. + +It was to fend this off, in such a pause, that she said:--"You are both +just eighty this year, Granny, are you not?" + +"Eighty-one, my lady. When our clock strikes midnight Maisie will have +been eighty-one years in the world, and myself with but a few minutes to +make up the tale. My mother told me so when I was still too young to +understand, but I bore her words in mind. She was dead a year when my +brother dressed those little dolly figures in the mill. I mind that he +put it off, so we should not be in black for our mother. He died +himself, none so long after that." + +The foolish lines of keeping up hope mechanically to the last did not +recommend themselves to Gwen. But she could trust herself to say, seeing +the strength on the old face before her:--"Oh, Granny, do not let us +despair too soon!" The phrase acknowledged Death, and did not choke her +like the sham. + +"My lady, have you felt her feet?" + +"No--are they so cold?" + +Instead of replying. Granny Marrable rose and, passed into the bedroom. +Gwen, whose own speech had stopped her from hearing old Maisie's +half-utterance on waking, followed, and stood beside the bed. Granny +Marrable said:--"She is not awake yet, but I heard her." As she said +this, Gwen slipped her warm hand between the sheets, and touched the +motionless extremities; cold marble now, rather than flesh. A stone +bottle of hot water, just in contact with the feet, had heated a spot on +each, making its cold surrounding colder to the touch, and laying stress +upon its iciness. "Oh, Granny," said Gwen, trying in vain to make the +living warmth of her own hand of service, "can nothing be done? +Surely--her feet in hot water?" + +But old Phoebe only shook her head. _She_ knew. It would only be to no +purpose! Better let her rest! Moreover, Gwen could not fail to notice +that the feet remained passive to her touch, never shrinking. That is +not the way of feet. Was ever foot that did not shrink from mysterious +unexpected fingers, coming from the beyond in the purlieus of a private +couch? + +And yet old Maisie was alive there still, and her speech was clear, +however low. If anything, its sound savoured of revival. But she was not +clear about her whereabouts and whom she was speaking to. She seemed to +think it was Susan Burr, who "would find her thimble if she looked +underneath." Thus much and no more had come articulate from the land of +dreams. The moment after she was quite collected. Was that Phoebe, and +her Lady? This was not the conventional phrase "My lady." She was +evidently in possession of a Lady she had been guided to find by some +Guardian Angel, if, indeed, the Lady were not a Guardian Angel herself. +She went on to ask:--Where was her Ruth? When would she come? + +She was coming, Ruth was, very soon. Both vouched for it. Gwen +added:--"She's gone to see her daughter, who has a little boy." + +Then Granny Marrable lost her head for the first time. "She's gone to my +granddaughter," said she. "And I'm looking to have another +great-grandchild there soon, before a many days are over." + +For a moment Gwen was afraid the confusion of Ruth's daughtership might +make old Maisie's head whirl, and set her fretting. She began to +explain, but explanation was not necessary. The old hand she held was +withdrawn from hers, that it might make common cause with its fellow +that old Phoebe already held. "My darling," said she, "did I not give +her to you when I ran away to the great ship? Fifty years ago, +Phoebe--fifty years ago!" There was no trace of any tear in the eye that +Gwen could still see, though it looked no longer into her own. The voice +was not failing, and the words still came, clear as ever. "I kissed her +in her crib, and I would have kissed her yet once more, but I dared not. +So I said to myself:--'She will wake and never see me! But Phoebe will +be there, to kiss her when she wakes. She will kiss her for me, just on +the place we used to say was good to kiss.' Tell me, Phoebe, did my +child cry much?..." + +Granny Marrable's words:--"I cannot--I cannot--my darling!" caught in +her voice, as she bent over the face that, but for its frail +attenuation, was her own face over again, touching it tenderly with her +own old lips--the same, thought Gwen, that had inherited that place it +was so good to kiss, on that baby face of half a century ago, now a +grandmother's. She rose noiselessly from where she half sat, half +leaned, beside the figure on the bed, and stole a little way apart; not +so far as to be unable to hear what that musical voice kept on saying, +though she could not catch the replies. + +"I said to myself:--'Phoebe will be her mother when I am miles away +across the sea, and she will be as good a mother as I....' Was it not +best, dearest, I should go alone, rather than carry my child away and +leave all the loneliness for you?... Yes--but my heart ached for my +little one on the great ship.... I would watch the stars--the very stars +you saw too, Phoebe--and they were like friends for many a long week, +till they sank down in the sea behind us, and it was thirty years before +I saw them again.... Yes--then I knew it would be England soon and I +would know if Phoebe had any other grave than the cold sea.... Yes, my +darling, that was my first thought--to go to the little church by +Darenth Mill, and look in the south corner.... I did, and there was +mother's grave, and father's name cut on the stone, but none other. So I +thought:--They are all gone--all gone!... Oh, if I had known that you +were here!..." + +The sound of lamentation barely grew in her voice, but it was there. To +turn her mind from the recollection that provoked it, Granny Marrable +thought it well to say that Nicholas Cropredy, her first husband, whom +the forged letter had drowned at sea, had not been buried at Darenth +Mill, but at Ingatestone, with his kindred and ancestors. "Did they find +his body?" said old Maisie. She knew that he was dead long years back, +but had not received any new impression of the cause of his death. + +She did not even now seem to find its proper place in her mind for this +correction of its mistaken record. It could not deal with all the facts, +but held fast to the identities of her sister and child. Probably the +established memory of the false news of her brother-in-law's death +continued in possession. She only looked puzzled; then drifted on the +current of her thought. "If I had known that you were here!... Oh, +Phoebe!--such a many times my boy made me think of his sister he would +never see now.... That was before the coming of the news.... Oh yes, I +always had a thought till then the time might come before they would be +grown up, so they should be children together.... That was my elder boy +Isaac, after father--in those days little Ralph was in his cradle.... +But the time never came--only the time to think it might have been.... +And all those years I thought you dead, you were here!... Oh, +Phoebe--you were here!... Oh, why--why--why could I not be told that you +were here?" + +"It was the Lord's will, darling. His ways are not for us to +understand." Gwen could not for the life of her help recalling some +irreverence of Adrian's about Resignation and Fatalism. But though she +almost smiled over his reprehensible impiety--"No connection with the +shop opposite"--she could and did pay a mental tribute to the Granny's +quiet earnestness. She would have done the same by "Kismet" to an old +Sheikh in the shadow of the Pyramids. + +"Why--oh, why?--when my dear husband was gone could I not have found you +then, even if I had died of joy in the finding? Had I not known enough +pain? Oh, Phoebe--when I came back--when I came back ... it would have +been so much then!... I had some great new trouble after that.... Oh, +tell me--what was it?" + +What could old Phoebe do but answer, seeing that she knew? "It was the +wickedness of your son, Maisie darling. We have talked of him, have we +not?" She feared to say much, as she shrank from reference to her own +knowledge of the convict. She tried to get away from him. "And it was +then you took old Martha's name, not to be known by your own, and went +to Sapps Court?" This succeeded. + +"Not Sapps Court, not yet for a long time. But I did go, and I was happy +there.... I had my little Dave and Dolly, and when the window stood open +in the summer, I heard the piano outside, across the way ... and Aunt +M'riar came, and sometimes Mr. Wardle--he was so big he filled the +room.... But tell me--was it a horrible dream, or was it true, that a +letter came to me?..." Her powers of speech flagged. + +Gwen took upon herself to answer, to spare Granny Marrable. "Yes, Mrs. +Picture dear, it came from your son, and I've got it here. You're not to +fret about him. I'm to show his letter to my father, don't you +know?--you've seen him--and you know what he does will be all right." + +"What he does will be all right." Old Maisie repeated it mechanically, +and lay quiet, holding a hand on either side, as before; then after a +short time rallied, and turned to Gwen, saying--"My Lady--my dear--I +want you to promise me one thing.... I want you to promise me...." + +"To promise you? Is it something I can do?" + +The answer came with an extraordinary clearness. "That you will not let +them get him. Read his letter, that I may hear.... Yes--like that!" She +fixed her eyes eagerly on it, as Gwen drew it from her pocket. Granny +Marrable snuffed the candles, and moved them to give a better light. + +Gwen read aloud as best she might, for the handwriting was none too +visible. When she came to the writer's picturesque suggestion of his +life of constant dodging and evasion of his pursuers, she softened +nothing of his brutal phraseology. Maisie only said:--"That is it. That +is what I want." Phoebe was restless under its utterance, and murmured +some protest. That such words should pass her ladyship's lips--such +lips! Gwen merely commented:--"Like a fox before the pack! That's what +he means. He's got to say it somehow, you know! Yes, tell me, what is it +about that?" + +"I want you ... to save him from them. I want you to tell him ... to +tell him...." + +"Something from you?--yes!" + +"To tell him his mother forgave him. For I know now--I know it, my +dear--that his wicked work was none of his own doing, but the evil +spirit that had possession of him. Was it not?" + +Why should Gwen stand between Mrs. Picture, dying, and something that +gave her happiness, just for the sake of a little pitiful veracity? She +was all the readier to endorse a draft on her credulity, from the +knowledge that Granny Marrable would, if applied to, be ready with a +covering security. She said quietly:--"I think it very far from +impossible." + +"Then you will tell him for me, and save him--save him from the +officers?" + +It seemed a large promise to make, but would its fulfilment ever be +called for? "I promise," said Gwen, "and I will tell him you forgave +him, if ever I see him.... There's Ruth back--I hear her. Now, dear, you +must lie quiet, and not talk any more. You know you don't want her to +know anything at all about her brother." Whereon Maisie lay silent with +closed eyes, her hand in Gwen's just acknowledging its chance pressures, +while Granny Marrable rose and went to the door; and then Gwen heard her +in an earnest undertone of conversation with Ruth, just alighted from a +vehicle whose horse, considered as a sound, she would have sworn to. It +was the grey mare. + +Ruth's visit to her daughter was the first since the extraordinary +discovery of Mrs. Prichard's identity, and she had been very anxious +about her. Nevertheless, its object appeared equable, blooming, and +prosperous on her arrival; very curious to hear details of her +new-found grandmother, and indignant with Dr. Nash for telling her +husband that he was not, on peril of becoming a widower, to allow his +wife to travel over to Strides Cottage to see her. She mixed with this a +sort of resentment against the defection from her post of her real +grandmother--to wit, the one she had grown up under. For the young +woman's wish for her presence had been one of those strong +predispositions very common under her circumstances, and far less +unreasonable than many such. "Granny" had been all-wise and all-powerful +with her from her cradle! + +But, in spite of young Maisie's confidence on the subject, her mother +could not resist the misgiving that her expected grandchild was girding +up its insignificant loins to make a dash for existence. Consider its +feelings if it had inherited its great-grandmother's scrupulous +punctuality! Widow Thrale was between two fires--duty to a mother and +duty to a daughter. An instinct led her to choose the former. Her +son-in-law affected to think her nervous; but, after whistling the +halves of several tunes to himself, put his horse in the gig and went +off to fetch the doctor. The story has seen how he caught him just +coming away from Strides. + +Ruth had not yet done quite all she could. She could summon someone to +take her place beside her daughter in her absence. Preferably her cousin +Keziah from the Towers. But she must see her and know that she was +available. Tom Kettering, just departing for the Towers, was caught in +time for Ruth to accompany him. On her arrival, finding that Keziah +_was_ available, she arranged to walk with her to Denby's Farm, and then +on to the Cottage. Under six miles, all told!--that was nothing. + +But there was no need for this. Tom Kettering, going up to the house to +report her young ladyship's decision to remain on another day, was told +he must wait for a letter her ladyship the Countess would write, to take +to Strides Cottage, and bring back an answer. He could easily go a few +inches out of his way to leave his Aunt Keziah at Denby's, and take Ruth +Thrale home to Strides. But he put up the closed brougham, and harnessed +the grey mare in the dogcart, as she wanted a run. He knew that Gwen +meant what she said, and would not come back. + +It was about nine o'clock when they reached the Cottage, and Tom waited +for the answer to the Countess's letter. Ruth came in, to be told that +her mother had talked too much, and must lie quiet. But she _had_ been +talking--that was something! The comment was Ruth's, and the reply to it +was hopeful and consolatory. Oh yes--a great deal! And she must be +better, to be able to talk so much. However, Ruth saw no change in the +appearance of the still, white figure on the bed. + +Gwen sat in the front-room and read her mother's remonstrance with her +for absenting herself in this way and leaving her ladyship alone to +contend with the arduous duty of entertaining her guests. "I think," it +ran, "that you might at least remember that you are your father's +daughter, even if you forget that Sir Spencer and Lady Derrick have come +all the way from Nettisham in Shropshire." What followed was a good deal +emphasized. "Understand, my dear, that what I say is _not intended to +hold good_ if this old lady is _actually dying_, but _for anything short +of that_ it does appear to me that your behaviour is _at least +inconsiderate_. Do let me entreat you to fix _a reasonable hour_ for +your return to-morrow, if you _adhere to your resolution_ not to come +to-night. Pray tell Kettering when he is to call for you _before twelve +to-morrow, so that you may be in time for lunch_." This last was a +three-lined whip. + +In order that Gwen should not suppose that there had been too flattering +a _hiatus_ owing to her absence, the letter wound up:--"We have had some +_very nice music_. It turns out that Emily and Fanny sing '_I would that +my love_' quite charmingly." Gwen's remark to herself:--"Of course!" may +be intelligible to old stagers who remember the fifties, and the +popularity of this Mendelssohn duet at that time--notably the +intrepidity of the singers over the soft word the merry breezes wafted +away in sport. Emily and Fanny were two _ingénues_, come of a remote +poor relation, who were destined never to forget the week they were +spending at the Towers in Rocestershire. The letter was scribbled across +to the effect that General Rawnsley had said he should ride over to +Chorlton to-morrow to see if he could be of any use. "The dear old man," +said Gwen to herself. "And eighty-four years old! Oh, why--why--could +not my old darling Mrs. Picture live only three years more?... Only +three years!" + + * * * * * + +Ten o'clock. The time was again at hand for those last arrangements we +all know so well, when one watcher is chosen to remain by the sick man's +couch, that others may sleep; each one to be roused from forgetfulness +and peace to the sickening foreknowledge of the hour of release for all, +when the life he has it at heart to prolong, if only for a day, shall +have become a memory to perish in its turn, as one by one its survivors +grow few and fewer and follow in its track. + +A night comes always when Oblivion becomes a terror, and we dare not +sleep, from fear of what our ears may hear on waking. It had come at +Strides Cottage for Granny Marrable and Gwen, and even Ruth was +conscious of a creeping dread of Death at hand, waiting on the +threshold. But she imagined herself alone in her anticipations--fancied +that "mother" and her ladyship were cherishing false hopes. She would +not allow her own to die lest she should betray fears that might after +all be just as false. Why should her mother--her new-found real +mother--be sinking, because her limbs were cold, when her speech was +still articulate, and her soft grey eyes so full of tenderness and +light? + +Gwen held a little aloof, not to take more than her fair share of what +she feared was an ebbing life, although it kept so strangely its powers +of communion with the world it was leaving behind. She could hear all +the old voice said, as she had heard it before. What was that she was +saying now? + +"When the baby comes you will bring it here to show to me? I may not be +up by then, to go and see it." + +"The minute my daughter is strong enough to bring it, mother dear." + +"She must take her time.... Is there not a little boy already?" + +"Yes. He's Peter. He's a year old. He's very strong and wilful, and gets +very angry when things are not given to him." + +"Ruth darling--fetch him to me to-morrow. Is it far to bring him?" There +was hunger for the baby in her beseeching voice. She might enjoy him a +little before the end, surely! Just a brief extension of a year or so--a +month or so even. + +"I will bring him to-morrow, mother. He's too heavy to carry, but John +will drive us." + +Old Maisie seemed quite happy in this prospect of a great-grandson. +"They are so nice at that age," said she. Why was the child's name +Peter?--she asked, and was told that he was so called after his +grandfather, Ruth's husband. "He is dead now, is he not?" was her +puzzled inquiry, and Ruth replied:--"I buried his grandfather thirteen +years ago." To which her mother said:--"Tell me all his name, that I may +know," and was told "Peter Thrale." Whereupon she made an odd +comment:--"Oh yes--I was told. But that was when Ruth was Widow Thrale." + +She never came to any real clearness about the lost history of her +sister and daughter. Having once grasped their identities, her mind +flinched from the effort to master the forty-odd blank years of +ignorance. + +But out of the cloud there was to come a grandchild a year old, and in +time its mother with another smaller still, newer still. To overhear +this talk made Gwen discredit the doctor's unfavourable auguries. How +was it possible that old Mrs. Picture should be dying, when she could +look forward to a baby in the flesh with such a zest? + +The prospect of this visitor had set the old mind thinking of her own +babies in the days gone by, apparently. There was her eldest, dead and +buried in England while Ruth was still too young to put by memories of +her elder brother. Then her second, who died in his boyhood in +Australia. No mother ever loses count of her children, even when her +mind fails at the last: and old Maisie's memory was still green over the +loss of these two. But the third--how about the one who survived his +childhood? When she spoke of him, his image was that of an innocent +mischievous youngster, full of mad pranks, his father's favourite, not a +trace in him of the vices that had made his manhood a curse to himself +and his mother. In some still feebler stage of her failing powers the +happier phase of his career might have remained isolated. Now, her mind +was still too active to avoid the recollection of its sequel. + +"What is it, mother dearest?" So Gwen heard her daughter speaking to +her, trying for a clue to the cause of some symptom of a concealed +distress. Then Granny Marrable:--"Yes, Maisie darling, what is it. Tell +us." Some answer came, which caused Ruth to say:--"Shall I ask her +ladyship to come?" + +Gwen immediately returned to the bedside. "Is she asking for me?" said +she. And Granny Marrable replied:--"I think she has it on her mind to +speak to you, my lady." + +Not too many at once was the rule. Ruth made a pretence of something to +be done in another room, but the Granny kept near at hand. + +"My dear--my Lady--I am so afraid...." + +"Afraid of what, Mrs. Picture dear? Don't be frightened! We are all +here." + +"Afraid about my son--afraid Ruth may know...." + +"No one has told Ruth of him, dear. No one shall tell Ruth. I promise +you." + +"It is not that. It is what I may say myself." Gwen had not heard her +speak so clearly for a long time. "It was on my lips to speak of +him--but just now. Because--is he not the same?" + +"The same as what, dear? Try and tell me!" + +"The same as the son that came with me in the ship. The same as the +baby I suckled the last of four, out there on the farm. It was he that I +was telling of before, and I was glad to tell my child--my Ruth--of the +brother she never set eyes on. And then it came upon me, the thought of +what he was, and what he had come to be.... Oh, my dear--my dear!..." + +Gwen could not think of any stereotyped salve for a wounded heart. She +could only say:--"Don't think of it, dear. Don't think of it! Lie still +and get better now, and then I will make Aunt M'riar fetch Dave and +Dolly, and Dave shall see Jones's Bull, and Dolly shall see the new +baby." + +"Suppose, my dear, I don't get better, will Dave and Dolly come all the +same; for Phoebe and my Ruth, the same as if I was here?" + +It was a sore tax on the steadiness of Gwen's voice, but she managed her +assent. Yes--even in the improbable event of old Maisie's non-recovery, +Dave and Dolly should visit Granny Marrable. And so consolatory had the +assurance proved more than once before, that she repeated her +undertaking about the visit to Farmer Jones's; for Dave, not for Dolly. +"But there will be plenty for Dolly to see," Gwen said. "She won't be +frightened of lambs--at least, I think not. Because she has never been +in the country." + +"No--but she has been in the Regent's Park, and is to go to Hampstead +Heath some day with Uncle Mo. She is not frightened of the sheep in the +Park, only in...." + +"Only in where?" said Gwen. "Where is Dolly frightened of sheep?" + +"In the street, because they run on the pavement, and the dog runs over +their backs.... There are very few sheep here, compared to what we had +in the colony.... Our shepherds were very good men, but all had their +numbers from the Governor ... they had all been convicted ... but not of +doing anything wrong...." + +Oh dear!--what a mistake Gwen had made about those sheep! But how could +she have known? She knew so little about the colony--had even asked +General Rawnsley, when they were talking of Van Diemen's Land, if he +knew where "Tasmania" was! She tried to head off the pastoral +convicts--the cancelled men, who had become numbers. "When Dolly comes, +she will see the mill too. And it will go round and round by then." She +clung in a sort of desperation to Dolly and Dave, having tested their +power as talismans to drive away the black spectres that hung about. + +But the mill was as Scylla to their Charybidis. "Phoebe dearest!" said +old Maisie suddenly, "when did father die?" + +"When did our father die?" said Granny Marrable. "Nigh upon forty-six +years ago. Yes--forty-six." + +"How can that be?--forty-six--forty-six!" The words were shadowily +spoken, as by a speaker too weary to question them, yet dissatisfied. +"How can my father have died then? That was when my sister died, and my +little girl I left behind." + +"Oh, _how_ I wish she could sleep!" Gwen exclaimed under her breath. +Granny Marrable said:--"She will sleep, my lady, before very long." She +said it with such a quiet self-command, that Gwen accepted the obvious +meaning that the sleeper would sleep again, as before. Perhaps nothing +else was meant. + +There had been a time, just after she first came to the strange truth of +her surroundings, when she could follow and connect the sequence of +events. Now the Past and the Present fell away by turns, either looming +large and excluding the view of the other alternately. But, that Phoebe +and Ruth were there, beside her, was the fact that kept the strongest +hold of her mind. + + * * * * * + +Eleven o'clock. Granny Marrable had been right, and old Maisie had slept +again, or seemed to sleep, after some dutiful useless attempts to head +off Death by trivialities of nourishment. The clock-hand, intent upon +its second, oblivious of its predecessors, incredulous of those to come, +was near halfway to midnight when Ruth Thrale, rising from beside her +mother, came to her fellow-watchers in the front-room and said:--"I +think she moved." + +Both came to the bedside. Yes--she had moved a little, and was trying to +speak. Gwen, half seated, half leaning on the pillow as before, took a +hand that barely closed on hers, and spoke. "What is it, Mrs. Picture +dear? Say it again." + +"Is it all true?" + +What could Gwen have said but what she did say? "Yes, dear Mrs. Picture, +quite true. It is your own sister Phoebe beside you here, and your child +Ruth, grown up." + +"Maisie darling, I am Phoebe--Phoebe herself." It was all Granny +Marrable could find voice for, and Ruth was hard put to it to say:--"You +are my mother." And as each of these women spoke she bent over the white +face of the dying woman, and kissed it through the speechlessness their +words had left upon their lips. + +It was not quite old Mrs. Picture's last word of all. A few minutes +later she seemed to make weak efforts towards speech. If Gwen, listening +close, heard rightly, she was saying, or trying to say:--"You are my +Lady, that came with the accident, are you not?" + +"Is there anything you want me to do for you?" For Gwen thought she was +trying to say more. "It is about someone. Who?" + +"Susan Burr...." + +"Yes--you want me to give her some message?" + +"Susan ... to have my furniture ... for her own." + +"Yes--I will see to that.... And--and what?" + +"Kiss Dave and Dolly for me." + +They watched the scarcely breathing, motionless figure on the bed for +the best part of an hour, and could mark no change that told of death, +nor any sign that told of life. Then Granny Marrable said:--"What was +that?" And Gwen answered, as she really thought:--"It was the clock." +For she took it for the warning on the stroke of midnight. But old +Phoebe said, with a strangely unfaltering voice:--"No--it is the +change!" and the sob that broke the silence was not hers, but Ruth's. +Old Mrs. Picture had just lived to complete her eighty-first year. + + * * * * * + +There came a sound of wheels in the road without. Not the doctor, +surely, at this time of night! No--for the wheels were not those of his +gig. Ruth, going out to the front-door, was met by a broad provincial +accent--her son-in-law's. Gwen heard it fall to a whisper before the +news of Death; then earnest conversation in an undertone. Gwen was aware +that old Phoebe rose from her knees at the bedside, and went to listen +through the door. Then she heard her say with a quiet self-restraint +that seemed marvellous:--"Tell him--tell John that I will come.... Come +back here and speak to me." She thought she caught the words as Ruth +returned:--"I must not leave her alone." And she knew they referred to +herself. + +Then it came home to her that possibly her own youth and her difference +of antecedents might somehow encumber arrangements that she knew would +have to be carried out. They would be easiest in her absence. At her own +suggestion she went away to lie down in the bedroom she had occupied. + +Granny Marrable followed her. She had something to say. + +"Dear Lady, I have to go. God bless you for all your goodness to my +darling sister and to me! You gave her back to me...." That stopped her. + +"Oh, Granny, Granny, we have lost her--we have lost her!" She could feel +that old Phoebe's tears were running down the hand she had taken to +kiss, and she drew it away to fold the old woman fairly in her arms, and +kiss the face whose likeness to old Mrs. Picture's she could almost +identify by touch. "We have lost her," she repeated, "and you might have +had her for so long!" + +Said Granny Marrable:--"I shall follow Maisie soon, if the Lord's will +is. She might have died, my lady, but for you, unknown to me in London. +And who would have told me where they had laid her?" + +"Where are you going?" + +"I am going to my granddaughter--Ruth's daughter. It is her fancy to +have me rather than another. There might be harm to her did I stop away. +Why should I delay here, when all is over?" + +Why indeed? Still, Gwen could not but reverence and love the old lady +for her unflinching fortitude and resolute sense of duty. She saw her +driven away through the cold night, and went back to her room, leaving +Ruth and Elizabeth the neighbour to make an end in the chamber of Death. + + * * * * * + +Sleep came, and waking came too soon, in a cold, dark Christmas morning. +Oppression and pain for something not known at once came first, like a +black cloud; then consciousness of what was in the heart of the cloud. + +She wrapped herself in a warm dressing-gown, and went out through the +silent house. It was still early, and it might be Ruth was still +sleeping. Once asleep, why not remain so, when waking could only bring +cold and darkness, and the memory of yesterday? Besides, it was not +unlikely Ruth had watched half through the night. Gwen opened the door +of the death-chamber with noiseless caution, and felt as soon as she saw +that the daylight was still excluded, that it was empty of any living +occupant. Dread was in her curiosity to see the thing beneath the white +sheet on the bed--but see it she must! + +The great bulldog, the only creature moving, came shambling along the +passage to greet her, and--so she rendered his subdued dog-sounds that +came short of speech--concerned that something was amiss he was excluded +from knowing. She said a word to comfort him, but kept him outside the +room, to wait for her return. + +What had been till so lately old Mrs. Picture, whom she had chanced upon +in Sapps Court, and found so strange a truth about, lay under that +face-cloth on the bed. She moved the window-curtain for a stronger +light, and uncovered the marble stillness of the face. The kerchief tied +beneath the chin ran counter to her preconceptions, but no doubt it was +all right. Ruth would know. + +She did not look long. An odd sense of something that was not sacrilege, +but akin to it, associated itself with this gazing on the empty +tenement. Even so one shrinks from the emptiness of what was his home +once, and will never know another dweller, but be carted off to the +nearest dry-rubbish shoot. She laid the sheet back in its place, and +went into the front-room. + +Suddenly the dog growled and barked, then went smelling along the door +into the front-garden. There was someone outside. She was conscious of a +man on the gravel, through the window. A stranger, or he would enter +without leave, or at least find the bell to ring. She glanced at the +clock. It was half-past eight already, though it had seemed so early. + +How about the dog, if she opened the door? His repute was great for +ferocity towards doubtful characters, but he was credited with +discrimination. Was this invariable? She preferred to take down his +chain from its hook by the window, and to use it to hold him by. + +"What is it? Who are you?" She had opened the door without reserve, +feeling sure that the dog would be excited by a gap. As it was he +growled intolerantly, and had to be reproved. + +"You'll excuse me--I was inquiring.... Is your dog safe? I ain't fond of +dogs, and they ain't fond of me." He was a man with a side-lurch, and an +ungracious manner. + +"The dog is safe--unless I let him go." Gwen was not sorry to have a +strong ally in a leash, at will. "You were inquiring--you said?" + +"Concerning of an old lady by the name of Prichard. The address given +was Strides Cottage, and I see this little domicile here goes by that +name. Next we come to the old lady of the name of Prichard. Can you do +her, or anything near about?" + +"Yes--Mrs. Prichard is here, but you can't see her now. What do you want +with Mrs. Prichard? Who are you?" + +The man kept looking uneasily up and down the road. "I'm a bad hand at +talking, mostly. Standing about don't suit me--not for conversation. If +you was to happen to have such a thing as a chair inside, and you was to +make the offer, I might see about telling you what I want of old Goody +Prichard." + +Gwen looked at him and recognised him. She would have done so at once +had his clothes been the same as when she saw him before, in the doorway +at Sapps Court. He was that man, of course! Only with this difference, +that while on that occasion his get-up was nearest that of a +horse-keeper, his present one was a carter's. He might have been taken +for one, if you had not seen his face. Gwen said to him:--"You can pass +the dog. Don't do anything to irritate him." He entered and sat down. + +"Where have you got the old woman?" said he. + +"First tell me what you want with her." + +"To introduce myself to her. I wrote her a letter nigh a fortnight +since. What did I say to her in that letter? Told her I was looking +forward to _re_-newing her acquaintance. You tell the old lady that, +from me. You might go so far as to say it's Ralph, back again." An idea +seemed to intensify his gaze of admiration, or rather avidity, narrowing +it to her face. "This ain't my first sight of _you_, allowance made for +toggery." + +Gwen merely lifted her eyebrows. But seeing his offensive eyes waiting, +she conceded:--"Possibly not," and remained silent. + +He chose to interpret this as invitation to continue, although it was +barely permission. "I set eyes on you first, as I was coming out of a +door. You were coming in at that door. You looked at me to recollect me, +for I saw you take notice. Ah!--you've no call to blaze at me on that +account. You may just as well come down off of the high ropes." + +For Gwen's face had shown what she thought of him, as he sat there, half +wincing before her, half defiant. She was not in the habit of concealing +her thoughts. "I see you are a reptile," said she explicitly. And then, +not noticing his snigger of satisfaction at having, as it were, _drawn_ +her:--"What were you doing at Mr. Wardle's?" + +"Ah--what was I a-doing at Moses Wardle's? I suppose you know what _he_ +was? Or maybe you don't?" + +"What was he?" + +The convict's ugly grin, going to the twisted side of his face, made it +monstrous. "Mayhap you don't know what they call a _scrapper_?" said he. + +"I don't. What did he scrap?" She felt that Uncle Mo did it honourably, +whatever it was. + +"He was one of the crack heavyweights, in my time." + +"I know what that means. I should recommend you not to show yourself at +his house, unless...." + +The man sniggered again. "Don't you lie awake about me," said he. "Old +Mo had seen his fighting-days when I had the honour of meeting him +five-and-twenty years ago at The Tun, which is out of your line, I take +it. Besides, my best friend's in my pocket, ready at a pinch. Shall I +show him to you?" He showed a knife with a black horn handle. "I don't +open him, not to alarm a lady. So you've no call for hysterics." + +"I am not afraid of you or your knife, if that is what you mean." +Indeed, absolute fearlessness was one of Gwen's characteristics. "What +did you go to Mr. Wardle's for?" + +"On a visit to my wife." + +Gwen started. "Who is your wife?" said she. Susan Burr flashed into her +mind first. But then, how about "Aunt Maria" on the envelope, and her +readiness to act as this man's agent? + +"Polly Daverill's my wife--my lawful wife! That's more than my father +could say of my mother." + +"I know that you are lying, but I do not care why. Do you want to see +your mother?" + +"If sootable and convenient. No great hurry!" + +"She is in bed. I will get her ready for you to see her. Do not go near +the dog. They say he has killed a man." + +"A man'll kill _him_ if he gives occasion. Make him fast, for his own +sake. There's money there--he's a tike o' some value. Maybe forty pound. +You tie him up!" Gwen hooked his chain round the table-leg, starting him +on a series of growls--low thunder in short lengths. He had been very +quiet. + +She passed into the bedroom, and opening the shutters, threw light full +on the bed. Then she drew back the sheet she had replaced. Oh, the +beauty of that white marble face, and the stillness! + +"You can come in, quietly." + +"Is she having a snooze?" + +"You will not wake her." + +"This is one of your games." The sort was defined by an adjective, +omitted. "What's your game? What the Hell are you at?" He said this as +to himself. + +"Go in. You will find your mother." Gwen took back the dog's chain from +the table-leg, and the low thunder died down. + +She hardly analysed her own motives. One may have been to touch the +heart of the brute, if he had one; another to convince him, without a +long parley, of his mother's death. He might have disputed it, and in +any case she could not have refused him the sight of his own mother's +body. + +She could not have restrained that dog had he acted on his obvious +impulse to strangle, rapidly and thoroughly, this vermin intruder. But +he was an orderly and law-abiding dog, who would not have strangled a +rat without permission. + +Gwen did not catch the convict's exclamation at sight of his mother, +beyond the "What the...!" that began it. Then he was silent. She saw him +go nearer without fear of ill-demeanour on his part, and touch the cold +white hand, not roughly or without a sort of respect. As well, perhaps, +for him; for Gwen was quite capable of loosing that dog on him, under +sufficient provocation. She thought he seemed to examine the fingers of +the left hand. Then he came back, and they returned to the front-room. +She was the first to speak. + +"Are you satisfied?" + +"I couldn't have sworn to her myself, not from her face, but I made +sure." Probably he had looked for the cut finger, his own handiwork of +thirty-odd years ago. He said abruptly, after a moment's pause:--"I +don't see nothing to gain by hanging about here." + +"Nothing whatever." + +He said not a word more, his only sign of emotion or excitement having +been his exclamation at first sight of the corpse. He walked away +towards the village, and had just reached the point where the road turns +out of sight, when Gwen, watching his slow one-sided footsteps, saw him +turn and come quickly back. She went back into the Cottage and closed +the door, resolved not to admit him a second time. + +But he passed by, going away by the road towards Denby's and the Towers, +never even glancing at the Cottage. He was scarcely out of sight when a +tax-cart with two men in it came quickly from the village and stopped. + +"You will excuse me, madam. I am Police-Inspector Thompson, from +Grantley Thorpe. A man whom I am looking for has been traced here...." +The speaker had alighted. + +"A man with a limp? He came here and went away. He has only just gone." + +"Which way?" + +"He went away in that direction...." + +"What I said!" struck in the second man on the driver's seat. "He's for +getting back to the Railway. He'll cut across by Moreton Spinney. Jump +up, Joe!" + +Gwen could easily have added that he had come back, and was going the +other way. But her promise to old Mrs. Picture, lying there dead, kept +her silent. If the officers chose to jump to a false conclusion, let +them! She had misled them by a literal truth. She would much rather have +told a lie, honourably. But she could not remedy that now, without risk. + +Another trot sounded from the opposite direction. It was Farmer +Costrell's cart, and Ruth was in it, driven by her son-in-law. She was +bringing some evergreens to place upon the body. Too anxious to remain +in ignorance about her daughter, she had walked over to Denby's while it +was still almost dark, and had found a new granddaughter and its mother, +both doing well. + +"And ne'er a soul would I have seen either way," said she, "if it had +not been for a tramp a few steps down the road, who set me thinking it +was as well I was not alone, by the looks of him. Yes--thank your +ladyship--I got some sleep, till after five o'clock. Then I could not be +easy till I knew about my child. But all has gone well, God be thanked!" + +It was the only time she ever saw that brother, and she never knew it +was he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + HOW MICKY BECAME A LINKBOY. HIS IDEAS ON INVESTMENTS. DOG FOUND. NO + SAFETY LIKE A THICK FOG. OLD MR. NIXON. HIS SELF-RESTRAINT, WIX'S + MESSAGE. JULIA'S DILEMMA. HER VIEWS ON MARRIAGE LINES. DAMN LAWFUL + POLLY! HOW MICKY'S MOTHER HELPED HIM TO DELIVER HIS MESSAGE. OUR + OLD LADY--GONE! WHO WILL TELL DAVE AND DOLLY? HOW PUSSY WAS THE + OTHERS. HOW MO DID NOT STOP AT THE SUN. A VISITOR IN HIS ABSENCE. + THE END + + +The irresolute winter only wavered some forty-eight hours, setting to +work in earnest on the second day after Christmas Day, following on +suggestions of seasonableness on Boxing Day. London awoke to a dense fog +and a hard frost, and its spirits went up. Its citizens became possessed +with an unnatural cheerfulness, as is their wont when they cannot +breathe without choking, when the gas has to be lighted at what should +be the hour of daybreak, when the vapour lies thick in places, and will +not move from contact; though now and again the darkness, where the sky +was once, seems at odds with a languid something, that may be light, +beyond. Then, fires within, heaped with fresh coal, regardless of +expense, to keep the fog at bay, contribute more and more through +chimney-pots without to the unspeakable opacities overhead, and each +seeming ultimatum of blackness is followed by another blacker still. +Then, while timid persons think the last day has come, the linkboys +don't care whether it has or not, and enjoy themselves intensely. + +A good example of the former class was Mrs. Treadwell, Michael +Ragstroar's great-aunt at Hammersmith; of the latter, Michael himself. +On the afternoon of that Wednesday in Christmas week he had conducted an +old bloke of enormous wealth, on foot, from the said bloke's residence +in Russell Square to his son-in-law's less pretentious one at Chiswick, +and had earned liberal refreshments, golden opinions, and silver coin by +his intrepidity and perception of London localities in Egyptian +darkness. And he had never so much as once asked the name of a blooming +street! So ran his communication to his great-aunt, on whom he called +afterwards; being, as he said, handy. + +"Now you do like I tell you, Micky, and bank it with the Savings Bank, +and you'll live to be thankful." This referred to Micky's harphacrownd, +just earned. That was his exact pronunciation, delivered _ore +rotundissimo_, to do full justice to so large an amount. + +Micky's reply was:--"Ketch me at it! I don't put no faith in any of +these here Banks, like you see at street corners. _The_ Bank, where you +go on the green bus, is another pair o' stockin's.... No--I ain't going +to put it on a 'orse. You carn't never say they ain't doctored." He went +on to express an astute mistrust of investments, owing to the bad faith +of Man, and wound up:--"The money won't run away of itself, so long as +you don't let it out of your porket." Into which receptacle Micky +returned it, slapping the same in ratification of its security. + +"Then you button it in, Micky, and see you don't talk about it to no +one. Only I should have said it would be safer put by, or giv' to some +responsible person to take charge of." But Michael shook his head, +assuming a farsighted expression. He was immovable. Mrs. Treadwell +continued:--"Bein' here, I do declare you might be a useful boy, and +write _Dog Found_ large on a sheet of paper, and ask Miss Hawkins to put +it up in her window for to find the owner." + +"Wot's the dog?" + +"Well now, he was here a minute back! Or he run out when you come in." +Fog-retarded search discovered a woebegone refugee under the stairs; who +had been fetched in, said Mrs. Treadwell, by her puppy in the early +morning, and whom she had not had the heart to drive away. + +Michael was proud to show his skill as a penman, and with his aunt's +assistance composed an intelligible announcement that the owner of a +black-and-tan terrier with one eye might recover the same on production +of some proof of ownership. Michael devised one, suggesting that any +applicant might be told to say what name was wrote on the collar. + +"But there now, Micky," said the old charwoman. "He hasn't _got_ no +collar!" + +"Werry good, then," said her nephew. "When he tells you what's wrote on +the collar, you'll know he's a liar, and don't you give him up the dog." + +"But shan't I be a story," said Mrs. Treadwell, "for to tell him the +collar's wrote upon, when it's no such a thing?" + +"Not you, Arnty! Don't you say anything's wrote. Just you ask him what, +and cotch him out!" + +The puppy wanted to help, and nearly blotted the composition. But this +was avoided, and Micky went out into the fog bearing the placard, of +which he was rather proud. + +A typical sot was the only occupant of the bar, who was so far from +sober that he imagined he was addressing a public meeting. Micky +distinguished that he was referring to his second wife, and had some +fault to find with the chairman. Voices in the little parlour behind the +bar caught the boy's ear, and took his attention off. He was not bound +to stop his ears. If parties hollered, it was their own lookout. Parties +hollered, in this case, and Micky could hear, without listening. He was +not sure, though, when he heard one of the voices, that he would not +have listened, if he had any call to do so. For it was the voice of his +old acquaintance the convict. + +"No safety like a thick fog, Juliar! I'll pay her a visit this very +afternoon, so soon as ever you've given me some belly-timber. Sapps +Court'll be as black as an inch-thick of ink for twelve hours yet. Don't +you let that steak burn!" + +Michael heard the steak rescued--the hiss of its cookery intercepted. +Then he heard Miss Julia say with alarm in her voice:--"You're never +going there, Wix! Not to Sapps Court?" + +"And why the Hell shouldn't I go to Sapps Court? One place is as safe as +another, a day like this." Insert if you will an adjective before +"place," here. + +Michael, sharp as he was, could not tell why the woman's answer sounded +embarrassed, even through a half-closed door. The story knows. She had +betrayed the knowledge she had acquired from the letter she had tampered +with, that Sapps was being specially watched by the Police. How could +she account for this knowledge, without full confession? And would not +absolution be impossible? She could only fence with the cause of her +confusion. "I got the idea on my mind, I expect," said she uneasily. +"Didn't you say she had a man hanging round?" + +"Old Mo, sure enough. Yes, there's old Mo. But _he_ won't be there. +He'll be swiping, round at The Sun. I can reckon _him_ up! He don't +train for fighting, like he did thirty years ago. One sight of him would +easy your mind--an old dot-and-go-one image!" + +"I got the idea the officers would look to catch you there. I _did_, +Wix." + +"And I got the idea no such a thing!" Omission again before this last +word. "Why in thunder do you suppose?... Shut to that door!" + +"There's no one there--only old Nixon." + +"Who's he talking to?" + +"Nobody. Empty space!" + +"Tell you he is! Look and see." Thereupon Miss Julia, looking through a +transparent square in a glass chessboard into the bar, saw that the +typical sot was certainly under the impression that he had an audience. +He was, in fact, addressing a homily to Michael on the advantages of +Temperance. See, he said--substantially--the reward of self-restraint! +He was no mere bigoted doctrinaire, wedded to the absurd and exaggerated +theories of the Teatolers. He had not a word to say in favour of +Toalabshnensh. It was against Human Naysh. But Manshknewwhairtshtop, +like himself, was always on the safe side. He charged Micky to be on his +guard against Temptation, who lay in wait for inexperience without his +first syllable, which had been absorbed in a hiccup. Micky was not +grateful to Mr. Nixon for this, as it interfered with his hearing of the +conversation within. + +"Who are you, in behind that handle?" asked Miss Hawkins. "Come out and +show us your face.... What's this? 'Dog Found'? Yes--very happy to +oblige your aunt.... Stick it up against the front-glass yourself.... +'Won't stick of itself,' won't it? Wait till I see for a wafer." She +returned into the small parlour, and foraged in the drawer of her +inkstand, which had probably done no service since her experiment in +_faussure_, till it supplied Mr. Wix with a simile for the fog, ten +minutes since. + +"That's young Ikey," said the convict. "I can tell him by his lip. Fetch +him inside. I've a message for him to carry." Miss Julia had found red +wafers; and, after instructing Michael how to use them--to suck them in +earnest, as they had got dry awaiting their mission in life--induced +him into Mr. Wix's presence. Micky's instinctive hatred of this man was +subdued by the recollection of the _douceurs_ he had received from him. +But do what he would, he was only equal to a nod, as greeting. He hardly +received so much himself. + +The convict eyed him sleepily from the window-seat, his usual anchorage +at The Pigeons, and said nothing for some seconds. Then he roused +himself to say:--"Well, young shaver, what the office for you?--that's +the point! Look you now--are you going home?" + +"Quite as like as not. That don't commit me to nothing, neither way. +Spit it out, guv'nor!" + +Mr. Wix was filling a pipe, and did it to his satisfaction before he +answered:--"You've to carry a message. A message to Aunt M'riar. Got +that? You know Aunt M'riar." + +"Knew Aunt M'riar afore ever you did." + +Mr. Wix looked through his first puff of smoke, amused. "About right you +are, that time!" said he. Not that this was untrue enough to be worth +telling as a falsehood. Polly the barmaid had no niece or nephew that he +knew of, in the early days. "But you could carry a message to her, if +you didn't. Just you tell her old Goody Prichard's gone off her hooks." + +"The widder two pair up at Number Seven? What hooks?" + +"She's slipped her wind, handed in her chips." + +"Mean she's dead? Carn't you say so, mister?" + +"Sharp boy! That's what _she_ is. Dead." + +"That won't soote Aunt M'riar." Micky had only known old Maisie by +repute, but he knew the Court's love for her. A wish for some +confirmation of the convict's statement arose in his mind. "How's she to +know it's not a lie?" said he. + +"_She'll_ know, fast enough! Say I told you. Say who I am. _She'll_ +twig, when you tell her.... Stop a bit!" He was thinking how to +authenticate the death without telling the boy overmuch about himself. +"Look here--I'll tell you what you've got to say. Say her son--old +mother Prichard's son--was just up from Rocestershire, and he'd seen her +dead, with his own eyes. Dead as a boiled lobster. That's your message." + +If Micky had known that this man was speaking of himself and his own +mother! Perhaps it was some instinctive inwardness that made him glad he +had got his message and could be gone. He made short work of his exit, +saying:--"All right, mister, I'm your man"--and departed after a word in +the bar to Miss Julia:--"Right you are, missis! Don't you let him have +another half-a-quartern." For Mr. Nixon being a penny short, her anxiety +that he should observe his own rules of life had been reinforced by +commercialism. She drew the line of encouraging drunkenness at +integers--halves not counting as fractions, by tacit consent. They are +not hard enough. + +Miss Hawkins had placed herself in a difficulty by that indiscreet +tampering with Aunt M'riar's letter. She had done it in a fit of furious +exasperation with Daverill, immediately the result of an interview with +him on his reappearance at The Pigeons some weeks ago. Some whim had +inclined him towards the exhibition of a better selfhood than the one in +daily use; perhaps merely to assert the power he still possessed over +the woman; more probably to enable him to follow it up with renewed +suggestions that she should turn the freehold Pigeons into solid cash, +and begin with him a new life in America. She had kept her head in spite +of kisses and cajolery, which appealed with some success to her memories +of twenty years ago, and had refused to entertain any scheme in which +lawful marriage was postponed till after the sale of her property. The +parson was to precede the auctioneer. + +But an escaped convict with the police inquiring for him cannot put up +the banns. Had Daverill seen his way to doing so he would have made +light of bigamy. Besides, _was_ it likely his first wife would claim +him? He preferred to suppress his real reason for refusing to "make an +honest woman" of Miss Julia, and to take advantage of the fact that his +"real wife" Polly was still living. + +Then Miss Hawkins had made a proposal which showed a curious frame of +mind about marriage law. Her idea may be not unknown in the class she +belonged to, still. It certainly existed in the fifties of last century. +If Aunt M'riar could be deprived of her "marriage lines" her teeth would +be drawn, not merely practically by making proof of a marriage +difficult, but definitely by the removal of a mysterious influence--most +to be likened to the key of a driving-pulley, whose absence from its +slot would leave the machinery of Matrimony at a deadlock. Let Mr. Wix, +by force or fraud, get possession of this charter of respectability, and +he and his lawful wife would come apart, like a steamed postage-stamp +and its envelope. Nothing would be lacking then but a little fresh gum, +and reattachment. This expresses Miss Julia's idea, however faulty the +simile may be in itself. + +"She's got her lines to show"--So the lady had been saying, shortly +before Michael came into the bar.--"But she won't have them long, if you +put your mind on making her give 'em up. _You_ can do it, Wix." She +seemed to have a strong faith in the convict's cunning. + +He appeared to ponder over it, saying finally:--"Right you are, Juliar! +I see my way." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"That's tellings. I'll get the dockyment out of her. That's enough for +you, without your coming behind to see. I'll make you a New Year's +present of it, gratish. What'll you do with it?" + +"Tear it up--burn it. That'll quiet _her_ off. Lawful Polly! Damn her!" +Really Miss Hawkins made a better figure in a rage, than when merely +vegetating. And yet her angry flush was inartistic, through so much +pearl powder. It made streaks. + +It had its effect on Daverill, soothing his complaisant mood, making him +even more cunning than before. "I'll get it out of her, Juliar," said +he, "and you shall have it to tear up, to your heart's content. It don't +make one farthing's worth of difference, that I see. But have it your +own choice. A woman's a woman!" There seems no place in this for Mr. +Wix's favourite adjective; but it called for omission before "farthing's +worth," for all that! + +"Not a penny of mine shall go your way, Wix, till I've put it on the +fire, and seen it burn." Miss Hawkins dropped her voice to say:--"Only +keep safe, just the little while left." + +After Micky's exit one or two customers called for attention, and +subsided into conversation over one or two quarts. One had a grievance +that rumbled on continuously, barely pausing for intermittent sympathy +from the other or others. Their quarts having been conceded and paid +for, Miss Julia returned. That steak--which you may have felt anxious +about--was being kept hot, and Mr. Wix was tapping the ashes out of his +finished pipe. "There!" said he. "You run your eye through that, and +you'll see there's no more cause to shy off Sapps than any other place." +His exact words suggested recent carnage in Sapps Court, but only for +rhetoric's sake. + +Miss Hawkins picked up the letter he threw across the table, and +recognised the one she had stealthily converted to an assurance of the +disappearance of extra police from Sapps Court. She felt very +uncomfortable indeed--but what could she do? + + * * * * * + +Ill news is said to travel fast, always. It had not done so in this +case, and Sapps Court was still in ignorance of old Maisie's death when +Michael passed under its archway, to experience for the first time the +feelings that beset the bearer of fatal tidings to those it will wound +to hear them far worse than himself. To a not inhuman creature, in such +a case, a title to sorrow, that will lessen the distance between his own +heart and the one he has to lacerate, is almost a relief. + +He himself was not to blame for delay in delivering his message. On the +contrary, his sympathetic perception of its unwelcomeness to its +recipients took the strange form of a determination not to lose a second +in fulfilling his instructions. So deeply bent was he on doing this that +he never questioned the reasonableness of his own alacrity until he had +passed the iron post Dave fell off--you remember?--and was opposite to +his own family residence at the head of the Court. His intention had +been to pass it, and go straight on to No. 7. Something made him change +his mind; perhaps the painfulness of his task dawned on him. His mother +was surprised to see him. "There now," said she. "I thought you was +going to be out all day, and your father he'll want all the supper there +is for hisself." + +"So I _was_ a-going to be out all day. I'm out now, in a manner o' +speaking. Going out again. Nobody's going to suffer from an empty +stummick along o' me." He had subsided on a rocking-chair, dropping his +old cloth cap between his feet. + +"Whereabouts have you been to, Micky?" said his mother conciliatorily, +to soothe her son's proud independent spirit. + +He recited his morning's work rapidly. "Linked an old cock down to +Chiswick Mawl what was frightened to ride in a hansom, till half-past +eleven, 'cos he could only go slow. Got an early dinner off of his cook +by reason of roomuneration. Cold beef and pickles as much as I choose. +Slice o' plum pudding hotted up a purpose, only no beer for to encourage +wice in youth. Bein' clost handy, dropped round on a wisit to Arnty +Lisbeth. Arnty Lisbeth she's makin' inquiry concerning a young tike's +owner. Wrote Arnty Lisbeth out a notice-card. Got Miss Horkings next +door to allow it up in her window on the street. That's how I came by +this here intelligence I got to pass on to Wardle's. Time I was going!" + +Mrs. Ragstroar stopped scraping the brown outer skin off a very large +potato, and looked reproachfully at Micky. "You've never said nothing of +_that_," said she. + +"Who ever went to say I said anything of it?" was the reply. In this +family all communications took the form of contradictions or +indictments, more or less defiant in character. "I never said not one +word. I'd no call to say anything, and I didn't." + +"Then how can you ever expect anyone to know unless you say?" She went +on peeling. + +"Who's ever said I expected anyone to know?" But in spite of his +controversial method, he did _not_ go away to give this message; and +evidently wanted a helping hand, or at least sympathy. + +His mother perceived the fact, and said magnanimously:--"You might just +as well up and tell, Micky." Then she nearly undid the effect of her +concession by saying:--"Because you know you want to!" + +What saved the situation was that Micky _did_ want to. He blurted out +the news that was oppressing him, to his own great relief. "Old Mother +Prichard, Wardleses Widder upstairs, she's dead." + +"Sakes alive! They was expecting her back." + +"Well--she's dead, like I tell you!" + +"For sure?" + +"That's what her son says. If _he_ don't know, nobody don't." + +"Was it him told you? I never heard tell she had a son--not Mrs. +Prichard." + +Micky's family pugnacity preferred to accept this as a censure, or at +least a challenge. He raised his voice, and fired off his speech in +platoons, to say:--"Never see her son! Shouldn't know him if I _was_ to +see him. Wot--I'm telling--you--that's--wot--her--son said to the party +what commoonicated it to me. Miss Wardle she'll reco'nise the party, by +particklars giv'." This embodied the impression received from the +convict's words, which had made no claim to old Maisie as his mother. + +"Whatever shall you say to Mrs. Wardle?" + +Micky picked up his cap from the ground, and used it as a +nose-polisher--after slapping it on his knee to sterilise it, a use +which seemed to act in relief of perplexity. "If I know, I'm blest," +said he. "Couldn't tell you if you was to arsk me!" + +It was impossible to resist the implied appeal for help. Mrs. Ragstroar +put a large fresh potato on the table to enjoy its skin yet a little +longer, and wiped the memory of its predecessors off on her apron. "Come +along, Micky," she said. "I got to see Aunt M'riar; you come along after +me. I'll just say a word aforehand." Micky welcomed this, and saying +merely:--"Ah!--like a tip!" followed his mother down the Court to No. 7. + +Someone, somewhere, must have known, clocks apart, that a day was +drawing to a close; a short winter's day, and a dark and cold one at the +best. But the someone was not in the Thames Valley, and the somewhere +surely was not Sapps Court. There Day and Night alike had been robbed of +their birthright by sheer Opacity, and humankind had to choose between +submission to Egyptian darkness and an irksome leisure, or a crippled +activity by candlelight, on the one hand, and ruin, on the other. Not +that tallow candles were really much good--they got that yellow and +streaky. Why--the very gaslamps out of doors you couldn't hardly see +them, not unless you went quite up close! If it had not been that, as +Micky followed his mother down the Court, a ladder-bearer had dawned +suddenly, and died away after laying claim to lighting you up a bit down +here, no one would never have so much as guessed illumination was afoot. +But then the one gaslamp was on a bracket a great heicth up, on the wall +at the end of Druitt's garden, so called. And Mrs. Ragstroar and her son +had followed along the wood-palings in front of the houses, on the left. + +Micky's flinching from his mission had grown on him so by the time they +reached the end house, that he hung back and allowed his mother to enter +first. He wanted the tip to exhaust the subject of Death, and to leave +him only the task of authentication. He did not hear what his mother +said in a quick undertone to Aunt M'riar, within, manifestly ironing. +But he heard its effect on her hearer--a cry of pain, kept under, and an +appeal to Uncle Mo, in some dark recess beyond. "Oh, Mo!--only hark at +that! Our old lady--gone!" Then Uncle Mo, emerging probably from pitch +darkness in the little parlour, and joining in the undertones on inquiry +and information mixed--mixed soon enough with sobs. Then the struggle +against them in Mo's own voice of would-be reassurance:--"Poor old +M'riar! Don't ye take on so! We'll all die one day." Then more +undertones. Then Aunt M'riar's broken voice:--"Yes--I _know_ she was +eighty"--and her complete collapse over:--"It's the children I'm +thinking of! Our children, Mo, our children!" + +Old Mo saw that point. You could hear it in his voice. "Ah--the +children!" But he tried for a forlorn hope. Was it possibly a false +report? Make sure about that, anyhow, before giving way to grief! "Was +it only that young shaver of yours brought the news, Mrs. Ragstroar? +Maybe he's put the saddle on the wrong horse!" + +"He's handy to tell his own tale, Mr. Wardle. Here, young Micky! Come +along in and speak for yourself." Whereupon the boy came in. He had been +secretly hoping he might escape being called into council altogether. + +"You're sure you got the right of it, Michael," said Uncle Mo. "Tell it +us all over again from the beginning." + +Whereupon Micky, braced by having a member of his own noble sex as +catechist, but sadly handicapped by inability to employ contentious +formulas, gave a detailed account of his visit to The Pigeons. He +identified the convict by short lengths of speech, addressed to Mr. +Wardle's ear alone, suggestive of higher understandings of the affairs +of men than aunts and mothers could expect to share. "Party that's +givin' trouble to the Police ... Party I mentioned seeing in Hy' Park +... Party that come down the Court inquirin' for widder lady ..." came +at intervals. Micky's respectful and subdued reference to Mrs. Prichard +was a tribute to Death. + +"And did he say her son told him, to his own hearing?... All right, +M'riar, I know what I'm talking about." This was to stop Aunt M'riar's +interposing with a revelation of old Maisie's relation to the party. It +would have encumbered cross-examination; which, even if it served no +particular end, would seem profound and weighty. + +"That's how I took it from him," said Micky. + +"Didn't he say who her son was?" Aunt M'riar persisted, with unflinching +simplicity. + +Micky, instantly illuminated, replied:--"Not he! He never so much as +said he wasn't her son, hisself." This did not mean that affirmation was +usually approached by denial of every possible negation. It was only the +involuntary echo of a notion Aunt M'riar's manner had clothed her words +with. + +"That was tellings, M'riar," said Uncle Mo. "But it don't make any odds, +that I can see. Look ye here, young Micky! What was it this charackter +said about coming here this afternoon?" + +"Werry first words I heard him say! 'No safety like a thick fog,' he +says. 'And I'll pay her a visit this very arternoon,' he says. Only he +won't! You may take that off me, like Gospel." + +"How do you make sure of that, young master?" + +"'Cos he's got nothing to come for, now I've took his message for him. +If he hadn't had reliance, he'd not have arxed me to carry it. He knows +me for safe, by now, Mr. Wardle." + +"Don't you see, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "He'd no call to come here, +exceptin'. It was only to oblige-like, and let know. Once Micky gave his +word, what call had he to come four mile through such a fog?" + +"That's the whole tale, then?" said Uncle Mo, after reflection. "Onlest +you can call to mind something you've forgot, Master Micky." + +"Not a half a word, Mr. Moses. If there had a been, I'd have made you +acquainted, and no lies. And all I said's ackerate, and to rely on." +Which was perfectly true, so far as reporter's good faith went. Had +Micky overheard the conversation two minutes sooner, he would have +gathered that Mr. Wix had other reasons for coming to Sapps Court than +to give the news of Mrs. Prichard's death. Indeed, it is not clear why, +intending to go there for another purpose, Wix thought it necessary to +employ Michael at all as an ambassador. But a story has to be content +with facts. + +Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar were alone with the shadow of their trouble, +and the knowledge that the children must be told. + +The boy and his mother, their painful message delivered, had vanished +through the fog to their own home. The voices of Dave and Dolly came +from the room above through the silence that followed. Mo and M'riar +were at no loss to guess what was the burden of that earnest debate that +rose and fell, and paused and was renewed, but never died outright. It +was the endless arrangement and rearrangement of the preparations for +the great event to come, the feast that was to welcome old Mrs. Picture +back to her fireside, and its chair with cushions. + +"Oh, Mo--Mo! I haven't the heart--I haven't the heart to do it." + +"Poor old M'riar--poor old M'riar!" The old prizefighter's voice was +tender with its sorrow for his old comrade, who shrank from the task +that faced them, one or both; even sorrow--though less oppressive--for +the loss of the old lady who had become the children's idol. + +"No, Mo, I haven't the heart. Only this very day ... if it hadn't been +for the fog ... Dave would have got the last halfpenny out of his rabbit +to buy a sugar-basin on the stall in the road ... and he's saving it for +a surprise for Dolly ... when the fog goes...." + +"Is Susan Burr upstairs with them?" + +"No--she's gone out to Yardley's for some thread. She's all right. She's +walking a lot better." + +They sat silent for a while, the unconscious voices overhead reaching +their hearts, and rousing the question they would have been so glad to +ignore. How should they bring it to the children's knowledge that the +chair with cushions was waiting for its occupant in vain? Which of their +unwilling hands should be the first to draw aside the veil that still +sheltered those two babies' lives from the sight of the face of Death. + +The man was the first to speak. "Young Mick, he saw his way pretty +sharp, M'riar--about who was ... her son." His voice dropped on the +reference to old Maisie herself, and he avoided her name. + +"Did he understand?" + +"Oh yes--he twigged, fast enough.... There's a p'int to consider, +M'riar. This man's her son--but it don't follow he knows whether she's +dead or living, any better than you or me. Who's to say he's not lying? +Besides, we should have had a letter to tell.... Who from?... +H'm--well--from ..." But Mo found the completion of this sentence +difficult. + +No wonder! How could he reply:--"Her ladyship?" He may have been +convinced that Gwen would write, but how could he say so? The sister and +daughter, neither of whom were more than names to him, seemed out of the +question. Sister Nora would be sure to come with the news, some time. +But was she back from Scotland, where they knew she had gone to +convalesce? + +Aunt M'riar looked the fact in the face. "No--we shouldn't have had no +letter, Mo. Not yet a while, at least. Daverill's a bad man, and lies. +But not when there's no advantage in it. He'd not go about to send me +word she was dead, except he knew." + +"How should he know, more than we?" + +"Don't you ask me about when I see him, not yet where, nor yet how, and +I'll tell you, Mo." She waited, as for a safe-conduct. + +"Poor old M'riar!" said Mo pitifully. "I'll not witness-box you. Catch +me! No--no!--you shan't tell me nothing you don't like." + +"He told me he should try to see his mother again. And I said to him if +he went there he would be taken, safe and certain. And he said not he, +because the Police were too sharp by half, and would take for granted he +would be afraid to go anigh the place again. He said he could always see +round them." + +"I see what he was driving at. And you think he went." + +"None so long ago, I should say. He never see her--not alive. I couldn't +say why, only I feel that was the way of it." + +"When did you see him last?... No--old girl! I won't do that. It's +mean--after sayin' I wouldn't witness-box! Don't you tell me nothing." + +"I won't grudge telling you that much, Mo. It's a tidy long time back +now. I couldn't say to a day. It was afore I wrote to him to keep away +from the Court for fear of the Police.... Yes--I did! Just after Mr. +Rowe came round that time, asking inquiries.... I _am_ his wife, +Mo--nothing can't alter it." + +"I ain't blaming you, old girl." + +"Well--it was then he said he'd go to Chorlton again. And he's been." + +Silence again, and the sound of the children above. Then a footstep +without, recognised as Susan Burr's by its limp. + +"She'll have to be told, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "We've never had a +thought for poor Susan." + +A commonplace face came white as ashes from the fog without, and a +suffocating voice, gasping against sobs. "Oh, M'riar!--Oh, Mr. +Wardle!--_Is_ it true she's gone?" + +Aunt M'riar could not tighten her lips against their instability and +speak, at the same time, so she nodded assent. Uncle Mo said, steadily +enough:--"I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Burr. We can't make it out no +otherwise." Then M'riar got self-command to say:--"Yes--she's taken from +us. It's the Lord's will." And then they could claim their birthright of +tears, the last privilege left to hearts encompassed with the darkness +of the grave. + +The three were standing, some short while later, at the stairfoot, each +looking at the other. Which was to go first? + +Aunt M'riar made a hesitating suggestion. "Supposin' you was to step up +first, and look back to say...!" + +"That's one idear," said Uncle Mo. "Suppose you do!" + +Susan Burr, referred to by both, accepted the commission, limping slowly +up the stairs while the others waited below, listening. They heard that +the door above was opened, when the children's voices came clearer, +suddenly. But Susan Burr had only cautiously pushed the door ajar, +making no noise, to listen herself before going in. There was a flare +from a gas-birth in the fire as she got a sight of the group within, +through the opening. It illuminated Dolly, Dave, and the newly +christened wax doll; the Persian apparatus on the floor--a mere +rehearsal, whose cake had to be pretence cake, and whose tea lacked its +vegetable constituent--and the portraits of robed and sceptred Royalty +on the wall. Some point in stage-management seemed to be under +discussion, and to threaten a dissolution of partnership. For Dave was +saying:--"Then oy shall go and play with The Boys, because the fog's +a-stopping. You look out at the winder!" + +Dolly met this with a firm, though gentle, prohibition. "No, you +_s'arn't_. You _is_ to be Gwanny Mawwowbone vis time, and set on the +sofa. And me to be old Mrs. Spicture vis time, and set in the chair wiv +scushions. And Pussy to be ve uvvers. And Gweng to paw out all veir +teas. Only vey take veir sugar veirselves." Dolly may have had it in +view to reduce Dave to impotence by assigning to him the position of a +guest. His manhood revolted against a subordinate part. Superhuman tact +is needed--an old story!--in the casting of the parts of any new play, +and Dolly, although kissable to a degree, and with an iron will, was +absolutely lacking in tact. + +"Then oy shall go and play with The Boys, because the forg's +a-stoarping." But this was an empty threat, as Dave knew perfectly well +that Uncle Mo would not allow him to go out of doors so late, even if +the fog melted, since its immediate cessation would have left London in +the dark, for it was past the Official hour of sunset. + +Dolly said again:--"No, you sarn't!" and went on with the arrangements. +"You take _tite_ hold of Pussy, and stop her off doin' on ve scushions. +Gweng to paw out the tea, only to wait faw the hot water! Ven I shall go +in the chair with scushions, and be Mrs. Spicture. And ven you to leave +hold of Pussy, and be Gwanny Mawwowbone on the sofa." The +supernumeraries were _intransigeant_ and troublesome; that is to say, +their representative the Cat was. + +Dave, whose enjoyment of these games was beginning to be marred by his +coming manhood--for see how old he was getting!--utilised magnanimity as +an excuse for concession. He kept the supers in check while Dolly +suggested an attitude to Gweng. Gweng had only to wait for hot water, so +it was easy to find one. Dolly then scrambled into the chair with +cushions, and the supernumeraries wedged themselves round her and +purred, in the person of the Cat. But having made this much concession, +Dave struck. + +Instead of accepting his part, he went to the window. "Oy can see across +the way," said he. "Oy don't call it a forg when you can see the +gairslamp all the way across the Court. That hoyn't a forg! Oy say, +Dolly, oy'm a-going for to see Uncle Mo round to The Sun parlour, and +boy a hoypny sorcer coming back. Oy _am_!" + +Dolly shook a mass of rough gold that cried aloud for a comb, and said +with sweet gravity:--"You tarn't!" + +"Why not?" Dave's indignation at this statement made him shout. "Why +carn't oy, same as another boy?" + +"Because you're Gwanny Mawwowbone, all ve time. You tarn't _help_ it." +Dolly's solemn nods, and a pathos that seemed to grieve over the +inevitable, left Dave speechless, struggling in vain against the +identity he had so rashly undertaken to assume. + +Susan Burr missed a great deal of this, and marked what she heard but +little. She only knew that the children were happy, and that their +happiness must end. Even her own grief--for think what old Maisie's +death meant to her!--was hushed at the thought of how these babies could +be told, could have their first great grief burst upon them. She felt +sick, and only knew that she herself could not speak the word. + +Aunt M'riar stole up after her stealthily--not Uncle Mo; his weight on +the old stairs would have made a noise. They stood side by side on the +landing, just catching sight of the little poppet in the armchair, all +unkempt gold and blue eyes, quite content with her personation of the +beloved old presence it would never know again. Aunt M'riar could just +follow Susan Burr's stifled whisper:--"She's being old Mrs. Picture, in +her chair." + +It was confirmed by Dave's speech from the window, unseen. "You _ain't_ +old Mrs. Picture. When Mrs. Picture comes, oy shall tell her you said +you was her, and then you'll see what Mrs. Picture'll say!" He spoke +with a deep earnestness--a champion of Truth against an insidious and +ungrounded fiction, that pretence was reality. + +Then Dolly's voice, immovable in conviction, sweet and clear in +correction of mere error:--"I _is_ Mrs. Spicture, and when she comes +she'll _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture. She'll set in her chair wiv scushions, +and _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture." + +The two listeners without did not wait to hear Dave's indignant +rejoinder. They could not bear the tranquil ignorance of the children, +and their unconsciousness of the black cloud closing in on them. They +turned and went noiselessly down the stairs, choking back the grief they +dared not grant indulgence to, by so much as a word or sound. The +chronic discussion that they had left behind went on--on--always the +same controversy, as it seemed; the same placid assurance of Dolly, the +same indignant protest of Dave. + +At the stairfoot, Uncle Mo, silent, looking inquiry, mistrusting speech. +Aunt M'riar used a touch on his arm, and a nod towards the door of the +little parlour, to get safe out of the children's hearing before risking +speech, with that suffocation in her throat. Then when the door was +closed, it came. + +"We c-c-couldn't do it, Mo, we c-couldn't do it." Her sobs became a +suppressed wail of despair, which seemed to give relief. Susan Burr had +no other tale to tell, and was inarticulate to the same effect. They +_could_ not break through the panoply of the children's ignorance of +Death, there in the very home of the departed, in the face of every +harbinger of her return. + +"Poor old M'riar! You shan't have the telling of 'em." Uncle Mo's +pitying tones were husky in the darkened room; not quite dark, as the +fog was lifting, and the Court's one gas-lamp was perceptible again +through its remains. "Poor old M'riar! You shan't tell 'em--nor yet +Susan Burr. _I'll_ tell 'em, myself." But his heart sank at the prospect +of his task, and he was fain to get a little respite--of only a few +hours. "Look ye here, M'riar, I don't see no harm to come of standing of +'em over till we know. Maybe, as like as not, we'll have a letter in the +morning." + +But Uncle Mo was not to have the telling of the children. + +Once it was clearly understood that the news was to be kept back, it +became easier to exist, provisionally. Grief, demanding expression, +gnaws less when silence becomes a duty. It was almost a relief to Susan +Burr to have to be dry-eyed, on compulsion; far, far easier than to have +to explain her tears to the young people. She went upstairs to them, +mustering, as she went, a demeanour that would not be hypocritical, yet +would safeguard her from suspicion of a hidden secret. She had been a +long way, and was feeling her foot. That covered the position. Further, +the children might stop upstairs a bit longer, if good. Dave was not to +go out. Uncle Mo had said so. If Uncle Mo did go round to The Sun +to-day, it would be after little boys and girls were abed and asleep. +Mrs. Burr made her attitude easier to herself by affecting a Draconic +demeanour. It was due to her foot, Dave and Dolly decided. + +The unconscious children accepted the fog as all-sufficient to account +for the household's gloom, and never knew how heavily the hours went by +for its older members. Bedtime came, and the fog did not go, or, at +least, went no further than to leave the gaslamp as Dave had seen it, +just visible across the Court, or discernible from the archway at a +favourable fluctuation. Susan Burr stepped round to Mrs. Ragstroar's, +alleging anxiety to hear Michael's story again, and some hopes of +further particulars. She may have felt indisposed for the loneliness of +her own room, with that empty chair; and yet that a company of three +would bear reduction, all that called for saying having been said twice +and again. + +This was soon after supper; when little boys and girls are abed and +asleep. The little boy in this case was half asleep. He heard his Aunt's +and Uncle's voices get fainter as his own dream-voices came to take +their place, and then came suddenly awake with a start to find Uncle Mo +looming large beside him in the half-dark room. "Made you jump, did I, +old man?" said Uncle Mo, kissing him. "Go to sleep again." Dave did so, +but not before receiving a dim impression that his uncle went into the +neighbouring room to Dolly, and kissed the sleeping child, too; gently, +so as not to wake her. That was the impression, gleaned somehow, under +which he went to sleep. Uncle Mo often looked in at Dave and Dolly, so +this visit was no surprise to Dave. + +Aunt M'riar awaited him at the stairfoot, on his return. "They'll be +happy for a bit yet," said she. "Now, if only Jerry would come and smoke +with you, Mo, I wouldn't be sorry to get to bed myself." + +"May be he'll come!" said Mo. "Anyways, M'riar, don't you stop up on +account of me. I'll have my pipe and a quiet think, and turn in +presently.... Or look here!--tell you what! I'll just go round easy +towards Jeff's, and if I meet Jerry by the way, I meet him; and if I +don't, I don't. I shan't stop there above five minutes if he's not +there, and I shan't stop all night if he is. Good-bye, M'riar." + +"Good-night's plenty, Mo; you're coming back." + +"Ay, surely! What did I say? Good-bye? Good-night, I should have made +it." But he _had_ said "Good-bye!" + +Has it ever occurred to you--you who read this--to feel it cross your +mind when walking that you have just passed a something of which you +took no notice? If you have, you will recognise this description. Did +Uncle Mo, when he wavered at the arch, fancy he had half-seen a figure +in the shadow, near the dustbin, and had automatically taken no notice +of it? If so, he decided that he was mistaken, for he passed on after +glancing back down the Court. But very likely his pause was only due to +the fact that he was pulling on his overcoat. It was one he had +purchased long ago, before the filling out had set in which awaits all +athletes when they relapse into a sedentary life. Mo hated the coat, and +the difficulties he met with when getting it on and off. + +He was as good as his word about not stopping long at The Sun. Although +he found his friend awaiting him, he did not remain in his company above +half an hour, including his seven-minutes' walk back to the Court, to +which Jerry accompanied him, saying farewell at the archway. He didn't +go on to No. 7 at once, remembering that M'riar had said she wouldn't be +sorry to go to bed. + +Seeing lights and hearing voices in at Ragstroar's, he turned in for a +chat, more particularly for a repetition of Micky's tale of his +Hammersmith visit. Finding the boy there, he accepted his mother's +suggestion that he should sit down and be comfortable. He did the +former, having first pulled off the obnoxious coat to favour the latter. + +He may have spent twenty minutes there, chiefly cross-examining Micky on +particulars, before he got up to go. He forgot the odious coat, for +Susan Burr called him back, and tried to persuade him to put it on. He +resisted all entreaties. Such a little distance!--was it worth the +trouble? He threw it over his arm, and again departed. The two women saw +him from the door, and then, as they were exchanging a final word in the +passage, were startled by a loud screaming, and, running out, saw Mo +fling away the coat on his arm, and make such speed as he might towards +a struggling group not over visible in the shadow of the lamp +immediately above their heads. + +This was within an hour of Mo's good-night, or good-bye, to M'riar at +his own doorway. + + * * * * * + +Aunt M'riar had wavered yet a little before the fire, and had then given +way to the thought of Dolly asleep. Dolly would be so unconscious of all +things that it would now be no pain to know that she knew nothing of +Death. Dolly asleep was always a solace to Aunt M'riar, even when she +kicked or made sudden incoherent dream-remarks in the dark. + +So, after placing Mo's candlestick conspicuously, that Susan Burr, who +was pretty sure to come first, should see that he was still out, and not +put up the chain nor shoot to the bolt, M'riar made her way upstairs to +bed, very quietly, so as not to wake the children. + +She was less than halfway to bed when she heard, as she thought, Susan +Burr's return. It could not be Mo, so soon. Besides, he would have +struck a match at once. He always did. + +She listened for Susan's limping footstep on the stairs. Why did it not +come? Something wrong there, or at least unusual! Leaving her candle, +she wrapped herself hurriedly in a flannel garment she called her +dressing-gown, and went downstairs to the landing. All was dark below, +and the door was shut, to the street. She called in a loud whisper:--"Is +that Susan?" and no answer came:--"Who is that?" and still no answer. + +She went back quickly for her candle, and descended the stairs, holding +it high up to see all round. No one in the kitchen itself, certainly. +The little parlour-door stood open. She thought she had shut it. Could +she be sure? She looked in, and could see no one--advanced into the +room, still seeing no one--and started suddenly forward as the door +swung to behind her. + +She turned terrified, and found herself alone with the man she most +dreaded--her husband. He had waited behind the door till she entered, +and had then pushed it to, and was leaning against it. + +"Didn't expect to see me, Polly Daverill, did you now? It's me." He +pulled a chair up, and, placing it against the door, sat back in it +slouchingly, with a kind of lazy enjoyment of her terror that was worse +than any form of intimidation. "What do you want to be scared for? I'm a +lamb. You might stroke me! This here's a civility call. For to thank you +for your letter, Polly Daverill." + +She had edged away, so as to place the table between them. She could +only suppose his words sardonically spoken, seeing what she had said in +her letter. "I wrote it for your own sake, Daverill," said she +deprecatingly, timidly. "What I said about the Police was true." + +"Can't foller that. Say it again!" + +"They _had_ put on a couple of men, to keep an eye. They may be there +now. But I'd made my mind up you should not be taken along of me, so I +wrote the letter." + +"Then what the Hell...!" His face set angrily, as he searched a pocket. +The sunken line that followed that twist in his jaw grew deeper, and the +scar on his knitted forehead told out smooth and white, against its +reddening furrows. He found what he sought--her letter, which she +recognised--and opened it before he finished his speech. "What the +Hell," he repeated, "is the meaning of _this_?" He read it in a vicious +undertone, biting off each word savagely and throwing it at her. + +She had rallied a little, but again looked more frightened than ever. It +cost her a gasping effort to say:--"You are reading it wrong! Do give an +eye to the words, Daverill." + +"Read it yourself," he retorted, and threw the letter across the table. + +She read it through and remained gazing at it with a fixed stare, rigid +with astonishment. "I never wrote it so," said she at last. + +"Then how to God Almighty did it come as it is? Answer me to that, Polly +Daverill." + +Her bewilderment was absolute, and her distress proportionate. "I never +wrote it like that, Daverill. I declare it true and solemn I never did. +What I wrote was for you to keep away, and I made the words according. +I can't say no other, if I was to die for it." + +"None of your snivelling! How came it like it is?--that's the point! +Nobody's touched the letter." He used his ill-chosen adjective for the +letter as he pointed at it, so that one might have thought he was +calling attention to a stain upon it. He dropped his finger slowly, +maintaining his reproachful glare. Then suddenly:--"Did you invellop the +damned thing yourself?" + +She answered tremulously:--"I wrote it in this room at this table, where +you sit, and put it in its invellop, and stuck it to, firm. And I put +back the blotting-book where I took it from, not to tell-tale...." + +He interrupted her roughly. "Got the cursed thing there? _Where_ did you +take it from?... Oh--_that's_ your blotting-book, is it? Hand it over!" +She had produced it from the table-drawer close at hand, and gave it to +him without knowing why he asked for it. + +There is no need to connect his promptness to catch a clue to a forgery +with his parentage. The clue is too simple--the spelling-book lore of +the spy's infancy. The convict pulled out the top sheet of +blotting-paper, and reversed it against the light. The second line of +the letter was clear, and ended "now not." The "not" might, however, +have been erased independently--probably would have been. But how about +the end of the fourth line, also clear, with the word "run" on an oasis +of clean paper, and nothing after it. That "no" in the letter was not +the work of its writer. + +"I put it in its invellop, Daverill, and not a soul see inside that +letter from me till you...." + +"How do you know that?" He paused, reflecting. "It wasn't Juliar. She'd +got no ink." This man was clever enough to outwit Scotland Yard, with an +offer of fifty pounds for his capture, but fell easily to the cunning of +a woman, roused by jealousy. It wasn't Julia, clearly? "Who had hold of +the letter, between you and her?" said he, quite off the right scent. + +"Only young Micky Ragstroar...." + +"There we've got it!" The man pounced. "Only that young offender and the +Police. That was good for half a sov. for him.... Don't see what I mean? +I'll tell you. _He_ delivered your letter all right, after they'd run +their eyes over it. I'll remember _him_, one day!" A word in this is not +the one Daverill used, and his adjective is twice omitted. Aunt M'riar's +puzzled face produced a more temperate explanation, to the effect that +Micky had carried the letter to a "tec," or detective, who had "got at +him," and that the letter had been tampered with at the police-station. + +"I wouldn't believe it of Micky, and I don't," said Aunt M'riar. "The +boy's a good boy at heart, and no tale-bearer." She ventured, as an +indirect appeal on Micky's behalf, to add:--"I'm shielding you, +Daverill, and a many wouldn't." + +He affected to recognise his indebtedness, but only grudgingly. "You're +what they call a good wife, Polly Daverill. Partner of a cove's joys and +sorrows! Got your marriage lines to show! That's your style. You stick +to that!" + +Something in his tone made M'riar say:--"Why do you speak like that? You +know that I have." Her speech did not seem to arise from his words. She +had detected a sneer in them. + +"You've got 'em to show.... Ah! But I shouldn't show 'em, if I were +you." + +"Am I likely?" + +"That's not what I was driving at." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Shall I tell you, Polly, my angel? Shall I tell you, respectable +married woman?" + +"Don't werrit me, Daverill. I don't deserve it of you!" + +"Right you are, old Polly! And told you shall be!... Sure you want to +know?... There, there--easy does it! I'm a-telling of you." He suddenly +changed his manner, and spoke quickly, collectedly, drily. "The name on +your stifficate ain't the correct name. _I_ saw to that. Only you +needn't fret your kidneys about it, that I see. You're an immoral woman, +you are! Poor Polly! Feel any different?" + +Anyone who knows the superstitious reverence for the "sacred" marriage +tie that obtains among women of M'riar's class and type will understand +her horror and indignation. And all the more if he knows the +extraordinary importance they attach to a certificate which is, after +all, only a guarantee that the marriage-bond is recorded elsewhere, not +the attested record itself. For a moment she was unable to speak, and +when words did come, they were neither protest nor contradiction, +but:--"Let me out! Let me out!" + +The convict shifted his chair without rising, and held the door back for +her exit. "Ah," said he, "go and have a look at it!" He had taken her +measure exactly. She went straight upstairs, carrying her candle to the +wardrobe by Dolly's bed, where her few private possessions were hidden +away. Dolly would not wake. If she did, what did it matter? Aunt M'riar +heard a small melodious dream-voice in the pillow say tenderly:--"One +cup wiv soody." It was the rehearsal of that banquet that the great +Censorship had disallowed. + +A lock in a drawer, refractory at first, brought to terms at last. A box +found far back, amenable to its key at sight. A still clean document, +found and read by the light of a hurriedly snuffed candle. Then an +exclamation of relief from the reader:--"There now! As if I could have +been mistook!" It was such a relief that she fairly gasped to feel it. + +No doubt a prudent, judicious person, all self-control and guiding +maxims, would have refolded and replaced that document, locked the +drawer, hidden the key, and met the cunning expectancy of the evil face +that awaited her with:--"You are entirely mistaken, and I was absolutely +right." + +But M'riar was another sort. Only one idea was present in the whirlwind +of her release from that hideous anxiety--the idea of striking home her +confutation of the lie that had caused it in the face of its originator. +She did the very thing his subtlety had anticipated. As he heard her +returning footsteps, and the rustle of the paper in her hand, he +chuckled with delight at his easy triumph, and perhaps his joy added a +nail in the coffin of his soul. + +The snicker had gone from his face before she returned, marriage +certificate in hand, and held it before his eyes. "There now!" said she. +"What did I tell you?" + +He looked at it apathetically, reading it, but not offering to take it +from her. "'Taint reg'lar!" said he. "Name spelt wrong, for one thing. +My name." + +"Oh, Daverill, how can you say that? It's spelt right." + +"Let's have a look!" He stretched out his hand for it in the same idle +way. Aunt M'riar's nature might have been far less simple than it was, +and yet she might have been deceived by his manner. That he was aiming +at possession of the paper was the last thing it seemed to imply. But he +knew his part well, and whom he had to deal with. + +Absolutely unsuspicious, she let his fingers close upon it. Even then, +so sure did he feel of landing his fish, that he played it on the very +edge of the net. "Well," said he. "Just you look at it again," and +relinquished it to her. Then, instead of putting his hand back in his +pocket, he stretched it out again, saying:--"Stop a bit! Let's have +another look at it." + +She instantly restored it, saying:--"Only look with your eyes, and +you'll see the name's all right." And then in a startled voice:--"But +what?--but why?" provoked by the unaccountable decision with which he +folded it, never looking at it. + +He slipped it inside the breast-pocket of his coat, and buttoned it +over. "That was my game, you see!" said he, equably enjoying the dumb +panic of his victim. + +As for her, she was literally speechless, for the moment. At last she +just found voice to gasp out:--"Oh, Daverill, you can't mean it! Give it +me back--oh, give it me back! Will you give it me back for money?... Oh, +how can you have the heart?..." + +"Let's see the money. How much have you got? Put it down on this here +table." He seemed to imply that he was open to negotiation. + +With a trembling hand M'riar got at her purse, and emptied it on the +table. "That is every penny," she said--"every penny I have in the +house. Now give it me!" + +"Half a bean, six bob, and a mag." He picked up and pocketed the sixteen +shillings and a halfpenny, so described. + +"Now you _will_ give it back to me?" cried poor Aunt M'riar, with a wail +in her voice that must have reached Dolly, for a pathetic cry answered +her from the room above. + +"Some o' these days," was all his answer, imperturbably. "There's your +kid squealing. Time I was off.... What's that?" + +Was it a new terror, or a thing to thank God for? Uncle Mo's big voice +at the end of the court. + +The convict made for the street-door--peeped out furtively. "He's turned +in at young Ikey's," said he. Then to M'riar, using an epithet to her +that cannot be repeated:--"Down on your knees and pray that your bully +may stick there till I'm clear, or ... Ah!--smell that!" It was his +knife-point, open, close to her face. In a moment he was out in the +Court, now so far clear of fog that the arch was visible, beyond the +light that shone out of Ragstroar's open door. + +Another moment, and M'riar knew what to do. Save Mo, or die attempting +it! If the chances seemed to point to the convict passing the house +unobserved she would do nothing. + +That was not to be the way of it. He was still some twenty paces short +of Ragstroar's when old Mo was coming out at the door with the light in +it. + +Aunt M'riar, quick on the heels of the convict, who was rather bent on +noiselessness than speed, had flung herself upon him--so little had he +foreseen such an attack--before he could turn to repel it. She clung to +him from behind with all her dead-weight, encumbering that hand with the +knife as best she might. She screamed loud with all the voice she +had:--"Mo--Mo--he has a knife--he has a knife!" Mo flung away the coat +on his arm, and ran shouting. "Leave hold of him, M'riar--keep _off_ +him--leave _hold_!" His big voice echoed down the Court, resonant with +sudden terror on her behalf. + +But her ears were deaf to any voice but that of her heart, crying almost +audibly:--"Save _him_! Never give that murderous right hand its freedom! +In spite of the brutal clutch that is dragging the hair it has captured +from the living scalp--in spite of the brutal foot below kicking hard to +reach and break a bone--cling hard to it! And if, power failing you +against its wicked strength, it should get free, be you the first to +meet its weapon, even though the penalty be death." That was her +thought, for what had Mo done that he should suffer by this man--this +nightmare for whose obsession of her own life she had herself alone to +blame? + +The struggle was not a long one. Before Mo, whose weak point was his +speed, had covered half the intervening distance, a kick of the +convict's heavy boot-heel, steel-shod, had found its bone, and broken +it, just above the ankle. The shock was irresistible, and the check on +the knife-hand perforce flagged for an instant--long enough to leave it +free. Another blow followed, a strange one that M'riar could not +localise, and then all the Court swam about, and vanished. + +What Mo saw by the light of the lamp above as he turned out of +Ragstroar's front-gate was M'riar, dressing-gowned and dishevelled, +clinging madly to the man he could recognise as her convict husband. He +heard her cry about the knife, saw that her hold relaxed, saw the blade +flash as it struck back at her. He saw her fall, and believed the blow a +mortal one. He heard the voice of Dolly wailing in the house beyond, +crying out for the missing bedfellow she would never dream beside again. +At least, that was his thought. And there before him was her slayer, +with his wife's blood fresh upon his hands. + +All the anger man can feel against the crimes of man blazed in his +heart, all the resolution he can summon to avenge them knit the muscles +of his face and set closer the grip upon his lip. And yet, had he been +asked what was his strongest feeling at this moment, he would have +answered:--"Fear!"--fear, that is, that his man, more active than +himself and younger, should give him the slip, to right or to left, and +get away unharmed. + +But that was not the convict's thought, with that knife open in his +hand. Indeed, the small space at command might have thwarted him. If, +for but two seconds, he could employ those powerful fists that were on +the watch for him on either side of the formidable bulk whose slow +movement was his only hope, then he might pass and be safe. It would +have to be quick work, with young Ikey despatched by the screaming women +at Ragstroar's to call in help; either his father's from the nearest +pot-house, or any police-officer, whichever came first. + +Quick work it was! A gasp or two, and the man's natural flinching before +the great prizefighter and his terrible reputation had to yield to the +counsels of despair. It had to be done, somehow. He led with his +left--so an expert tells us we should phrase it--and hoped that his +greater alacrity would land a face-blow, and cause an involuntary +movement of the fists to lay the body open. Then his knife, and a rip, +and the thing would be done. + +It might have been so, easily, had it been a turn-to with the gloves, +for diversion. Then, twenty years of disuse would have had their say, +and the slow paralysing powers of old age asserted themselves, quenching +the swift activity of hand and eye, and making their responsive energy, +that had given him victory in so many a hard-fought field, a memory of +the past. But it was not so now. The tremendous tension of his heartfelt +anger, when he found himself face to face with its dastardly object, +made him again, for one short moment, the man that he had been in the +plenitude of his early glory. Or, short of that, a near approach to it. + +For never was a movement swifter than old Mo's duck to the left, which +allowed his opponent's "lead off" to pass harmless over his right +shoulder. Never was a cross-counter more deadly, more telling, than the +blow with his right, which had never moved till that moment, landing +full on the convict's jaw, and stretching him, insensible or dead, upon +the ground. The sound of it reached the men who came running in through +the arch, and made more than one regret he had not been there a moment +sooner, to see it. + +Speechless and white with excitement, all crowded down to where Mo was +kneeling by the woman who lay stretched upon the ground beyond. Not +dead, for she was moving, and speaking. And he was answering, but not in +his old voice. + +"I'm all as right as a trivet, M'riar. It's you I'm a-thinkin' of.... +Some of you young men run for the doctor." + +One appeared, out of space. Things happen so, in events of this sort, +in London. No--she is not to be lifted about, till he sees what harm's +done. Keep your hands off, all! + +By some unaccountable common consent, the man on the ground, motionless, +may wait his turn. Two or three inspect him, and one tentatively prods +at the inanimate body to make it show signs of life, but is checked by +public opinion. Then comes a medical verdict, a provisional one, marred +by reservations, about the work that knife has done. A nasty cut, but no +danger. Probably stunned by the fall. Bring her indoors. Ragstroar's +house is chosen, because of the children. + +Uncle Mo never took his eyes off M'riar till after a stretcher had come +suddenly from Heaven knows where, and borne his late opponent away, with +a crowd following, to some appointed place. He thought he heard an +inquiry answered in the words:--"Doctor says he can do nothing for +_him_," and may have drawn his inferences. Probably it was the +frightened voices and crying of the children that made him move away +slowly towards his own house. For he had asked the boy Micky "Had anyone +gone to see to them?" and been answered that Mrs. Burr was with them. It +was then that Micky noticed that his voice had fallen to little more +than a whisper, and that his face was grey. What Micky said was that his +chops looked awful blue, and you couldn't ketch not a word he said. + +But he was able to walk slowly into the house, very slowly up the +stairs. Dave, in the room above, hearing the well-known stair-creak +under his heavy tread, rushed down to find him lying on the bed in his +clothes. Mo drew the child's face to his own as he lay, saying:--"Here's +a kiss for you, old man, and one to take to Dolly." + +"Am oy to toyk it up to her now this very minute?" said Dave. + +"Now this very minute!" said Uncle Mo. And Dave rushed off to fulfil his +mission. + +When Susan Burr, a little later, tapped at his door, doubting if all was +well with him, no answer came. Looking in and seeing him motionless, she +advanced to the bed, and touched his hand. It never moved, and she +listened for a breath, but in vain. Heart-failure, after intense +excitement, had ended this life for Uncle Mo. + + +THE END + + + + +A BELATED PENDRIFT + + +"I can tell you exactly when it was, stupid!" said a middle-aged lady at +the Zoological Gardens to a contented elderly husband, some eighteen +years after the foregoing story ended. "It was before we were married." + +"That does not convey the precise date, my dear, but no doubt it is +true," said the gentleman unpoetically. At least, we may suppose so, as +the lady said:--"Don't be prosy, Percy." + +A little Macacao monkey in the cage they were inspecting withdrew his +left hand from a search for something on his person to accept a nut +sadly from the lady, but said nothing. The gentleman seemed unoffended, +and carefully stripped a brand-label from a new cigar. "I presume," said +he, "that 'before we were married' means 'immediately before?'" + +"What would you have it mean?" said the lady. + +The gentleman let the issue go, and made no reply. After he had used a +penknife on the cigar-end to his satisfaction, he said:--"Exactly when +was it?" + +"Suppose we go outside and find my chair, if you are going to smoke," +said the lady. "You mustn't smoke in here, and quite right, because +these little darlings hate it, and I want to see the Hippopotamus." + +"Out we go!" said the gentleman. And out they went. It was not until +they had recovered the lady's wheeled chair, and were on their way +towards the Hippopotamus, that she resumed the lost thread of their +conversation, as though nothing had interrupted it. + +"It was just about that time we came here, and Dr. Sir Thingummybob came +up when we were looking at the Kinkajou--over there!... No, I don't want +to go there now. Go on through the tunnel." This was to the chairman, +who had shown a tendency to go off down a side-track, like one of his +class at a public meeting. "I suppose you remember that?" + +"Rather!" said the gentleman, enjoying his first whiff. + +"Well--it was just about then. A little after the accident--don't you +remember?--the house that tumbled down?" + +"I remember all about it. The old lady I carried upstairs. Well--didn't +you believe _then_ it was all up with Sir Adrian's eyesight? _I_ did." + +"My dear!--how you do overstate things! Shall I ever persuade you to be +accurate? We were all much alarmed about him, and with reason. But I for +one always did believe, and always shall believe, that there was immense +exaggeration. People do get so excited over these things, and make +mountains out of molehills." + +The gentleman said:--"H'm!" + +"Well!" said the lady convincingly. "All I say is--see how well his eyes +are now!" + +The gentleman seemed only half convinced, at best. "There was something +_rum_ about it," said he. "You'll admit that?" + +"It depends entirely on what you mean by 'rum.' Of course, there was +something a little singular about so sudden a recovery, if that is what +you mean." + +"Suppose we make it 'a little singular!' I've no objection." + +The interest of the main topic must have superseded the purely +academical issue. For the lady appeared disposed towards a +recapitulation in detail of the incidents referred to. "Gwen went away +to Vienna with her mother in the middle of January," said she. "And ... +No--I'm not mistaken. I'm sure I'm right! Because when we came back from +Languedoc in June there was not a word of any such thing. And Lord +Ancester never breathed as much as a hint. And he certainly _would_ +have, under the circumstances. Why don't you speak and agree with me, or +contradict me, instead of puffing?" + +"Well, my love," said the gentleman apologetically, "you see, my +interpretation of your meaning has to be--as it were--constructive. +However, I believe it to be accurate this time. If I understand you +rightly ..." + +"And you have no excuse for not doing so. For I am sure that what I did +say was as clear as daylight." + +"Exactly. It is perfectly true that, when we went to Grosvenor Square in +June, Tim said nothing about recovery. In fact, as I remember it--only +eighteen years is a longish time, you know, to recollect things--he was +regularly down in the mouth about the whole concern. I always believed, +myself, that he would sooner have had Adrian for Gwen, on any terms, by +that time--sooner than she should marry the Hapsburg, certainly. Not +that he believed that Gwen was going to cave out!" + +"You never said he said that!" + +"Because he didn't. He only cautioned me particularly against believing +the rubbish that got into the newspapers. I am sure that if he had said +anything _then_ about recovery, I should remember it now." + +"I suppose you would." + +"And then six weeks after that Gwen came tearing home by herself from +Vienna. Then the next thing we heard was that he had recovered his +eyesight, and they were to be married in the autumn." + +This was at the entrance to the tunnel, on the way to the Hippopotamus. +One's voice echoes in this tunnel, and that may have been the reason the +conversation paused. Or it may have been that resonance suggests +publicity, and this was a private story. Or possibly, no more than mere +cogitative silence of the parties. Anyhow, they had emerged into the +upper world before either spoke again. + +Then said the lady:--"It seems that it comes to the same thing, +whichever way we put it. Something happened." + +"My dear," replied the gentleman, "you ought to have been on the Bench. +You have the summing-up faculty in the highest degree. Something +happened that did not, as the phrase is, come out. But what was +it?--that's the point! I believe we shall die without knowing." + +"We certainly shall," said Mrs. Percival Pellew--for why should the +story conceal her identity? "We certainly shall, if we go over and over +and over it, and never get an inch nearer. You know, my dear, if we have +talked it over once, we have talked it over five hundred times, and no +one is a penny the wiser. You are so vague. What was it I began by +saying?" + +"That that sort of flash-in-the-pan he had ... when he saw the bust, you +know ..." + +"I know. Septimius Severus." + +"... Was just about the time Sir Coupland Merridew met us at the +Kinkajou, and asked for the address in Cavendish Square. That was the +end of September. Gwen told you all about it that same evening, and you +told me when I came next day." + +"I know. The time you spilt the coffee over my poplinette." + +"I don't deny it. Well--what was it you meant to say?" + +"What about?... Oh, I know--the Septimius Severus business! Nothing came +of it. I mean it never happened again." + +"I'm--not--so--sure! I fancy Tim thought something of the sort did. But +I couldn't say. It's too long ago now to remember anything fresh. That's +a Koodoo. If I had horns, I should like that sort." + +"Never mind the Koodoo. Go on about Gwen and the blind story. You know +we both thought she _was_ going to marry the Hapsburg, and then she +turned up quite suddenly and unexpectedly in Cavendish Square, and told +Clo Dalrymple she had come back to order her _trousseau_. Then the Earl +said that to you about the six months' trial." + +"Ye-es. He said she had come home in a fine state of mind, because her +mother hadn't played fair. He didn't give particulars, but I could see. +Of course, that story in the papers _may_ have been her mamma's doing. +Very bad policy if it was, with a daughter like that. However, he said +it was very near the end of the six months, and after all the whole +thing was rather a farce. Besides, Gwen _had_ played fair. So he had let +her off three weeks, and she was going down to the Towers at once--which +meant, of course, Pensham Steynes." + +"And nothing else?" + +"Only that he thought on the whole he had better go with her. Can't +recall another word, 'pon my honour!" + +"I recollect. But he didn't go, because Gwen waited for her mother to +come with her. Undoubtedly that was the proper course." This was spoken +in a Grundy tone. "But she was very indignant with Philippa about +something." + +"Philippa was backing the Hapsburg. All that is intelligible. What I +want to understand--only we never shall--is how Adrian's eyes came right +just at that very moment. Because, when we met him with his sister in +London, he was as blind as a bat. And that was at Whitsuntide. You +remember?--when his sister begged we wouldn't speak to him about Gwen. +_We_ thought it was the Hapsburg." + +"Yes--they were just going back to Pensham after a month in London. She +just missed them by a few hours. There was not a word of his being any +better then." + +"Not a word. Quite the other way. And then in a fortnight, or less, he +saw as well as he had ever seen in his life. I don't see any use in +putting it down to previous exaggeration, because a man can't see less +than nothing, and that's exactly what he did see. Nothing! He told me so +himself. Said he couldn't see me, and rather hoped he never should. +Because he had formed a satisfactory image of me in his mind, and didn't +want it disturbed by reality." + +"He had that curious paradoxical way of talking. I always ascribed the +odd things he said to that, more than to any lack of good taste." + +"To what?" + +"My dear, my meaning is perfectly obvious, so you needn't pretend you +don't understand it. I am referring to his very marked individuality, +which shows itself in speech, and which no person with any discernment +could for one moment suppose to imply defective taste or feeling. He did +say odd things, and he does say odd things." + +"I can't see anything particularly odd in what he said about me. If a +fillah forms a good opinion of another fillah whom he's never seen, +obviously the less he sees of him the better. Let well alone, don't you +know!" + +"That is because you are as paradoxical as he is. All men are. But you +might be sensible for once, and talk reasonably." + +"Well, then--suppose we do, my dear!" said the gentleman, +conciliatorily. "Let me see--what was I going to say just now--at the +Koodoo? Awfully sensible thing, only something put it out of my head." + +"You must recollect it for yourself," said the lady, with some severity. +"_I_ certainly cannot help you." + +The gentleman never seemed to resent what was apparently the habitual +manner of his lady wife. He walked on beside her, puffing contentedly, +and apparently recollecting abortively; until, to stimulate his memory, +she said rather crisply:--"Well?" He then resumed:--"Not so sensible as +I thought it was, but somethin' in it for all that! Don't you know, +sometimes, when you don't speak on the nail, sometimes, you lose your +chance, and then you can't get on the job again, sometimes? You get +struck. See what I mean?" + +"Perhaps I shall, if you explain it more clearly," said his wife, with +civility and forbearance, both of the controversial variety. + +"I mean that if I had told Adrian then and there that he was an +unreasonable chap to expect anyone to believe that his eyesight came +back with a jump, of itself--because that was the tale they told, you +know----" + +"That was the tale." + +"Then very likely he would have told me the whole story. But I was +rather an ass, and let the thing slip at the time--and then I couldn't +pick it up again. Never got a chance!" + +"Precisely. Just like a man! Men are so absurdly secretive with one +another. They won't this and they won't that, until one is surprised at +nothing. I quite see that you couldn't rake it up now, seventeen years +afterwards." + +"Seventeen years! Come--I say!" + +"Cecily is sixteen in August." + +"Well--yes--well!--I suppose she is. I say, Con, that's a queer thing to +think of!" + +"What is?" + +"That we should have a girl of sixteen!" + +"What can you expect?" + +"Oh--it's all right, you know, as far as that goes. But she'll be a +grown-up young woman before we know it." + +"Well?" + +"What the dooce shall we do with her, then?" + +"All parents," said the lady, somewhat didactically, "are similarly +situated, and have identical responsibilities." + +"Yes--but it's gettin' serious. I want her to stop a little girl." + +"Fathers do. But we need not begin to fuss about her yet, thank Heaven!" + +"'Spose not. I say, I wonder what's become of those two young monkeys?" + +"Now, you needn't begin to fidget about _them_. They can't fall into the +canal." + +"They might lose sight of each other, and go huntin' about." + +"Well--suppose they do! It won't hurt you. But _they_ won't lose sight +of one another." + +"How do you know that?" + +"Dave is not a boy now. He is a responsible man of five-and-twenty. I +told him not to let her go out of his sight." + +"Oh well--I suppose it's all right. You're responsible, you know. _You_ +manage these things." + +"My dear!--how can you be so ridiculous? See how young she is. Besides, +he's known her from childhood." + +The story does not take upon itself to interpret any portion whatever of +this conversation. It merely records it. + +The last speech has to continue on reminiscent lines, apparently +suggested by the reference to the childhood of the speaker's daughter; +one of the young monkeys, no doubt. "It does seem so strange to think +that he was that little boy with the black grubby face that Clo's +carriage stopped for in the street. Just eighteen years ago, dear!" + +"The best years of my life, Constantia, the best years of my life! +Well--they think a good deal of that boy at the Foreign Office, and it +isn't only because he's a _protégé_ of Tim's. He'll make his mark in the +world. You'll see if he doesn't. Do you know?--that boy ..." + +"Suppose you give these crumbs to the Hippopotamus! I've been saving +them for him." + +The gentleman looked disparagingly in the bag the lady handed to him. +"Wouldn't he prefer something more tangible?" said he. "Less subdivided, +I should say." + +"My dear, he's grateful for absolutely anything. Look at him standing +there with his mouth wide open. He's been there for hours, and I know he +expects something from me, and I've got nothing else. Throw them well +into his mouth, and don't waste any getting them through the railings." + +"Easier said than done! However, there's nothing like trying." The +gentleman contrived a favourable arrangement of sundry scoriae of buns +and biscuits in his palms, arranged cupwise, and cautiously approaching +the most favourable interstice of the iron railings, took aim at the +powerful yawn beyond them. + +"Good shot!" said he. "Only the best bit's hit his nose and fallen in +the mud!" + +"There now, Percy, you've choked him, poor darling! How awkward you +are!" It was, alas, true! For the indiscriminate shower of crumbs made +straight, as is the instinct of crumbs, for the larynx as well as the +oesophagus of the hippo, and some of them probably reached his windpipe. +At any rate, he coughed violently, and when the larger mammals cough +it's a serious matter. The earth shook. He turned away, hurt, and went +deliberately into his puddle, reappearing a moment after as an island, +but evidently disgusted with Man, and over for the day. "You may as well +go on with what you were saying," said Mrs. Pellew. + +"Wonder what it was! That fillah's mouth's put it all out of my head. +What _was_ I saying?" + +"Something about David Wardle." + +"Yes. Him and that old uncle of his--the fighting man. The boy can +hardly talk about him now, and he wasn't eight when the old chap died. +Touchin' story! He _has_ told me all he recollects--more than once--but +it only upsets the poor boy. I've never mentioned it, not for years now. +The old chap must have been a fine old chap. But I've told you all the +boy told me, at the time." + +"Ye-es. I remember the particulars, generally. You said the row wasn't +his fault." + +"His fault?--no, indeed! The fellow drew a knife upon him. You know he +was that awful miscreant, Daverill. There wasn't a crime he hadn't +committed. But old Moses killed him--splendidly! By Jove, I _should_ +like to have seen that!" + +"Really, Percy, if you talk in that dreadful way, I won't listen to +you." + +"Can't help it, my dear, can't help it! Fancy being able to kill such a +damnable beast at a single blow!" The undertone in which Mr. Pellew went +on speaking to his wife may have contained some particulars of +Daverill's career, for she said:--"Well--I can understand your feeling. +But we won't talk about it any more, please!" + +Whereto the reply was:--"All right, my dear. I'll bottle up. Suppose we +turn round. It's high time to be getting home." So the chairman put +energies into a return towards the tunnel. But for all that, the lady +went back to the subject, or its neighbourhood. "Wasn't he somehow mixed +up with that old Mrs. Alibone at Chorlton--Dave's aunt she is, I +believe. At least, he always calls her so." + +"Aunt Maria? Of course. She _is_ his Aunt Maria. He was--or had +been--Aunt Maria's husband. But people said as little about that as they +could. He had been an absentee at Norfolk Island--a convict. That old +chap she married--old Alibone--- he's the great authority on horseflesh. +Tim found it out when they came to Chorlton to stay at the very old +lady's--what's her name?" + +"Mrs. Marrable." Here Mrs. Pellew suddenly became luminous about the +facts, owing to a connecting link. "Of course! Mrs. Marrable was the +twin sister." + +"A--oh yes!--the twin sister.... I remember ... at least, I don't. Not +sure that I do, anyhow!" + +"Foolish man! Can't you remember the lovely old lady at Clo +Dalrymple's?..." + +"She _was_ the one I carried upstairs. I should rather think I did +recollect her. She weighed nothing." + +"Oh yes--_you_ remember all about it. Mrs. Marrable's twin sister from +Australia." + +"Of course! Of course! Only I'd forgotten for the moment what it was I +didn't remember. Cut along!" + +"I was not saying anything." + +"No--but you were just going to." + +"Well--I was. It was _her_ grave in Chorlton Churchyard." + +"That what?" + +"That Gwen and our girl went to put the flowers on, three weeks ago." + +"By-the-by, when are the honeymooners coming back?" + +"The Crespignys? Very soon now, I should think. They were still at Siena +when Gwen heard from Dorothy last, and it was unbearably hot, even +there." + +"I thought Cis wrote to Dolly in Florence." + +"Not the last letter. They were at the Montequattrinis' in May. That's +what you're thinking of. Cis wrote to her there, then. It was another +letter." + +"'Spose I'm wrong! I meant the letter where she told how the very old +lady walked with them to the grave." + +"Old Mrs. Marrable. Yes--and old Mrs. Alibone had to go in the carriage, +because of her foot, or something. She has a bad foot. That was in the +middle of June. _That_ letter _was_ to Fiesole. You do get so mixed up." + +"Expect I do. Fancy that old lady, though, at ninety-eight!" + +"Yes--fancy! Gwen said she was just as strong this year as last. She'll +live to be a hundred, I do believe. Why--the other old woman at Chorlton +is over seventy! Her daughter--or is it niece? I never know...." + +"Didn't Cis say she spoke of her as 'my mother'?" + +"No--that was the twin sister that died. But she always spoke _to_ her +as 'mother.'" + +"Oh ah--that was what Cis couldn't make head or tail of. Rather a +puzzling turn out! But I say...." + +"What?... Wait till we get out of the noise. What were you going to +say?" + +"Isn't her head rather ... I mean, doesn't she show signs of...." + +"Senile decay? No. What makes you think that?" + +"Of course, _I_ don't know. I only go by what our girl said. Of course, +Gwen Torrens is still one of the most beautiful women in London--or +anywhere, for that matter! And it may have been, nothing but that." + +"Oh, I know what you mean now. 'Glorious Angel.' I don't think anything +of that.... Isn't that the children there--by the Pelicans?" + +It was, apparently. A very handsome young man and a very pretty girl, +who must have been only sixteen--as her parents could not be +mistaken--but she looked more. Both were evidently enjoying both, +extremely; and nothing seemed to be further from their thoughts than +losing sight of one another. + +Says Mrs. Pellew from her chariot:--"My dear, what an endless time you +have been away! I wish you wouldn't. It makes your father so fidgety." +Whereupon each of these two young people says:--"It wasn't me." And +either glances furtively at the other. No doubt it was both. + +"Never mind which it was now, but tell me about old Mrs. Marrable at +Chorlton. I want to know what it was she called your Aunt Gwen." + +"Yes--tell about Granny Marrowbone," says the young man. + +The girl testifies:--"Her Glorious Angel. When we first went into the +Cottage. What she said was:--'Here comes my Glorious Angel!' Well!--why +shouldn't she?" + +"She _always_ calls her that," says the young man. + +"You see, my dear! It has not struck anyone but yourself as anything the +least out of the way." Mrs. Pellew then explains to her daughter, not +without toleration for an erratic judgment--to wit, her husband's--that +that gentleman has got a nonsensical idea into his head that old Mrs. +Marrable is not quite.... Oh no--not that she is _failing_, you +know--not at all!... Only, perhaps, not so clear as.... Of course, very +old people sometimes do.... + +The girl looks at the young man for his opinion. He gives it with a +cheerful laugh. "What!--Granny Marrowbone off her chump? As sound as you +or I! She's called Lady Torrens her Glorious Angel ever since I can +recollect. Oh no--_she's_ all right." Whereupon Mr. Pellew says:--"I +see--sort of expression. Very applicable, as things go. Oh no--no reason +for alarm! Certainly not!" + +"You know," says the girl, Cis--who is new, and naturally knows things, +and can tell her parents,--"you know there is never the slightest reason +for apprehension as long as there is no delusion. Even then we have to +discriminate carefully between fixed or permanent delusions and...." + +"Shut up, mouse!" says her father. "What's that striking?" + +The young man looks at his watch--is afraid it must be seven. The elder +supposes that some of the party don't want to be late for dinner. The +young lady says:--"Well--I got it all out of a book." And her mother +says:--"Now, please don't dawdle any more. Go the short way, and see for +the carriage." Whereupon the young people make off at speed up the steps +to the terrace, and a brown bear on the top of his pole thinks they are +hurrying to give him a bun, and is disillusioned. Mr. Pellew accompanies +his wife, but as they go quick they do not talk, and the story hears no +further disconnected chat. Nor does it hear any more when the turnstiles +are passed and the carriage is reached. + +Soon out of sight--that carriage! And with it vanishes the last chance +of knowing any more of Dave and Dolly and their country Granny. And when +the present writer went to look for Sapps Court, he found--as he has +told you--only a tea-shop, and the tea was bad. + +But if ever you go to Chorlton-under-Bradbury, go to the churchyard and +hunt up the graves of old Mrs. Picture and Granny Marrowbone. + + + + +WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S NOVELS + + +"WHY ALL THIS POPULARITY?" asks E. V. LUCAS, writing in the _Outlook_ of +De Morgan's Novels. He answers: De Morgan is "almost the perfect example +of the humorist; certainly the completest since Lamb.... Humor, however, +is not all.... In the De Morgan world it is hard to find an unattractive +figure.... The charm of the young women, all brave and humorous and gay, +and all trailing clouds of glory from the fairyland from which they have +just come." + + +=JOSEPH VANCE= + +The story of a great sacrifice and a life-long love. + + "The book of the last decade; the best thing in fiction since Mr. + Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must take its place as the first great + English novel that has appeared in the twentieth century."--LEWIS + MELVILLE in _New York Times Saturday Review_. + + +=ALICE-FOR-SHORT= + +The romance of an unsuccessful man, in which the long buried past +reappears in London of to-day. + + "If any writer of the present era is read a half century hence, a + quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William De + Morgan."--_Boston Transcript_. + + +=SOMEHOW GOOD= + +How two brave women won their way to happiness. + + "A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the + range of fiction."--_The Nation_. + + +=IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN= + +A story of the great love of Blind Jim and his little daughter, and of +the affairs of a successful novelist. + + "De Morgan at his very best, and how much better his best is than + the work of any novelist of the past thirty years."--_The + Independent_. + + +=AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR= + +A very dramatic novel of Restoration days. + + "A marvelous example of Mr. De Morgan's inexhaustible fecundity of + invention.... Shines as a romance quite as much as 'Joseph Vance' + does among realistic novels."--_Chicago Record-Herald_. + + +=A LIKELY STORY= + + "Begins comfortably enough with a little domestic quarrel in a + studio.... The story shifts suddenly, however, to a brilliantly told + tragedy of the Italian Renaissance embodied in a girl's portrait.... + The many readers who like Mr. De Morgan will enjoy this charming + fancy greatly."--_New York Sun_. + + +_A Likely Story, $1.35 net; the others, $1.75 each._ + + +=WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST= + +The most "De Morganish" of all his stories. The scene is England in the +fifties. _820 pages_. _$1.50 net_. + + +* * * A thirty-two page illustrated leaflet about Mr. De Morgan, with +complete reviews of his first four books, sent on request. + + + + +JEAN-CHRISTOPHE + +_By ROMAIN ROLLAND_ + + +Translated from the French by GILBERT CANNAN. In three volumes, each +$1.50 net + +This great trilogy, the life story of a musician, at first the sensation +of musical circles in Paris, has come to be one of the most discussed +books among literary circles in France, England and America. + +Each volume of the American edition has its own individual interest, can +be understood without the other, and comes to a definite conclusion. + + +_The three volumes with the titles of the French volumes included are:_ + +=JEAN-CHRISTOPHE= +DAWN--MORNING--YOUTH--REVOLT + +=JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS= +THE MARKET PLACE--ANTOINETTE--THE HOUSE + +=JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: JOURNEY'S END= +LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP--THE BURNING BUSH--THE NEW +DAWN + + +_Some Noteworthy Comments_ + + "'Hats off, gentlemen--a genius.'. One may mention 'Jean-Christophe' + in the same breath with Balzac's 'Lost Illusions'; it is as big as + that. * It is moderate praise to call it with Edmund Gosse 'the + noblest work of fiction of the twentieth century.' * A book as big, + as elemental, as original as though the art of fiction began today. + * We have nothing comparable in English literature. * + "--_Springfield Republican._ + + "If a man wishes to understand those devious currents which make up + the great, changing sea of modern life, there is hardly a single + book more illustrative, more informing and more + inspiring."--_Current Opinion._ + + "Must rank as one of the very few important works of fiction of the + last decade. A vital compelling work. We who love it feel that it + will live."--_Independent._ + + "The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or from + any other European country, in a decade."--_Boston Transcript._ + + + _A 32-page booklet about Romain Rolland and Jean-Christophe, with + portraits and complete reviews, on request._ + + + + +Coningsby Dawson's + +THE GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS + +The triple romance of a Pagan-Puritan of to-day, with three heroines of +unusual charm. $1.35 net. + + _Boston Transcript:_--"All vivid with the color of life; a novel to + compel not only absorbed attention, but long remembrance." + + _Cosmo Hamilton in The New York Sun:_--"A new writer who is an old + master.... He lets all the poet in him loose.... He has set himself + in line with those great dead to whom the novel was a living, + throbbing thing, vibrant with the life blood of its creator, + pulsing with sensitiveness, laughter, idealism, tears, the fire of + youth, the joy of living, passion, and underlying it all that sense + of the goodness of God and His earth and His children without which + nothing is achieved, nothing lives." + + _Life:_--"The first treat of the new season." + + _Chicago Record-Herald:_--"His undercurrents always are those of + hope and sympathy and understanding. Moreover, the book is + singularly touched to beauty, alive with descriptive gems, and + gently bubbling humor and humanization of unusual order. Generous + and clever and genial." + + + + +Marjorie Patterson's + +THE DUST OF THE ROAD + +A vivid story of stage life by an actress. Her characters are +hard-working, but humorous and clean-living. With colored frontispiece, +$1.30 net. + + _New York Tribune:_--"Her story would not be so vivid and + convincing if its professional part, at least, had not been lived. + The glamor of the stage is found here where it should be, in the + ambition of the young girl, in the fine enthusiasm of the manager. + There is humor here, and pathos, friendship, loyalty, the vanity of + which we hear so much." + + _New York Sun:_--"In a particularly illuminating way, many points + are touched upon which will be read with interest in these days + when the young daughters of families are bound to go forth and + attack the world for themselves." + + _Henry L. Mencken in Baltimore Evening Sun:_ "Lively and + interesting human beings ... dramatic situations ... a vivid + background ... she knows how to write ... amazing plausibility. + These stage folk are real ... depicted with humor, insight, + vivacity ... abounding geniality and good humor." + + + + +THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE + +_American and English (1580-1912)_ + + + Compiled by BURTON E. STEVENSON. Collects the best short poetry of + the English language--not only the poetry everybody says is good, + but also the verses that everybody reads. (3742 pages; India paper, + 1 vol., 8vo, complete author, title and first line indices, $7.50 + net; carriage 40 cents extra.) + +The most comprehensive and representative collection of American and +English poetry ever published, including 3,120 unabridged poems from +some 1,100 authors. + +It brings together in one volume the best short poetry of the English +language from the time of Spencer, with especial attention to American +verse. + +The copyright deadline has been passed, and some three hundred recent +authors are included, very few of whom appear in any other general +anthology, such as Lionel Johnson, Noyes, Housman, Mrs. Meynell, Yeats, +Dobson, Lang, Watson, Wilde, Francis Thompson, Gilder, Le Gallienne, Van +Dyke, Woodberry, Riley, etc., etc. + +The poems as arranged by subject, and the classification is unusually +close and searching. Some of the most comprehensive sections are: +Children's rhymes (300 pages); love poems (800 pages); nature poetry +(400 pages); humorous verse (500 pages); patriotic and historical poems +(600 pages); reflective and descriptive poetry (400 pages). No other +collection contains so many popular favorites and fugitive verses. + + + + +DELIGHTFUL POCKET ANTHOLOGIES + +The following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible covers and +pictured cover linings. 16mo. Each, cloth, $1.50; leather, $2.50. + +=THE GARLAND OF CHILDHOOD= + +A little book for all lovers of children. Compiled by Percy Withers. + +=THE VISTA Of ENGLISH VERSE= + +Compiled by Henry S. Pancoast. From Spencer to Kipling. + +=LETTERS THAT LIVE= + +Compiled by Laura E. Lockwood and Amy R. Kelly. Some 150 letters. + +=POEMS FOR TRAVELLERS= + +(About "The Continent.") Compiled by Miss Mary R. J. DuBois. + +=THE OPEN ROAD= + +A little book for wayfarers. Compiled by E. V. Lucas. + +=THE FRIENDLY TOWN= + +A little book for the urbane, compiled by E. V. Lucas. + +=THE POETIC OLD-WORLD= + +Compiled by Miss L. H. Humphrey. Covers Europe, including Spain, Belgium +and the British Isles. + +=THE POETIC NEW-WORLD= + +Compiled by Miss Humphrey. + + + + +STANDARD CONTEMPORARY NOVELS + + +=WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE= + +The story of a great sacrifice and a lifelong love. Over fourteen +printings. $1.75. + +* * * List of Mr. De Morgan's other novels sent on application. + +=PAUL LEICESTER FORD'S THE HON. PETER STIRLING= + +This famous novel of New York political life has gone through over fifty +impressions. $1.50. + +=ANTHONY HOPE'S PRISONER OF ZENDA= + +This romance of adventure has passed through over sixty impressions. +With illustrations by C. D. Gibson. $1.50. + +=ANTHONY HOPE'S RUPERT OF HENTZAU= + +This story has been printed over a score of times. With illustrations by +C. D. Gibson. $1.50. + +=ANTHONY HOPE'S DOLLY DIALOGUES= + +Has passed through over eighteen printings. With illustrations by H. C. +Christy. $1.50. + +=CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS'S CHEERFUL AMERICANS= + +By the author of "Poe's Raven in an Elevator" and "A Holiday Touch." +With 24 illustrations. Tenth printing. $1.25. + +=MAY SINCLAIR'S THE DIVINE FIRE= + +By the author of "The Helpmate," etc. Fifteenth printing. $1.50. + +=BURTON E. STEVENSON'S MARATHON MYSTERY= + +This mystery story of a New York apartment house is now in its seventh +printing, has been republished in England and translated into German and +Italian. With illustrations in color. $1.50. + +=E. L. VOYNICH'S THE GADFLY= + +An intense romance of the Italian uprising against the Austrians. +Twenty-third edition. $1.25. + +=DAVID DWIGHT WELLS'S HER LADYSHIP'S ELEPHANT= + +With cover by Wm. Nicholson. Eighteenth printing. $1.25. + +=C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR= + +Over thirty printings. $1.50. + +=C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S THE PRINCESS PASSES= + +Illustrated by Edward Penfield. Eighth printing. $1.50. + + + + +BY INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE + + +=ANGEL ISLAND= + +Illustrated by JOHN RAE. $1.35 net. Ready in January, 1914. + +The story of five shipwrecked men of varied attainments and five equally +individual winged women. This picturesque romance, with stirring +episodes and high ideals, appears for the first time in complete form, +the serial version having been much shortened. + +=PHOEBE AND ERNEST= + +With 30 illustrations by R. F. SCHABELITZ. $1.35 net. + +Parents will recognize themselves in the story, and laugh +understandingly with, and sometimes at, Mr. and Mrs. Martin and their +children, Phoebe and Ernest. + + "We must go back to Louisa Olcott for their equals."--_Boston + Advertiser_. + + "For young and old alike we know of no more refreshing + story."--_New York Evening Post._ + +=PHOEBE, ERNEST, AND CUPID= + +Illustrated by R. F. SCHABELITZ. $1.35 net. + +In this sequel to the popular "Phoebe and Ernest," each of these +delightful young folk goes to the altar. + + "To all jaded readers of problem novels, to all weary wayfarers on + the rocky literary road of social pessimism and domestic woe, we + recommend 'Phoebe, Ernest, and Cupid' with all our hearts: it is + not only cheerful, it's true."--_N. Y. Times Review._ + + "Wholesome, merry, absolutely true to life."--_The Outlook._ + +=JANEY= + +Illustrated by ADA C. WILLIAMSON. $1.25 net. + + "Being the record of a short interval in the journey thru life and + the struggle with society of a little girl of nine." + + "Depicts youthful human nature as one who knows and loves it. Her + 'Phoebe and Ernest' studies are deservedly popular, and now, in + 'Janey,' this clever writer has accomplished an equally charming + portrait."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +List of Corrections Made by the Transcriber: + +(Words to be emphasized are enclosed by pound signs [#].) + +Page 6: impident (square and compact, that chunky and yet that tender, +that no right-minded person could desire him to be changed to an +#impudent# young scaramouch like young Michael Ragstroar four doors) + +Page 55: scarcly (letter remains, and has been seen by the present +writer and others. The dexterity of the thing almost passes belief, only +a few #scarcely# perceptible traces of the old writing being visible, the +length of) + +Page 65: mankleshelf (directness. But he was destined to puzzle his +audience by his keen interest in something that was on the #mantleshelf#, +his description of which seemed to relate to nothing this lady's +recollection of) + +Page 76: see to the sacks, ("He #sees# to the sacks," said Dave.) + +Page 84: starn (in your antecedents, surely it would be these two +leisurely rowers and the superior person in the #stern#, with the oilskin +cape?) + +Page 139: bliassed (want of shrewdness when he visited Sapps Court. She +had been #biased# towards this suspicion by the fact that the man, when he +first referred to Sapps Court, had spoken the name as though) + +Page 277: backelors (it any hinterland of discussion of the ethics of +Love, provocative of practical application to the lives of old maids and +old #bachelors#--if the one, then the other, in this case--strolling in a +leisurely) + +Page 320: [blank] (property did a man's heart good to see, nowadays. The +man was Uncle Mo, who got out of the house #i#n plenty of time to stop +Michael half-murdering the marauder, as soon as he considered the +latter) + +Page 346: infaturated (If I had ever been engaged, or on the edge of +it--I never have, really and truly!--and the #infatuated# youth had ... had +complicated matters to that extent, I never should have been able to) + +Page 360: up up (premises it was engendered in, was necessary to hold +the roof #up# tempory, for fear it should come with a run. It was +really a'most nothing in the manner of speaking. You just shoved a) + +Page 374: frostis (through, and setting alight to a bit of fire now and +again, and the season keeping mild and favourable, with only light +#frosts# in the early morning--only what could you expect just on to +Christmas?--there) + +Page 403: kncoked (The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then +#knocked# at the door, and waited. The woman inside had been listening to) + +Page 413: financée (to his sister Irene one of the long missives he was +given to sending to his #fiancée# in London. It was just such a late +October day as the one indirectly referred to above; in fact, it) + +Page 434: ather ("You mean, you can manage your Bull, and #father# can't. +Is that it?" Assent given. "And how can you manage your) + +Page 580: [blank] (who had charge of Dave--Strides Cottage, of course! +I'm sure she'll #be# all right as far as that goes. But the whole thing is +so odd.... Stop a minute!--perhaps the best way would be for me) + +Page 615: Egnland.... (you dead. For years she believed you and her +sister dead. And when she returned to #England#....") + +Page 717: acompany (the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much +pleased with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to #accompany# +it; then hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed) + +Page 732: Gwenn ("'Made it like then?'" #Gwen# was not sure she followed +this.) + +Page 740: mmama (mean--so long as they think I think it was. That's the +point. Now, the question is, did or did not my superior #mamma# descend on +your comme-il-faut parent to drum this idea into him, and get) + +Page 756: differnece (she had loved ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it +only this. It palliated her son's crimes. But then there was a +#difference# between the son and the father. The latter had apparently +done nothing) + +Page 799: Phooebe is so kind, to take every little word I say. ("My +dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But #Phoebe# is so kind, +to take every little word I say.") + +Page 845: spech. "What the Hell," he repeated, (what he sought--her +letter, which she recognised--and opened it before he finished his +#speech#. "What the Hell," he repeated, "is the meaning of this?" He +read it in a vicious undertone, biting) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST*** + + +******* This file should be named 30896-8.txt or 30896-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/8/9/30896 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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