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diff --git a/30896-h/30896-h.htm b/30896-h/30896-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3c355e --- /dev/null +++ b/30896-h/30896-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,43765 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of When Ghost Meets Ghost, by William Frend De Morgan</title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +.big {font-size: 200%; + text-align: center;} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.trnote {margin: 5% 10% 5% 10%; + border: 1px solid; + padding: 1em; + background-color: #dddddd; + font-family: sans-serif; + font-size: 90%;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, When Ghost Meets Ghost, by William Frend De +Morgan</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: When Ghost Meets Ghost</p> +<p>Author: William Frend De Morgan</p> +<p>Release Date: January 9, 2010 [eBook #30896]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="trnote"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left"><h3>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</h3></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I. Inconsistent and missing punctuation have been corrected +without comment.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">II. The 'oe' and 'ae' ligatures have been changed to 'oe' and 'ae'.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">III. Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected. A list of corrections +from the original is included <a href="#trnote">at the end of +the book</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST</h1> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" width="65%"> +<tr><td align="center"><h2><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM DE MORGAN</h2></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">JOSEPH VANCE +<br />An intensely human and humorous novel of life near London in the '50s. $1.75.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">ALICE-FOR-SHORT +<br />The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends and family. $1.75.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">SOMEHOW GOOD +<br />A lovable, humorous romance of modern England. $1.75.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN +<br />A strange story of certain marital complications. Notable for the beautiful Judith Arkroyd with stage ambitions, Blind Jim, and his daughter Lizarann. $1.75.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR +<br />Perhaps the author's most dramatic novel. It deals with the events that followed a duel in Restoration days in England. $1.75.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">A LIKELY STORY +<br />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 <i>net.</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center">WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST +<br />A long, genial tale of old mysteries and young +lovers in England in the '50s. $1.60 <i>net.</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2>WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>WILLIAM DE MORGAN</h2> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "JOSEPH VANCE," "ALICE-FOR-SHORT," ETC. <br /> <br /> <br /></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1914</span>,</p> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Published February, 1914</i></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Dedicated to<br /> +The Spirit of Fiction</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><h3>PART I</h3></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER</td><td align="left">PAGE <br /> <br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">0. SAPPS COURT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I. DAVE AND HIS FAMILY</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">II. A SHORTAGE OF MUD</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">III. DAVE'S ACCIDENT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">IV. BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">V. MRS. PRICHARD</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VI. THE STORY OF THE TWINS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VII. DAVE'S CONVALESCENT HAVEN</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VIII. DAVE'S RETURN TO SAPPS COURT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">IX. A VERDICT OF DEATH BY DROWNING</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">X. AT THE TOWERS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XI. MR. PELLEW AND MISS DICKENSON</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XII. THE MAN WHO WAS SHOT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XIII. AN INQUIRY FOR A WIDOW</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XIV. A SUCCESSFUL CAPTURE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XV. WHAT AUNT M'RIAR OVERHEARD</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF SAPPS COURT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XVII. HOW ADRIAN WAS NURSED AT THE TOWERS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XVIII. HOW GWEN AND THE COUNTESS VISITED ADRIAN </td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XIX. GWEN'S VERY BAD NIGHT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XX. SLOW AND FAST APPROXIMATION</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXI. A RAPID ARRIVAL</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXII. A CONFESSION AND ITS EFFECTS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO MRS. MARRABLE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXIV. THE SLOW APPROXIMATION GOES SLOWLY ON</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXV. A GAME OF WHIST</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXVI. HOW AUNT M'RIAR'S STORY CAME OUT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXVII. HOW SAPPS HEARD A VISITOR WAS COMING</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXVIII. GWEN'S VISIT, AND WHAT ENDED IT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXIX. HOW THE SLOW COUPLE BECAME ENGAGED</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXX. GWEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CRASH</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_351">351</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXXI. MRS. PRICHARD AT CAVENDISH SQUARE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_364">364</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXXII. AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_379">379</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><h3>PART II</h3></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER</td><td align="left">PAGE <br /> <br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I. AUNT M'RIAR'S HUSBAND</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_389">389</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">II. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_412">412</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">III. HOW THE TWINS SAW EACH OTHER</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_429">429</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">IV. MAISIE AT THE TOWERS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_444">444</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">V. MOTHERWARDS IN THE DARK</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_461">461</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VI. HOW MAISIE LOVED POMONA</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_474">474</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VII. GWEN'S NIGHT-FLIGHT TO LONDON</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_491">491</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VIII. MAISIE AT STRIDES COTTAGE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_498">498</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">IX. THE DUTIFUL SON</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_511">511</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">X. GWEN'S SECOND VISIT TO SAPPS COURT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_528">528</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XI. IN PARK LANE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_543">543</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XII. AN ENLIGHTENMENT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_563">563</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XIII. HOW GWEN TOLD SAPPS COURT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_576">576</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XIV. GWEN'S RETURN, AND THE TASK BEFORE HER</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_591">591</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XV. GWEN FACES THE MUSIC</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_607">607</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XVI. DR. NASH TELLS GRANNY MARRABLE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_626">626</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XVII. THE COUNTESS CALLS AT PENSHAM</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_646">646</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XVIII. WHAT FOLLOWED AT CHORLTON</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_665">665</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XIX. THE MEETING</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_677">677</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XX. THE NIGHT AFTER THEY KNEW IT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_686">686</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXI. SAPPS COURT AGAIN</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_703">703</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXII. STRIDES COTTAGE AGAIN</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_721">721</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_734">734</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXIV. PENSHAM AT STRIDES COTTAGE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_751">751</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXV. A FESTIVITY AT THE TOWERS</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_764">764</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXVI. ANOTHER NIGHT WATCH</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_776">776</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXVII. HOW SHE SAW THE MODEL AGAIN</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_793">793</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXVIII. HOW HER SON CAME TOO LATE</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_807">807</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">XXIX. A RIGHT CROSS-COUNTER THAT LANDED</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_826">826</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">A BELATED PENDRIFT</td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_853">853</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHEN_GHOST_MEETS_GHOST" id="WHEN_GHOST_MEETS_GHOST"></a>WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</h3> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_A0" id="CHAPTER_A0"></a>CHAPTER 0</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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!</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>laudator</i> of its <i>tempus actum</i>—some forgotten soul waiting +for emancipation in an infirmary or almshouse.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, <i>I</i> can remember this Court, and can tell a tale it plays +a part in, only not very quick.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cul-de-sac</i> 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.</p> + +<p>But if the passer-by forgot himself and neglected his proper +function in life at the moment that he came abreast of this +<i>cul-de-sac</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>However, the story has no business on the other side of this +wall. What concerns it is the row of houses on the left.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AI" id="CHAPTER_AI"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name='TC_1'></a><ins title="impident">impudent</ins> +young scaramouch like young Michael Ragstroar four doors +higher up, who was eleven and a regular handful.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 vertebræ. 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +much longer, 'No effects' would have been <i>your</i> vardict, sir." +To which Uncle Moses replied, "Right you are, old friend," and +changed the subject.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>did</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> broke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +Otherwise one day at No. 7, Sapps Court, was much the same +as another.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>impasse</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>sine die</i>. 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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>taller</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Now, young potato-peelin's, how much money did the doctor +hand you back for that diacklum?"</p> + +<p>"Penny. Said he'd charge it up to the next Dook that come +to his shop."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"I never said no such a thing. S'elp me!"</p> + +<p>"''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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>in toto</i>?</p> + +<p>Warnings, cautions, and moral lessons derived from this +incident had due weight with Dave for several days; in fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +until his cut healed over. Then he forgot them and became as +bad as ever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AII" id="CHAPTER_AII"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 <i>BARRAGE</i>. 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?</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 +præterpluperfect tense very large—might have worked out +the same as this.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +Toscanelli and Christopher Columbus. At first it was satisfied +by the <i>cul-de-sac</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <b>V</b>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cul-de-sac</i>, which lay a little lower than the main street +it opened out of. Its rich, ochrous rivulets—containing no visible +trace of hæmorrhage, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>débris</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +of the day, looking at the sunset over the roofs of the <i>cul-de-sac</i> +this story has reference to. For Mrs. Tapping's shop was in the +main road, opposite to where the embankment operations were +in hand.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>r</i>.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>naïveté</i>.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Jist a step beyond the archway, Mosey," said Mr. Alibone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I was a-thinking," said Uncle Moses, who seemed restless, +"I <i>was</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"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. <i>They're</i> all right. Hear the engines?"</p> + +<p>"Whereabouts is the fire?"</p> + +<p>"Somewhere down by Walworth. I saw the smoke, crossing +Hungerford Bridge. This engine's coming down our road outside."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AIII" id="CHAPTER_AIII"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 <i>BARRAGE</i>, 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You stop, Peter Jackson. <i>Hospital!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +sound in her uncle's voice, forgot Noah's flood, and stood dumb +and terrified with outstretched muddy hands.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>does</i>!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A very miscellaneous public gathered round and formed false +ideas of what had happened from misinformants. The most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +he addressed them with:—"Either of you the father of a child +knocked down by Fire-engine <span class="smcap">67A</span> in this street—taken into accident +ward?" He spoke just as though Engine <span class="smcap">68B</span> had knocked +another child down in the next street, and so on all over +London.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AIV" id="CHAPTER_AIV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>The present writer, half a century since—he was then neither +<i>we</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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. <i>We</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"What did you say your name was?" said the Senior Surgeon +to Uncle Moses.</p> + +<p>"Moses Wardle of Hanley, called the Linnet. Ye see, I was +a Member of the Prize Ring, many years. Fighting Man, you +might say."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> a-doin' to +tum home after supper; he <i>is</i> a-doin', Uncle Mo, he <i>is</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>exempli gratia</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +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 <i>rôle</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>a priori</i> reasoning +took a back place.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +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 <i>did</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't any good to make believe," said he. "Supposin' our +boy never comes back, M'riar!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But won't you tell us what the doctor <i>said</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cul-de-sac</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"What sort of a name does this here archway go by?" said +he, without acute curiosity.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sakes alive!" said Aunt M'riar, responsive to the knock. +"There's no fire here."</p> + +<p>"I'm off duty," said the fireman briefly. "I've come to tell +you about your young customer at the Hospital."</p> + +<p>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 +<i>must</i> be wrong—was altogether too good to be true.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 67<span class="smcap">A</span>. 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.</p> + +<p>"'Twouldn't be any use my looking round now, I suppose?" +said Uncle Mo. Because he always was that restless and fidgety.</p> + +<p>"Wait till to-morrow, they said, the party and the nurse. By<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Mo's an impatient old cock, you see!" said Mr. Alibone, +who seemed to understand Peter Jackson, and <i>vice versa</i>. And +Uncle Mo said:—"I suppose I shall have to mark time." To +which the others replied that was about it.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>au fait</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>all</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cul-de-sac</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In those days slumming proper had not set in, and the East End<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AV" id="CHAPTER_AV"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>caput mortuum</i> was still clasped +to her bosom when, deep unconsciousness merging all distinctions +in unqualified existence, she was having her sleep out next day.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>she</i> knew, no male visitor for the old +tenant of the attics had so far entered the house.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"There's more in the pot, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar, looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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"—<i>you</i> know!—and consequently +her <i>moyen age</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +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 <i>bacilli</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>they</i> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AVI" id="CHAPTER_AVI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +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 <i>vice versa</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ex cathedra paternæ auctoritatis</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +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 <i>full</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mise en scène</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tapis</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>This Bathsheba was able to say "Hands off!" to <i>her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>en secondes noces</i>, many years later. But this +hardly touches the story, as this son died in his childhood. All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +younger child Phoebe never knew. Probably a letter was lost containing +the information.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But that sister was <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At first he was content to withhold Phoebe's letters, hoping that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +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 <i>faussure</i>, 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 <a name='TC_2'></a><ins title="scarcly">scarcely</ins> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +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—<i>that</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>rôle</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +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 <i>her</i> 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 <i>finesse</i> later to convince her +of it, but its details are not known to the writer of the story.</p> + +<p>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, <i>née</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AVII" id="CHAPTER_AVII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Widow Thrale lived with an old lady of eighty, who was also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bona-fide</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +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 <a name='TC_3'></a><ins title="mankleshelf">mantleshelf</ins>, his description +of which seemed to relate to nothing this lady's recollection of +Strides interior supplied.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +would she get down and come into the house, or have it brought +out for her to see in the carriage?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>par excellence</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +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 <i>his</i> leg, +was always ambitious to use this crutch, or scrutch. He was the +Dionysos of the metaphor.</p> + +<p>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 <i>do</i> sleep +sound!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Whoy was they bofe of a size?" said he, for indeed they +were exactly alike.</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear, that is the size God made them. Both at +the same time!"</p> + +<p>"Who worze they?" asked Dave, clinching the matter abruptly—much +too interested for circumlocution.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +has at heart, that of giving a complete grasp of the facts, as +nearly as may be in the order of their occurrence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AVIII" id="CHAPTER_AVIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We shall never know how to be grateful enough, ma'am, for +your kindness to Dave," said Aunt M'riar. "No—never!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>However, no offence seemed to be taken. Uncle Mo said: "Oh, +<i>that</i> 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!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>façon de parler</i>, and Aunt M'riar did not show any +disposition to start on a search for widows' grandmothers.</p> + +<p>The discussion was altogether too deep for Dave. So after a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"H'm!" said Uncle Mo. "I don't make all that out. Who's +Muggeridge in it?"</p> + +<p>"He <a name='TC_4'></a><ins title="see">sees</ins> to the sacks," said Dave.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Was it Mrs. Marrable and her sister?" asked Aunt M'riar. +"Why was they both of a size?"</p> + +<p>Dave jumped at the opportunity of showing that he had profited +by <i>résumés</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +said; and added that she had lost her sister near upon fifty +years ago.</p> + +<p>The truth was too strange to occur to even the most observant +bystander; <i>videlicet</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>scenario</i> for another incident—the fear +of disturbance by a pleace'n with two heads, a very terrible +possibility.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>hear</i>—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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She repeated Mrs. Prichard's words: "From the factory, ma'am? +I see." Because she did not understand them.</p> + +<p>"It was always called the factory," said Mrs. Prichard. But +this made Aunt M'riar none the wiser. <i>What</i> was called the factory? +The way in which she again said that she <i>saw</i> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I saw him. I saw him. I did not know then that <i>he</i> saw +<i>me</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did he speak?"</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AIX" id="CHAPTER_AIX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>your</i> 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 <a name='TC_5'></a><ins title="starn">stern</ins>, with the oilskin +cape?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>A very attentive observer might have said that he watched the +man he addressed more closely than the talk warranted, and certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"Never said you had. <i>I</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.</p> + +<p>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? <i>She</i> +won't make any bones about it if he says it's for me, Sergeant +Ibbetson—<i>she'll</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>The sergeant paused, looked at the grating, which certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +sloped outwards, then at the boat and at the ladder. "Catch hold!" +said he.</p> + +<p>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<i>site</i> to +where I'm standing! Think it out, master."</p> + +<p>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>I</i> shan't pull you overboard."</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," said the Coroner. "That'll do. Boy's got +something he can tell us. What's your name, my man?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>in flagrante +delicto</i> and sent to Portland Island, nothing was heard of him or +known of his whereabouts.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AX" id="CHAPTER_AX"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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, <i>COUTE QUE COUTE</i>! 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>The present Earl took after his less mediæval 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bénéficiaire</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +Poet might have imagined—"Make the most of me while you +can; I shan't last."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Ah che la morte</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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 Cæsar'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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +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, <i>ut supra</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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? <i>He</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +She has an impression of his personality from the action; which, +it may be, guides her conduct in what follows.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>she</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"You will promise me one thing, if you please...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—whatever you wish."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>has</i> no right, and there's an end on't! "I will tie Achilles up," +he says. "I should not like him to be shot."</p> + +<p>"Oh!—is he Achilles?"</p> + +<p>"His mother was Thetis."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I hope that collar won't break," says the young lady as she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Said old Stephen sharply, "Gwun, wench? There be no <i>gwun</i>. +'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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>temper</i>—meaning a want of it. He vanished into the oak-wood, +where the Druid's Stone attests the place of sacrifice, human or +otherwise.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>they</i> were +a great novelty, opening up a new era in murder.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then the wind must have gone round. Besides, it would come +again. Listen!" Thus her ladyship, and both listened. But nothing +came again.</p> + +<p>Lady Gwendolen was as beautiful as usual that evening, but +contrary to custom silent and <i>distraite</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>she</i> 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 <i>must</i> +find out the story of it. More sleep now was absurd.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> that dog, Oliver?" said the vision.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"No dog came yesterday. Lord Cumberworld hasn't a dog. I +<i>must</i> know. Where is it?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"In the stables, by the sound of it, my lady," was his answer.</p> + +<p>His lady turned without a word, going straight for the stables; +and he followed when, recollecting him, she looked back to say, +"Yes—come!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> the dog, Archibald?—what <i>is</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Let him go—yes, <i>I</i> know him!—don't hold him. Oh, Achilles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +you darling dog—it <i>is</i> you!... Yes—yes—let him go—he'll be +all right.... Yes, dear, you <i>shall</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He has not got his own collar," said the young lady suddenly. +"Where is his own collar?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I saw his collar," says she, "and it was <i>not</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +should she be kept from the hearing of a mishap to this stranger, +even of his death?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And you fired on the dog to kill it," says the young lady, flashing +out into anger.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"The man he belonged to—did you not see him?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"Then quick!" says she. And all make for the nearest way +down the wall and through the fern and bramble.</p> + +<p>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. +<i>His</i> part is finished.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +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 <i>poltergeist</i> that +infested that part of the house. Perhaps, if he took no notice, the +<i>poltergeist</i> would be discouraged and subside. Anyhow, he wouldn't +encourage it.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"What's all that?... A man shot! All right, I'll come."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do! It's so dreadful. Stephen Solmes shot him by mistake +for a dog ... at least, I'll tell you directly."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. This is Achilles."</p> + +<p>"How do you know it is Achilles?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you directly. <i>He</i> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXI" id="CHAPTER_AXI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I could not say, sir." Mr. Norbury's manner is dignified, deferential, +and dry. More serious than need be perhaps.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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, <i>he</i> knew the event of the morning. Yet he could +not say to the gentleman:—"A truce to jocularity. A man was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +shot dead half a mile off last night, and the body has been taken +to the Keeper's Lodge."</p> + +<p>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 <i>sine qua non</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>satire</i>. 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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Therefore, when Lady Gwendolen appeared, <i>point-device</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>riposte</i>? It had not been offered.</p> + +<p>"How well you <i>are</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Said Miss Smith-Dickenson to the Hon. Percival, on the shady +terrace, a quarter of an hour afterwards, "He <i>did</i> 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, <i>quand même</i>.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Percival knocked an instalment of <i>caput mortuum</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"The worst of it?"</p> + +<p>"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. <i>She</i> 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 <i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Can you remember the name of the dog? Wasn't it Aeneas?"</p> + +<p>"No—Achilles."</p> + +<p>"I meant Achilles. Well—his dog's Achilles."</p> + +<p>"I thought you said there was no name on the collar."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"But why? Why 'Oh!'—I mean?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean anything. Only that she was looking so scared +and unhappy at breakfast, and that would account for it."</p> + +<p>"Surely...."</p> + +<p>"Surely what?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Now</i> do you see?..."</p> + +<p>"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?..."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But Miss Smith-Dickenson did <i>not</i> say to Mr. Pellew:—"I am +perfectly well aware that you, sir, see danger ahead—danger of a +delicate discussion of the difference <i>our</i> short acquaintance would +have made to me if I had heard this morning that <i>you</i> 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 <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>A name ought to be invented for these little ripples of human +intercourse, that are hardly to be called embarrassments, seeing +that their <i>monde</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Non piu andrai farfallon amoroso</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Goin' in?" said the Hon. Percival. "Well—it's been very +jolly out here."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>had been</i> very nice on this terrace. All the +difference!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXII" id="CHAPTER_AXII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is there a chance?" said the Countess, as he came within +hearing.</p> + +<p>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, <i>quite</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"We can do no good," her mother repeats. "Now, can we?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" says her ladyship, decisive on reflection. "I had forgotten +about old Stephen. But <i>I</i> can go to him. You go back!... +Yes, dear, you had better go back.... What?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"If you must, darling, you must. But I cannot see what use +it can be. See—here is Aunt Constance! <i>She</i> does not want to +see it...." A confirmatory head-shake from Miss Dickenson. +"Why should <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Aunt Constance never spoke to him. I did. And he spoke +to me. Let me go, mamma dear. Don't oppose me." Indeed, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 Archæology. 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.</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>It</i> is in here"? Could he not have said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +"He"? What does the dog think, that waits and watches immovable +at <i>its</i> 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 <i>may</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +to the wonder of her only spectator. For the other doctor has +withdrawn, to speak to someone outside.</p> + +<p>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 <i>closed</i>.... I know it. I know it.... The +fingers <i>closed</i>!..." 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 <i>hysteria</i> +on his tongue's tip to account for everything. It <i>may</i> be that; +but it may be ... Well—he has seen some odd cases in his time.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>Gwen interrupts:—"It had nothing to do with eyesight. I <i>felt</i> +the fingers move." Whereupon her mother, roused by her sudden +emphasis, says:—"But we are so glad that it <i>should</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Not the least. Cold!—oh, how cold!" She shudders of +set purpose to show how cold. "But not <i>stiff</i>."</p> + +<p>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 <i>barrage</i> is much more impressive +than a pump.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Sir Coupland Merridew's place at table was still empty when +the first storm of comparison of notes set in over the events and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> Sir Coupland."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>dead</i>." 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.</p> + +<p>Had the insensible man spoken?—the Earl asked pertinently. +Oh dear, no! Nothing so satisfactory as that, so far. The vitality +was almost <i>nil</i>. The Earl retired on his question to listen to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"I know. I've read about the Battle of Assaye, and how General +Wellesley had two horses shot under him...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Never mind him! You were going to tell me about yourself."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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:—</p> + +<p>"Do go on, General! Never mind Aunt Constance. She is so +fussy. Go on—'didn't decay properly'...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>did</i> +come to, or I shouldn't be here now to tell you about it, my dear. +I should have been sorry."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But you <i>did</i> come to, General, and you <i>are</i> telling me about +it," said Lady Gwen. "Now, how long was it before you rejoined +your regiment?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?..."</p> + +<p>"What did I mean, dear?... When?"</p> + +<p>"By 'until he's fit to move'?"</p> + +<p>"I meant until Sir Coupland says he can be safely brought +up to the house."</p> + +<p>"<i>This</i> house, my dear?" It is not Gwen who speaks, but her +mother, who has joined the conversation.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. But there are beds at the Lodge...." However,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXIII" id="CHAPTER_AXIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 +<i>WAS</i> 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +but that, had he been at Church, the narrow exclusiveness of its +ritual would have kept him right side up.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You don't look an unlikely young beggar," said the man. +"What name are you called?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Don't believe you," said the man. "You're a young liar. +Where's your father now—now this very minute?"</p> + +<p>"Abed."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What's he doing there?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Where's your mother?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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. +<i>You</i> 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 +<i>douceur</i> perhaps?</p> + +<p>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 <i>extremely</i>, 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 <i>pièce de résistance</i>—a kind of sheet-anchor.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>In reply, he scorned circumlocution, saying briefly:—"Wot'll it +come to? Wot are you good for? That's the p'int."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"There's any number. Which old widder?"</p> + +<p>"Name of Daverill. Old enough to be your father's granny."</p> + +<p>"No sich a name! There's one a sight older than that though—last +house down the Court—top bell."</p> + +<p>"How old do you make her out?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"House at the end where the old cock in a blue shirt's smoking +a pipe—is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!—up two flights of stairs. But she can't see you, nor yet +hear you, to speak of."</p> + +<p>"Who's the old cock?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>had</i>. +A dead beadle!" But this evidence was ruled out of court by +general consent; or rather, perhaps, it should be said that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +witness remained in the box giving evidence of the same nature +for his own satisfaction, while the court's attention wandered.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Don't like the looks of you, mister!" said Uncle Mo to himself. +But aloud he said:—"Good-morning to <i>you</i>, sir. I understood +you to be inquiring for Mrs. Prichard."</p> + +<p>"No—Daverill. No such a name, this young shaver says."</p> + +<p>"Not down this Court. It wasn't Burr by any chance now, +was it?"</p> + +<p>"No—Daverill."</p> + +<p>"Because there <i>is</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +Uncle Moses responded: "Ne'er a one, master, to <i>my</i> knowledge. +Widow Daverill she's somewheres else. Not down <i>this</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +the "darby-roll," from the name by which fetters are often +spoken of.</p> + +<p>"How long has that charackter been makin' the Court stink, +young Carrots?" said Uncle Moses to Michael.</p> + +<p>"Afore you come up, Mr. Moses."</p> + +<p>"Afore I come up. How long afore I come up?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"What did you tell him?"</p> + +<p>"I told 'im a name. Orl correct it was. Only it warn't mine. +I was too fly for him."</p> + +<p>"What name did you tell him?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Why did our astute young friend Michael keep his counsel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Michael was—said his <i>entourage</i>—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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXIV" id="CHAPTER_AXIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Michael's father did this in furtherance of a subtle scheme +which succeeded. His son immediately said:—"Just you give +<i>him</i> '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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>But when a public has a little back-garden with rusticated woodwork +seats, painful to those rash enough to avail themselves of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was a man in the darkened bar, smoking a long clay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>He was not a diffident or timid character, as we know. "Seen +you afore, guv'nor!" was his greeting.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Now, you young beggar!—<i>where</i> have you seen me afore? I +ain't going to hurt you. You tell up straight and tell the truth."</p> + +<p>"Not onlest you leave hold of my arm!"</p> + +<p>"You do like he says, Mr. Wix.... Now you tell Mr. Wix, +Micky. <i>He</i> won't hurt you." Thus Miss Julia, procuring liberty +for the hand to receive the half-and-half she was balancing its +foam on.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Your Mrs. Treadmill, <i>she's</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"How often do you want to be told <i>that</i>, 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?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! Don't live there, though. Comes easy-like, now and +again. Like the noospapers."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was creditable to Miss Juliarawkins, whose name—written +as pronounced—gives us what we contend is an innocent pleasure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +that she should have suspected the truth about Wix or Daverill's +want of shrewdness when he visited Sapps Court. She had been +<a name='TC_6'></a><ins title="bliassed">biased</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Only old Treadwell from next door. <i>She</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>It was not difficult to <i>entamer</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you her age from her lips, mister. Eighty-one next +birthday. And her name, Maisie Prichard."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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!'"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see! I've been at Sevenoaks."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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—<i>her</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"That's nothing," said Miss Hawkins. "They'll marry again +with the rattle in their throats."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>she</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Aunt Elizabeth Jane thought at the time she might have mistaken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>He</i> didn't want no help +to get up—not he!"</p> + +<p>"It was a tidy jump up, any way you put it," said the stroke oar.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Inside the tavern the woman has closed the street-door abruptly—has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +given the alarm. "There's two in the lane!" she gasps. "Be +sharp, Tom!"</p> + +<p>"Through the garden?" he says. "Run out to see."</p> + +<p>She is back almost before the door she opens has swung to. +"It's all up, Tom," she cries. "There's the boat!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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. <i>He</i> forgets it, too, +though he follows her deliberately enough. Recollection and +emergency rarely shake hands.</p> + +<p>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. "<i>He's</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>She</i> won't stand in the way.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You can find your way in, mister," she says; and goes through +to the bar. The moment she does so the officer shows alacrity.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Which pipe?—oh, this pipe?—<i>this</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>That</i> won't hurt him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the word was not <i>six</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +the eyes of both officers are keen upon him as he descends +the ladder under sufferance.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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. <i>He</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXV" id="CHAPTER_AXV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>THE BEER AT THE KING'S ARMS. HOW UNCLE MO READ THE <i>STAR</i>, LIKE +A CHALDEAN, AND BROKE HIS SPECTACLES. HOW THE <i>STAR</i> 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 +<i>STAR</i> TO MRS. BURR INTACT</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Morning +Star</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Don't quite take your idear, Jerry. Wrap it up new."</p> + +<p>"Don't you <i>see</i>, 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The discovery of this painful fact threw the escaped prisoner +into the shade, and the <i>Morning Star</i> would have been lost sight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Something like Mackerel," said Mr. Alibone.</p> + +<p>"Wrong you are, for once, Jerry! 'Twarn't no more Mackerel +than it was Camberwell."</p> + +<p>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, <i>alias</i> Thornton, <i>alias</i> Wix, <i>alias</i>!'....</p> + +<p>"Never mind his ale-houses, Jerry. That's the name I'm consarned +with—Daverill.... What's the matter with M'riar?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>her</i>!—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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>This was the case—for Michael, though he had been silent at +the time about the Inquest, had been unable to resist the temptation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +to correct Uncle Moses when the old boy asked: "<i>Wot</i> 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 <i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"But what's your consarn with any of 'em, Mo?" said Mr. +Jerry.</p> + +<p>Uncle Moses took his pipe out of his mouth to say, almost +oratorically:—"Don't you <i>re</i>-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 <i>him</i>—the very identical beggar! +And this widder woman he was for hunting up, she's his mother +or his aunt."</p> + +<p>"Or his sister—no!—sister-in-law."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What sort of man did you make him out to be, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"A bad sort in a turn-up with no rules. Might be handy with +a knife on occasion. Foxy sort of wiper!"</p> + +<p>"Not your sort, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +Here Aunt M'riar came in after washing up, having apparently +overheard none of the conversation.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Observe, please, that until Mr. Jerry read aloud from the <i>Star</i> +Mr. Wix's <i>aliases</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>Star</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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, æons 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXVI" id="CHAPTER_AXVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>That was Mr. Bartlett outside, laying bricks; not the carman at +all. What was that he was saying?</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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. <i>He</i> 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"!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>he</i> +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 <i>good?</i>—that's +wot <i>I</i> want to know. Things is as you see 'em...." Mr. +Bartlett would have said the <i>esse</i> of things was <i>percipi,</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +outweighing him and lifting him into the air. Only, of course, +this joy lasted no longer than till they started loading of it +up.</p> + +<p>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 <i>monde</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>free</i>!" 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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tapping perceived her opportunity, and jumped at it. +"That is the truth, ma'am, what you say, and calls to mind the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>this</i> Saturday—always next Saturday. It is called by +some "making a clean finish."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>then</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"There, child, that'll do for about Mr. Bartlett's truct." So +the good woman had said, showing her lack of <i>geist</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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, <i>da capo ad libitum</i>. 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 <i>manhood</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>This conversation would scarcely have called for record but for +what it led to.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>yes</i> than <i>no</i>; but in this case Truth was compulsory. +"He wasn't <i>anyfink</i> of Granny Marrowbone's. No, he +wasn't!" said he, and continued shaking his head to rub the +fact in.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The child don't above half know what he's talking about, not +to say <i>know</i>!" 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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dave's blue eyes flashed indignation. "Yorse I <i>does</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, ma'am, and died when you was in the Colony!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>s</i>twins. He had +to affect satisfaction.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar. "So I understood. It was +in England she died?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar said "Ah!" and shook her head. She was not +imaginative enough to contribute to a conversation so hypothetical.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?...</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"What was the <i>name</i> you said just now? Ralph ... something! +Ralph what?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—yes—I know! What Phoebe would have been if she had +married my husband's brother—Mrs. Ralph Daverill...."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" exclaimed Aunt M'riar.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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 <i>his</i> name was Daverill. So it was not in order to prevent +Mrs. Prichard seeing it that she cut that paragraph out of the +<i>Morning Star</i>. She must have had some other reason.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXVII" id="CHAPTER_AXVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>passée</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 +<i>passée</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Try again, Mr. Pellew. It's partridge-shooting that doesn't +begin till September. That's what you're thinking of."</p> + +<p>"Well—August, then!"</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Anything consistent with previous engagements. Can't break +any promises."</p> + +<p>"Have you made any promises about the man upstairs?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You did see him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did he recognise you, or you him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>something</i>, but ... but I understood +it was only weakness."</p> + +<p>"They have been keeping it dark—quite reasonably and properly, +you know—but there is it! He can't see—simply can't see.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +His eyes <i>look</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Only that there was <i>something</i>—no idea that he was blind. +But I won't betray your confidence."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. It's only a matter of time, as I gather. But a bad +job for him till he gets his sight again."</p> + +<p>"He will, I suppose, in the end?"</p> + +<p>"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, <i>he</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"I see. Of course, that makes a difference. And you think Sir +Coupland thinks he will get all right again?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I believe she has never seen him. He has been a great deal +abroad, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's been at German Universities, and games of that sort."</p> + +<p>"Is that your third cigar, Mr. Pellew?"</p> + +<p>"No—second. Come, I say, Miss Dickenson, two's not +much...."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know the story?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't say, without hearing it first to know."</p> + +<p>"About Philippa and Sir Hamilton Torrens?"</p> + +<p>"Can't say I have. But then I'm the sort of fellah nobody ever +tells things to."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I oughtn't to have mentioned it."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>passée</i> to admit of any such idea.</p> + +<p>The upshot of the flat episode, of course, was that Philippa +"became engaged" to her new suitor, and did <i>not</i> fall out with +him. They were married within the year, and three months later +her former <i>fiancé's</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Then the Hon. Percival made a speech he half repented of +later; <i>videlicet</i>, 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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>fait-accompli</i>, for enhancing this lady's white silk, which favoured +a pretence that she was only reasonably <i>passée</i>, 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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps he will let us see him," says Lady Gwen. "At +last!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>eyes</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>It was the Countess who answered Irene's caution, as accompaniment +to her morning salute. "We are not to expect <i>anything</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>will</i> 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 <i>liées</i> already, went out +by the garden window to talk, but would keep within hearing +because breakfast was imminent.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Times</i> from all comers, had to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +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 <i>Times</i>, thirsting for information +about their own special subjects of interest. No—the Hon. +Percival did <i>not</i> see anything, so far, about the new Arctic expedition +that was to unearth, or dis-ice, the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>; +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tête-à-tête</i> by moonlight with a gentleman, +an hour long, an escapade, and he may be resolving on caution +for the future. By-the-by, <i>can</i> a lady have a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with +another lady by moonlight? Scarcely!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>that</i>, in his sleep; and resolves as soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"You may rely on me—indeed you may—to say nothing about +the eyes. He will be just able to see us, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"He will hardly recognise you. How long was it altogether, do +you think?"</p> + +<p>"At Arthur's Bridge? Five minutes—perhaps less."</p> + +<p>"He took a good look at you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He says not. But you were not out when he went to Konigsberg."</p> + +<p>"Oh no—I had quite a long innings after that.... Well!—it +<i>does</i> sound like cricket, doesn't it? Go on."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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>I'm</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Now is his time to condemn the tyranny which keeps him in +bed in the morning and lying down all day. "I <i>could</i> have got +up and gone downstairs, Mrs. Bailey, you know I could."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Tremendously better, Lord Ancester! <i>Tremendously</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Qui facit per alium facit per se</i>.... By-the-by, +I hope poor Alius is happier in his mind...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The <i>alius</i> you facitted per. The poor chap that had the bad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +luck to shoot me. Old Stephen—isn't he? Poor old chap! <i>What</i> +a mischance!"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—old Stephen! I see—he's <i>alius</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>are</i> the eyes?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Something dark between me and the light."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is that all? Can't you see what it is?"</p> + +<p>"A book." A mere guess based on the known predilections of +the questioner.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>show</i> tact. He will +only be caught <i>flagrante delicto</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Things that creak watch their opportunity whenever they hear +silence. So the Earl's gentle exit ends in a musical and penetrating +<i>arpeggio</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"His lordship has gone, Mr. Torrens. He thought you were +dropping off."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Is it anything I can do for you, Mr. Torrens? I am quite at +your service."</p> + +<p>"Yes—something of importance to me. Is Mrs. Bailey there?"</p> + +<p>"She is just going." She had not intended to do so. But this +was a hint clearly. It was accepted.</p> + +<p>"All clear!" says the Earl. "And the door closed."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My sister has promised to ask the Countess and your daughter—Lady +Gwen, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"That is my daughter's name, Gwendolen. 'Has promised to +ask them' ... what?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Only this way. You know the doctors say my eyesight is not +incurable—probably will come all to rights of itself...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—and then?"</p> + +<p>"I want them—her ladyship and...."</p> + +<p>"My wife and daughter. I understand."</p> + +<p>"... I want them to know as little about it as possible; to +know <i>nothing</i> about it <i>if</i> possible. You knew very little about it +yourself till just now."</p> + +<p>"I was misled—kindly, I know—but misled for all that. And +the appearance is so extraordinary. Nobody could guess...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"By the sound of her voice."</p> + +<p>"She is only a human girl."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXVIII" id="CHAPTER_AXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +left the first broad indisputable truth to impose on its hearer +unassisted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So—in time—the hour was at hand when he would see.... +No!—<i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed I should. Indeed, indeed, <i>nobody</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"Fish eagle, I expect."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't wonder! Only, look here!... You mustn't claw +hold of Gwen like that. How can you tell, without?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>do</i> say, dear boy, you can see a little!" But it is no use. +He can say nothing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>You</i> can't tell one from the other."</p> + +<p>"I know. I'm shockingly ignorant.... What, dear? What +is it you want?" Her brother has been exploring the window-frame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +with a restless hand, as though in search of some latch or +blind-cord. He cannot find what he wants.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"South-west by south. Perhaps that's not nautical, but you +know what I mean."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Don't try to humbug too much. Don't try to do it, darling +boy. You'll only make a hash of it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you like. Only don't go and call it Asses' Bridge, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +you did the other day—not when the family's here. It sounds +disrespectful."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit. It only looks as if Euclid had been round. But +answer my question.... Oh, we <i>can</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Between us and the sunset?"</p> + +<p>"Thereabouts. Rather on the left."</p> + +<p>"Very good. Now we can go on with Becky Sharp."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i>, if he <i>was</i> 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 <i>her</i> that +any chance man might not have been, after so scanty an interchange +of words?</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>He</i> won't hear, at this distance."</p> + +<p>Then, she was actually coming in at the door! He could hear +the prodigious skirt-rustle that is now a thing of womanhood's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +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 <i>rôle</i>. +No disparagement to her subordinate; the merest deference to +convention!</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is <i>me</i>," says the voice of its owner, "<i>that's</i> mamma."</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"No—because I'm holding him. I want him here. He's a +darling!" So says Gwen; and then continues:—"Oh yes, <i>I</i> know +why he's Ply—short for Pelides. I think he thinks I think it was +his fault, and wants forgiveness."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +moment. At Arthur's Bridge. I'm afraid he didn't do that dress +any good."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't a new dress," says Gwen, "as far as I remember." +A point her maid would know more about, clearly.</p> + +<p>Lady Ancester seems to think a little <i>ex post facto</i> chaperonage +would not be inappropriate. "Gwen was out of bounds, I understand," +she says; which means absolutely nothing, but sounds well.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Well—did he catch the hare? I mean the first hare."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I want to know what happened next." From Gwen.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +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 <i>modus vivendi</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>sister</i> you are! Why can't you +let Mr. Torrens tell his tale his own way?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"But inside the wood with the interesting appearance—what +happened then?" Gwen would not tolerate digression.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>with</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> get at +the truth, come what might!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Drews Thurrock? Yes."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you didn't."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +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 <i>something</i>!" she exclaimed to +herself.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +the China." Crown Derby is more distinctly China in English +vernacular than Nankin blue.</p> + +<p>Please understand that the story is giving at great length incidents +that passed in fractions of a minute—incidents Time recorded +<i>currente calamo</i> for Memory to rearrange at leisure.</p> + +<p>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 <i>at all</i>. I must +know—I <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Gwen thought you were more," said Irene. "At Arthur's +Bridge, you know! She thought you were twenty-seven."</p> + +<p>"Because I was so wet through. Naturally. I was soaked and +streaky. Are you sure it wasn't thirty-seven, Lady Gwendolen?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Adrian laughed at the way his age seemed to be treated as an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen had taken little or no notice of what was passing, since +that betraying incident of the Crown Derby set. Her mind was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +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 <i>was</i> worth trying?</p> + +<p>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 <i>something</i>—provided that +it was a palpable something. Now—if she could only play her +part right!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>starren</i> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Hope caught at a straw, <i>more suo</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>must</i> go," said Gwen, +"because of mamma. She's the Dream Witch, I suppose. I <i>must</i> +go. Good-bye, Mr. Torrens! But I can leave <i>my</i> name—Gwen +or Gwendolen. Choose which you prefer." She had to contrive a +laugh, but it caught in her throat.</p> + +<p>"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,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXIX" id="CHAPTER_AXIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 <i>NOT</i> 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He cannot <i>see</i>, mamma—he cannot see <i>at all</i>! He is dead +stone-blind—for life—for life! And <i>we</i> have done it—<i>we</i> 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. "<i>We</i> have done it—<i>we</i> have done it!" she kept on +crying. "<i>We</i> have ruined his life, and the guilt is ours—ours—<i>all</i>!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He could not see Arthur's Bridge <i>at all</i>," 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—<i>never</i>—saw it!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he doesn't like shaking hands," said her mother +weakly. "Some people don't."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They do mine," said Gwen. "Besides, he did in the end, +and...."</p> + +<p>"And what?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>they</i> 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—<i>nothing!</i>—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!"</p> + +<p>"What girl?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, didn't you see? The girl he's got that engaged ring on his +finger about. You didn't see? You never <i>do</i> see, mamma dear!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Gwen considered a little. "Irene talks a good deal about a Miss +Gertrude Abercrombie, a cousin. But she has never <i>said</i> anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh!—it's Miss Gertrude Abercrombie?..."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> know nothing about it. I was only guessing. She may be +Miss Gertrude Anybody. Whoever she is, it's the same thing. +<i>Think</i> what she's lost!"</p> + +<p>"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,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"It was not the Will of God at all...."</p> + +<p>"My dear!—how <i>can</i> you know that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"My dear, it is his own son."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she had no hope of seeing him make his appearance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>I'm</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>modus vivendi</i> 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....</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +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?...</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>status quo</i> 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 <i>scenario</i> +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, <i>she</i> 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.</p> + +<p>She was no nearer sleep after looking matters calmly in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +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 <i>seen</i> her—oh, +how little! Why, <i>she</i> had seen <i>him</i> more, of the two, if one +came to close quarters with Time. See how long he was stooping +over that unfortunate dog-chain!</p> + +<p>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 <i>no</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i> gulf. The Roman Eques had nothing but death and darkness +to look forward to.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +<i>coeteris paribus</i>. But how could she—how <i>could</i> she?... +Anyhow, Gwen might have seen her way through that difficulty +with a fair chance. But—to be invisible!</p> + +<p>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 <i>robe-de-nuit</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXX" id="CHAPTER_AXX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 <i>FIANCEE</i>, 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>The lady speaks discreetly:—"Certainly no such construction +would have occurred to me. One has to be on one's guard against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +romantic ideas. She might easily be—a—<i>éprise</i>, to some extent—as +girls are...."</p> + +<p>"But spooney, no! Well—perhaps you're right."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Rather. Only you must admit that when she appeared this +morning—and last night—she was looking...."</p> + +<p>"Looking what?"</p> + +<p>"Well ... rather too statuesque for jollity."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the heat. I know she complains of the heat; it gives +her a headache."</p> + +<p>"Come, Miss Dickenson, that's not fair. You know it was what +<i>you</i> said began it."</p> + +<p>"Began what?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, what I am saying arises naturally from...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Times</i> over his +head. <i>His</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"I think they are," said Miss Dickenson. She shut her eyes +a moment for reflection, and then decided:—"Oh yes—certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Miss Dickenson nodded slightly in confidence with herself. <i>Her</i> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute to see if I understand.... Oh yes—I see. +'If there was anything afoot.' Of course. Go on."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did what?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>passée</i>? "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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>my</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.... <i>Have</i> 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 <i>not</i> matter between <i>us</i>," said she, and vanished +down the avenue.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Percival Pellew walked slowly in the opposite direction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +in a brown study, leaving his thumbs in his armholes, and +playing <i>la ci darem</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>her</i>? 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 <i>dernier ressorts</i> needless, and Irene was driven +away behind a spirited horse by the young groom, Tom Kettering.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"<i>She'll</i> be no consolation for him," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"No—that she won't! But unless there's someone else there +she'll have Inez—you've seen the Spanish <i>dame-de-compagnie</i>?—and +<i>she'll</i> enjoy a flirtation with your brother. He'll speak Spanish +to her, and she'll sing Spanish songs. <i>He</i> won't hurt for a +few hours."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Anybody in sight, Mrs. Bailey?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody yet, Mr. Torrens."</p> + +<p>"<i>Speriamo!</i> Perhaps there's a piano in the room, Mrs. Bailey?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +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 <i>that</i> now, Mr. Torrens?" said Mrs. Bailey, +and felt that she was in the presence of an Artist.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she seemed to be lukewarm about <i>Che faro</i>, 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 <i>andante</i>. 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 <i>Schottische</i>; and would have stood +Gluck over to meet her taste indefinitely, but that voices came +outside, and the selection was interrupted.</p> + +<p>The voice of Lady Ancester was one, saying despairingly:—"My +dear, if you're not ready we must go without you. I <i>must</i> +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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Was Gwen really going to come to sing at this piano? <i>That</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>did</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +Gwen. Because if it was she mustn't stop him. She would cry +off and try her song another time.</p> + +<p>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 <i>does</i> see <i>something</i>, +then?" The answer was ambiguous. "Nothing to go by." +Gwen had to be content with it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Is there any strain of music known to man more harrowingly +pathetic than the one popularly known as <i>Erin go bragh</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Savourneen Dheelish</i> through.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>wrong</i>—no! Now, hard hit by <i>Savourneen Dheelish</i>, +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +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 <i>had</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>She never noticed the curious <i>naïveté</i> which left unquestioned +her readiness to play the part she was casting for herself—the +<i>rôle</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Achilles stopped <i>Savourneen Dheelish</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +have kept him back still in the ranks of men. This placed him +among cripples, a disqualified ruin.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Deh vieni alla finestra</i>. "Anything +like that. But I can't tackle anything extensive. My hands +haven't quite got strong again, I suppose. Now you come!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>à pleine voix</i>. 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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXI" id="CHAPTER_AXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"What, indeed? But you did get some sort of drill?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Adrian felt that chat of this sort was the best after all, to keep +safe for him his <i>modus vivendi</i> with this girl, in a world she was +suddenly lighting up for him in defiance of his darkness. He <i>could</i> +have friendship, and he was not prepared to admit that estrangement +might be the more livable <i>modus</i> 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 <i>pluies de perles</i> taught nobody anything.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +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 <i>pluies de perles</i> 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 +<i>be</i> unmaidenly. But know she <i>must</i>!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Don't laugh at me, because I'm in earnest. I mean for being +so unfeeling...."</p> + +<p>"Unfeeling?"</p> + +<p>"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...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But what?—why?—when? What words got their way this +time?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Lord 'a massy me!—as Mrs. Bailey says. 'The daughters of +the Dream Witch'? What's the matter with <i>them</i>? <i>They're</i> all +right."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but <i>do</i> mention it. Mention it again. Mention it lots +of times. Besides, I know what you mean...."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"The 'watchman sorrowing for the light,' of course! It seemed +like me. Do you know it never crossed my mind in that connection?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>blind</i>—"because +they kept on making the best of it for our sakes, Irene +and Mrs. Bailey did...."</p> + +<p>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...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>At any rate, he could not see her confusion at her own <i>malapropos</i>—that +was something! She recovered from it to find him saying:—"But +what I want to know is—<i>what</i> happened yesterday? I mean, +how came you to know anything you did not know before? Was +it anything <i>I</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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>did</i>," 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?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Thinking what?" said Gwen timidly.</p> + +<p>"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 pæans 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?"</p> + +<p>"What did Mrs. Bailey say?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Bailey said Lord have mercy, gracious-goodness-her, and +I at once perceived that I was in the hands of a good creature.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +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, <i>is</i> 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 <i>is</i> no one else in the room, is there?"</p> + +<p>"Not a soul. And nobody will come. The dowager-duchess is +having tea in her own room, and all the others will be late."</p> + +<p>Something in this caused Mr. Torrens to say, with ridiculous +inconsecutiveness:—"Then you're not engaged to Lord Cumberworld?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly am <i>not</i> engaged to Lord Cumberworld," said Gwen +with cold emphasis. "Why did you think I was?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Bailey."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Bailey! And why did you think I wasn't?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"As I spoke of his just now? Why not, indeed? She <i>is</i> a +dowager-duchess."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>dowadging</i>."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What a very funny thing!" said Adrian thoughtfully, "to +have one's life saved by being nearly killed by something else. +<i>Similia similibus curantur.</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +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 +<i>chaperonage</i>? No—she was safe so far certainly.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>have</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"Do grigs read diamond type?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</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...."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" Gwen is a little impatient and absent. Marcus +Curtius has waned again perceptibly.</p> + +<p>"Why—suppose I had been knocked over two miles off, carried +in, for instance, at the Mackworth Clarkes', where 'Rene's +gone...!"</p> + +<p>"But you weren't!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>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 +<i>sin</i> 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...?"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't have known her! Come, Lady Gwen!"</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, give her up. Suppose, instead, the girl you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +are engaged to had been a friend of mine, how could I have borne +to look <i>her</i> in the face?"</p> + +<p>"<i>She's</i> a hypothesis. There's no such interesting damsel—that +I know of...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't there?... Well—she's a hypothesis, and I've a +right to as many hypothesisses as you have."</p> + +<p>"I can't deny it."</p> + +<p>"Then how should I look her in the face? Answer my question, +and don't prevaricate."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Do be serious. Indeed <i>I</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?..."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"—One's enough!—that means that one's the allowance, not that +it's one too many...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>condemned</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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 <i>was</i> in earnest."</p> + +<p>"So was I."</p> + +<p>"<i>Then</i> I did not understand."</p> + +<p>"What did you think I meant?"</p> + +<p>"I thought you were playing fast and loose with the nonsense +about the hypothesis. I did indeed."</p> + +<p>"Well, I was serious underneath. Listen, and I'll tell you. +This <i>fiancée</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>loved</i> this man!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>homme incompris</i>, according to this young +lady. He hated Venus—odious woman!—and no wonder. <i>She</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +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>I</i> should feel in her position."</p> + +<p>It had come as a chance speech before she saw its bearings. +There was not the ghost of an <i>arrière pensée</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 ægis 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 <i>fiancée</i> had been curtly swept away, to fight against a +temptation he conceived himself bound in honour not to give way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +to. Not so easy because <i>something</i>, 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 <i>she</i> +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.</p> + +<p>For he asked abruptly:—"How do you know that?" driving +home the nail of personality to the head.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"You were thinking that...?"</p> + +<p>"Well—you know—it was before I had any idea she was a +hypothesis. I thought she was real because of the ring."</p> + +<p>"My ring! Fancy!... But I'll tell you about my ring presently. +Tell me what you were thinking...."</p> + +<p>"Why—what I said before!"</p> + +<p>"But what <i>was</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"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—<i>beast</i>, you know!..."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Now you are talking nonsense again. Do be serious!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +your voice—I merely mention it as a thing of pathological interest...."</p> + +<p>"Go on."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Is that empty compliment, or are you in earnest?"</p> + +<p>"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!..."</p> + +<p>"If that is so you shall hear it until your sight comes back—it +will—it must!"</p> + +<p>"How if it never comes back? How if I remain as I am now +for life?"</p> + +<p>"I shall not lose my voice."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was just as well that the Hon. Percival Pellew and Aunt +Constance Smith-Dickenson, who had started to walk from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +flower-show with a couple of young monkeys whose object in life +was to spare everybody else their company from selfish motives, +did <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> and <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> of the Nativity of Love. It +is a new Era. Call it the Hegira, if you like.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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...?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It would have happened just the same, <i>I</i> believe. Because why? +I had <i>seen</i> you. At least, it <i>might</i> have."</p> + +<p>"It <i>has</i> happened, and must be looked in the face. Now whatever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +you do, for Heaven's sake, don't go talking to papa and being +penitent, till I give you leave."</p> + +<p>"What should I be able to say to him? <i>I</i> don't know. I can't +justify my actions—as the World goes...."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody would hold a man blameless, in my circumstances, +who made an offer of marriage to a young lady under...."</p> + +<p>"It's invidious to talk about people's ages."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't going to say twenty-one. I was going to say under +her father's roof...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—you said Argus. But that was a <i>façon-de-parler</i>; at +least I hope so, for the sake of the Hypothesis.... Oh dear!—what +nonsense we two are talking...." Some silence; otherwise +the <i>status quo</i> remained unchanged. Then he said:—"<i>I</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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>"It's more than an hour, but I know when. About me sticking +my hand out?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Meant what?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What were you going to?" said Adrian, really a little puzzled. +Because even poets don't understand some women.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +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 +<i>something</i> 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 <i>frightened</i>, 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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"That young Lieutenant What's-his-name and the second Accrington<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Trovatore.</i> +For it was the new Opera that year, and we were boys ... <i>eheu +fugaces</i>!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXII" id="CHAPTER_AXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; <i>harguing</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>She's</i> all right. Come in and shut the door."</p> + +<p>"Why, girl, what's the matter? Why are you...?"</p> + +<p>"Why am I what?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—my dear!" It is too much for the Countess after those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Why—do you know anything against him?"</p> + +<p>"Darling!—you might marry anybody, and you know it."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; I know all about it. I prefer this one. But <i>do</i> you +know anything against him?"</p> + +<p>"Only ... only his <i>eyes</i>!... Oh dear! You know you said +so yourself yesterday—that the sight was destroyed...."</p> + +<p>"Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!"</p> + +<p>"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, <i>one</i> thing, +dear! You haven't given him any encouragement—at least, I +<i>hope</i> not...."</p> + +<p>"Given him any what?"</p> + +<p>"Any practical encouragement ... any...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Gwen dear—you are perfectly ... <i>shameless</i>!... Well—you +are a very odd girl...." This is concession; oddity is not shamelessness.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the disputants seemed to prefer suspension of their +discussion, and the elder lady departed, saying they would both +be late for dinner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>grande tenue</i> 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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I think," says his lordship deferentially, "that, having mentioned +it, it might be better to...."</p> + +<p>"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—<i>she's</i> not listening ... +never mind <i>her</i>! There, the door's shut!"</p> + +<p>"Well—what <i>is</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"But who <i>is</i> he, and what is <i>it</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"But, Philippa, are you sure? It seems to me perfectly incredible."</p> + +<p>"Speak to her yourself."</p> + +<p>"She's barely seen him; and as for him, poor fellow, he has +never seen <i>her</i> at all." The rapidity of events seems out of all +reason to a constitutionally cautious Earl.</p> + +<p>"My dear, how unreasonable you are! If he could <i>see</i> her, of +course, she wouldn't think of him for one moment. At least, I +suppose not."</p> + +<p>"I <i>cannot</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, how slow men are!" The lady passes through a short<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +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 <i>this</i>? The girl's got it into her head that the accident +was <i>our</i> fault, and that it's <i>her</i> duty to make it up to him."</p> + +<p>"But, then, she's not really in love with him, if it's a self-denying +ordinance."</p> + +<p>The Countess is getting used to despair, so she only shrugs a +submissive shoulder and remarks with forbearance:—"It is <i>no</i> +use trying to make you understand. Of course, it's <i>because</i> she +is in love with him that she is going in for ... what did you call +it?..."</p> + +<p>"A self-denying ordinance."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> call it heroics. If she wasn't in love with him, do you suppose +she would want to fling herself away?"</p> + +<p>"Then it isn't a self-denying ordinance at all. I confess I <i>don't</i> +understand. I must talk to Gwen herself."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Stop one minute, Philippa...."</p> + +<p>"Well—what?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>affaire de coeur</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>à contre-coeur</i> entitled him to half-a-pint.</p> + +<p>"How did you get on with little Di Accrington?" the lady +had said. And the gentleman had answered:—"First-rate. Talked +to her about <i>your</i> partner all the time. How did you hit it off +with him?" A sympathetic laugh over the response: "Capitally—he +talked about <i>her</i>, 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 <i>that</i>. Only it wouldn't do to neglect +it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It seems Mr. Adrian Torrens is a musician as well as a poet."</p> + +<p>"Had they been playing the piano?"</p> + +<p>"Really, Mr. Pellew, how absurd you are! Where does 'they' +come in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—well—a—of course—I thought you were referring to...."</p> + +<p>"<i>Whom</i> did you suppose I was referring to?" Aggressive +equanimity here that can wait weeks, if necessary.</p> + +<p>"Torrens and my cousin Gwen! Be hanged if I can see why +I shouldn't refer to them!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How does Nurse Bailey know?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Can't say I believe Nurse Bailey's much of a dab at music." +Mr. Pellew was reflecting on the humorous background of Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"Is that the way you gossip at your Club, Mr. Pellew?"</p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>"Well, I say it's a jolly shame!... You don't suppose there +<i>is</i> anything there, do you?" This came with a sudden efflux of +seriousness.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever. Did you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"My dear Mr. Pellew, you really are quite pastoral. Of course, +Gwen is exactly what he would <i>not</i> mention."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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—<i>n</i>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 <i>n</i>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.</p> + +<p>"By-the-by, did you ever see the Macganister More man that +died the other day? Married the Earl's half-sister?"</p> + +<p>"Never. Of course, I know Clotilda perfectly well."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Always do—with a lot of independent property. Unless some +fillah cuts in and snaps her up."</p> + +<p>"Do tell me, Mr. Pellew, why it is men can never credit any +woman with an identity of her own?"</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't Mrs. Bailey," said the Earl. "It's me. Gwen's +father."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +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 <i>peccavi</i>. +Even "Gwen's father's" announcement of himself did not warrant +his breaking his promise.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>must</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>Then Adrian broke out:—"Oh, how you must be blaming me! +Oh, what a <i>brute</i> I've been!..."</p> + +<p>"No—no, no—<i>no!</i> Not that, not that <i>at all</i>! 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 <i>seen</i> her——" he says, referring only to the +shortness of their acquaintance, not to eyesight.</p> + +<p>Adrian accepts the latter meaning without blaming him. "Yes," +he says, "but see her I <i>did</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"N-no. I don't think I do. Is it ... a ... Coleridge?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"Probably you would not hurt me, and I should deserve it, if +you did."</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>we</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"There <i>was</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>cannot</i> understand how you came to be so—so ... I +won't say cocksure—let's call it sanguine. If there had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +been time I could have understood it. But I cannot see where +the time came in."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"You are the wiser?—quite sure?" The Earl seemed to have +his doubts.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Dear Lord Ancester, you are laughing at me...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>are</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! Gwen told her of it across the table at dinner-time."</p> + +<p>"Across the table at dinner-time? <i>Imp</i>-ossible!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>confetti</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>is</i>...!" But this wild daughter of his is beyond words to describe, +and he gives her up.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Remember this, Mr. Torrens," said his lordship, when a rally +encouraged him to add a postscript, "that in spite of what you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +say, I feel just as Gwen does, that the blame of your mishap lies +with me and mine—with me chiefly...."</p> + +<p>"All nonsense, my lord! Excuse my contradicting you flatly. +Your instruction, not expressed but implied, to old Stephen, was +clearly <i>not</i> to miss his mark. If he had killed Achilles you <i>would</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>The Countess showed unexampled forbearance under extreme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Indisputably. But it complicates the case. You must admit, +my dear, that it complicates the case."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we are, my dear. But as to what I'm driving at. Can +you recall what Gwen said about his eyes?"</p> + +<p>"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!'"</p> + +<p>"What did you answer to that?"</p> + +<p>"I refused to talk any longer, and said you and she must settle +it your own way."</p> + +<p>"Nothing else?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—well—nothing—nothing to speak of! Lutwyche came +worrying in with hot water."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Only possibly!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Probably then. Yes—certainly probably!"</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I understood you to say that, in your opinion, Gwen +had got it into her head that...."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!... There—never mind!—go on." She considered +her husband a prolix Earl, sometimes.</p> + +<p>"... That the accident was <i>our</i> fault, and that it was <i>her</i> duty +to make it up to him."</p> + +<p>"Of course she has. What did you suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I supposed she might have—a—fallen in love with him. I +thought you thought so, too, from what you said."</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>staccato</i>. "Gwen, has, fallen, in, love, with, Mr. Torrens, because, +we, <i>did it</i>? <i>Now</i> do you see?"</p> + +<p>"She has a—mixture of motives, in fact?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely none whatever! She's over head and ears in love +with him <i>because</i> his eyes are out. No other reason in life! What +earthly good do you think the child thinks she could do him if she +<i>didn't</i> love him? Men will never understand girls if they live +till Doomsday."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, what nonsense! Of course, Gwen did that. She +proposed to him when I was away at the flower-show...."</p> + +<p>"Philippa—how <i>can</i> you? How would such a thing be <i>possible</i>? +Really—<i>really!</i>....</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>really really</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>insinuendo</i>, and had felt a great and +just satisfaction with her powers of handling her mother-tongue.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXIII" id="CHAPTER_AXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> +look accomplished facts in the face.</p> + +<p>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 <i>blown</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The reckoning bristled with difficulties, and every unit was disputed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +heartfelt sorrow for the Macganister More. He, however, was very +soon dismissed from the conversation, to make way for Dave +Wardle.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>says</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Gwen speculated. "Pilcher, or Pilchard, perhaps! It couldn't +be Picture. What did he tell you about her?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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 <i>me</i> from Mrs. Picture +when he first came, by reason of the white hair. So she may be +nigh my own age."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 anæmic 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 anæmic 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 <i>nuque</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We'll pay a visit to Dave," said Sister Nora. "Perhaps he'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Picture lives upstairs, it seems," said Gwen, referring +to the letter. "I wonder you saw nothing of her, Cousin +Chloe."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"A prizefighter!" said Gwen. "How interesting! We <i>must</i> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +threaten, but not to be acting promptly. What do you think, +Gwen?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>At last Sister Nora said slowly, as though still labouring with +perplexity:—"Is it possible?—but no, it's impossible—possible he +means that?..."</p> + +<p>"Possible he means what?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>would</i> be best. +If you please, my lady!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—that's Cousin Philippa. Go on."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>have</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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>I</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>I</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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>see</i> the boy +Michael.... I mean, did he?..."</p> + +<p>"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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>She could mention Maisie more serenely than Mrs. Prichard, +<i>per contra</i>, could mention Phoebe. But, then, think how differently +the forty-five years had been filled out in either case. Maisie had +been forced to <i>ricordarsi del tempo felice</i> through so many years +of <i>miseria</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>Gwen showed an interest in the mill. "You and your sister +were very much alike," she said.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>viva voce</i>. "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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>con amore</i>, to reassure the Granny, who, +however, was evidently only silenced, not convinced, about this +elderly person in London, that sink of iniquities.</p> + +<p>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, +<i>they</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Said Sister Nora as they rose to rejoin the carriage:—"Now +remember!—you're not to fuss over Dave, Mrs. Thrale. <i>We'll</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>what</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>grande +passion</i>. Meanwhile, evidently the kindest thing was to turn her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +mind in another direction, and the inoculation of an Earl's daughter +with the virus of an enthusiasm which has been since called +<i>slumming</i> 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.</p> + +<p>But she was not going to imperil her chances of success by +using too strong a <i>virus</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>"There they are, Cousin Chloe, exactly as I prophesied."</p> + +<p>"Well—why shouldn't they be?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say anything about shoulds and shouldn't. I merely +referred to facts.... Come—<i>say</i> you think it ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>"I can't see why. Their demeanour appears to me unexceptionable, +and perfectly dignified. Everything one would expect, +knowing the parties...."</p> + +<p>"Are they going to walk about like that to all eternity, being +unexceptionable? That's what I want to know?"</p> + +<p>"You are too impatient, dear!"</p> + +<p>"They have been going on for months like that; at least, it +<i>seems</i> months. And never getting any nearer! And then when +you talk to them about each other, they speak of each other +<i>respectfully</i>! 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."</p> + +<p>"My dear Gwen, what <i>do</i> you expect?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>you</i> 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 ... <i>What</i> +do you say?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I said 'not no end.'"</p> + +<p>"Well—of course not! But I thought it as well to say so."</p> + +<p>"And what did he say to that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How absurd you are, Gwen! Why was that better?"</p> + +<p>"H'm—it's a little difficult to say! But it <i>is</i> better, distinctly. +There—they've heard us coming!"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>modus vivendi</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>The carriage was aware it was <i>de trop</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +assent reluctantly, the arrangement stood; as did the horses, gently +conversing with each other's noses about the caprices of the +carriage.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXIV" id="CHAPTER_AXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>pro tem.</i>, and knows to a nicety +how low it is both liberal and righteous to assess their services.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>For this lady had then remarked that, for her part, she thought +the Ancient Romans were too far removed from our own daily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>does</i> go home to +one more—now, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Well—I'm on his side. P'r'aps that's not the right way to +put it; I suppose I ought to say <i>their</i> side. Meaning, the young +people's, of course! Yes, exactly."</p> + +<p>"One always takes part against the stern parent." The humour +of this received a tributary laugh. "But do you really think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +Philippa wrong, Mr. Pellew? I must say she seems to me only +reasonable. The whole thing was so absurdly sudden."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"That's not certain."</p> + +<p>"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....</p> + +<p>"And all the fat was in the fire?"</p> + +<p>"What a coarse and unfeeling way of putting it, Mr. Pellew!"</p> + +<p>"Well—<i>I</i> saw it was, the moment I came into the room. So did +you, Miss Dickenson! Don't deny it."</p> + +<p>"I certainly had an impression they had been precipitate."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. Cut along!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> got worse?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I should say no!... Well, no—I should say yes!"</p> + +<p>"Which?"</p> + +<p>"H'm—well, perhaps <i>no!</i> Yes—<i>no!</i> At the same time, the +parties are peculiar. He'll last—there's no doubt of that!...<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +And I don't see any changed conditions ahead.... Unless...."</p> + +<p>"Unless what?"</p> + +<p>"Unless he gets his eyesight again."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that Gwen will put him off, if he sees her?"</p> + +<p>"No—come now—I say, Miss Dickenson—hang it all!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't know! How was I to?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I quite understand. Go on."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"She would not admit it, even to herself."</p> + +<p>"That is very likely—pride and <i>amour propre</i>, and that sort of +thing! But suppose that he suspected a change?"</p> + +<p>"I see what you mean."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Very. But don't you think, Mr. Pellew, that circumstances +very often <i>are</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +have anything to do with it. They have always been destined for +one another by Fate."</p> + +<p>"How does that apply to Gwen and Torrens?"</p> + +<p>"Merely that when Mr. Torrens's sight comes back.... +What?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I only said I was glad to hear you say <i>when</i>, not +<i>if</i>. Go on."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I should imagine that in six months, if it is not broken off, +it will have become chronic. At present they are rather ... +rather....</p> + +<p>"Rather underdone. I see. Well—I don't understand that anyone +wants to take them off the hob...."</p> + +<p>"I think her mother does."</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>"Paolo and Francesca?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name='TC_7'></a><ins title="backelors">bachelors</ins>—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.</p> + +<p>Her remark was:—"You seem to be quite an authority on the +subject, Mr. Pellew."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No—you don't mean that? Does me a lot of credit, though! +Guessin', I am, all through. No experience—honour bright!"</p> + +<p>"You don't expect me to believe that, Mr. Pellew?"</p> + +<p>"Needn't believe it, unless you like, Miss Dickenson. But it's +true, for all that. Never was in love in my life!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." No qualification!—more pitfalls, perhaps.</p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<p>"In 'As You Like It.'"</p> + +<p>"I meant 'As You Like It.' I suppose it was because he happened +to come across thingummybob—Rosalind."</p> + +<p>"It always is."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Miss Dickenson's share of the conversation had become +very dry and monosyllabic.</p> + +<p>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 Archæological Congress, which it suited +them to believe only just out of sight and hearing: quite within +shot considered as <i>chaperons</i>. Their familiarity had got to such +a pitch that the Hon. Percival had contrived to take her into his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +confidence about his own life, and she had to remain tongue-tied +about hers, being a woman.</p> + +<p>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 <i>piquantes</i>, 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 <i>rôle</i> 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"?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He in his turn was at a loss to get something worded so as not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +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 <i>in posse</i>, +though he may never work out as a husband <i>in esse</i>, nor even a +<i>fiancé</i>." 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +that train. The carriage may have noticed that it never overtook +the Archæological Congress, which must have walked very quick, +unless indeed the two stragglers walked very slow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye! I'll remember the book. I've enjoyed my visit +enormously."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"That will do perfectly. Only not if it's the least troublesome +to bring it."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; not the very slightest! Nine?—half-past?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Bless me, no—the idea! I'll drop round after dinner at the +Club. Nine or half-past."</p> + +<p>"We shall expect you. Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh—Percy! You'll lose your train. Stop a minute!—there +was something I wanted to say. What <i>was</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>nuance</i> of manner pervaded his two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXV" id="CHAPTER_AXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>esthetic 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.</p> + +<p>But there!—our impressions may be but memories of fifty years +ago, and our reader may wonder why Cavendish Square suggests +them.</p> + +<p>He himself, probably very much our junior—a bad habit other +people acquire as Time goes on—may consider Harley Street and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> +since her father's death to serve as a <i>pied-à-terre</i> until she could +be sure of her arrangements in the days to come.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Let me see!" said Gwen. "I've forgotten my history. Mrs. +Fitzherbert was his wife, wasn't she?"</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"And he kept it packed up like this—how long?"</p> + +<p>"Well—you know how old I am. Twenty-seven."</p> + +<p>Aunt Constance corrected dates. "George the Fourth," said she +chronologically, "ascended the throne in 1820. Consequently he +cannot have become intoxicated in this room...."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>A spirit of Conservatism suggested that it would be impious to +disturb a <i>status quo</i> connected with Royalty. But Gwen said, +touching a visible ace:—"Just think, Clo, if <i>you</i> 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 +<i>en passant</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>Il Pescatore</i>, till +the band began again with The Sicilian Bride, and drowned it.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +expressed any surprise at the rather prompt recrudescence of Mr. +Pellew, last seen at the Towers two days since.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Now you <i>are</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The impersonality of Dummy furnished a topic to tide over +the assimilation of things, and help the social <i>fengshui</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"This," said Mr. Pellew, with shocked gravity, "is not whist."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Gwen, "I can <i>not</i> see why one shouldn't say how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +many cards one has of any suit. Everyone knows, so it must be +fair. Everyone sees Dummy's hand."</p> + +<p>"I see your point. But it's not whist."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Fire away!" said Gwen. "Second player plays lowest." Miss +Dickenson played the Queen. "<i>That's</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>mean</i> to <i>say</i>, Cousin Percy"—thus Gwen, with indignant +emphasis—"that you've not got a club in your hand, at the +very first round. You <i>cannot</i> expect us to believe <i>that</i>!" 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>sortes Virgilianæ</i>, or what not. Better have another +deal. Gwen gave up the point, under protest, and Miss Dickenson +dealt. Spades were trumps, this time.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Can't help it," said Cousin Clo. "Got nothing else!" Out +came the King, and down came the ace upon it, naturally.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I believe you've been cheating, and looking at my hand," said +Gwen. "How do you know I've got the Queen?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know I had got the ace?" said Mr. Pellew. And +really this was a reasonable question.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I only see a shadow," said Mr. Pellew. But it wasn't a shadow. +A shadow moves.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It will come out with India-rubber," said Miss Grahame.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>dramatis personæ</i> have to spend their lives dodging motor-cars +and biplanes, and holding their ears for fear of gramophones. +Still, it's <i>something</i>!</p> + +<p>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 <i>nem. con.</i></p> + +<p>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 Archæological 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it isn't true," said Gwen incredulously. "Things of +that sort are generally fibs."</p> + +<p>"Don't know about this one," said Mr. Pellew, sorting his cards. +"Funny coincidence! It was in the <i>Quarterly Review</i>—very first +thing I opened at—Egyptian Researches.... That's our trick, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Now, however did you know that?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"Very simple. All the trumps are out but two, and I've got +them here in my hand. See?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Because that's game. Game and the rubber. We only want +two by cards, and there they are!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Well!" said Mr. Pellew, tacitly admitting the implied impeachment. +"It <i>is</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +he lives—York Place. He's a Sir Somebody Something.... +What were you going to say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—nothing.... Only that it would have been very interesting +to read that account. However, Sir Somebody Something +must be wanting his <i>Quarterly Review</i>.... Never mind!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I do that capitally, Clo?"</p> + +<p>"Do which, dear?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—quite a stroke of genius! Gwen dear, what an inveterate +matchmaker you are!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Clo! I never...." Here Gwen hung fire for a +moment, confronted by an intractability of language. She took +the position by storm, <i>more suo</i>:—"I never <i>mutchmoke</i> in my +life.... What?—Well, you may laugh, Clo, but I never <i>did</i>! +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!"</p> + +<p>"You are quite sure they do ... want to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—I think so. At least, I'm quite sure Percy does."</p> + +<p>"Why not Aunt Constance?"</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>me</i>, always."</p> + +<p>"That's an old story, Gwen dear." The two ladies looked ruefully +at one another, with a slight shoulder-shrug apiece over a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>à choix</i>, 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 <i>parti pris</i> in life was a benevolent interest +in the affairs of everybody else.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Will she hold to it, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXVI" id="CHAPTER_AXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Fishes don't go home like butcher's meat," said Uncle Moses.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>elixir vitæ</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>elixir vitæ</i> in his left hand, and Dolly on +his right shoulder, conversing on a topic suggested by Dr. Ekings's +remarks about diet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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 <i>vice versa</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>A little <i>finesse</i> was necessary to land the <i>elixir vitæ</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What on 'arth did he say Mrs. Picture for? <i>He</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>You're</i> +a nice lot of young Pickles!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Have you been having any more alarming symptoms, Mo, and +never told me?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What's the child a-sayin' of, Mo?" said Aunt M'riar.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>pre</i>cisely?..." +Dave was even less audible than before in his response to this, +and Uncle Mo evidently softened it for repetition:—"Said if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +Micky told him any—etceterer—lies he'd rip his heart out? Was +that it, Dave?"</p> + +<p>"Yorce," said Dave, aloud and emphatically. "<i>This</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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>I</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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo and Mr. Jerry glanced at one another, seeming to +understand a phrase that had puzzled Aunt M'riar.</p> + +<p>"That was it, Mo," said Mr. Jerry, exactly as if Uncle Mo +had spoken, "<i>spit upon</i> meant <i>split upon</i>." 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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>bouche cousue</i> 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 <i>not</i> to!" He arrived +at his climax like a squib that attains its ideal.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>my</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +here ... bad-languagee"—he halted a minute to make this word—"come +to know anything about Goody Prichard upstairs?"</p> + +<p>"Did he?" said Mr. Jerry, who of course had only heard Dave +on the subject.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Dave meanwhile had been gathering for an oratorical effort, +and now culminated. "I never told Dolly nuffint <i>about</i> Mrs. Picture +upstairs. What <i>I</i> said was 'old widder lady.'"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>The Man</i>." 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<i>Munce</i> 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?..."</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> name did he say?" Uncle Mo interrupted, with growing +interest. Dave repeated his misapprehension of it, which incorporated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +an idea that similar widows would have similar surnames. +If one was Marrable, it was only natural that another should be +Darrable.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> +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 <i>totidem verbis</i> 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 <i>guichet</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"None o' my making, Mo. Only Mr. Jerry, he'll be round. +What's to be told him?"</p> + +<p>"Ah—I'll tell you. Just you say to Jerry—just you tell +him...."</p> + +<p>"What'll I tell him?" For Uncle Mo appeared to waver.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And where are you off for all of an hour, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>his</i> time, trust him! +Tell Jerry I'll jine him at half-after nine, the very latest."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What was it, M'riar? Don't you bottle it up."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Presently the door to the street was pushed open, and Mr. Jerry +appeared. "I don't see no Moses?" said he.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"It don't do me any harm."</p> + +<p>"Ah—some feels the heat more than others."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jerry laughed cheerfully, for consolation. "Come now, +Aunt M'riar," said he, "<i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<p>It was not unwelcome to Aunt M'riar. "I'm forty-six, Mr. +Jerry," she said. "And forty-six is six-and-forty."</p> + +<p>"And fifty-six is six-and-fifty, which is what I am, this very +next Michaelmas. Now I call that a coincidence, Mrs. Wardle."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>something</i> had.</p> + +<p>"One of the kids a-sickenin' for measles! Out with it, M'riar! +Which is it—Dave?"</p> + +<p>"No, it ain't any such a thing. Nor yet Dolly.... Anyone +ever see such a candle?"</p> + +<p>"Then it's scarlatinar, or mumps. One or other on 'em!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i>?" 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.</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>Your</i> husband!" He was not +clear about it even then; for, after a pause long enough for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +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 <i>husband</i>! Are ye sure you're saying what +you mean, M'riar?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not dotty, Mo. You'll find it all right, just like I tell +you...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Don't he know you're here? That's rum, too. But it's rum, +all round. Things <i>are</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Uncle Moses helped. "How long is it since you set eyes on +him?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Twenty-five years—all of twenty-five years."</p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i>, old girl, legally and factually. But then," +said he, "when was you married to him?"</p> + +<p>"I've got my lines to show for that, Mo. July six, eighteen +twenty-nine."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"We were together six weeks—no more."</p> + +<p>"And you—you never seen him since?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But you made him marry you, M'riar?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"... 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +the <i>Mornin' Star</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>His conclusion, put briefly, was that this deserted wife, reappearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>beauté de diable</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>éclaircissement</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i>. I'll +square <i>him</i> 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?</p> + +<p>As for Mo, his threat towards this convicted miscreant had no +connection with his recent interview with his police-officer friend—no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXVII" id="CHAPTER_AXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>"You're never fidgeting about <i>him</i>?" 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 <i>him</i>. Didn't he as good +as say he was took, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +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 +<i>that</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Which don't mean the same thing," said Aunt M'riar.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Not if you knew what he's wanted for, this time?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But if it was me, what'll you do, Mo?" Aunt M'riar wasn't +getting on with those cuffs.</p> + +<p>"What'll I do? Maybe I'll give him ... a bit of my mind."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>me</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Very like she's been extra to-day"—thus Mrs. Burr continued—"by +reason of rats last night, and getting no sleep."</p> + +<p>"There ain't any rats in your room, missis," said Uncle Mo. +"We should hear 'em down below if there was."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Queer, anyhow!" said Uncle Mo. But he evidently doubted +the statement, or at least thought it exaggerated.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>they</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Before Dave heard Dolly's version of the rats, he had a tale of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +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 +<i>loydy</i>—"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...."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you <i>say</i> you was Davy?" said Uncle Mo. And Aunt +M'riar she actually said:—"Well, I never!—not to tell the lady +who you was!"</p> + +<p>Dave was perplexed, looking with blue-eyed gravity from one +to the other. "The loydy said I <i>was</i> Doyvy," said he, in a slightly +injured tone. He did not at all like the suggestion that he had +been guilty of discourtesy.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Dave concentrated his intelligence powerfully on accuracy:—"The +loydy said to the yuther loydy—the be-yhooterful loydy...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, there was a beautiful lady, was there?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"And what did the other lady say?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar turned his face to the light, by the chin. "What's +the child been at?" said she.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>vice versa</i>. +"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.</p> + +<p>"She must have been somebody else. She couldn't have been +nobody," said Uncle Mo cogently. "Spit it out, old chap, Who was +she?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"That's her," said Aunt M'riar. "Sister of Charity—that's +what <i>she</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"I thought her the right sort, herself," said Uncle Mo, implying +that others of her <i>monde</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo presumably understood, as he accepted the form of +speech, saying:—"And so long as we do ourselves credit, M'riar."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mo, you never see me do anything but behave."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> +Man, but in Independent Circumstances. Moreover, he lived at +Brixton.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_AXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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!</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name='TC_8'></a><ins title="[blank]">in</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +If limbs healed up under treatment, why not vegetation? The +operator was quite satisfied with his handiwork.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't a tune, Mo. It's <i>scales</i>. She's being learned how. +One day soon she'll have a tune to play. An easy tune. Mrs. +Prichard says <i>she</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i> a visit. It was not very +likely they would, but you never could tell. Not to place reliance!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Gwen's tact saved the position. "Don't you tell <i>them</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> +on the kitchen where they were sitting. There was more room +there than in the little parlour.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Prichard," said Gwen, for Sister Nora's ear. "I thought it +couldn't be Picture."</p> + +<p>"Prichard, of course! How funny we didn't think of it—so +obvious!"</p> + +<p>"Very—when one knows! I think I like Picture best."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>his</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>But both ladies exclaimed against Dave being hurried away +from his old lady. Besides, they wanted to know some more about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>"What made Dave think the old souls so much alike, Mrs. +Wardle?" said Sister Nora. "Children are generally so sharp +to see differences."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>contradistinction</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How's that, Mrs. Wardle? Why 'takes her to heart'?" A +joint question of the ladies.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"<i>I'll</i> tell you, ladies," said Uncle Mo, rolling with laughter. +"The old granny's just as jealous as any schoolgirl! She's +<i>that</i>, 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!"</p> + +<p>"Do you hear <i>that</i>, 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?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> +former from the conversation. She had, however, heard enough +to confirm a half-made resolution not to leave the house without +seeing Mrs. Prichard.</p> + +<p>"Ass! Vis piece off vat piece," says Dolly, making a selection +from the mass of available gold, which Gwen snips off ruthlessly.</p> + +<p>"Well!" says Aunt M'riar, with her usual record of inexperience +of childhood. "I never, never did, in all my christened +days!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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, æsthetically.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ceteris paribus</i>. No English +can compass that amount of slickness; so her speech was +left crude.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The two little ones must be almost like your own children to +you, Mr. Wardle," said she, to broach the conversation.</p> + +<p>"Never had any, ma'am," said Uncle Mo, literal-minded from +constitutional good-faith.</p> + +<p>"If you <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Nor yet M'riar," said he, seeing a precaution necessary. "Or +perhaps I should say <i>one</i>. 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?"</p> + +<p>"They're making a nice racket," said Aunt M'riar. "So I lay +there ain't much wrong with <i>them</i>." 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar took the subject <i>au serieux</i>. "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!"</p> + +<p>Miss Grahame made an effort to get away from abstract Philosophy. +"I'm afraid it can't be helped now, anyhow," said she. +"Dave <i>is</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She could not, however, resist saying:—"He <i>must</i> know <i>some</i> +time, you know, Mr. Wardle. Surely you would never have Dave +grow up uneducated?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> +right to choose its guests. Miss Grahame was in favour of invitations +issued by the State, and <i>visé'd</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said, placidly:—"Water-pipes, +<i>I</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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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. "<i>That</i> ain't water-pipes," said +Uncle Mo.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p><i>Who</i> were underneath? The children? And underneath what?</p> + +<p>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 <i>at once</i>! The old lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> +<i>must</i> be got down, <i>somehow</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>What was it that had happened?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXIX" id="CHAPTER_AXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>more masculino</i>, +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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he walked away slowly in the moonlight, with the appointment +fresh in his mind to return next day on a shallow archæological +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 <i>Quarterly Review</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +farce, having for its object the liberation of Mr. Pellew and Miss +Dickenson from external influence.</p> + +<p>"Constance <i>was</i> 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 <i>Quarterly</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's quite warm out of doors," said Mr. Pellew.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Sort of weather that generally ends in a thunderstorm."</p> + +<p>"Does it? Well—perhaps it does."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it does?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it felt very like thunder an hour ago."</p> + +<p>"Rather more than an hour ago, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Just after lunch—about two o'clock."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I expect it's nerves. Haven't any myself! Rather like +tropical storms than otherwise."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Achilles? He went away, you know, with Mr. Torrens and +his sister, a few days after."</p> + +<p>"I meant that. Didn't you say something about seeing him +with the assassin—the old gamekeeper—what was his name?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Just so. Torrens told me about the dog when old Solmes came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"What did he say the dog meant? Can you remember?" Miss +Dickenson was settling down to chat, perceptibly.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Please do! Never mind the profanity!" It really was a +stimulus to the lady's curiosity.</p> + +<p>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 <i>me</i> +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."</p> + +<p>"Serve him right. But what was his apology?"</p> + +<p>"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 +Manichæan 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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> +a claim as he could make to sometimes going to Church on Sunday, +as was absolutely consistent with Truth.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"Not to me! Please tell me exactly!"</p> + +<p>"I was going to ask, how old is your father? Is he older than +me?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>passée</i> 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 <i>alter ego</i>—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.</p> + +<p>"I thought I had told you. Nearly forty-six."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then! My father is five-and-twenty years your +senior."</p> + +<p>"If you had to say exactly <i>why</i> you dislike your father's having +married again, do you think you could?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, no! I'm quite sure I couldn't. But I think it detestable +for all that."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all sure." Dryly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't like this one." It may seem inexplicable, that +these words should be the cause of the person addressed taking the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>protégée</i> 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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You think not?"</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>his</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +Gwen Rivers, under specially favourable circumstances. When +he comes to himself he finds out in double quick time that she +loves him? <i>He</i> change? Not he!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You mean he's unusually clever?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Tim? Yes, a little. He doesn't disguise his liking for him, +personally. He's rather ... rather besotted about him, I should +say."</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> isn't." How Mr. Pellew knew who was meant is not clear, +but he did.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I can't fancy anything more embarrassing."</p> + +<p>"Of course Tim has a mighty easy time of it, by comparison."</p> + +<p>"Does he necessarily know anything about it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Tell him? Of course she would! She would tell him that +that young Torrens was a 'great admirer' of hers."</p> + +<p>"Yes—I suppose she <i>would</i> make use of some expression of +that sort. Capital things, expressions!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely. I suppose Sir Torrens—this chap's papa—told the +lady he married....</p> + +<p>"She was a Miss Abercrombie, I believe."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> there."</p> + +<p>"Well! And then?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing and then. They were—just like anybody else. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> +I saw them was after his son had begun to pull round. Till then +I fancy neither he nor the sister....</p> + +<p>"Irene. ''Rene,' he calls her. Jolly sort of girl, and very +handsome."</p> + +<p>"Neither Irene nor her father came downstairs much. It was +after you went away."</p> + +<p>"And what did they say?—him and Philippa, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh—say? What <i>did</i> they say? Really I can't remember. +Said what a long time it was since they met. Because I don't +believe they <i>had</i> met—not to shake hands—for five-and-twenty +years!"</p> + +<p>"What a rum sort of experience! Do you know?... only of +course one can't say for certain about anything of this sort....</p> + +<p>"Do I know? Go on."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Aunt Constance was not in the mood to pooh-pooh the <i>tendresses</i> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She was dwelling on the abstract question:—"You know, say +what one may, the whole of their lives is at stake. And we never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> +think them young geese when the thing comes off, and they become +couples."</p> + +<p>"No. True enough. It's only when it goes off and they don't."</p> + +<p>"And what is so creepy about it is that we never know whether +the couple is the right couple."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +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 <i>he</i> said! But suppose she saw a fly on his nose—how +then?</p> + +<p>Therefore it would never have done for Miss Dickenson to go +into close analysis of the problems suggested by the meeting of +two undoubted <i>fiancés</i> 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 <i>me</i>." After which she was clearly not responsible +if the topic continued.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pellew took the responsibility on himself of saying with +deep-seated intuition:—"I know precisely what you mean. You're +perfectly right. Perfectly!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly how many," said Mr. Pellew gravely. +He sat drawing one whisker through the hand whose elbow was on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +the sofa-back, with his eyes very much on the flush and the animation. +"I was thinking of one in particular."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps <i>I</i> was. I don't know."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of the kissin'."</p> + +<p>"Well—so was I, perhaps. I don't see any use in mincing matters." +She had been the mincer-in-chief, however.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>prig</i> isn't exactly the +word. I don't know how to put it...."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I know exactly what you mean."</p> + +<p>"You see, the circumstances are so different. Georgie had been +engaged six times before Octavius came on the scene. But, oh +dear, how I <i>am</i> telling tales out of school!..."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>prig</i>, as she thought +fit to put it?"</p> + +<p>"Because I told her that if ever I found a young man who +suited me—and <i>vice versa</i>—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...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>she</i> jilted Ludwig, and <i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <a name='TC_9'></a><ins title="infaturated">infatuated</ins> 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 <i>said</i> you might!..."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>dénouement</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>pro forma</i> 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!</p> + +<p>This may have justified Mr. Pellew's next words:—"You do +forgive me, don't you?" more as assertion than inquiry.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Said Mr. Pellew, at the window, as he reinstated an arm dispossessed +during the transit:—"I did it to ... to <i>clinch</i> the +matter, don't you see? I thought I should make a mess of it if +I went in for eloquence."</p> + +<p>"It was as good as any way. I wasn't the least angry. +Only...."</p> + +<p>"Only what?"</p> + +<p>"Only by letting you go on like this"—half a laugh came in +here—"I don't consider that I stand committed to anything."</p> + +<p>"I consider that <i>I</i> stand committed to everything." The arm +may have slightly emphasized this.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No—that's impossible. It <i>must</i> be the same for both."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>passée</i> young lady, and that middle-aged +haunter of Clubs? Had they ever existed?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"They ought to be back by now," says she. "I wonder they +are so late. They are making quite a visitation of it."</p> + +<p>Says he:—"Gwen is fascinated with the old prizefighter. Just +like her! I don't care how long they stop; do you?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>réglés</i>. Short of endearments, Maggie didn't matter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> come, at once! +Say <i>I</i> said so." It was then that Aunt Constance perceived in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>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. "<i>That's</i> all right!" she cried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> +"He's shown unequivocal signs of an attachment which. Well—what +more do you want? Oh, Aunt Connie, I'm <i>so</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Regrets were expressed that Sir Somebody Something had not +got his <i>Quarterly</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXX" id="CHAPTER_AXXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>If love-letters were not so full of their writers' mutual satisfaction +with their position, what a resource amatory correspondence +would be to history!</p> + +<p>In the letters to her lover with which Gwen at this time filled +every available minute, the amatory passages were kept in check<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>chanoinesse</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +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 +<i>are</i>, and what more <i>can</i> they want? She admits, however, that +there is 'no engagement'! When anybody says <i>that</i>, it means +they've been kissing. You ask Irene if it doesn't. Any female, +I mean. Now go on.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>we</i> 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 +<i>Maestro</i> calls <i>precisione</i>. I preferred Dolly as she was, and we +exchanged locks of hair.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +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. <i>Her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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?'</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +(see <i>ante</i>). It was because Dave had become so engrossed +in this that he had not come downstairs again with his letter.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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!</p> + +<p>"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?'</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> +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 <i>doesn't</i>!' and +flushed quite red, indignantly.</p> + +<p>"The old lady then said, most unfairly:—'Then which do you +love best, dear child? Because you must love <i>one</i> best, you know!' +I thought Dave's answer ingenious:—'I loves whichever it <i>is</i>, +best.' If only all young men were as candid about their loves, +wouldn't they say the same?</p> + +<p>"Dolly had picked up the recitation of the days of the week for +her own private use, and was repeating it <i>ad libitum</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>if we had ourselves understood</i>. But how <i>could</i> +we? You can have no idea how bewildering it was.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>terremotitis</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The police had taken prompt possession of the Court, and only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i>, my darling, when +you lay dead in the Park?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a name='TC_10'></a><ins title="up up">up</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This was bad enough, but it further appeared next day that +a new floor would be <i>de rigueur</i> overhead in Mrs. Prichard's room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>débris</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> +which had deprived him of his household, and left him a childless +wanderer on the surface of Marylebone.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"How's Susan Burr getting on?" asked Mr. Alibone.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"How's Carrots—Carrots senior—young Radishes' dad?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—him? <i>He's</i> all right. He ain't the sort to take to bein' +doctored. He's getting about again."</p> + +<p>"I thought a bit of wall came down on him."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>He</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"Won't Mrs. Burr?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't say—don't know if a woman counts. But it don't +matter. Sister Nora, she'll see to <i>her</i>. Goes to see her every day. +She or the other one. I say, Jerry!..."</p> + +<p>"What say, old Mo?"</p> + +<p>"You haven't seen the other one."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> +come anigh her—ever I saw! And there she was, a-kissing our +little Dolly, like e'er a one of us!"</p> + +<p>"What do you make out her name to be?" said Mr. Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Sister Nora called her <i>Gwen</i>," 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.</p> + +<p>"It was this young ladyship that carried off old Prichard in +a two-horse carriage, I take it."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"The Towels? Are you sure it isn't <i>Towers</i>? Much more +likely!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jerry disturbed his contemplation of the image Gwen had +left him. "How long does Bartlett mean to be over the job?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"He means to complete in a month. If you trust his word. I +can't say I do."</p> + +<p>"When <i>will</i> he complete, Mo? That's the question. What's +the answer?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>after</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> +any such a time. And if you jump on for to catch it up, it's +<i>afterer</i>."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What'll your young customer say to Mrs. Prichard being gone, +when his aunt brings him back?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXXI" id="CHAPTER_AXXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>How very improbable the Actual would sometimes feel, were it +not for our knowledge of the events which led up to it!</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more improbable <i>per se</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +enough to supply this. But just think what a succession of coincidences +and strange events had preceded the demand for it!</p> + +<p>To our thinking the New Mud wanted for Dave's <i>barrage</i> 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 +<i>vera causa</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mayonnaise</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was very singular that Gwen, who had seen the old twin +sister—as <i>we</i> 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 <i>them</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>The young lady broached her little scheme to her venerable +friend, or <i>protégée</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen treated the idea that Mrs. Prichard should so much as +talk about returning to her quarters, with absolute derision.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I pay! How can I pay it back?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"How you come to be living in Sapps Court. And why you are +so poor. Because you <i>are</i> poor."</p> + +<p>"No, I have a pound a week still. I have been better off—yes! +I have been well off."</p> + +<p>"But how came you to live in Sapps Court?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"She's going on very nicely to-day. I went to see her with my +cousin. Go on. It was through her?..."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I saw you had some nice furniture," said Gwen. "I was on +the look out for your desk, where Dave's letters were written."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But where did the furniture come from?"</p> + +<p>"From the house."</p> + +<p>"The house where you lived with your husband?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope so—I hope so!"</p> + +<p>"Dear Mrs. Picture, you <i>hope</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Was he mad or bad?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Sent away! Yes—where?"</p> + +<p>"I ought not to tell you this ... but will you promise me?..."</p> + +<p>"To tell no one? Yes—I promise."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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—<i>bad</i>, I mean—as well as legally +guilty?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You wish not to tell me that?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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>I</i> shall understand you. I'm not +Mary that had a little lamb."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, when I was about your age, before I was married, +I'm not at all sure that <i>I</i> should have understood. Perhaps +that is really the reason why I took the girl's part...."</p> + +<p>"Why you took the girl's part?" said Gwen, who had <i>not</i> understood, +so far, and was puzzled at the expression.</p> + +<p>"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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No—at least, I mean, I don't believe you meant it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> +by a free lance, not wearing the uniform of a School of +Political Thought.</p> + +<p>"But how long was his term of service?" she asked, coming +back into the fresher air of mere housebreaking.</p> + +<p>"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? <i>That</i> I never did."</p> + +<p>"Because of ... because of the girl?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Then you had to give up the house," said Gwen, to help her +away from the memory that stung her, vividly.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"It tires you to talk. Never mind now. Tell me another time."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And that is what made you so poor?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Gwen tried to get at more about her past; but, at some point +antecedent to this parting from her son, she seemed to become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> +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 <i>was</i> reminded of old Mrs. +Marrable's utterance of the word "Australia" when old Mrs. +Prichard spoke it, and simply let the recollection drop idly, <i>because</i> +it was so unlikely the two two's would add up. To be sure, she +had quite forgotten, at the moment, <i>what</i> the old Granny at Chorlton +had said about the Antipodes. It is only in books that people +remember all through, quite to the end.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>nesseracy</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 <a name='TC_11'></a><ins title="frostis">frosts</ins> 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. HO_2, who existed in those days, was welcome +to stay where he was.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The point we have to do with is that the walls at No. 7 did <i>not</i> +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>ennui</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> +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 <i>his</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"'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...."</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar was taken aback. "How ever come you to see more +of <i>him</i>?" said she. For really this was, for the moment, a greater +puzzle to her than why, being seen, he should send <i>her</i> a +message.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar accepted Miss Hawkins, without further analysis. +"<i>She</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"And what was the message?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>he</i> said—his <i>mother</i>, 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 <i>was</i> somebody else."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>did</i>. He said +his own. Not but what he goes by the name of Wix."</p> + +<p>"What does he want of old Mrs. Prichard now?"</p> + +<p>"A screw. Sov'rings, if he can get 'em. Otherwise bobs, if he +can't do no better."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Prichard has no money."</p> + +<p>"He says she has and he giv' it her. And he's going to have +it out of her, he says."</p> + +<p>"Did he say that to you?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>sotto voce</i>, and something +to the way the finger is sometimes laid on the nose to denote +acumen.</p> + +<p>"Look you here, Micky! You're a good boy, ain't you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Middlin'. Accordin'." An uncertain sound. It conveyed a +doubt of the desirability of goodness.</p> + +<p>"You don't bear no ill-will neither to me, nor yet to old Mrs. +Prichard?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Then you do like I tell you. When are you going next to your +aunt at Hammersmith?"</p> + +<p>Micky considered a minute, as if the number of his booked +engagements made thought necessary, and then said decisively: +"To-morrow mornin', to oblige."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then! You go and find out this gentleman...."</p> + +<p>"He ain't a gentleman. He's a varmint."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_AXXXII" id="CHAPTER_AXXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>accolade</i> +he might receive from Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, and also about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"What whim of Gwen's?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Very nice for the old girl. What's she doing that for?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why can't she stop where she is?"</p> + +<p>"All by herself? At least, only the cook! When Miss Grahame +goes to Devonshire, Maggie goes with her, to lady's-maid her."</p> + +<p>"I thought we were going to be pastoral, and only spend three +hundred a year on housekeeping."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +to occupy them, without staring impertinently at a lady and +gentleman who were not formally engaged. Who would care to +study them and <i>their</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that fillah <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"He <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear—what a plague people are! Let's be absorbed in the +Kinkajou. He'll pass us."</p> + +<p>But the great surgeon did nothing of the sort. On the contrary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +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 <i>not</i> say:—"You are a lady and gentleman, +and can perhaps explain yourselves. <i>I</i> can't!" He appeared +to decide on silence about <i>them</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The former, in this case, remained unconscious of her <i>lapsus +linguæ</i>; saying, in fact:—"I think we did that very well! I wonder +whether he will go and see Gwen!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Does not the foregoing lay further stress on the curious fact +that the <i>passée</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> +profitable commentary on the mistakes people make in the handling +of their own lives?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 +<i>some</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I can <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What's that word three lines down?... Yes, that one!"</p> + +<p>"'Dreaming.'"</p> + +<p>"I thought it was 'drinking.'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It certainly is 'dreaming' plain enough!"</p> + +<p>"What do you make of it? Don't read it all through. Tell +me the upshot."</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>has</i> been moved.' So what does 'Re do but say he <i>must</i> have +heard somehow that it was moved, <i>because</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>impossible</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I never said <i>that</i>," said Sir Coupland.</p> + +<p>"What <i>did</i> you say?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Lunch was the next conclave of the small household, and although +Mr. Pellew was there—it was extraordinary how seldom he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +was anywhere else!—Irene's letter was freely handed round the +table and made the subject of comment.</p> + +<p>"It won't do to build upon it," said Cousin Clo.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"It never does to be led away," said Miss Dickenson. Her reputation +for sagacity had to be maintained.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>As for the old lady herself, she was very far from being sure +that she was not dreaming.</p> + +<p>END OF PART I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST</h2> + +<h3>PART II</h3> <p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p> + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BI" id="CHAPTER_BI"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i> 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 <i>had</i> loved him once, and he was her husband.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>aura</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>But she resisted the secular spirit. "On Sunday morning, my +dear!" she exclaimed, shocked. "How ever you <i>can</i>! 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."</p> + +<p>The ounce of influence that Aunt Elizabeth Jane alone possessed +told on Michael's stubborn spirit, and he did not contest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> +the point. "Give us the 'Oly Bible!" said he briefly. "Where's +where you was?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>So her nephew, being docile, tackled the fifty-second Psalm, and +did not flinch from <i>m</i>, <i>a</i>, <i>s</i>, mass—<i>c</i>, <i>h</i>, <i>i</i>, <i>l</i>, chill; total, Mass-Chill—nor +from <i>d</i>, <i>o</i>, do; <i>e</i>, <i>g</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Aunt Elizabeth Jane paid a tribute of admiration. "My +word!" said she, "who ever would have said a boy could! Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A voice Micky knew growled from a recess:—"Give the young +beggar full measure, Juli<i>ar</i>. What he means is, you go by a +blooming average."</p> + +<p>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>I</i> never see such a glass!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> +and fiercely, saying:—"You're the * * * young nark of +some damned teck—some * * * copper, by Goard!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Who don't know where? Mrs. Prichard?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What did she say about Skillicks?"</p> + +<p>"Said Mrs. Prichard come from Skillickses. Three year agone."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Micky appeared to consider his answer; then replied:—"Said +I wasn't to split upon you."</p> + +<p>"What the Hell does she say that for? She don't know who +I am."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>there</i>, 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!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can hear you."</p> + +<p>"What the Devil do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't do anything under a hundred, <i>you</i> 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 <i>do</i>!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The convict had lost the thread of his examination, and had +to hark back. <i>Why</i> 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 <i>really</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +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 <i>they</i> matter?</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What <i>will</i> happen?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i>, +Juliar."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>her</i>, 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?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Telling me of his Aunt Betsy yesterday. Mind your shirt-sleeve. +It's going in the butter."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Hammersmith." Aunt M'riar wasn't talkative; but then, this +morning, it was bloaters. They should only just hot through, +or they dry.</p> + +<p>"Who was the bloke he was talking about? Somebody he called +<i>him</i>." Uncle Mo's ears had been too sharp.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As it turned out, however, he was able to observe one of the +conditions of this compact.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This brief sketch of the <i>status quo</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"It is mesilf agrays with you intoirely," said she sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"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—<i>sal a reverentia!</i>—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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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>I</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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>sans rancune</i>. 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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +went on. The dog's anxiety to smell the phenomenon survived, +till the man kicked him and told him to go to Hell.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cul de sac</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> +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 <i>cul de sac</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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>I</i>'ll be glad enough +to see 'em, for one."</p> + +<p>"And the owld sowl upstairs. Not that I iver set my eyes on +her, and that's the thrruth."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo caught at the chance of warping the name, uncorrected. +"It's the Towels in Rocestershire," said he with effrontery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>him</i>!" 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar's heart thumped, and she felt sick. "<i>You</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wix said:—"Young Ikey." He appeared to consider a +course of action. "Now do you want another half-a-bull?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Micky was clear about that.</p> + +<p>"Then you do sentry-go outside o' this, in the street, and if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> +you see a copper turning in here, you run ahead and give the +word. Understand? This is Wardle's, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"That's Wardle's. But there ain't nobody there."</p> + +<p>"You young liar. I saw you talking through the door, only this +minute."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>faux air</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then <a name='TC_12'></a><ins title="kncoked">knocked</ins> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The knock came, a <i>crescendo</i> on the previous one. She <i>had</i> to +respond some time. Make an effort and get it over!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> +<i>her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Are <i>you</i> going in the country?"</p> + +<p>"For when she comes back, I should have said."</p> + +<p>"Ah—but when will that be? Next come strawberry-time, perhaps! +I'll write to her."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>His next words startled her. "<i>I</i> know her address. Got it +written down here. Some swell's house in Rocestershire." He +made a pretence of searching among papers.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Any name you like. It don't matter to me. I shall write to +her myself."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A person who had never borne an <i>alias</i> would have thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"He told me what you said."</p> + +<p>"What did he say I said? If he told you any * * * lies, I'll +half murder him! What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"How the devil did he know that?"</p> + +<p>"He said it. And I told him the old lady had no money. It's +little enough, if she has."</p> + +<p>"And that was all?"</p> + +<p>"All about Mrs. Prichard."</p> + +<p>"Anything else?"</p> + +<p>"He told me your name."</p> + +<p>"What name?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"Anything else?"</p> + +<p>"No—nothing else."</p> + +<p>"You swear to Goard?"</p> + +<p>"I have told you everything."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar was silent. She had given herself away, and had +no one but herself to thank for it.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>are</i> +you?"</p> + +<p>The woman remained dumb, but on the very edge of desperation.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ignis fatuus</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +the life of her. She was face to face with the past, yet standing +at bay to conceal her identity.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What did she call the child?"</p> + +<p>"It was born dead."</p> + +<p>"What did she mean to call it?"</p> + +<p>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"?</p> + +<p>"Not Mary?"</p> + +<p>Then Aunt M'riar forgot herself completely. "No—Polly. +After the name you called her, at The Tun." She saw her mistake, +too late.</p> + +<p>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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> +—"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?"</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar could not utter a word.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i> got to +say about it, hay? Who's your * * * husband now? Who's your +prizefighter?"</p> + +<p>The terrified woman just found voice for:—"He's not my husband." +She could not add a word of explanation.</p> + +<p>The convict laughed unwholesomely, beneath his breath. "<i>That's</i> +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?"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>He relaxed the arm. "Go ahead!" he said. "I'll follow up."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"You won't stick up there, by any chance, till your man that's +not your husband happens round?"</p> + +<p>She addressed him by name for the first time. "Thornton, did +I ever tell you a lie?"</p> + +<p>"I never caught you in one, that I know of. Cut along!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The boy came running down the Court, and entering the front-yard, +whose claim to be a garden was now <i>nil</i>, tapped at the window +excitedly. Daverill went to the door and opened it.</p> + +<p>"Mister Moses coming along. Stopping to speak to Tappingses. +You'd best step it sharp, Mister Wix!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It's all I've got," said poor Aunt M'riar. She handed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BII" id="CHAPTER_BII"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name='TC_13'></a><ins title="financée"><i>fiancée</i></ins> 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 <i>Times</i>.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"When the Parysfort women came in?" said Irene. "We had +got to the old woman. After the old woman—what next?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> +find a new roundabout way of saying how much more to me you +were than anything in Heaven or Earth.'" The dictation paused.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>can</i> say to <i>her</i>, 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 Lernæan Hydra, that I might give the balance +of seven pairs of eyes rather than....</p> + +<p>"Rather than lose Gwen." Irene spoke, because he had +hesitated.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"How shall we put it?... somehow like this.... By-the-by, +do you know how to spell Lernæan?..." He paused abruptly, +and seemed to listen. "Sh—sh a minute! What's that outside? +I thought I heard somebody coming." Irene listened too.</p> + +<p>"Ply hears somebody," she said. And then she had all but +said "Look at him!" in an unguarded moment.</p> + +<p>An instant later the dog had started up and scoured from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> +room as if life and death depended on his presence elsewhere. +Adrian heard something his sister did not, and exclaimed "What's +that?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Irene. "Only someone at the front-door. +Ply's always like that."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Did it yesterday evening!" said Gwen. "We had an explosion.... +Well, I won't say that—suppose we call it a warm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What a clever man he is—drawing inferences! However, +bonnets <i>have</i> got very much out of sight, I admit. Hands off, +please!... There!—now I can give particulars."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>She found a seat, and Gwen proceeded.</p> + +<p>"I came home yesterday, with an old woman I've picked up, +who certainly is the dearest old woman...."</p> + +<p>"Never mind the old woman. Why did you come?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it fixed by implication?" This was Irene.</p> + +<p>"Maybe it was. But <i>I</i> wasn't. We can put the six months off, +and start fair presently. Papa quite agreed."</p> + +<p>"Mamma didn't?" This was Adrian.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"We didn't hear any sound at all, except Ply.... Yes, dear!—of +course <i>you</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Go it!" said Adrian.</p> + +<p>"I want to know all about what 'Re said to Dr. Merridew in +her letter.... Well, what's the matter?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p> + +<p>Amazement on Irene's fact had caused this. "And that man +calls himself an F.R.C.S.!" said she.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense! I write perfectly plainly."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well—I'll never trust a man with letters after his name again. +Of course he was pretending."</p> + +<p>"But what for?"</p> + +<p>"Because he wanted to tell you, and didn't want to get in a +scrape for betraying my confidence."</p> + +<p>Adrian struck in. Might he ask what the rumpus was about? +Why Sir Merridew, and why letters?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I see what it was," said Gwen. "You said 'pliable conscience'—just +now."</p> + +<p>"Well?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He thought he was the first syllable. Never mind <i>him</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Who the dickens <i>is</i> your old lady?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> +bridge fat men get stuck on...." This was an exaggeration of +an overstatement of a disputed fact.</p> + +<p>"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—<i>you</i>—<i>you</i> +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 <i>would</i>. +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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Of course you would. Any man in his senses would...."</p> + +<p>"I agree with you."</p> + +<p>"Unless he was married or engaged or something."</p> + +<p>"That might complicate matters. Morality is an unknown +quantity.... But, darling, let's drop talking nonsense...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>at the time</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What were you thinking of, just before you saw me, when +you were wading through the wet fern? I think <i>I</i> was only thinking +how wet the ferns must have been. How little I thought then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> +who the man was, with the dog! You were only 'the man' +then."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"And you had been killed outright!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I should have known you at once."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Where is the organ of nonsense in Poets' heads, I wonder. It +must be this big one, on the top."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"You shall <i>not</i> talk like that. Blaspheme as much as you like. +I don't mind blasphemy."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"My eyes on your conscience! Oh—my eyes be hanged! Would +I have my eyes back now?—to lose <i>you</i>! Oh, Gwen, Gwen!—sometimes +the thought comes to me that if it were not for my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +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...."</p> + +<p>"Are you aware, good man, that you are talking nonsense? Be +a reasonable Poet, at least!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Let's get some poison, and try. Isn't there some poison in the +house?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say there is, in the kitchen. You might touch the bell +and ask."</p> + +<p>"I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean private poison—doctor's +bottles—blue ones with embossed letters.... <i>You</i> know?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</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...."</p> + +<p>"You <i>may want it</i>!"</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> +know! I would not kill myself at once, because it would be +unkind to Irene. But suppose I lost Irene too?"</p> + +<p>"I can't reason it out. But I can't believe it would ever be +right to destroy oneself."</p> + +<p>"Possibly not, but once one was effectually destroyed...."</p> + +<p>"That sounds like rat-paste." Gwen wanted to joke her way +out of this region of horrible surmise.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Adrian was keen on his line of thought. "Exactly!" +said he. "Vermin destroyer. <i>I</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!"</p> + +<p>"But would it?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"But suppose the other chance—how then?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But, nonsense apart.... Yes—it <i>is</i> nonsense!... do you +mean that you would kill yourself about me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Do</i> let +me have it!"</p> + +<p>Adrian laughed at her earnestness. "<i>I'm</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Did you really have it from a wild Indian? Where did he +get it? Did he make it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! It was a coincidence. Stones do change."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Now if what?"</p> + +<p>"If the ring had had a character from its last place—if it had +distinguished itself before...."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>status quo</i> of the young lady and +gentleman on the sofa into remarking to the latter:—"Now you're +happy."</p> + +<p>"Or ought to be," said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"Now, go on exactly where you were," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—you wrote about Mrs. Burr, and how she was a commonplace +person. We thought you unfeeling about Mrs. Burr."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Then you have got the old lady at the Towers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—yesterday. I don't know how it's going to answer."</p> + +<p>Adrian said: "Why shouldn't it answer?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p> + +<p>Irene was sharper. "Because of the servants, I suppose," said +she.</p> + +<p>Gwen said:—"Ye-es, because of the household."</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Adrian, "that she was such a charming old +lady." This took plenty of omissions for granted.</p> + +<p>"So she is," said Gwen. "At least, <i>I</i> think her most sweet and +fascinating. But really—the British servant!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> know," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"Especially the women," said Gwen. "I could manage the men, +easily enough."</p> + +<p>"You <i>could</i>," 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!</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>fault</i> with Lutwyche when she was attending on the dear old soul +in Cavendish Square. But I couldn't help thinking...."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What is it you call her?" said Irene. "Old Mrs. Picture? +There's nothing against her, is there?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>yes</i>!—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."</p> + +<p>Adrian said that he really must have some more of the secret +to keep, or it would not be worth keeping.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>vice versa</i>, but the essential +points were the same in both.</p> + +<p>"What a queer story!" said Adrian. "Did the old body cry +when she told it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I have always had a theory," said Adrian, "that one gets less +and less identical, as Time goes on...."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>sine qua non</i> in theories? It would be the death-knell +of speculation."</p> + +<p>"You don't know what a goose you are engaged to, Gwen," +said Irene parenthetically.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. But he meant something this time. He <i>does</i>, you +know, now and again, in spite of appearances to the contrary. +What <i>did</i> you mean, please?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—what has it to do with my old woman?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Rip van Winkle washed," said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"Because Washington Irving chose. I sometimes imagine Rip +isn't really true. Anyhow, his case doesn't apply. <i>He</i> remembered +everything as if it was yesterday. For him, it <i>was</i> yesterday. +So he was the same man, both in theory and practice. Jack +and Jim and Polly were to forget, by hypothesis."</p> + +<p>"Does old Mrs. Picture?" asked Irene.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BIII" id="CHAPTER_BIII"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ranger</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I did! But <i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Very good!" said the Earl. "Fire away!" It has been mentioned +that Gwen always got her will, somehow. This <i>how</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Then it must be true," was the answer. Not an illogical one!</p> + +<p>"Don't agree meekly," says Gwen. "Meek agreement is contradiction.... +What makes you think it fibs?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Other people are not to be told, so they are out of it.... +Well, perhaps that <i>has</i> very little to do with the matter."</p> + +<p>"Not very much. But tell me!—does the old lady give no names +at all?"</p> + +<p>"N-no!—I can remember none. Her real name is not Picture, +of course ... I should have said Prichard."</p> + +<p>"I understand. But couldn't you get at her husband's name, +to verify the story?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"Did she not say where she came from—where her family +belonged?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—Essex. But Essex is like Rutlandshire. Nobody has +ever been to either, or knows anyone that is there by nature."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You see, my dear," said the old lady, "if I was to <i>see</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"I think Blencorn might make a point of Farmer Jones's Bull," +said Gwen. "Blencorn!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady."</p> + +<p>"I want to stop at Strides Cottage, coming back. <i>You</i> know—Mrs. +Marrable's!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> +good, then, Blencorn, stop at the gate, and Benjamin can go in +and say we've come to see the Bull. Go on!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>per annum</i>. "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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Very well then," said Gwen. "Find Farmer Jones, to show +us his Bull."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"You mean, you can manage your Bull, and <a name='TC_14'></a><ins title="ather">father</ins> can't. Is +that it?" Assent given. "And how can you manage your +Bull?"</p> + +<p>"Oy can whistle un a tewun."</p> + +<p>"Is he out in the field, or here in his stable or house, or whatever +it's called?"</p> + +<p>"That's him nigh handy, a-roomblin'." It then appeared that +this youth was prepared, for a reasonable consideration, to lead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Are <i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, dear, indeed I do! That dear child!—why, what would +we not give, Ruth and me, to see him again?"</p> + +<p>"Well, this is Mrs. Picture, who wrote his letter for him. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> +is Granny Marrable, that Dave told you all about. She says she +wants him back."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Gwen, "the boy has tried to describe the +accident, and made a hash of it. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>per se</i>—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.</p> + +<p>No!—it was not surprising that bystanders should not suspect +offhand that something they would have counted impossible was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>How painfully we souls are dependent on the evidence of our +existence—eyes and noses and things!</p> + +<p>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 <i>vice versa</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"What on earth have you been doing, Gwen, to make you so +late?" said the Countess. "We couldn't wait."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"And where else did you go?" said the Earl, to re-rail the conversation. +"And what else did you see?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, yes! I went there with Clo, and she gave us her strong-tea."</p> + +<p>Gwen nodded several times. "Same experience," said she. +"Why is it they <i>will</i>?" 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"But <i>what</i> is a suggestion?" said the Earl.</p> + +<p>"No attention will be paid to it, so it's no use," said her ladyship.</p> + +<p>"But what <i>is</i> it?" said the Earl. "No harm in knowing <i>what</i> +it is, that I can see!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't made up my mind. But <i>why</i> is Mrs. Picture not +to stop where she is?" This was put incisively.</p> + +<p>Her ladyship deprecated truculence. "My dear Gwen!—really! +<i>Are</i> 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 <i>he</i> thinks. +Only wait till Thomas is out of the room." To which Gwen replied +substantially that she was still in possession of her senses.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> be right, even when +they did not bear analysis.</p> + +<p>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. "<i>You've</i> heard +all about old Mrs. Picture, Norbury?" said she.</p> + +<p>Why should it have been that Mr. Norbury's "Oh <i>dear</i>, yes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> +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!"?</p> + +<p>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 <i>seen</i> her?" said she. No—Mr. Norbury had <i>not</i> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Which is it, Lutwyche or Mrs. Masham?" said she. What +it was that was either remained indeterminate.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BIV" id="CHAPTER_BIV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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?</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>esprit de corps</i> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Saying at lunch?" asked the Earl, partly to avoid distraction +from the mild Havana he was lighting, partly to consider his +answer.</p> + +<p>"Saying at lunch. Yes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Dear good papa! As if everything was an Act of Parliament! +What did Norbury say?"</p> + +<p>"I only remember the upshot. Miss Lutwyche has a rather +uncertain temper, and Mrs. Masham has been accustomed to be +consulted."</p> + +<p>"Well—and then?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Suppose you were to come round and see her now!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>did</i> we drive?" by saying:—"A beautiful drive, +but I've a poor head now for names." She tried recollection, failed, +and gave it up.</p> + +<p>"Chorlton-under-Bradbury?" said the Earl.</p> + +<p>"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'?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"She's a fine-looking old lady now," said Gwen. "Isn't she, +Mrs. Picture?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Did you see the inside of the cottage, and the old chimney-corners? +And the well out at the back?" Thus the Earl.</p> + +<p>"We didn't go in. I wanted to get home. But what a lot you +recollect of it, papa dear!"</p> + +<p>"I ought to recollect something about it. It was Strides Cottage +where your Uncle George was taken when he broke his leg, +riding."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> shan't see to that?" and followed him out of the +room.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> +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"!</p> + +<p>One thing she made up her mind to. She would not tell that +dear boy, that this bull—which was in a sense <i>his</i> 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 <i>villosi terga bisontes</i>, the still-wild +denizens of the last league of the British woodlands Cæsar found; +and <i>Bos Taurus</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>they</i> think, even +now that ships steam twenty knots an hour. One's fellow-creatures +are so human, you see.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>their</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> +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 <i>will</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"There now!" said she. "The many times I've told my boy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>is</i> 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 <i>would</i> have taken because she was 'not there,' +that you know of? Is your tea all right?"</p> + +<p>"It's very nice indeed, my dear. I think perhaps it might +be the omnibus, because Aunt M'riar <i>did</i> take the omnibus that +day she came to see me. She was to come again, without the +children, to see all straight."</p> + +<p>"H'm!—it may be the omnibus, spelt with an H. Suppose +we accept <i>homliburst</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>"No, that won't do! Because we came on Wednesday. This +was written on Thursday. It's dated 'On Firsday.' Did he mean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"The dear boy! What does he say next about me?" The old +lady was looking intensely happy; a reflex action of Dave.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's any use my looking, my dear. What letters +does it look most like?"</p> + +<p>"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? <i>It</i> can't be <i>mucilage</i>; that's impossible! +I thought it might be <i>museum</i> at first, as it was to be +shown. But it's written too plain, in a big round hand—all in +capitals. What <i>can</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>de rigueur</i> was certainly a <i>lapsus calami</i>, and +a serious one. The last syllable was merely phonetic, and unrecognisable; +but the G that looked like a C was fatal.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>gamin</i> with an even more attractive sister.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>protégée</i>. She had no objection to talking +about her lover to Mrs. Picture, rather welcoming the luxury of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> +speaking of her marriage with him as a thing already guaranteed +by Fate.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>ménage</i>.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he mind ghosts?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen's answer came in a hurried undertone:—"Oh, I dare not +think so. He <i>will</i> see! He <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear—my dear! That he should never see <i>you</i>!... +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> +that mixed with this old woman's, the convict's relict—the convict's +mother—from Sapps Court.</p> + +<p>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 <i>has</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +voice, <i>inter alias</i>, she had been half-conscious in the distance for +some time past; and who gave the impression of having recently +shown a proper spirit.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your ladyship's pardon!"</p> + +<p>"She gets everything she wants?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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. <i>They</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> +was responsible for <i>their</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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.... <i>Fiat voluntas tua!</i> It +doesn't really matter <i>what</i> form, you see! The phantasmata vary, +but the invisible what?—or who?—remains the same. Gloria in +excelsis Deo, nomine quocunque!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BV" id="CHAPTER_BV"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There now, Ruth," said she, "I was asleep again and dreaming." +For she never would admit that this practice was an invariable +one.</p> + +<p>"What about, mother?" said Widow Thrale.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"At her time of life, mother? Why, she's none so much older<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> +than you. What should you take her to be?" The subject was +just worth spare attention not wanted for the lace-spools.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I thought you and my mother were both born at Christmas."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>she</i> 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."</p> + +<p>It was no wonder Ruth connected this with the father she had +never seen. "Why <i>did</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>I</i> can hear +plain enough. There's naught to complain of in <i>my</i> hearing, yet +a while."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Toby said, "Me!" and did not show a contrite heart; seemed +too much like the wicked man that did it again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>had</i> happened, so it didn't matter.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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 <i>doan't</i>—so I'll do him fair justice."</p> + +<p>"Young Torrens of Pensham, <i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Why can't he complain, Mrs. Lamprey?" Widow Thrale +asked this first, so the others only thought it.</p> + +<p>"Where would he have been, Mrs. Thrale, but for the accident? +<i>Accident</i> you may call it! A rare bit o' luck some'll +think! Why—who would the young gentleman have got for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> +wife, if nobody had shot him? Answer me that! Some girl, I +suppose!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i>." +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Said she, parting at the door from Widow Thrale:—"You'll +keep it in mind what I said, Ruth."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Picture's not her real name, only young Davy he's made it +for her."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>You</i> +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!</p> + +<p>However, as both were too young to be troubled with consciences, +and nothing appeared to overtax their powers of digestion, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Old Stephen did not acquiesce. "May happen the old soul +would shrink shy of the great folk at the Towers," said he.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>their</i> +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>But then, supposing all facts known, would not old Maisie's +daughter have admitted their possibility, even made concession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> +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." <i>He</i> was speaking of Maisie's own voyage to Australia, +and took her speech to mean that the ship <i>she</i> sailed in was +wrecked. <i>She</i> was thinking of the forged letter.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BVI" id="CHAPTER_BVI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Oh dear no!—nobody wanted <i>her</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Think of the last kiss she gave a sleeping baby, half a century +ago!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> +him. <i>That</i> was the result of a <i>grande passion</i>, 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 <i>axdnt</i> was a +mere clerical error. She worded an inquiry after Dave, tentatively.</p> + +<p>"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!..."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Not in my rooms upstairs, nor his Aunt M'riar's underneath. +Only his uncle stopped in, to keep the place. <i>His</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"That lady we call Sister Nora?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Then you hardly saw the children?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> didn't cry!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale. "Yes. I had heard that."</p> + +<p>"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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale again, uneasily. "Won't Dave +hit some boy that's too strong for him, and get hurt?"</p> + +<p>"I think he may, ma'am. But then ... someone <i>may</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> +her bonnet off, was making toast at the glowing wood-embers; and +that candles were burning and that, somehow tea had germinated.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>did</i> 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 <i>do</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Pomona's open-eyed smile seemed to spread to her very finger-tips. +"Babies? <i>Me?</i>" 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 <i>Agamemnon</i>. My second—he's but sixteen—on the <i>Tithonus</i>. +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> +tales for their mother and their granny! I lie awake and pray +for them, nights."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But Destiny was at fault, and the Angel would have had to +play <i>pianissimo</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> +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 <i>her</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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—<i>must</i> lose her, some time! Why not now?</p> + +<p>What had she, old Maisie, done to deserve such a guardianship?—<i>friendship</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> +blew the candles out, then went back to her chair and the line of +thought that had pleased her.</p> + +<p>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 <i>modus vivendi</i>—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 <i>her</i> constitution, evidently.</p> + +<p>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—<i>his</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 ... <i>perhaps</i> 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 <i>Times</i> was like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Said Miss Lutwyche:—"Well, <i>I</i> call her a plaguy old cat.... +No, I don't care if she <i>does</i> hear me." However, she lowered +her voice to finish her speech, and much that followed was inaudible +to old Maisie. Who of course supposed <i>she</i> was the plaguy +old cat!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> don't know. Perhaps she does. <i>I</i> wash my +hands." At this point the poor old listener heard no more. What +she <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>She was conscious that the lady's-maid and Mary Anne came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>protégée</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How old would she be?" said the housekeeper. "Well—she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> +might be a child of twelve or thirteen when her mother came to +Strides Cottage, and married Farmer Marrable there...."</p> + +<p>"Then her name was never Marrable at all," said old Maisie.</p> + +<p>"No. Granny Marrable, she'd been married before, in Sussex. +Now what <i>was</i> her first husband's name?... Well—I ought to +be able to recollect <i>that</i>! 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 +<i>ought</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> +keep a little life in the fire, and went away to contribute to an +everlasting wrangle in the servants' hall.</p> + +<p>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 <i>never</i> fidget about the absent!</p> + +<p>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 +<i>plaguy old cat</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> +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 <i>visé</i> 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!</p> + +<p>This Ruth <i>was</i> her own daughter. But how to know it!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BVII" id="CHAPTER_BVII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>Just as the watched pot never boils, so the thing one waits for +never comes, so long as one waits <i>hard</i>. 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 <i>à contre coeur</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> +conviction of its truth, this time. She <i>had</i> only just closed her +eyes. Only just!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen's laugh rang out soon enough to quash its last <i>ipse dixits</i>. +"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>arrière +pensée</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>Gwen saw in an instant all she had overlooked, and indeed +she <i>had</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cicerone</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"But my dear—my dear—is it right for you to go alone, in the +dark.... Oh, if I were only young!..."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>t</i> and dotted an <i>i</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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Widow Thrale</span>,</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Gwendolen Rivers.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Now you think the mare can do it, Tom Kettering?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"And we shall have time for you to get down at your Aunt +Solmes's to leave my letter?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Now</i>, 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"On no account come. Why run risks? You will not be admitted. +Never mind what Dr. Dalrymple says.—<span class="smcap">Clotilda.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>somebody</i> good! Her darling blind man would never +see it. Let us be grateful for middle-sized mercies!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BVIII" id="CHAPTER_BVIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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!</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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—<i>she's</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I will get up and go," said the old lady. Then she appeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> +disconcerted at her own alacrity, saying to the housekeeper:—"But +you have been so kind to me!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>menus</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>per se</i> potatoes, that you could +not hear yourself speak.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> a chouse, +mistress."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> +with human nature, that others saw it too, but kept the discovery +to themselves. It was so out of the question that the resemblance +<i>should</i> exist, that the fact that it <i>did</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>per se</i>, not capable of comparison with casual extramural samples. +They never are, within family walls.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There now!—it <i>is</i> strange that I should have company tonight. +I never thought to have the luck, yesterday, when you were +giving me <i>my</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>t</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Two influences were at work to keep the antecedents of either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> +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 +<i>poverty</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Agamemnon</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> +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, <i>she</i> would not try +to break through it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well, now!—that is very nice to know. Was it true, too, +all about the horses and the wheelsacks, and the water-cart?"</p> + +<p>"Of course!—oh yes, of course it was! That was our model.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> +Only it should not have been wheelsacks. <i>Wheat</i> sacks! And +water-cart!—he meant <i>water-wheel</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span></p> + +<p>Old Maisie gave way at once to the guidance of a persuasive +hand, but held to her question. "Whose mill was it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>your</i> grandfather to be the +owner of that mill?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And how could Widow Thrale discern anything in what she +<i>did</i> say but the effect of fatigue, excitement, and underfeeding +on an octogenarian; probably older, and certainly weaker, than +her mother? How came <i>her</i> 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 <i>was</i> an inquiry. It was a symptom.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> +There was a model, with horses, and a waggon—yes! But was +she quite sure it was <i>her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> be true. If she had +said great-uncle.... Well!—would that have made it any better? +On reflection, certainly not! For <i>her</i> father had had neither +brother nor sister. It was a relief to put speculation aside and +accept the gruel.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> +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—<i>that</i> was what she wanted. She felt +sick with the intensity of her longing for firm ground.</p> + +<p>Was it absolutely impossible that she should see for herself +now—<i>now</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>they</i> would be all right!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Only a very little more, and then she was in the kitchen!</p> + +<p>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 <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>seen</i> it there, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> +it was rather out of reach for her eyesight. But alas!—it was +wrapped up again in that cloth. It was a grievous disappointment.</p> + +<p>Perhaps she might contrive to see a little behind it, by pulling +it aside. Yes—there!—she could <i>reach</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BIX" id="CHAPTER_BIX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>would</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> +be. However, this man was, after all, a third-class passenger, +so perhaps he was excusable for carrying that bag.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What the Hell do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"What do I me'an—is that what you're asking?" Raised voice.</p> + +<p>"Ah—what do you mean by 'steal'?"</p> + +<p>"Just what a sa'ay! What do they me'an in London?"</p> + +<p>"London's a large place—too large for this time o' night. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> the same +man. Otherwise, the witnesses agreed in their description of him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>One untoward incident happened. The infant Seth, summoned +to show himself, stood in a corner and pouted, turned red, and +became <i>intransigeant</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>This afternoon, however, Mrs. Naunton did not prove well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>The fields were very lonely, but what did that matter? How +little one feels the loneliness of an old familiar pathway! No +one ever <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said he. "Take a good look! You've seen <i>me</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir," said she, after looking carefully at his face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p>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? <i>My face!</i>"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>The man raised his voice, more excitably than angrily. "What +did I say just now?—<i>mother!</i>—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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> +is all at fault. If ever I saw ye in my life, 'tis so long ago +I've forgotten it."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>He did not take his eyes from her face, but holding her hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> +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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did the finger heal up linable, or a crotch in it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Ah!—that's where it was. My mother was well on to fifty +when I gave her that chop, and <i>she</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's the name told to me, anyhow. Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps +Court, London."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"At the Towers—the Castle?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is my daughter. Then Keziah Solmes knew?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"I think, sir," she began diffidently, "that if I might make so +bold as to say so...."</p> + +<p>"Cut along, missis! If you was to make so bold as to say +what?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> +sir, as you wish it, to say nothing of this only to Mrs. Prichard +herself. I promise."</p> + +<p>"Afore God and the Bible? The same as if there was a Bible +handy?"</p> + +<p>"Surely, indeed! I would not tell a falsehood."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Say what?—Oh why?" For blind obedience seemed to her +irreverent.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I want your mother's leave...."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"If Mrs. Prichard should seem not to know—not to recognise...." +She meant, suppose that Mrs. Prichard denies your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> +claim to be her son, what proof shall I produce? For any man +could assume any name.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I can remember Emma Drax."</p> + +<p>"She'll remember Emma Drax, and something to spare. She +was a little devil we had some words about. <i>She'll</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I did not hear the first name clear, sir. Would you mind +saying it again?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But then, how about the mission of the respectable man, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There it was. She lay back in bed uncrumpling it, expecting +nothing....</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BX" id="CHAPTER_BX"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> to come.... But stop a minute!—you +can't have got my letter?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind that now. How is she?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>can't</i> have got my letter—there has been no time."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. It may have arrived by now. Sometimes the post +comes at eight. I came because she telegraphed. Here's the +paper."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"She has no friend with her."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span> +me at the Hospital. There are plenty of young fellows at the +Hospital."</p> + +<p>Gwen appeared to apprehend something suddenly. "I see," she +said. "I quite understand. I had never guessed."</p> + +<p>He replied:—"How did you guess? I <i>said</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Gwen incredulously. "Now suppose you tell me +what your letter said!"</p> + +<p>"You are <i>sure</i> you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, yes! It doesn't want much understanding. What +did your letter say?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Quite correct. Your interpretation did you credit. I should +have come immediately. The letter you did write <i>might</i> have +made me hesitate. <i>Now</i> I want to see her."</p> + +<p>The doctor acquiesced in the inevitable. "It's rash," he said, +"and unnecessary. But I suppose it's no use remonstrating?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> +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 +<i>sequelæ</i>, and a retarded convalescence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>nil</i>. 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 <i>head's</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>is</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Shall I go and see him at Sapps Court?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Dave and Dolly were allowed upstairs during operations, on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>here</i>!" 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."</p> + +<p>"No, you <i>s'arn't</i>! Mrs. Spicture shall set in her chair wiv +scushions, and me and dolly shall tite her her tea."</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>claqueurs</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>But there was a point to be considered. The things must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>coup d'état</i>—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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Never was a more unhesitating plunge made <i>in medias res</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> +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, <i>but</i> had lost its +leg. The exact force of the <i>but</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> +inquiries about her own health, and Mr. Alibone went away with +the young man in search of the locksmith.</p> + +<p>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 <i>dead</i>. +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 <i>is</i> Typhus Fever, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Presently Uncle Mo turned from the window, and said, somewhat +huskily:—"I wish some of these here <i>poor people</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo caught her up with sudden shrewdness. "Then she's +quite as likely to die as to live?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mo—Mo—don't ye say the word! Please God, Sister<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>ought</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>As soon as Dave had left tranquillity behind, Gwen set herself +to anticipate an anxiety she saw Aunt M'riar wanted to express,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>oyn't</i> a-coming +up <i>he</i>—<i>has</i>—<i>to</i>—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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> +the good opinion of both. They expressed their feelings and +departed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXI" id="CHAPTER_BXI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 +<i>P</i>'s and <i>Q</i>'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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> find Kensington.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>modiste</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The Countess assumed a freezing import. It appeared to await +explanation of something that had shocked and surprised her. +"<i>We!</i>" 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span> +freely to Human Nature at any time, and to talk of "having a +daughter" was sailing near the wind.</p> + +<p>"Who are the 'We'? Why—me and Adrian, of course! At +least, Adrian and I!—because of grammar. Whom did you suppose?"</p> + +<p>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>I</i> supposed +nothing. No doubt it's all right!"</p> + +<p>Gwen turned a puzzled face to her mother; then, after a moment +came illumination. "Oh—I see-ee!" said she. "It's the +children—<i>our</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"Well—at least don't talk so before the person.... She's coming +back—<i>sh!</i>"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>P</i>'s and <i>Q</i>'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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> +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 <i>is</i> going +on all right?"</p> + +<p>"They wouldn't let me see her this morning. But Dr. Dalrymple +said there was no complication, so far...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't manage to...?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I see it would be out of the question, because of the +time. I was going to say—wait for <i>us</i>. 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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> +may as well go. Did Dr. Dalrymple say when Clotilda would be +out of danger? Supposing that all goes well, I mean."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Why? He's not a relation, is he?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>know</i> +anything, you know," added Gwen, to adjust matters.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Very well then—go!" was what Gwen did <i>not</i> say in reply. +She only thought that, if she <i>had</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"I wish, my dear, you would be less positive. How can you +know what I meant to say? Of <i>what</i> sort?"</p> + +<p>"Reconsidering Adrian. Jilting him, in fact!"</p> + +<p>"How can you know that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Driven to bay, the Countess had a sudden <i>accès</i> of argumentative +power. "Is there nothing it would be no use to talk to you +about except this mad love-affair of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing so big. This is the big one. Besides, you know +you did mean Adrian." As her ladyship did, she held her tongue.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Your father and I, my dear, have had a good deal of talk about +this unfortunate affair...."</p> + +<p>"What unfortunate affair?"</p> + +<p>"This unfortunate ... love-affair."</p> + +<p>"Cousin Percy and Aunt Constance?"</p> + +<p>"My dear! How can you be so ridiculous? Of course I am +referring to you and Mr. Torrens."</p> + +<p>"To me and Adrian. Precisely what I said, mamma dear! +So now we can go on." The young lady managed somehow to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>entirely</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady." Discreet retirement of Miss Lutwyche.</p> + +<p>"She didn't hear, mamma. You needn't fuss."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The mother could not resist the pleasure of a satisfied glance +at her daughter's reflection, which was not looking at <i>her</i>. "I +meant nothing of the sort," she said. "But your father agreed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> +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 +<i>are</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"I thought you said you never knew his mother."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"As for his father?"</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, dear mother of mine," said Gwen, when this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span> +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 <i>vice versa</i>, of +course! Oh no—he shan't be a cipher—I won't allow it...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> +with. It was <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ad misericordiam</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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. "<i>That's</i> all right," said he, in the tone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Why are you glaring at me so, papa darling?" said his daughter. +It was a most placid glare. She should have said "looking."</p> + +<p>"Your mamma tells me," said he, without modifying the glare, +"that she has persuaded you to go with her to Vienna for six +months."</p> + +<p>"She said you wished me to go."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, as long as your mother agrees. Is that Miss +Torrens's—Irene's—letter?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"From your grandparents, I suppose! But why?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you about it first," said Gwen. She then told,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>précis</i> 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:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +"<span class="smcap">At Strides Cottage</span>,<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Chorlton-under-Bradbury</span>,<br /> +"<i>November 22, 1854</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">My Lady</span>,</p> + +<p>"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."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"She seems always to make conquests," said the Earl. "I acknowledge +to having been <i>épris</i> myself."</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"A lunatic!" For Gwen had started and shuddered at the +word.</p> + +<p>"I see no use in mincing matters. That's what the good woman +is driving at. What comes next?" He read on:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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 <i>my</i> 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."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I think I follow that," said the Earl. "The dog pulled her +skirts, and had a lot to say and couldn't say it."</p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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...."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I can't exactly follow that," said the Earl, and re-read the +words deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't you see?" said Gwen. "<i>I</i> see. If she had said the +other mill was in Lancashire, it would have seemed <i>possible</i>. But—both +in Essex!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did she say the name?"</p> + +<p>"No—she's very odd about that. She never tells any names, +except that her sister was Phoebe. She told me <i>that</i>.... 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.</p> + +<p>"Phoebe and Ruth," said the Earl. "Pretty names! But <i>what</i> +has done it? What can you see?... You said just now?..."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we finish the letter. Where were we? 'Tell you himself'—is +that it? All right!"</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> +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 <i>is</i>!' 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."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Did he see the lunatics himself?..."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Did that show she was mad?"</p> + +<p>"Let us keep to the point. What does 'Muggeridge' mean?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking. 'Muggeridge'! But <i>I've</i> 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.</p> + +<p>He went on smoking the bitter—and bitten—end of his cigar,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Verdict in accordance with the medical opinion, I <i>think</i>. +But let's see Dave's letter." He took and read to himself. "<i>I</i> +see," said he. "The cross stood for Dolly's love. A mere proxy. +But <i>he</i> sends the real article. I like the 'homliburst,' too. Why +did Dolly's lady want to <i>towel</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, it's all very easy for you, now you've been told. <i>I</i> +couldn't make head or tail of it. And I don't wonder dear old +Mrs. Picture couldn't...."</p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—but I don't see...."</p> + +<p>"No—but listen! Dr. Nash found out that all these particulars +were of Dave's communicating. Got that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—but still I don't see...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>could</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"No—it certainly does seem very funny!"</p> + +<p>"Very funny. Now let's see what the rest of the letter says." +He went on reading:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">R. Thrale</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"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> + +<blockquote><p>"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 <i>very much</i>. +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."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"That dog is a treasure," said the Earl, re-enveloping the letter. +"What are those other letters? Irene's?... And what?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>secrétaire</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>did</i> give the Earl a send-off towards Dreamland, and saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span> +the house deserted, before he vanished to a secret den in the basement.</p> + +<p>"Norbury," said the Earl, sending the pilot off, metaphorically. +"You know the two widows, mother and daughter, at Chorlton-under-Bradbury? +Strides Cottage."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Then Widow Thrale is not Granny Marrable's daughter, +though she calls her mother?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Who was her mother?"</p> + +<p>"I have understood it was a twin sister."</p> + +<p>"Who was her father?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Something you don't like to tell?"</p> + +<p>"Not except I could speak to a certainty." Mr. Norbury, evidently +embarrassed, wavered respectfully.</p> + +<p>"Was there a convict in it, certain or uncertain?"</p> + +<p>"There was, my lord. Certain, I fear. But I am uncertain +about his name. Peverell, or Deverell."</p> + +<p>"What was he convicted of? What offence?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That was Thrale's story?"</p> + +<p>"Thrale's story."</p> + +<p>"He must have known."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he knew!"</p> + +<p>"What is old Mrs. Marrable's Christian name?"</p> + +<p>"I believe she was always called Phoebe. Her first married name +was a very unusual one, Cropredy."</p> + +<p>"And Widow Thrale's?"</p> + +<p>"Ruth—Keziah Solmes calls her, I think."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> +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 <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear daughter Maisie</span>,</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Scheldt</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> +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).</p> + +<p>"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).</p> + +<p>"Believe me, my dear daughter, to remain your affectionate +father</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Isaac Runciman.</span></p> + +<p>"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).</p> + +<p> +"<span class="smcap">Darenth Mill</span>,<br /> +<i>Oct. 16, 1807</i>."<br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>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 <i>are</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXII" id="CHAPTER_BXII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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?</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She just hung back perceptibly over giving the <i>carte blanche</i> +asked for. "I suppose no harm can come of it—to anybody?" +said she. None whatever, apparently; so she assented.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She took the letter, glancing at the cover. "Who is Mrs. Thornton +Daverill?" said she, quite in the dark.</p> + +<p>"Go on and read," said the Earl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p> + +<p>Gwen read half to herself:—"'My dear daughter Maisie,'" and +then said aloud:—"But that is Mrs. Prichard's name!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" exclaimed Gwen. "Then old Mrs. Prichard is +<i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But that <i>is</i> Mrs. Prichard, papa dear," she gasped. "Don't +you <i>know</i>? The story I told you!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly!" said the Earl.</p> + +<p>"But the letter—the letter! Phoebe and Ruth in the letter +<i>cannot</i> be drowned, if they are Granny Marrable and Widow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> +Thrale." A rapid phantasmagoria of possibilities and impossibilities +shot through her mind. How could order come of such +a chaos?</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Crossing from Antwerp. Yes!"</p> + +<p>"Then the letter is a falsehood, probably written with a bad +motive."</p> + +<p>"But by their father—their father! Impossible!"</p> + +<p>"How does your ladyship know it was written by their father?"</p> + +<p>"It is signed by their father—at Darenth Mill in Essex. Both +say Isaac Runciman was their father."</p> + +<p>"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? <i>And</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"What do you make of it, Hawtrey?" said the Earl, but, getting +no answer, waited. Silence ensued.</p> + +<p>"<i>Yes</i>," 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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But whose signature? Did she say?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I think I did right to pry into the letter, Gwennie," said her +father; seeking, nevertheless, a salve for conscience.</p> + +<p>"Of course you did, you darling old thing!... What, Mr. +Hawtrey? You were going to say?..."</p> + +<p>"I was going to say had you seen an odd thing in the direction. +Have you noticed that the word <i>Hobart</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why 'must have been in England'?"</p> + +<p>"Bless the girl!" said the girl's father. "Why—<i>I</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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I had thought," said the Earl, "of leaving them unopened. +We have got what we want."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>horrible</i> 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 <i>mad</i>!... No, papa dear, don't shish me down, because cry +I <i>must</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>are</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"And you know what he'll say, I suppose? That is, if he's +as clever as you think him!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can't say that I feel absolutely certain. What do you +suppose?"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 +<i>P</i>'s and <i>Q</i>'s, most lawlessly.</p> + +<p>Here is the letter each had read, when off them:</p> + +<p> +"My dear Lord Ancester,<br /> +</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Believe me, my lord, your very faithful and obedient servant,</p> + +<p> +"<span class="smcap">James Hawtrey.</span>"<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>So all the letters were tied up again and placed <i>pro tem</i>. 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 <i>ought</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Times</i>, and naturally turned to the news from the Seat of War—it +was then at its height—and became engrossed in the details<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>ça se vit</i>. +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span> +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 <i>could</i> take fortresses on an empty stomach. But +it would be all right now!</p> + +<p>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 <i>gêne</i> upon the movements of the allied troops in the +Crimea.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bête noire</i> 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, <i>he's</i> 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>I</i> call him.... +etcetera <i>de rigueur</i>, as some of old Billy's comparisons were unsavoury.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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 <i>Coup d'Etat</i>. "Ain't he our ally?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>they</i> 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 <i>Censor Morum</i>.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"He's letting out at the Emperor of the French, is Billy. He'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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....</p> + +<p>"What sort of a feller to look at?" said Uncle Mo, interrupting. +"Old or young? Long? Short? Anything about him to +go by?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What did he want o' me?" Uncle Mo's interest seemed +roused.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span> +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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXIII" id="CHAPTER_BXIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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?</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span> +—"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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 <i>is</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Don't get excited, Dolly dear," said Gwen, protesting against +the amount of leg-action that accompanied this ukase. "Tell us +again! <i>Why</i> is Granny Marrable to make tea? Granny Marrable's +at her house in the country. She's not coming here with +Mrs. Spicture."</p> + +<p>"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!'"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"No!" said Dolly firmly. "Gwanny Mawwowbone!" This +was very articulately delivered, the previous, or slipshod, pronunciation +having been more nearly Granny Mallowbone.</p> + +<p>"Certainly!" said Gwen, assenting. "Dolly's dolly Dolly shall +be Granny Marrowbone. Only it makes Dolly out rather old."</p> + +<p>Dolly seemed to take exception to this. "I <i>was</i> four on my +birfday," said she. "I shan't be five not till my <i>next</i> birfday, such +a long, long, long, long time."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i> upstairs to show <i>her</i> where the +tea's to be set out when Mrs. Spicture comes back."</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i>! 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—<i>Gwen</i>, then! <i>She</i> said so. Sister +Gwen."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar seemed to think it a reasonable arrangement, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>odd</i>.... Oh no—I +have seen to <i>that</i>. 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 <a name='TC_15'></a><ins title="[blank]">be</ins> all right as far as that goes. But the whole thing is so +<i>odd</i>.... 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 <i>was</i> no +quarter but Sapps Court. So try it, at least!</p> + +<p>She read straight on without interruption, except for expressions +of approval or concurrence from her hearers when they heard the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span> +writer's declaration of how <i>impressionnée</i> 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!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mo, that's not the name. <i>Durrant</i> was the name she +said." Aunt M'riar was straining at a gnat. However, solemn +bigwigs have done that before now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nigh enough for most folks," said Uncle Mo. "Just you +think a bit and see what she said her father's name was."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>twin</i>. And Dave +he made enquiries."</p> + +<p>"She <i>was</i> a twin."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen took his meaning, instead of criticizing his form. "Not +<i>all</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span> +judgment. They were dumfoundered, of course; but they +<i>could</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?..."</p> + +<p>"Won't what be cruel, Aunt M'riar?"</p> + +<p>"For to tell 'em. Two such very elderly parties, and all the +time gone by! <i>I</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.</p> + +<p>"'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!"</p> + +<p>"Well! Suppose!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Which <i>would</i> Gwen have liked, herself, in Mrs. Prichard's +place? Aunt M'riar was evidently looking to her for an answer.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid there's no help for it, Aunt Maria," said +she. "She <i>must</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span> +people. Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar quite concurred. +"But," said they, almost in the same breath, "are the children to +know?"</p> + +<p>Gwen had not considered the point. "No—yes—<i>no!</i>" she said, +and then revoked. "Really, though, I don't know, after all, why +they shouldn't! What harm <i>can</i> it do?"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Heaps longer," said Gwen. "Heaps and heaps!" Dolly was +impressed, almost cowed. She could not be even with these æons +and eras and epochs, at her time of life.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span> +bofe." A moment later his face had clouded over. "Oy say!" +said he, "will they be glad or sorry?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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 <i>was</i> +something else I wanted to ask you, Aunt Maria. Did Mrs. +Prichard ever talk to you about her son?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She had got to answer that question. "Mrs. Prichard <i>has</i> a +son," she said. "But <i>he's</i> no good." This came with a jerk—perhaps +with a weak hope that it might eject him from the +conversation.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>The reply, after consideration, was:—"No-o! She said that."</p> + +<p>And then Gwen looked from one to the other. "Oh-h!" said +she. "Then probably the man <i>was</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>I</i> should say."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Them I'd sent upstairs when I see who it was outside. Dave +he never see him, not to look at!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What did he do on that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What brought you back, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Hay—what's that?—his knife? You never told me o' that."</p> + +<p>"Why, Mo, don't ye see, I only took it for bounce."</p> + +<p>"What was it about his knife?"</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's a queer way of showin' off—with a knife! P'r'aps it +warn't open, though?" But it <i>was</i>, 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What he'll catch if he gets his deserts." Mo supplied an +end for the sentence, gravely.</p> + +<p>"Ah!—he might be.... What <i>would</i> it be, Mo, if he was +tried and found guilty?"</p> + +<p>"Without a recommendation to mercy? It was a capital offence. +I never told it ye. Shall I tell it?"</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>"Means he would go to the scragging-post, arter breakfast +one morning. There's no steering out o' <i>that</i> fix, M'riar. He's +just got to, one day, and there's an end of it!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Can't be off it, M'riar! But what of that? <i>He</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span> +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 ... <i>What</i> would I do?... Well!—I'd +save him from the gallows—I <i>would</i>! 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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>she</i> be +spared if the destroyer of her life was brought to justice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>me</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span> +their sanction and approval, this was pointed out to him, and an +allegation that he was acting up to previous instructions disallowed +<i>nem. con.</i> He endeavoured to lay to heart that for the +future <i>cistern</i> was to be spelt <i>sister</i>, except out on the leads. A +holographic adjustment of the <i>c</i>, and erasure of the <i>n</i>, 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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXIV" id="CHAPTER_BXIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>It was written in the Book of Fate, and printed in the <i>Morning +Post</i>, 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 <i>Post</i> +did not commit itself as to his lordship's future movements, because +Fate had not allowed the Editor to look in her Book.</p> + +<p>And the Countess herself seemed to know no more than the +<i>Post</i>. 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. <i>You</i> may have some influence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span> +with him. <i>I</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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tendresse</i>, 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. <i>She</i> was at Stafford House, +and was <i>most enthusiastic</i>. 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 <i>our</i> mamma mentioned <i>yours</i>, +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."</p> + +<p>Gwen was roused from weighing the possibilities of the truth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span> +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 +<i>empressement</i>.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Countess skipped details. "Let me see the letter," said +she, forsaking her detached superiority. She began to polish a +double eyeglass prematurely.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But <i>did</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"I think something <i>was</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"I won't go to old Goody Parysforts—so that settles the matter! +When shall I tell Adrian's mamma you are coming?"</p> + +<p>"Are you going there at once?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span>, +and took out another one. "I've had <i>this</i>," she said, "from old +Mrs. Prichard. But there's nothing in it!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing in it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing about what Widow Thrale told us in hers. Nothing +about Mrs. Thrale thinking she had gone dotty."</p> + +<p>The Countess, with a passing rebuke of her daughter's phraseology, +asked to be reminded of the story. Gwen, embarking on a +<i>résumé</i>, 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:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'<span class="smcap">My dear Lady</span>,</p> + +<p>"'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?'...</p></blockquote> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'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!</p> + +<p> +"'Your loving and dutiful<br /> +"'<span class="smcap">Maisie Prichard</span>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'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.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Now are you sure, mamma," said Gwen, not without severity, +"that you quite understand that it's <i>the same Ruth</i>? That this +Widow Thrale <i>is</i> the little girl that old Mrs. Prichard has gone +on believing drowned, all these years? Are you quite clear that +old Granny Marrable actually <i>is</i> the twin sister she has not seen +for fifty years? Are you certain...?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>ought</i> to be told, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, what funny things maternal parents are! Mamma +dear, you are just like Thothmes, who said:—'Better late than +never'!"</p> + +<p>"Who is 'Thothmes'?" Her ladyship knew perfectly well.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I shall say <i>nothing</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>impossible</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span> +surely be greater if the <i>éclaircissement</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>terra +firma</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span> +under a kettle whose lid was tremulous from intermittent stress +below.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>causeries</i>, mere currencies of speech, and then the +match to the train!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span> +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—<i>could</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I think not, just at present.... We shall be able to talk +of that.... Tell me—how has she been? Because of your +letter."</p> + +<p>"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—<i>not a word!</i>"</p> + +<p>"How do you mean? I don't quite understand."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span> +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 <i>was</i> whimsical sometimes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i> to help, or +at least to take his measure as a confidant in her difficulty before +condemning him as impossible?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>am</i> coming back."</p> + +<p>"Oh—all right!" There was disappointment in her tone, but +it was docility itself. She added, however, with the barest trace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span> +of remonstrance:—"I'm quite <i>well</i>, you know. I don't <i>want</i> the +doctor."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Only Sir Cropton Fuller."</p> + +<p>"He can wait.... Can't he?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Gwen shook her head. "It's nothing to do with me," she +said. "Nor with illness! It's old Mrs. Prichard at Strides +Cottage."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> giving way."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Every word."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"She <i>is</i> his daughter."</p> + +<p>The doctor nearly sprang out of his chair with surprise, but +an insecure foothold made the chair jump instead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But it's impossible—it's <i>impossible</i>!" he cried. "How could +Mrs. Marrable have a sister alive and not know it?"</p> + +<p>"That is what I am going to explain to you, Dr. Nash. And +Sir Cropton Fuller will have to wait, as you said."</p> + +<p>"But the thing's impossible in <i>itself</i>. Only look at this!..."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>most</i> extra<i>or</i>dinary story! But +scarcely to be accepted.... You'll excuse my plain speech?..."</p> + +<p>"Please don't use any other! The matter's too serious."</p> + +<p>"Scarcely to be accepted without a close examination of the +evidence."</p> + +<p>"Unquestionably. Does any point occur to you?"</p> + +<p>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—<i>yes!</i> It certainly +does occur to me that ... No—perhaps not—perhaps not!..."</p> + +<p>"What were you going to say?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Only the Australian postmark," said Gwen. "I have got it +here, but it's rather alarming—the responsibility."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Not by a forger at the Antipodes!" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"I meant afterwards—when—when Mrs. Prichard was in +England?"</p> + +<p>"She brought the letter with her when she came. It couldn't +have been forged afterwards."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span> +coincidences!" The doctor spoke as if such unblushing coincidences +ought to be ashamed of themselves.</p> + +<p>Gwen took this to be his meaning, apparently. "<i>I</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?"</p> + +<p>"I shall. But what can I do?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>entamer</i> the conversation. +You see what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly—I <i>think</i>. But I don't see how that will <i>entamer</i> +old Mrs. Marrable. Won't the conversation end where it began?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span> +<i>bona-fide</i> recollections, or have been derived from the little +boy...."</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>The doctor cogitated a moment, then gave a short staccato nod. +"I see," said he, in a short staccato manner. "<i>Yes.</i> That might +do something for us. At any rate, I can try it.... I beg your +pardon."</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> having said anything won't be certainty. But +even inquiring about what she <i>doesn't</i> recollect would give an +opening. Did Mrs. Prichard say nothing to you about her early +life at the mill?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Quite right. Is there more?" For evidently there was. Gwen +could see the page.</p> + +<p>"She remembered that he was dismissed for ... irregularity."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span> +nor her daughter ever told a chick of seven years old of <i>that</i> +defect in Mr. Muggeridge's character." For what Gwen had <i>not</i> +read aloud was:—"<i>Mug. broke 7th: Comm:</i>"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear Dr. Nash, why <i>should</i> she be able to confirm +a thing that happened when her mother was ten years old?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>She knew the trick of that latch now, and went in.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXV" id="CHAPTER_BXV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 <i>IMPASSE</i>. "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?</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Widow Thrale had been talking with Elizabeth-next-door when +the mare stopped, disappointed at the short run. She heard the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid for your ladyship," said Mrs. Thrale. And she +remained uneasy visibly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Fault of <i>hers</i>. 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen felt that her first attempt to breach the fortress of unconsciousness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span> +had failed. She must lay a new sap, at another angle; +a slower approach, but a surer.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You did not put it down to her seeing the mill?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>shock</i>. 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!"</p> + +<p>"Very likely," said Gwen. "But what came next?"</p> + +<p>"Well, now—how was it? I was seeing her to bed, unconscious +like, and she says to me, on the sudden:—'<i>Whose</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> +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?'!"</p> + +<p>"And after that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And you still thought it was a delusion?" Gwen said this +believing that it <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Said herself?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Thrale lowered her voice to an intense assurance, a heartfelt +certainty. "Oh yes, my lady—yes, <i>indeed</i>! There was no +doubt <i>possible</i>. When she was looking at the mill model she had +got sight of two little figures—just dollies—that were meant for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span> +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 <i>her</i> sister +that died in England, and they were twins the same as mother and +<i>her</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Widow Thrale looked hurt, almost indignant. "Why, my lady," +said she, "we <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Thrale's bewilderment found words. "You can ... <i>tell</i> +me!" she said, not much above a whisper. How could she hint at +calling her ladyship's words in question, above her breath?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span> +with him. He was out of prison on what is called ticket-of-leave."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>At this point Gwen was quite taken aback by Mrs. Thrale saying:—"But +they were <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, God be good to us!" cried Widow Thrale. "That such +wickedness should be!"</p> + +<p>"He was a monster—a human devil! And <i>why</i> 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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Thrale fidgeted uneasily. "Your ladyship knows best," +she said.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—that is right." That was said as though Gwen's question +had worded a thought the speaker herself had found hard +to express.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Has</i> 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 <i>is</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>alias</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But <i>my</i> 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?</p> + +<p>"And your mother's, Ruth Daverill? What was hers?"</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span></p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—my lady—it makes me afraid!... What can it +be?"</p> + +<p>"Open the letter and read!" But Ruth Thrale <i>could</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Read on!" said Gwen remorselessly. Social relation said that +her ladyship <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly came an exclamation—a cry. "But what is this about +Mrs. Prichard? This is <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span> +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 <a name='TC_16'></a><ins title="Enlgand">England</ins>...."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The surgeon's knife is most merciful when most resolutely used.</p> + +<p>"Because old Mrs. Prichard <i>is</i> 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 <i>is</i> your mother, +whom you have always thought dead, and who has always thought +you dead. Because she <i>is</i> your mother, who has been living here +in England—oh, for so many years past!—and never found you +out!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I must go to her at once."</p> + +<p>"But think!—is it well to do so? She knows nothing."</p> + +<p>"My lady—is there need she should? Nor I cannot tell her +now, for I barely know, myself. But I <i>want</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</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. +<i>She</i> would tell Granny Marrable! She did, however, hope that +Dr. Nash had broken the ice for her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span> +and dropped her voice—" ... Did you know that they thought +me...?"</p> + +<p>"Thought you what?"</p> + +<p>"Did you know that they thought me <i>mad</i>?"</p> + +<p>"They were wrong if they did. But Mrs. Thrale does not think +you mad now. I know she does not."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>did</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"But they did not tell you they thought you mad. How did +you know?"</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>heard</i> it, you know.... What was I saying?"</p> + +<p>"You were calling something to mind, all next day, you said. +What was that?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>me</i>. 'Tis the same thing, turned +about like."</p> + +<p>Gwen allowed the illustration. "But why <i>did</i> Mrs. Thrale think +you mad, over the mill-model?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, because to her I must have <i>seemed</i> mad, to say that +was my father's mill, and not her grandfather's."</p> + +<p>Gwen kept a lock on her tongue. How easy to have said:—"Your +father <i>was</i> her grandfather!" She said nothing.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I knew it," said Gwen heedlessly. Then, to recover her foothold:—"Somehow +or other! You <i>must</i> have told it me. Else +how could I have known?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span> +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 <i>could</i> such old +eyes have read it, or would she have understood it?</p> + +<p>No—it was impossible to do anything but speak. The next opportunity +<i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I told her Phoebe—only Phoebe. I never said her married +name."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell her you and your sister were twins?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—I told her that. And I think she understood. But +she did not say."</p> + +<p>"I think, dear Mrs. Picture, I can tell you why she was astonished. +It was because <i>her</i> mother had a twin sister."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You shall go back to Davy," said Gwen. "Or Davy shall +come to you. You may like to stay on longer with Mrs. Thrale."</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed I should ... if only ... if only....</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Prichard was immensely relieved—almost laughed. "There +now!—if she had told me <i>that</i>, instead of running away with +ideas! We would have found it all out, by now."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>would</i> intrude itself of an +operatic tenor singing to the soprano the story of how she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span> +changed at birth, and so forth, the <i>diva</i> 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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"My dear—'twas the like case with me! 'Tis not for me, at +least, to sit in judgment."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What did he do?" said his unconscious widow.</p> + +<p>"He forged a letter to his own wife, saying that her sister was +dead, and she believed it."</p> + +<p>"But did her sister never write, to say she was alive?"</p> + +<p>"Old Mrs. Marrable? No—because she received a letter at +the same time saying that <i>her</i> sister.... You see which I +mean?..."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—the bad man's wife, who was abroad."</p> + +<p>"... Was also dead. Do you think you see how it was? He +told each sister the other was dead."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see <i>that</i>! But did they both believe it?"</p> + +<p>"Both believed it."</p> + +<p>"Then did Mrs. Marrable's sister die without knowing?"</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span> +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 <i>you</i> I am speaking of—<i>you</i> are Mrs. Marrable's +sister, and each has falsely thought the other dead for a lifetime"? +All her elaborate preparation had ended in an <i>impasse</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You mean, why should <i>I</i> fret because of Mrs. Marrable's sister? +Is it not that?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. I think ... I think that is what I meant to say."</p> + +<p>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>I</i>—have +to tell <i>her</i> to-day ... that she is ... that she is ... Mrs. +Marrable's sister!" The last words might have been a cry for +pity.</p> + +<p>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 <i>me</i> 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....</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"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,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No, no—I am not ill.... I will tell you directly."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen's voice came at last, audibly to herself, scarcely more. +"I want you—I want you to tell me something...."</p> + +<p>"What, my dear?... Oh—to tell you something! Yes—what +is it?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Her christened name?—her own name?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell it you?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?... Oh, I am frightened to see you so white. My +dear!"</p> + +<p>"Listen, dear Mrs. Picture, and try to understand. Mrs. +Thrale's aunt's name is Phoebe."</p> + +<p>"<i>Is Phoebe!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Is Phoebe." Gwen repeated it again, looking fixedly at the +old face, now rapidly resuming its former utter bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span></p> + +<p>She saw that some new thought was at work. But it had to +plough its way through stony ground. Give it time!</p> + +<p>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 <i>Ruth</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Is Ruth." Yes—leave the fact there, and wait! That was +Gwen's decision.</p> + +<p>A moment later what she waited for had come. Old Maisie +started, crying out aloud:—"Oh, what is this—what <i>is</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Then, with a sudden vehemence:—"Who was it—who was it—that +forged the letter that came—<i>that came to my husband and +me</i>?" 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She heard the undertones of the daughter's voice, using the +name of mother. What was she saying?</p> + +<p>"My mother—my mother—my mother!" And then, with a +strange acceptance of the name in another sense:—"But when +will mother know?"</p> + +<p>Gwen entered noiselessly, and stood by the bedside. She began +to speak, but shrank from her last word:—"She is not...?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Both listened, and Widow Thrale heard, being the nearer, "Who +called you her mother?" she repeated. "<i>I</i> did." And then Gwen +said, clearly and fearlessly:—"Your daughter Ruth!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXVI" id="CHAPTER_BXVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span> +rest, but ultimately gave way to it, backed as it was by public +opinion.</p> + +<p>"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. "<i>And</i> yourself? You're +not <i>looking</i> amiss."</p> + +<p>"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, <i>e.g.</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I was going to ask about Sister Nora, doctor—what the latest +news was saying."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"There now, doctor, you will always have your joke. Ruth—my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span> +daughter—is quite beside her judgment about the old soul. +What like is she, doctor, to your thinking?"</p> + +<p>"Well—your daughter's right about her." He paused a moment, +and then added, meaningly:—"So far as being a very—very +<i>taking</i> sort of old person goes."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Ah—the poor soul! Now is that true?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>them</i>—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.</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable seemed to entertain doubts of the patient's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span> +happiness. "I could never be happy," she said, "if I had been +in a delusion."</p> + +<p>"Not if you came to know it was a delusion. Very likely not!"</p> + +<p>"But does not—does not—poor old Mrs. Prichard ever come to +know she has been in a delusion?"</p> + +<p>"Not she! What she fancies she just goes on fancying. Sticks +to it like grim death."</p> + +<p>"What sort of things now, doctor?"</p> + +<p>This was a bite. But the doctor would play his fish. No hurry. +"<i>Perfectly</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"But not if you would rather not, doctor!" This clearly meant +the reverse.</p> + +<p>"Well now—there was the first thing that happened, about that +little model thing that stands on your mantelshelf at the cottage."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Ah—you told him about Muggeridge and the horses!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sure! And I lay, now, he'd told Mrs. Prichard all about +<i>that</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Trust him! Anyhow, he <i>did</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"Thought what had?"</p> + +<p>"I mean, thought <i>she</i> had been one of those two little kiddies +in violet frocks...."</p> + +<p>"Ah, dear me—my dear sister that died out in Australia—my +darling Maisie!"</p> + +<p>"Hay—what's that? Your darling what? What name did you +say?"</p> + +<p>"Maisie."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable seemed to demur a little, but was brought to +order by the drastic argument that it <i>must</i> have been that, <i>because</i> +it could not have been anything else. By this time the doctor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span> +had recollected that he was not in a position to indulge in the +luxury of incredulity.</p> + +<p>"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. +<i>You</i> told him about Muggeridge, didn't you say, and the horses? +Not your daughter, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Sure! Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox."</p> + +<p>"Tell him anything else about Muggeridge?"</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>not</i> speak to having said a word about Muggeridge, beyond his +bare name. That I could not."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Now Lard a mercy, doctor, whatever do ye take me for? And +all these years you've known me! Only the <i>idea</i> 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>I</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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable had lost sight of this, and was disconcerted. +"What—why—yes—where <i>did</i> she get it? Mrs. Prichard, of +course! Now, wherever could Mrs. Prichard have got it?..." +It called for thought.</p> + +<p>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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mercy me, doctor, where's the use of asking <i>me</i>? Before <i>you</i> +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!"</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"<i>Where</i> did Mrs. Prichard come from?"</p> + +<p>"From Van Diemen's Land. In Australia. Where the convicts +go."</p> + +<p>"There now! Only to think of that! Why—I see it all!" +Granny Marrable seemed pleased.</p> + +<p>"What do you see, Mrs. Marrable?" The doctor was puzzled. +He had quite expected that at this point suspicion of the facts +<i>must</i> dawn, however dimly.</p> + +<p>"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 anæsthetic. He had not indefinite time to spare for +this operation.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then Granny Marrable, released, looked the doctor in the face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span> +saying:—"'That the news of my sister's death was?...'" and +stopped for him to finish the sentence.</p> + +<p>"Authentic," said he. He did not know whether her look meant +that she did not understand the word, and added:—"Trustworthy."</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean," she said. "Go on and say why?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>wants</i> to make it out."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you would have his letters."</p> + +<p>"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....</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? Anything wrong?" For Granny Marrable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"I've heard of him."</p> + +<p>"What do they say of him?"</p> + +<p>"I only heard the police were after him. Go on."</p> + +<p>"Well—the name he called himself by was my sister's husband's, +and he said he came from Australia."</p> + +<p>"That might be, and no witchcraft. When did your sister +die?"</p> + +<p>"Five-and-forty—six-and-forty—years ago!"</p> + +<p>"Any children left? Boys?"</p> + +<p>"Boys?—Lord, no! At least, yes—two boys! What I mean is, +not by this name."</p> + +<p>"What were the boys' names?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You remember it near enough for that?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"That seems reasonable. Five-and-forty years! Now, can I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span> +remember anything as long back as that?... However, I was +two, so that doesn't count."</p> + +<p>"Maisie's son never bore this name. That's out of doubt!"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because her first was christened by it, and died at Darenth Mill, +after ... after his father went away."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"What's the other reason?"</p> + +<p>"He told me his mother's name. But I am not free to tell it, +by reason I promised not to."</p> + +<p>This struck the doctor as odd. "How came you to be talking +to a stray tramp about his mother, Granny Marrable?" he asked +shrewdly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mauvais sujet</i>. He determined on a daring <i>coup</i>. "Are you +sure Mrs. Prichard is not the mother he was looking for?" +said he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span></p> + +<p>Granny Marrable was struck with his cleverness. "Now, how +<i>ever</i> did you come to find <i>that</i> out, doctor?" said she.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> 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 <i>is</i> Mrs. +Prichard?"</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable had looked really pleased at the <i>reductio ad +absurdum</i>—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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She was quite amenable. "By little Davy," said she contentedly.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Sure?... Merciful gracious me! <i>That</i> baby?"</p> + +<p>"And how you and she measured the mill-model? That <i>must</i> +have come from your sister."</p> + +<p>She started. "What was that?" she said. "You never told +me."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What strikes me about this arm-measurement," said he, "is +the strength of her conviction. If she had only <i>spoken</i> of it, +well! But to get up, at six in the morning, the day after she +saw it!"</p> + +<p>The old lady's eyes met his. "Why arm-measurement?" she +asked, speaking quite steadily and clearly.</p> + +<p>"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...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We were twins."</p> + +<p>"Precisely. And your two little paws, being young kids, or +youngish...."</p> + +<p>"We were just children. I mind it well. 'Twas a sort of game, +to see how our hands grew. But...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"It was sheer gibberish, you know...."</p> + +<p>"Can't ye call the gibberish to mind?" This was asked earnestly, +and made Dr. Nash feel he was on the right tack.</p> + +<p>"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 ... <i>spud-clicket</i>." 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>could</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What could the doctor do to carry out his rash promise to Lady +Gwendolen, more than what he had done? He was already overdue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"You must be very curious to see this queer old Mrs. Prichard, +Mrs. Marrable?" said he.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span> +to stand and deliver at every cottage on the route susceptible to +correspondence.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The doctor saw something. "Where's the letter?" said he.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span> +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....</p> + +<p>Yes, but <i>what</i> 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.</p> + +<p>It came with a terrible suddenness when she read Dave's large, +roundhand script. "<span class="smcap">My dear Graney Marobone</span>—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.</p> + +<p>Then came the thunderclap. "Gweng says Bad people told you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>like</i>," 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.</p> + +<p>"I think I just heard him, outside." Maisie had heard him +drive up to the door, a familiar sound.</p> + +<p>"Then let him drive me over to the Cottage."</p> + +<p>"<i>Yes</i>," said the doctor, with emphasis. "Good idea!" And +Maisie left the room to speak to her husband.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Please!" She seemed well able to understand.</p> + +<p>"Her husband was a damnable scoundrel...."</p> + +<p>"He was."</p> + +<p>"... 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He continued:—"He must have had some means of suppressing +your letters to one another, to be safe in this deception...."</p> + +<p>"He was the postmaster."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but his lordship had the right...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Stomach, probably," said the doctor, resorting to a time-honoured +subterfuge. "I'll send her something to take directly +after meals."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</a></span> +that this was a wonderful stroke of policy on the old lady's part, +and resolved to back it up through thick and thin.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXVII" id="CHAPTER_BXVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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 <i>US</i>! 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 <i>DIDN'T</i> FEEL, ABOUT <i>HIS</i> 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>they</i> had an audience, in which case +they had to wait, and did it with a parade of indifference which +deceived no one.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>status quo</i>? It was like sudden +unexpected lemon in a made dish.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>The sudden reference to the time-when of that old passionate +relation contained an implication that it was not unspeakable +<i>per se</i>—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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_649" id="Page_649">[Pg 649]</a></span> +the speaker to be quite collected, and mistress of the situation.</p> + +<p>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 <i>very</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"He won't come back now."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"About our boy and girl? Why should there?" Best not to +add:—"Or anything else," on the whole!</p> + +<p>"I am speaking of his eyesight only. Please understand that +I should not oppose my daughter's wishes on any other ground."</p> + +<p>"But I am to understand that you <i>do</i> oppose them?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_650" id="Page_650">[Pg 650]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Unreconciled. I won't make any pretences, Sir Hamilton. I +do <i>not</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"My wife will entirely agree with you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"As the girl's mother," repeated the lady. "I shall continue +to think, as I think now, that there is an <i>unreal</i> element in my +daughter's ... a ... regard for your son."</p> + +<p>"An unreal element! Very often is, in young ladies' predilections +for young gentlemen."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>he</i> 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....'"</p> + +<p>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 <i>his</i> son, on my bit of preserved land. All the +owners about shoot stray dogs."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_651" id="Page_651">[Pg 651]</a></span> +this in her head, you would have felt exactly as my husband +does."</p> + +<p>"Should I? Well—I suppose I should. No, I don't think I +should.... Well—at least...!"</p> + +<p>"At least, what?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"And you <i>are</i> 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 <i>allowed</i> yourself to be convinced?"</p> + +<p>"Allowed myself—I'm not sure I understand."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And her parents have, of course. I see. But if her parents, +<i>are</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_652" id="Page_652">[Pg 652]</a></span> +might be destroyed and that the blame would rest with her +family...."</p> + +<p>"No, L-Lady Ancester"—he stumbled somehow over the name, +for no apparent reason—"I deny that. I protest against it...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>entichement</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"But what," said the perplexed Baronet, "can <i>I</i> do?" A reasonable +question!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But to what end? What do you suppose will come of it? +What ... a ... what difference will it make?"</p> + +<p>"It <i>will</i> make a difference. It <i>must</i> make a difference, if your +son is made fully aware—he is not, now—of the motives that may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_653" id="Page_653">[Pg 653]</a></span> +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 <i>fiancée</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I am not in a hurry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I have not asked for anything else."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I can do that, after I have talked over it with his +mother. But I can't ... I can't undertake to <i>influence</i> him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_654" id="Page_654">[Pg 654]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is he so intractable?... However, young men <i>are</i>."</p> + +<p>"I did not mean that. I ... I don't exactly know how to say +it...."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I had some such thought."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. You mean you thought what I said you thought."</p> + +<p>"And you think me mistaken?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Are you so confident of the grounds of your suspicions ... about ... about +the motives that are influencing your daughter?"</p> + +<p>"They are not suspicions. They are certainties. At least, I +am convinced—and I am her mother—that her chief motive in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_655" id="Page_655">[Pg 655]</a></span> +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—<i>can</i> any woman know—better than I +do, the value of a girl's first love?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>him</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>But his embarrassment and hesitation were so visible that the +Countess had little choice between flinching or charging bravely +up to the guns.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>us</i>?... 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_656" id="Page_656">[Pg 656]</a></span> +were going to say, 'Why?' Well—I don't exactly know. Young +folks always <i>are</i>." The fact is, the Countess was beginning to +feel comfortably detached, and could treat the subject in a free +and easy manner.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>don't talk</i>—because +I know exactly what you are going to say. Shake hands +upon it—a good shake, you know!—don't throw it away!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A <i>modus vivendi</i> was, however, established. She could recapitulate +without endangering it. "You <i>will</i> 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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>had</i> 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 <i>there</i>, for all that.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>would</i> wander back to their Romeo and Juliet period, and make +comparisons between this <i>now</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>his</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>fiancée</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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!—<i>how</i> +that garden of auld lang syne has vanished!</p> + +<p>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 +<i>at</i> the beginning. You and your brother were walking up Pratchet's +Lane. What were you doing in Pratchet's Lane?"</p> + +<p>"Walking up it. You <i>can</i> only walk up it or down it. Very +well. We were just by the big holly-tree....</p> + +<p>"Which big holly-tree? One—thing—at—a time!"</p> + +<p>"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....</p> + +<p>"Easy—easy—easy! Where was Miss Scatcherd?"</p> + +<p>"In front, of course! Ply dotes on Miss Scatcherd, although +she's forty-seven."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about the 'of course,'" says Adrian, leaning on +his father's arm-chair. "Because I <i>don't</i> 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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well—fire away!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Did I speak?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>seen</i> Miss Scatcherd."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You go on!" says Irene, nodding to her brother. "Say what +you said."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes—yes—yes! But how <i>did</i> you?... How much did +you see?" The Baronet is excited and roused.</p> + +<p>"Quite as much as I wished. I think I mentioned that I did +<i>not</i> dote on Miss Scatcherd." For, the moment a piece of perversity +is possible, this young man jumps at it.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>As soon as the narrative ended, perversity set in. It was gratifying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"All nonsense!" said Irene.</p> + +<p>"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, +<i>per contra</i>, suppose that it should only prove possible to me to +receive an image of Miss Scatcherd, or her congeners....</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>So Irene did not write her letter.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Had a visitor to-day—s'pose they told you—Lady Ancester. +Sorry your mother wasn't up to seeing her."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"We had some talk. Did you know she was coming?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear of it. I should have stopped. So would 'Re."</p> + +<p>"Yes—it rather let me in for a ... <i>tête-à-tête</i>." Why did +Sir Hamilton feel that this expression was an edged tool, that +might cut his fingers? He did.</p> + +<p>"I should have been in the way."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"About?" said his son. But he knew perfectly well what +about.</p> + +<p>"About Gwen and yourself. That conversation of yours with +the Earl. You remember it? You told me."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>His father persevered. "I understood his view to be that Gwen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</a></span> +was under the influence of ... was influenced by ... a distorted +view ... a mistaken imagination...."</p> + +<p>"Not a doubt of it, I should think. My <i>amour propre</i> keeps +on suggesting to me that Gwen may be of sound mind. My +strong common sense replies that my <i>amour propre</i> may be +blowed!"</p> + +<p>"Adrian, I wish to talk to you seriously. What did you suppose +I was referring to?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Dan Who?"</p> + +<p>"The little God of Love ... not Daniel Anybody! Wasn't +that what the Earl meant?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>was</i> difficult +to talk to his son about it.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"To the effect that her daughter is throwing herself away. +Quite right! It is so. She <i>is</i> throwing herself away."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But...?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But thought Gwen ought to act only for her own sake."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>that</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear boy, I am bound to confess that I do not see +what you can <i>do</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"Why doesn't she tackle me about it herself?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</a></span> +for it added:—"If Gwen squinted and had a wooden leg, nothing +would please us better. But...!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>something</i> to do with her feelings towards him, without +any motive that the most stodgy prose could call Quixotic?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXVIII" id="CHAPTER_BXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>A DABBLER IN IMMORTALITY. <i>ALL</i> 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. <i>MACTE VIRTUTE</i>, 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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then old Maisie spoke for the first time; slowly, but clearly +enough, though softly. "I think—I know—what has happened.... +<i>All</i> our lives?... But Phoebe will come. My Ruth will +fetch her. Will you not, dear?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mother will come, very soon."</p> + +<p>"That is it. She is mother—my Ruth's mother!... But I +am your mother, too, dear!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed yes—my mother—my mother—my mother!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>my</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>how</i> was, +and why, was becoming a mystery as her vigour fell away and an +inevitable reaction began to tell upon her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>make</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>Yes</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</a></span> +lady?" though a sarcastic Jehu might have seemed to be expressing +a doubt whether her ladyship meant ever to go home at all.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Will she stand still on th' high roo-ad, to talk to we?"</p> + +<p>"She'll never pass me by if she sees me wishful to speak with +her. Her ladyship has too good a heart."</p> + +<p>"Vairy well, Gra-anny." John Costrell reined in his horse, and +the cart and gig came abreast.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> be true. It cannot be else."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> true. Dr. Nash told you."</p> + +<p>"That is so. Our Dr. Nash."</p> + +<p>"But how much? Has he told you all?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"God's my life, Granny, what will ye be for saying next to her +ladyship?" John Costrell had heard none of the story.</p> + +<p>"It's all quite right, Mr. Costrell," said Gwen. "Granny Marrable +doesn't mean really dead. She <i>thought</i> her dead—her sister.... +Go on, Granny! That is quite right. And has Dr. +Nash told you where your sister is now?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</a></span> +her sister should not know her again, and would even doubt her +identity. "But that is impossible," said Gwen. "Because she <i>is</i> +your sister, and remembers all your childhood together."</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i>, enough "evidence" +to hang a dozen men would not stand against the deep-rooted +belief in each other's death through those long years.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Well—she was better off now than she had been in the early +morning, when there was all that terrible disclosure ahead. It +was <i>done</i>—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 <i>modus vivendi</i>, +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?</p> + +<p>Anyhow, she deserved a well-earned rest from tension. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</a></span> +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 <i>show</i> him anything! +Never! Never!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"You went to Pensham, mamma?" said Gwen to her mother, +the next day, as soon as an opportunity came for quiet talk.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Gwen suspected reticence. "You didn't see her, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no! How should I? She was in bed, I believe."</p> + +<p>"You saw <i>somebody</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Only Sir Hamilton, for a few minutes. He doesn't seem +uneasy. I don't suppose it's anything serious."</p> + +<p>"Did you see 'Re?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Gwen refused to be thrown off the scent. "He's an old friend of +yours, isn't he?" said she suggestively.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do. Everybody does. Who is it lives there?"</p> + +<p>The Countess had consulted the undersized tablets, and was repocketing +them. "Mrs. Enniscorthy Hopkins," said she, in the +most collateral way possible to humanity. "<i>You</i> wouldn't know +anything about her."</p> + +<p>"This tea has been standing," said Gwen. She refused to rise to +Mrs. Enniscorthy Hopkins, whom she suspected of red-herringhood.</p> + +<p>The Countess was compelled to be less collateral. "She was +Kathleen Tyrawley," said she. "But I quite lost sight of her. +One does."</p> + +<p>"Was she interesting?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es.... N-no ... not very. Pretty—of that sort!"</p> + +<p>"What sort?"</p> + +<p>"Well—very fond of horses."</p> + +<p>"So am I—the darlings!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—but a girl may be very fond of horses, and yet not marry +a ... Don't put milk in—only cream...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Marry a what?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Hope so! Is that tea right?"</p> + +<p>"The tea? Oh yes, the tea ... will do. No, I only saw Sir +Hamilton. The son and daughter were away."</p> + +<p>"Now, mamma, that is being unkind, and you know it. 'The +son and daughter!' As if they were people!"</p> + +<p>"Well—and what are they?"</p> + +<p>"You know perfectly well what I mean."</p> + +<p>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 <i>mother</i>, certainly. And I may mention to you—only, +<i>please</i> no discussion!—that Sir Hamilton <i>entirely shares</i> my +views. He expressed himself quite clearly on the subject yesterday."</p> + +<p>"You must have seen him for more than a few minutes to get as +far as <i>that</i>." This was a shell in the enemy's powder-magazine.</p> + +<p>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—<i>if</i>—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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think you are unfeeling, mamma; that's flat!" was Gwen's +unceremonious rejoinder.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Illustrated London News</i>." This was +marginal, not in the text. "They will have plenty to tell each +other after such a long time."</p> + +<p>"Mamma dear, you are hopeless!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>was</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, ah, yes, by-the-by!" said Gwen, "there wasn't to be anything +till the Day of Judgment."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't drag in Religion," said her mother. "You +pick up these dreadful Freethinking ways of speech from....</p> + +<p>"From Adrian? Of course I do. But <i>you</i> began it, by talking +about Death and Ghosts."</p> + +<p>"My dear, neither Death nor Ghosts are Religion, but the Day +of Judgment is. Ask anybody!"</p> + +<p>"Very well, then! Cut the Day of Judgment out, and go on +with Death and Ghosts."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it can matter much, either way." The Countess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</a></span> +was not going to come down from Olympus, for trifles. "But +what <i>are</i> you going to do to-morrow? Go to church, I <i>suppose</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Is it necessary to settle?"</p> + +<p>"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. +<i>Are</i> you going to church?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I am sure I hope so. A whole week!" The Countess's <i>parti +pris</i>, 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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"When will you be back?" said the martyr. The fact is, she +was well aware that this was a case of <i>quid pro quo</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>That</i> can't be helped either. <i>I</i> think it a pity the whole clan-jamfray +shouldn't come here for Christmas."</p> + +<p>"That is out of the question. Sir Hamilton has his own social<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</a></span> +obligations. Besides, it would look as if you and Mr. Torrens were +definitely engaged. Which you are not."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we talk of something else."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we do." Her ladyship could only assent; for had she +not, Shylockwise, taught her daughter that word?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Gwendolen!" In a shocked tone of voice.</p> + +<p>"Well—Aunt C. and Cousin Percy, then. If they are not the +Pellews, they very soon will be. They are coming on Monday, +anyhow."</p> + +<p>"But not by the same train!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</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>I</i> should."</p> + +<p>The Countess thought she really <i>had</i> 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."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>But Gwen did not go to church next day.</p> + +<p>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 <i>adieux</i> to the assembled company.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXIX" id="CHAPTER_BXIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>her</i> mind at their silence. +Rather, she was at a loss to conceive or invent a single phrase that +either could or would have spoken.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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 <i>she</i> seem to <i>her</i>? 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>I</i> know, Cousin Keziah. +Tell me, how is Mrs. Prichard?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</a></span> +light, Master Costrell. Only to think of it! The Gra-anny's twin, +thought dead now, fowerty years agone!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"She'd never coom anigh to this place?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"One o' them's living still. And none so vairy far from where +we stand. Can ye ma-ak nowt o' that, Master Costrell?"</p> + +<p>John <i>was</i> a little slow; it was his bucolic mind. "None so +vairy far from where we stand?" he repeated, in the dark.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"You've gotten hold of it now, Master Costrell."</p> + +<p>"But 'tis impossible—'tis <i>impossible</i>! 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....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But that is th' vairy thing she is, safe and sure, John Costrell. +I told ye—Australia. Australia be the Colonies."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She was terribly taken aback. "Oh, mother dearest," she said, +betrayed into speaking her inner thought, "you have come too soon. +You cannot know."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> know," said Granny Marrable. "I will tell you presently. +Now take me to her."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</a></span> +is outside." Then the weaker voice, questioning:—"Then who?... +then who?..." But no answer was given.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>it will come</i>!" 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>am</i> Maisie! I <i>am</i> Maisie!" before speech<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i> silence was +by choice, from a pressure of the hand of either from time to time. +It seemed to repeat her last words:—"I <i>am</i> Maisie. I <i>am</i> Maisie."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"How came you to know of it?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Nash. I spoke with her ladyship on the way, and she said +it was true."</p> + +<p>"What did she say was true?"</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then Ruth's speech was again at fault, and yet she saw nothing +strange in it. "Oh, mother dearest, this <i>must</i> 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 +<i>must</i> be my mother!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"God have mercy on him, for his sin! But how had he the +cruelty? What wrong had I done him?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>was</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXX" id="CHAPTER_BXX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> alone. It all came back then. The figure +on the bed!—not <i>dead</i>, surely?</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think I am not dreaming now, but I was.... I was dreaming +of Phoebe, years ago.... But <i>you</i> are Phoebe. Say that I +am Maisie, that I may hear you. Say it!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my darling!—I know you are Maisie. But it is so hard to +know."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell ... back in the old time?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear, I know when that was. 'Twas the day <i>they</i> came—came +first. Oh, God be good to us!"</p> + +<p>"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!..."</p> + +<p>"I mind it well, dear. They came up on their horses."</p> + +<p>"Thornton and Ralph. And made a pretext they would +like to see inside the Church. Because old Keturah had the +key."</p> + +<p>"But 'twas an untruth! Little care they had for inside the +Church! 'Twas ourselves, and they knew it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phoebe!—but <i>we</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"That it was! Twenty-seven. Now, to think of us young creatures +handling those old bones!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"You never loved him, Phoebe."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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 <i>is</i> it all?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Maisie started spasmodically from her pillow.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Phoebe's response flagged. What could her old brain be said to +<i>know</i>, 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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—go on! You know, dear, I know it all—half know it—but +I cannot hold it for long—it goes. Go on!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Let her believe it! Let her see a merit in it for the man she +loved! That was Phoebe's thought.</p> + +<p>"He was always good to me," Maisie continued. "He never +thought of what might come of it. All his desire was I should not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[Pg 691]</a></span> +leave him. Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe, if only I might have died there and +then, out in the Colony!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Maisie continued:—"When I came back, I went straight to our +old home, long ago—to Darenth Mill, to hear what I might, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[Pg 692]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"And the letter said that—the letter he made up?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Very soon. To-morrow, perhaps. 'Twas her ladyship told you—was +it not? Oh, you remember?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable could not give any clear account of the past +hour of talk; it was growing hazy to her, as reaction after excitement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[Pg 693]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"What was the letter?"</p> + +<p>"What letter is she speaking of?" said Ruth.</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable said with an effort:—"The letter that said she +was dead."</p> + +<p>"Show it to me—show it me now, with the light! You have got +it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_694" id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Then Ruth read:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'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.</p> + +<p>"'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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_695" id="Page_695">[Pg 695]</a></span> +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....'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"All true!" Surely her mind was giving way. So thought +Ruth, and shuddered at the gruesome thought. "Mother—mother—how +<i>can</i> it be true?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>her</i> hand, and she died of the bite.... +Yes—go on! Read it all!" For Ruth had begun:—"Shall +I—<i>must I</i>?" as though the reading it was unendurable.</p> + +<p>She resumed, with an effort:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'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 ...'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"' ... 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[Pg 696]</a></span> +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....'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Ruth said:—"Here is more—only a little!" and continued:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'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.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</a></span> +before its bewilderments were sprung upon her. That made it +easier to bear.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>did</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, have you slept?" She kissed the old worn-out +face tenderly; feeling somehow the reserve of strength behind the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[Pg 698]</a></span> +response she met. "Oh, can you—<i>can</i> you—make it out?... +Yes, she is lying still. She has seen that letter." She dropped her +voice, and shuddered to name it.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> 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, "<i>she</i> says the story is one-half true, but 'twas +her best friend died of the bite—not she! But she died in great +suffering."</p> + +<p>"Ah—the poor thing! Mary Ann Stennis."</p> + +<p>"That was the name."</p> + +<p>"Will she be able to tell more? Will she tell us who her husband +was?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>But old Phoebe was quite clear. "I am all right, child," said she +reassuringly. "Her <i>second</i> husband. Marrable was <i>my</i> second, +you know, else I would still have been Cropredy. Why is she not +Daverill?"</p> + +<p>Ruth was really the less clear of the two. "Oh yes!" said she +wonderingly. "She is Mrs. Prichard, still."</p> + +<p>"Please God we shall know all!... What was that?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</a></span></p> + +<p>Still, it might be no more than the agitation of a moment, a passing +phase. They tried to pacify her. How <i>could</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>The pulse in the hand Ruth held was easy to find. Yes, that +<i>was</i> fever! Ruth left her to speak with Elizabeth, and the hand +went over to its fellow, in Granny Marrable's.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What, dearest?"</p> + +<p>"You must say nothing of <i>him</i> to Ruth. He was her brother."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes—nothing to <i>her</i>! 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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i>, then, +as well as his father?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One effect of this was good, in a sense. It <i>is</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_701" id="Page_701">[Pg 701]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> +the girl's fault.... Emma was a good girl...."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>then</i>." 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Old Phoebe shook her head doubtfully. "Whom did you go for, +child? The doctor? I'm glad."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[Pg 702]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"You found that all I told you was true, Granny Marrable," said +the doctor, after promising to return in time to catch her ladyship.</p> + +<p>"I shall live to believe it true, doctor, please God!"</p> + +<p>"Tut tut! You see that it <i>is</i> true."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"She can talk, I suppose—recollects things? Things when you +were kids?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Some chaps have the Devil in 'em, and that's the truth!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Ruth has always been my niece, but we have gone near to forget +it, times and again. 'Tis so many a long year!"</p> + +<p>"Well—I shall expect to hear that you and your niece have had +a substantial breakfast. You understand—<i>substantial!</i> And you +must make <i>her</i> take milk, or gruel. You'll find she won't eat."</p> + +<p>"Beef-tea?"</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_703" id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXI" id="CHAPTER_BXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>laudare</i> a <i>tempus +actum</i>; indeed, it is a fiction that almost begins with speech, that +the restoration of the Past is the first duty of the Future.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_704" id="Page_704">[Pg 704]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; "<i>Les Rats</i>" 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_705" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</a></span> +Mrs. Prichard's apartment, although both also felt anxious to +see her at home again.</p> + +<p>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 <i>hisself</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How much do you want, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"Six. <i>And</i> three. Can you do six-and three?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Him," said Mr. Jerry, too briefly. For he felt bound to add:—"Coldbath +Fields. Anyone giving information that will lead to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_707" id="Page_707">[Pg 707]</a></span> +apprehension of, will receive the above reward. Your friend, +you know!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"He's where her money goes, Mo—that's it, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>do</i> know. +Because I <i>do</i> know, as flat as ever so much Gospel." So the Emperor +of Russia might not have remained unenlightened.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jerry reflected. "You say he hasn't been near the Court +again, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But when ever does he see M'riar, to get at her savings?—that's +what I'd like to know. Eh, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_708" id="Page_708">[Pg 708]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo seemed to consider this profoundly. "Not if I keep +square with M'riar," said he at last.</p> + +<p>"How do you make that out, Mo?"</p> + +<p>"I've as good as promised the old girl that she shan't have +any hand in it. She's out of it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"That's one idea of keeping square, Jerry, but it ain't mine."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with it, Mo?" Mr. Jerry's confidence in his +suggestion had flagged, and his eye had reopened slowly.</p> + +<p>"M'riar's not to have <i>any</i> hand in it—that's her stipulation. +According-ly to my ideas, Jerry, either you take advantage, or +you don't. <i>Don't's</i> the word, this time. If I bring M'riar in +<i>at all</i>, it's all one which of two ways I do it. She's out of it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jerry began, feebly:—"You can't do more than keep your +word, Mo...."</p> + +<p>"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>I</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.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want this chap to dance the Newgate hornpipe, +Mo?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[Pg 709]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Jerry was suddenly conscious of a new danger. "I say, +Mo," said he. "None of that, if <i>you</i> please!"</p> + +<p>"None o' what?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>rôles</i> necessary to History and the Drama.</p> + +<p>"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>I'll</i> see to him! +Him and his carving-knives!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>sine qua non</i> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_710" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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? +<i>And</i> the reason!"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Did he run?" said Mr. Jerry.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>he</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>Ralph Daverill must have had a curious insight into human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_712" id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>such</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_713" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</a></span> +the premises he had secured on an indefinite lease. It <i>was</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"She may know the address of the lady she'll find in this +envelope. And if she don't, all <i>you</i> got to do is to bring the +letter back."</p> + +<p>"Suppose she don't know the address and I do, am I to tell +her, or 'old my tongue?"</p> + +<p>"Now which do you think? I do declare you boys I never!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_714" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"Without any address wrote? Wery good! 'Ave it your +own way, missis. 'And it over."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Her! Not know her! Juliarawkins. Why, she's next door!"</p> + +<p>"But do you know her—to speak to?"</p> + +<p>"Rarther! We're on torkin terms, me and Juliar. Werry often +stop I do, to pass the time of day with Jooli<i>ar</i>." 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I got a letter for you, missis," said Micky.</p> + +<p>"Sure it ain't for somebody else? Let's have a look at it."</p> + +<p>"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!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[Pg 715]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The note she read was short, written so that the lines fell +thus:—</p> + +<p> +"<span class="smcap">Ralph Daverill</span>—The police are<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[Pg 716]</a></span>on the look out for you and it is now not<br /> +safe to come to the Court—This is written<br /> +by your wife to say you will run<br /> +great risk of being took if you come—<br /> +For you to know who I am I write my name—<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Polly Daverill.</span><br /> +Sapps Court Dec 9 1854."<br /> +</p> + +<p>The lines were ill-spaced, so that blanks were left as shown. +At the end of the second, a crowded line, the word <i>not</i> was blurred +on the paper-edge, and looked like a repetition of the previous +word.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Miss Julia first remedied the ink. A memory of breakfast +unremoved still hung about the parlour table—a teapot and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[Pg 717]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> at the end, the +fourth the word <i>no</i>. The only other change needed was the +erasure of the word <i>not</i>, in the second line, which already looked +like an accidental repetition of <i>now</i>. Was an erasure advisable? +she decided against it, cleverly. She merely drew her pen through +the <i>not</i>, 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 <a name='TC_17'></a><ins title="acompany">accompany</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Did you give it her?" said Aunt M'riar.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[Pg 718]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Those who have read anything of the story of the penal settlements +in the early part of last century may—even <i>must</i>—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 <i>pardoned</i>; 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[Pg 719]</a></span> +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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>circa</i> 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 <i>virus</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>moyen âge</i>, +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 name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</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 <i>ennuyé</i> +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.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> This appears to have been written about 1910.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[Pg 720]</a></span></p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>per se</i> reciprocal. She had sacrificed herself to him; <i>therefore</i> +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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[Pg 721]</a></span> +floated justifications from Holy Writ of the worst stereotyped +iniquity of civilisation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXII" id="CHAPTER_BXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>"You'll have to attend divine service without your daughter, +mamma," said Gwen, speaking through the door of her mother's +apartment, <i>en passant</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"Is she ill?"</p> + +<p>"Well—Dr. Nash has written to say that I need not be +frightened."</p> + +<p>"But then—why go? If he says you need not be frightened?"</p> + +<p>"That's exactly why I'm going. As if I didn't understand +doctors!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Well—he's married! Why shouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"As you please, my dear!"</p> + +<p>The Countess appeared to decline further discussion. She +said:—"Don't be very late—you are coming back to lunch, of +course?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_722" id="Page_722">[Pg 722]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If I can. It depends."</p> + +<p>"My dear! With Sir Spencer Derrick here, and the Openshaws!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>is</i> a bore to have a lot of guests on one's hands, +without due family support.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>assourdi</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_723" id="Page_723">[Pg 723]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>This little conversation was presently cut short by Mrs. Lamprey's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_724" id="Page_724">[Pg 724]</a></span> +arrival at her destination, a roadside inn where she had an +aunt by marriage.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. Mother got some sleep in the chair beside—beside <i>her</i>, +till four o'clock. Then she lay down, and had a good sleep, lying +down. Didn't you, mother?"</p> + +<p>"You may be easy about me, child. I've done very well."</p> + +<p>"And yourself, Ruth?" By now, Gwen always called Widow +Thrale "Ruth."</p> + +<p>"Who—I? I had quite a long sleep, while mother sat by—by +<i>her</i>." This dreadful difficulty of what to call old Maisie! Her +daughter was always at odds with it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The voice grew articulate. "Oh, my darling, I knew you would +come. I want you close, to tell me...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear!—to tell you what?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to tell me whether one of the things is a dream."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"There are so many, you know, now that they all come back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_725" id="Page_725">[Pg 725]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It was all a dream, I think. Just a mad dream—but then—but +then—did not my Ruth think I was mad?..."</p> + +<p>"But what was it? Tell it to me, now, quietly."</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_726" id="Page_726">[Pg 726]</a></span> +made of it. "I can do these things," she added. "Papa lets me +do what I choose."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_727" id="Page_727">[Pg 727]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"Oh—then you only heard...."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Poor little people!" said Gwen. "How they will feel it! But +I mustn't keep you, doctor."</p> + +<p>And then, after a word or two to Widow Thrale, Dr. Nash +drove off through the snow, now thickening.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_728" id="Page_728">[Pg 728]</a></span> +outside this house, and each looked at the other, and neither said +or thought:—"How like myself!" Was it possible that they were +really <i>more</i> 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 <i>were</i> the +same, past dispute, as soon as she compared them point by point.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I can see the likeness now," said Gwen, thinking it best to talk.</p> + +<p>"Between mother and—my mother?" was Ruth's reply. How +else could she have said it, without beginning to call old Phoebe +her aunt?</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_729" id="Page_729">[Pg 729]</a></span> +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...."</p> + +<p>"I see. And when you look at your—your aunt's face, you +naturally do not look for what she was forty years ago."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>her</i>, +to see me what I am!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Then she was not sure she had not made matters worse. "Oh +dear!" said Widow Thrale, "it is all impossible—<i>impossible</i>! This +was old when I was a child."</p> + +<p>Gwen was not prepared to submit to Time's tyranny. "What +does it matter?" said she intrepidly. "There is no need for +<i>possibility</i>, that I can see. She <i>is</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"She <i>is</i> talking to mother now, I think," said Widow Thrale, +listening. For the voices of the twins came from the bedroom. +"Suppose we go back!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_730" id="Page_730">[Pg 730]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes—and you look at the two faces together, this time."</p> + +<p>"I will look," was the reply, with a shade of doubt in it that +added:—"I may not see the resemblance."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> 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 <i>not</i> to."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_731" id="Page_731">[Pg 731]</a></span> +going; a sort of not very explicable tribute to "auld lang +syne."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>That was how it came about that Gwen found herself alone with +old Maisie that morning.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>say</i> it is. I like you +to say it." She caught Gwen by the arm, speaking low and +quickly, almost whispering.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_732" id="Page_732">[Pg 732]</a></span> +I heard her say so to your sister." Gwen felt it desirable to dwell +on the relationship, when chances occurred.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>then</i>."</p> + +<p>"'Made it like then?'" <a name='TC_18'></a><ins title="Gwenn">Gwen</ins> was not sure she followed this.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" Old Maisie's hand went to her forehead, as though +it stunned her to think.</p> + +<p>"They will tell you when he died, soon, when you have got +more settled. <i>I</i> don't know."</p> + +<p>"He must be dead, because Phoebe is a widow."</p> + +<p>"She is the widow of the husband she married after his death. +That is why her name is Marrable, not ... Cropworthy—was it?"</p> + +<p>"Not Cropworthy—Cropredy. Such a funny name we thought +it.... But then—Phoebe must think...."</p> + +<p>"Think what?"</p> + +<p>"Must think <i>I</i> married again. Because I am Mrs. Prichard."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she does think so. Why are you Mrs. Prichard? +Don't tell me now if it tires you to talk."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"About your husband having been—in prison?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_733" id="Page_733">[Pg 733]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You must have your spectacles and read it yourself. Can +you? Where shall I find them?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Old Maisie had come to the postscript. "What is this at the +end?" said she. "'The tea is stood ready' for me. And for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_734" id="Page_734">[Pg 734]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear! And you are in the Cottage now. And Phoebe is +coming back soon. And Ruth."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXIII" id="CHAPTER_BXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>As he who has godfathered a Catherine Wheel stands at a respectful +distance while it spits and fizzes, so may the story that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_735" id="Page_735">[Pg 735]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Dearest—are you really going to stop till Saturday?"</p> + +<p>"If you think we shan't quarrel. Four whole days and a bit +at each end! <i>I</i> think it's tempting Providence."</p> + +<p>"Why not stop over Sunday, and make an honourable week of +it and no stinting?"</p> + +<p>"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....</p> + +<p>"But. Exactly! It's the insoluble residuum that comes back. +However, you <i>will</i> be here till Friday night."</p> + +<p>"Can't even promise that! I may be sent for."</p> + +<p>"Why?... Oh, I know—the old lady. How is she? Tell me +more about her. Tell me lots about her."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Quite hopeful about her?" Irene repeated. "But if she has +nothing the matter with her, except old age, why be anything +but hopeful?"</p> + +<p>"You would see if you saw her. She looks as if a puff of wind +would blow her away like thistledown."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_736" id="Page_736">[Pg 736]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Centenarian?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 +<i>vice versa</i>, 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 <i>my</i> papa, and <i>I</i> had had to play backgammon with him!</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Adrian replied:—"It <i>was</i> impossible. I see that. But suppose +they <i>had</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_737" id="Page_737">[Pg 737]</a></span> +pain and raking up of old memories, and quite possibly an early +separation by death?"</p> + +<p>"I think not, on the whole. Because, suppose one had died, and +the other had come to know of her death afterwards!"</p> + +<p>"I am supposing the contrary. Suppose both had continued in +ignorance! How then?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Very well!—what next?"</p> + +<p>"What next? Why, of course, suppose we don't stop, but go on! +You often say it is ten to one against it."</p> + +<p>"So it is. I can't say I'm sorry, on the whole."</p> + +<p>"That's neither here nor there. Ten to one against is one to +ten for. Any man on the turf will tell you that."</p> + +<p>"And any Senior Wrangler will confirm it."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then! There we are. Suppose my dear old Mrs. +Picture and Granny Marrable had turned up as ghosts, on the +other side...."</p> + +<p>"I see. You've got me in Hereafter Corner, and you don't +intend to let me out."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>That's</i> simple enough!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be in a hurry! There are complications. If they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_738" id="Page_738">[Pg 738]</a></span> +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....</p> + +<p>"Goose!—they would be sure to know."</p> + +<p>"The only information I have goes to prove the contrary. +When Voltaire's ghost came and spirit-rapped, or whatever you +call it....</p> + +<p>"I know. One turns tables, and it's very silly."</p> + +<p>"... 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."</p> + +<p>Gwen seemed tolerant of Voltaire, as a <i>pourparler</i>. "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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>him</i>? 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."</p> + +<p>"Boswell must have made that story."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well—it was you that doddered away from them, to talk +about Voltaire's bogy. If they <i>didn't</i> know they were ghosts, +what then?"</p> + +<p>"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!..."</p> + +<p>"Now you've apologized, go on! 'Your full-blown disembodied +spirit'....</p> + +<p>"... 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_739" id="Page_739">[Pg 739]</a></span> +to think of, I admit. But so is nearly every concrete form +in which one clothes an imaginary other-worldliness."</p> + +<p>"Why is it disagreeable to think of being able to shake off one's +troubles, and forget all about them. <i>I</i> like it."</p> + +<p>"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 Personæ." He jumped to another +topic. "You know your mamma paid our papa a visit last—last +Thursday, wasn't it?—yes, Thursday!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Was <i>that</i> all?"</p> + +<p>"No. The lady very-old acquaintance had been a Miss Tyrawley, +and had married her riding-master."</p> + +<p>"Was <i>that</i> all?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"All that sounds—very usual! Was there nothing else? That +was very little for such a long visit."</p> + +<p>"How long was the visit?"</p> + +<p>"Much too long for what you've told me. Think of something +else!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_740" id="Page_740">[Pg 740]</a></span> +own phrase—"sacrificing herself on his shrine"? It would be +like calling on her to attest her passion for <i>him</i>. Now a young +lady is at liberty to make any quantity of ardent protestations +<i>off her own bat</i>, 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:—</p> + +<p>"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, <i>coûte que coûte</i>. +She went on, speaking low that nothing should reach the backgammon-players. +"They say it was <i>our</i> fault that old Stephen +shot you.... Well!—it <i>was</i>...."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"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 <a name='TC_19'></a><ins title="mmama">mamma</ins> descend +on your <i>comme-il-faut</i> parent to drum this idea into him, and get +him on her side?"</p> + +<p>"Am I supposed to know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dearest, I wish I <i>did</i> hate you.... Why?—why of +course then it would really <i>be</i> 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."</p> + +<p>Then Adrian said:—"I am conscious of the purity of my own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_741" id="Page_741">[Pg 741]</a></span> +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...."</p> + +<p>"Don't go off to that. I always have such difficulty in keeping +you to the point. How selfish are you, and why?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Never mind them! Go on with how selfish you are."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I only wanted to look at it. Just to see why you shouldn't +know it was mine, as well as the voice."</p> + +<p>"I <i>know</i> I couldn't be mistaken about the voice. I don't <i>think</i> +I could be wrong about the hand, but I don't know that I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Well—now you've got it again! Now go on. Go on to how +selfish you are—that's what I want!"</p> + +<p>"I will endeavour to do so. I hope my imperfect indication +of my view of my own position...."</p> + +<p>"Don't be prosy. It is not fair to expect any girl to keep a +popular lecturer's head in her lap...."</p> + +<p>"I agree—I agree. It was my desire to be strictly practical.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_742" id="Page_742">[Pg 742]</a></span> +I will come to the point. I want to make it perfectly clear that +you <i>are</i> my life...."</p> + +<p>"Don't get too loud!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Goose—suppose we say—or gander!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Well—I'm looking at you!"</p> + +<p>"Am I showing the slightest consideration for you? Am I not +showing the most cynical disregard of your welfare in life?"</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"By allowing you to throw yourself away upon me."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> to allow me, how would you set about it?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>sauve-qui-peut</i>. It was founded on strong personal dislike, +and has lent itself to Composition in the hands of the Old +Masters...."</p> + +<p>"Now I don't know what you are talking about. Answer my +question and don't prevaricate. How would you set about it?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_743" id="Page_743">[Pg 743]</a></span> +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 <i>sehnsucht</i> of the exactly right +quality—<i>premier crû</i>—when her restatement of the case would receive +careful consideration? Rubbish!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>Rem tetigisti acu</i>," 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...."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you said <i>may</i>."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course it's <i>may</i>. 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...."</p> + +<p>"What should you do if I did?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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! <i>Suppose</i> is a game that two can play at."</p> + +<p>"Very proper, and shows you understand the nature of an +hypothesis. What should I do?... What <i>should</i> I do?"</p> + +<p>Gwen offered help to his perplexity. "And suppose that when +<i>you</i> came to see <i>your</i> bargain you had found out your mistake! +Suppose that Arthur's Bridge turned out all an Arabian Night! +Suppose that the ... well—satisfactory <i>personnel</i> your imagination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_744" id="Page_744">[Pg 744]</a></span> +has concocted turned out to be that of a beldam, crone, hag, +or dowdy! How then?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>that</i> nonsense!" After which Gwen and Adrian +were free to go on wherever they left off, if they could find the +place.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"There are so many <i>supposes</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"Don't get excited! Remember we are only pretending."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>the worst</i>—worse +than if <i>you</i> were to die, or change...."</p> + +<p>"I can't see that."</p> + +<p>"Clearly. I should not have the one great resource."</p> + +<p>"What resource?... Oh, I see!—you are working round +to suicide. I thought we should come to that."</p> + +<p>"Naturally, one who is not alive to the purely imaginary evil +of non-existence turns to his <i>felo de se</i> 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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_745" id="Page_745">[Pg 745]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But how very unreasonable of you not to kill yourself!—I +mean in the case of my not—not visualising well...."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>felo de se</i>. Themis is a colossal +Meddlesome Matty with her fingers in every pie."</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> think it's wrong +to kill oneself."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Do you know why I am letting you go on?"</p> + +<p>"Because of my Religious Tone? Because of my Good Taste? +Or why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I sometimes suspect you of being in earnest about +suicide."</p> + +<p>"I am quite in earnest."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then. Now attend to me. I'm going to insist on +your making me a promise."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall have to make it. But I don't know till I hear +it whether I shall promise to keep it."</p> + +<p>"That's included."</p> + +<p>"But no promise to keep my promise to keep it's included."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_746" id="Page_746">[Pg 746]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Not under any circumstances whatever? That seems to me +rather harsh and arbitrary."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Give me your promise."</p> + +<p>"H'm—well!—I'm an amiable, tractable sort of cove.... But +I think I am entitled to one little reservation."</p> + +<p>"It must be a very little one."</p> + +<p>"Anything one gives one's <i>fiancée</i> is returned when she breaks +one off. When you break me off I shall consider the promise +given back—cancelled."</p> + +<p>"Ye-es! Perhaps that <i>is</i> fair, on the whole. Only I think I +deserve a small consideration for allowing it."</p> + +<p>"I can't refuse to hear what it is."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Don't go from the point. Will you give up the little bottle +of Indian poison, or not?"</p> + +<p>"Not. At least, not now! If I hand it to you at the altar, +when you have led me there won't that do?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>Then</i> +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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_747" id="Page_747">[Pg 747]</a></span> +Gwen replied:—"Because you said, 'We are all hoping so'—not +'We hope so.' Can't you see the difference?"</p> + +<p>Anyway, Gwen's guess was an accomplished fact, and it was +no use pretending it was wrong. Said Adrian therefore:—"Yes—there +<i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_748" id="Page_748">[Pg 748]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>that's</i> all <i>right</i>! Now if we drive +over to-morrow, she will probably be up."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_749" id="Page_749">[Pg 749]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>So said Adrian:—"What she wants is real turtle soup and +champagne. <i>I</i> know." Whereupon his father, who was behind +the <i>Times</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_750" id="Page_750">[Pg 750]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>can't</i>!"</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>worse</i>, 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 <i>is</i> bad for her, say how we may! Not that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_751" id="Page_751">[Pg 751]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXIV" id="CHAPTER_BXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_752" id="Page_752">[Pg 752]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"And then that was just as good as me," said Gwen. +"Wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"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.'</p> + +<p>"What am I like?"</p> + +<p>"You are the same all through. You came upstairs to me +in my room—did you not?—where my little Dave and Dolly +were...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—I fetched Dolly."</p> + +<p>"And then you put Dolly down? And I said for shame!—what +a big girl to be carried!"</p> + +<p>"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!'"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_753" id="Page_753">[Pg 753]</a></span> +Unless, when you are better, you like to go back to Sapps Court. +You shall, you know!"</p> + +<p>Another memory attacked old Maisie. "Oh dear," said she, +"I thought our Court was all tumbled down. Was it not?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Is that a gentleman's voice, through the door, talking? It +isn't Dr. Nash. Dr. Nash doesn't laugh like that."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But <i>can</i> he see me?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean <i>see</i>, that way. I meant see to talk to. Some +day he will <i>really</i> see you—with his eyes. We are sure of it, now. +He shall come and sit by you, and talk."</p> + +<p>"Yes—and I may hold his hand. And may I speak to him +about ... about....</p> + +<p>"About his blindness and the accident? Oh dear yes! <i>You</i> +won't <i>see</i> that he's blind, you know."</p> + +<p>"His eyes look like eyes?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Is Lady Gwendolen here in the room still?" said Adrian.</p> + +<p>"She has just gone away, to the other room," said old Maisie. +For Gwen had withdrawn. One at a time was the rule.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_754" id="Page_754">[Pg 754]</a></span></p> + +<p>"May I hold your hand?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But is it a rule?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>have</i> been as fortunate, even as that, before now."</p> + +<p>"But tell me—is that what the doctor says? Or only guessing?"</p> + +<p>"It's what the doctor says, and guessing too. Doctors only +guess. He's guessing."</p> + +<p>"But don't they guess right, oftener than people?"</p> + +<p>"A little oftener. If they didn't, what use would they be?"</p> + +<p>"But you have seen <i>her</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Adrian made the mistake of saying:—"And all the while you +thought your sister dead."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>He</i> did not write that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_755" id="Page_755">[Pg 755]</a></span> +letter to Phoebe. <i>It</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_756" id="Page_756">[Pg 756]</a></span> +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 <a name='TC_20'></a><ins title="differnece">difference</ins> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>my</i> +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>I</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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 +<i>were</i> a corpse," said that gentleman. To which Mr. Torrens replied:—"You +<i>thought</i> I was a corpse, doctor, you know you did!"</p> + +<p>Dr. Nash, being unable to deny it, shifted the responsibility.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_757" id="Page_757">[Pg 757]</a></span> +"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.'"</p> + +<p>"What did he mean by that?" said Gwen.</p> + +<p>"He meant that your ladyship's strong impression that the +body.... Excuse my referring to you, Mr. Torrens, as...."</p> + +<p>"As 'the body'? Not at all! I mean, don't apologize."</p> + +<p>"The—a—subject, say, still retained vitality. No doubt we +<i>might</i> have found out—probably <i>should</i>...."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Gwen hesitated. "I wish she looked a little—thicker," said +she.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"That reminds me!" said Gwen. "We forgot the champagne."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But <i>was</i> it put in the railway carriage?"</p> + +<p>"I meant the railway carriage."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_758" id="Page_758">[Pg 758]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I believe it's in the old Noah's Ark we came here in, all the +while."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>sostenuto</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_759" id="Page_759">[Pg 759]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Of course she will always go back on old times," said Adrian.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_760" id="Page_760">[Pg 760]</a></span> +of her visit to Pensham, and the blame she apportioned to +herself for an imagined neglect afterwards was quite undeserved.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bon-ton</i>, 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 <i>is</i> that? I know it <i>so</i> 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 <i>anciens régimes</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_761" id="Page_761">[Pg 761]</a></span> +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 <i>provenance</i>.</p> + +<p>As to any misgivings about awakening in another world, if any +occurred to Adrian he had but one answer—he had <i>been dead</i>, 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, <i>that</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But after such a prosperous report of her condition, above all,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_762" id="Page_762">[Pg 762]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"She didn't tell me about him."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Adrian!"</p> + +<p>"What, dearest? Anything the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Only the way you put it. It was so odd. 'The horror of +her face'! Just as if you had <i>seen</i> it!" Indeed, Gwen was looking +quite disconcerted and taken aback.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>was</i> only Irene!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't anything, either way, you know."</p> + +<p>"I know. But what was it, that wasn't anything, either way?"</p> + +<p>"It was only an impression. You mustn't attach any weight +to it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_763" id="Page_763">[Pg 763]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you going to tell what it was, or <i>not</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>wasn't</i>."</p> + +<p>"But how—how—how?" cried Gwen, excited. "<i>How</i> did you +know that it wasn't?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Old Granny Marrable, I thought."</p> + +<p>"Yes—but <i>which hair</i>? Which? Which? Which?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Quite wrong! It's the other way round. The Granny's is grey +and old Mrs. Picture's is silvery white."</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i>."</p> + +<p>"Foolish man! There is more in it than that. You <i>saw</i> old +Mrs. Picture. It was no make-up.... Well?" She paused for +his reply.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>The attenuated <i>chaperonage</i> 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 <i>hope</i> we are going to have some +'Ifigenia in Aulide.' Because I <i>should</i> have enjoyed <i>that</i>." Which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_764" id="Page_764">[Pg 764]</a></span> +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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXV" id="CHAPTER_BXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen found herself, to her surprise, committed to an apologetic +tone about old Mrs. Picture's health, and maintaining that she was +<i>really</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_765" id="Page_765">[Pg 765]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_766" id="Page_766">[Pg 766]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, mamma dear, I hope you're satisfied."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>accolade</i> on an unsympathetic +cheek-bone. "What are you referring to?"</p> + +<p>"Why—Adrian not coming till to-morrow, of course. What +did you suppose I meant?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He's a nice old Bart, the Bart. We are great friends. He +likes it. He gets all the kissing for nothing.... What?"</p> + +<p>The Countess may have contemplated some protest against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_767" id="Page_767">[Pg 767]</a></span> +pronounced ratification implied of fatherdom-in-law. She gave it +up, and said:—"I was not going to say anything. Go on!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>retenue</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said her ladyship negligently. "I haven't seen +you since you didn't go to church with me. How <i>is</i> your old +lady?"</p> + +<p>"You don't care, so it doesn't matter. How was Dr. Tuxford +Somers?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You could have seen her quite well, when she was here. Papa +did. Besides, one can show a human interest, without gushing +over."</p> + +<p>"My dear, I hope I am never wanting in human interest. +How is Mrs.... Mrs....?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Prichard?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—how is she? Is she coming back here?"</p> + +<p>"Is it likely? Besides, she can't be moved."</p> + +<p>"Oh—it's as bad as that!"</p> + +<p>"My dear mamma, haven't I told you fifty times?" This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_768" id="Page_768">[Pg 768]</a></span> +not exactly the case; but it passed, in conversation. "The darling +old thing was all but killed by being told...."</p> + +<p>"By being told?... Oh yes, I remember! They were sisters, +in Van Diemen's Land.... But she's better again now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—better. Oh, here's Starfield, and there's papa in his +room. I can hear him. I must go."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> your fellow, isn't he?—no compliments +necessary?"</p> + +<p>"He's my fellow, General, to you and all my <i>dear</i> friends. You +saw him in July, I think?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"His <i>great</i>-grandmother, General? You must mean his grandmother."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Was it serious, General?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, General, do tell me what came of it. Did you find the +parson?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"And that young thing was Adrian's <i>great</i>-grandmother!" said +Gwen. Then she felt bound in honour to add:—"She was old +enough to know better."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Your <i>what</i>?" 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."</p> + +<p>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, <i>more suo</i>. 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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"No—do be serious! Try to think what it would have felt like. +To oblige me!"</p> + +<p>The General tried. But without much success. For he only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span> +shook his head over an undisclosed result. He could, however, +be serious. "I suppose," said he, "the twinnery—twinship—whatever +you call it...."</p> + +<p>"Isn't <i>de rigueur</i>?" Gwen struck in. "Of course it isn't! Any +real fraternity would do as well. Now try!"</p> + +<p>"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?..."</p> + +<p>"Can't you manage a grown-up brother?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Said Gwen:—"But he used to lick you, so you couldn't love +him."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But Phil isn't a fair instance. Can't you do any better than +Phil? Never mind Cain and Abel."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What should you do? That's what I want to know.... +Come now, confess—it's not so easy to say, after all!"</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> should know <i>him</i>, +though I expect I should think him jolly small."</p> + +<p>"But he wouldn't know you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But suppose it wasn't like the Day of Judgement at all, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg 771]</a></span> +real, like my old ladies. Suppose he was another superannuated old +cock! My old ladies are superannuated old hens, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. But I understand from what you tell me that +they <i>have</i> come to know one another again. They talk together +and recall old times? Isn't that so?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear yes, and each knows the other quite well by now. +Only I believe they are still quite bewildered about what has +happened."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes—but I want you not to draw inferences from <i>them</i>, but to +say what you would feel ... of yourself ... out of your own +head."</p> + +<p>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 <i>escapade</i> +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!"</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"Very good word, papa! Quite suits the case."</p> + +<p>"... recohesion of these two old ladies. When we consider +how very early in life they took their meals together...." The +General murmured <i>sotto voce</i>:—"Before they were born." "... we +must admit that their case is absolutely exceptional—absolutely!"</p> + +<p>"You mean," said Gwen, "that if they had not been twins they +would not have swallowed each other down, as they have done."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said the Earl.</p> + +<p>"And yet," Gwen continued, "they never remember things as +they happened. In fact, they are still in a sort of fog about what +<i>has</i> 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.... <i>Why</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The Earl did, so he did not listen. He employed himself thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_772" id="Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> +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...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I object?" said the Earl.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Her father continued:—"Each of them has dreamed the other +was dead, for half a century. <i>Now</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Husbands and families are hard nuts to crack," said the General. +"Can't be forgotten or disbelieved in, try 'em any side up!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>in esse</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>day</i>, 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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Whether who meant you?" said both, sharing the question.</p> + +<p>"Nothing.... Very likely I was mistaken.... No—it was +this. You saw that rather <i>piquante</i>, dry young woman? You +know which I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Danced with that good-looking young groom?..."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I heard that. It was a letter." Mr. Pellew said this.</p> + +<p>"Had you any impression about it?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it was some joke among the servants."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>They turned with her, and retraced their steps, remarking that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span> +no doubt it was nothing, but these things made one uncomfortable. +Much better to find out, and know!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>The waiting-woman had a blank stare in preparation, to prevaricate +with, but had to give up using it. "Oh yes—there <i>was</i> a +<i>note</i>," she said. "It was only a note. Mrs. Lamprey brought it +from Dr. Nash. He wished your ladyship to have it to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I will have it at once, thank you! Have you got it there? +Just get it, and bring it to me at once."</p> + +<p>"I hope your ladyship does not blame me. I was only obeying +orders."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>really</i> truthful!</p> + +<p>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 <i>fiancée</i> stood waiting to share the +letter's contents, if permitted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_775" id="Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span> +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 <i>that</i>"—for the Earl had +made the syllable <i>dead</i> with his lips, inaudibly—"but an alarm +of some sort. The doctor's housekeeper there brought the +letter."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Gwen, "on receipt of the letter."</p> + +<p>The Countess said, as one whose patience is sorely and undeservedly +tried:—"What <i>is</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>dementia</i>—to her husband.</p> + +<p>"I think," said he, "if you will excuse me, my dear, I will speak +to this woman myself."</p> + +<p>Her ladyship demurred. "Isn't it almost making the matter +of too much importance?" said she, looking at her finger-diamonds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg 776]</a></span> +as though to protest against any idea that she was giving her +mind to the case of <i>dementia</i>.</p> + +<p>"I think not, my dear," said the Earl, meekly but firmly, and +followed his daughter out of the room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXVI" id="CHAPTER_BXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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. <i>THEIR</i> DAUGHTER</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>sine qua non</i> +of her departure, shone on a highway that had seen little traffic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg 777]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>The yew-tree in the little churchyard at Chorlton had still some +<i>coagulum</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Never mind me! You are sure she <i>is</i> better? Is that Dr. +Nash's voice?" Yes—it was. He had been there since eleven, +and was just going.</p> + +<p>Ruth went in to tell Granny Marrable it was her ladyship, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"You mean that she isn't out of the wood?"</p> + +<p>"That kind of thing. She <i>isn't</i>."</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well, but—<i>what</i>?" For the doctor had paused at some obstacle, +unexplained.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>her</i>. She is not to know."</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable was audible in the passage without. "Can't +you tell me what <i>sort</i> of thing?" said Gwen, under her voice.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Was she asking for me? Then I'm so glad you sent for me. I +would not have been away on any account."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg 779]</a></span> +—"Dr. Nash has just told me there was some letter. But +he did not know what was in it."</p> + +<p>"He was not to know. But <i>you</i> were, my lady. This is it. Can +you see with the candle?"</p> + +<p>Gwen took the letter, and turned to the signature before reading +it. It was from "Ralph Thornton Daverill, <i>alias</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my lady, he saw the envelope. Perhaps your ladyship +knows of 'Aunt Maria.' She is little Dave's aunt, in London."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—I know 'Aunt M'riar.' I know her, herself. Why +does she write her name on a letter from this man?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know. There is all we know, in the letter, as you +have it."</p> + +<p>"Whom do you suppose Ralph Thornton Daverill to be, +Granny?"</p> + +<p>"I know, unhappily. He is her son."</p> + +<p>"<i>The</i> son.... Oh yes—I knew of him. She has told me of +<i>him</i>. 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:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Mother</span>—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:—</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Ralph Thornton Daverill</span>, <i>alias</i> <span class="smcap">Rix</span>."<br /> +<br /> +"P.S.—You can do it—or <i>ask a kind friend</i> to help."<br /> +</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_780" id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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 <i>that</i> 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 <i>Star</i>.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>him</i>. Didn't he come +to hunt her up?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And my dear old Mrs. Picture? Oh, Granny—what a letter for +her to get!"</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"Could she understand the letter. <i>I</i> couldn't, at first."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Will that...?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Some might call him good-looking," was the cautious answer.</p> + +<p>"You think <i>I</i> shouldn't, evidently?" Evidently.</p> + +<p>"It is not the face itself. It is in the shape of it. A twist. I +took him for mad, but he is not."</p> + +<p>"How came you to know him for your sister's son?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_781" id="Page_781">[Pg 781]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I see. It was before. But you talk about him to her now?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>could</i> hear her breathe, by listening. It +covered any possible alarm about the nature of so moveless a sleep, +without granting discussion of the point.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_782" id="Page_782">[Pg 782]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>modiste's</i> 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 <i>dramatis personæ</i> 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.</p> + +<p>And as for that other affair, what <i>did</i> she really recollect of it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_783" id="Page_783">[Pg 783]</a></span> +Well—she could remember that tight armhole, certainly, and was +far from sure she should ever forget it.</p> + +<p>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 <i>dementia</i>, was not necessarily repeated to Mrs. +Thrale, and would have been a dead letter in the columns of the +<i>Lancet</i> later on. Certainly the chances of an <i>éclaircissement</i> 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?</p> + +<p>That <i>might</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_784" id="Page_784">[Pg 784]</a></span> +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....</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_785" id="Page_785">[Pg 785]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Old Maisie kept silence resolutely about the letter until Ruth +had gone back; which she only did unwillingly, as concession to +a <i>force majeure</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_786" id="Page_786">[Pg 786]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>sneering</i>. You know what that means? He is not in +earnest."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—I know. I am afraid you are right. But is it <i>himself</i>?" +That idea of the devil again!</p> + +<p>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 <i>something</i>. She +questioned her gently. How did she suppose Aunt Maria came to +know anything of her son? She had to wait for the answer.</p> + +<p>It came in time. "Not Aunt M'riar. Someone else."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Her anxiety kept the irresistible powers of Sleep at bay for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_787" id="Page_787">[Pg 787]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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>I</i> don't care!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_788" id="Page_788">[Pg 788]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Gwen's attention was caught. "What sort of things?" said she. +"Yes—some more coffee, please, and a great deal of sugar!"</p> + +<p>"Strange, odd things. Stories, about Van Diemen's Land."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"They were in her story. It made my flesh creep to hear so outlandish +a tale. And she told your ladyship?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"She told me something like that."</p> + +<p>"And what did you say to her?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why not? That was all right." Gwen could not understand +why Scripture should be inadmissible, or prohibited.</p> + +<p>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 <i>things</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_789" id="Page_789">[Pg 789]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"I think, my lady, she has that idea."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_790" id="Page_790">[Pg 790]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How long has your mother been awake?" asked Gwen under +no drawback about the designation.</p> + +<p>"Quite half an hour. I told her your ladyship was having a +little breakfast. She always asks for you."</p> + +<p>"I heard that she was talking, through the door. What has +she been talking about?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What about her annuity? I'm curious about that. I wonder +who sends it to her?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"It's a cheque, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"She was put about to think how they would be told, if she +died."</p> + +<p>"How would they be told?... I can't think." Gwen asked +herself the question, and parried it.</p> + +<p>Ruth Thrale escaped in a commonplace. The dear children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_791" id="Page_791">[Pg 791]</a></span> +would have to be told, but they would not grieve for long. Children +didn't.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No!" said Gwen. "Carried her downstairs into a carriage.... +Oh no!—I know what she meant. It was my cousin +Percy, not the fireman."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen turned pale. "You need not be afraid to tell me," she +said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Meaning?" said Gwen interrogatively.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But, then, why?..."</p> + +<p>"Why be frightened? Listen, and I'll tell you.... We gain +nothing, you know, by not looking the facts in the face."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_792" id="Page_792">[Pg 792]</a></span> +"When did the change show itself?" The doctor took the +image in her mind for granted, successfully.</p> + +<p>Then Gwen cast about to find an answer. "I think it must have +been.... said she, and stopped.</p> + +<p>"When did you <i>see</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"When I came back, first. After I told her, still more."</p> + +<p>"After that?"</p> + +<p>"I thought she was improving, every day."</p> + +<p>"I thought you thought so."</p> + +<p>"And you mean that it was a mistake. Oh dear!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Old age, accelerated by mental perturbation."</p> + +<p>"Can you at all guess when?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Shall we tell them?"</p> + +<p>"I say no. <i>No.</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"You are sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"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!..."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Do <i>you</i> 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 +<i>their</i> daughter!"</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_793" id="Page_793">[Pg 793]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXVII" id="CHAPTER_BXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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 <i>self</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_794" id="Page_794">[Pg 794]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He's to come here," said she. "Him and Dolly. And then +they can feed the cocks and hens."</p> + +<p>"When I'm up," said old Maisie. She had no misgivings.</p> + +<p>"When you're up."</p> + +<p>"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull?"</p> + +<p>"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull."</p> + +<p>"But not Dolly, because she would be frightened."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_795" id="Page_795">[Pg 795]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is the letter that has done it. Oh, <i>how</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"I fear what your ladyship says is true."</p> + +<p>"But at least we know what it is that has done it. That is +<i>something</i>." 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!"</p> + +<p>"It will be as God wills, my lady. If my dear sister is again to +be taken from me...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Old Phoebe let the interruption pass. "If Maisie dies.... +said she, and stopped.</p> + +<p>"If Maisie dies...?" said Gwen, and waited.</p> + +<p>The answer came, but not at once. "It is the second time."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I quite understand, Granny," said Gwen gently. +Which was meant, that this made it easier to bear, or harder?</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_796" id="Page_796">[Pg 796]</a></span> +to my child, who will lose her mother.... Hush, she is coming +back!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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, <i>sine die</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_797" id="Page_797">[Pg 797]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>should</i> a mulberry-tree +be called Old Jasper? Well—why should anything be +called anything?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!" Gwen struck in. "<i>I</i> know. When you were here +at the cottage, before.... she hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Yes, before," said old Mrs. Picture. "When she showed me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_798" id="Page_798">[Pg 798]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"What?—I wonder!" said Granny Marrable, and waited.</p> + +<p>Gwen guessed. "You want to see the old model again? Is that +it?" Yes, she did. That was a good guess.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>She</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The doctor admitted that she <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"What does that 'but' mean, doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Means that you mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know +that the mildest stimulant means reaction."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I ever thought about it, but I'll take your +word for it."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"I know. She has nothing the matter with her."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose she has had so much."</p> + +<p>"Well—don't go beyond it. There is always the possibility—the +bare possibility, even at eighty—of a definite revival. +But...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_799" id="Page_799">[Pg 799]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>But</i>, again, doctor!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Why do you say 'to see me through'? Why not her sister +and daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Because they <i>are</i> 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But +<a name='TC_21'></a><ins title="Phooebe">Phoebe</ins> is so kind, to take every little word I say."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_800" id="Page_800">[Pg 800]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wonder now," she said vaguely. "Was it only Dave?"</p> + +<p>"What about Dave, dear? What did Dave say?"</p> + +<p>"Was it Dave who said it went round? I had the thought it +went round. Which was it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phoebe darling," said old Maisie, "we can have it mended."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>is</i> Sunday?" No—certainly +not at eight o'clock in the evening.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_801" id="Page_801">[Pg 801]</a></span> +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!..."</p> + +<p>"What, darling?"</p> + +<p>"I was not mad.... You were not here, or you would have +known me.... Would you not?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"But I was not mad," Maisie continued. "Only I must have +frightened my Ruth.... I went up <i>there</i> once, Phoebe. Barnaby +took me up one day...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Up <i>there</i>—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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_802" id="Page_802">[Pg 802]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Gwen was not sorry to be left for a while to her own reflections +before the smouldering red log on the kitchen fire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_803" id="Page_803">[Pg 803]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_804" id="Page_804">[Pg 804]</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>They</i> did not know they were in the Bible.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_805" id="Page_805">[Pg 805]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I hope she is still asleep, my lady," said old Phoebe.</p> + +<p>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:—"<i>Now</i> I can tell you—my dear!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That's all right. I've got the letter, to show to my father."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—do show it—to the old gentleman I saw. He is your +father...."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"There it is!" said Gwen. "Soon found!... Now, am I to +see how much money you've got in it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, please!" It was an old knitted silk purse with a slip-ring. +In the early fifties the leather purses with snaps, that leak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_806" id="Page_806">[Pg 806]</a></span> +at the seam and let half-sovereigns through before you find it out, +were rare in the pockets of old people.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear! I want—I want....</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And the rest—shall I keep it?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me—my son Ralph's letter ... Did it not say that he +wanted money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it did. But I'm going to see about that—I and my +father."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_807" id="Page_807">[Pg 807]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_BXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Maisie has talked many times of Australia, my lady. She +talks on, so I could not repeat much."</p> + +<p>"You mean she jumps from one thing to another?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you think she is really alive to her husband's villainy? +<i>I</i> sometimes think she forgets all about it."</p> + +<p>"Please God she does so! 'Tis better for her she should. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_808" id="Page_808">[Pg 808]</a></span> +would have felt happier if she could have known me, and Ruth, +and never had the tale of his wickedness."</p> + +<p>"But that was impossible, Granny. She <i>must</i> have known, in +the end."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"About the farm and the convicts? Do recollect some of the +things she told you!"</p> + +<p>"There was a creature they hunt with dogs, that leaps on its +hind-legs to any height."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—the Kangaroo."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>his</i> identity as it had appeared +to her during her thirty years of widowhood, without losing the +new-found consciousness of Phoebe's.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_809" id="Page_809">[Pg 809]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>It was to fend this off, in such a pause, that she said:—"You +are both just eighty this year, Granny, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My lady, have you felt her feet?"</p> + +<p>"No—are they so cold?"</p> + +<p>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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_810" id="Page_810">[Pg 810]</a></span></p> + +<p>But old Phoebe only shook her head. <i>She</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?..."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_811" id="Page_811">[Pg 811]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!..."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_812" id="Page_812">[Pg 812]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"To promise you? Is it something I can do?"</p> + +<p>The answer came with an extraordinary clearness. "That you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_813" id="Page_813">[Pg 813]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I want you ... to save him from them. I want you to tell +him ... to tell him...."</p> + +<p>"Something from you?—yes!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Then you will tell him for me, and save him—save him from +the officers?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_814" id="Page_814">[Pg 814]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>had</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_815" id="Page_815">[Pg 815]</a></span> +so much. However, Ruth saw no change in the appearance of +the still, white figure on the bed.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not intended to hold good</i> if +this old lady is <i>actually dying</i>, but <i>for anything short of that</i> it +does appear to me that your behaviour is <i>at least inconsiderate</i>. +Do let me entreat you to fix <i>a reasonable hour</i> for your return +to-morrow, if you <i>adhere to your resolution</i> not to come to-night. +Pray tell Kettering when he is to call for you <i>before twelve to-morrow, +so that you may be in time for lunch</i>." This last was a +three-lined whip.</p> + +<p>In order that Gwen should not suppose that there had been too +flattering a <i>hiatus</i> owing to her absence, the letter wound up:—"We +have had some <i>very nice music</i>. It turns out that Emily +and Fanny sing '<i>I would that my love</i>' 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 <i>ingénues</i>, 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!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_816" id="Page_816">[Pg 816]</a></span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The minute my daughter is strong enough to bring it, mother +dear."</p> + +<p>"She must take her time.... Is there not a little boy already?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I will bring him to-morrow, mother. He's too heavy to carry, +but John will drive us."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_817" id="Page_817">[Pg 817]</a></span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My dear—my Lady—I am so afraid...."</p> + +<p>"Afraid of what, Mrs. Picture dear? Don't be frightened! +We are all here."</p> + +<p>"Afraid about my son—afraid Ruth may know...."</p> + +<p>"No one has told Ruth of him, dear. No one shall tell Ruth. +I promise you."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"The same as what, dear? Try and tell me!"</p> + +<p>"The same as the son that came with me in the ship. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_818" id="Page_818">[Pg 818]</a></span> +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!..."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Only in where?" said Gwen. "Where is Dolly frightened of +sheep?"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But the mill was as Scylla to their Charybidis. "Phoebe dearest!" +said old Maisie suddenly, "when did father die?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_819" id="Page_819">[Pg 819]</a></span></p> + +<p>"When did our father die?" said Granny Marrable. "Nigh +upon forty-six years ago. Yes—forty-six."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>how</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Is it all true?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_820" id="Page_820">[Pg 820]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is there anything you want me to do for you?" For Gwen +thought she was trying to say more. "It is about someone. +Who?"</p> + +<p>"Susan Burr...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—you want me to give her some message?"</p> + +<p>"Susan ... to have my furniture ... for her own."</p> + +<p>"Yes—I will see to that.... And—and what?"</p> + +<p>"Kiss Dave and Dolly for me."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Granny Marrable followed her. She had something to say.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_821" id="Page_821">[Pg 821]</a></span> +Mrs. Picture's she could almost identify by touch. "We have +lost her," she repeated, "and you might have had her for so +long!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_822" id="Page_822">[Pg 822]</a></span> +her preconceptions, but no doubt it was all right. Ruth would +know.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—Mrs. Prichard is here, but you can't see her now. What +do you want with Mrs. Prichard? Who are you?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_823" id="Page_823">[Pg 823]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Where have you got the old woman?" said he.</p> + +<p>"First tell me what you want with her."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>re</i>-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 <i>you</i>, allowance made for toggery."</p> + +<p>Gwen merely lifted her eyebrows. But seeing his offensive eyes +waiting, she conceded:—"Possibly not," and remained silent.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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, <i>drawn</i> her:—"What were you doing +at Mr. Wardle's?"</p> + +<p>"Ah—what was I a-doing at Moses Wardle's? I suppose you +know what <i>he</i> was? Or maybe you don't?"</p> + +<p>"What was he?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>scrapper</i>?" said he.</p> + +<p>"I don't. What did he scrap?" She felt that Uncle Mo did +it honourably, whatever it was.</p> + +<p>"He was one of the crack heavyweights, in my time."</p> + +<p>"I know what that means. I should recommend you not to +show yourself at his house, unless...."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_824" id="Page_824">[Pg 824]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"On a visit to my wife."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"Polly Daverill's my wife—my lawful wife! That's more than +my father could say of my mother."</p> + +<p>"I know that you are lying, but I do not care why. Do you +want to see your mother?"</p> + +<p>"If sootable and convenient. No great hurry!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"A man'll kill <i>him</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"You can come in, quietly."</p> + +<p>"Is she having a snooze?"</p> + +<p>"You will not wake her."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Go in. You will find your mother." Gwen took back the +dog's chain from the table-leg, and the low thunder died down.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Gwen did not catch the convict's exclamation at sight of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_825" id="Page_825">[Pg 825]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Are you satisfied?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"A man with a limp? He came here and went away. He +has only just gone."</p> + +<p>"Which way?"</p> + +<p>"He went away in that direction...."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Another trot sounded from the opposite direction. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_826" id="Page_826">[Pg 826]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>It was the only time she ever saw that brother, and she never +knew it was he.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_BXXIX" id="CHAPTER_BXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<blockquote><p>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</p></blockquote> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_827" id="Page_827">[Pg 827]</a></span> +last day has come, the linkboys don't care whether it has or not, +and enjoy themselves intensely.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>ore rotundissimo</i>, to do full justice to so +large an amount.</p> + +<p>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. <i>The</i> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Dog Found</i> large on +a sheet of paper, and ask Miss Hawkins to put it up in her window +for to find the owner."</p> + +<p>"Wot's the dog?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Michael was proud to show his skill as a penman, and with +his aunt's assistance composed an intelligible announcement that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_828" id="Page_828">[Pg 828]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"But there now, Micky," said the old charwoman. "He +hasn't <i>got</i> no collar!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Not you, Arnty! Don't you say anything's wrote. Just you +ask him what, and cotch him out!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_829" id="Page_829">[Pg 829]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Old Mo, sure enough. Yes, there's old Mo. But <i>he</i> won't +be there. He'll be swiping, round at The Sun. I can reckon <i>him</i> +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!"</p> + +<p>"I got the idea the officers would look to catch you there. +I <i>did</i>, Wix."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"There's no one there—only old Nixon."</p> + +<p>"Who's he talking to?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody. Empty space!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>faussure</i>, +till it supplied Mr. Wix with a simile for the fog, ten minutes +since.</p> + +<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_830" id="Page_830">[Pg 830]</a></span> +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 <i>douceurs</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Quite as like as not. That don't commit me to nothing, +neither way. Spit it out, guv'nor!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Knew Aunt M'riar afore ever you did."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"The widder two pair up at Number Seven? What hooks?"</p> + +<p>"She's slipped her wind, handed in her chips."</p> + +<p>"Mean she's dead? Carn't you say so, mister?"</p> + +<p>"Sharp boy! That's what <i>she</i> is. Dead."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"<i>She'll</i> know, fast enough! Say I told you. Say who I am. +<i>She'll</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_831" id="Page_831">[Pg 831]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"She's got her lines to show"—So the lady had been saying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_832" id="Page_832">[Pg 832]</a></span> +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. +<i>You</i> can do it, Wix." She seemed to have a strong faith in the +convict's cunning.</p> + +<p>He appeared to ponder over it, saying finally:—"Right you are, +Juliar! I see my way."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Tear it up—burn it. That'll quiet <i>her</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_833" id="Page_833">[Pg 833]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"So I <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Whereabouts have you been to, Micky?" said his mother +conciliatorily, to soothe her son's proud independent spirit.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ragstroar stopped scraping the brown outer skin off a +very large potato, and looked reproachfully at Micky. "You've +never said nothing of <i>that</i>," said she.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_834" id="Page_834">[Pg 834]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then how can you ever expect anyone to know unless you +say?" She went on peeling.</p> + +<p>"Who's ever said I expected anyone to know?" But in +spite of his controversial method, he did <i>not</i> go away to give +this message; and evidently wanted a helping hand, or at least +sympathy.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>What saved the situation was that Micky <i>did</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Sakes alive! They was expecting her back."</p> + +<p>"Well—she's dead, like I tell you!"</p> + +<p>"For sure?"</p> + +<p>"That's what her son says. If <i>he</i> don't know, nobody don't."</p> + +<p>"Was it him told you? I never heard tell she had a son—not +Mrs. Prichard."</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Whatever shall you say to Mrs. Wardle?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_835" id="Page_835">[Pg 835]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>know</i> she was eighty"—and +her complete collapse over:—"It's the children I'm thinking of! +Our children, Mo, our children!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_836" id="Page_836">[Pg 836]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're sure you got the right of it, Michael," said Uncle Mo. +"Tell it us all over again from the beginning."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"That's how I took it from him," said Micky.</p> + +<p>"Didn't he say who her son was?" Aunt M'riar persisted, with +unflinching simplicity.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How do you make sure of that, young master?"</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That's the whole tale, then?" said Uncle Mo, after reflection.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_837" id="Page_837">[Pg 837]</a></span> +"Onlest you can call to mind something you've forgot, Master +Micky."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar were alone with the shadow of +their trouble, and the knowledge that the children must be told.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mo—Mo! I haven't the heart—I haven't the heart to +do it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Is Susan Burr upstairs with them?"</p> + +<p>"No—she's gone out to Yardley's for some thread. She's all +right. She's walking a lot better."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_838" id="Page_838">[Pg 838]</a></span> +the first to draw aside the veil that still sheltered those two babies' +lives from the sight of the face of Death.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Did he understand?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"How should he know, more than we?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I see what he was driving at. And you think he went."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_839" id="Page_839">[Pg 839]</a></span> +Yes—I did! Just after Mr. Rowe came round that time, asking +inquiries.... I <i>am</i> his wife, Mo—nothing can't alter it."</p> + +<p>"I ain't blaming you, old girl."</p> + +<p>"Well—it was then he said he'd go to Chorlton again. And +he's been."</p> + +<p>Silence again, and the sound of the children above. Then a +footstep without, recognised as Susan Burr's by its limp.</p> + +<p>"She'll have to be told, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "We've never +had a thought for poor Susan."</p> + +<p>A commonplace face came white as ashes from the fog without, +and a suffocating voice, gasping against sobs. "Oh, M'riar!—Oh, +Mr. Wardle!—<i>Is</i> it true she's gone?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The three were standing, some short while later, at the stairfoot, +each looking at the other. Which was to go first?</p> + +<p>Aunt M'riar made a hesitating suggestion. "Supposin' you +was to step up first, and look back to say...!"</p> + +<p>"That's one idear," said Uncle Mo. "Suppose you do!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Dolly met this with a firm, though gentle, prohibition. "No, +you <i>s'arn't</i>. You <i>is</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_840" id="Page_840">[Pg 840]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Dolly said again:—"No, you sarn't!" and went on with the +arrangements. "You take <i>tite</i> 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 <i>intransigeant</i> and troublesome; that is to say, their representative +the Cat was.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>am</i>!"</p> + +<p>Dolly shook a mass of rough gold that cried aloud for a comb, +and said with sweet gravity:—"You tarn't!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Dave's indignation at this statement made him +shout. "Why carn't oy, same as another boy?"</p> + +<p>"Because you're Gwanny Mawwowbone, all ve time. You +tarn't <i>help</i> it." Dolly's solemn nods, and a pathos that seemed +to grieve over the inevitable, left Dave speechless, struggling in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_841" id="Page_841">[Pg 841]</a></span> +vain against the identity he had so rashly undertaken to assume.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>It was confirmed by Dave's speech from the window, unseen. +"You <i>ain't</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Then Dolly's voice, immovable in conviction, sweet and clear in +correction of mere error:—"I <i>is</i> Mrs. Spicture, and when she +comes she'll <i>say</i> I was Mrs. Spicture. She'll set in her chair wiv +scushions, and <i>say</i> I was Mrs. Spicture."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>could</i> not break through the panoply of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_842" id="Page_842">[Pg 842]</a></span> +children's ignorance of Death, there in the very home of the +departed, in the face of every harbinger of her return.</p> + +<p>"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>I'll</i> 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."</p> + +<p>But Uncle Mo was not to have the telling of the children.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_843" id="Page_843">[Pg 843]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Good-night's plenty, Mo; you're coming back."</p> + +<p>"Ay, surely! What did I say? Good-bye? Good-night, I +should have made it." But he <i>had</i> said "Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Seeing lights and hearing voices in at Ragstroar's, he turned +in for a chat, more particularly for a repetition of Micky's tale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_844" id="Page_844">[Pg 844]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This was within an hour of Mo's good-night, or good-bye, to +M'riar at his own doorway.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_845" id="Page_845">[Pg 845]</a></span> +see no one—advanced into the room, still seeing no one—and +started suddenly forward as the door swung to behind her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Can't foller that. Say it again!"</p> + +<p>"They <i>had</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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 <a name='TC_22'></a><ins title="spech">speech</ins>. "What the Hell," he repeated, "is +the meaning of <i>this</i>?" He read it in a vicious undertone, biting +off each word savagely and throwing it at her.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Read it yourself," he retorted, and threw the letter across +the table.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Then how to God Almighty did it come as it is? Answer +me to that, Polly Daverill."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_846" id="Page_846">[Pg 846]</a></span> +made the words according. I can't say no other, if I was to die +for it."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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...."</p> + +<p>He interrupted her roughly. "Got the cursed thing there? +<i>Where</i> did you take it from?... Oh—<i>that's</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I put it in its invellop, Daverill, and not a soul see inside that +letter from me till you...."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Only young Micky Ragstroar...."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>He</i> delivered +your letter all right, after they'd run their eyes over it. I'll remember +<i>him</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_847" id="Page_847">[Pg 847]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You've got 'em to show.... Ah! But I shouldn't show +'em, if I were you."</p> + +<p>"Am I likely?"</p> + +<p>"That's not what I was driving at."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you, Polly, my angel? Shall I tell you, respectable +married woman?"</p> + +<p>"Don't werrit me, Daverill. I don't deserve it of you!"</p> + +<p>"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>I</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?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_848" id="Page_848">[Pg 848]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Daverill, how can you say that? It's spelt right."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>She instantly restored it, saying:—"Only look with your eyes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_849" id="Page_849">[Pg 849]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?..."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Half a bean, six bob, and a mag." He picked up and pocketed +the sixteen shillings and a halfpenny, so described.</p> + +<p>"Now you <i>will</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Some o' these days," was all his answer, imperturbably. +"There's your kid squealing. Time I was off.... What's +that?"</p> + +<p>Was it a new terror, or a thing to thank God for? Uncle Mo's +big voice at the end of the court.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_850" id="Page_850">[Pg 850]</a></span> +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 <i>off</i> him—leave +<i>hold</i>!" His big voice echoed down the Court, resonant with sudden +terror on her behalf.</p> + +<p>But her ears were deaf to any voice but that of her heart, crying +almost audibly:—"Save <i>him</i>! 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_851" id="Page_851">[Pg 851]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>One appeared, out of space. Things happen so, in events of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_852" id="Page_852">[Pg 852]</a></span> +sort, in London. No—she is not to be lifted about, till he sees +what harm's done. Keep your hands off, all!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>him</i>," 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Am oy to toyk it up to her now this very minute?" said Dave.</p> + +<p>"Now this very minute!" said Uncle Mo. And Dave rushed off +to fulfil his mission.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p>THE END<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_853" id="Page_853">[Pg 853]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_BELATED_PENDRIFT" id="A_BELATED_PENDRIFT"></a>A BELATED PENDRIFT</h2> + + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?'"</p> + +<p>"What would you have it mean?" said the lady.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Rather!" said the gentleman, enjoying his first whiff.</p> + +<p>"Well—it was just about then. A little after the accident—don't +you remember?—the house that tumbled down?"</p> + +<p>"I remember all about it. The old lady I carried upstairs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_854" id="Page_854">[Pg 854]</a></span> +Well—didn't you believe <i>then</i> it was all up with Sir Adrian's eyesight? +<i>I</i> did."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The gentleman said:—"H'm!"</p> + +<p>"Well!" said the lady convincingly. "All I say is—see how +well his eyes are now!"</p> + +<p>The gentleman seemed only half convinced, at best. "There +was something <i>rum</i> about it," said he. "You'll admit that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we make it 'a little singular!' I've no objection."</p> + +<p>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 <i>would</i> have, under the circumstances. +Why don't you speak and agree with me, or contradict +me, instead of puffing?"</p> + +<p>"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....</p> + +<p>"And you have no excuse for not doing so. For I am sure that +what I did say was as clear as daylight."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You never said he said that!"</p> + +<p>"Because he didn't. He only cautioned me particularly against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_855" id="Page_855">[Pg 855]</a></span> +believing the rubbish that got into the newspapers. I am sure +that if he had said anything <i>then</i> about recovery, I should remember +it now."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you would."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then said the lady:—"It seems that it comes to the same thing, +whichever way we put it. Something happened."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That that sort of flash-in-the-pan he had ... when he saw the +bust, you know....</p> + +<p>"I know. Septimius Severus."</p> + +<p>"... 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."</p> + +<p>"I know. The time you spilt the coffee over my poplinette."</p> + +<p>"I don't deny it. Well—what was it you meant to say?"</p> + +<p>"What about?... Oh, I know—the Septimius Severus business! +Nothing came of it. I mean it never happened again."</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_856" id="Page_856">[Pg 856]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Never mind the Koodoo. Go on about Gwen and the blind +story. You know we both thought she <i>was</i> 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 <i>trousseau</i>. Then the Earl said that to you about the +six months' trial."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>may</i> 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 <i>had</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"And nothing else?"</p> + +<p>"Only that he thought on the whole he had better go with her. +Can't recall another word, 'pon my honour!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>We</i> thought it was the Hapsburg."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_857" id="Page_857">[Pg 857]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To what?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"That is because you are as paradoxical as he is. All men are. +But you might be sensible for once, and talk reasonably."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You must recollect it for yourself," said the lady, with some +severity. "<i>I</i> certainly cannot help you."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I shall, if you explain it more clearly," said his wife, +with civility and forbearance, both of the controversial variety.</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"That was the tale."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Seventeen years! Come—I say!"</p> + +<p>"Cecily is sixteen in August."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_858" id="Page_858">[Pg 858]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well—yes—well!—I suppose she is. I say, Con, that's a queer +thing to think of!"</p> + +<p>"What is?"</p> + +<p>"That we should have a girl of sixteen!"</p> + +<p>"What can you expect?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"What the dooce shall we do with her, then?"</p> + +<p>"All parents," said the lady, somewhat didactically, "are similarly +situated, and have identical responsibilities."</p> + +<p>"Yes—but it's gettin' serious. I want her to stop a little girl."</p> + +<p>"Fathers do. But we need not begin to fuss about her yet, thank +Heaven!"</p> + +<p>"'Spose not. I say, I wonder what's become of those two young +monkeys?"</p> + +<p>"Now, you needn't begin to fidget about <i>them</i>. They can't fall +into the canal."</p> + +<p>"They might lose sight of each other, and go huntin' about."</p> + +<p>"Well—suppose they do! It won't hurt you. But <i>they</i> won't +lose sight of one another."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh well—I suppose it's all right. You're responsible, you +know. <i>You</i> manage these things."</p> + +<p>"My dear!—how can you be so ridiculous? See how young she +is. Besides, he's known her from childhood."</p> + +<p>The story does not take upon itself to interpret any portion whatever +of this conversation. It merely records it.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>protégé</i> of Tim's. He'll make his +mark in the world. You'll see if he doesn't. Do you know?—that +boy....</p> + +<p>"Suppose you give these crumbs to the Hippopotamus! I've +been saving them for him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_859" id="Page_859">[Pg 859]</a></span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Easier said than done! However, there's nothing like trying." +The gentleman contrived a favourable arrangement of sundry +scoriæ 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.</p> + +<p>"Good shot!" said he. "Only the best bit's hit his nose and +fallen in the mud!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Wonder what it was! That fillah's mouth's put it all out of +my head. What <i>was</i> I saying?"</p> + +<p>"Something about David Wardle."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>has</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. I remember the particulars, generally. You said the +row wasn't his fault."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>should</i> like to have seen that!"</p> + +<p>"Really, Percy, if you talk in that dreadful way, I won't listen +to you."</p> + +<p>"Can't help it, my dear, can't help it! Fancy being able to kill<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_860" id="Page_860">[Pg 860]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Maria? Of course. She <i>is</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Marrable." Here Mrs. Pellew suddenly became luminous +about the facts, owing to a connecting link. "Of course! Mrs. +Marrable was the twin sister."</p> + +<p>"A—oh yes!—the twin sister.... I remember ... at least, +I don't. Not sure that I do, anyhow!"</p> + +<p>"Foolish man! Can't you remember the lovely old lady at Clo +Dalrymple's?..."</p> + +<p>"She <i>was</i> the one I carried upstairs. I should rather think I +did recollect her. She weighed nothing."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—<i>you</i> remember all about it. Mrs. Marrable's twin +sister from Australia."</p> + +<p>"Of course! Of course! Only I'd forgotten for the moment +what it was I didn't remember. Cut along!"</p> + +<p>"I was not saying anything."</p> + +<p>"No—but you were just going to."</p> + +<p>"Well—I was. It was <i>her</i> grave in Chorlton Churchyard."</p> + +<p>"That what?"</p> + +<p>"That Gwen and our girl went to put the flowers on, three weeks +ago."</p> + +<p>"By-the-by, when are the honeymooners coming back?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I thought Cis wrote to Dolly in Florence."</p> + +<p>"Not the last letter. They were at the Montequattrinis' in May.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_861" id="Page_861">[Pg 861]</a></span> +That's what you're thinking of. Cis wrote to her there, then. It +was another letter."</p> + +<p>"'Spose I'm wrong! I meant the letter where she told how the +very old lady walked with them to the grave."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>That</i> letter <i>was</i> to Fiesole. You +do get so mixed up."</p> + +<p>"Expect I do. Fancy that old lady, though, at ninety-eight!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Didn't Cis say she spoke of her as 'my mother'?"</p> + +<p>"No—that was the twin sister that died. But she always spoke +<i>to</i> her as 'mother.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh ah—that was what Cis couldn't make head or tail of. +Rather a puzzling turn out! But I say...."</p> + +<p>"What?... Wait till we get out of the noise. What were you +going to say?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't her head rather ... I mean, doesn't she show signs of...."</p> + +<p>"Senile decay? No. What makes you think that?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, <i>I</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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes—tell about Granny Marrowbone," says the young man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_862" id="Page_862">[Pg 862]</a></span></p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"She <i>always</i> calls her that," says the young man.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>failing</i>, you know—not at all!... Only, perhaps, not +so clear as.... Of course, very old people sometimes do....</p> + +<p>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—<i>she's</i> all right." +Whereupon Mr. Pellew says:—"I see—sort of expression. Very +applicable, as things go. Oh no—no reason for alarm! Certainly +not!"</p> + +<p>"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...."</p> + +<p>"Shut up, mouse!" says her father. "What's that striking?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_863" id="Page_863">[Pg 863]</a></span><br /></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_865" id="Page_865">[Pg 865]</a></span><br /></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_864" id="Page_864">[Pg 864]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WILLIAM_DE_MORGANS_NOVELS" id="WILLIAM_DE_MORGANS_NOVELS"></a>WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S NOVELS</h2> + + +<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Why All This Popularity?</span>" asks <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>, writing +in the <i>Outlook</i> 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."</p> + + +<p class="center"><b>JOSEPH VANCE</b></p> + +<p class="center">The story of a great sacrifice and a life-long love.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"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."—<span class="smcap">Lewis Melville</span> +in <i>New York Times Saturday Review</i>.</p></blockquote> + + +<p class="center"><b>ALICE-FOR-SHORT</b></p> + +<p class="center">The romance of an unsuccessful man, in which the long +buried past reappears in London of to-day.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"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."—<i>Boston +Transcript</i>.</p></blockquote> + + +<p class="center"><b>SOMEHOW GOOD</b></p> + +<p class="center">How two brave women won their way to happiness.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the +range of fiction."—<i>The Nation</i>.</p></blockquote> + + +<p class="center"><b>IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN</b></p> + +<p class="center">A story of the great love of Blind Jim and his little daughter, +and of the affairs of a successful novelist.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"De Morgan at his very best, and how much better his best is than +the work of any novelist of the past thirty years."—<i>The Independent</i>.</p></blockquote> + + +<p class="center"><b>AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR</b></p> + +<p class="center">A very dramatic novel of Restoration days.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"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."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald</i>.</p></blockquote> + + +<p class="center"><b>A LIKELY STORY</b></p> + +<p class="center">"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."—<i>New York Sun</i>.</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>A Likely Story, $1.35 net; the others, $1.75 each.</i></p> + + +<p class="center"><b>WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST</b></p> + +<p class="center">The most "De Morganish" of all his stories. The scene +is England in the fifties. <i>820 pages</i>. <i>$1.50 net</i>.</p> + + +<p class="center">* * * A thirty-two page illustrated leaflet about Mr. De Morgan, with +complete reviews of his first four books, sent on request.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_866" id="Page_866">[Pg 866]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="JEAN-CHRISTOPHE" id="JEAN-CHRISTOPHE"></a>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>By ROMAIN ROLLAND</i></p> + + +<p class="center">Translated from the French by <span class="smcap">Gilbert Cannan</span>. In +three volumes, each $1.50 net</p> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<p class="center">Each volume of the American edition has its own individual +interest, can be understood without the other, and +comes to a definite conclusion.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>The three volumes with the titles of the French volumes +included are:</i></p> + +<p class="center"> +<b>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE</b><br /> +<span class="smcap">Dawn—Morning—Youth—Revolt</span><br /> +<br /> +<b>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS</b><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Market Place—Antoinette—The House</span><br /> +<br /> +<b>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: JOURNEY'S END</b><br /> +<span class="smcap">Love and Friendship—The Burning Bush—The New<br /> +Dawn</span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Some Noteworthy Comments</i></p> + +<p class="center">"'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. (...) "—<i>Springfield +Republican.</i></p> + +<p class="center">"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."—<i>Current +Opinion.</i></p> + +<p class="center">"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."—<i>Independent.</i></p> + +<p class="center">"The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or +from any other European country, in a decade."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + + +<p class="center"><i>A 32-page booklet about Romain Rolland and Jean-Christophe, +with portraits and complete reviews, on request.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_867" id="Page_867">[Pg 867]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Coningsby_Dawsons" id="Coningsby_Dawsons"></a>Coningsby Dawson's</h2> + +<div class="big">THE GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS</div> + +<p class="center">The triple romance of a Pagan-Puritan of to-day, with three +heroines of unusual charm. $1.35 net.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center"><i>Boston Transcript:</i>—"All vivid with the color of life; a novel to +compel not only absorbed attention, but long remembrance."</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Cosmo Hamilton in The New York Sun:</i>—"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."</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Life:</i>—"The first treat of the new season."</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Chicago Record-Herald:</i>—"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."</p></blockquote> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Marjorie_Pattersons" id="Marjorie_Pattersons"></a>Marjorie Patterson's</h2> + +<div class="big">THE DUST OF THE ROAD</div> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center"><i>New York Tribune:</i>—"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."</p> + +<p class="center"><i>New York Sun:</i>—"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."</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Henry L. Mencken in Baltimore Evening Sun:</i> "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."</p></blockquote><p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_868" id="Page_868">[Pg 868]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_HOME_BOOK_OF_VERSE" id="THE_HOME_BOOK_OF_VERSE"></a>THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>American and English (1580-1912)</i></p> + + +<blockquote><p class="center">Compiled by <span class="smcap">Burton E. Stevenson</span>. 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.)</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center">The most comprehensive and representative collection of +American and English poetry ever published, including +3,120 unabridged poems from some 1,100 authors.</p> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2>DELIGHTFUL POCKET ANTHOLOGIES</h2> + +<p class="center">The following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible covers and +pictured cover linings. 16mo. Each, cloth, $1.50; leather, $2.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THE GARLAND OF CHILDHOOD</b></p> + +<p class="center">A little book for all lovers of +children. Compiled by Percy +Withers.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THE VISTA Of ENGLISH VERSE</b></p> + +<p class="center">Compiled by Henry S. Pancoast. +From Spencer to Kipling.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>LETTERS THAT LIVE</b></p> + +<p class="center">Compiled by Laura E. Lockwood +and Amy R. Kelly. Some +150 letters.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>POEMS FOR TRAVELLERS</b></p> + +<p class="center">(About "The Continent.") +Compiled by Miss Mary R. J. +DuBois.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THE OPEN ROAD</b></p> + +<p class="center">A little book for wayfarers. +Compiled by E. V. Lucas.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THE FRIENDLY TOWN</b></p> + +<p class="center">A little book for the urbane, +compiled by E. V. Lucas.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THE POETIC OLD-WORLD</b></p> + +<p class="center">Compiled by Miss L. H. +Humphrey. Covers Europe, including +Spain, Belgium and the +British Isles.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>THE POETIC NEW-WORLD</b></p> + +<p class="center">Compiled by Miss Humphrey.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_869" id="Page_869">[Pg 869]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="STANDARD_CONTEMPORARY_NOVELS" id="STANDARD_CONTEMPORARY_NOVELS"></a>STANDARD CONTEMPORARY NOVELS</h2> + + +<p class="center"><b>WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE</b></p> + +<p class="center">The story of a great sacrifice and a lifelong love. Over +fourteen printings. $1.75.</p> + +<p class="center">* * * List of Mr. De Morgan's other novels sent on application.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>PAUL LEICESTER FORD'S THE HON. PETER STIRLING</b></p> + +<p class="center">This famous novel of New York political life has gone +through over fifty impressions. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>ANTHONY HOPE'S PRISONER OF ZENDA</b></p> + +<p class="center">This romance of adventure has passed through over sixty +impressions. With illustrations by C. D. Gibson. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>ANTHONY HOPE'S RUPERT OF HENTZAU</b></p> + +<p class="center">This story has been printed over a score of times. With +illustrations by C. D. Gibson. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>ANTHONY HOPE'S DOLLY DIALOGUES</b></p> + +<p class="center">Has passed through over eighteen printings. With illustrations +by H. C. Christy. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS'S CHEERFUL AMERICANS</b></p> + +<p class="center">By the author of "Poe's Raven in an Elevator" and "A +Holiday Touch." With 24 illustrations. Tenth printing. $1.25.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>MAY SINCLAIR'S THE DIVINE FIRE</b></p> + +<p class="center">By the author of "The Helpmate," etc. Fifteenth printing. +$1.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>BURTON E. STEVENSON'S MARATHON MYSTERY</b></p> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>E. L. VOYNICH'S THE GADFLY</b></p> + +<p class="center">An intense romance of the Italian uprising against the +Austrians. Twenty-third edition. $1.25.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>DAVID DWIGHT WELLS'S HER LADYSHIP'S ELEPHANT</b></p> + +<p class="center">With cover by Wm. Nicholson. Eighteenth printing. $1.25.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR</b></p> + +<p class="center">Over thirty printings. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S THE PRINCESS PASSES</b></p> + +<p class="center">Illustrated by Edward Penfield. Eighth printing. $1.50.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_870" id="Page_870">[Pg 870]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_INEZ_HAYNES_GILLMORE" id="BY_INEZ_HAYNES_GILLMORE"></a>BY INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE</h2> + + +<p class="center"><b>ANGEL ISLAND</b></p> + +<p class="center">Illustrated by <span class="smcap">John Rae</span>. $1.35 net. Ready in January, +1914.</p> + +<p class="center">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.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>PHOEBE AND ERNEST</b></p> + +<p class="center">With 30 illustrations by <span class="smcap">R. F. Schabelitz</span>. $1.35 net.</p> + +<p class="center">Parents will recognize themselves in the story, and laugh +understandingly with, and sometimes at, Mr. and Mrs. Martin +and their children, Phoebe and Ernest.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"We must go back to Louisa Olcott for their equals."—<i>Boston Advertiser</i>.</p> + +<p class="center">"For young and old alike we know of no more refreshing story."—<i>New +York Evening Post.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p class="center"><b>PHOEBE, ERNEST, AND CUPID</b></p> + +<p class="center">Illustrated by <span class="smcap">R. F. Schabelitz</span>. $1.35 net.</p> + +<p class="center">In this sequel to the popular "Phoebe and Ernest," each +of these delightful young folk goes to the altar.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"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."—<i>N. Y. Times Review.</i></p> + +<p class="center">"Wholesome, merry, absolutely true to life."—<i>The Outlook.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p class="center"><b>JANEY</b></p> + +<p class="center">Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Ada C. Williamson</span>. $1.25 net.</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center">"Being the record of a short interval in the journey thru +life and the struggle with society of a little girl of nine."</p> + +<p class="center">"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."—<i>Chicago +Record-Herald.</i></p></blockquote><p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_871" id="Page_871">[Pg 871]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="trnote"> +<h2><a name="trnote" id="trnote"></a>List of Corrections Made by the Transcriber:</h2> +<p><a href='#TC_1'>Page 6</a>: impident (square and compact, that chunky and yet that tender, that no right-minded person could desire him to be changed to an <b>impudent</b> young scaramouch like young Michael Ragstroar four doors)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_2'>Page 55</a>: scarcly (letter remains, and has been seen by the present writer and others. The dexterity of the thing almost passes belief, only a few <b>scarcely</b> perceptible traces of the old writing being visible, the length of)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_3'>Page 65</a>: mankleshelf (directness. But he was destined to puzzle his audience by his keen interest in something that was on the <b>mantleshelf</b>, his description of which seemed to relate to nothing this lady's recollection of)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_4'>Page 76</a>: see to the sacks, ("He <b>sees</b> to the sacks," said Dave.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_5'>Page 84</a>: starn (in your antecedents, surely it would be these two leisurely rowers and the superior person in the <b>stern</b>, with the oilskin cape?)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_6'>Page 139</a>: bliassed (want of shrewdness when he visited Sapps Court. She had been <b>biased</b> towards this suspicion by the fact that the man, when he first referred to Sapps Court, had spoken the name as though)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_7'>Page 277</a>: backelors (it any hinterland of discussion of the ethics of Love, provocative of practical application to the lives of old maids and old <b>bachelors</b>—if the one, then the other, in this case—strolling in a leisurely)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_8'>Page 320</a>: [blank] (property did a man's heart good to see, nowadays. The man was Uncle Mo, who got out of the house <b>in</b> plenty of time to stop Michael half-murdering the marauder, as soon as he considered the latter)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_9'>Page 346</a>: infaturated (If I had ever been engaged, or on the edge of it—I never have, really and truly!—and the <b>infatuated</b> youth had ... had complicated matters to that extent, I never should have been able to)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_10'>Page 360</a>: up up (premises it was engendered in, was necessary to hold the roof up <b>up</b> tempory, for fear it should come with a run. It was really a'most nothing in the manner of speaking. You just shoved a)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_11'>Page 374</a>: frostis (through, and setting alight to a bit of fire now and again, and the season keeping mild and favourable, with only light <b>frosts</b> in the early morning—only what could you expect just on to Christmas?—there)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_12'>Page 403</a>: kncoked (The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then <b>knocked</b> at the door, and waited. The woman inside had been listening to)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_13'>Page 413</a>: financée (to his sister Irene one of the long missives he was given to sending to his <b><i>fiancée</i></b> in London. It was just such a late October day as the one indirectly referred to above; in fact, it)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_14'>Page 434</a>: ather ("You mean, you can manage your Bull, and <b>father</b> can't. Is that it?" Assent given. "And how can you manage your)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_15'>Page 580</a>: [blank] (who had charge of Dave—Strides Cottage, of course! I'm sure she'll <b>be</b> all right as far as that goes. But the whole thing is so <i>odd</i>.... Stop a minute!—perhaps the best way would be for me)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_16'>Page 615</a>: Egnland.... (you dead. For years she believed you and her sister dead. And when she returned to <b>England</b>....")</p> +<p><a href='#TC_17'>Page 717</a>: acompany (the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much pleased with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to <b>accompany</b> it; then hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_18'>Page 732</a>: Gwenn ("'Made it like then?'" <b>Gwen</b> was not sure she followed this.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_19'>Page 740</a>: 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 <b>mamma</b> descend on your <i>comme-il-faut</i> parent to drum this idea into him, and get)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_20'>Page 756</a>: differnece (she had loved ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it only this. It palliated her son's crimes. But then there was a <b>difference</b> between the son and the father. The latter had apparently done nothing)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_21'>Page 799</a>: Phooebe is so kind, to take every little word I say. ("My dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But <b>Phoebe</b> is so kind, to take every little word I say.")</p> +<p><a href='#TC_22'>Page 845</a>: spech. "What the Hell," he repeated, (what he sought—her letter, which she recognised—and opened it before he finished his <b>speech</b>. "What the Hell," he repeated, "is the meaning of <i>this</i>?" 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