The Project Gutenberg eBook, When Ghost Meets Ghost, by William Frend De
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Title: When Ghost Meets Ghost
Author: William Frend De Morgan
Release Date: January 9, 2010 [eBook #30896]
Language: English
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| Transcriber's note: |
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| Inconsistent and missing punctuation have been corrected |
| without comment. |
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| The 'oe' and 'ae' ligatures have been changed to 'oe' and |
| 'ae'. |
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| Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected. A list of |
| corrections from the original is included at the end of |
| the book |
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| Text enclosed between equal signs was in bold face in the |
| original (=bold=). |
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WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
+------------------------------------------------------------- +
| BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| |
| JOSEPH VANCE |
| |
| An intensely human and humorous novel of life near London in |
| the '50s. $1.75. |
| |
| ALICE-FOR-SHORT |
| |
| The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends |
| and family. $1.75. |
| |
| SOMEHOW GOOD |
| |
| A lovable, humorous romance of modern England. $1.75. |
| |
| IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN |
| |
| A strange story of certain marital complications. Notable |
| for the beautiful Judith Arkroyd with stage ambitions, Blind |
| Jim, and his daughter Lizarann. $1.75. |
| |
| AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR |
| |
| Perhaps the author's most dramatic novel. It deals with the |
| events that followed a duel in Restoration days in England. |
| $1.75. |
| |
| A LIKELY STORY |
| |
| Begins comfortably enough with a little domestic quarrel in |
| a studio. The story shifts suddenly, however, to a |
| brilliantly told tragedy of the Italian Renaissance embodied |
| in a girl's portrait. $1.35 _net._ |
| |
| WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST |
| |
| A long, genial tale of old mysteries and young lovers in |
| England in the '50s. $1.60 _net._ |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
by
WILLIAM DE MORGAN
Author of "Joseph Vance," "Alice-for-Short," Etc.
New York
Copyright, 1914,
by
Henry Holt and Company
Published February, 1914
Dedicated to The Spirit of Fiction
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER PAGE
0. SAPPS COURT 3
I. DAVE AND HIS FAMILY 6
II. A SHORTAGE OF MUD 16
III. DAVE'S ACCIDENT 24
IV. BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL 30
V. MRS. PRICHARD 40
VI. THE STORY OF THE TWINS 45
VII. DAVE'S CONVALESCENT HAVEN 60
VIII. DAVE'S RETURN TO SAPPS COURT 72
IX. A VERDICT OF DEATH BY DROWNING 84
X. AT THE TOWERS 93
XI. MR. PELLEW AND MISS DICKENSON 110
XII. THE MAN WHO WAS SHOT 117
XIII. AN INQUIRY FOR A WIDOW 127
XIV. A SUCCESSFUL CAPTURE 134
XV. WHAT AUNT M'RIAR OVERHEARD 150
XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF SAPPS COURT 156
XVII. HOW ADRIAN WAS NURSED AT THE TOWERS 171
XVIII. HOW GWEN AND THE COUNTESS VISITED ADRIAN 185
XIX. GWEN'S VERY BAD NIGHT 200
XX. SLOW AND FAST APPROXIMATION 208
XXI. A RAPID ARRIVAL 220
XXII. A CONFESSION AND ITS EFFECTS 239
XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO MRS. MARRABLE 258
XXIV. THE SLOW APPROXIMATION GOES SLOWLY ON 272
XXV. A GAME OF WHIST 282
XXVI. HOW AUNT M'RIAR'S STORY CAME OUT 293
XXVII. HOW SAPPS HEARD A VISITOR WAS COMING 312
XXVIII. GWEN'S VISIT, AND WHAT ENDED IT 320
XXIX. HOW THE SLOW COUPLE BECAME ENGAGED 331
XXX. GWEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CRASH 351
XXXI. MRS. PRICHARD AT CAVENDISH SQUARE 364
XXXII. AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS 379
PART II
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AUNT M'RIAR'S HUSBAND 389
II. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM 412
III. HOW THE TWINS SAW EACH OTHER 429
IV. MAISIE AT THE TOWERS 444
V. MOTHERWARDS IN THE DARK 461
VI. HOW MAISIE LOVED POMONA 474
VII. GWEN'S NIGHT-FLIGHT TO LONDON 491
VIII. MAISIE AT STRIDES COTTAGE 498
IX. THE DUTIFUL SON 511
X. GWEN'S SECOND VISIT TO SAPPS COURT 528
XI. IN PARK LANE 543
XII. AN ENLIGHTENMENT 563
XIII. HOW GWEN TOLD SAPPS COURT 576
XIV. GWEN'S RETURN, AND THE TASK BEFORE HER 591
XV. GWEN FACES THE MUSIC 607
XVI. DR. NASH TELLS GRANNY MARRABLE 626
XVII. THE COUNTESS CALLS AT PENSHAM 646
XVIII. WHAT FOLLOWED AT CHORLTON 665
XIX. THE MEETING 677
XX. THE NIGHT AFTER THEY KNEW IT 686
XXI. SAPPS COURT AGAIN 703
XXII. STRIDES COTTAGE AGAIN 721
XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM 734
XXIV. PENSHAM AT STRIDES COTTAGE 751
XXV. A FESTIVITY AT THE TOWERS 764
XXVI. ANOTHER NIGHT WATCH 776
XXVII. HOW SHE SAW THE MODEL AGAIN 793
XXVIII. HOW HER SON CAME TOO LATE 807
XXIX. A RIGHT CROSS-COUNTER THAT LANDED 826
A BELATED PENDRIFT 853
WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
PART I
CHAPTER 0
A CONNECTING-LINK BETWEEN THE WRITER AND THE STORY, AMOUNTING TO
VERY LITTLE. THERE WAS A COURT SOME FIFTY YEARS SINCE IN LONDON,
SOMEWHERE, THAT IS NOW NOWHERE. THAT'S ALL!
Some fifty years ago there still remained, in a street reachable after
inquiry by turning to the left out of Tottenham Court Road, a rather
picturesque Court with an archway; which I, the writer of this story,
could not find when I tried to locate it the other day. I hunted for it
a good deal, and ended by coming away in despair and going for rest and
refreshment to a new-born teashop, where a number of young ladies had
lost their individuality, and the one who brought my tea was callous to
me and mine because you pay at the desk. But she had an orderly soul,
for she turned over the lump of sugar that had a little butter on it, so
as to lie on the buttery side and look more tidy-like.
If the tea had been China tea, fresh-made, it might have helped me to
recollecting the name of that Court, which I am sorry to say I have
forgotten. But it was Ceylon and had stood. However, it was hot. Only
you will never convince me that it was fresh-made, not even if you have
me dragged asunder by wild horses. Its upshot was, for the purpose of
this story, that it did not help me to recollect the name of that Court.
I have to confess with shame that I have written the whole of what
follows under a false pretence; having called it out of its name, to the
best of my belief, throughout. I know it had a name. It does not matter;
the story can do without accuracy--commonplace matter of fact!
But do what I will, I keep on recollecting new names for it, and each
seems more plausible than the other. Coltsfoot Court, Barretts Court,
Chesterfield Court, Sapps Court! Any one of these, if I add
seventeen-hundred-and-much, or eighteen-hundred-and-nothing-to-speak-of,
seems to fit this Court to a nicety. Suppose we make it Sapps Court, and
let it go at that!
Oh, the little old corners of the world that were homes and are gone!
Years hence the Court we will call Sapps will still dwell in some old
mind that knew its every brick, and be portrayed to credulous hearers
yet unborn as an unpretentious Eden, by some _laudator_ of its _tempus
actum_--some forgotten soul waiting for emancipation in an infirmary or
almshouse.
Anyhow, _I_ can remember this Court, and can tell a tale it plays a part
in, only not very quick.
Anybody might have passed down the main street and never noticed it,
because its arched entry didn't give on the street, but on a bay or
_cul-de-sac_ just long enough for a hansom to drive into but not to turn
round in. There was nothing to arrest the attention of the passer-by,
self-absorbed or professionally engaged; simultaneous possibilities, in
his case.
But if the passer-by forgot himself and neglected his proper function in
life at the moment that he came abreast of this _cul-de-sac_, he may
have thereby come to the knowledge of Sapps Court; and, if a Londoner,
may have wondered why he never knew of it before. For there was nothing
in the external appearance of its arched entry to induce him to face the
difficulties incidental to entering it. He may even have nursed
intentions of saying to a friend who prided himself on his knowledge of
town:--"I say, Old Cock, you think yourself mighty clever and all that,
but I bet you can't tell me where Sapps Court is." If, however, he never
went down Sapps Court at all--merely looked at his inscription and,
recollecting his own place in nature, passed on--I shouldn't be
surprised.
It went downhill under the archway when you did go in, and you came to a
step. If you did not tumble owing to the suddenness and depth of this
step, you came to another; and were stupefied by reaching the ground
four inches sooner than you expected, and made conscious that your
skeleton had been driven an equal distance upwards through your system.
Then you could see Sapps Court, but under provocation, from its entry.
When you recovered your temper you admitted that it was a better Court
than you had anticipated.
All the residences were in a row on the left, and there was a dead wall
on the right with an inscription on a stone in it that said the ground
twelve inches beyond belonged to somebody else. This wall was in the
confidence of the main street, lending itself to a fiction that the
houses therein had gardens or yards behind them. They hadn't; but the
tenants believed they had, and hung out chemises and nightgowns and
shirts to dry in the areas they built up their faith on; and really, if
they were properly wrung out afore hung up there was nothing to complain
of, because the blacks didn't hold on, not to crock, but got shook off
or blew away of theirselves. We put this in the language of our
informant.
However, the story has no business on the other side of this wall. What
concerns it is the row of houses on the left.
If ever a row of houses bore upon them the stamp of having been
overtaken and surrounded by an unexpected city, these did. The wooden
palings that still skirted the breathing-room in front of them almost
said aloud to every newcomer:--"Where is the strip of land gone that we
could see beyond, day by day; that belonged to God-knows-who; whose
further boundary was the road the haycarts brought their loads on, drawn
by deliberate horses that had bells?" The persistent sunflowers that
still struggled into being behind them told tales of how big they were
in youth, years ago, when they could turn to the sun and hope to catch
his eye. The stray wallflowers murmured to all who had ears to
hear:--"This is how we smelt in days gone by--but oh!--so much
stronger!" The wooden shutters, outside the ground-floors that really
stood upon the ground, told, if you chose to listen, of how they kept
the houses safe from thieves in moonlit nights a century ago; and the
doors between them--for each house was three windows wide--opened
straight into the kitchen. So they were, or had been, cottages. But the
miscreant in possession twenty years ago, instigated by a jerry-builder,
had added a storey and removed the tiled roofs whose garrets were every
bit as good as the jerry-built rooms that took their place. Sapp himself
may have done it--one knows nothing of his principles--and at the same
time in a burst of overweening vanity called his cottages his Court. But
one rather likes to think that Sapp was with his forbears when this came
about, when the wall was built up opposite, and the cottages could no
longer throw their dust everywhere, but had to resort to a common
dustbin at the end of the Court, which smelt so you could smell it quite
plain across the wall when the lid was off. That dustbin was the outward
and visible sign of the decadence of Sapp.
CHAPTER I
OF DAVE AND DOLLY WARDLE AND THEIR UNCLE MOSES, WHO HAD BEEN A
PRIZEFIGHTER, AND THEIR AUNT M'RIAR, WHO KEPT AN EYE ON THEM. OF
DAVE'S SERVICES TO THE PUBLIC, AND OF ANOTHER PUBLIC THAT NEARLY
MADE UNCLE MO BANKRUPT. OF HIS PAST BATTLES, NOTABLY ONE WITH A
SWEEP. OF MRS. PRICHARD AND MRS. BURR, WHO LIVED UPSTAIRS. OF A BAD
ACCIDENT THAT BEFELL DAVE, AND OF SIMEON STYLITES. HOW UNCLE MO
STRAPPED UP DAVE'S HEAD WITH DIACHYLUM BOUGHT BY A VERY BAD BOY,
MICHAEL RAGSTROAR, THE LIKE OF WHOM YOU NEVER! OF THE JUDGEMENT OF
SOLOMON, AND DAVE'S CAT
In the last house down the Court, the one that was so handy to the
dustbin, lived a very small boy and a still smaller sister. There were
other members of the household--to wit, their Uncle Moses and their Aunt
M'riar, who were not husband and wife, but respectively brother and
sister of Dave's father and mother. Uncle Moses' name was Wardle, Aunt
M'riar's that of a deceased or vanished husband. But Sapps Court was
never prepared to say offhand what this name was, and "Aunt M'riar" was
universal. So indeed was "Uncle Mo"; but, as No. 7 had been spoken of as
"Wardle's" since his brother took the lower half of the house for
himself and his first wife, with whom he had lived there fifteen years,
the name Wardle had come to be the name of the house. This brother had
been some ten years younger than Moses, and had had apparently more than
his fair share of the family weddings; as "old Mo," if he ever was
married, had kept the lady secret; from his brother's family certainly,
and presumably from the rest of the world.
Our little boy was the sort of boy you were sorry was ever going to be
eleven, because at five years and ten months he was that square and
compact, that chunky and yet that tender, that no right-minded person
could desire him to be changed to an impudent young scaramouch like
young Michael Ragstroar four doors higher up, who was eleven and a
regular handful.
His name was Dave Wardle, after his father; and his sister's Dorothea,
after her mother. Both names appeared on a tombstone in the parish
churchyard, and you might have thought they was anybody, said Public
Opinion; which showed that Dave and his sister were orphans. Both had
recollections of their father, but the funeral he indulged in three
years since had elbowed other memories out of court. Of their mother
they only knew by hearsay, as Dave was only three years old when his
sister committed matricide, quite unconsciously, and you could hear her
all the way up the Court. Pardon the story's way of introducing
attestations to some fact of interest or importance in the language in
which its compiler has received it.
They were good children to do with, said their Aunt M'riar, so long as
you kep' an eye. And a good job they were, because who was to do her
work if she was every minute prancing round after a couple of young
monkeys? This was a strained way of indicating the case; but there can
be no doubt of its substantial truth. So Aunt M'riar felt at rest so
long as Dave was content to set up atop of the dustbin-lid and shout
till he was hoarse; all the while using a shovel, that was public
property, as a gong.
Perhaps Dave took his sister Dolly into his confidence about the nature
of the trust he conceived himself to hold in connection with this
dustbin. To others of the inhabitants he was reticent, merely referring
to an emolument he was entitled to. "The man on the lid," he said, "has
a farden." He said this with such conviction that few had the heart to
deny the justice of the claim outright, resorting to subterfuges to
evade a cash settlement. One had left his change on the piano; another
was looking forward to an early liquidation of small liabilities on the
return of his ship to port; another would see about it next time Sunday
come of a Friday, and so on. But only his Uncle Moses ever gave him an
actual farthing, and Dave deposited it in a cat on the mantelshelf, who
was hollow by nature, and provided by art with a slot in the dorsal
vertebrae. It could be shook out if you wanted it, and Dave occasionally
took it out of deposit in connection with a course of experiments he was
interested in. He wished to determine how far he could spit it out.
This inquiry was a resource against ennui on rainy days and foggy days
and days that were going to clear up later. All these sorts were devised
by the malignity of Providence for the confusion of small boys yearning
to be on active service, redistributing property, obstructing traffic,
or calling attention to personal peculiarities of harmless passers-by.
But it was not so inexhaustible but that cases occurred when those
children got that unsettled and masterful there was no abiding their
racket; and as for Dolly, her brother was making her every bit as bad as
himself. At such times a great resource was to induce Uncle Moses to
tell some experiences of a glorious past, his own. For he had been a
member of the Prize Ring, and had been slapped on the back by Dukes, and
had even been privileged to grasp a Royal hand. He was now an unwieldy
giant, able to get about with a stick when the day was fine, but every
six months less inclined for the effort.
Uncle Moses, when he retired from public life, had put all his winnings,
which were considerable, into a long lease of a pot-house near Golden
Square, where he was well-known and very popular. If, however, there had
been a rock on the premises and he had had all the powers of his
namesake, four-half would have had to run as fast from it as ever did
water from the rock in Horeb, to keep down the thirst of Golden Square.
For Uncle Moses not only refused to take money from old friends who
dwelt in his memory, but weakly gave way to constructive allegations of
long years of comradeship in a happy past, which his powers of
recollection did not enable him to contradict. "Wot, old Moses!--you'll
never come for to go for to say you've forgot old Swipey Sam, jist along
in the Old Kent Road--Easy Shavin' one 'apenny or an arrangement come to
by the week!" Or merely, "Seein' you's as good as old times come alive
again, mate." Suchlike appeals were almost invariable from any customer
who got fair speech of Uncle Moses in his own bar. In his absence these
claims were snuffed out roughly by a prosaic barman--even the most
pathetic ones, such as that of an extinct thimblerigger for whom three
small thimbles and one little pea had ceased for ever, years ago, when
he got his fingers in a sausage-machine. But Uncle Moses was so much his
own barman that this generosity told heavily against his credit; and he
would certainly have been left a pauper but for the earnest counsels of
an old friend known in his circle of Society as Affability Bob, although
his real name was Jeremiah Alibone. By him he was persuaded to dispose
of the lease of the "Marquess of Montrose" while it still had some
value, and to retire on a pound a week. This might have been more had he
invested all the proceeds in an annuity. "But, put it I do!" said he. "I
don't see my way to no advantage for David and Dorothy, and this here
young newcome, if I was to hop the twig." For this was at the time of
the birth of little Dave, nearly six years before the date of this
story.
Affability Bob applauded his friend's course of action in view of its
motive. "But," said he, "I tell you this, Moses. If you'd 'a' gone on
standin' Sam to every narrycove round about Soho much longer, 'No
effects' would have been _your_ vardict, sir." To which Uncle Moses
replied, "Right you are, old friend," and changed the subject.
However, there you have plenty to show what a rich mine of past
experience Uncle Moses had to dig in. The wonder was that Dave and Dolly
refused to avail themselves of its wealth, always preferring a
monotonous repetition of an encounter their uncle had had with a Sweep.
He could butt, this Sweep could, like a battering-ram, ketching hold
upon you symultaneous round the gaiters. He was irresistible by ordinary
means, his head being unimpressionable by direct impact. But Uncle Moses
had been one too many for him, having put a lot of thinking into the
right way of dealing with his system.
He had perceived that the hardest head, struck evenly on both sides at
the same moment, must suffer approximately as much as if jammed against
the door-post and catched full with a fair round swing. Whereas had
these blows followed one another on a yielding head, the injury it
inflicted as a battering-ram might have outweighed the damage it
received in inflicting it. As it was, Peter--so Uncle Moses called the
Sweep--was for one moment defenceless, being preoccupied in seizing his
opponent by the ankles; and although his cranium had no sinuses, and was
so thick it could crush a quart-pot like an opera-hat, it did not court
a fourth double concussion, and this time he was destined to disappoint
his backers.
His opponent, who in those days was known as the Hanley Linnet, suffered
very little in the encounter. No doubt you know that a man in fine
training can take an amazing number of back-falls on fair ground, clear
of snags and brickbats; and, of course, the Linnet's seconds made a
special point of this, examining careful and keeping an eye to prevent
the introduction of broke-up rubbish inside the ropes by parties having
an interest, or viciously disposed.
"There you are again, Uncle Mo, a-tellin' and a-tellin' and a-tellin'!"
So Aunt M'riar would say when she heard this narrative going over
well-known ground for the thousandth time. "And them children not
lettin' you turn round in bed, I call it!" This was in reference to Dave
and Dolly's severity about the text. The smallest departure from the
earlier version led to both them children pouncing at once. Dave would
exclaim reproachfully:--"You _did_ say a Sweep with one blind eye, Uncle
Mo!" and Dolly would confirm his words with as much emphasis as her
powers of speech allowed. "Essoodid, a 'Weep with one b'ind eye!"--also
reproachfully. Then Uncle Moses would supply a corrected version of
whatever was defective, in this case an eye not quite blind, but nearly,
owing to a young nipper, no older than Dave, aiming a broken bottle at
him as the orficers was conducting of him to the Station, after a fight
Wandsworth way, the other party being took off to the Horspital for
dead.
The Jews, I am told, won't stand any nonsense when they have their
sacred writings copied, always destroying every inaccurate MS. the
moment an error is spotted in it. Dave and Dolly were not the Jews, but
they were as intolerant of variation in the text of this almost sacred
legend of the Sweep. "S'ow me how you punched him, wiv Dave's head,"
Dolly would say; and she would be most exacting over the dramatic
rendering of this ancient fight. "Percisely this way like I'm showing
you--only harder," was Uncle Moses' voucher for his own accuracy. "Muss
harder?" inquired Dolly. "Well--a tidy bit harder!" said the veteran
with truth. The head of the Sweep's understudy, Dave, was not equal to a
full-dress rehearsal. So Dolly had to be content with the promise of a
closer reading of the part when her brother was growed up.
But it was rather like Aunt M'riar said, for Uncle Moses. Those two
young Turks didn't allow their uncle no latitude, in the manner of
speaking. He couldn't turn round in bed.
These rainy days, when the children could not possibly be allowed out,
taxed their guardians' patience just to the point of making
them--suppose we say--not ungrateful to Providence when old Mrs.
Prichard upstairs giv' leave for the children to come and play up in her
room. She was the only other in-dweller in the house, living in the
front and back attics with Mrs. Burr, who took jobs out in the
dressmaking, and very moderate charges. When Mrs. Burr worked at home,
Mrs. Prichard enjoyed her society and knitted, while Mrs. Burr cut out
and basted. Very few remarks were passed; for though Mrs. Burr was
snappish now and again, company was company, and Mrs. Prichard she put
up with a little temper at times, because we all had our trials; and
Mrs. Burr was considered good at heart, though short with you now and
again. Hence when loneliness became irksome, Mrs. Prichard found Dave
and Dolly a satisfaction, so long as nothing was broke. It was a
pleasant extension of the experience of their early youth to play at
monarchs, military celebrities, professional assassins, and so on, in
old Mrs. Prichard's room upstairs. And sometimes nothing _was_ broke.
Otherwise one day at No. 7, Sapps Court, was much the same as another.
Uncle Mo's residence in Sapps Court dated many years before the coming
of Aunt M'riar; in fact, as far back as the time he was deprived of his
anchorage in Soho. He was then taken in by his brother, recently a
widower; and no question had ever arisen of his quitting the haven he
had been, as it were, towed into as a derelict; until, some years later,
David announced that he was thinking of Dolly Tarver at Ealing. Moses
smoked through a pipe in silence, so as to give full consideration; then
said, like an easy-going old boy as he was:--"You might do worse, Dave.
I can clear out, any minute. You've only got to sing out." To which his
brother had replied:--"Don't you talk of clearing out, not till Miss
Tarver she tells you." Moses' answer was:--"I'm agreeable, Dave"; and
the matter dropped until some time after, when he had made Dolly
Tarver's acquaintance. She, on hearing that her union with David would
send Mo again adrift, had threatened to declare off if such a thing was
so much as spoke of. So Moses had remained on, in the character of a
permanency saturated with temporariness; and, when the little boy Dave
began to take his place in Society, proceeded to appropriate--so said
the child's parents--more than an uncle's fair share of him.
Then came the tragedy of his mother's death, causing the Court to go
into mourning, and leaving Dave with a sister, too young to be conscious
of responsibility for it. Not too young, however, to make her case
heard--the case all living things have against the Power that creates
them without so much as asking leave. The riot she made being
interpreted by both father and uncle as protest against Mrs. Twiggins, a
midwife who made herself disagreeable--or, strictly speaking, more
disagreeable; being normally unpleasant, and apt to snap when spoke to,
however civil--it was thought desirable to call in the help of her Aunt
M'riar, who was living with her family at Ealing as a widow without
incumbrance. Dolly junior appeared to calm down under Aunt M'riar's
auspices, though every now and then her natural indignation got the
better of her self-restraint. Dave junior was disgusted with his sister
at first, but softened gradually towards her as she matured.
His father did not long survive the death of his young wife. Even an
omnibus-driver is not exempt from inflammation of the lungs, although
the complaint is not so fatal among persons exposed to all weathers as
among leaders of indoor lives. A violent double pneumonia carried off
Uncle Mo's brother, six months after he became a widower, and about
three years before the date of this story.
Whether in some other class of life a marriageable uncle and aunt--sixty
and forty respectively--would have accepted their condominium of the
household that was left, it is not for the story to discuss. Uncle Moses
refused to give up the two babies, and Aunt M'riar refused to leave
them, and--as was remarked by both--there you were! It was an _impasse_.
The only effect it had on the position was that Uncle Mo's temporariness
got a little boastful, and slighted his permanency. The latter, however,
paid absolutely no attention to the insult, and the only change that
took place in the three following years at No. 7, Sapps Court, had
nothing to do with the downstairs tenants. Some months before the first
date of the story, a variation came about in the occupancy upstairs,
Mrs. Prichard and Mrs. Burr taking the place of some parties who, if the
truth was told, were rather a riddance. The fact is merely recorded as
received; nothing further has transpired regarding these persons.
Mrs. Prichard was a very old lady who seldom showed herself outside of
her own room--so the Court testified--but who, when she did so,
impressed the downstairs tenants as of unfathomable antiquity and a
certain pictorial appearance, causing Uncle Mo to speak of her as an old
picter, and Dave to misapprehend her name. For he always spoke of her as
old Mrs. Picture. Mrs. Burr dawned upon the Court as a civil-spoken
person who was away most part of the day, and who did not develope her
identity vigorously during the first year of her tenancy. One is
terribly handicapped by one's own absence, as a member of any Society.
* * * * *
As time went on, Dave and Dolly, who began life with an idea that Sapps
Court was the Universe, became curious about what was going on outside.
They grew less contented with the dustbin, and ambition dictated to Dave
an enthronement on an iron post at the entrance, under the archway. The
delight of sitting on this post was so great that Dave willingly faced
the fact that he could not get down, and whenever he could persuade
anyone to put him up ran a risk of remaining there _sine die_. When he
could not induce a native of the Court to do this, he endeavoured to
influence the outer public, not without success. For when it came to
understand--that public--that the grubby little tenant of Dave's grubby
little shirt and trousers was not asking the time nor for a hoyp'ny, but
was murmuring shyly:--"I soy, mawster, put me up atop," at the same
time slapping the post on either side with two grubby little, fat hands,
it would unbend and comply, telling Dave to hold on tight, and never
asking no questions how ever the child was to be got off of it when the
time came. Because people are that selfish and inconsiderate.
The difficulty of getting down off of it all by himself, without a
friendly supporting hand in the waistband of his trousers, was connected
with the form of this post's head. It was not a disused twenty-four
pounder with a shot in its muzzle, as so many posts are, but a real
architectural post, cast from a pattern at the foundry. Its capital
expanded at the top, and its projecting rim made its negotiation
difficult to climbers, if small; hard to get round from below, and
perilous to leave hold of all of a sudden-like, in order to grasp the
shaft in descent. But then, it was this very expansion that provided a
seat for Dave, which the other sort of post would hardly have afforded.
How did Simeon Stylites manage to scrat on? One prefers to think that an
angel put him on his column, carrying him somewhat as one carries a cat;
and called for him to be taken down at convenient intervals by
appointment. The mind revolts at the idea that he really never came
down, quite never! But then, when the starving man is on at the
Aquarium, we--that is to say, the humane public--are apt to give way to
mere maudlin sentimentalism, and hope he is cheating. And when a person
at a Music Hall folds backwards and looks through his legs at us
forwards, we always hope he feels no strain--nothing but a great and
justifiable professional pride. It is not a pleasant feeling that any of
these good people are suffering on our behalf. However, in the case of
Simeon Stylites there was a mixture of motives, no doubt.
Dave Wardle was too young to have motives, and had none, unless the
desire to surprise and impress Dolly had weight with him. But he had the
longing on him which that young gentleman in the poem expressed by
writing the Latin for _taller_ on a flag; and to gratify it had scaled
the dustbin as the merest infant. It was an Alpine record. But the iron
post was no mere Matterhorn. It was like Peter Bot's Mountain; and once
you was up, there you were, and no getting down!
The occasional phrases for which I am indebted to Aunt M'riar which have
crept into the text recently--not, as I think, to its detriment--were
used by her after a mishap which befell her nephew owing to the child's
impatience. If he'd only a had the sense to set still a half a minute
longer, she would have done them frills and could have run up the Court
a'most as soon as look at you. But she hoped what had happened would
prove a warning, not only to Dave, but to all little boys in a driving
hurry to get off posts. And not only to them either, but to Youth
generally, to pay attention to what was said to it by Age and
Experience, neither of which ever climb up posts without some safe
guarantee of being able to climb down again.
What had happened was that Dave had cut his head on the ornate plinth of
that cast-iron post, his hands missing their grip as his legs caught the
shaft, so that he turned over backwards and his occiput suffered. He
showed a splendid spirit--quite Spartan, in fact--bearing in mind his
uncle's frequent homilies on the subject of crying; a thing no little
boy, however young, should dream of. Dolly was under no such obligation,
according to Uncle Moses, being a female or the rudiment of one, and on
this occasion she roared for herself and her brother, too. Aunt M'riar
was in favour of taking the child to Mr. Ekins, the apothecary, for
skilled surgery to deal with the case, but Uncle Moses scouted the idea.
"Twopenn'orth o' stroppin' and a basin o' warm water," said he, "and
I'll patch him up equal to Guy's Hospital.... Got no diacklum? Then send
one of those young varmints outside for it.... You've no call to go
yourself." For a various crowd of various ages under twelve had come
from nowhere to enjoy the tragic incident.
"Twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary?"
said that young Michael Ragstroar, thrusting himself forward and others
backward; because, you see, he was such a cheeky, precocious young
vagabond. "Mean to say I can't buy twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off
of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary? Mean to say my aunt that orkupies a
'ouse in Chiswick clost to high-water mark don't send me to the
'poarthecaries just as often as not? For the mixture to be taken regular
... Ah!--where's the twopence? 'And over!"
Whereupon, such is the power of self-confidence over everyone else, that
Aunt M'riar entrusted twopence to this youth, quite forgetting that he
was only eleven. Yet her faith in him was not ill-founded, for he
returned like an echo as to promptitude. Only, unlike the echo, he came
back louder than he went, and more positive.
"There's the quorntity and no cheatin'," said he. "You can medger it up
with a rule if you like. It'll medger, you find if it don't! Like I
told you! And a 'apenny returned on the transaction." The tension of the
situation did not admit of the measuring test--nor indeed had Aunt
M'riar data to go upon--and as for the halfpenny, it stood over.
Uncle Moses had not laid false claim to surgical skill, and was able to
strap the wound a'most as if he'd been brought up to it. By the time it
was done Dave's courage was on the wane, and he wasn't sorry to lie his
head down and shut to his eyes. Because the lids thereof were like the
lids of plate-chests.
However, before he went off very sound asleep--so sound you might have
took him for a image--he heard what passed between Uncle Moses and
Michael, whose name has been spelt herein so that you should think of it
as Sapps Court did; but its correct form is Rackstraw.
"Now, young potato-peelin's, how much money did the doctor hand you back
for that diacklum?"
"Penny. Said he'd charge it up to the next Dook that come to his shop."
Thereupon Aunt M'riar taxed the speaker with perfidy. "Why, you little
untrue, lyin', deceitful story," she said. "To think you should say it
was only a ha'penny!"
"I never said no such a thing. S'elp me!"
"''Apenny returned on the transaction' was the very identical selfsame
words." Thus Aunt M'riar testified. "And what is more," she added
inconsecutively, "I do not believe you've any such an aunt, nor yet ever
been to Chiswick."
But young potato-peelings, so called from his father's vocation of
costermonger, defended himself with indignation. "Warn't that square?"
said he. "He never said I warn't to keep it all, didn't that doctor!"
Then he took a high position as of injured virtue. "There's your
'apenny! There's both your 'apennies! Mean to say I 'aven't kep' 'em
safe for yer?" Uncle Moses allowed the position of bailee, but disposed
of the penny as Solomon suggested in the case of the baby, giving one
halfpenny to Michael, and putting the other in Dave's cat on the
mantelshelf.
He justified this course afterwards on the ground that the doctor's
refund was made to the actual negotiator, and that Aunt M'riar had in
any case received full value for her money. Who could say that the
doctor, if referred to, would not have repudiated Aunt M'riar's claim
_in toto_?
Warnings, cautions, and moral lessons derived from this incident had due
weight with Dave for several days; in fact, until his cut healed over.
Then he forgot them and became as bad as ever.
CHAPTER II
HOW DAVE FAILED TO PROFIT BY HIS EXPERIENCE. OF PAOLO TOSCANELLI
AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. OF A NEW SHORE DAVE AND DOLLY REACHED BY
EXPLORATION, ROUND THE CORNER; AND OF OTHER NAVIGATORS WHO HAD, IN
THIS CASE, MADE IT FOR THEMSELVES. OF THE PUBLIC SPIRIT OF DAVE AND
DOLLY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A _BARRAGE_. HOW MRS. TAPPING AND
MRS. RILEY HEARD THE ENGINES. OF A SHORTAGE OF MUD, AND A GREAT
RESOLVE OF DAVE'S. WHY NOT SOME NEW MUD FROM THE NEW SHORE?
The interest of Dave's accident told in the last chapter is merely
collateral. It shows how narrow an escape the story that follows had not
only of never being finished, but even of never being written. For if
its events had never happened, it goes near to certainty that they would
never have been narrated. Near, but not quite. For even if Dave had
profited by these warnings, cautions, and moral lessons to the extent of
averting what now appears to have been Destiny, some imaginative author
might have woven a history showing exactly what might have happened to
him if he had not been a good boy. And that history, in the hands of a
master--one who had the organ of the conditional praeterpluperfect tense
very large--might have worked out the same as this.
The story may be thankful that no such task has fallen to its author's
lot. It is so much easier to tell something that actually did happen
than to make up as you go.
Dave was soon as bad as ever--no doubt of it. Only he kept clear of that
post. The burnt child dreads the fire, and the chances are that
admonitions not to climb up on posts had less to do with his abstention
from this one than the lesson the post itself had hammered into the back
of his head. Exploration of the outer world--of the regions imperfectly
known beyond that post--had so far produced no fatal consequences; so
that Aunt M'riar's and Uncle Mo's warnings to the children to keep
within bounds had not the same convincing character.
But a time was at hand for the passion of exploration to seize upon
these two very young people, and to become an excitement as absorbing to
them as the discovery of America to Paolo Toscanelli and Christopher
Columbus. At first it was satisfied by the _cul-de-sac_ recess on which
Sapps Court opened. But this palled, and no wonder! How could it compete
with the public highway out of which it branched, especially when there
was a new shore--that is to say, sewer--in course of construction?
To stand on the edge of a chasm which certainly reached to the bowels of
the earth, and to see them shovelled up from platform to platform by
agencies that spat upon their hands for some professional reason
whenever there came a lull in the supply from below, was to find life
worth living indeed. These agencies conversed continually about an
injury that had been inflicted on them by the Will of God, the selfish
caprice of their employers, or the cupidity of the rich. They appeared
to be capable of shovelling in any space, however narrow, almost to the
extent of surrendering one dimension and occupying only a plane surface.
But it hadn't come to that yet. The battens that kept the trench-sides
vertical were wider apart than what you'd have thought, when you come to
try 'em with a two-fut rule. And the short lengths of quartering that
kep' 'em apart were not really intersecting the diggers' anatomies as
the weaver's shuttle passes through the warp. That was only the
impression of the unconcerned spectator as he walked above them over the
plank bridge that acknowledged his right of way across the road. His
sympathies remained unentangled. If people navigated, it was their own
look out. You see, these people were navvies, or navigators, although it
strains one's sense of language to describe them so.
The best of it was to come. For in time the lowest navvy was threatened
with death by misadventure, unless he come up time enough to avoid the
water. The small pump the job had been making shift with was obliged to
acknowledge itself beaten, and to make way for one with two handles,
each with room for two pumpers; and this in turn was discarded in favour
of a noisy affair with a donkey-engine, which brought up the yellow
stream as fast as ever a gutter of nine-inch plank, nailed up to a =V=,
would carry it away. And it really was a most extraordinary thing that
of all those navigators there was not one that had not predicted in
detail exactly the course of events that had come about. Mr. Bloxam, the
foreman, had told the governor that there would be no harm in having the
pump handy, seeing they would go below the clay. And each of the others
had--so they themselves said--spoken in the same sense, in some cases
using a most inappropriate adjective to qualify the expected flood.
Why, even Sleepy Joe had seen that! Sleepy Joe was this same foreman,
and he lived in a wooden hutch on the job, called The Office.
But the watershed of any engine--whatever may be its donkey-power, and
whatever that name implies--slops back where a closed spout changes
suddenly to an open gutter, and sets up independent lakes and rivers.
This one sent its overflow towards Sapps Court, the incline favouring
its distribution along the gutter of the _cul-de-sac_, which lay a
little lower than the main street it opened out of. Its rich, ochrous
rivulets--containing no visible trace of haemorrhage, in spite of that
abuse of an adjective--were creeping slowly along the interstices of
cobblestone paving that still outlived the incoming of Macadam, when
Dave and Dolly Wardle ventured out of their archway to renew a survey,
begun the previous day, of the fascinating excavation in the main
street.
Here was an opportunity for active and useful service not to be lost.
Dave immediately cast about to scrape up and collect such mud as came
ready to hand, and with it began to build up an intercepting embankment
to stop the foremost current, that was winding slowly, like Vesuvian
lava, on the line of least resistance. Dolly followed his example,
filling a garment she called her pinafore with whatever mould or
_débris_ was attainable, and bringing it with much gravity and some
pride to help on the structure of the dyke. A fiction, rather felt than
spoken, got in the air that Sapps Court and its inhabitants would be
overwhelmed as by Noah's flood, except for the exertions of Dave and his
sister. It appealed to some friends of the same age, also inhabitants of
the Court, and with their assistance and sympathy it really seemed--in
this fiction--that a catastrophe might be averted. You may imagine what
a drove of little grubs those children looked in the course of half an
hour. Not that any of them were particularly spruce to begin with.
However, there was the embankment holding back the dirty yellow water;
and now the pump was running on steady-like, there didn't so much come
slopping over to add to the deluge that threatened Sapps Court. The
policeman--the only one supposed to exist, although in form he varied
slightly--made an inquiry as to what was going on, to be beforehand with
Anarchy. He said:--"What are you young customers about, taking the
Company's water?" That seemed to embody an indictment without committing
the accuser to particulars. But he took no active steps, and a very old
man with a fur cap, and no teeth, and big bones in his cheeks,
said:--"It don't make no odds to we, I take it." He was a prehistoric
navvy, who had become a watchman, and was responsible for red lanterns
hooked to posts on the edge of chasms to warn carts off. He was going to
sleep in half a tent, soothed or otherwise by the unflagging piston of
that donkey-engine, which had made up its mind to go till further
notice.
The men were knocking off work, and it was getting on for time for those
children to have their suppers and be put to bed. But as Aunt M'riar had
some trimming to finish, and it was a very fine evening, there was no
harm in leaving them alone a few minutes longer. As for any attractive
influences of supper, those children never come in of theirselves, and
always had to be fetched.
An early lamplighter--for this was in September, 1853--passed along the
street with a ladder, dropping stars as he went. There are no
lamplighters now, no real ones that run up ladders. Their ladders
vanished first, leaving them with a magic wand that lighted the gas as
soon as you got the tap turned; only that was ever so long, as often as
not. Perhaps things are better now that lamps light themselves
instinctively at the official hour of sunset. At any rate, one has the
satisfaction of occasionally seeing one that won't go out, but burns on
into the daylight to spite the Authorities.
They were cold stars, almost green, that this lamplighter dropped; but
this was because the sun had left a flood of orange-gold behind it,
enough to make the tune from "Rigoletto" an organ was playing think it
was being composed in Italy again. The world was a peaceful world,
because Opulence, inflated and moderate, had gone out of town: the
former to its country-house, or a foreign hotel; the latter to lodgings
at the seaside to bathe out of machines and prey on shrimps. The lull
that reigned in and about Sapps Court was no doubt a sort of recoil or
backwater from other neighbourhoods, with high salaries or real and
personal estate, whose dwellings were closed and not being properly
ventilated by their caretakers. It reacted on business there, every bit
as much as in Oxford Street; and that was how Tapping's the
tallow-chandler's--where you got tallow candles and dips, as well as
composites; for in those days they still chandled tallow--didn't have a
single customer in for ten whole minutes by the clock. In that interval
Mrs. Tapping seized the opportunity to come out in the street and
breathe the air. So did Mrs. Riley next door, and they stood conversing
on the topics of the day, looking at the sunset over the roofs of the
_cul-de-sac_ this story has reference to. For Mrs. Tapping's shop was in
the main road, opposite to where the embankment operations were in hand.
"Ye never will be tellin' me now, Mrs. Tapping, that ye've not hur-r-rd
thim calling 'Fire!' in the sthrate behind? Fy-urr, fy-urr, fy-urr!"
This is hard to write as Mrs. Riley spoke it, so great was her command
of the letter _r_.
"Now you name it, Mrs. Riley, deny it I can't. But to the point of
taking notice to bear in mind--why no! It was on my ears, but only to be
let slip that minute. Small amounts and accommodations frequent, owing
to reductions on quantity took, distrack attention. I was a-sayin' to my
stepdaughter only the other day that hearin' is one thing and listenin'
is another. And she says to me, she says, I was talking like a book, she
says. Her very expression and far from respectful! So I says to her, not
to be put upon, 'Lethear,' I says, 'books ain't similar all through but
to seleck from, and I go accordin'....'" Mrs. Tapping, whose system was
always to turn the conversation to some incident in which she had been
prominent, might have developed this one further, but Mrs. Riley
interrupted her with Celtic _naïveté_.
"D'ye mane to say, me dyurr, that ye can't hearr 'em now? Kape your
tongue silent and listen!" A good, full brogue permits speech that would
offend in colourless Saxon; and Mrs. Tapping made no protest, but
listened. Sure enough the rousing, maddening "Fire, fire, fire, fire,
fire!" was on its way at speed somewhere close at hand. It grew and
lessened and died. And Mrs. Riley was triumphant. "That's a larrudge
fire, shure!" said she, transposing her impression of the enthusiasm of
the engine to the area of the conflagration. Cold logic perceives that
an engine may be just as keen to pump on a cottage as on a palace,
before it knows which. Mrs. Riley had come from Tipperary, and had
brought a sympathetic imagination with her, leaving any logic she
possessed behind.
A few minutes before the lamplighter passed--saying to the old
watchman:--"Goin' to bed, Sam?" and on receiving the reply, "Time enough
yet!" rejoining sarcastically:--"Time enough for a quart!"--the
labourers at the dyke had recognised the fact that unless new material
could be obtained, the pent-up waters would burst the curb and bound,
rejoicing to be free, and rush headlong to the nearest drain. All the
work would be lost unless a fresh supply could be obtained; the ruling
fiction of a new Noachian deluge might prove a deadly reality instead
of, as now, a theoretical contingency under conditions which engineering
skill might avert. The Sappers and Miners who were roused from their
beds to make good a dynamited embankment and block the relentless Thames
did not work with a more untiring zeal to baffle a real enemy than did
Dave and Dolly to keep out a fictitious one, and hypothetically save
Uncle Moses and Aunt M'riar from drowning. But all efforts would be
useless if there was to be a shortage of mud.
The faces of our little friends, and their little friends, were
earnestness itself as they concentrated on the great work in the glow of
the sunset. They had no eyes for its glories. The lamplighter even,
dropping jewels as he went, passed them by unheeded. The organ
interpreted Donizetti in vain. Despair seemed imminent when Dolly, who,
though small, was as keen as the keenest of the diggers, came back after
a special effort with no more than the merest handful of
gutter-scrapings, saying with a most pathetic wail:--"I tan't det no
more!"
Then it was that a great resolve took shape in the heart of Dave. It
found utterance in the words:--"Oy wants some of the New Mud the Men
spoyded up with their spoyds," and pointed to an ambitious scheme for
securing some of the fine rich clay that lay in a tempting heap beyond
the wooden bridge across the sewer-trench. The bridge that Dave had
never even stood upon, much less crossed!
The daring, reckless courage of the enterprise! Dolly gasped with awe
and terror. She was too small to find at a moment's notice any terms in
which she could dissuade Dave from so venturesome a project. Besides,
her faith in her brother amounted to superstition. Dave _must_ know what
was practicable and righteous. Was he not nearly six years old? She
stood speechless and motionless, her heart in her mouth as she watched
him go furtively across that awful bridge of planks and get nearer and
nearer to his prize.
There were lions in his path, as there used to be in the path of
knights-errant when they came near the castles of necromancers who held
beautiful princesses captive--to say nothing of full-blown dragons and
alluring syrens. These lions took in one case, the form of a
butcher-boy, who said untruthfully:--"Now, young hobstacle, clear out o'
this! Boys ain't allowed on bridges;" and in another that of Michael
Ragstroar, who said, "Don't you let the Company see you carryin' off
their property. They'll rip you open as soon as look at you. You'll be
took afore the Beak." Dave was not yet old enough to see what a very
perverted view of legal process these words contained, but his blue eyes
looked mistrustfully at the speaker as he watched him pass up the street
towards the Wheatsheaf, swinging a yellow jug with ridges round its neck
and a full corporation. Michael had been sent to fetch the beer.
If the blue eyes had not remained fixed on that yellow jug and its
bearer till both vanished through the swing-door of the Wheatsheaf--if
their owner's mistrust of his informant had been strong enough to cancel
the misgivings that crossed his baby mind, only a few seconds sooner,
would things have gone otherwise with Dave? Would he have used that
beautiful lump of clay, as big as a man of his age could carry, on the
works that were to avert Noah's flood from Sapps Court? Would he and
Dolly not probably have been caught at their escapade by an indignant
Aunt M'riar, corrected, duly washed and fed, and sent to bed sadder and
wiser babies? So few seconds might have made the whole difference.
Or, if that heap of clay had been thrown on the other side of the
trench, on the pavement instead of towards the traffic--why then the
children might have taken all they could carry, and Old Sam would have
countenanced them, in reason, as like as not. But how little one gains
by thinking what might have been! The tale is to tell, and tells that
these things were not otherwise, but thus.
* * * * *
Uncle Moses was in the room on the right of the door, called the
parlour, smoking a pipe with the old friend whose advice had probably
kept him from coming on the parish.
"Aunt M'riar!" said he, tapping his pipe out on the hob, and taking care
the ashes didn't get in the inflammable stove-ornament, "I don't hear
them young customers outside. What's got 'em?"
"Don't you begin to fret and werrit till I tell you to it, Moses. The
children's safe and not in any mischief--no more than usual. Mr. Alibone
seen 'em." For although the world called this friend Affability Bob and
Uncle Moses gave him his christened name, Aunt M'riar always spoke of
him, quite civil-like, thus.
"You see the young nippers, Jerry?" said the old prizefighter; who
always got narvous, as you might say, though scarcely alarmed, when they
got out of sight and hearing; even if it was for no more time than what
an egg takes.
"Jist a step beyond the archway, Mosey," said Mr. Alibone. "Paddlin'
and sloppin' about with the water off o' the shore-pump. It's all clean
water, Mrs. Catchpole, only for a little clay." Aunt M'riar, whose
surname was an intrinsic improbability in the eyes of Public Opinion,
and who was scarcely ever called by it, except by Mr. Jerry, expressed
doubts. So he continued:--"You see, they're sinking for a new shore
clear of the old one. So nothing's been opened into."
"Well," said Aunt M'riar, "I certainly did think the flaviour was being
kep' under wonderful. But now you put it so, I understand. What I say
is--if dirt, then clean dirt; and above all no chemicals!... What's that
you're saying, Uncle Mo?"
"Why, I was a-thinking," said Uncle Moses, who seemed restless, "I _was_
a-thinking, Bob, that you and me might have our pipes outside, being dry
underfoot." For Uncle Moses, being gouty, was ill-shod for wet weather.
He was slippered, though not lean. And though Mrs. Burr, coming in just
then, added her testimony that the children were quite safe and happy,
only making a great mess, Uncle Moses would not be content to remain
indoors, but must needs be going out. "These here young juveniles," said
he, outside in the Court, "where was it you took stock of 'em, did you
say?"
"Close to hand," said Affability Bob. "One step out of the archway.
There you'll find 'em, old man. Don't you fret your kidneys. _They're_
all right. Hear the engines?"
"Whereabouts is the fire?"
"Somewhere down by Walworth. I saw the smoke, crossing Hungerford
Bridge. This engine's coming down our road outside."
"I reckon she may be, by the sound. She'll be half-way to Blackfriars
before we're out of this here Court. If she gets by where the road's up!
Maybe she'll have to go back."
"There she stops! What's the popilation shoutin' at?" For the tramp of
the engine's horses, heard plain enough on the main road, came to an end
abruptly, and sounds ensued--men's shouts, women's cries--not
reconcilable with the mere stoppage of a fire-engine by unexpected
narrows or an irregular coal-cart.
"Couldn't say, I'm sure. They're a nizy lot in these parts." So said
Uncle Moses, and walked slowly up the Court, stopping for breath
half-way.
CHAPTER III
WHY THAT ENGINE STOPPED. BUT THE WHEELS HAD NOT GONE OVER DAVE. HOW
PETER JACKSON CARRIED HIM AWAY TO THE HOSPITAL. OF DOLLY'S DESPAIR
AT THE COLLAPSE OF THE _BARRAGE_, AND OF AN OLD COCK, NAMED SAM.
MRS. TAPPING'S EXPERIENCES, AND HER DAUGHTER, ALETHEA. OF THE
VICISSITUDES OF THE PUBLIC, AND ITS AMAZING RECUPERATIVE POWERS.
HOW UNCLE MOSES AND MR. ALIBONE WENT TO THE HOSPITAL
So few seconds would have made the whole difference. But so engrossing
had Dave found the contemplation of Michael Ragstroar and his yellow
jug, so exciting particularly was its disappearance into the swing-door
of the Wheatsheaf, that he forgot even the new mud that the men had
spaded up with their spades. And these seconds slipped by never to
return. Then when Michael had vanished, the little man stooped to secure
his cargo. It was slippery and yet tenacious; had been detachable with
difficulty from the spade that wrenched it from the virgin soil of its
immemorial home, and was now difficult to carry. But Dave grappled
bravely with it and turned to go back across the bridge.
A coming whirlwind, surely, in the distance of the street--somewhere now
where all the gas-lamps' cold green stars are merged in one--now nearer,
nearer still; and with it, bringing folk to doors and windows to see
them pass, the war-cry of the men that fight the flames. Charioteers
behind blood-horses bathed in foam; heads helmeted in flashing
splendour; eyes all intent upon the track ahead, keen to anticipate the
risks of headlong speed and warn the dilatory straggler from its path.
Nearer and nearer--in a moment it will pass and take some road unknown
to us, to say to fires that even now are climbing up through roof and
floor, clasping each timber in a sly embrace fatal as the caress of
Death itself:--"Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!" Close upon us
now, to be stayed with a sudden cry--something in the path! Too late!
Too late, though the strong hand that held the reins brought back the
foaming steeds upon their haunches, with startled eyes and quivering
nostrils all agape. Too late, though the helmeted men on the engine's
flank were down, almost before its swerve had ceased, to drag at every
risk from beneath the plunging hoofs the insensible body of the child
that had slipped from a clay heap by the roadside, on which it stood to
gaze upon the coming wonder, and gone headlong down quite suddenly upon
the open road.
You who read this, has it ever fallen to your lot to guide two swift
horses at a daring speed through the narrow ways, the ill-driven
vehicles, the careless crowds and frequent drunkards of the slum of a
great city? If so, you have earned some right to sit in judgment on the
fire-engine that ran our little friend down. But you will be the last of
all men to condemn that fire-engine.
"Dead, mate?" One of the helmeted men asks this of the other as they
escape from the plunging hoofs. They are used to this sort of thing--to
every sort of thing.
"Insensible," says the other, who holds in his arms the rescued child, a
mere scrap of dust and clay and pallor and a little blood.
A fire-engine calculates its rights to pause in fractions of a minute.
The unused portion of twenty seconds the above conversation leaves,
serves for a glance round in search of some claimant of the child, or a
responsible police-officer to take over the case. Nothing presents
itself but Mrs. Tapping, too much upset to be coherent, and not able to
identify the child; Mrs. Riley, little better, but asking:--"Did the
whales go overr it, thin?" The old man Sam, the watchman, is working
round from his half-tent, where he sleeps in the traffic, but cannot
possibly negotiate the full extent of trench and bridge for fifty
seconds more. Time cannot be lavished waiting for him. The man at the
reins, with seeming authority, clinches the matter.
"You stop, Peter Jackson. _Hospital!_ Don't you let the child out of
your hands before you get there. Understand?--All clear in front?" Two
men, who have taken the horses' heads, to soothe their shaken nerves
with slaps and suitable exclamations, now give them back to their
owners, leaving them free to rear high once or twice to relieve feeling;
while they themselves go back, each to his own place on the engine. A
word of remonstrance from the driver about that rearing, and they are
off again, the renewed fire-cry scarcely audible in the distance by the
time Old Sam gets across the wooden bridge.
To him, as to a responsible person, says Peter Jackson:--"Know where he
belongs?"--and to Mrs. Riley, as to one not responsible, but deserving
of sympathy:--"No--the wheels haven't been over him."
"Down yonder Court, I take it. Couldn't say for sartin." So says Sam;
and Mrs. Tapping discerns with pious fervour the Mercy of God in this
occurrence, He not having flattened the child out on the road outright.
But Peter Jackson's question implied no intention to communicate with
the little victim's family. To do so would be a clear dereliction of
duty; an offence against discipline. He has his instructions, and in
pursuance of them strides away to the Hospital without another word,
bearing in his arms a light burden so motionless that it is hard to
credit it with life. So quickly has the whole thing passed, that the
drift of idlers hard on his heels is a fraction of what a couple more
minutes would have made it. It will have grown before they reach the
Middlesex, short as the distance is. Then a police-sergeant, who joins
them half-way, will take notes and probably go to find the child's
parents; while Peter Jackson, chagrined at this hitch in his day's
fire-eating, will go off Walworth way at the best speed he may, after
handing over his charge to an indisputable House-Surgeon.
One can picture to oneself how the whole thing might pass as it did,
between the abrupt check of the engine's career, heard by Uncle Moses
and his friend, and the two or three minutes later when they emerged
through the archway to find Dolly in despair; not from any knowledge of
the accident to Dave, for intense preoccupation and a rampart of clay
had kept her in happy ignorance of it, but because the water had broken
bounds and Noah's flood had come with a vengeance. Questioned as to
Dave's whereabouts, she embarked on a lengthy stuttered explanation of
how Dave had dode round there--pointing to the clay heap--to det some of
the new mud the men had spoyded up with their spoyds. She reproduced his
words, of course. Uncle Moses was trying to detect her meaning without
much success, when he became aware that the old man in the fur cap who
had shouted more than once, "I say, master!" was addressing him.
"Is that old cock singing out to one of we, Jerry?" said Uncle Moses.
And then replied to the old cock:--"Say what you've got to say, mate!
Come a bit nigher."
Thereupon Old Sam crossed the bridge, slowly, as Uncle Moses moved to
meet him. "Might you happen to know anything of this little boy?" said
old Sam.
Uncle Moses caught the sound of disaster in his accent, before his words
came to an end. "What's the little boy?" said he. "Where have you got
him?" And Dolly, startled by the strange sound in her uncle's voice,
forgot Noah's flood, and stood dumb and terrified with outstretched
muddy hands.
"I may be in the wrong of it, master"--thus Old Sam in his slow way, a
trial to impatience--"but maybe this little maid's brother. They've took
him across to the Hospital." Old Sam did not like to have to say this.
He softened it as much as he could. Do you not see how? Omit the word
"across," and see how relentless it makes the message. Do you ask why?
Impossible to say--but it _does_!
Then Uncle Moses shouted out hoarsely, not like himself: "The
Hospital--the Hospital--hear that, Bob! Our boy Dave in the Hospital!"
and, catching his friend's arm, "Ask him--ask more!" His voice dropped
and his breath caught. He was a bad subject for sudden emotions.
"Tell it out, friend--any word that comes first!" says Mr. Alibone. And
then Old Sam, tongue-freed, gives the facts as known to him. He ends
with:--"Th' young child could never have been there above a minute, all
told, before the engine come along, and might have took no warning at
twice his age for the vairy sudden coming of it." He dwells upon the
shortness of the time Dave had been on the spot as though this minimised
the evil. "I shouldn't care to fix the blame, for my own part," says he,
shaking his head in venerable refusal of judicial functions not assigned
to him so far.
"Is the child killed, man? Say what you know!" Thus Mr. Alibone
brusquely. For he has caught a question Uncle Moses just found voice
for:--"Killed or not?"
The old watchman is beginning slowly:--"That I would not undertake to
say, sir...." when he is cut off short by Mrs. Riley, anxious to attest
any pleasant thing, truly if possible; but if otherwise, anyhow!--"Kilt
is it? No, shure thin! Insinsible." And then adds an absolutely
gratuitous statement from sheer optimism:--"Shure, I hur-r-d thim say so
mesilf, and I wouldn't mislade ye, me dyurr. Will I go and till his
mother so for ye down the Court? To till her not to alarrum hersilf!"
But by this time Uncle Moses had rallied. The momentary qualm had been
purely physical, connected with something that a year since had caused a
medical examination of his heart with a stethoscope. He had been too
great an adept in the art of rallying after knock-down blows in his
youth to go off in a faint over this. He had felt queer, for all that.
Still, he declined Mrs. Riley's kindly meant offer. "Maybe I'll make the
best job of it myself," said he. "Thanking you very kindly all the
same, ma'am!" After which he and his friend vanished back into Sapps
Court, deciding as they went that it would be best to persuade Aunt
M'riar to remain at home, while they themselves went to the Hospital, to
learn the worst. It would never do to leave Dolly alone, or even in
charge of neighbours.
Mrs. Riley's optimism lasted till Uncle Moses and Mr. Alibone
disappeared, taking with them Dolly, aware of something terrible afoot;
too small to understand the truth, whatever it was; panic-stricken and
wailing provisionally to be even with the worst. Then, all reason for
well-meaning falsehood being at an end, the Irishwoman looked facts in
the face with the resolution that never flinches before the mishaps of
one's fellow-man, especially when he is a total stranger.
"The power man!" said she. "He'll have sane the last of his little boy
alive, only shure one hasn't the harrut to say the worrd. Throubles make
thimsilves fast enough without the tilling of thim, and there'll be
manes and to spare for the power payple to come to the knowledge without
a worrd from you or me, Mrs. Tapping."
Then said Mrs. Tapping, on the watch for an opening through which she
could thrust herself into the conversation; as a topic, you
understand:--"Now there, Mrs. Riley, you name the very reason why I
always stand by like, not to introduce my word. Not but that I will
confess to the temptation undergone this very time to say that by God's
will the child was took away from us, undeniable. Against that
temptation I kep' my lips shut. Only I will say this much, and no
concealment, that if my husband had been spared, being now a widow
fourteen years, and heard me keep silence many a time, he might have
said it again and again, like he said it a hundred times if he said it
once when alive and able to it:--'Mary Ann Tapping, you do yourself no
justice settin' still and list'nin', with your tongue in your mouth God
gave you, and you there to use it!' And I says to Tapping, fifty times
if I said it once, 'Tapping,' says I, 'you better know things twiced
before you say 'em for every onced you say 'em before you know 'em.'
Then Tapping, he says, was that to point at 'Lethear? And I says yes,
though the girl was then young and so excusable. But she may learn
better, I says, and made allowance though mistaken...." This is just as
good a point for Mrs. Tapping to cease at as any other in the story. In
reality Heaven only knows when she ceased.
A very miscellaneous public gathered round and formed false ideas of
what had happened from misinformants. The most popular erroneous report
ran towards connecting it somehow with the sewer-trench, influencing
people to look down into its depths and watch for the reappearance of
something supposed to be expected back. So much so that more than one
inoffensive person asked the man in charge of the pumping engine--which
went honourably on without a pause--whether "it" was down there. He was
a morose and embittered man--had been crossed in love, perhaps--for he
met all inquiries by another:--"Who are you a-speaking to?" and, on
being told, added:--"Then why couldn't you say so?" Humble apology had
then to be content with, "No, it ain't down there and never has been, if
you ask me,"--in answer to the previous question.
Old Sam endeavoured more than once to point out that the accident need
not necessarily end fatally. He invented tales of goods-trains that had
passed over him early in life, and the surgical skill that had left him
whole and sound. Trains were really unknown in his boyhood, but there
was no one to contradict him. The public, stimulated to hopefulness,
produced analogous experiences. It had had a hay-cart over it, with a
harvest-home on the top, such as we see in pictures. It had had the
Bangor coach over it, going down hill, and got caught in the skid. It
had been under an artillery corps and field-guns at a gallop, when the
Queen revoo'd the troops in Hyde Park. And look at it now! Horse-kicks
and wheel-crushing really had a bracing tendency; gave the constitution
tone, and seldom left any ill effects.
Only their consequences must be took in time. Well!--hadn't the child
gone to the Hospital? Dissentients who endeavoured to suggest that
broken bones and dislocations were unknown before the invention of
surgeons, were rebuked by the citation of instances of neglected
compound fractures whose crippled owners became athletes after their
bones had been scientifically reset, having previously been rebroken in
the largest number of places the narrator thought he could get credence
for. Hope told her flattering tale very quickly, for when Dave's uncle
and Jerry Alibone reappeared on their way to find the truth at the
Hospital, her hearers were ready with encouragement, whether they knew
anything about the matter or not. "I don't believe they do," said Uncle
Moses, and Mr. Alibone replied--"Not they, bless your heart!" But it was
refreshing for all that.
They met the police-sergeant on the way, coming from the Hospital to
bring the report and make inquiry about the child's belongings. They
credited him with superhuman insight when he addressed them
with:--"Either of you the father of a child knocked down by Fire-engine
67A in this street--taken into accident ward?" He spoke just as though
Engine 68B had knocked another child down in the next street, and so on
all over London.
But his sharpness was merely human. For scarcely a soul had passed but
paused to look round after them, wondering at the set jaw and pallid
face of the huge man who limped on a stick, seeming put to it to keep
the speed. Uncle Moses, you see, was a fine man in his own way of the
prizefighter type; and now, in his old age, worked out a little like Dr.
Samuel Johnson.
The report, as originally received by the police-officer, was that the
child was not killed but still unconscious. A good string of injuries
were credited to the poor little man, including a dislocated femur and
concussion of the brain. Quite enough, alone!--for the patient, his
friends and relations. The House-Surgeon, speaking professionally, spoke
also hopefully of undetected complications in the background. We might
pull him through for all that. This report was materially softened for
the child's family. Better not say too much to the parents at present,
either way!
CHAPTER IV
HOW UNCLE MO AND HIS FRIEND COULD NOT GET MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT.
DOLLY'S ATTITUDE. ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, AND DOLLY'S PUDDING.
HOW UNCLE MO'S SPIRITS WENT DOWN INTO HIS BOOTS. HOW PETER JACKSON
THE FIREMAN INTERVIEWED MICHAEL RAGSTROAR, UPSIDE DOWN, AND BROUGHT
AUNT M'RIAR'S HEART INTO HER MOUTH. HOW DAVE CAME HOME IN A CAB,
AND MICHAEL RAGSTROAR GOT A RIDE FOR NOTHING. OF SISTER NORA, WHO
GOT ON THE COURT'S VISITING LIST BEFORE IT CAME OUT THAT SHE WAS
MIXED UP WITH ARISTOCRATS
The present writer, half a century since--he was then neither _we_ nor a
writer--trod upon a tiny sapling in the garden of the house then
occupied by his kith and kin. It was broken off an inch from the ground,
and he distinctly remembers living a disgraced life thereafter because
of the beautiful tree that sapling might have become but for his
inconsiderate awkwardness. If the censorious spirit that he aroused
could have foreseen the tree that was to grow from the forgotten
residuum of the accident, the root that it left in the ground, it would
not perhaps have passed such a sweeping judgment. Any chance wayfarer in
St. John's Wood may see that tree now--from the end of the street, for
that matter.
So perhaps the old prizefighter might have mustered more hope in
response to Aunt M'riar's plucky rally against despair. The tiny, white,
motionless figure on the bed in the accident ward, that had uttered no
sound since he saw it on first arriving at the Hospital, might have been
destined to become that of a young engineer on a Dreadnought, or an
unfledged dragoon, for any authenticated standard of Impossibility.
The House-Surgeon and his Senior, one of the heads of the
Institution,--interviewed by Uncle Moses and Aunt M'riar when they came
late by special permission and appointment, hoping to hear the child's
voice once more, and found him still insensible and white--testified
that the action of the heart was good. The little man had no intention
of dying if he could live. But both his medical attendants knew that the
tremulous inquiry whether there was any hope of a recovery--within a
reasonable time understood, of course--was really a petition for a
favourable verdict at any cost. And they could not give one, for all
they would have been glad to do so. They have to damn so many hopes in a
day's work, these Accident Warders!
"It's no use asking us," said they, somehow conjointly. "There's not a
surgeon in all England that could tell you whether it will be life or
death. _We_ can only say the patient is making a good fight for it."
They seemed very much interested in the case, though, and in the queer
old broken-hearted giant that sobbed over the half-killed baby that
could not hear nor answer, speak to it as he might.
"What did you say your name was?" said the Senior Surgeon to Uncle
Moses.
"Moses Wardle of Hanley, called the Linnet. Ye see, I was a Member of
the Prize Ring, many years. Fighting Man, you might say."
"I had an idea I knew the name, too. When I was a youngster thirty odd
years ago I took an interest in that sort of thing. You fought Bob
Brettle, and the umpires couldn't agree."
"That was it, master. Well, I had many a turn up--turn up and turn down,
either way as might be. But I had a good name. I never sold a backer. I
did my best by them that put their money on me." For the moneychanger,
the wagermonger, creeps in and degrades the noble science of damaging
one's fellow-man effectively; even as in old years he brought discredit
on cock-fighting, in which at least--you cannot deny it--the bird cuts a
better figure than he does in his native farmyard.
"Come round after twelve to-morrow, and we may know more," said the
House-Surgeon. "It's not regular--but ask for me." And then the older
Surgeon shook Uncle Moses by the hand, quite respectful-like--so Mr.
Jerry said to Aunt M'riar later--and the two went back, sad and
discouraged, to Sapps Court.
What made it all harder to bear was the difficulty of dealing with
Dolly. Dolly knew, of course, that Dave had been took to the
Horsetickle--that was the nearest she could get to the word, after
frequent repetitions--and that he was to be made well, humanly speaking,
past a doubt. The little maid had to be content with assurances to this
effect, inserting into the treaty a stipulation as to time.
"Dave's doin' to tum home after dinner," said she, when that meal seemed
near at hand. And Uncle Moses never had the heart to say no.
Then when no Dave had come, and Dolly had wept for him in vain, and a
cloth laid announced supper, Dolly said--moved only by that landmark of
passing time--"Dave _is_ a-doin' to tum home after supper; he _is_
a-doin', Uncle Mo, he _is_ a-doin'!" And what could her aunt and uncle
do but renew the bill, as it were; the promise to pay that could only be
fulfilled by the production of Dave, whole and sound.
She refused food except on condition that an exactly similar helping
should be conveyed to Dave in the Horsetickle. She withdrew the
condition that Uncle Moses and herself should forthwith convey Dave's
share of the repast to him, in consideration of a verbal guarantee that
little girls were not allowed in such Institutions. Why she accepted
this so readily is a mystery. Possibly the common form of instruction to
little girls, dwelling on their exclusion by statute or usage from
advantages enjoyed by little boys, may have had its weight. Little
girls, _exempli gratia_, may not lie on their backs and kick their legs
up. Little boys are at liberty to do so, subject to unimportant
reservations, limiting the area at their disposal for the practice. It
is needless--and might be thought indelicate--to instance the numerous
expressions that no little girl should use under any circumstances,
which are regarded as venial sin in little boys, except of course on
Sunday. Society does not absolutely countenance the practices of
spitting and sniffing in little boys, but it closes its eyes and passes
hypocritically by on the other side of the road; while, on the other
hand, little girls indulging in these vices would either be cast out
into the wilderness, or have to accept the _rôle_ of penitent Magdalens.
Therefore when Dolly was told that little girls were not allowed in
Hospitals, it may only have presented itself to her as another item in a
code of limitations already familiar.
The adhibition in visible form of a pendant to her own allowance of
pudding or bread-and-milk, to be carried to the Horsetickle by Uncle
Moses on his next visit, had a sedative effect, and she was contented
with it, without insisting on seeing the pledge carried out. Her
imagination was satisfied, as a child's usually is, with any objective
transaction. Moreover, a dexterous manipulation of the position improved
matters. The portion allotted to Dave was removed, ostensibly to keep it
warm for him, but reproduced to do duty as a second helping for Dolly.
Of course, it had to be halved again for Dave's sake, and an ancient
puzzle solved itself in practice. The third halving was not worth
sending to the Hospital. Even so a step too small to take was left for
Achilles when the tortoise had only just started. "Solvitur ambulando,"
said Philosophy, and _a priori_ reasoning took a back place.
Her constant inquiries about the date of Dave's cure and return were an
added and grievous pain to her aunt and uncle. It was easy for the
moment to procrastinate, but how if the time should come for telling her
that Dave would never come back--no, never?
But the time was not to come yet. For a few days Life showed indecision,
and Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar had a thumping heart apiece each time they
stood by the little, still, white figure on the bed and thought the
breath was surely gone. They were allowed in the ward every day,
contrary to visitor-rule, apparently because of Uncle Mo's professional
eminence in years gone by--an odd reason when one thinks of it! It was
along of that good gentleman, God bless him!--said Aunt M'riar--that
knew Uncle Mo's name in the Ring. In fact, the good gentleman had said
to the House-Surgeon in private converse: "You see, there's no doubt the
old chap ended sixteen rounds with Brettle in a draw, and Jem Mace had a
near touch with Brettle. No, no--we must let him see the case day by
day." So Uncle Mo saw the case each day, and each day went away to
transact such business with Hope as might be practicable. And each day,
on his return, there was a voice heard in Sapps Court, Dolly weeping for
her elder brother, and would not be comforted. "Oo _did_ said oo would
fess Dave back from the Horsetickle, oo know oo did, Uncle Mo"; and
similar reproaches, mixed themselves with her sobs. But for many days
she got no consolation beyond assurance that Dave would come to-morrow,
discharged cured.
Then, one windy morning, a punctual equinoctial gale, gathering up its
energies to keep inoffensive persons awake all night and, if possible,
knock some chimney-stacks down, blew Uncle Mo's pipelight out, and
caused him to make use of an expression. And Aunt M'riar reproved that
expression, saying:--"Not with that blessed boy lying there in the
Hospital should you say such language, Moses, more like profane
swearing, I call it, than a Christian household."
"He's an old Heathen, ma'am, is Moses," said Mr. Alibone, who was
succeeding in lighting his own pipe, in spite of the wind in at the
street door. Because, as we have seen, in this Court--unlike the Courts
of Law or Her Majesty's Court of St. James's--the kitchens opened right
on the street. Not but what, for all that, there was the number where
you would expect, on a shiny boss you could rub clean and give an
appearance. Aunt M'riar said so, and must have known.
Uncle Moses shook his head gravely over his own delinquency, as if he
truly felt it just as much as anybody. But when he got his pipe lighted,
instead of being cheerful and making the most of what the doctor had
said that very day, his spirits went down into his boots, which was a
way they had.
"'Tain't any good to make believe," said he. "Supposin' our boy never
comes back, M'riar!"
"There, now!" said Aunt M'riar. "To hear you talk, Mo, wouldn't anybody
think! And after what Dr. Prime said only this afternoon! I should be
ashamed."
"What was it Dr. Prime said, Mo?" asked Mr. Alibone, quite
cheerful-like. "Tell us again, old man." For you see, Uncle Moses he'd
brought back quite an encouraging report, whatever anyone see fit to
say, when he come back from the Hospital. Dr. Prime was the
House-Surgeon.
"I don't take much account of him," said Uncle Mo. "A well-meanin' man,
but too easy by half. One o' your good-natured beggars. Says a thing to
stuff you up like! For all I could see, my boy was as white as that bit
of trimmin' in your hand, M'riar."
"But won't you tell us what the doctor _said_, Mo?" said Mr. Alibone. "I
haven't above half heard the evening's noose." He'd just come in to put
a little heart into Moses.
"Said the little child had a better colour. But I don't set any store by
that." And then what does Uncle Moses do but reg'lar give away and go
off sobbing like a baby. "Oh, M'riar, M'riar, we shall never have our
boy back--no, never!"
And then Aunt M'riar, who was a good woman if ever Mr. Alibone come
across one--this is what that gentleman could and did tell a friend
after, incorporated verbatim in the text--she up and she says:--"For
shame of yourself, Mo, for to go and forget yourself like that before
Mr. Alibone! I tell you I believe we shall have the boy back in a week,
all along o' what Dr. Prime said." On which, and a further
representation that he would wake Dolly if he went on like that, Uncle
Mo he pulled himself together and smoked quiet. Whereupon Aunt M'riar
dwelt upon the depressing effect a high wind in autumn has on the
spirits, with the singular result referred to above, of their
retractation into their owner's boots, like quicksilver in a thermometer
discouraged by the cold. After which professional experience was allowed
some weight, and calmer counsels prevailed.
About this time an individual in a sort of undress uniform, beginning at
the top in an equivocal Tam-o'-Shanter hat, sauntered into the
_cul-de-sac_ to which Sapps Court was an appendix. He appeared to be
unconcerned in human affairs, and indeed independent of Time, Space, and
Circumstance. He addressed a creature that was hanging upside down on
some railings, apparently by choice.
"What sort of a name does this here archway go by?" said he, without
acute curiosity.
"That's Sappses Court," said the creature, remaining inverted. "Say it
ain't?" He appeared to identify the uniform he was addressing, and
added:--"There ain't a fire down that Court, 'cos I knows and I'm a
telling of yer. You'd best hook it." The uniform hooked nothing. Then,
in spite of the creature--who proved, right-side-up, to be Michael
Ragstroar--shouting after him--"You ain't wanted down that Court!" he
entered it deliberately, whistling a song then popular, whose singer
wished he was with Nancy, he did, he did, in a second floor, with a
small back-door, to live and die with Nancy.
Having identified Sapps, he seemed to know quite well which house he
wanted, for he went straight to the end and knocked at No. 7.
"Sakes alive!" said Aunt M'riar, responsive to the knock. "There's no
fire here."
"I'm off duty," said the fireman briefly. "I've come to tell you about
your young customer at the Hospital."
Aunt M'riar behaved heroically. There was only, to her thinking, one
chance in ten that this strange, inexplicable messenger should have
brought any other news to their house than that of its darling's death;
but that one chance was enough to make her choke back a scream, lest
Uncle Mo should have one moment of needless despair. And else--it shot
across her mind in a second--might not a sudden escape from despair even
be fatal to that weak heart of his? So Aunt M'riar pulled to the door
behind her to say, with an effort:--"Is he dead?" The universe swam
about outside while she stood still, and something hummed in her head.
But through it she heard the fireman say:--"Not he!" as of one endowed
with a great vitality, one who would take a deal of killing. When he
added:--"He's spoke," though she believed her ears certainly, for she
ran back into the kitchen crying out:--"He's spoke, Mo, he's spoke!" she
did it with a misgiving that the only interpretation she could see her
way to _must_ be wrong--was altogether too good to be true.
Uncle Mo fairly shouted with joy, and this time woke Dolly, who thought
it was a calamity, and wept. Fully five minutes of incoherent rejoicing
followed, and then details might be rounded off. The fireman had to
stand by his engine on the night-shift in an hour's time, but he saw his
way to a pipe, and lit it.
"They're always interested to hear the ending-up of things at the
Station," said he, to account for himself and his presence, "and I made
it convenient to call round at the Ward. The party that took the child
from me happened to be there, and knew me again." He, of course--but you
would guess this--was Peter Jackson of Engine 67A. He continued:--"The
party was so obliging as to take me into the Ward to the bedside. And it
was while I was there the little chap began talking. The party asked me
to step in and mention it to you, ma'am, or his uncle, seeing it was in
my road to the Station." Then Peter Jackson seemed to feel his words
needed extenuation or revision. "Not but I would have gone a bit out of
the way, for that matter!" said he.
"'Twouldn't be any use my looking round now, I suppose?" said Uncle Mo.
Because he always was that restless and fidgety.
"Wait till to-morrow, they said, the party and the nurse. By reason the
child might talk a bit and then get some healthy sleep. What he's had
these few days latterly don't seem to count." Thus Peter Jackson, and
Uncle Moses said he had seen the like. And then all three of them made
the place smokier and smokier you could hardly make out across the room.
"Mo's an impatient old cock, you see!" said Mr. Alibone, who seemed to
understand Peter Jackson, and _vice versa_. And Uncle Mo said:--"I
suppose I shall have to mark time." To which the others replied that was
about it.
"Only whatever did the young child say, mister?" said Aunt M'riar; like
a woman's curiosity, to know. But those other two, they was curious
underneath-like; only denied it.
"I couldn't charge my memory for certain, ma'am," said Peter Jackson,
"and might very easy be wrong." He appeared to shrink from the
responsibility of making a report, but all his hearers were agreed that
there was no call to cut things so very fine as all that. A rough
outline would meet the case.
"If it ran to nonsense in a child," said Uncle Mo--"after all, what
odds?" And Aunt M'riar said:--"Meanin' slips through the words
sometimes, and no fault to find." She had not read "Rabbi Ben Ezra," so
this was original.
Peter Jackson endeavoured to charge his memory, or perhaps more
properly, to discharge it. Dave had said first thing when he opened his
eyes:--"The worty will be all over the hedge. Let me go to stop the
worty." Of course, this had been quite unintelligible to his hearers.
However, Mr. Alibone and Uncle Mo were _au fait_ enough of the
engineering scheme that had led to the accident, to supply the
explanation. Dave's responsibility as head engineer had been on his
conscience all through his spell of insensibility, and had been the
earliest roused matter of thought when the light began to break.
Besides, it so chanced that testimony was forthcoming to support this
view and confirm Dave's sanity. Dolly, who had been awakened by the
noise, had heard enough to convey to her small mind that something
pleasant had transpired in relation to Dave. Though young, she had a
certain decision of character. Her behaviour was lawless, but not
unnatural. She climbed out of her wooden crib in Aunt M'riar's bedroom,
and slipping furtively down the stair which led direct to the kitchen,
succeeded in bounding on to the lap of her uncle; from which, once
established, she knew it would be difficult for her aunt to dislodge
her. She crowed with delight at the success of this escapade, and had
the satisfaction of being, as it were, confirmed in her delinquency by
her aunt wrapping a shawl round her. This was partly on the score of the
cold draughts in such a high wind, partly as a measure of public
decency. She was in time to endorse her uncle's explanation of Dave's
speech intelligibly enough, with a due allowance of interpretation.
Closely reported, the substance of her commentary ran as follows--"Dave
tooktited the mud when I fessed him the mud in my flock"--this was
illustrated in a way that threatened to outrage a sensitive propriety,
the speaker's aunt's--"and spooshed up the worty and spooshed up the
worty"--this repetition had great value--"and spooshtited the worty
back, and then there wasn't no more mud ... it was all fessed away in my
flock ... All dorn!--ass, it was--_all_ dorn!"--this was in a minor key,
and thrilled with pathos--"and Dave dode to fess more where the new mud
was, and was took to the Horsetickle and never come back no more ..." At
this point it seemed best to lay stress upon the probable return of
Dave, much to Dolly's satisfaction; though she would have been better
pleased if a date had been fixed.
Our own belief is that Dolly thought the Horsetickle was an institution
for the relief of sufferers from accidents occasioned by horses, and
that no subsequent experience ever entirely dissipated this impression.
The chances are that nine or ten of the small people one sees daily and
thinks of as "the children," are laying up, even at this moment, some
similar fancy that will last a lifetime. But this is neither here nor
there.
What is more to the purpose is that a fortnight later Dave was brought
home in a cab--the only cab that is recorded in History as having ever
deliberately stood at the entrance to Sapps Court, with intent. Cabs may
have stood there in connection with other doorways in the _cul-de-sac_,
but ignoring proudly the archway with the iron post. Dave was carried
down the Court by his uncle with great joy, and Michael Ragstroar seized
the opportunity to tie himself somehow round the axle of the cab's
backwheels, and get driven some distance free of charge.
Dave, as seen by Dolly on his return, was still painfully white, and
could not walk. And Dolly might not come banging and smashing down on
him like a little elephant, because it would hurt him; so she had to be
good. The elephant simile was due to a lady--no doubt well-meaning--who
accompanied Dave from the Hospital, and came more than once to see him
afterwards. But it was taking a good deal on herself to decide what
Dolly ought or ought not to do to Dave.
In those days slumming proper had not set in, and the East End was only
known geographically, except, no doubt, to a few enthusiasts--the sort
that antedates first discovery after the fact, and takes a vicious
pleasure in precursing its successors. But unassuming benefactresses
occurred at intervals whom outsiders knew broadly as Sisters of Charity.
Such a one was this lady, between whom and Aunt M'riar a sympathetic
friendship grew up before the latter discovered that Dave's hospital
friend was an Earl's niece, which not unnaturally made her rather
standoffish for a time. However, a remark of Mr. Alibone's--who seemed
to know--that the lady's uncle was a belted Earl, and no mistake,
palliated the Earldom and abated class prejudice. The Earl naturally
went up in the esteem of the old prizefighter when it transpired that he
was belted. What more could the most exacting ask?
But it was in the days when this lady was only "that party from the
Hospital," that she took root at No. 7, Sapps Court. No. 7 was content
that she should remain nameless; but when she said, in some affair of a
message to be given at the Hospital, that its bearer was to ask for
Sister Nora, it became impossible to ignore the name, although certainly
it was a name that complicated matters. She remained, however, plain
Sister Nora, without suspicion of any doubtful connections, until a
scheme of a daring character took form--nothing less than that Dave
should be taken into the country for change of air.
Uncle Mo was uneasy at the idea of Dave going away. Besides, he had
always cherished the idea that the air of Sapps Court was equal to that
of San Moritz, for instance. Look at what it was only a few years before
Dave's father and mother first moved in, when it was all fields along
the New Road--which has since been absurdly named Euston and Marylebone
Road! Nothing ever come to change the air in Sapps Court that Uncle Mo
knew of. And look at the wallflowers growing out in front the same as
ever!
Uncle Mo, however, was not the man to allow his old-fashioned prejudices
to stand in the way of the patient's convalescence, and an arrangement
was made by Sister Nora that Dave should be taken charge of, for a
while, by an old and trustworthy inhabitant of the Rocestershire village
of which her uncle, the belted Earl, was the feudal lord and master, or
slave and servant, according as you look at it. It was during the
arrangement of this plan that his Earldom leaked out, creating serious
misgivings in the minds of Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar that they would be
ill-advised if they allowed themselves to get mixed up with that sort of
people.
CHAPTER V
OF DOLLY'S CRACKNELL BISCUIT, THAT SHE MISTOOK FOR DAVE. OF HER
UNSEAWORTHY BOX, AND HER VISITS TO MRS. PRICHARD UPSTAIRS. HOW SHE
HAD NEVER TOLD MRS. BURR A WORD ABOUT VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. CONCERNING
IDOLATRY, AND THE LIABILITY OF TRYING ON TO TEMPER. UNCLE MO'S
IDEAS OF PENAL SETTLEMENTS
They were sad days in Sapps Court after Sister Nora bore Dave away to
Chorlton-under-Bradbury; particularly for Dolly, whose tears bathed her
pillow at night, and diluted her bread-and-milk in the morning. There
was something very touching about this little maid's weeping in her
sleep, causing Aunt M'riar to give her a cracknell biscuit--to consume
if possible; to hold in her sleeping hand as a rapture of possession,
anyhow. Dolly accepted it, and contrived to enjoy it slowly without
waking. What is more, she stopped crying; and my belief is, if you ask
me, that sleep having deprived her of the power of drawing fine
distinctions, she mistook this biscuit for Dave. Its _caput mortuum_ was
still clasped to her bosom when, deep unconsciousness merging all
distinctions in unqualified existence, she was having her sleep out next
day.
Dolly may have felt indignant and hurt at the audacious false promises
of her uncle and aunt as to Dave's return. He had come home, certainly,
but badly damaged. It was a sad disappointment; the little woman's first
experience of perfidy. Her betrayers made a very poor show of their
attempts at compensation--toys and suchlike. There was a great dignity
in Dolly's attitude towards these contemptible offerings of a penitent
conscience. She accepted them, certainly, but put them away in her bots
to keep for Dave. Her box--if one has to spell it right--was an
overgrown cardboard box with "Silk Twill" written on one end, and blue
paper doors to fold over inside. It had been used as a boat, but
condemned as unseaworthy as soon as Dolly could not sit in it to be
pushed about, the gunwale having split open amidships. Let us hope this
is right, nautically.
Considered as a safe for the storage of valuables, Dolly's box would
have acquitted itself better if fair play had been shown to it. Its lid
should have been left on long enough to produce an impression, and not
pulled off at frequent intervals to exhibit its contents. No sooner was
an addition made to these than Dolly would say, for instance, that she
must s'ow Mrs. Picture upstairs the most recent acquisitions. Then she
would insist on trying to carry it upstairs, but was not long enough in
the arms, and Aunt M'riar had to do it for her in the end. Not, however,
unwillingly, because it enabled her to give her mind to pinking or
gauffering, or whatever other craft was then engaging her attention. We
do not ourself know what pinking is, or gauffering; we have only heard
them referred to. A vague impression haunts us that they fray out if not
done careful. But this is probably valueless.
No doubt Dolly's visits upstairs in connection with this box were
answerable for Aunt M'riar's having come to know a good deal
about old Mrs. Prichard's--or, according to Dave and Dolly,
Picture's--antecedents. A good deal, that is, when it came to be put
together and liberally helped by inferences; but made up of very small
deals--disjointed deals--in the form in which they were received by Aunt
M'riar. As, for instance, on the occasion just referred to, shortly
after Dave had gone on a visit to the tenant of the belted Earl, Uncle
Mo having gone away for an hour, to spend it in the parlour of The
Rising Sun, a truly respectable house where there were Skittles, and
Knurr and Spell. He might, you see, be more than an hour: there was no
saying for certain.
"I do take it most kind of you, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar for the
fiftieth time, with departure in sight, "to keep an eye on the child.
Some children nourishes a kind of ap'thy, not due to themselves, but
constitutional in their systems, and one can leave alone without fear by
reason of it. But Dolly is that busy and attentive, and will be up and
doing, so one may easy spoil a tuck or stand down an iron too hot if
called away sudden to see after the child."
The old woman seemed to Aunt M'riar to respond vaguely. She loved to
have the little thing anigh her, and hear her clacket. "All my own
family are dead and gone, barring one son," said she. And then added,
without any consciousness of jarring ideas:--"He would be forty-five."
Aunt M'riar tried in vain to think of some way of sympathizing, but was
relieved from her self-imposed duty by the speaker continuing--"He was
my youngest. Born at Macquarie Harbour in the old days. The boy was born
up-country--yes, forty-five years agone."
"Not in England now, ma'am, I suppose," said Aunt M'riar, who could not
see her way to anything else. The thought crossed her mind that, so far
as _she_ knew, no male visitor for the old tenant of the attics had so
far entered the house.
The old woman shook her head slowly. "I could not say," she said. "I
cannot tell you now if he be alive or dead." Then she became drowsy, as
old age does when it has talked enough; so, as Aunt M'riar had plenty to
see to, she took her leave, Dolly remaining in charge as per contract.
Aunt M'riar passed on these stray fragments of old Mrs. Prichard's
autobiography to Uncle Mo when he came in from The Rising Sun. The old
boy seemed roused to interest by the mention of Van Diemen's Land. "I
call to mind," said he, "when I was a youngster, hearing tell of the
convicts out in those parts, and how no decent man could live in the
place. Hell on Earth, they did say, those that knew." Thereupon old Mrs.
Prichard straightway became a problem to Aunt M'riar. If there were none
but convicts in Van Diemen's Land, and all Mrs. Prichard's boys were
born there, the only chance of the old woman not having been the mother
of a convict's children lay in her having been possibly the wife of a
gaoler, at the best. And yet--she was such a nice, pretty old thing! Was
it conceivable?
Then in subsequent similar interviews Aunt M'riar, inquisitive-like,
tried to get further information. But very little was forthcoming beyond
the fact that Mrs. Prichard's husband was dead. What supported the
convict theory was that his widow never referred to any relatives of his
or her own. Mrs. Burr, her companion or concomitant--or at least
fellow-lodger--was not uncommunicative, but knew "less than you might
expect" about her. Aunt M'riar cultivated this good woman with an eye to
information, holding her up--as the phrase is now--at the stairfoot and
inveigling her to tea and gossip. She was a garrulous party when you
come to know her, was Mrs. Burr; and indeed, short of intimacy, she
might have produced the same impression on any person well within
hearing.
"Times and again," said she in the course of one such conversation,
which had turned on the mystery of Mrs. Prichard's antecedents, "have I
thought she was going to let on about her belongings, and never so much
as a word! Times and again have I felt my tongue in the roof of my
mouth, for curiosity to think what she would say next. And there, will
you believe me, missis?--it was no better than so much silence all said
and done! Nor it wasn't for want of words, like one sits meanin' a great
deal and when it comes to the describin' of it just nowhere! She was by
way of keeping something back, and there was I sat waiting for it, and
guess-working round like, speculating, you might say, to think what it
might be when it come. Thank you, ma'am--not another cup!"
"There's more in the pot, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar, looking into it to
see, near the paraffin lamp which smelt: they all did in those days. But
Mrs. Burr had had three; and three does, mostly. If these excellent
women's little inflections of speech, introduced thus casually, are
puzzling, please supply inverted commas. Aunt M'riar organized the
tea-tray to take away and wash up at the sink, after emptying
saucer-superfluities into the slop-basin. Mrs. Burr referred to the
advantages we enjoy as compared with our forbears, instancing especially
our exemption from the worship of wooden images, Egyptian Idles--a
spelling accommodated to meet an impression Mrs. Burr had derived from a
Japanese Buddha--and suchlike, and Tea.
"However they did without it I cannot think," said she. "On'y, of
course, not having to stitch, stitch, stitch from half-past six in the
morning till bedtime made a difference." Her ideas of our ancestors were
strongly affected by a copper-plate engraving in a print-shop window in
Soho, even as idolatry had been presented to her by a Tea-Man and Grocer
in Tottenham Court Road. It was Stothard's "Canterbury Pilgrims"--_you_
know!--and consequently her _moyen age_ had a falcon on its wrist, and a
jester in attendance, invariably. "They was a good deal in the open air,
and it tells," was her tribute to the memory of this plate. She
developed the subject further, incidentally. "Tryin' on is a change, of
course, but liable to temper, and vexatious when the party insists on
letting out and no allowance of turn-over. The same if too short in
front. What was I a-sayin'?... Oh, Mrs. Prichard--yes! You was
inquiring, ma'am, about the length of time I had known her. Just four
years this Christmas, now I think of it. Time enough and to spare to
tell anything she liked--if she'd have liked. But you may take it from
me, ma'am, on'y to go no further on any account, that Mrs. Prichard is
not, as they say, free-spoke about her family, but on the contrary the
contrairy." Mrs. Burr was unconsciously extending the powers of the
English tongue, in varying one word's force by different accents.
Uncle Moses he cut in, being at home that time:--"Was you saying, ma'am,
that the old widder-lady's husband had been a convict in Australia?"
Oh no!--Mrs. Burr had never got that far. So she testified. Aunt M'riar,
speaking from the sink, where she was extracting out the tea-leaves from
the pot, was for calling Uncle Moses over the coals. Anybody might soon
be afraid to say anything, to have been running away with an idea like
that. No one had ever said any such a thing. Indeed, the convict was
entirely inferential, and had no foundation except in the fact that the
old woman's son had been born at Macquarie Harbour. Uncle Mo's
impression that Van Diemen's Land was a sort of plague-spot on the
planet--the _bacilli_ of the plague being convicted criminals--was no
doubt too well grounded. But it was only a hearsay of youth, and even
elderly men may now fail to grasp the way folk spoke and thought of
those remote horrors, the Penal Settlements, in the early days of last
century--a century with whose years those of Uncle Moses, after
babyhood, ran nearly neck and neck. That fellow-creatures, turned
t'other way up, were in Hell at the Antipodes, and that it was so far
off it didn't matter--that was the way the thing presented itself, and
supplied the excuse for forgetting all about it. Uncle Mo had "heard
tell" of their existence; but then they belonged to the criminal
classes, and he didn't. If people belonged to the criminal classes it
was their own look out, and they must take the consequences.
So that when the old boy referred to this inferential convict as a
presumptive fact, the meaning of his own words had little force for
himself. Even if the old lady's husband had been a convicted felon, it
was now long enough ago to enable him to think of him as he thought of
the chain-gangs eight thousand miles off as the crow flies--or would fly
if he could go straight; the nearest way round mounts up to twelve.
Anyhow, there was no more in the story than would clothe the widowhood
of the upstairs tenant with a dramatic interest.
So, as it appeared that Mrs. Prichard's few words to Aunt M'riar were
more illuminating than anything Mrs. Burr had to tell, and _they_ really
amounted to very little when all was said and done, there was at least
nothing in the convict story to cause misgivings of the fitness of the
upstairs attic to supply a haven of security for Dolly, while her aunt
went out foraging for provisions; or when, as we have seen sometimes
happened, Dolly became troublesome from want of change, and kep' up a
continual fidget for this or that, distrackin' your--that is, Aunt
M'riar's--attention.
CHAPTER VI
PHOEBE AND THE SQUIRE'S SON. HER RUNAWAY MARRIAGE WITH HIM. HOW
HE DABBLED IN FORGERY AND BURNED HIS FINGERS. OF A JUDGE WHO TOOK
AFTER THE PSALMIST. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, AND HOW PHOEBE GOT OUT
THERE. HOW BOTH TWINS WERE PROVED DEAD BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE,
EACH TO EACH. HOW THORNTON FORGOT THAT PHOEBE COULD NEVER BE
LEGALLY HIS WIDOW. HOW HIS SON ACTED WELL UP TO HIS FATHER'S
STANDARD OF IMMORALITY. MARRIAGE A MEANS TO AN END, BUT ONLY ONCE.
AN ILL-STARRED BURGLARY. NORFOLK ISLAND. WHY BOTH MRS. DAVERILLS
CHANGED THEIR NAMES
If this story should ever be retold by a skilful teller, his power of
consecutive narrative and redisposition of crude facts in a better order
will be sure to add an interest it can scarcely command in its present
form. But it is best to make no pretence to niceties of construction,
when a mere presentation of events is the object in view. The following
circumstances in the life of old Mrs. Prichard constitute a case in
point. The story might, so to speak, ask its reader's forgiveness for so
sudden a break into the narrative. Consider that it has done so, and
amend the tale should you ever retell it.
Maisie Runciman, born in the seventies of the previous century, and
close upon eighty years of age at the time of this story, was the
daughter of an Essex miller, who became a widower when she and her twin
sister Phoebe were still quite children. His only other child, a son
many years their senior, died not long after his mother, leaving them to
the sole companionship of their father. He seems to have been a
quarrelsome man, who had estranged himself from both his wife's
relatives and his own. He also had that most unfortunate quality of
holding his head high, as it is called; so high, in fact, that his twin
girls found it difficult to associate with their village neighbours, and
were driven back very much on their own resources for society. Their
father's morose isolation was of his own choosing. He was, however,
affectionate in a rough way to them, and their small household was
peaceful and contented enough. The sisters, wrapped up in one another,
as twins so often are, had no experience of any other condition of life,
and thought it all right and the thing that should be.
All went well enough--without discord anyhow, however
monotonously--until Maisie and Phoebe began to look a little like women;
which happened, to say the truth, at least a year before their father
consented to recognise the fact, and permit them to appear in the robes
of maturity. About that time the young males of the neighbourhood became
aware, each in his private heart, of an adoration cherished for one or
other of the beautiful twins from early boyhood. Would-be lovers began
to buzz about like flies when fruit ripens. If any one of these youths
had any doubt about the intensity and immutability of his passion, it
vanished when the girls announced official womanhood by appearing at
church in the costume of their seniors. Some students of the mysterious
phenomena of Love have held that man is the slave of millinery, and that
women are to all intents and purposes their skirts. It is too delicate a
question for hurried discussion in a narrative which is neither
speculative nor philosophical, but historical. All that concerns its
writer is that no sooner did the costume of the miller's daughters
suggest that they would be eligible for the altar, than they grew so
dear, so dear, that everything masculine and unattached was ambitious to
be the jewel that trembled at their ear, or the girdle about their
dainty, dainty waist.
The worst of it for these girls was that their likeness to one another
outwent that of ordinary twinship. It resembled that of the stage where
the same actor personates both Dromios; and their life was one perpetual
Comedy of Errors. Current jest said that they themselves did not know
which was which. But they did know, perfectly well, and had no
misgivings whatever about becoming permanently confused; even when,
having been dressed in different colours to facilitate distinction, they
changed dresses and produced a climax of complication. Even this was not
so bad as when Phoebe had a tiff with Maisie--a rare thing between
twins--and Maisie avenged herself by pretending to be Phoebe, affecting
that all the latter's protests of identity were malicious
misrepresentation. Who could decide when they themselves were not of a
tale? What settled the matter in the end was that Phoebe cried bitterly
at being misrepresented, while Maisie was so ill-advised as not to do
the same, and even made some parade of triumph. "Yow are Maisie. I heerd
yow a-crowun'," said an old stone-dresser, who, with other mill-hands,
was referred to for an opinion.
This was when they were quite young, before slight variations of
experience had altered appearance and character to the point of making
them distinguishable when seen side by side. Not, however, to the point
of rendering impossible a trick each had played more than once on too
importunate male acquaintances. What could be more disconcerting to the
protestations of a rustic admirer than "Happen you fancy you are
speaking to my sister Phoebe, sir?" from Maisie, or _vice versa_? It was
absolutely impossible to nail either of these girls to her own identity,
in the face of her denial of it in her sister's absence. Perhaps the
only real confidence on the point that ever existed was their mother's,
who knew the two babies apart--so she said--because one smelt of roses,
the other of marjoram.
It may easily have been that the power of duping youth and shrewdness,
as to which sister she really was, weighed too heavily with each of
these girls in their assessment of the value of lovers' vows. And still
more easily that--some three years later than the girlish jest related a
page since--when Maisie, playing off this trick on a wild young son of
the Squire's, was met by an indignant reproach for her attempted
deception, she should have been touched by his earnestness and seeming
insight into her inner soul, and that the incident should have become
the cornerstone of a fatal passion for a damned scoundrel. "Oh,
Maisie--Maisie!"--thus ran his protestation--"Dearest, best, sweetest of
girls, how can you think to dupe me when your voice goes to my heart as
no other voice ever can--ever will? How, when I know you for mine--mine
alone--by touch, by sight, by hearing?" The poor child's innocent little
fraud had been tried on a past-master in deception, and her own arrow
glanced back to wound her, beyond cure perhaps. His duplicity was proved
afterwards by the confession of his elder brother Ralph, a young man
little better than himself, that the two girls had been the subject of a
wager between them, which he had lost. This wager turned on which of the
two should be first "successful" with one of the beautiful twins; and
whether it showed only doubtful taste or infamous bad feeling depended
on what interpretation was put on the word "success" by its
perpetrators. A lenient one was possible so long as no worse came of it
than that Thornton Daverill, the younger brother, became the accepted
suitor of Maisie, and Ralph, the elder, the rejected one of Phoebe.
Thornton's success was no doubt due in a great measure to Maisie's
failure to mislead him about her identity, and Ralph's rejection
possibly to the poor figure he cut when Phoebe played fast and loose
with hers. That there was no truth or honour in Thornton's protestations
to Maisie, or even honest loss of self-control under strong feeling, is
evident from the fact that he told his brother as a good joke that his
power of distinguishing between the girls was due to nothing more
profound than that Maisie always gave him her hand to shake and Phoebe
only her fingers. Possibly this test would only have held good in the
case of men outside the family. It was connected with some minute
sensitiveness of feeling towards that class, not perceptible by any
other.
But in whatever sense Thornton and Maisie were trothplight, her father
opposed their marriage, although it would no doubt have been a social
elevation for the miller's daughter. It must be admitted that for once
the inexorable parent may have been in the right. Tales had reached him,
unhappily too late to prevent the formation of an acquaintance between
the young squires and his daughters, of the profligacies--dissoluteness
with women and at the gaming-table--of both these young men. And it is
little wonder that he resolutely opposed the union of Thornton and
Maisie--she a girl of nineteen!--at least until there was some sign of
reform in the youth, some turning from his evil ways.
It was a sad thing for Maisie that her father's exclusiveness had
created so many obstacles to the associations of his daughters with
older women. No one had ever taken the place of a mother to them. It is
rare enough for even a mother to speak explicitly to her daughter of
what folk mean when they tell of the risks a girl runs who weds with a
man like Thornton Daverill. But she may do so in such a way as to excite
suspicion of the reality, and it is hard on motherless girls that they
should not have this slender chance. A father can do nothing, and old
fulminations of well-worn Scriptural jargon--hers was an adept in
texts--had not even the force of their brutal plain speech. For to these
girls the speech was not plain--it was only what Parson read in Church.
That described and exhausted it.
The rest of the story follows naturally--too naturally--from the
position shown in the above hasty sketch. Old Isaac Runciman's
ill-temper, combined with an almost ludicrous want of tact, took the
form of forbidding Thornton Daverill the house. The student of the art
of dragging lovers asunder cannot be too mindful of the fact that the
more they see of each other, the sooner they will be ripe for
separation. If Maisie had been difficult to influence when her father
contented himself with saying that he forbade the marriage _ex cathedra
paternae auctoritatis_, she became absolutely intractable when, some time
after, this authority went the length of interdicting communications.
Secret interviews, about double the length of the public ones they
supplanted, gave the indignant parent an excuse for locking the girl
into her own room. All worked well for the purpose of a thoroughly
unprincipled scoundrel. Thornton, who would probably have married Maisie
if nothing but legal possession had been open to him, saw his way to the
same advantages without the responsibilities of marriage, and jumped at
them. Do not blame Maisie overmuch for her share of what came about. The
step she consented to was one of which the _full_ meaning could only be
half known to a girl of her age and experience. And the man into whose
hands it threw her past recovery was in her eyes the soul of honour and
chivalry--ill-judging, if at all, from the influence of a too passionate
adoration for herself. Conception of the degree and nature of his
wickedness was probably impossible to her; and, indeed, may have been so
still--however strange it may seem--to the very old lady whom, under the
name of Mrs. Prichard, Dolly Wardle used to visit in Sapps Court, "Mrs.
Picture in the topackest" being the nearest shot she was able to make at
her description.
Whether it was so or not, this old, old woman was the very selfsame
Maisie that sixty odd years before lent a too willing ear to the
importunities of a traitor, masquerading with a purpose; and ultimately
consented to a runaway marriage with him, he being alone responsible for
the arrangement of it and the legality of the wedding. The most flimsy
_mise en scène_ of a mock ceremony was sufficient to dupe a simplicity
like hers; and therein was enacted the wicked old tragedy possible only
in a world like ours, which ignores the pledge of the strong to the
weak, however clearly that pledge may be attested, unless the wording of
it jumps with the formularies of a sanctioned legalism. A grievous wrong
was perpetrated, which only the dishonesty of Themis permits; for an
honest lawgiver's aim should be to find means of enforcing a sham
marriage, all the more relentlessly in proportion to the victim's
innocence and the audacity of the imposture.
The story of Maisie's after-life need hardly have been so terrible, on
the supposition that the prayer "God, have mercy upon us!" is ever
granted. Surely some of the stabs in store for her need not have gone to
the knife-hilt. Much information is lacking to make the tale complete,
but what follows is enough. Listen to it and fill in the blanks if you
can--with surmise of alleviation, with interstices of hypothetical
happiness--however little warrant the known facts of the case may carry
with them.
Thornton Daverill was destined to bring down Nemesis on his head by
touching Themis on a sensitive point--monetary integrity. Within five
years, a curious skill which he possessed of simulating the handwriting
of others, combined with a pressing want of ready money, led him to the
commission of an act which turned out a great error in tactics, whatever
place we assign it in morality. Morally, the forgery of a signature,
especially if it be to bring about a diminution of cash in a well-filled
pocket, is a mere peccadillo compared with the malversation of a young
girl's life. Legally it is felony, and he who commits it may get as long
a term of penal servitude as the murderer of whose guilt the jury is not
confident up to hanging point.
The severity of the penal laws in the reign of George III. was due no
doubt to a vindictiveness against the culprit which--in theory at any
rate--is nowadays obsolete, legislation having for its object rather the
discouragement of crime on the _tapis_ than the meting out of their
deserts to malefactors. In those days the indignation of a jury would
rise to boiling-point in dealing with an offence against sacred
Property, while its blood-heat would remain normal over the deception
and ruin of a mere woman. Therefore the jury that tried Thornton
Daverill for forging the signature of Isaac Runciman on the back of a
promissory note found the accused guilty, and the judge inflicted the
severest penalty but one that Law allows. For Thornton might have been
hanged.
But neither judge nor jury seemed much interested in the convict's
behaviour to the daughter of the man he had tried to swindle out of
money. On the contrary, they jumped to the conclusion that his wife was
morally his accomplice; and, indeed, if it had not been for her great
beauty she would very likely have gone to the galleys too. There was,
however, this difference between their positions, that the prosecution
was dependent on her father's affidavit to prove that the signature was
a forgery, and so long as only the man he hated was legally involved,
he was to be relied on to adhere to his first disclaimer of it. Had
Maisie been placed beside her husband in the dock, how easily her
father might have procured the liberation of both by accepting his
liability--changing his mind about the signature and discharging the
amount claimed! If the continuance of the prosecution had depended on
either payer or payee, this would have been the end of it. What the
creditor--a usurer--wanted was his money, not revenge. Indeed, Thornton
would never have been made the subject of a criminal indictment at his
instance, except to put pressure on Isaac Runciman for payment for his
daughter's sake.
The bringing of the case into Court created a new position. An
accommodation that would have been easy enough at first--an excusable
compounding of a felony--became impossible under the eyes of the Bench.
And this more especially because one of the Judges of Assize who tried
the case acquired an interest in Maisie analogous to the one King David
took in the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and perceived the advantages he
would derive if this forger and gambler was packed off to a life far
worse than the death the astute monarch schemed for the great-hearted
soldier who was serving him. Whether the two were lawfully man and wife
made no difference to this Judge. Maisie's devotion to her scoundrel was
the point his lordship's legal acumen was alive to, and he himself was
scarcely King of Israel. One wonders sometimes--at least, the present
writer has done so--what Bathsheba's feelings were on the occasion
referred to. We can only surmise, and can do little more in the case of
Maisie. The materials for the retelling of this story are very slight.
Their source may be referred to later. For the moment it must be content
with the bare facts.
This Bathsheba was able to say "Hands off!" to _her_ King David, and
also able--but Heaven knows how!--to keep up a correspondence with the
worthless parallel of the Hittite throughout the period of his detention
in an English gaol, or, it may be, on the river hulks, until his
deportation in a convict ship to Sydney, from which place occasional
letters reached her, which were probably as frequent as his
opportunities of sending them, until, a considerable time later--perhaps
as much as five years; dates are not easy to fix--one came saying that
he expected shortly to be transferred to the new penal settlement in Van
Diemen's Land.
At the beginning of last century the black hulks on the Thames and
elsewhere were known and spoken of truly as "floating Hells." Any penal
colony was in one point worse; he who went there left Hope behind, so
far as his hopes were centred in his native land. For to return was
Death.
After his transfer to Van Diemen's Land, no letter reached her for some
months. Then came news that Thornton had benefited by the extraordinary
fulness of the powers granted to the Governors of these penal
settlements, who practically received the convicts on lease for the term
of their service. They were, in fact, slaves. But this told well for
Maisie's husband, whose father had been at school with the then supreme
authority at Macquarie Harbour. This got him almost on his arrival a
ticket-of-leave, by virtue of which he was free within the island during
good behaviour. He soon contrived, by his superior education and
manners, to get a foothold in a rough community, and saw his way to
rising in the world, even to prosperity. In a very short time, said a
later letter, he would save enough to pay Maisie's passage out, and then
she could join him. The only redeeming trait the story shows of this man
is his strange confidence that this girl, whom he had cruelly betrayed,
would face all the terrors of a three-months' sea-voyage and travel,
alone in a strange land, to become the slave and helpless dependent of a
convict on ticket-of-leave.
She had returned to her father's house a year after the trial, her
sister having threatened to leave it unless her father permitted her to
do so, taking with her her two children; a very delicate little boy,
born in the first year of her marriage, and a girl baby only four months
old, which had come into the world eight months after its wretched
parent's conviction. During this life at her father's the little boy
died. He had been christened, after his father and uncle, Phoebe's
rejected suitor--Ralph Thornton Daverill. The little girl she had
baptized by the name of Ruth. This little Ruth she took with her, when,
on Phoebe's marriage two years later, she went to live at the house of
the new-married couple; and one would have said that the twins lived in
even closer union than before, and that nothing could part them again.
It would have been a mistake. Within three years Maisie received a
letter enclosing a draft on a London bank for more than her
passage-money, naming an agent who would arrange for her in everything,
and ending with a postscript:--"Come out at once." Shortly after, no
change having been noticeable in her deportment, except, perhaps, an
increased tenderness to her child and her sister, she vanished suddenly;
leaving only a letter to Phoebe, full of contrition for her behaviour,
but saying that her first duty was towards her husband. She had not
dared to take with her her child, and it had been a bitter grief to her
to forsake it, but she knew well that it would have been as great a
bitterness to Phoebe to lose it, as she was herself childless at the
time; and, indeed, her only consolation was that Phoebe would still
continue to be, as it were, a second mother to "their child," which was
the light in which each had always looked upon it.
Both of them seemed to have been under an impression that only one of
two twins can ever become a mother. Whether there is any foundation for
this, or whether it is a version of a not uncommon belief that twins are
always childless, the story need not stop to inquire. It was falsified
in this case by the birth of a son to Phoebe, _en secondes noces_, many
years later. But this hardly touches the story, as this son died in his
childhood. All that is needed to be known at present is that, as the
result of Maisie's sudden disappearance, Phoebe was left in sole
possession of her four-year-old daughter, to whose young mind it was a
matter of indifference which of two almost indistinguishable identities
she called by the name of mother. With a little encouragement she
accepted the plenary title for the then childless woman to whom the name
gave pleasure, and gradually forgot the mother who had deserted her;
who, in the course of very little time, became the shadow of a name. All
she knew then was that this mother had gone away in a ship; and, indeed,
for months after little more was known to her aunt.
However, a brief letter did come from the ship, just starting for
Sydney, and the next long-delayed one announced her arrival there, and
how she had been met at the port by an agent who would make all
arrangements for her further voyage. How this agency managed to get her
through to Hobart Town in those days is a mystery, for there was no free
immigration to the island till many years after, only transports from
New South Wales being permitted to enter the port. She got there
certainly, and was met by her husband at the ship. And well for her that
it was so, for in those days no woman was safe by herself for an hour in
that country.
It may seem wonderful that so vile a man should have set himself to
consult the happiness of a woman towards whom he was under no
obligation. But her letters to her sister showed that he did so; and
those who have any experience of womanless lands men have to dwell in,
whether or no, know that in such lands the market-value of a good sample
is so far above rubies, that he who has one, and could not afford
another if he lost the first, will be quite kind and nice and
considerate to his treasure, in case King Solomon should come round,
with all the crown-jewels to back him and his mother's valuation to
encourage a high bid. Phoebe had for four or five years the satisfaction
of receiving letters assuring her of her sister's happiness and of the
extraordinary good fortune that had come to the reformed gambler and
forger, whose prison-life had given him a distaste for crimes actively
condemned by Society.
Among the items of news that these letters contained were the births of
two boys. The elder was called Isaac after his grandfather at the urgent
request of Maisie; but on condition that if another boy came he should
be called Ralph Thornton, a repetition of the name of her first baby,
which died in England. This is done commonly enough with a single name,
but the duplication is exceptional. Whether the name was actually used
for the younger child Phoebe never knew. Probably a letter was lost
containing the information.
When Isaac Runciman died Phoebe wrote the news of his death to Maisie
and received no reply from her. In its stead--that is to say, at about
the time it would have been due--came a letter from Thornton Daverill
announcing her sister's death in Australia. It was a brief, unsatisfying
letter. Still, she hoped to receive more details, especially as she had
followed her first letter, telling of her father's death, with another a
fortnight later, giving fuller particulars of the occurrence. In due
course came a second letter from her brother-in-law, professing
contrition for the abruptness of his first, but excusing it on the
ground that he was prostrated with grief at the time, and quite unable
to write. He added very full and even dramatic particulars of her
sister's death, giving her last message to her English relatives, and so
forth.
But that sister was _not_ dead. And herein follow the facts that have
come to light of the means her husband employed to make her seem so, and
of his motives for employing them.
To see these clearly you must keep in mind that Thornton was tied for
life within the limits of the penal settlements. Maisie was free to go;
with her it was merely a question of money. As time went on, her
yearning to see her child and her twin-sister again grew and grew, and
her appeals to her husband to allow her sometime to revisit England in
accordance with his promise became every year more and more urgent. He
would be quite a rich man soon--why should she not? Well--simply that
she might not come back! That was his view, and we have to bear in mind
that it would have been impossible for him to replace her, except from
among female convicts assigned to settlers; nominally as servants, but
actually as mates on hire--suppose we call them. One need not say much
of this unhappy class; it is only mentioned to show that Thornton could
have found no woman to take the place of the beautiful and devoted
helpmeet whose constancy to him had survived every trial. No wonder he
was ill at ease with the idea of her adventuring back to England alone.
But it took a mind as wicked as his to conceive and execute the means by
which he prevented it. It seems to have been suggested by the fact that
the distribution of letters in his district had been assigned to him by
the Governor. This made it easy to deliver them or keep them back, when
it was in his interest to do so, without fear of detection. The letters
coming from England were few indeed, so he was able to examine them at
leisure.
At first he was content to withhold Phoebe's letters, hoping that
Maisie would be satisfied with negative evidence of her death, which he
himself suggested as the probable cause of their suspension. But when
this only increased her anxiety to return to her native land, he cast
about for something he could present as direct proof. The death of her
father supplied the opportunity. A black-edged sheet came, thickly
written with Phoebe's account of his last illness, in ink which, as the
event showed, did not defy obliteration. Probably Thornton had learned,
among malefactors convicted of his own offence, secrets of forgery that
would seem incredible to you or me. He contrived to obliterate this
sheet all but the date-stamps outside, and then--the more readily that
he had been informed that only fraud for gain made forgery
felony--elaborated as a palimpsest a most careful letter in the
handwriting of the father announcing Phoebe's own death, and also that
of the daughter whom Maisie had bequeathed to her care. He must have
been inspired and upborne in this difficult task by the spirit of a true
artist. No doubt all _faussure_, to any person with an accommodating
moral sense, is an unmixed delight. This letter remains, and has been
seen by the present writer and others. The dexterity of the thing almost
passes belief, only a few scarcely perceptible traces of the old writing
being visible, the length of the new words being so chosen as to hide
most of the old ones. What is even more incredible is that the original
letter from Phoebe was deciphered at the British Museum by the courtesy
of the gentlemen engaged in the deciphering and explanation of obscure
inscriptions.
The elaborate fiction the forger devised may have been in part due to a
true artist's pleasure in the use of a splendid opportunity, such as
might never occur again. But on close examination one sees that it was
little more than a skilful recognition of the exigencies of the case.
The object of the letter was to remove once and for ever all temptation
to Maisie to return to her native land. Now, so long as either her
sister or her little girl were living in England the old inducement
would be always at work. Why not kill them both, while he had the
choice? It would be more troublesome to produce proof of the death of
either, later. But he mistrusted his skill in dealing with fatal
illness. A blunder might destroy everything. Stop!--he knew something
better than that. Had not the transport that brought him out passed a
drowned body afloat, and wreckage, even in the English Channel?
Shipwreck was the thing! He decided on sending Nicholas Cropredy, his
wife's brother-in-law, across the Channel on business--to Antwerp,
say--and making Phoebe and little Ruth go out to nurse him through a
fever. Their ship could go to the bottom, with a stroke of his pen.
Only, while he was about it, why not clear away the brother-in-law--send
them all out in the same ship? No--_that_ would not do! Where would the
motive be, for all those three to leave England? A commercial mission
for the man alone would be quite another thing. Very perplexing!...
Yes--no--yes!... There--he had got it! Let them go out and nurse him
through a fever, and all be drowned together, returning to England.
That was a triumph. And the finishing touch to the narrative he based on
it was really genius. Little hope was entertained of the recovery of the
remains, but it was not impossible. The writer's daughter might rest
assured that if any came to the surface, and were identified, they
should be interred in the family grave where her mother reposed in the
Lord, in the sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection.
Was it to be wondered at that so skilful a contrivance duped an
unsuspicious mind like Maisie's? The only thing that could have excited
suspicion was that the letter had been delayed a post--time, you see,
was needed for the delicate work of forgery--and the date of despatch
from London was in consequence some two months too old. But then the
letter was of the same date; indeed, the forgery was a repeat of the
letter it effaced, wherever this was possible. Besides, the delay of a
letter from England could never occasion surprise.
She took the sealed paper from her husband, breaking the seals with
feverish haste, and destroying the only proof that it had been opened on
the way. For the wax, of course, broke, as her husband had foreseen, on
its old fractures, where he had parted them carefully and reattached
them with some similar wax dissolved in spirit. He watched her reading
the letter, not without an artist's pride at her absolute unsuspicion,
and then had to undergo a pang of fear lest the news should kill her.
For she fell insensible, only to remain for a long time prostrate with
grief, after a slow and painful revival.
There was little need for Thornton to reply to Phoebe's letter that he
had effaced. Nevertheless, he did so; partly, perhaps, from the pleasure
he naturally took in playing out the false _rôle_ he had assigned
himself. Yes--he was a widower. But the poignancy of his grief had
prevented him writing all the particulars of his wife's death. He now
gave the story of the death of a woman on a farm near, with changed
names and some clever addenda, the composition of which amused his
leisure and gratified a spirit of falsehood which might, more
fortunately employed, have found an outlet in literary fiction. The
effect of this letter on Phoebe was to satisfy her so completely of her
sister's death that, had it ever been called in question, she would have
been the hardest to convert to a belief in the contrary. On the other
hand, Maisie's belief in _her_ death was equally assured, and her
quasi-husband rested secure in his confidence that nothing would now
induce her to leave him. Should he ever wish to be rid of her, he had
only to confess his deception, and pack her off to seek her sister. That
no news ever came of her father's death was not a matter of great
surprise to Maisie. She had no surviving correspondent in England who
would have written about it. Her husband may have practised some
_finesse_ later to convince her of it, but its details are not known to
the writer of the story.
They, however, were never parted until, twenty years later, his death
left Maisie a widow, as she believed. It would have been well for her
had it been so, for he died after making that very common testamentary
mistake--a too ingenious will. It left to "my third son Ralph Thornton
Daverill," on coming of age, all his property after "my wife Maisie,
_née_ Runciman," had received the share she was "legally entitled to."
But she was unable to produce proof of her marriage when called on to do
so, and was, of course, legally entitled to nothing. Thornton had been
so well off that "widow's thirds" would have placed her in comfortable
circumstances. As it was, the whole of his property went to her only
surviving son, a youth who had inherited, with some of his father's good
looks, all his bad principles; and in addition a taint--we may
suppose--of the penal atmosphere in which he was born. But there was not
a shadow of doubt about his being the person named in the will. Perhaps,
if it had been worded "my lawful son," Themis would have jibbed.
The young man, on coming of age, acquired control of the whole of his
father's property, and soon started on a career of extravagance and
debauchery. His mother, however, retained some influence over him, and
persuaded him, a year later, before he had had time to dissipate the
whole of his inheritance, to return with her to England, hoping that the
moral effect of a change from the gaol-bird atmosphere of felony that
hung over the whole land of his birth would develop whatever germ of
honour or right feeling he possessed.
She was not very sanguine, for his boyhood had been a cruel affliction
to her. And the results showed that whatever hopes she had entertained
were ill-founded. Arrived in London, with money still at command, he
plunged at once into all the dissipations of the town, and it became
evident that in the course of a year or so he would run through the
remainder of his patrimony.
About this time he met with an experience which now and then happens to
men of his class. He fell violently in love--or in what he called
love--with a girl who had very distinct ideas on the subject of
marriage. One was that the first arrangement of their relations which
suggested themselves to her lover were not to be entertained, and
therefore she refused to entertain them. He tried ridicule, indignation,
and protestation--all in vain! She appeared not to object to
persecution--rather liked it. But she held out no hopes except
legitimate ones. At last, when the young man was in a sense
desperate--not in a very noble sense, but desperate for all that--she
intimated to him that, unless he was prepared to accept her scheme of
life, she knew a very respectable young man who was; a young man in
Smithfield Market with whom she had walked out, and you could never have
told. Which means that this young man disguised himself so subtly on
Sunday to go into Society, that none would have guessed that he passed
the week in contact with grease and blood, and dared to twist the tails
of bullocks in revolt against their fate, shrinking naturally from the
axe. His intentions were, nevertheless, honourable, and Polly, the
barmaid at the One Tun Inn, honoured them, while her affections were
disposed towards her Australian suitor whose intentions were not. The
young reprobate, however, had to climb down; but he made his surrender
conditional on one thing--that his marriage with Polly should remain a
secret. No doubt parallel enterprises would have been interrupted by its
publication. Anyhow, his mother never knew of his marriage, nor set eyes
on her daughter-in-law.
His marriage was, in fact, merely a means to an end, and was a most
reluctant concession to circumstances on his part. It was true he
deprived himself of all chance of offering the same terms again for the
same goods, unless, indeed, he ran the risks of a bigamist. But what can
a man do under such circumstances? He is what he is, and it does seem a
pity sometimes that he was made in the image of God, whether for God's
sake or his own. Young Daverill's end attained, he flung away his prize
almost without a term of intermediate neglect to save his face. She,
poor soul, who had lived under the impression that all men were "like
that" but that honourable marriage "reformed" them, was desperate at
first when she found her mistake. Her "lawful husband," having attained
his end, announced his weariness of lawful marriage with a candour even
coarser than that of Browning's less lawful possessor of Love--he who
"half sighed a smile in a yawn, as 'twere." He replied, to all Polly's
passionate claims to him as a legal right, and hints that she could and
would enforce her position:--"Try it on, Poll--you and your lawyers!"
And, indeed, we have never been able to learn how the strong arm of the
Law enforces marital obligations; barring mere cash payments, of which
Polly's attitude was quite oblivious. Moreover, he was at that time
prepared with money, and did actually maintain his wife up to the point
of every possible legal compulsion until the end of his solvency, not a
very long period.
For his life-drama, or the first act of it, was soon played out. It was
substantially his father's over again. He ran through what was left of
his money in a little over a year--so splendid were the gambler's
opportunities in these days; for the Georgian era had still a short
lease of years to run, and folly dies hard. His attempts to reinstate
himself at the expense of a Bank, by a simple process of burglary, in
partnership with a professional hand whose acquaintance he had made at
"The Tun," led to disastrous failure and the summary conviction of both
partners.
None of this came to the knowledge of his wife, as how should it? He
wrote no news of it to her, and their relation was known to very few.
Moreover, the burglary was in Bristol and Polly was at a farmhouse in
Lincolnshire, awaiting a birth which only added another grief to her
life, for her child was born dead. She recovered from a long illness
which swallowed up the remains of the money her husband had given her,
to find herself destitute and minus most of the good looks which had
obtained for her her previous situation. She succeeded thereafter in
maintaining herself by needlework--she was an adept in that--and so
avoided becoming an incumbrance on her family, which she could no longer
help now as she had done in her prosperity. But of her worthless
husband's fate she never knew anything, the trial having taken place
during an illness which nearly ended all her miseries for her. By the
time she was on the way to recovery it would have been difficult to
trace her husband, even had she had any motive for doing so.
As for him--a convict and the son of a convict--his period of detention
in the hulks on the Thames was followed by the usual voyage to the
Antipodes; but this time the vessel into which he was transhipped at
Sydney sailed for Norfolk Island, not Hobart Town nor Macquarie Harbour.
Maisie's son was not destined to revisit the land of his birth. The
early deliverance from actual bondage to a condition free in all but
the name, which had led to his father's successful later career, was
impossible in an island half the size of the Isle of Wight, and the man
grew to his surroundings. A soul ready to accept the impress of every
stamp of depravity in the mint of vice was soon well beyond the reach of
any possible redemption in contact with the moral vileness of the
prisons on what was, but for their contamination, one of the loveliest
islands in the Pacific.
After his departure his mother may have been influenced by a wish to
obliterate her whole past, and this wish may have been the cause of her
adoption of a name not her own. Some lingering reluctance to make her
severance from her own belongings absolute may have dictated the choice
of the name of Prichard, which was that of an old nurse of her
childhood, who had stood by her mother's dying bed. It would serve every
reasonable purpose of disguise without grating on memories of bygone
times. A shred of identity was left to cling to. It is less clear why
the quasi-daughter whom she had never seen should have repudiated her
married name. Polly was under no obligation not to call herself Mrs.
Daverill, unless it were compliance with her promise to keep the
marriage secret. She, however, acquiesced in the Mrs., and supplied a
name as a passport to a respectable widowhood. But she did not dress the
part very vigorously, and report soon accepted the husband as a bad lot
and a riddance. Nothing very uncommon in that!
CHAPTER VII
OF DAVE WARDLE'S CONVALESCENCE. OF MRS. RUTH THRALE, WIDOW AND
OGRESS, WHO APPRECIATED HIM. HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS HOSPITAL
EXPERIENCE. HOW HE MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A COUNTESS, AND TOLD
HER ABOUT WIDOW THRALE'S GRANDFATHER'S WATER-MILL. CONCERNING JUNO
LUCINA. THESEUS AND ARIADNE. HOW DAVE DETECTED A FAMILY LIKENESS,
AND NEARLY RUBBED HIS EYES OUT. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE SHOWED HIM THE
MILL AT WORK AND MR. MUGGERIDGE
If the daylight were not so short in October at Chorlton-under-Bradbury,
in Rocestershire, that month would quite do for summer in as many
autumns as not. As it is, from ten till five, the sun that comes to say
goodbye to the apples, that will all be plucked by the end of the
month, is so strong that forest trees are duped, and are ready to do
their part towards a green Yule if only the midday warmth will linger on
to those deadly small hours of the morning, when hoarfrost gets the thin
end of its wedge into the almanack, and sleepers go the length of coming
out of bed for something to put over their feet, and end by putting it
over most of their total. From ten till five, at least, the last
swallows seem to be reconsidering their departure, and the skylarks to
be taking heart, and thinking they can go on ever so much longer. Then,
not unfrequently, day falls in love with night for the sake of the
moonrise, and dies of its passion in a blaze of golden splendour. But
the memory of her does not live long into the heart of the night, as it
did in the long summer twilights. Love cools and the dews fall, and the
winds sing dirges in the elms through the leaves they will so soon
scatter about the world without remorse; and then one morning the grass
is crisp with frost beneath the early riser's feet, and he finds the
leaves of the ash all fallen since the dawn, a green, still heap below
their old boughs stript and cold. And he goes home and has all sorts of
things for breakfast, being in England.
But no early riser had had this experience at Chorlton-under-Bradbury on
that October afternoon when Dave Wardle, personally conducted by Sister
Nora, and very tired with travelling from a distant railway-station--the
local line was not there in the fifties--descended from the coach or
omnibus at the garden gate of Widow Thrale, the good woman who was going
to feed him, sleep him, and enjoy his society during convalescence.
The coach or omnibus touched its hat and accepted something from Sister
Nora, and went on to the Six Bells in High Street, where the something
took the form of something else to drink, which got into its head. The
High Street was very wide, and had more water-troughs for horses than
recommended themselves to the understanding. But they might have
succeeded in doing so before the railway came in these parts, turning
everything to the rightabout, as Trufitt phrased it at the Bells. There
were six such troughs within a hundred yards; and, as their contents
never got into the horses' heads, what odds if there were? When the
world was reasonable and four or five horns were heard blowing at once,
often enough, in the high road, no one ever complained, that old Trufitt
ever heard tell of. So presumably there were no odds.
Widow Thrale lived with an old lady of eighty, who was also a widow;
or, one might have said, even more so, seeing that her widowhood was a
double one, her surname, Marrable, being the third she had borne. She
was, however, never called Widow Marrable, but always Granny Marrable;
and Dave's hostess, who was to take charge of him, was not her daughter,
as might have seemed most probable, but a niece who had filled the place
of a daughter to her and was always so spoken of. What an active and
vigorous octogenarian she was may be judged from the fact that, at the
moment of the story, she was taking on herself the task of ushering into
the world her first great-grandchild, the son or daughter--as might turn
out--of her granddaughter, Maisie Costrell, the only daughter of Widow
Thrale. For this young woman had ordained that "Granny" should officiate
as high-priestess on this occasion, and we know it is just as well to
give way to ladies under such circumstances.
So when Dave and Sister Nora were deposited by the coach at Strides
Cottage, it was Widow Thrale who received them. She did not produce on
the lady the effect of a _bona-fide_ widow of fifty-five--this
description had been given of her--not so much because of the
non-viduity of her costume, for that was temperate and negative, as
because Time seemed to have let his ravages stand over for the present.
Very few casual observers would have guessed that she was over
forty-five. Ruth Thrale--that was her name in full--had two sons
surviving of her own family, both at sea, and one daughter, Maisie
Costrell aforesaid. So she was practically now without incumbrances, and
terribly wanting some to kiss, had hit upon the expedient of taking
charge of invalid children and fostering them up to kissing-point. They
were often poor, wasted little articles enough at the first go off, but
Mrs. Ruth usually succeeded in making them succulent in a month or so.
It was exasperating, though, to have them go away just as they were
beginning to pay for fattening. The case was analogous to that of an
ogress balked of her meal, after going to no end of expense in humanised
cream and such-like.
All the ogress rose in her heart when she saw our little friend Dave
Wardle. But she was very careful about his stiff leg. Her eyes gleamed
at the opportunities he would present for injudicious overfeeding--or
suppose we say stuffing at once and have done with it. A banquet was
ready prepared for him, to which he was adapted in a chair of suitable
height, and which he began absorbing into his system without apparently
registering any date of completion. You must not imagine he had been
stinted of food on the journey: indeed, he may be said to have been
taking refreshment more or less all the way from London. But he was one
of the sort that can go steadily on, converting helpings into small boy,
apparently without intermediate scientific events--gastric juice and
blood-corpuscles, and so forth. He was able to converse affably the
while, accepting suggestions as to method in the spirit in which they
were given. In reporting his remarks the spelling cannot be too
phonetical; if unintelligible at first, read them literally aloud to a
hearer who does not see the letterpress. The conversation had turned on
Dave's accident.
"Oy sawed the firing gin coming, and oy said to stoarp, and the firing
gin didn't stoarpt, and it said whoy--whoy--whoy!" This was an attempt
to render the expressive cry of the brigade; now replaced, we believe,
by a tame bell. "Oy sawed free men shoyning like scandles, and Dolly
sawed nuffink--no, nuffink!" The little man's voice got quite sad here.
Think what he had seen and Dolly had missed!
Mrs. Ruth was harrowed by what the child must have suffered. She
expressed her feelings to Sister Nora. Not, however, without Dave
catching their meaning. He was very sharp.
"It hurted at the Hospital," said he. That is, the accident itself had
been too sudden and overwhelming to admit of any estimate of the pain it
caused; the suffering came with the return of consciousness. Then he
added, rather inexplicably:--"It didn't hurted Dolly."
Sister Nora, looking with an amused, puzzled face at the small
absurdity, assimilating suitable nourishment and wrestling with his
mother-tongue at its outset, said:--"Why didn't it hurted Dolly, I
wonder?" and them illuminated:--"Oh--I see! It balances Dolly's account.
Dolly was the loser by not seeing the fire-engine, but she escaped the
accident. Of course!" Whereupon the ogress said with gravity, after due
reflection: "I think you are right, ma'am." She then pointed out to Dave
that well-regulated circles sit still at their suppers, whereas he had
allowed his feelings, on hearing his intelligibility confirmed, to break
out in his legs and kick those of the table. He appeared to believe his
informant, and to determine to frame his behaviour for the future on the
practices of those circles. But he should have taken his spoon out of
his mouth while forming this resolution.
He then, as one wishing to entertain in Society, went on to detail his
experiences in the Hospital, giving first--as it is always well to begin
at the beginning--the names of the staff as he had mastered them. There
was Dr. Dabtinkle, or it might have been Damned Tinker, a doubtful name;
and Drs. Inkstraw, Jarbottle, and Toby. His hearers were able to
identify the names of Dalrymple, Inglethorpe, and Harborough. They were
at work on Toby, who defied detection, when it became evident that sleep
was overwhelming their informant. He was half roused to be put in a
clean nightgown that smelt of lavender, and then curled round his hands
and forgot the whole Universe.
"What a nice little man he is!" said Sister Nora. "He's quite a baby
still, though he's more than six. Some of the London children are so
old. But this child's people seem nice and old-fashioned, although his
uncle was a prizefighter."
"Laws-a-me!" said Mrs. Ruth. "To think of that now! A prizefighter!" And
she had to turn back to Dave's crib, which they were just leaving, to
see whether this degraded profession had set its stamp on her prey....
No, it was all right! She could gloat over that sleeping creature
without misgiving.
"I've just thought who Toby is," said Sister Nora. "Of course, it's Dr.
Trowbridge, the head surgeon. I fancy, now I come to think of it, the
juniors are apt to speak of him without any Dr. I don't know why. I
shall tell Dr. Damned Tinker his name.... Oh no--he won't be offended."
Sister Nora was driven away to the mansion of her noble relative, three
miles off, in a magnificent carriage that was sent for her, in which she
must have felt insignificant. Perhaps she got there in time to dress for
dinner, perhaps not. Wearers of uniforms wash and brush up: they don't
dress.
She reappeared at Mrs. Marrable's cottage two days later, in the same
vehicle, accompanied by the Countess her aunt, who remained therein.
Dave was brought out to make her acquaintance, but not to be taken for a
long drive--only a very short one, just up and down and round, because
Sister Nora wouldn't be more than five minutes. He was relieved when he
found himself safe inside the carriage with her, out of the way of her
haughty and overdressed serving-men, whom he mistrusted. The coachman,
Blencorn, was too high up in the air for human intercourse. Dave found
the lady in the carriage more his sort, and told her, in Sister Nora's
absence--she having vanished into the house--many interesting
experiences of country life. The ogress had taken off his clean shirt,
which he had felt proud of, and looked forward to a long acquaintance
with; substituting another, equally good, perhaps, but premature. She
had fed him well; he gave close particulars of the diet, laying especial
stress on the fact that he had requisitioned the outside piece,
presumably of the loaf, but possibly of some cake. Her ladyship seemed
to think its provenance less important than its destination. She was
able to identity from her own experience a liquid called scream, of
which Dave had bespoken a large jug full, to be taken to Dolly on his
return home. He went on to relate how he had been shown bees, a calf,
and a fool with long legs; about which last the lady was for a moment at
fault, having pictured to herself a Shakespearean one with a bauble. It
proved to be a young horse, a very young one, whose greedy habits Dave
described with a simple but effective directness. But he was destined to
puzzle his audience by his keen interest in something that was on the
mantleshelf, his description of which seemed to relate to nothing this
lady's recollection of Strides interior supplied.
"What on earth does the little man mean by a water-cart on the
mantelshelf, Mrs. Thrale?" said the Countess on leavetaking. The widow
had come out to reclaim her young charge, who seemed not exactly
indignant but perceptibly disappointed, at her ladyship's slowness of
apprehension. He plunged afresh into his elucidation of the subject.
There _was_ a water-cart with four horses, to grind the flour to make
the bread, behind a glast on the chimley-shelf. He knew he was right,
and appealed to Europe for confirmation, more to reinstate his character
for veracity than to bring the details of the topic into prominence.
"That is entirely right, my lady," said Widow Thrale, apologetic for
contradiction from her duty to conscience on the one hand, and her
reluctance to correct her superiors on the other, but under compulsion
from the former. "Quite correct. He's chattering about my grandfather's
model of his mill. He doesn't mean water-cart. He means water-mill. Only
there's a cart with horses in the yard. It's a hundred years old. It's
quite got between the child's mind and his reason, and he wants to see
it work like I've told him."
"Yes," said Dave emphatically, "with water in the cistern." He stopped
suddenly--you may believe it or not--because of a misgiving crossing his
mind that he was using some of Sister Nora's name too freely. Find out
where for yourself.
However, nothing of the sort seemed to cross anyone else's mind, so Dave
hoped he was mistaken. His hostess proceeded to explain why she could
not gratify his anxiety to see this contrivance at work. "I could show
it to him perfectly well," she said, "only to humour a fancy of
Granny's. She never would have anyone touch it but herself, so we shall
have to have patience, some of us." Dave wondered who the other
spectators would be when the time came--would the Countess be one of
them? And would she get down and come into the house, or have it
brought out for her to see in the carriage?
Mrs. Thrale continued:--"I should say it hadn't been set a-going now for
twenty years.... No, more! It was for the pleasuring and amusement of my
little half-brother Robert she made it work, and we buried him more
years ago than that." And then they talked about something else, which
Dave did not closely follow, because he was so sorry for Mrs. Thrale. He
could not resist the conviction that her little half-brother Robert was
dead. Because, if not, they surely never would have buried him. He was
unable to work this out to a satisfactory conclusion, because Sister
Nora was waiting to resume her place in the carriage, and he had no
sooner surrendered it to her than the lateness of the hour was
recognised, and the distinguished visitors drove away in a hurry.
* * * * *
Although Mrs. Marrable had gone away from home ostensibly to welcome
into the world a great-grandchild, the announcement that one had arrived
preceded her return nearly a week. Other instances might be adduced of
very old matriarchs who have imagined themselves Juno, as she certainly
did. Juno, one may reasonably suppose, did not feel free to depart until
matters had been put on a comfortable footing. Of course, the goddess
had advantages; omnipresence, for instance, or at least presence at
choice. One official visit did not monopolize her. Old Mrs.
Marrable--Granny Marrable _par excellence_--had but one available
personality, and had to be either here or there, never everywhere! So
Dave and another convalescent had Strides Cottage all to themselves and
their ogress, for awhile.
The country air did wonders for the London child. This is always the
case, and contains the truth that only strong children outlive their
babyhood in London, and these become normal when they are removed to
normal human conditions. Dave began becoming the robust little character
Nature had intended him to be, and evidently would soon throw off the
ill-effects of his accident, with perhaps a doubt about how long the leg
would be stiff.
So by the time Granny Marrable returned into residence she was not
confronted with an invalid still plausibly convalescent, but an eatable
little boy, from the ogress point of view, who used a crutch when
reminded of his undertaking to do so. Otherwise he preferred to neglect
it; leaving it on chairs or on the settle by the fireplace, like Ariadne
on Naxos; evidently feeling, when he was recalled to his duty towards
it, as Theseus might have felt if remonstrated with by Minos for his
desertion of his daughter. In reinstating it he would be acting for the
crutch's sake. And why should he trouble to do this, when the other
little boy, Marmaduke, who had nothing whatever the matter with _his_
leg, was always ambitious to use this crutch, or scrutch. He was the
Dionysos of the metaphor.
However, the crutch was not in question when Dave first set eyes on
Granny Marrable. It was at half-past seven o'clock on a cold morning,
when the last swallow had departed, and the skylarks were flagging, and
the tragedy of the ash-leaves was close at hand, that Dave awoke
reluctantly from a remote dream-world with Dolly in it, and Uncle Mo,
and Aunt M'riar, and Mrs. Picture upstairs, to hear a voice, that at
first seemed Mrs. Picture's in the dream, saying: "Well, my little
gentleman, you _do_ sleep sound!"
But it wasn't Mrs. Prichard's, or Picture's, voice; it was Granny
Marrable's. For all her eighty years, she had walked from Costrell's
farm, her great-grandson's birthplace, three miles off, or thereabouts;
and had arrived at her own door, ten minutes since, quite fresh after an
hour's walk. She was that sort of old woman.
Dave was almost as disconcerted as when he woke at the Hospital and saw
no signs of his home, and no old familiar faces. He sat up in bed and
wrestled with his difficulties, his eyelids being among the chief. If he
rubbed them hard enough, no doubt the figure before him would cease to
be Mrs. Picture, even as the other figure the dream had left had ceased
to be Aunt M'riar, and had become Widow Thrale. Not but that he would
have accepted her as Mrs. Picture, being prepared for almost anything
since his accident, if it had not been for the expression, "My little
gentleman," which quarrelled with her seeming identity. Oh no!--if he
rubbed away hard enough at those eyes with his nightgown-sleeve, this
little matter would right itself. Of course, Mrs. Picture would have
called him Doyvy, or the name he gave that inflection to.
"Child!--you'll rub your pretty eyes out that fashion," said Granny
Marrable. And she uncrumpled Dave's small nightgown-sleeve the eyes were
in collision with, and disentangled their owner from the recesses of his
bedclothes. Then Dave was quite convinced it was not Mrs. Picture, who
was not so nearly strong as this dream-image, or waking reality.
"He'll come awake directly," said the younger widow. "He do sleep,
Granny!" For Widow Thrale often called her aunt "Granny" as a tribute to
her own offspring. Otherwise she thought of her as "Mother." Her own
mother was only a half-forgotten fact, a sort of duplicate mother, who
vanished when she was almost a baby. She continued:--"He goes nigh to
eating up his pillow he does. There never was a little boy sounder; all
night long not a move! Such a little slugabed I never!" And then this
ogress--for she really was no better--was heartless enough to tickle
Dave and kiss him, with an affectation of devouring him. And he, being
tickled, had to laugh; and then was quite awake, for all the world as if
he could never go to sleep again.
"I fought," said he, feeling some apology was due for his
misapprehension, "I fought it was old Mrs. Picture on the top-landing in
the hackicks."
"He's asleep still," said the ogress. "Come along, and I'll wash your
sleep out, young man!" And she paid no attention at all to Dave's
attempted explanations of his reference to old Mrs. Picture or Prichard.
He may be said to have lectured on the subject throughout his ablutions,
and really Widow Thrale was not to blame, properly speaking, when he got
the soap in his mouth.
Dave lost no time in mooting the subject of the water-mill, and it was
decided that as soon as he had finished dictating a letter he had begun
to Dolly, Granny Marrable--whom he addressed as "Granny
Marrowbone"--would exhibit this ingenious contrivance.
He stuck to his letter conscientiously; and it was creditable to him,
because it took a long time. Yet the ground gone over was not extensive.
He expressed his affection for Dolly herself, for Uncle Mo and Aunt
M'riar, and subordinately for Mrs. Picture, and even Mrs. Burr. He added
that there was ducks in the pond. That was all; but it was not till late
in the morning that the letter was completed. Then Dave claimed his
promise. He was to see the wheel go round, and the sacks go up into the
granary above the millstones. It was a pledge even an old lady of eighty
could not go back on.
Nor had she any such treacherous intention. So soon as ever the
dinner-things were cleared away, Granny Marrable with her own hands
lifted down the model off of the mantelshelf, and removing the glass
from the front of the case, brought the contents out on the oak table
the cloth no longer covered, so that you might see all round. Then the
cistern--which after all had nothing to do with Sister Nora--was
carefully filled with water so that none should spill and make marks,
neither on the table nor yet on the mill itself, and then it was wound
up like a clock till you couldn't wind no further and it went click. And
then the water in the cistern was let run, and the wheels went round;
and Dave knew exactly what a water-mill was like, and was assured--only
this was a pious fiction--that the water made the wheels go round. The
truth was that the clockwork worked the wheels and made them pump back
the water as fast as ever it came down. And this is much better than in
real mills, because the same water does over and over again, and the
power never fails. But you have to wind it up. You can't expect
everything!
Granny Marrable gave a brief description of the model. Her brother, who
died young, made it because he was lame of one leg; which meant that
enforced inactivity had found a sedentary employment in mechanisms, not
that all lame folk make mills. Those two horses were Mr. Pitt and Mr.
Fox. That was her father standing at the window, with his pipe in his
mouth, a miracle of delicate workmanship. And that was the carman, Mr.
Muggeridge, who used to see to loading up the cart.
Children are very perverse in their perception of the relative
importance of things they are told, and Dave was enormously impressed
with Mr. Muggeridge. Silent analysis of the model was visible on his
face for awhile, and then he broke out into catechism:--"Whoy doesn't
the wheel-sacks come down emptied out?" said he. He had not got the
expression "wheat-sacks" right.
"Well, my dear," said Granny Marrable, who felt perhaps that this
question attacked a weak point, "if it was the mill itself, they would.
But now it's only done in small, we have to pretend." Dave lent himself
willingly to the admission of a transparent fiction, and it was
creditable to his liberality that he did so. For though the sacks were
ingeniously taken into the mill-roof under a projecting hood, they
reappeared instantly to go up again through a hole under the cart. Any
other arrangement would have been too complex; and, indeed, a pretence
that they took grain up and brought flour down might have seemed
affectation. A conventional treatment was necessary. It had one great
advantage, too: it liberated the carman for active service elsewhere. It
was entirely his own fault, or his employer's, that he stood bolt
upright, raising one hand up and down in time with the movement of the
wheels. The miller did not seem to mind; for he only kept on looking out
of window, smoking.
But the miller and the carman were not the only portraitures this model
showed. Two very little girls were watching the rising grain-sacks, each
with her arm round the other. The miller may have been looking at them
affectionately from the window; but really he was so very
unimpressive--quite inscrutable! Dave inquired about these little girls,
after professing a satisfaction he only partly felt about the
arrangements for receiving the raw material and delivering it ground.
"Whoy was they bofe of a size?" said he, for indeed they were exactly
alike.
"Because, my dear, that is the size God made them. Both at the same
time!"
"Who worze they?" asked Dave, clinching the matter abruptly--much too
interested for circumlocution.
"Myself, my dear, and my little sister, born the same time. With our
lilac frocks on and white bonnets to shade the sun off our eyes. And
each a nosegay of garden flowers." There was no more sorrow in the old
woman's voice than belongs to any old voice speaking thoughtfully and
gently. Her old hand caressed the crisp locks of the little, interested
boy, and felt his chin appreciatively, as she added:--"Three or four
years older than yourself, my dear! Seventy years ago!" with just the
ring of sadness--no more--that always sounds when great age speaks of
its days long past.
The other convalescent boy here struck in, raising a vital question.
"Which is you, and which is her?" said he. He had come in as a new
spectator; surrendering Dave's crutch, borrowed as needless to its
owner, in compliance with a strange fascination, now waning in charm as
the working model asserted its powers. Dionysos had deserted Ariadne
again.
"This is me," said Granny Marrable. "And this is Maisie." And now you
who read probably know, as clearly as he who writes, who she was, this
octogenarian with such a good prospect of making up the hundred. She was
Phoebe, the sister of old Mrs. Prichard, whose story was told in the
last chapter. But most likely you guessed that pages ago.
* * * * *
I, who write, have no aim in telling this story beyond that of repeating
as clearly and briefly as may be the bare facts that make it up--of
communicating them to whoever has a few hours to spare for the purpose,
with the smallest trouble to himself in its perusal. I feel often that
my lack of skill is spoiling what might be a good story. That I cannot
help; and I write with the firm conviction that any effort on my part to
arrange these facts in such order that the tale should show dramatic
force, or startle him with unexpected issues of event, would only
procure derision for its writer, and might even obscure the only end he
has at heart, that of giving a complete grasp of the facts, as nearly as
may be in the order of their occurrence.
There is one feature in the story which the most skilful narrator might
easily fail to present as probable--the separation of these twin sisters
throughout a long lifetime, a separation contrary to nature; so much so,
indeed, that tales are told of twins living apart, the death or illness
of one of whom has brought about the death or similar illness of the
other. One would at least say that neither could die without knowledge
of the other; might even infer that either would go on thinking the
other living, without some direct evidence of death, some seeming
communication from the departed. But the separation of Phoebe from
Maisie did not come under these conditions; each was the victim of a
wicked fraud, carried out with a subtlety that might have deceived
Scotland Yard. There can be no doubt that it would have had the force to
obscure any phenomenon of a so-called telepathic nature, however vivid,
as proof that either twin was still alive; as the percipient, in the
belief that her sister's death was established beyond a doubt, would
unhesitatingly conclude that the departed had revisited earth, or had
made her presence felt by some process hard to understand from our side.
To see the story in its right light we must always keep in view the
extraordinary isolation of the penal settlement. All convict life is cut
off from the world, but in Van Diemen's Land even the freest of men out
on ticket-of-leave--free sometimes so long that the renewal of their
licence at its expiration became the merest form--was separated from the
land of his birth, even from the mainland of Australia, by a barrier for
him almost as impassable as the atmosphere that lies between us and the
visible land of the moon. Keep in mind the hundred-and-odd miles of
sea--are you sure you thought of it as so much?--that parts Tasmania
from the nearest point of New South Wales, and picture to yourself the
few slow sailing-ships upon their voyages from Sydney, five times as
distant. To go and come on such a journey was little else to the
stay-at-home in those days, than that he should venture beyond the grave
and return.
No!--the wonder to my mind is not that the two sisters should have been
parted so utterly, and each been so completely duped about the other's
death, but that Maisie should have returned less than five-and-twenty
years later, and that, so returning, she should not have come to the
knowledge that her sister was still living.
CHAPTER VIII
MICHAEL RAGSTROAR'S SLIDE, AND THE MILK. CONCERNING DAVE'S RETURN
TO SAPPS COURT, WHICH HAD SHRUNK IN HIS ABSENCE. OF THE PHYSICAL
IMPOSSIBILITY OF A WIDOW'S GRANDMOTHER. DAVE'S TALE OF THE
WATER-MILL. SISTER NORA'S EXACTING FATHER. HOW DAVE WENT TO SCHOOL,
AND UNCLE MO SOUGHT CONSOLATION IN SOCIETY, WHILE DOLLY TOOK
STRUVVEL PETER TO VISIT MRS. PRICHARD. HOW THAT OLD LADY KNITTED A
COMFORTER, AND TOLD AUNT M'RIAR OF HER CONVICT LOVER'S DEPARTURE
The heart of the ancient prizefighter in Sapps Court swelled with joy
when the day of Dave's return was officially announced. He was, said
Aunt M'riar, in and out all the afternoon, fidgeting-like, when it
actually came. And the frost was that hard that ashes out of the dustbin
had to be strewed over the paving to prevent your slipping. It might not
have been any so bad though, only for that young Michael Ragstroar's
having risen from his couch at an early hour, and with diabolical
foresight made a slide right down the middle of the Court. He had chosen
this hour so early, that he was actually before the Milk, which was
always agreeable to serve the Court when the tenantry could do--taken
collectively--with eightpennyworth. It often mounted up to thrice that
amount, as a matter of fact. On this occasion it sat down abruptly, the
Milk did, and gave a piece of its mind to Michael's family later,
pointing out that it was no mere question of physical pain or
ill-convenience to itself, but that its principal constituent might
easily have been spilled, and would have had to be charged for all the
same. The incident led to a collision between Michael and his father,
the coster; who, however, remitted one-half of his son's deserts and let
him off easy on condition of his reinstating the footway. Michael would
have left all intact, he said, had he only been told that his
thoughtfulness would provoke the Court's ingratitude. "Why couldn't they
say aforehand they didn't want no slide?" said he. "I could just as easy
have left it alone." It was rather difficult to be quite even with
Michael Ragstroar.
However, the ground was all steady underfoot when Dave, in charge of
Sister Nora, reappeared, looking quite rosy again, and only limping very
slightly. He had deserted Ariadne altogether by now, and Dionysos may
have done so, too, for anything the story knows. Anyhow, the instability
of the planet that had resulted from local frost did not affect Dave at
all, now that Michael had spilt them hashes over the ground. Dave was
bubbling over with valuable information about the provinces, which had
never reached the Metropolis before, and he was in such a hurry to tell
about a recent family of kittens, that he scamped his greetings to his
own family in order to get on to the description of it.
But neither this, nor public indignation against the turpitude of
slide-makers generally and that young Micky in particular, could avert
his relatives' acknowledgments of their gratitude--what a plague thanks
are!--from a benefactress who was merely consulting a personal
dilettantism in her attitude towards her species, and who regarded Dave
as her most remunerative investment for some time past.
"We shall never know how to be grateful enough, ma'am, for your kindness
to Dave," said Aunt M'riar. "No--never!"
"Not if we was to live for ever," said Uncle Mo. And he seemed to mean
it, for he went on:--"It's a poor way of thanks to be redooced to at the
best, just to be grateful and stop it off at that. But 'tis in the right
of it as far as it goes. You take me, missis? I'm a bad hand to speak my
mind; but you'll count it up for hearty thanks, anyhow."
"Of course I will, Mr. Wardle," said Sister Nora. "But, oh dear!--what a
fuss one does make about nothing! Why, he's such a ducky little chap,
anybody would be glad to."
Dave struck into the conversation perceiving an opportunity to say
something appropriate: "There was sisk duskses in the pong in the field,
and one of the duskses was a droyk with green like ribbings, and Mrs.
Thrale she said a little boy stumbled in the pong and was took out
green, and some day I should show Dolly the droyk and I should show
Uncle Mo the droyk and I should show Aunt M'riar the droyk. And there
was a bool." At which point the speaker suddenly became shyly silent,
perhaps feeling that he was premature in referring thus early to a visit
of his family to Chorlton-under-Bradbury. It would have been better
taste to wait, he thought.
However, no offence seemed to be taken. Uncle Mo said: "Oh, _that_ was
it--was it? I hope the bull had a ring on his nose." Dave appeared
doubtful, with a wish to assent. Then Aunt M'riar, who--however good she
was--certainly had a commonplace mind, must needs say she hoped Dave had
been a very good little boy. The banality of it!
Dave felt that an effort should be made to save the conversation. The
bull's nose and its ring suggested a line to go on. "The lady," said he
decisively, "had rings on her fingers. Dimings and pearls and
scrapphires"--he took this very striking word by storm--"and she giv'
'em me for to hold one at a time.... Yorce she did!" He felt sure of his
facts, and that the lady's rings on her fingers made her a legitimate
and natural corollary to a bull with one on its nose.
"The lady would be my Cousin Philippa," said Sister Nora. "She's always
figged up to the nines. Dave took her for a drive in the
carriage--didn't you, Dave?" There was misrepresentation in this, but a
way grown-up people have of understanding each other over the heads of
little boys prevented the growth of false impressions. Uncle Mo and Aunt
M'riar quite understood, somehow, that it was the lady that had taken
Dave for a drive. Dave allowed this convention to pass without notice,
merely nodding. He reserved criticism for the days to come, when he
should have a wider vocabulary at command.
Then Sister Nora had gone, and Dave was having his first experience of
the shattered ideal. Sapps Court was neither so large nor so
distinguished as the conception of it that he had carried away into the
country with him; with the details of which he had endeavoured to
impress Granny Marrable and the ogress. Dolly was not so large as he had
expected to find her; but then he had had that expectation owing to a
message, which had reached him in his absence, that she was growing out
of all knowledge. His visit was inside three months; so this was absurd.
One really should be careful what one says to six-year-olds. The image
of Dolly that Dave brought back from the provinces nearly filled up the
Sapps Court memory supplied. It was just the same shape as Dolly, but on
a much larger scale. The reality he came back to was small and compact,
but not so influential.
Dolly's happiness at his return was great and unfeigned, but its
expression was handicapped by her desire that a doll Sister Nora brought
her should be allowed to sleep off the effects of an exhausting journey.
Only Shakespearean dramatic power could have ascribed sleep to this
doll, who was a similitude of Struvvel Peter in the collected poems of
that name just published. Still, Dolly gave all of herself that this
matronly preoccupation could spare to Dave. She very soon suggested that
they should make a joint visit to old Mrs. Picture upstairs. She could
carry Struvvel Peter in her arms all the time, so that his sleep should
not be disturbed.
This was only restless love of change on Dolly's part, and Uncle Mo
protested. Was his boy to be carried off from him when only just this
minute he got him back? Who was Mrs. Prichard that such an exaggerated
consideration should be shown to her? Dave expressed himself in the same
sense, but with a less critical view of Mrs. Prichard's pretensions.
Aunt M'riar pointed out that there was no call to be in a driving hurry.
Presently, when Mr. Alibone come in for a pipe, like he said he would,
then Dave and Dolly might go up and knock at Mrs. Prichard's door, and
if they were good they might be let in. Aunt M'riar seized so many
opportunities to influence the young towards purity and holiness that
her injunctions lost force through the frequency of their recurrence,
always dangling rewards and punishments before their eyes. In the
present case her suggestions worked in with the general feeling, and
Dave and Dolly sat one on each knee of Uncle Mo, and made intelligent
remarks. At least, Dave did; Dolly's were sometimes confused, and very
frequently uncompleted.
Uncle Mo asked questions about Dave's sojourn with Widow Thrale. Who was
there lived in the house over and above the Widow? Well--said
Dave--there was her Granny. Uncle Mo derided the idea of a Widow's
Granny. Such a thing was against Nature. Her mother was possible but
uncommon. But as for her Granny!--draw it mild, said Uncle Mo.
"But my dear Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "Just you give consideration. You're
always for sayin' such a many things. Why, there was our upstairs old
lady she says to me she was plenty old enough to be my grandmother. Only
this very morning, if you'll believe me, she said that very selfsame
thing. 'I'm plenty old enough to be your grandmother,' she says."
"As for the being old enough, M'riar," said Uncle Mo, "there's enough
and to spare old enough for most anything if you come to that. But this
partick'lar sort don't come off. Just you ask anybody. Why, I'll give ye
all England to hunt 'em up. Can't say about foreigners, they're a queer
lot; but England's a Christian country, and you may rely upon it, and so
I tell you, you won't light on any one or two widders' Grannies in the
whole show. You try it!" Uncle Moses was not the first nor the only
person in the world that ever proposed an impracticable test to be
carried out at other people's expense, or by their exertions. It was,
however, a mere _façon de parler_, and Aunt M'riar did not show any
disposition to start on a search for widows' grandmothers.
The discussion was altogether too deep for Dave. So after a moment of
grave perplexity he started a new topic, dashing into it without
apology, as was his practice. "Granny Marrowbone's box on the
chimley-piece is got glast you can see in, and she's got two horses in a
wagging, and the wheels goes round and round and round like a clock, and
there was her daddy stood at the window and there was saskses was took
up froo a hole, and come back froo a hole, and there was Muggeridge that
see to loading up the cart, and there was her and her sister bofe alike
of one size, and there was the water run over...." Here Dave flagged a
little after so much eloquence, and no wonder. But he managed to wind
up:--"And then Granny Marrowbone put it back on the mankleshelf for next
time."
This narrative was, of course, quite unintelligible to its hearers; but
we understand it, and its mention of the carman's name. A child that has
to repeat a story will often confuse incidents limitlessly, and
nevertheless hold on with the tenacity of a bull-pup to some saving
phrase heard distinctly once and for ever. Even so, Dave held on to
Muggeridge, that see to loading up the cart, as a great fact rooted in
History.
"H'm!" said Uncle Mo. "I don't make all that out. Who's Muggeridge in
it?"
"He sees to the sacks," said Dave.
"Counting of 'em out, I reckon." Uncle Mo was thinking of coal-sacks,
and the suggestions of a suspicious Company. Dave said nothing. Probably
Uncle Mo knew. But he was all wrong, perhaps because the association of
holes with coals misled him.
"Was it Mrs. Marrable and her sister?" asked Aunt M'riar. "Why was they
both of a size?"
Dave jumped at the opportunity of showing that he had profited by
_résumés_ of this subject with his hostess. "Because they were the soyme
oyge," said he. "Loyke me and Dolly. We aren't the soyme oyge, me and
Dolly." That is to say, he and Dolly were an example of persons whose
relative ages came into court. Their classification differed, but that
was a detail.
Aunt M'riar was alive to the possibility that the sister of Granny
Marrable was her twin, and said so. But Uncle Mo took her up short for
this opinion. "What!" said he, "the same as the old party two pair up?
No, no!--you won't convince me there's two old parties at once with twin
sisters. One at a time's plenty on the way-bill." Because, you see, Aunt
M'riar had had a good many conversations with Mrs. Prichard lately, and
had repeated words of hers to Uncle Moses. "I was a twin myself," she
had said; and added that she had lost her sister near upon fifty years
ago.
The truth was too strange to occur to even the most observant bystander;
_videlicet_, on the whole, Mr. Alibone; who, coming in and talking over
the matter anew, only said it struck him as a queer start. This
expression has somehow a sort of flavour of its user's intention to
conduct inquiry no farther. Anyhow, the subject simply dropped for that
time being, out of sight and out of mind.
It was very unfair to Dave, who was, after all, a model of veracity,
that he should be treated as a romancer, and never confronted with
witnesses to confirm or contradict his statements. Even Uncle Mo, who
took him most seriously, continued to doubt the existence of widows'
grandmothers, and to accept with too many reservations his account of
the mill-model. Sister Nora, as it chanced, did not revisit Sapps Court
for a very long time, for she was called away to Scotland by the sudden
illness of her father, who showed an equivocal affection for her by
refusing to let anyone else nurse him.
So it came about that Dave, rather mortified at having doubt thrown on
narratives he knew to be true, discontinued his attempts to establish
them. And that the two old sisters, so long parted, still lived on
apart; each in the firm belief that the other was dead a lifetime since.
How near each had been to the knowledge that the other lived! Surely if
Dave had described that mill-model to old Mrs. Picture, suspicions would
have been excited. But Dave said little or nothing about it.
It is nowise strange to think that the bitter, simultaneous grief in the
heart of either twin, now nearly fifty years ago, still survived in two
hearts that were not too old to love; for even those who think that love
can die, and be as though it had never been, may make concession to its
permanency in the case of twins--may even think concession scientific.
But it is strange--strange beyond expression--that at the time of this
story each should have had love in her heart for the same object, our
little Dave Wardle; that Master Dave's very kissable countenance had
supplied the lips of each with a message of solace to a tired soul. And
most of all that the tears of each, and the causes of them, had provoked
the inquisitiveness of the same pair of blue eyes and set their owner
questioning, and that through all this time the child had in his secret
consciousness a few words that would have fired the train. Never was a
spark so near to fuel, never an untold tale so near its hearer, never a
draught so near to lips athirst.
But Dave's account of the mill was for the time forgotten. It happened
that old Mrs. Prichard was not receiving just at the time of his return,
so his visits upstairs had to be suspended. By the time they were
renewed the strange life in the country village had become a thing of
the past, and important events nearer home had absorbed the mill on the
mantelshelf, and the ducks in the pond and Widow Thrale and Granny
Marrable alike. One of the important events was that Dave was to be took
to school after Christmas.
It was in this interim that old Mrs. Prichard became a very great
resource to Aunt M'riar, and when the time came for Dave to enter on his
curriculum of scholarship, the visiting upstairs had become a recognised
institution. Aunt M'riar being frequently forsaken by Uncle Mo, who
marked his objection to the scholastic innovation by showing himself
more in public, notably at The Rising Sun, whose proprietor set great
store by the patronage of so respectable a representative of an
Institution not so well thought of now as formerly, but whose traditions
were still cherished in the confidential interior of many an ancient
pot-house of a like type--Aunt M'riar, so forsaken, made these absences
of her brother-in-law a reason for conferring her own society and
Dolly's on the upstairs lodger, whenever the work she was engaged on
permitted it. She felt, perhaps, as Uncle Mo felt, that the house warn't
like itself without our boy; but if she shared his feeling that it was a
waste of early life to spend it in learning to read slowly, write
illegibly, and cypher incorrectly, she did so secretly. She deferred to
the popular prejudice, which may have had an inflated opinion of the
advantages of education; but she acknowledged its growth and the worldly
wisdom of giving way to it.
Old Mrs. Prichard and Aunt M'riar naturally exchanged confidences more
and more; and in the end the old lady began to speak without reserve
about her past. It came about thus. After Christmas, Dave being
culture-bound, and work of a profitable nature for the moment at a low
ebb, Aunt M'riar had fallen back on some arrears of stocking-darning.
Dolly was engaged on the object to which she gave lifelong attention,
that of keeping her doll asleep. I do not fancy that Dolly was very
inventive; but then, you may be, at three-and-a-half, seductive without
being inventive. Besides, this monotonous fiction of the need of her
doll for sleep was only a _scenario_ for another incident--the fear of
disturbance by a pleace'n with two heads, a very terrible possibility.
Old Mrs. Prichard, whom I call by that name because she was known by no
other in Sapps Court, was knitting a comforter for Dave. It went very
slowly, this comforter, but was invaluable as an expression of love and
goodwill. She couldn't get up and downstairs because of her back, and
she couldn't read, only a very little, because of her eyes, and she
couldn't hear--not to say _hear_--when read aloud to. This last may have
been no more than what many of us have experienced, for she heard very
plain when spoke to. That is Aunt M'riar's testimony. My impression is
that, as compared with her twin sister Phoebe, Maisie was at this date a
mere invalid. But she looked very like Phoebe for all that, when you
didn't see her hands. The veins were too blue, and their delicacy was
made more delicate by the aggressive scarlet she had chosen for the
comforter.
"It makes a rest to do a little darning now and again." Aunt M'riar said
this, choosing a worsted carefully, so it shouldn't quarrel with its
surroundings. "I take a pleasure in it more than not. On'y as for
knowing when to stop--there!"
"I mind what it was in my early days up-country," said the old woman.
"'Twas not above once in the year any trade would reach us, and suchlike
things as woollen socks were got at by the moth or the ants. They would
sell us things at a high price from the factory as a favour, but my
husband could not abide the sight of them. It was small wonder it was
so, Mrs. Wardle." That was the name that Aunt M'riar had come to be
called by, although it was not her own real name. Confusion of this sort
is not uncommon in the class she belonged to. Sapps Court was aware that
she was not Mrs. Wardle, but she had to be accounted for somehow, and
the name she bore was too serious a tax on the brain-power of its
inhabitants.
She repeated Mrs. Prichard's words: "From the factory, ma'am? I see."
Because she did not understand them.
"It was always called the factory," said Mrs. Prichard. But this made
Aunt M'riar none the wiser. _What_ was called the factory? The way in
which she again said that she _saw_ amounted to a request for
enlightenment. Mrs. Prichard gave it. "It was the Government quarters
with the Residence, and the prisons where the convicts were detained on
their arrival. They would not be there long, being told off to work in
gangs up-country, or assigned to the settlers as servants. But I've
never told you any of all this before, Mrs. Wardle." No more she had.
She had broached Van Diemen's Land suddenly, having gone no farther
before than the mere fact of her son's birth at Port Macquarie.
Aunt M'riar couldn't make up her mind as to what was expected of her,
whether sympathy or mere interest or silent acquiescence. She decided on
a weak expression of the first, saying:--"To think of that now--all that
time ago!"
"Fifty long years ago! But I knew of it before that, four years or
more," said the old lady. It did not seem to move her much--probably
felt to her like a previous state of existence. She went on talking
about the Convict Settlement, which she had outlived. Her hearer only
half understood most of it, not being a prompt enough catechist to ask
the right question at the right time.
For Aunt M'riar, though good, was a slowcoach, backward in
cross-examination, and Mrs. Prichard's first depositions remained
unqualified, for discussion later with Uncle Mo. However, one inquiry
came to her tongue. "Was you born in those parts yourself, ma'am?" said
she. Then she felt a little sorry she had asked it, for a sound like
annoyance came in the answer.
"Who--I? No, no--not I--dear me, no! My father was an Essex man.
Darenth, his place was called." Aunt M'riar repeated the name
wrongly:--"Durrant?" She ought to have asked something concerning his
status and employment. Who knows but Mrs. Prichard might have talked of
that mill and supplied a clue to speculation?--not Aunt M'riar's;
speculation was not her line. Others might have compared notes on her
report, literally given, with Dave's sporting account of the mill-model.
And yet--why should they? With no strong leading incident in common,
each story might have been discussed without any suspicion that the
flour-mill was the same in both.
So that Mrs. Prichard's tale so far supplies nothing to link her with
old Granny Marrable, as unsuspicious as herself. What Aunt M'riar found
her talking of, half to herself, when her attention recovered from a
momentary fear that she might have hurt the old lady's feelings, was
even less likely to connect the two lives.
"I followed my husband out. My child died--my eldest--here in England. I
went again to live at home. Then I followed him out. He wrote to me and
said that he was free. Free on the island, but not to come home. We had
been over four years parted then." She said nothing of the child she
left behind in England. Too much to explain perhaps?
Aunt M'riar was struck by a painful thought; the same that had crossed
her mind before, and that she had discarded as somehow inconsistent with
this old woman. The convicts--the convicts? She had grasped the fact
that this couple had lived in Van Diemen's Land, and inferred that
children were born to them there. But--was the husband himself a
convict? She repeated the words, "Free on the island, but not to come
home?" as a question.
She was quite taken aback with the reply, given with no visible emotion.
"Why should I not tell you? How will it hurt me that you should know? My
husband was convicted of forgery and transported."
"God's mercy on us!" said Aunt M'riar, dropping her work dumfoundered.
Then it half entered her thought that the old woman was wandering, and
she nearly said:--"Are you sure?"
The old woman answered the thought as though it had been audible. "Why
not?" she said. "I am all myself. Fifty years ago! Why should I begin to
doubt it because of the long time?" She had ceased her knitting and sat
gazing on the fire, looking very old. Her interlaced thin fingers on the
strain could grow no older now surely, come what might of time and
trouble. Both had done their worst. She went on speaking low, as one
talks to oneself when alone. "Yes, I saw him go that morning on the
river. They rowed me out at dawn--a pair of oars, from Chatham. For I
had learned the day he would go, and there was a sure time for the
leaving of the hulks; if not night, then in the early dawn before folk
were on the move. This was in the summer."
"And did you see him?" said Aunt M'riar, hoping to hear more, and taking
much for granted that she did not understand, lest she should be the
loser by interruption.
"I saw him. I saw him. I did not know then that _he_ saw _me_. They
dared not row me near the wicked longboat that was under the hulk's side
waiting--waiting to take my heart away. They dared not for the officers.
There was ten men packed in the stern of the boat, and he was in among
them. And, as they sat, each one's hand was handcuffed to his neighbour.
I saw him, but he could not raise his hand; and he dared not call to me
for the officers. I could not have known him in his prison dress--it was
too far--but I could read his number, 213M. I know it still--213M....
How did I know it? Because he got a letter to me." She then told how a
man had followed her in the street, when she was waiting in London for
this chance of seeing her husband, and how she had been afraid of this
man and taken refuge in a shop. Then how the shopkeeper had gone out to
speak to him and come back, saying:--"He's a bad man to look at, but he
means no harm. He says he wants to give you a letter, miss." How she
then spoke with the man and received the letter, giving him a guinea
for the rolled-up pencil scrawl, and he said:--"It's worth more than
that for the risk I ran to bring it ye. But for my luck I might be on
the ship still." Whereupon, she gave him her watch. That was how she
came to know 213M.
"But did you see your husband again?" asked Aunt M'riar, listening as
Dave might have done; and, like him, wanting each instalment of the tale
rounded off.
"Yes. Climbing up the side of the great ship half-way to the Nore. It
was a four-hours' pull for the galley--six oars--each man wristlocked to
his oar; and each officer with a musket. But we had a little sail and
kept the pace, though the wind was easterly. Then, when we reached the
ship where she lay, we went as near as ever my men dared. And we saw
each one of them--the ten--unhandcuffed to climb the side, and a cord
over the side made fast to him to give him no chance of death in the
waters--no chance! And then I saw my husband and knew he saw me."
"Did he speak?"
"He tried to call out. But the ship's officer struck him a cruel blow
upon the mouth, and he was dragged to the upper deck and hidden from me.
We saw them all aboard, all the ten. It was the last boat-load from the
hulk, and all the yards were manned by now, and the white sails growing
on them. Oh, but she was beautiful, the great ship in the sunshine!" The
old woman, who had spoken tearlessly, as from a dead, tearless heart, of
the worst essentials of her tragedy, was caught by a sob at something in
this memory of the ship at the Nore--why, Heaven knows!--and her voice
broke over it. To Aunt M'riar, cockney to the core, a ship was only a
convention, necessary for character, in an offing with an orange-chrome
sunset claiming your attention rather noisily in the background. There
were pavement-artists in those days as now. This ship the old lady told
of was a new experience for her--this ship with hundreds of souls on
board, men and women who had all had a fair trial and been represented
by counsel, so had nothing to complain of even if innocent. But all
souls in Hell, for all that!
The old voice seemed quite roused to animation--a sort of heart-broken
animation--by the recollection of this ship. "Oh, but she was
beautiful!" she said again. "I've dreamed of her many's the time since
then, with her three masts straight up against the blue; you could see
them in the water upside down. I could not find the heart to let my men
row away and leave her there. I had come to see her go, and it was a
long wait we had.... Yes, it was on towards evening before the breeze
came to move her; and all those hours we waited. It was money to my
men, and they had a good will to it." She stopped, and Aunt M'riar
waited for her to speak again, feeling that she too had a right to see
this ship's image move. Presently she looked up from her darning and got
a response. "Yes, she did move in the end. I saw the sails flap, and
there was the clink of the anchor-chain. I've dreamt it again many and
many a time, and seen her take the wind and move, till she was all a
mile away and more. We watched her away with all aboard of her. And when
the wind rose in the night I was mad to think of her out on the great
sea, and how I should never see him again. But the time went by, and I
did."
This was the first time old Mrs. Prichard spoke so freely about her
former life to Aunt M'riar. It was quite spontaneous on the old lady's
part, and she stopped her tale as suddenly as it had begun. The
fragmentary revelations in which she disclosed much more of her story,
as already summarised, came at intervals; always dwelling on her
Australian experiences, never on her girlhood--never on her subsequent
life in England. The reason of this is not clear; one has to accept the
fact. The point to notice is that nothing she said could possibly
associate her with old Mrs. Marrable, as told about by Dave. There had
been mention of Australia certainly. Yet why should Granny Marrable's
sister having died there forty-odd years ago connect her with an old
woman of a different name, now living? Besides, Dave was not
intelligible on this point.
Whatever she told to Aunt M'riar was repeated to Uncle Mo--be sure of
that! Still, fragmentary stories, unless dressed up and garnished by
their retailer, do not remain vividly in the mind of their hearer, and
Uncle Mo's impressions of the upstairs tenant's history continued very
mixed. For Aunt M'riar's style was unpolished, and she did not marshall
her ideas in an impressive or lucid manner.
CHAPTER IX
OF A WATERSIDE PUBLIC-HOUSE, AT CHISWICK, AND TWO MEN IN ITS BACK
GARDEN. HOW THE RIVER POLICE TOOK AN INTEREST IN THEM. A
TROUBLESOME LANDING AND A BAD SPILL. HOW FOUR MEN WENT UNDER WATER,
AND TWO WERE NOT DROWNED. OF THE INQUEST ONE OF THE OTHERS TOOK THE
STAR PART IN. A MODEL WITNESS, AND HIS GREAT-AUNT
Just off the Lower Mall at Hammersmith there still remains a scrap of
the waterside neighbourhood that, fifty years ago, believed itself
eternal; that still clung to the belief forty years ago; that had
misgivings thirty years ago; and that has suffered such inroads from
eligible residences, during the last quarter of a century, that its
residuum, in spite of a superficial appearance of duration, is really
only awaiting the expiration of leases to be given over to
housebreakers, to make way for flats.
Fifty years ago this corner of the world was so self-reliant that it was
content--more than content--to be unpatrolled by police; in fact, felt
rather resentful when an occasional officer passed through, as was
inevitable from time to time. It would have been happier if its
law-abiding tendencies had always been taken for granted. Then you could
have drunk your half a pint, your quart, or your measurable fraction of
a hogshead, in peace and quiet at the bar of the microscopic pub called
The Pigeons, without fear of one of those enemies of Society--_your_
Society--coming spying and prying round after you or any chance
acquaintance you might pick up, to help you towards making that fraction
a respectable one. If it was summer-time, and you sat in the little
back-garden that had a ladder down to the river, you might feel a
moment's uneasiness when the river-police rowed by, as sometimes
happened; only, on the other hand, you might feel soothed by their
appearance of unconcern in riparian matters, almost amounting to
affectation. If any human beings took no interest in your antecedents,
surely it would be these two leisurely rowers and the superior person in
the stern, with the oilskin cape?
It was not summer-time--far from it--on the day that concerns this
story, when two men in the garden of The Pigeons looked out over the
river, and one said to the other:--"Right away over yonder it lies,
halfway to Barn Elms." They were so busy over the locating of it,
whatever it was, that they did not notice the police-wherry, oarless in
the swift-running tide, as it slipped down close inshore, and was
abreast of them before they knew it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was
not summer, and that these men must have left a warm fire in the parlour
of The Pigeons, to come out into a driving north-east wind bringing with
it needle-pricks of microscopic snow, hard and cold and dry, that made
the rowers drop their oars and hold back against the stream, to look at
them.
Or was it that the man in the stern had an interest in one of them. An
abrupt exclamation that he uttered at this moment seemed, to the man
rowing stroke, who heard more than his mate, to apply to the thicker and
taller man of the two. This one, who seemed to treat his pal as an
inferior or subordinate, met his gaze, not flinching. His companion
seemed less at his ease, and to him the big man said, scarcely moving
his lips to say it:--"Steady, fool!--if you shy, we're done." On which
the other remained motionless. What they said was heard by a boy close
at hand; but for whose version, given afterwards, this story would have
been in the dark about it.
The two rowers kept the boat stationary, backing water. The steersman's
left hand played with the tiller-rope, and the boat edged slowly to the
shore. There was a grating thrown out over the water from the parapet of
the river-wall, to the side of which was attached a boat-ladder, now
slung up, for no boat's crew ever stopped here at this season. The boat
was nearing this--all but close--when the bigger man spoke, on a sudden.
But he only said it was a rough night, sergeant!
It was a rough night, or meant to be one in an hour or so. But it was
impossible for an Official to accept another person's opinion without
loss of dignity. Therefore the sergeant, always working the boat
edgewise towards the ladder, only responded, "Roughish!" qualifying the
night, and implying a wider experience of rough nights than his
hearer's. If impressions derived from appearance are to be relied on,
his experience must have been a wide one. For one thing, he himself
seemed a dozen years at least the younger of the two. He added, as the
boat touched the ladder, bringing each in full view of the other, and
making speech easy between them:--"A man don't make the voyage out to
Sydney without seeing some rough weather."
A very attentive observer might have said that he watched the man he
addressed more closely than the talk warranted, and certainly would
have seen that the latter started. He half began "Who the Hell ...?" but
flagged on the last word--just stopped short of Sheol--and the growl
that accompanied it turned into "I've never been in those parts,
master."
"Never said you had. _I_ have though." One might have thought, by his
tone, that this officer chuckled secretly over something. He was
pleased, at least. But he gave no clue to his thoughts. He seemed
disconcerted at the height above the water of the projecting grating and
slung-up ladder. An active man, unencumbered, might easily enough have
landed himself on it from the boat. Yet a boy might have made it
impossible, standing on the grating. A resolute kick on the first
hand-grip, or in the face of the climber, would have met the case, and
given him a back-fall into the boat or the water. A chilly thought that,
on a day like this. But why should such a thought cross the mind of this
man, now? It did, probably, and he gave up the idea of landing.
Instead, he felt in his pocket, and drew out a spirit-flask. "Maybe,"
said he, "your mate would oblige so far as to ask the young lady at the
bar to fill this up with Kinahan's LL? _She_ won't make any bones about
it if he says it's for me, Sergeant Ibbetson--_she'll_ know." He
inverted it to see that it was empty, and the man who had not spoken
accepted the mission at a nod from his companion, whose social headship
the speech of the policeman seemed somehow to have taken for granted.
The sergeant watched him out of sight; then, the moment he had vanished,
said:--"Now I come to think of it, Cissy Tuttle that was here has
married a postman, and the young lady that's took it over may not know
my name." His speech had not the appearance of a sudden thought, and the
less so that he began to get rid of his oilskin incumbrance almost
before he had uttered it.
The understanding of what then happened needs a clear picture of the
exact position of things at this moment. The boat, held back by the
dipped oars, but steadied now and again by the hand of the sergeant on
the grating or ladder, lay uneasily between the wind and the current.
The man on the grating showed some unwillingness to lend the hand-up
that was asked for; and took exception, it seemed, to the safety of the
landing on any terms. "Maybe you want a dip in the river, master?" said
he. "It's no concern of mine. Only I don't care to take your weight on
this greasy bit of old iron. I'm best out of the water."
The sergeant paused, looked at the grating, which certainly sloped
outwards, then at the boat and at the ladder. "Catch hold!" said he.
But the other held back. "Why can't your mate there hand me the end of
that painter, and slue her round? That's easy! Won't take above a half a
minute, and save somebody a wet shirt. Tie her nose to the ring
yonder!--just bring you up oppo_site_ to where I'm standing! Think it
out, master."
The sergeant, however, seemed to have made up his mind in spite of the
reasonableness of this suggestion. For when the man rowing bow stooped
back and reached out for the painter--the course seemed the obvious and
natural one--he was stopped by his chief, who said rather tartly:--"You
take your orders from me, Cookson!" and then held out his hand as
before, saying:--"You're a tidy weight, my lad. _I_ shan't pull you
overboard."
He did, nevertheless, and it came about thus. The two men at the oars
saw the whole thing, and were clear in their account of it after.
Ibbetson, their sergeant, did _not_ take the hand that was proffered
him, but seized its wrist. It seemed to them that he made no attempt to
lift himself up from the boat; and the nearer one, pulling stroke, would
have it that Ibbetson even hooked the seat with his foot, as though to
get a purchase on the man's wrist that he held. Anyhow, the result was
the same. The man lost his footing under the strain, and pitched sheer
forward on his assailant; for the aggressive intention of the latter may
be taken as established beyond a doubt. As he fell, he struck out with
his left hand, landing on Ibbetson's mouth, and cutting off his last
words, an order, shouted to the rowers:--"Sheer off, and row for the
bridge ... I can ..." Both of them believed he would have said:--"I can
manage him by myself."
But nothing further passed. For the boat, not built to keep an even keel
with two strong men struggling together in the stern, lurched over,
shipping water the whole length of the counter. The rowers tried to obey
orders, the more readily--so they said after--that their chief seemed
quite a match for his man. There was a worse danger ahead, a barge
moored in the path, and they had to clear, one side or the other. The
best chance was outside, and they would have succeeded but for the cable
that held her. It just caught the bow oar, and the boat swung round, the
stroke being knocked down between the seats in his effort to back water
and keep her clear. Half-crippled already and at least one-third full of
water, she was in no trim to dodge the underdraw of the sloping bows of
an empty barge, at the worst hour of ebb-tide. The boy in the garden,
next door to The Pigeons, whom curiosity had kept on the watch, saw the
swerve off-shore; the men struggling in the stern; the collision with
the moorings; and the final wreck of the boat. Then she vanished behind
the barge, and was next seen, bottom-up, by children on the bridge over
the little creek three minutes lower down the stream, whose cries roused
those in hearing and brought help. When the man came back with the
whisky-flask, his mate had vanished, and the boat with its crew. If he
guessed what had passed, it was from the running and shouting on the
bank, and the boats that were putting off in haste; and then, well over
towards Hammersmith Bridge, that they reached their quarry and were
trying to right her on the water, possibly thinking to find some former
occupant shut in beneath. He did not wait to see the upshot; but,
pocketing the flask, got away unnoticed by anyone, all eyes being intent
upon the incident on the river.
The sergeant, Ibbetson, was drowned, and the facts narrated are taken
literally, or inferred, from what came out at the inquest. The theory
that recommended itself to account for his conduct was that he had
recognised a culprit whom he had known formerly, for whose apprehension
a reward had been offered, and had, without hesitation, formed a plan of
separating him from his companion--or companions, for who could say they
were alone?--and securing him in the boat, when no escape would have
been possible, as they could have made straight for the floating station
at Westminster. It was a daring idea, and might have succeeded but for
that mooring-cable.
The body of the sergeant showed marks of the severity of the struggle in
which he had been engaged. The two upper front teeth were loosened,
probably by the blow he received at the outset, and there were
finger-nail dents on the throat as from the grasp of a strangling hand.
That his opponent should have disengaged himself from his clutch was
matter of extreme surprise to all who had experienced submersion, and
knew its meaning. Even to those who have never been under water against
their will, the phrase "the grip of a drowning man" has a terribly
convincing sound. That this opponent rose to the surface alive, and
escaped, was barely entertained as a surmise, only to be dismissed as
incredible; and this improbability became even greater when his
companion was captured alone, a month later, in the commission of a
burglary at Castelnau, which--so it was supposed--the two had been
discussing just before the police-boat appeared. The two rowers were
rescued, one, a powerful swimmer, having kept the other afloat till the
arrival of help. At the inquest neither of these men seemed as much
concerned at Ibbetson's death as might have been expected, and both
condemned afterwards that officer's treacherous grip of the hand
extended to help him. Whatever he knew to his proposed prisoner's
disadvantage, there are niceties of honour in these matters--little
chivalries all should observe.
The only evidence towards establishing the identity of the man who had
disappeared was that of the stroke-oar, Simeon Rowe, the rescuer of his
companion. This man's version of Ibbetson's exclamation was "Thorney
Davenant!--I know you, my man!" At the time of the inquest, no
identification was made with any name whose owner was being sought by
the Police, so no one caught the clue it furnished. There may have been
slowness or laxity of investigation, but a sufficient excuse may lie in
the fact that Ibbetson certainly spoke the name wrong, or that his
hearer caught it wrong. The name was not Davenant, but Daverill. He was
the son of old Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps Court, called after his father,
and inheriting all his worst qualities. If Sergeant Ibbetson spoke truly
when he said "I know you!" to him, he was certainly entitled to a
suspension of opinion by those who condemned his ruse for this man's
capture.
Still, a code of honour is always respectable, and these two policemen
may have supposed that their mate knew no worse of this convict than
that he had redistributed some property--was what the first holder of
that property would have called a thief. One prefers to think that
Ibbetson knew of some less equivocal wickedness.
* * * * *
Perhaps this man, supposed to be drowned, would not have reappeared in
this story had it not been for one of the witnesses at the inquest, the
boy who overheard the conversation between him and his mate, before the
arrival of the police-boat.
"This boy," said the Coroner's clerk, who seemed to have an impression
that this was a State Prosecution, and that he represented the Crown,
"can give evidence as to a conversation between the"--he wanted to say
"the accused"; it would have sounded so well, but he stopped himself in
time--"between the man whose body has not been found, and"--here he
would have liked to say "an accomplice"--"and another person who has
eluded the ... that is to say, whom the police have, so far, failed to
identify ..."
"That's all right," said the Coroner. "That'll do. Boy's got something
he can tell us. What's your name, my man?"
"Wot use are you a-going to make of it?" said the boy. He did not appear
to be over twelve years old, but his assurance could not have been
greater had he been twelve score. A reporter put a dot on his paper,
which meant "Laughter, in which the Coroner joined, in a parenthesis."
An old woman who had accompanied the boy, as tutelary genius, held up a
warning finger at him. "Now, you Micky," said she, "you speak civil to
the gentleman and answer his questions accordin'." She then said to the
Coroner, as one qualified to explain the position:--"It's only his
manners, sir, and the boy has not a rebellious spirit being my
grandnephew." She utilised a lax structure of speech to introduce her
relationship to the witness. She was evidently proud of being related to
one, having probably met with few opportunities of distinction hitherto.
The witness, under the pressure at once of family influence and
constituted authority, appeared to give up the point. "'Ave it your own
way!" said he. "Michael Ragstroar."
"How am I to spell it?" said the clerk, without taking his pen out of
the ink, as though it would dry in the air.
"This ain't school!" said our young friend from Sapps Court, whom you
probably remember. Michael had absconded from his home, and sought that
of his great-aunt; the only person, said contemporary opinion, that had
a hounce of influence with him. It was not clear why such a confirmed
reprobate should quail before the moral force of a small old woman in a
mysteriously clean print-dress, and tortoise-shell spectacles she would
gladly have kept on while charing, only they always come off in the
pail. But he did, and when reproached by her for his needlessly defiant
attitude, took up a more conciliatory tone. "Carn't recollect, or
p'r'aps I'd tell yer," said he.
"Never mind the spelling!" said the Coroner, who had to preside at
another inquest at Kew very shortly. "Let's get the young man's
evidence." But Michael objected to giving evidence. Whereupon the
Coroner, perceiving his mistake, said: "Well, then, suppose we let it
alone for to-day. You may go home, Micky, and find out how your name's
spelt, against next time it's wanted. Where's the other boy that heard
what the men were saying? Call him."
"There warn't any other boy within half a mile," exclaimed Michael
indignantly. "I should have seen him. Think I've got no eyes? There
warn't another blooming bloke in sight."
"Didn't the other boy see several other men in the back-garden of the
ale-house?" said the Coroner. And the Inspector of Police had the
effrontery to reply: "Oh yes, three or four!" And then both of them
looked at Michael, and waited.
Michael's indignation passed all bounds, and betrayed him into the use
of language of which his great-aunt would have deemed him incapable. She
was that shocked, she never! The expressions were not Michael's own
vocabulary at all, but corruptions that had crept into his phraseology
from associations with other boys, chance acquaintances, who had evolved
them among themselves, nourishing them from the corruption of their own
hearts. As soon as Michael--deceived by the mendacious dialogue of the
Coroner and the Inspector, and under the impression that the particulars
he was giving, whether true or false, were not evidence--had told with
some colouring about the two men in the garden and what they said, the
old lady made a powerful effort to detain the Coroner to give him
particulars of Michael's parentage and education, and to exculpate
herself from any possible charge of neglecting her grandnephew, to whom
she was a second parent. In fact, had her niece Ann never married Daniel
Rackstraw, she and her--Ann, that is--would have done much better by
Michael and his sisters. Which left a false impression on her hearers'
minds, that Michael was an illegitimate son; whereas really she was only
dealing with his existence as rooted in the nature of things, and
certain to have come about without the intrusion of a male parent in the
family.
As for the details of his testimony, surrendered unconsciously as mere
facts, not evidence, there was little in them that has not been already
told. The conversation of the two men, as given in the text, was taken
from Michael's version, and he was the only hearer. But he only saw
their backs, except that when the struggle came off he caught sight of
the ex-convict's face for a moment. He would know him again if he saw
him any day of the week. Some days, he seemed to imply, were worse for
his powers of identification than others. It was unimportant, as both
the survivors of the accident had noted the man's face carefully enough,
considering that he was to them at first nothing beyond a chance
bystander. He wasn't a bad-looking man; that was clear. But he was
possibly not in very good drawing, as they agreed that he had a
peculiarity--his two halves didn't square. This no doubt referred to the
same thing Michael described by calling him "a sideways beggar."
The Coroner's Jury had some trouble to agree upon a verdict. "Death by
Misadventure" seemed wrong somehow. How could drowning with the
finger-nails of an adversary in his throat be accounted misadventure? No
doubt Abel died by misadventure, in a sense. But no other verdict seemed
possible, except Manslaughter by the person whom Ibbetson supposed this
man to be when he laid hands on him. And how if he was mistaken?
"Manslaughter against some person unknown" sounded well. Only if the
person was unknown, why Manslaughter? If Brown is ever so much justified
in dragging Smith under water by the honest belief that he is Jones, is
Smith guilty of anything but self-defence when he does his best to get
out of Brown's clutches? Moreover, the annals of life-saving from
drowning show that the only chance of success for the rescuer often
depends on whether the drowning man can be made insensible or
overpowered. Otherwise, death for both. If this unknown man was _not_
the object of Police interest he was supposed to have been taken for, he
might only have been doing his best to save the lives of both. In that
case, had the inquest been on both, the verdict must have been one that
would ascribe Justifiable Homicide to him and Manslaughter to Ibbetson.
For surely if the police-sergeant had been the survivor, and the other
man's body had been found to be that of some inoffensive citizen,
Ibbetson would have been tried for manslaughter. In the end a verdict
was agreed upon of Death by Drowning, which everybody knew as soon as it
was certain that Life was extinct.
Somewhat later Ibbetson was supposed to have taken him for a returned
convict, whose name was variously given, but who had been advertised for
as Thornton, one of his aliases; and in consequence of this discovery
the vigilance of the Police for the apprehension of the missing man,
under this name, was increased and the reward doubled. And this, in
spite of a universal inference that he was dead, and that his body was
flavouring whitebait below bridge. This did not interfere with a belief
on the part of the crew of the patrolling boat--known to Michael--owing
to a popular chant of boys of his own age--as "two blackbeetles and one
water-rat," that his corpse would float up one day near the place of his
disappearance. But their eyes looked for it in vain; and though the
companion with whom he was discussing the burglary to be executed at
Barn Elms was caught _in flagrante delicto_ and sent to Portland Island,
nothing was heard of him or known of his whereabouts.
Michael ended his stay with his great-aunt shortly afterwards, returning
home with a budget of legends founded on his waterside experience. As he
had a reputation for audacious falsehood without foundation, it is no
matter of surprise that the whole story of the water-rat's death and the
inquest were looked upon as exaggerations too outrageous for belief even
by the most credulous. Probably his version of the incidents, owing to
its rich substratum of the marvellous yet true, was much more accurate
than was usual with him when the marvellous depended on his ingenuity to
provide it. It was, however, roundly discredited in his own circle, and
nothing in it could have evoked recognition in Sapps Court even if the
name of the convict had reached the ears that knew it. For it was not
only wrongly reported but was still further distorted by Michael for
purposes of astonishment.
CHAPTER X
OF THE EARLDOM OF ANCESTER, AND ITS EARL'S COUNTESS'S OPINION OF
HIM. HOW HER SECOND DAUGHTER CAME OUT IN THE GARDEN. HOW SHE SAW A
TRESPASSER, WITH SUCH A NICE DOG! HE MUSTN'T BE SHOT, _COUTE QUE
COUTE_! A LITTLE STONE BRIDGE. A SLIT IN A DOG'S COLLAR. OLD
MICHAEL'S OBSTINACY. HOW GWENDOLEN RAN AWAY TO DRESS, AND WAS
UNSOCIABLE AT DINNER. THE VOICE OF A DOG IN TROUBLE. ACHILLES, AND
HIS RECOGNITION. HOW THEY FOLLOWED ACHILLES, AT HIS OWN REQUEST,
AND WHAT HE SHOWED THE WAY TO. BUT THE MAN WAS NOT DEAD
If a stranger from America or Australia could have been shown at a
glance all that went to make up the Earldom of Ancester, he would have
been deeply impressed. All the leagues of parkland, woodland, moorland,
farmland that were its inheritance would have impressed him, not because
of their area--because Americans and Australians are accustomed to mere
crude area in their own departments of the planet--but because of the
amazing amount of old-world History transacted within its limits; the
way the antecedent Earls meddled in it; their magnificent record of
treachery and bloodshed and murder; wholesale in battle, retail in less
showy, but perhaps even more interesting, private assassination;
fascinating cruelties and horrors unspeakable! They might have been
impressed also, though, of course, in a less degree, by the Earldom's
very creditable show of forbears who, at the risk of being
uninteresting, behaved with common decency, and did their duty in the
station to which God or Debrett had called them; not drawing the sword
to decide a dispute until they had tried one or two of the less popular
expedients, and slighting their obligations to the Melodrama of the
future. Which rightly looks for its supplies of copy to persons of high
birth and low principles.
The present Earl took after his less mediaeval ancestry; and though he
received the sanction of his wife, and of persons who knew about things,
it was always conceded to him with a certain tone of allowance made for
a simple and pastoral nature. In the vulgarest tongue it might have been
said that he would never cut a dash. In his wife's it was said that
really the Earl was one of the most admirable of men, only never
intended by Providence for the Lord-Lieutenancy of a County. He was
scarcely to blame, therefore, for his shortcomings in that position. It
could not rank as one to which God had called him, without imputing
instability, or an oversight, to his summoner. As a summons from
Debrett, there is no doubt he was not so attentive to it as he ought to
have been.
His own opinion about the intentions of Providence was that they had
been frustrated--by Debrett chiefly. If they had fructified he would
have been the Librarian of the Bodleian. Providence also had in view for
him a marvellous collection of violins, unlimited Chinese porcelain, and
some very choice samples of Italian majolica. But he would have been
left to the undisturbed enjoyment of his treasures. He could have passed
a peaceful life gloating over Pynsons and Caxtons, and Wynkyn de Wordes,
and Grolier binding, and Stradivarius, and Guarnerius, and Ming, and
Maestro Giorgio of Gubbio. But Debrett got wind of the intentions of
Providence, and clapped a coronet upon the head of their intended
_bénéficiaire_ without so much as with your leave or by your leave, and
there he was--an Earl! He had all that mere possessions could bestow,
but always with a sense that Debrett, round the corner, was keeping an
eye on him. He had to assuage that gentleman--or principle, or lexicon,
or analysis, whatever he is!--and he did it, though rather grudgingly,
to please his Countess, and from a general sense that when a duty is a
bore, it ought to be complied with. His Countess was the handsome lady
with the rings whom Dave Wardle had taken for a drive in her own
carriage.
This sidelight on the Earl is as much illumination as the story wants,
for the moment. The sidelight on the terrace of Ancester Towers, at the
end of a day in July following the winter of Dave's accident, was no
more than the Towers thought their due after standing out all day
against a grey sky, in a drift of warm, small rain that made oilskins
and mackintoshes an inevitable Purgatory inside; and beds of lakes, when
horizontal, outside. It was a rainbow-making gleam at the end of
thirty-six depressing hours, bursting through a cloud-rift in the South
with the exclamation--the Poet might have imagined--"Make the most of
me while you can; I shan't last."
To make the most of it was the clear duty of the owner of a golden head
of hair like that of Lady Gwendolen, the Earl's second daughter. So she
brought the head out into the rainbow dazzle, with the hair on it,
almost before the rain stopped; and, indeed, braved a shower of jewels
the rosebush at the terrace window drenched her with, coming out. What
did it matter?--when it was so hot in spite of the rain. Besides, India
muslin dries so quick. It isn't like woollen stuff.
If you could look back half a century and see Gwendolen on the terrace
then, you would not be grateful to any contemporary malicious enough to
murmur in your ear:--"Old Lady Blank, the octogenarian, who died last
week, was this girl then. So reflect upon what the conventions are quite
in earnest--for once--in calling your latter end." You would probably
dodge the subject, replying--for instance--"How funny! Why, it must have
taken twelve yards to make a skirt like that!" For these were the days
of crinolines; of hair in cabbage-nets, packed round rubber-inflations;
of what may be called proto-croquet, with hoops so large that no one
ever failed to get through, except you and me; the days when _Ah che la
morte_ was the last new tune, and Landseer and Mulready the last words
in Art. They were the days when there had been but one Great
Exhibition--think of it!--and the British Fleet could still get under
canvas. We, being an old fogy, would so much like to go back to those
days--to think of daguerreotypes as a stupendous triumph of Science,
balloons as indigenous to Cremorne, and table-turning as a nine-days'
wonder; in a word, to feel our biceps with satisfaction in an epoch when
wheels went slow, folk played tunes, and nobody had appendicitis. But we
can't!
However, it is those very days into which the story looks back and sees
this girl with the golden hair, who has been waiting in that
rainbow-glory fifty years ago for it to go on and say what it may of
what followed. She comes out on the terrace through the high
middle-window that opens on it, and now she stands in the blinding
gleam, shading her eyes with her hand. It is late in July, and one may
listen for a blackbird's note in vain. That song in the ash that drips a
diamond-shower on the soaked lawn, whenever the wind breathes, may still
be a thrush; his last song, perhaps, about his second family, before he
retires for the season. The year we thought would last us out so well,
for all we wished to do in it, will fail us at our need, and we shall
find that the summer we thought was Spring's success will be Autumn,
much too soon, as usual. Over half a century of years have passed since
then, and each has played off its trick upon us. Each Spring has said to
us:--"Now is your time for life. Live!" and each Summer has jilted us
and left us to be consoled by Autumn, a Job's comforter who only
says:--"Make the best of me while you can, for close upon my heels is
Winter."
You can still see the terrace much as this young woman, Lady Gwendolen
Rivers--that was her name--saw it on that July evening, provided always
that you choose one with such another rainbow. There is not much garden
between it and the Park, which goes on for miles, and begins at the sunk
fence over yonder. They are long miles too, and no stint; and it is an
hour's walk from the great gate to the house, unless you run; so says
the host of the Rivers Arms, which is ten minutes from the gate. You can
lose yourself in this park, and there are red-deer as well as
fallow-deer; and what is more, wild cattle who are dangerous, and who
have lived on as a race from the days of Welsh Home Rule, and know
nothing about London or English History. Even so in the Transvaal it is
said that some English scouts came upon a peaceful valley with a
settlement of Dutch farmers therein, who had to be told about the War to
check their embarrassing hospitality. The parallel fails, however, for
the wild white cattle of Ancester Park paw the earth up and charge, when
they see strangers. The railway had to go round another way to keep
their little scrap of ancient forest intact; for the family at the
Castle has always taken the part of the bulls against all comers. Little
does Urus know how superficial, how skin-deep, his loneliness has
become--that he is really under tutelage unawares, and even
surreptitiously helped to supplies of forage in seasons of dearth! Will
his race linger on and outlive the race of Man when that biped has
shelled and torpedoed and dynamited himself out of existence? And will
they then fill the newest New Forest that will have covered the
smokeless land, with the descendants of the herds that Caesar's troops
found in the Hercynian wilds? They are a fascinating subject for a
wandering pen, but the one that writes this must not be led away from
Lady Gwendolen on the terrace that looks across this cramped inheritance
of beech and bracken. If she could always look like what the level sun
makes her now, in the heart of a rainbow, few things the world can show
would outbid her right to a record, or make the penning of it harder.
For just at this moment she looks simply beautiful beyond belief. It is
not all the doing of the sunrays, for she is a fine sample of nineteen,
of a type which has kindled enthusiasm since the comparatively recent
incursion of William the Norman, and will continue to do so till finally
dynamited out of existence, _ut supra_.
She is looking out under her hand--to make sight possible against the
blaze--at a man who is plodding across the nearest opening in the
woodland. How drenched he must be! What can possess him, to choose a day
like this to go afoot through an undergrowth of bracken a day's
raindrift has left water-charged? She knows well what a deluge meets him
at every step, and watches him, pressing through it as one who has felt
the worst pure water can do, and is reckless. She watches him into a
clear glade, with a sense of relief on his behalf. She does not feel
officially called upon to resent a stranger with a dog--in a territory
sacred to game!--for the half-overgrown track he seems to have followed
is a world of fallow-deer and pheasants. She is the daughter of the
house, and trespassers are the concern of Stephen Solmes the head
gamekeeper.
The trespasser seems at a loss which way to go, and wavers this way and
that. His dog stands at his feet looking up at him, wagging a slow tail;
deferentially offering no suggestion, but ready with advice if called
upon. The young lady's thought is:--"Why can't he let that sweet dog
settle it for him? _He_ would find the way." Because she is sure of the
sweetness of that collie, even at this distance. Ultimately the
trespasser leaves the matter to the dog, who appears gratified and
starts straight for where she stands. Dogs always do, says she to
herself. But there is the haw-haw fence between them.
The dog stops. Not because of the obstacle--what does he care for
obstacles?--but because of the courtesies of life. The man that made
this sunk fence did it to intercept any stray collie in the parkland
from scouring across into the terraced garden, even to inaugurate
communications between a strange young lady and the noblest of God's
creatures, his owner. That is the dog's view. So he stands where the
fence has stopped him, a beseeching explanatory look in his pathetic
eyes; and a silky tail, that is nearly dry already, marking time slowly.
A movement of permission would bring him across into the garden; but
then--is he not too wet? Young Lady Gwendolen says "No, dear!"
regretfully, and shakes her head as though he would understand the
negative. Perhaps he does, for he trots back to his master, who,
however--it must be admitted--has whistled for him.
The pedestrian turns to go, but sees the lady well, though not very near
her yet. She knows he sees her, as he raises his hat. She has an
impression of his personality from the action; which, it may be, guides
her conduct in what follows.
He seems to have made up his mind to avoid the house, taking a visible
path which skirts it, and possibly to strike away from it into the wider
parkland, over yonder where the great oaks are. He is soon lost in a
hazel coppice.
Then she thinks. That dog will be shot if Solmes catches sight of it.
She knows old Stephen. Oh, for but one word with the dog's master! It
might just make the whole difference.
She does not think long; in fact, there is no time to lose. The man and
the dog must pass over Arthur's Bridge if they follow the path. She can
intercept them there by taking a short cut through the Trings; a name
with a forgotten origin, which hugs the spot unaccountably. "I wonder
what a tring was, and when" says Gwendolen to herself, between those
unsolved riddles and the bridge.
The bridge is a little stone bridge, just wide enough for a chaise to go
through gently. Gwendolen has soaked her shoes to reach it. Still, she
_must_ save that dog from the Ranger's gun at any cost. A fig for the
wet! She has to dress for dinner--indeed, her maid is waiting for her
now--and dry stockings will be a negligible factor in that great total.
There comes the pedestrian round by Swayne's Oak--another name whose
origin no man knows.
The dog catches sight of her, and is off like a shot, his master trying
vainly to whistle him back. The young lady is quite at ease--_she_ is
not afraid of dogs! She even laughs at this one's demonstrative salute,
which leaves a paw-mark on either shoulder. For dogs do not scruple to
kiss those they love, without making compliments.
His master is apologetic, coming up with a quickened pace. At a rebuke
from him the collie becomes apologetic too; would be glad to explain,
but is handicapped by language. He is, however, all repentance, and
falls back behind his master, leaving matters in his hands. At the
least--though the way of doing it may have been crude--he has brought
about an introduction, of a sort.
There is no intrusive wish on the man's part to take undue advantage of
it. His speech, "Achilles means well; it is only his cordiality," seems
to express the speaker's feeling that somehow he is certain to be
understood. His addendum--"I am really as sorry as I can be, all the
same"--may be credited to ceremonial courtesy, flavoured with
contrition. His wind-up has a sort of laugh behind it:--"Particularly
because I have no business in this part of the Park at all. I can only
remedy that by my absence."
"You will promise me one thing, if you please...."
"Yes--whatever you wish."
"Lead your dog till you are outside the Park. If he is seen he may be
shot. I could not bear that that dog should be shot." Something in the
man's tone and manner has made it safe for the girl to overstep the
boundaries of chance speech to an utter stranger.
He has no right--that he feels--to presume upon this semi-confidence of
an impulsive girl, whoever she is. True, her beauty in that last glory
of the sunset puts resolution to the test. But he _has_ no right, and
there's an end on't! "I will tie Achilles up," he says. "I should not
like him to be shot."
"Oh!--is he Achilles?"
"His mother was Thetis."
"Then, of course, he is Achilles." At this point the boundaries of
strangership seem insistent. After all, this man may be Tom or Dick or
Harry. "You will excuse my speaking to you," says the young lady. "I had
no one to send, and I saw you from the terrace. It was for the dog's
sake."
In his chivalrous determination not to overdraw the blank cheque she has
signed for him unawares, the stranger conceives that a few words of dry
apology will meet the case, and leave him to go on his way. So, though
powerfully ignoring the fact that that outcome will be an unwelcome one,
he replies:--"I quite understand, and I am sincerely grateful for your
caution." He gets at a dog-chain in the pocket of his waterproof
overcoat, and at the click of it Achilles comes to be tied up. As he
fastens the clasp to its collar, he adds:--"I should not have let him
run loose like this, only that I am so sure of him. He is town-bred and
a stranger to the chase. He can collect sheep, owing to his ancestry;
but he never does it now, because he has been forbidden." While he
speaks these last words he is examining something in the dog's leather
collar. "It will hold, I think," says he. "A cut in the strap--it looks
like." Then this oddly befallen colloquy ends and each gives the other a
dry good-evening. The young lady's last sight of that acquaintance of
five minutes shows him endeavouring to persuade the dog not to drag on
his chain. For Achilles, for some dog-reason man will never know, is no
sooner leashed than he makes restraint necessary by pulling against it
with all his might.
"I hope that collar won't break," says the young lady as she goes back
to dress for dinner. The sun's gleam is dead, and the black cloud-bank
that hides it now is the rain that is coming soon. See!--it has begun
already.
* * * * *
Old Mrs. Solmes at the Ranger's Lodge, a mile distant, said to her old
husband:--"Thou'rt a bad ma-an, Stephen, to leave thy goon about
lwoaded, and the vary yoong boy handy to any mischief. Can'st thou not
bide till there coom time for the lwoadin' of it?"
Said old Stephen sharply, "Gwun, wench? There be no _gwun_. 'Tis a
roifle! And as fower the little Seth, yander staaple where it hangs is
well up beyond the reach of un. Let a' be, Granny!"
The old woman, in whom grandmotherhood had overweighted all other
qualities, by reason of little Seth's numerous first cousins, made no
reply, but looked uneasily at the rifle on the wall. Little Seth--her
appropriated grandchild, both his parents being dead--was too small at
present to do any great harm to anyone but himself; but the time might
come. He was credited with having swallowed an inch-brad, without
visible inconvenience; and there was a threatening appearance in his eye
as of one who would very soon climb up everywhere, fall off everything,
appropriate the forbidden, break the frangible, and, in short, behave
as--according to his grandmother--his father had done before him.
His old grandfather, who had a combative though not unamiable
disposition, took down the rifle as an act of self-assertion, and walked
out into the twilight with it on his shoulder. It was simply a
contradictious action, as there was no warranty for it in vert and
venison. But he had to garnish his action with an appearance of
plausibility, and nothing suggested itself. The only course open to him
was to get away out of sight, with implication of a purpose vaguely
involving fire-arms. A short turn in the oak-wood--as far, perhaps, as
Drews Thurrock--would fortify his position, without committing him to
details: he could make secrecy about them a point of discipline. He
walked away over the grassland, a fine, upright old figure; in whose
broad shoulders, seen from behind, an insight short of clairvoyance
might have detected what is called _temper_--meaning a want of it. He
vanished into the oak-wood, where the Druid's Stone attests the place of
sacrifice, human or otherwise.
Some few minutes later the echoes of a rifle-shot, unmistakable alike
for that of shot-gun or revolver, circled the belt of hills that looks
on Ancester Towers, and died at Grantley Thorpe. Old Stephen, when he
reappeared at the Lodge half an hour later, could explain his share in
this with only a mixed satisfaction. For though his need of his
rifle--whether real or not--had justified its readiness for use, he had
failed as a marksman; the stray dog he fired at, after vanishing in a
copse for a few minutes, having scoured away in a long detour; as he
judged, making for the Castle.
"And a rare good hap for thee, husband!" said the old woman when she
heard this. "Whatever has gotten thy wits, ma'an, to win out and draa'
trigger on a pet tyke of some visitor lady at the Too'ers?"
"Will ye be tellun me this, and tellun me that, Keziah? I tell 'ee one
thing, wench, it be no consarn o' mine whose dog be run loose in th'
Park. Be they the Queen's own, my orders say shoot un! Do'ant thee know
next month be August?" Nevertheless, the old man was not altogether
sorry that he had missed. He might have been called over the coals for
killing a dog-visitor to the Towers. He chose to affect regret for
discipline's sake, and alleged that the dog had escaped into the wood
only because he had no second cartridge. This was absurd. In these days
of quick-shooters it might have been otherwise. In those, the only
abominations of the sort were Colonel Colt's revolvers; and _they_ were
a great novelty, opening up a new era in murder.
The truth was that this view of the culprit's identity had dawned on him
as soon as he got a second view of the dog visibly making for the
Castle--almost too far in any case for a shot at anything smaller than a
doe--and he would probably have held his hand for both reasons even if a
reload had been possible.
* * * * *
Lady Gwendolen, treasuring in her heart a tale of adventure--however
trivial--to tell at the dinner-table in the evening, submitted herself
to be prepared for that function. She seemed absent in mind; and
Lutwyche her maid, observing this, skipped intermediate reasonings and
straightway hoped that the cause of this absence of mind had come over
with the Conqueror and had sixty thousand a year. Meanwhile she wanted
to know which dress, my lady, this evening?--and got no answer. Her
ladyship was listening to something at a distance; or, rather, having
heard something at a distance, was listening for a repetition of it. "I
wonder what that can have been?" said she. For fire-arms in July are
torpid mostly, and this was a gunshot somewhere.
"They are firing at the Butts at Stamford Norton, my lady," said
Lutwyche; who always knew things, sometimes rightly--sometimes wrongly.
This time, the latter.
"Then the wind must have gone round. Besides, it would come again.
Listen!" Thus her ladyship, and both listened. But nothing came again.
Lady Gwendolen was as beautiful as usual that evening, but contrary to
custom silent and _distraite_. She did not tell the story of the Man in
the Park and his dog. She kept it to herself. She was unresponsive to
the visible devotion of a Duke's eldest son, who came up to Lutwyche's
standard in all particulars. She did not even rise to the enthusiasm of
a very old family friend, the great surgeon Sir Coupland Merridew, about
the view from his window across the Park, although each had seen the
same sunset effect. She only said:--"Oh--have they put you in the
Traveller's Room, Sir Coupland? Yes--the view is very fine!" and became
absent again. She retired early, asking to be excused on the score of
fatigue; not, however, seriously resenting her mother's passing
reference to a nursery rhyme about Sleepy-head, whose friends kept late
hours, nor her "Why, child, you've had nothing to tire you!" She was
asleep in time to avoid the sound of a dog whining, wailing, protesting
vainly, with a great wrong on his soul, not to be told for want of
language.
She woke with a start very early, to identify this disturbance with
something she lost in a dream, past recovery, owing to this sudden
awakening. She had her hand on the bell-rope at her bed's head, and had
all but pulled it before she identified the blaze of light in her room
as the exordium of the new day. The joy of the swallows at the dawn was
musical in the ivy round her window, open through the warm night; and
the turtle-doves had much to say, and were saying it, in the world of
leafage out beyond. But there was no joy in the persistent voice of that
dog, and no surmise of its hearer explained it.
She found her feet, and shoes to put them in, before she was clear about
her own intentions; then in all haste got herself into as much clothing
as would cover the risks of meeting the few early risers possible at
such an hour--it could but be some chance groom or that young
gardener--and, opening her door with thief-like stealth, stole out
through the stillness night had left behind, past the doors of sleepers
who were losing the sweetest of the day. So she thought--so we all
think--when some chance gives us precious hours that others are wasting
in stupid sleep. But even _she_ would not have risen but for that
plaintive intermittent wail and a growing construction of a cause for
it--all fanciful perhaps--that her uneasy mind would still be at work
upon. She _must_ find out the story of it. More sleep now was absurd.
Two bolts and a chain--not insuperable obstacles--and she was free of
the side-garden. An early riser--the one she had foreseen, a young
gardener she knew--with an empty basket to hold flowers for the still
sleeping household to refresh the house with in an hour, and its
bed-bound sluggards in two or three, was astir and touched a respectful
cap with some inner misgiving that this unwonted vision was a ghost. But
he showed a fine discipline, and called it "My lady" with presence of
mind. Ghost or no, that was safe! "What _is_ that dog, Oliver?" said the
vision.
The question made all clear. The answer was speculative. "Happen it
might be his lordship's dog that came yesterday--feeling strange in a
strange place belike?"
"No dog came yesterday. Lord Cumberworld hasn't a dog. I _must_ know.
Where is it?"
Oliver was not actor enough not to show that he was concealing
wonderment at the young lady's vehemence. His eyes remained wide open in
token thereof.
"In the stables, by the sound of it, my lady," was his answer.
His lady turned without a word, going straight for the stables; and he
followed when, recollecting him, she looked back to say, "Yes--come!"
Grooms are early risers in a well-kept stable. There is always something
to be done, involving pails, or straps, or cloths, or barrows, or
brushes, even at five in the morning in July. When the young gardener,
running on ahead, jangled at the side-gate yard-bell, more than one pair
of feet was on the move within; and there was the cry of the dog, sure
enough, almost articulate with keen distress about some unknown wrong.
"What _is_ the dog, Archibald?--what _is_ the dog?" The speaker was too
anxious for the answer to frame her question squarely. But the old
Scotch groom understood. "Wha can tell that?" says he. "He's just
stra'ad away from his home, or lost the track of a new maister. They do,
ye ken, even the collies on the hillsides. Will your ladyship see him?"
"Yes--yes! That is what I came for. Let me." A younger groom, awaiting
this instruction, goes for the dog, whose clamour has increased tenfold,
becoming almost frenzy when he sees his friend of the day before; for he
is Achilles beyond a doubt. Achilles, mad with joy--or is it unendurable
distress?--or both?
"Your leddyship will have seen him before, doubtless," says old
Archibald. He does not say, but means:--"We are puzzled, but submissive,
and look forward to enlightenment."
"Let him go--yes, _I_ know him!--don't hold him. Oh, Achilles, you
darling dog--it _is_ you!... Yes--yes--let him go--he'll be all
right.... Yes, dear, you _shall_ kiss me as much as you like." Thia was
in response to a tremendous accolade, after which the dog crouched
humbly at his idol's feet; whimpering a little still, beneath his
breath, about something he could not say. She for her part caressed and
soothed the frightened creature, asking the while for information about
the manner of his appearance the night before.
It seemed that on the previous evening about eight o'clock he had been
found in the Park just outside the door of the walled garden south of
the Castle, as though he was seeking to follow someone who had passed
through. That at least was the impression of Margery, a kitchen-maid,
whom inquiry showed to have been the source of the first person plural
in the narrative of Tom Kettering, the young groom, who had come upon
the dog crouched against this door; and, judging him to be in danger in
the open Park, had brought him home to the stables for security.
How had the collie behaved when brought up to the stable? Well--he had
been fair quiet--only that he was always for going out after any who
were leaving, and always "wakeriff, panting, and watching like," till
he, Tom Kettering, tied him up for the night. And then he started crying
and kept on at it till they turned out, maybe half an hour since.
"He has not got his own collar," said the young lady suddenly. "Where is
his own collar?"
"He had ne'er a one on his neck when I coom upon him," says Tom. "So we
putten this one on for a makeshift."
"It's mair than leekly, my lady,"--thus old Archibald--"that he will
have slipped from out his ain by reason of eempairfect workmanship of
the clasp. Ye'll ken there's a many cheap collars sold...." The old boy
is embarking on a lecture on collar-structure, which, however, he is not
allowed to finish. The young lady interrupts.
"I saw his collar," says she, "and it was _not_ a collar like
this"--that is, a metal one with a hasp--"it was a strap with a buckle,
and his master said there was a cut in it. That was why it broke." Then,
seeing the curiosity on the faces of her hearers, who would have thought
it rather presumptuous to ask for an explanation, she volunteers a short
one ending with:--"The question is now, how can we get him back to his
master?" It never crossed her mind that any evil hap had come about.
After all, the dog's excitement and distress were no more than his
separation from his owner and his strange surroundings might have
brought about in any case. The whole thing was natural enough without
assuming disaster, especially as seen by the light of that cut in the
strap. The dog was a town-bred dog, and once out of his master's sight,
might get demoralised and all astray.
No active step for restoring Achilles to his owner seeming practicable,
nothing was left but to await the action that gentleman was sure to
adopt to make his loss known. Obviously the only course open to us now
was to take good care of the wanderer, and keep an ear on the alert for
news of his owner's identity. All seemed to agree to this, except
Achilles.
During the brief consultation the young lady had taken a seat on a clean
truss of hay, partly from an impulse most of us share, to sit or lie on
fresh hay whenever practicable; partly to promote communion with the
dog, who crouched at her feet worshipping, not quite with the
open-mouthed, loose-tongued joy one knows so well in a perfectly
contented dog, but now and again half-uttering a stifled sound--a sound
that might have ended in a wail. When, the point seeming established
that no further step could be taken at present, Lady Gwendolen rose to
depart, a sudden frenzy seized Achilles. There is nothing more pathetic
than a dog's effort to communicate his meaning--clear to him as to a
man--and his inability to do it for want of speech.
"You darling dog!" said Gwendolen. "What can it be he wants? Leave him
alone and let us see.... No--don't touch his chain!" For Achilles,
crouched one moment at her feet, the next leaping suddenly away, seemed
like to go mad with distress.
The young groom Tom said something with bated breath, as not presuming
to advise too loud. His mistress caught his meaning, if not his words.
"What!"--she spoke suddenly--"knows where he is--his master?" The
thought struck a cold chill to her heart. It could only mean some mishap
to the man of yesterday. What sort of mishap?
Some understanding seems to pass between the four men--Archibald, the
two young grooms, and the gardener--something they will not speak of
direct to her ladyship. "What?--what's that?" says she, impatient of
their scrupulousness towards her sheltered inexperience of calamity.
"Tell me straight out!"
Old Archibald takes upon himself, as senior, to answer her question. "I
wouldna' set up to judge, my lady, for my ain part. But the lads are all
of one mind--just to follow on the dog's lead, for what may come o't."
Then he is going on "Ye ken maybe the mon might fall and be ill able to
move...." when he is caught up sharp by the girl's "Or be killed.
Yes--follow the dog." Why should she be kept from the hearing of a
mishap to this stranger, even of his death?
Old Stephen at the Lodge saw the party and came out in haste. He had his
story to tell, and told it as one who had no blame for his own share in
it. Why should he have any? He had only carried out his orders.
Yes--that was the dog he drew trigger on. He could not be mistaken on
that point.
"And you fired on the dog to kill it," says the young lady, flashing out
into anger.
The old man stands his ground. "I had my orders, my lady," says he. "If
I caught sight of e'er a dog unled--to shoot un."
"The man he belonged to--did you not see him?"
"No ma'an coom in my sight. Had I seen a ma'an, I would have wa'arned
and cautioned him to keep to the high road, not to bring his dog inside
o' the parkland. No--no--there was ne'er a ma'an, my lady." He goes on,
very slightly exaggerating the time that passed between his shot at the
dog and its reappearance, apparently going back to the Castle. He rather
makes a merit of not having fired again from a misgiving that the dog's
owner might be there on a visit. Drews Thurrock, he says, is where he
lost sight of the dog, and that is where Achilles seems bent on going.
Drews Thurrock is a long half-mile beyond the Keeper's Lodge in Ancester
Park, and the Lodge is a long half-mile from the Towers. Still, if it
was reasonable to follow the dog at all, where would be the sense of
holding back or flagging till he should waver in what seemed assurance
of his purpose. No--no! What he was making for might be five miles off,
for all that the party that followed him knew. But trust in the
creature's instinct grew stronger each time he turned and waited for
their approach, then scoured on as soon as it amounted to a pledge that
he would not be deserted. There was no faltering on his part.
The river, little more than a brook at Arthur's Bridge, is wide enough
here to deserve its name. The grove of oaks which one sees from the
Ranger's Lodge hides the water from view. But Gwendolen has it in her
mind, and with it a fear that the dog's owner will be found drowned. It
was there that her brother Frank died four years since, and was found in
the deep pool above the stepping-stones, caught in a tangle of weed and
hidden, after two days' search for him far and wide. If that is to be
the story we shall know, this time, by the dog's stopping there.
Therefore none would hint at an abandonment of the search having come
thus far, even were he of the mind to run counter to the wish of the
young lady from the Castle. None dares to do this, and the party
follows her across the stretch of gorse and bracken called the Warren to
the wood beyond. There the dog has stopped, waiting eagerly, showing by
half-starts and returns that he knows he would be lost to sight if he
were too quick afoot. For the wood is dark in front of him and the
boughs hang low.
"Nigh enough to where I set my eye on him at the first of it, last
evening," says old Stephen. He makes no reference to the affair of the
gunshot. Better forgotten perhaps!
But he is to remember that gunshot, many a wakeful night. For the
forecast of a mishap in that fatal pool is soon to be dissipated. As the
party draws nearer the dog runs back in his eagerness, then forward
again. And then Lady Gwendolen follows him into the wood, and the men
follow her in silence. Each has some anticipation in his mind--a thing
to be silent about.
There is a dip in the ground ahead, behind which Achilles disappears.
Another moment and he is back again, crying wildly with excitement. The
girl quickens a pace that has flagged on the rising ground; for they
have come quickly. And now she stands on the edge of a buttress-wall
that was once the boundary--so says tradition--of an amphitheatre of
sacrifice. Twenty yards on yonder is the Druids' altar, or the top of
it. For the ground has climbed up stone and wall for fifteen hundred
years, and the moss is deep on both; rich with a green no dye can rival,
for the soaking of yesterday's rain is on it still. But she can see
nothing for the moment, for the dog has leapt the wall and vanished.
"'Tis down below, my lady--beneath the wall." It is the young gardener
who speaks. The others have seen what he sees, but are shy of speech. He
has more claim than they to the position of a friend, after so many
conferences with her ladyship over roots and bulbs this year and last.
He repeats his speech lest she should not have understood him.
"Then quick!" says she. And all make for the nearest way down the wall
and through the fern and bramble.
What the young gardener spoke of is a man's body, seeming dead. No doubt
of his identity, for the dog sits by him motionless, waiting. _His_ part
is finished.
Now that the thing is known and may be faced without disguise the men
are all activity. Knives are out cutting away rebellious thorny stems
that will not keep down for trampling, and a lane is made through the
bush that keeps us from the body, while minutes that seem hours elapse.
That will do now. Bring him out, gently.
Shot through the head--is that it? Is there to be no hope? The girl's
heart stands still as old Stephen stoops down to examine the head, where
the blood is that has clotted all the hair and beard and run to a pool
in the bracken and leaked away--who can say how plentifully?--into a
cleft in the loose stones fallen from the wall. The old keeper is in no
trim for his task--one that calls for a cool eye and a steady
finger-touch. For it is he that has done this, and the white face and
lifeless eye are saying to him that he has slain a man. He has too much
at stake for us to accept his statement that the wound on the temple is
no bullet-hole in the skull, but good for profuse loss of blood for all
that. He has seen such a wound before, he says. But then his wish for a
wound still holding out some hope of life may have fathered this
thought, and even a false memory of his experience. Perhaps he is right,
though, in one thing. If the body is lifted and carried, even up to the
lodge, the blood may break out again. Leave him where he is till the
doctor comes.
For, at the first sight of the body, the young groom was off like a shot
to harness up the grey in the dog-cart, a combination favouring speed,
and drive his hardest to Grantley Thorpe for Dr. Nash, the nearest
medical resource. He is gone before the young lady, who knows of one
still nearer, can be alive to his action, or to anything but the white
face and lifeless hand Achilles licks in vain.
Then, a moment later, she is aware of what has been done, and
exclaims:--"Oh dear!--why did you send him? Dr. Merridew is at the
Castle." For she knew Sir Coupland before he had his knighthood. Thereon
the other groom is starting to summon him, but she stops him. She will
go herself; then the great man will be sure to come at once.
* * * * *
Sir Coupland Ellicott Merridew, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.P., etc.--a
whole alphabet of them--was enjoying this moment of the first unalloyed
holiday he had had for two years, by lying in bed till nine o'clock. If
it made him too late for the collective breakfast in the new
dining-room--late Jacobean--he had only to ring for a private subsection
for himself. He had had a small cup of coffee at eight, and was
congratulating himself on it, and was now absolutely in a position not
to give any consideration to anything whatever.
But cruel Destiny said No!--he was not to round off his long night's
rest with a neat peroration. He was interrupted in the middle of it by
what seemed, in his dream-world, just reached, the loud crack of a bone
that disintegrated under pressure; but that when he woke was clearly a
stone flung at his window. What a capital instance of dream-celerity,
thought he! Fancy the first half of that sound having conjured up the
operating-theatre at University College Hospital, fifteen years ago, and
a room full of intent faces he knew well, and enough of the second half
being available for him to identify it as--probably--the _poltergeist_
that infested that part of the house. Perhaps, if he took no notice, the
_poltergeist_ would be discouraged and subside. Anyhow, he wouldn't
encourage it.
But the sound came again, and the voice surely of Gwendolen, his very
great friend, with panic in it, and breathlessness as of a voice-reft
runner. He was out of bed in twenty, dressing-gowned in forty, at the
window in fifty, seconds. Not a minute lost!
"What's all that?... A man shot! All right, I'll come."
"Oh, do! It's so dreadful. Stephen Solmes shot him by mistake for a dog
... at least, I'll tell you directly."
"All right. I'll come now." And in less than half an hour the speaker is
kneeling by the body on the grass; and those who found it, with others
who have gathered round even in this solitude, are waiting for the first
authoritative word of possible hope. Not despair, with a look like that
on the face of a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.
"There is a little blood coming still. Wait till I have stopped it and
I'll tell you." He stops it somehow with the aid of a miraculous little
morocco affair, scarcely bigger than a card-case. He never leaves home
without it. Then he looks up at the anxious, beautiful face of the girl
who stoops close by, holding a dog back. "He is not dead," says he.
"That is all I can say. He must be moved as little as possible, but got
to a bed--somewhere. Is that his dog?"
"Yes. This is Achilles."
"How do you know it is Achilles?"
"I'll tell you directly. _He_ told me his name yesterday." She nods
towards the motionless figure on the turf. It is not a corpse yet; that
is all that can be said, so far.
CHAPTER XI
THE HON. PERCIVAL PELLEW AND MISS CONSTANCE SMITH-DICKENSON, WHOSE
BLOOM HAD GONE OFF. OLD MAIDS WERE TWENTY-EIGHT, THENADAYS. HOW THE
TRAGEDY CAME OUT, AND MR. PELLEW TALKED IT OVER WITH MISS
SMITH-DICKENSON, ALTHOUGH HER BLOOM REMAINED OFF. WHO THE SHOT MAN
WAS. OF MR. PELLEW's CAUTION, AND A DARK GREEN FRITILLARY. WHAT YOU
CAN DO AND CAN'T DO, WHEN YOU ARE A LADY AND GENTLEMAN
At the Towers, in those days, there was always breakfast, but very few
people came down to it. In saying this the story accepts the phraseology
of the household, which must have known. Norbury the butler, for
instance, who used the expression to the Hon. Percival Pellew, a guest
who at half-past nine o'clock that morning expressed surprise at finding
himself the only respondent to The Bell. It was the Mr. Pellew mentioned
before, a Member of Parliament whose humorous speeches always commanded
a hearing, even when he knew nothing about the subject under discussion;
which, indeed, was very frequently the case.
Perhaps it was to keep his hand in that he adopted a tone of serious
chaff to Mr. Norbury, such as some people think a well-chosen one
towards children, to their great embarrassment. He replied to that most
responsible of butlers with some pomposity of manner. "The question
before the house," said he--and paused to enjoy a perversion of
speech--"the question before the house comes down to breakfast I take to
be this:--Is it breakfast at all till somebody has eaten it?"
"I could not say, sir." Mr. Norbury's manner is dignified, deferential,
and dry. More serious than need be perhaps.
The Hon. Percival is not good at insight, and sees nothing of this. "It
certainly appears to me," he says, taking his time over it, "that until
breakfast has broken someone's fast, or someone has broken his own at
the expense of breakfast.... What's that?"
"One of the ladies coming down, sir." Mr. Norbury would not, in the
ordinary way of business, have mentioned this fact, but it had given him
a resource against a pleasantry he found distasteful. Of course, _he_
knew the event of the morning. Yet he could not say to the
gentleman:--"A truce to jocularity. A man was shot dead half a mile off
last night, and the body has been taken to the Keeper's Lodge."
The lady coming downstairs was Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson, also
uninformed about the tragedy. She had made her first appearance
yesterday afternoon, and had looked rather well in a pink-figured muslin
at dinner. The interchanges between this lady and the Hon. Percival,
referring chiefly to the fact that no one else was down, seemed to have
no interest for Mr. Norbury; who, however, noted that no new topic had
dawned upon the conversation when he returned from a revision of the
breakfast-table. The fact was that the Hon. Percival had detected in
Miss Dickenson a fossil, and was feeling ashamed of a transient interest
in her last night, when she had shown insight, under the
guidance--suppose we say--of champagne. Her bloom had gone off, too, in
a strange way, and bloom was a _sine qua non_ to this gentleman. She for
her part was conscious of a chill having come between them, she having
retired to rest the evening before with a refreshing sensation that all
was not over--could not be--when so agreeable a man could show her such
marked attention. That was all she would endorse of a very temperate
Vanity's suggestions, mentally crossing out an s at the end of
"attention." If you have studied the niceties of the subject, you will
know how much that letter would have meant.
A single lady of a particular type gets used to this sort of thing. But
her proper pride has to be kept under steam, like a salvage-tug in
harbour when there is a full gale in the Channel. However, she is better
off than her great-great-aunts, who were exposed to what was described
as _satire_. Nowadays, presumably, Man is not the treasure he was, for a
good many women seem to scrat on cheerfully enough without him. Or is it
that in those days he was the only person employed on his own valuation?
In the period of this story--that is to say, when our present veterans
were schoolboys--the air was clearing a little. But the smell of the
recent Georgian era hung about. There was still a fixed period in
women's lives when they suddenly assumed a new identity--became old
maids and were expected to dress the part. It was twenty-eight, to the
best of our recollection. Therefore Miss Smith-Dickenson, who was
thirty-eight if she was a minute, became a convicted impostor in the
eyes of the Hon. Percival, when, about ten hours after he had said to
himself that she was not a bad figure of a woman and that some of her
remarks were racy, he perceived that she was going off; that her
complexion didn't bear the daylight; that she wouldn't wash; that she
was probably a favourite with her own sex, and, broadly speaking, an
Intelligent Person. "Never do at all!" said the Hon. Percival to
himself. And Space may have asked "What for?" But nobody answered.
On the other hand, the lady perceived, in time, that the gentleman
looked ten years older by daylight; that no one could call him corpulent
exactly; that he might be heavy on hand, only perhaps he wanted his
breakfast--men did; that the Pall Mall and Piccadilly type of man very
soon palled, and that, in short, that steam-tug would be quite
unnecessary this time.
Therefore, when Lady Gwendolen appeared, _point-device_ for breakfast as
to dress, but looking dazed and preoccupied, she found this lady and
gentleman being well-bred, as shown by scanty, feelingless remarks about
the absence of morning papers as well as morning people. Her advent
opened a new era for them, in which they could cultivate ignorance of
one another on the bosom of a newcomer common to both.
"Only you two!" said the newcomer; which Miss Dickenson thought scarcely
delicate, considering the respective sexes of the persons addressed. "I
knew I was late, but I couldn't help it. Good-morning, Aunt Constance."
She gave and got a kiss. The Hon. Percival would have liked the former
for himself. Why need he have slightly flouted its receiver by a mental
note that he would not have cared about its _riposte_? It had not been
offered.
"How well you _are_ looking, dear!" said Aunt Constance, holding her
honorary niece at arms' length to visualise her robustness. She was not
a real Aunt at all, only an old friend of the family.
"I'm not," said Gwendolen. "Norbury, is breakfast ready? Shall we go
in?... Oh no, nothing! Please don't talk to me about it. I mean I'm all
right. Ask Sir Coupland to tell you." For the great surgeon had come
into the room, and was talking in an undertone to the old butler. Lady
Gwendolen added an apology which she kept in stereotype for the
non-appearance of her mother at breakfast. The Earl's absence was a
usage, taken for granted. Some said he had a cup of coffee in his own
room at eight, and starved till lunch.
Other guests appeared, and the usual English country-house breakfast
followed: a haphazard banquet, a decorous scrimmage for a surfeit of
eggs, and fish, and bacon, and tongue, and tea, and coffee, and
porridge, and even Heaven itself hardly knows what. Less than usual
vanished to become a vested interest of digestion; more than usual went
back to the kitchen for appreciation elsewhere. For Sir Coupland,
appealed to, had given a brief intelligent report of the occurrence of
the morning. Then followed undertones of conversation apart between him
and the Hon. Percival, who had not the heart for a pleasantry, and
groups of two or three aside. Lady Gwen alone was silent, leaving the
narration entirely to her medical friend, to whom she had told the
incident of last evening--her interview with the man now lying between
life and death, and the way his body was found by following the dog. She
left the room as early as courtesy allowed, and Sir Coupland did not
remain long. He had to go and tell the matter to the Earl, he said.
Gwendolen, no doubt, had to do the same to her mother the Countess. It
was an awful business.
Said Miss Smith-Dickenson to the Hon. Percival, on the shady terrace, a
quarter of an hour afterwards, "He _did_ tell you who the man is,
though? Or perhaps I oughtn't to ask?" Other guests were scattered
otherwhere, talking of the tragedy. Not a smile to be seen; still, the
victim of the mishap was a stranger. It was a cloud under which a man
might enjoy a cigar, _quand même_.
The Hon. Percival knocked an instalment of _caput mortuum_ off his; an
inch of ash which had begun on the terrace; so the interview was some
minutes old. "Yes," said he. "Yes, he knows who it is. That's the worst
of it."
"The worst of it?"
"I don't know of any reason myself why I should not tell you his name.
Sir Coupland only said he wanted it kept quiet till he could see his
father, whom he knows, of course. I understand that the family belongs
to this county--lives about twenty miles off." The lady felt so
confident that she would be told the name that she seized the
opportunity to show how discreet she was, and kept silence. _She_ was
quite incapable of mere vulgar inquisitiveness, you see. Her inmost core
had the satisfaction of feeling that its visible outer husk, Miss
Constance Smith-Dickenson, was killing two birds with one stone. The way
in which the gentleman continued justified it. "Besides, I know I may
rely upon _you_ to say nothing about it." Clearly the effect of her
visible, almost palpable, discretion! For really--said the core--this
good gentleman never set eyes on my husk till yesterday evening. And he
is a Man of the World and all that sort of thing.
Miss Smith-Dickenson knew perfectly well how her sister Lilian--the one
with the rolling, liquid eyes, now Baroness Porchammer--would have
responded. But she herself mistrusting her powers of gushing right, did
not feel equal to "Oh, but how nice of you to say so, dear Mr. Pellew!"
And she felt that she was not cut out for a satirical puss neither, like
her sister Georgie, now Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, to whom a mental review
of possible responses assigned, "Oh dear, how complimentary we are, all
of a sudden!"--with possibly a heavy blow on the gentleman's fore-arm
with a fan, if she had one. So she decided on "Pray go on. You may rely
on my discretion." It was simple, and made her feel like Elizabeth in
"Pride and Prejudice"--a safe model, if a little old-fashioned.
The gentleman pulled at his cigar in a considerative way, and said in a
perfunctory one:--"I am sure I may." Nevertheless, he postponed his
answer through a mouthful of smoke, dismissing it into the atmosphere
finally, to allow of speech determined on during its detention: "I'm
afraid it's Adrian Torrens--there can't be two of the name who write
poetry. Besides--the dog!"
The lady said "Good Heavens!" in a frightened underbreath, and was
visibly shocked. For it is usually someone of whom one knows nothing at
all that gets shot accidentally. Now, Adrian Torrens was the name of a
man recently distinguished as the author of some remarkable verse. A man
of very good family too. So--altogether!... This was the expression used
by Miss Smith-Dickenson's core, almost unrebuked. "Of course, I remember
the poem about the collie-dog," she added aloud.
"Can you remember the name of the dog? Wasn't it Aeneas?"
"No--Achilles."
"I meant Achilles. Well--his dog's Achilles."
"I thought you said there was no name on the collar."
"No more there was. But I understand that Gwen met him yesterday
evening--down by Arthur's Bridge, I believe--and had some conversation
with him, I gather."
"Oh!"
"But why? Why 'Oh!'--I mean?"
"I didn't mean anything. Only that she was looking so scared and unhappy
at breakfast, and that would account for it."
"Surely ..."
"Surely what?"
"Well--does it want accounting for? A man shot dead almost in sight of
the house, and by your own gamekeeper! Isn't that enough?"
"Enough in all conscience. But it makes a difference. All the
difference. I can't exactly describe.... It is not as if she had never
met him in her life before. _Now_ do you see?..."
"Never met him in her life before?..." The Hon. Percival stands waiting
for more, one-third of his cigar in abeyance between his finger-tips.
Getting no more, he continues:--"Why--you don't mean to say?..."
"What?"
"Well--it's something like this, if I can put the case. Take somebody
you've just met and spoken to...." But Mr. Pellew's prudence became
suddenly aware of a direction in which the conversation might drift, and
he pulled up short. If he pushed on rashly, how avoid an entanglement of
himself in a personal discussion? If his introduction to this lady had
been days old, instead of merely hours, there would have been no
quicksands ahead. He felt proud of his astuteness in dealing with a wily
sex.
Only he shouldn't have been so transparent. All that the lady had to do
was to change the subject of the conversation with venomous decision,
and she did it. "What a beautiful dark green fritillary!" said she. "I
hope you care for butterflies, Mr. Pellew. I simply dote on them." She
was conscious of indebtedness for this to her sister Lilian. Never
mind!--Lilian was married now, and had no further occasion to be
enchanting. A sister might borrow a cast-off. Its effect was to make the
gentleman clearly alive to the fact that she knew exactly why he had
stopped short.
But Miss Smith-Dickenson did _not_ say to Mr. Pellew:--"I am perfectly
well aware that you, sir, see danger ahead--danger of a delicate
discussion of the difference _our_ short acquaintance would have made to
me if I had heard this morning that _you_ were shot overnight. Pray
understand that I discern in this nothing but restless male vanity,
always on the alert to save its owner--or slave--from capture or
entanglement by dangerous single women with no property. You would have
been perfectly safe in my hands, even if your recommendations as an
Adonis had been less equivocal." She said no such thing. But something
or other--can it have been the jump to that butterfly?--made Mr. Pellew
conscious that if she _had_ worded a thought of the kind, it would have
been just like a female of her sort. Because he wasn't going to end up
that she wouldn't have been so very far wrong.
A name ought to be invented for these little ripples of human
intercourse, that are hardly to be called embarrassments, seeing that
their _monde_ denies their existence. We do not believe it is only
nervous and imaginative folk that are affected by them. The most prosaic
of mankind keeps a sort of internal or subjective diary of contemporary
history, many of whose entries run on such events, and are so very
unlike what their author said at the time.
The dark green fritillary did not stay long enough to make any
conversation worth the name, having an appointment with a friend in the
air. Mr. Pellew hummed _Non piu andrai farfallon amoroso_, producing
on the mind of Miss Dickenson vague impressions of the Opera,
Her Majesty's--not displaced by a Hotel in those days--tinctured
with a consciousness of Club-houses and Men of the World. This
gentleman, with his whiskers and monocular wrinkle responding to his
right-eye-glass-grip, who had as good as admitted last night that his
uncle was intimate with the late Prince Regent, was surely an example of
this singular class; which is really scarcely admissible on the domestic
hearth, owing to the purity of the latter. Possibly, however, these
impressions had nothing to do with the lady's discovery that perhaps she
ought to go in and find out what "they" were thinking of doing this
morning. It may be that it was only due to her consciousness that you
cannot--when female and single--stand alone with a live single gentleman
on a terrace, both speechless. You can walk up and down with him,
conversing vivaciously, but you mustn't come to an anchor beside him in
silence. There would be a suspicion about it of each valuing the other's
presence for its own sake, which would never do.
"Goin' in?" said the Hon. Percival. "Well--it's been very jolly out
here."
"Very pleasant, I am sure," said Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson. If
either made a diary entry out of this, it was of the slightest. She
moved away across the lawn, her skirt brushing it audibly, as the
cage-borne skirt of those days did, suggesting the advantages of
Jack-in-the-Green's costume. For Jack could leave his green on the
ground and move freely inside it. He did not stick out at the top. Mr.
Pellew remained on the shady terrace, to end up his cigar. He was a
little disquieted by the recollection of his very last words, which
remembered themselves on his tongue-tip as a key remembers itself in
one's hand, when one has forgotten if one really locked that box. Why,
though, should he not say to a maiden lady of a certain age--these are
the words he thought in--that it was very nice on this terrace? Why not
indeed? But that wasn't exactly the question. What he had really said
was that it _had been_ very nice on this terrace. All the difference!
Miss Dickenson was soon aware what the "they" she had referred to was
going to do, and offered to accompany it. The Countess and her daughter
and others were the owners of the voices she could hear outside the
drawing-room door when at liberty to expand, after a crush in half a
French window that opened on the terrace. Her ladyship the Countess was
as completely upset as her husband's ancestry permitted--quite white
and almost crying, only not prepared to admit it. "Oh, Constance dear,"
said she. "Are you there? You are always so sensible. But isn't this
awful?"
Aunt Constance perceived the necessity for a sympathetic spurt. She had
been taking it too easily, evidently. She was equal to the occasion,
responding with effusion that it was "so dreadful that she could think
of nothing else!" Which wasn't true, for the moment before she had been
collating the Hon. Percival's remarks and analysing the last one. Not
that she was an unfeeling person--only more like everyone else than
everyone else may be inclined to admit.
CHAPTER XII
HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER DAUGHTER WALKED OVER TO THE VERDERER'S
HALL. HOW ACHILLES KNEW BETTER THAN THE DOCTORS. THE ACCIDENT WAS
NOT A FATAL ACCIDENT. AN OLD GENERAL WHO MADE A POOR FIGURE AS A
CORPSE. HOW THE WOUNDED MAN'S FATHER AND SISTER CAME, AND HOW HE
HIMSELF WAS TO BE CARRIED TO THE TOWERS
There was no need for a reason why Lady Gwendolen and her mother should
take the first opportunity of walking over to the Lodge, where this man
lay either dead or dying; but one presented itself to the Countess, as
an addendum to others less defined. "We ought to go," said she, "if only
for poor old Stephen's sake. The old man will be quite off his head with
grief. And it was such an absolute accident."
This was on the way, walking over the grassland. Aunt Constance felt a
little unconvinced. He who sends a bullet abroad at random may hear
later that it had its billet all along, though it was so silent about
it. As for the girl, she was in a fever of excitement; to reach the
scene of disaster, anyhow--to hear some news of respite, possibly. No
one had vouched for Death so far.
Sir Coupland was already on the spot, having only stayed long enough to
give particulars of the catastrophe to the Earl; but he was not by the
bedside. He was outside the cottage, speaking with Dr. Nash, the local
doctor from Grantley Thorpe, who had passed most of the night there.
There was a sort of conclusiveness about their conference, even as seen
from a distance, which promised ill. As the three ladies approached, he
came to meet them.
"Is there a chance?" said the Countess, as he came within hearing.
Only a shake of the head in reply. It quenches all the eagerness to hear
in the three faces, each in its own degree. Aunt Constance's gives place
to "Oh dear!" and solicitude. Lady Ancester's to a gasp like sudden
pain, and "Oh, Sir Coupland! are you quite, _quite_ sure?" Her
daughter's to a sharp cry, or the first of one cut short, and "Oh,
mamma!" Then a bitten lip, and a face shrinking from the others' view as
she turns and looks out across the Park. That is Arthur's Bridge over
yonder, where last evening she spoke with this man that now lies dead,
and took some note of his great dark eyes in the living glory of the
sunset.
As the world and sky swim about her for a moment, even she herself
wonders why she should be so hard hit. A perfect stranger! A man she had
never before in her life spoken to. And then, for such a moment! But the
great dark eyes of the man now dead are upon her, and she does not at
first hear that her mother is speaking to her.
"Gwen dear!... Gwen darling!--you hear what Sir Coupland says? We can do
no good." She has to touch her daughter's arm to get her attention.
"Well!" The girl turns, and her tears are as plain on her face as its
beauty. "That means go home?" says she; and then gives a sort of
heart-broken sigh. "Oh dear!" Her lack of claim to grieve for this man
cuts like a knife.
"We can do no good," her mother repeats. "Now, can we?"
"No, I see. Suppose we go." She turns as though to go, but either her
intention hangs fire, or she only wishes her face unseen for the moment;
for she pauses, saying to her mother: "There is old Stephen. Ought we
not to see him--one of us?"
"Yes!" says her ladyship, decisive on reflection. "I had forgotten about
old Stephen. But _I_ can go to him. You go back!... Yes, dear, you had
better go back.... What?"
"I am not going back. I want to see the body--this man's body. I want to
see his face.... No; I am not a child, mamma. Let me have my way."
"If you must, darling, you must. But I cannot see what use it can be.
See--here is Aunt Constance! _She_ does not want to see it...." A
confirmatory head-shake from Miss Dickenson. "Why should _you_?"
"Aunt Constance never spoke to him. I did. And he spoke to me. Let me
go, mamma dear. Don't oppose me." Indeed, the girl seems almost
feverishly anxious, quite on a sudden, to have this wish. No need for
her mother to accompany her, she adds. To which her mother replies:--"I
would if you wished it, dear Gwen"; whereupon Aunt Constance, perceiving
in her heart an opportunity for public service tending to distinction,
says so would she. Further, in view of a verdict from somebody somewhere
later on, that she showed a very nice feeling on this occasion, she
takes an opportunity before they reach the cottage to say to Lady
Gwendolen in an important aside:--"You won't let your mother go into the
room, dear. Anything of this sort tells so on her system." To which the
reply is rather abrupt:--"You needn't come, either of you." So that is
settled.
The body had not been carried into a room of the cottage, but into what
goes by the name of the Verderer's Hall, some fifty yards off. That much
carriage was spared by doing so. It now lies on the "Lord's table," so
called not from any reference to sacramental usage, but because the Lord
of the Manor sat at it on the occasions of the Manorial Courts. Three
centuries have passed since the last Court Baron; the last landlord who
sat in real council with his tenantry under its roof having been Roger
Earl of Ancester, who was killed in the Civil War. But old customs die
hard, and every Michaelmas Day--except it fall on a Sunday--the Earl or
his Steward at twelve o'clock receives from the person who enjoys a
right of free-warren over certain acres that have long since harboured
neither hare nor rabbit, an annual tribute which a chronicle as old as
Chaucer speaks of as "iiij tusshes of a wild bore." If no boars' tusks
are forthcoming, he has to be content with some equivalent devised to
meet their scarcity nowadays. Otherwise, the old Hall grows to be more
and more a museum of curios connected with the Park and outlying
woodlands, the remains of the old forest that covered the land when even
Earls were upstarts. A record pair of antlers on the wall is still
incredulously measured tip to tip by visitors unconvinced by local
testimony, and a respectable approach to Roman Antiquities is at rest
after a learned description by Archaeology. The place smells sweet of an
old age that is so slow--that the centuries have handled so
tenderly--that one's heart thinks of it rather as spontaneous
preservation than decay. It will see to its own survival through some
lifetimes yet, if no man restores it or converts it into a Studio.
Is his rating "Death" or not, whose body is so still on its extemporised
couch--just a mattress from the keeper's cottage close at hand? Was the
doctor's wording warranted when he said just now under his
breath:--"_It_ is in here"? Could he not have said "He"? What does the
dog think, that waits and watches immovable at _its_ feet? If this is
death, what is he watching for? What does the old keeper himself think,
who lingers by this man whom he may have slain--this man who _may_ live,
yet? He has scarcely taken his eyes off that white face and its
strapped-up wound from the first moment of his sight of it. He does not
note the subdued entry of Lady Gwendolen and the two doctors, and when
touched on the shoulder to call his attention to the presence of a
ladyship from the Castle, defers looking round until a fancy of his
restless hope dies down--a fancy that the mouth was closing of itself.
He has had such fancies by scores for the last few hours, and said
farewell to each with a groan.
"My mother is at the cottage, Stephen," says Gwen. "She would like to
see you, I know." Thereon the old man turns to go. He looks ten years
older than his rather contentious self of yesterday. The young lady says
no word either way of his responsibility for this disaster. She cannot
blame, but she cannot quite absolve him yet, without a grudge. Her
mother can; and will, somehow.
The dog has run to her side for a moment--has uttered an undertone of
bewildered complaint; then has gone back patiently to his old post, and
is again watching. The great surgeon and the girl stand side by side,
watching also. The humbler medico stands back a little, his eyes rather
on his senior than on the body.
"It is absolutely certain--this?" says Lady Gwen; questioning, not
affirming. She is wonderfully courageous--so Sir Coupland thinks--in the
presence of Death. But she is ashy white.
He utters the barest syllable of doubt; then half-turns for courtesy to
his junior, who echoes it. Then each shakes his head, looking at the
other.
"Is there no sound--nothing to show?" Gwen has some hazy idea that there
ought to be, if there is not, some official note of death due from the
dying, a rattle in the throat at least.
Sir Coupland sees her meaning. "In a case of this sort," says he, "sheer
loss of blood, the breath may cease so gradually that sound is
impossible. All one can say is that there _is_ no breath, and no action
of the heart--so far as one can tell." He speaks in a business-like way
that is a sort of compliment to his hearer; no accommodation of facts as
to a child; then raises the lifeless hand slightly and lets it fall,
saying:--"See!"
To his surprise the girl, without any comment, also raises the band in
hers, and stands holding it. "Yes--it will fall," says he, as though she
had spoken questioning it. But still she holds it, and never shrinks
from the horror of its mortality, somewhat to the wonder of her only
spectator. For the other doctor has withdrawn, to speak to someone
outside.
Of a sudden the dog Achilles starts barking. A short, sharp, startled
bark--once, twice--and is silent. The girl lays the dead hand gently
down, not dropping it, but replacing it where it first lay. She does not
speak for a moment--cannot, perhaps. Then it comes with a cry, neither
of pain nor joy--mere tension. "Oh, Dr. Merridew ... the fingers closed
... They closed on mine ... the fingers _closed_.... I know it. I know
it ... The fingers _closed_!..." She says it again and again as though
in terror that her word might be doubted. He sees as she turns to him
that all her pride of self-control has given way. She is fighting
against an outburst of tears, and her breath comes and goes at will, or
at the will of some power that drives it. Sir Coupland may be
contemplating speech--something it is correct to say, something the
cooler judgment will endorse--but whatever it is he keeps it to himself.
He is not one of those cheap sages that has _hysteria_ on his tongue's
tip to account for everything. It _may_ be that; but it may be ...
Well--he has seen some odd cases in his time.
So, without speaking to the agitated young lady, he simply calls his
colleague back; and, after a word or two aside with him, says to
her:--"You had better leave him to us. Go now." It gives her confidence
that he does not soothe or cajole, but speaks as he would to a man. She
goes, and as she walks across to the Keeper's Lodge makes a little peace
for her heart out of small material. Sir Coupland said "him" this
time--look you!--not "it" as before.
The daughter finds the mother, five minutes later, trying a well-meant
word to the old keeper; to put a little heart in him, if possible. It
was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is
silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides,
she is only half grieved for the old chap--has only a languid sympathy
in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes
Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will
be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise the
exigencies of Hell. Also, she has recovered her self-command; and will
not show, even to her mother, how keen her interest has been in this man
in the balance betwixt life and death.
As to the older lady, who has fought shy of seeing the body, the affair
is no more than a casualty, very little coloured by the fact that its
victim is a "gentleman." This sort of thing may impress the groundlings,
while a real Earl or Duke remains untouched. A coronet has a very
levelling effect on the plains below. Your mere baronet is but a
hillock, after all. Possibly, however, this is a proletariate view,
which always snubs rank, and her ladyship the Countess may never have
given a thought to this side of the case. Certainly she is honestly
grieved on behalf of her old friend Stephen, whom she has known for
thirty years past. In fact, of the two, as they walk back to the Towers,
the mother shows more than the daughter the reaction of emotion.
Says her daughter to her as they walk back--the three as they came--"I
believe he will recover, for all that. I believe Dr. Merridew believes
it, too. I am certain the fingers moved." Her manner lays stress on her
own equanimity. It is more self-contained than need be, all things
considered.
"The eyesight is easily deceived," says Miss Dickenson, prompt with the
views of experience. She always holds a brief for common sense, and is
considered an authority. "Even experts are misled--sometimes--in such
cases...."
Gwen interrupts:--"It had nothing to do with eyesight. I _felt_ the
fingers move." Whereupon her mother, roused by her sudden emphasis,
says:--"But we are so glad that it _should_ be so, Gwen darling." And
then, when the girl stops in her walk and says:--"Of course you are--but
why not?" she has a half-smile as for petulance forgiven, as she
says:--"Because you fired up so about it, darling; that's all. We did
not understand that you had hold of the hand. Was it stiff?" This in a
semi-whisper of protest against the horror of the subject.
"Not the least. Cold!--oh, how cold!" She shudders of set purpose to
show how cold. "But not _stiff_."
The two other ladies go into a partnership of seniority, glancing at
each other; and each contributes to a duet about the duty of being
hopeful, and we shall soon know, and at any rate, the case could not be
in better hands, and so on. But whereas the elder lady was only working
for reassurance--puzzled somewhat at a certain flushed emphasis in this
beautiful daughter of hers--Miss Smith-Dickenson was taking mental
notes, and looking intuitive. She was still looking intuitive when she
joined the numerous party at lunch, an hour later. She had more than one
inquiry addressed to her about "this unfortunate accident," but she
reserved her information, with mystery, acquiring thereby a more defined
importance. A river behind a _barrage_ is much more impressive than a
pump.
* * * * *
Sir Coupland Merridew's place at table was still empty when the first
storm of comparison of notes set in over the events and deeds of the
morning. A conscious reservation was in the air about the disaster of
last night, causing talk to run on every other subject, but betrayed by
more interest in the door and its openings than lunch generally shows.
Presently it would open for the overdue guest, and he would have news
worth hearing, said Hope. For stinted versions of event had leaked out,
and had outlived the reservations and corrections of those who knew.
Lunch was conscious of Sir Coupland's arrival in the house before he
entered, and its factors nodded to each other and said: "That's him!"
Nice customs of Grammar bow before big mouthfuls. However, Miss
Smith-Dickenson did certainly say: "I believe that _is_ Sir Coupland."
It was, and in his face was secret content and reserve. In response to a
volley of What?--Well?--Tell us!--and so forth, he only said:--"Shan't
tell you anything till I've had something to eat!" But he glanced across
at Lady Gwen and nodded slightly--a nod for her exclusive use.
Lunch, liberated by what amounted to certainty that the man was not
killed, ran riot; almost all its factors taking a little more, thank
you! It was brought up on its haunches by being suddenly made aware that
Sir Coupland--having had something to eat--had spoken. He had to repeat
his words to reach the far end of the long table.
"Yes--I said ... only of course if you make such a row you can't
hear.... I said that this gentleman cannot be said to have recovered
consciousness"--here he paused for a mistaken exclamation of
disappointment to get nipped in the bud, and then continued--"yet a
while. However, I am glad to say I--both of us, Dr. Nash and myself, I
should say--were completely mistaken about the case. It has turned out
contrary to every expectation that...." Nobody noticed that a pause here
was due to Lady Gwen having made "No!" with her lips, and looked a
protest at the speaker. He went on:--"Well ... in short ... I would have
sworn the man was dead ... and he isn't! That's all I have to say about
it at present. It might be over-sanguine to say he is alive--meaning
that he will succeed in keeping so--but he is certainly not _dead_."
Miss Dickenson lodged her claim to a mild form of omniscience by saying
with presence of mind:--"Exactly!" but without presumption, so that only
her near neighbours heard her. Self-respect called for no more.
Had the insensible man spoken?--the Earl asked pertinently. Oh dear, no!
Nothing so satisfactory as that, so far. The vitality was almost _nil_.
The Earl retired on his question to listen to what a Peninsular veteran
was saying to Gwen. This ancient warrior was one who talked but little,
and then only to two sorts, old men like himself, with old memories of
India and the Napoleonic wars, and young women like Gwen. As this was
his way, it did not seem strange that he should address her all but
exclusively, with only a chance side-word now and then to his host, for
mere courtesy.
"When I was in Madras in eighteen-two--no--eighteen-three," he said, "I
was in the Nineteenth Dragoons under Maxwell--he was killed, you
know--in that affair with the Mahrattas...."
"I know. I've read about the Battle of Assaye, and how General Wellesley
had two horses shot under him...."
"That was it. Scindia, you know--that affair! They had some very good
artillery for those days, and our men had to charge up to the guns. I
was cut down in Maxwell's cavalry charge, and went near bleeding to
death. He was a fine fellow that did it...."
"Never mind him! You were going to tell me about yourself."
"Why--I was given up for dead. It was a good job I escaped decent
interment. But the surgeon gave me the benefit of the doubt, and stood
me over for a day or two. Then, as I didn't decay properly...."
"Oh, General--don't be so horrible!" This from Miss Smith-Dickenson
close at hand. But Gwen is too eager to hear, to care about delicacies
of speech, and strikes in:--
"Do go on, General! Never mind Aunt Constance. She is so fussy. Go
on--'didn't decay properly'...."
"Well--I was behindhand! Not up to my duties, considered as a corpse!
The doctor stood me over another twenty-four hours, and I came to. I was
very much run down, certainly, but I _did_ come to, or I shouldn't be
here now to tell you about it, my dear. I should have been sorry."
A matter-of-fact gentleman "pointed out" that had General Rawnsley died
of his wounds, he would not have been in a position to feel either joy
or sorrow, or to be conscious that he was not dining at Ancester. The
General fished up a wandering eyeglass to look at him, and said:--"Quite
correct!" Miss Smith-Dickenson remarked upon the dangers attendant on
over-literal interpretations. The Hon. Mr. Pellew perceived in this that
Miss Dickenson had a sort of dry humour.
"But you _did_ come to, General, and you _are_ telling me about it,"
said Lady Gwen. "Now, how long was it before you rejoined your
regiment?"
"H'm--well! I wasn't good for much two months later, or I should have
come in for the fag-end of the campaign. All right in three months, I
should say. But then--I was a young fellah!--in those days. How old's
your man?"
"This gentleman who has been shot?" says Gwen, with some stiffness. "I
have not the slightest idea." But Sir Coupland answered the question for
her. "At a guess, General, twenty-five or twenty-six. He ought to do
well if he gets through the next day or two. He may have a good
constitution. I can't say yet. Yours must have been remarkable."
"I had such a good appetite, you know," says the General. "Such a devil
of a twist! If I had had my way, I should have been at Argaum two months
later. But, good Lard!--they wouldn't let me out of Hospital." The old
soldier, roused by the recollection of a fifty-year-old grievance, still
rankling, launched into a denunciation of the effeminacy and timidity of
Authorities and Seniors, of all sorts and conditions. His youth was back
upon him with its memories, and he had forgotten that he too was now a
Senior. His torrent of thinly disguised execrations was of service to
Lady Gwen; as the original subject of the conversation, just shot, was
naturally forgotten. She had got all the enlightenment she wanted about
him, and was cultivating an artificial lack of interest in his accident.
She was, however, a little dissatisfied with her own success in this
branch of horticulture. Her anxiety had felt itself fully justified till
now by the bare facts of the case. Her longing that this man should not
die was so safe while it seemed certain that he could not live, that she
felt under no obligation to account to herself for it. Analysis of
niceties of feeling in the presence of Death were uncalled for, surely.
But now, with at least a chance of his recovery, she felt that she ought
to be able to think of something else. So she talked of Sardanapalus and
Charles Keane at the Princesses' Theatre--the first a play, the second a
player--and the General, declining more than monosyllables to the
matter-o'-fact gentleman, subsided into wrathful recollection of an
exasperated young Dragoon chafing under canvas beneath an Indian sun,
and panting for news of his regiment in the north, fifty years before.
But such intermittent conversation could not prevent her seeing that
Norbury the butler had handed a visiting-card, pencilled on the back, to
her father, and had whispered a message to him with a sense of its
gravity, and that her father had replied:--"Yes, say I will be there
presently." Nor that--in response to remote inquiry from his Countess
at the end of an avenue of finger-glasses--he had thrown the words
"Hamilton Torrens and the daughter--mother too ill to come--won't come
up to the house until he's fit to move!" all the length of the table.
That her mother had said:--"Oh yes--you know them," perhaps because of
an apologetic manner in her husband for being the recipient of the
message. Also that curiosity and information were mutual in the avenue,
and that next-door neighbours but one were saying:--"What's that?" and
getting no answer.
However, the Intelligence Department did itself credit in the end, and
everyone knew that, immediately on the receipt of sanction from
headquarters, Tom Kettering the young groom had mounted the grey mare--a
celebrity in these parts--and made a foxhunter's short cut across a
stiff country to carry the news of the disaster to Pensham Steynes, Sir
Hamilton Torrens's house twenty miles off, and that that baronet and his
daughter Irene Torrens had come at once. "I hope he hasn't killed the
mare," said the Earl apprehensively. But his wife summoned Norbury to a
secret confidence, saying after it:--"No--it's all right--he came on the
box--didn't ride." From which the Earl knew--if the avenue didn't--that
Tom Kettering the groom, after an incredible break across country,
stabled the mare at Pensham Steynes, and rode back with the carriage.
The whole thing had been negotiated in less than three hours.
All these things Gwendolen comes to be aware of somehow. But all of us
know how a chance word in a confused conversation stays by the hearer,
who is forced to listen to what is no elucidation of it, and is
discontented. Such a word had struck this young lady; and she watched
for her father, as lunch died away, to get the elucidation overdue. She
was able to intercept him at the end of a long colloquy with Sir
Coupland. "What did you mean, papa dearest, just now?..."
"What did I mean, dear?... When?"
"By 'until he's fit to move'?"
"I meant until Sir Coupland says he can be safely brought up to the
house."
"_This_ house, my dear?" It is not Gwen who speaks, but her mother, who
has joined the conversation.
"Certainly, my love," says the Earl, with a kind of appealing
diffidence. "If you have no very strong objection. He can be carried,
Sir Coupland says, as soon as the wound is safe from inflammation. Of
course he must not be left at the Hall."
"Of course not. But there are beds at the Lodge...." However, the Earl
says with a meek self-assertion:--"I think I would rather he were
brought here. His father and George were at Christ Church together...."
Before which her ladyship concedes the point. His lordship then says he
shall go at once to the Hall to see Sir Hamilton, and Gwen suggests that
she shall accompany him. She may persuade Miss Torrens to come up to the
Towers.
This assumption that the wounded man could be moved, after conversation
between the Earl and Sir Coupland, was so reassuring, that Gwendolen
felt it more than ever due to herself to cultivate that indifference
about his recovery. However, she could not easily be too affectionate
and hospitable to his sister under the circumstances.
By-the-by, it was rather singular that she had never seen this Irene
Torrens, when they were almost neighbours--only eighteen miles by road
between them. And Irene's father had been her Uncle George's great
friend at Oxford; both at Christ Church! This uncle, who, like his
friend Torrens, had gone into the army, was killed in action at Rangoon,
long before Gwendolen's day.
It all takes so long to tell. The omission of half would shorten the
tale and spare the reader so much. What a very small book the History of
the World would be if all the events were left out!
CHAPTER XIII
BACK IN SAPPS COURT. MICHAEL RAGSTROAR'S SECULARISM. HIS EXTENDED
KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. YET A GAOL-BIRD PROPER WAS OUTSIDE IT. ONE IN
QUEST OF A WIDOW. THE DEAD BEETLE IN DOLLY'S CAKE. HOW UNCLE MO DID
NOT LIKE THE MAN'S LOOKS. THERE _WAS_ NO WIDOW DAVERILL AND NEITHER
BURR NOR PRICHARD WOULD DO. HOW AUNT M'RIAR HAD BEEN AT CHAPEL. THE
SONS OF LEVI. MICHAEL'S NOBLE LOYALTY TOWARDS OUTLAWS
It was a fine Sunday morning in Sapps Court, and our young friend
Michael Rackstraw was not attending public worship. Not that it was his
custom to do so. Nevertheless, the way he replied to a question by a
chance loiterer into the Court seemed to imply the contrary. The
question was, what the Devil he was doing that for?--and referred to the
fact that he was walking on his hands. His answer was, that it was
because he wasn't at Church. Not that all absentees from religious rites
went about upside down; but that, had he been at Church, the narrow
exclusiveness of its ritual would have kept him right side up.
The speaker's appearance was disreputable, and his manner morose,
sullen, and unconciliatory. Michael, even while still upside down,
fancied he could identify a certain twist in his face that seemed not
unfamiliar; but thought this might be due to his own drawbacks on
correct observation. Upright again, his identification was confirmed and
he knew quite well whose question he was answering by the time he felt
his feet. It was the man he had seen in the clutches of the water-rat at
Hammersmith, when both were capsized into the river six months ago. This
put him on his guard, and he prepared to meet further questions with
evasion or defiance. But he would flavour them with substantial facts.
It would confuse issues and make it more difficult to convict him of
mendacity.
"You don't look an unlikely young beggar," said the man. "What name are
you called?"
Michael thought a moment and settled that it might be impolitic to
disclose his name. So he answered simply:--"Ikey." Now, this name was
not contrary to any statute or usage. The man appeared to accept it in
good faith, and Michael decided in his heart that he was softer than
what he'd took him for.
He recovered some credit, however, by his next inquiry which seemed to
place baptismal names among negligibles: "Ah, that's it, is it? But Ikey
what? What do they call your father, if you've got one?"
Three courses occurred to Michael; improbable fiction, evasive or
defiant; plausible fiction; and the undisguised truth. As the first, the
Duke of Wellington's name recommended itself. He had, however, decided
mentally that this man was a queer customer, and might be an awkward
customer. So he discarded the Duke--satire might irritate--and chose the
second course to avoid the third. But he was betrayed by Realism, which
suggested that a study from Nature would carry conviction. He decided on
assuming the name of his friend the apothecary round the corner, up the
street facing over against the Wheatsheaf. He replied that his father's
name was Heeking's. It was easier to do this than to invent a name,
which might have turned out an insult to the human understanding. He was
disgusted to be met with incredulity.
"Don't believe you," said the man. "You're a young liar. Where's your
father now--now this very minute?"
"Abed."
"What's he doing there?"
"Sleeping of it off. It was Saturday with him last night. He had to be
fetched from the King's Arms very careful. Perkins's Entire. Barclay
Perkins. Fetched him myself! Mean to say I didn't?" But this part of the
tale was probable and no comment seemed necessary.
"Where's your mother?"
"Cookin' 'im a bloater over the fire. It does the temper good. Can't yer
smell it?" A flavour of cooking confirmed Michael's words, but he seemed
to require a more formal admission of his veracity than a mere nostril
set ajar and a glance at an open window. "Say, if you don't! On'y
there's no charge for the smelling of it. She'll tell yer just the same
like me, word in and word out. You can arks for yourself. I can 'oller
'er up less time than talkin' about it. You've only to say!"
But this man, the twist of whose face had not been improved by his
recognition of the bloater, seemed to wish to confine his communications
to Michael, rather decisively. Indeed, there was a sound of veiled
intimidation in his voice as he said:--"You leave your mother to see to
the herrings, young 'un, and just you listen to me. You be done with
your kidding and listen to me. _You_ can tell me as much as I want to
know. Sharp young beggar!--you know what's good for you." An
intimidation of a possible _douceur_ perhaps?
Now Master Michael, though absolutely deficient in education--his class,
a sort of aristocracy of guttersnipes, was so in the pre-Board-School
fifties,--was as sharp as a razor already even in the days of Dave
Wardle's early accident, and had added a world of experience to his
stock in the last few months. He had, in fact, been seeing the
Metropolis, as an exponent or auxiliary of his father's vocation as a
costermonger; and had made himself extremely useful, said Mr. Rackstraw,
in the manner of speaking. Only the manner of speaking, strictly
reported, did not use the expression _extremely_, but another
one which we need not dwell upon except to make reference to its
inappropriateness. Mr. Rackstraw was not a man of many words, so he had
to fall back upon the same very often or hold his tongue: a course
uncongenial to him. This word was a _pièce de résistance_--a kind of
sheet-anchor.
In the course of these last few months of active costermongery, of
transactions in early peas and new potatoes, spring-cabbage and ripe
strawberries, he had acquired not only an insight into commerce but
apparently an intimate knowledge of every street in London, and a very
fair acquaintance with its celebrities; meaning thereby its real
celebrities--its sportsmen, patrons of the Prize Ring, cricketers,
rowing-men, billiard-players, jockeys--what not? Its less important
representative men, statesmen, bishops, writers, artists, lawyers;
soldiers and sailors even, though here concession was rife, had to take
a second place. But there was one class--a class whose members may have
belonged to any one of these--of which Michael's experience was very
limited. It was the class of gaol-birds. This type, the most puzzling to
eyes that see it for the first time, the most unmistakable by those well
read in it, was the type that was now setting this juvenile coster's
wits to work upon its classification, on this May morning in Sapps
Court. Michael's previous record of him was an interrupted sight of his
face in the river-garden at Hammersmith, and a reference to his
felonious antecedents at the inquest. He was, by the time the
conversation assumed the interest due to a hint of emolument, able to
say to himself that he should know the Old Bailey again by the cut of
its jib next time he came across it.
In reply, he scorned circumlocution, saying briefly:--"Wot'll it come
to? Wot are you good for? That's the p'int."
"You tell me no lies and you'll see. There's an old widow-lady down this
Court. Don't you go and say there ain't!"
"There's any number. Which old widder?"
"Name of Daverill. Old enough to be your father's granny."
"No sich a name! There's one a sight older than that though--last house
down the Court--top bell."
"How old do you make her out?"
"Two 'underd next birthday!" But Michael perceived in his questioner's
eye a possible withdrawal of his offer of a consideration, and amended
his statement:--"Ninety-nine, p'raps!--couldn't say to arf a minute."
"House at the end where the old cock in a blue shirt's smoking a
pipe--is that it?"
"Ah!--up two flights of stairs. But she can't see you, nor yet hear you,
to speak of."
"Who's the old cock?"
"This little boy's uncle. He b'longs to the Fancy. 'Eavyweight he was,
wunst upon a time." And Dave Wardle, who had joined the colloquy, gave
confirmatory evidence: "He's moy Uncle Moses, he is. And he's moy sister
Dolly's Uncle Moses, he is. And moy sister Dolly she had a piece of koyk
with a beadle in it. She _had_. A dead beadle!" But this evidence was
ruled out of court by general consent; or rather, perhaps, it should be
said that the witness remained in the box giving evidence of the same
nature for his own satisfaction, while the court's attention wandered.
"Oh--he was a heavyweight, was he? An ugly customer, I should reckon."
The stranger said this more to himself than to the boys. But he spoke
direct to Michael with the question, "What was it you said was the old
lady's name, now?"
The boy, shrewd as he was, was but a boy after all. Was it wonderful
that he should accept the implication that he had given the name? Thrown
off his guard he answered:--"Name of Richards." Whereupon Dave, who was
still stuttering on melodiously about the dead monster in Dolly's cake,
endeavoured to correct his friend without complete success.
"Pitcher, is it?" said the stranger. Michael, disgusted to find that he
had been betrayed into giving a name, though he was far from clear why
it should have been reserved, was glad of Dave's perverted version, as
replacing matters on their former footing. But the repetition of the
name, by voices the stimulus of definition had emphasized, caught the
attention of Uncle Moses, who thereon moved up the Court to find out who
this stranger could be, who was so evidently inquiring about the
upstairs tenant. As he reached close inspection-point his face did not
look as though the visitor pleased him. The latter said good-morning
first; but, simple as his words were, the gaol-bird manner of guarded
suspicion crept into them and stamped the speaker.
"Don't like the looks of you, mister!" said Uncle Mo to himself. But
aloud he said:--"Good-morning to _you_, sir. I understood you to be
inquiring for Mrs. Prichard."
"No--Daverill. No such a name, this young shaver says."
"Not down this Court. It wasn't Burr by any chance now, was it?"
"No--Daverill."
"Because there _is_ a party by the name of Burr if you could have seen
your way." This was only the natural civility which sometimes runs riot
with an informant's judgment, making him anxious to meet the inquirer at
any cost, whatever inalienable stipulations the latter may have
committed himself to. In this case it seemed that nothing short of
Daverill, crisp and well defined, would satisfy the conditions. The
stranger shook his head with as much decision as reciprocal civility
permitted--rather as though he regretted his inability to accept
Burr--and replied that the name had "got to be" Daverill and no other.
But he seemed reluctant to leave the widows down this Court unsifted,
saying:--"You're sure there ain't any other old party now?" To which
Uncle Moses responded: "Ne'er a one, master, to _my_ knowledge. Widow
Daverill she's somewheres else. Not down _this_ Court!" He said it in a
valedictory way as though he had no wish to open a new subject, and
considered this one closed. He had profited by his inspection of the
stranger, and had formed a low opinion of him.
But the stranger's reluctance continued. "You couldn't say, I suppose,"
said he, in a cautious hesitating way, "you couldn't say what
countrywoman she was, now?" His manner might easily have been--so Uncle
Mo thought at least--that of indigence trying to get a foothold with an
eye to begging in the end. It really was the furtive suspiciousness that
hangs alike upon the miscreant and the mere rebel against law into whose
bones the fetter has rusted. The guilt of the former, if he can cheat
both the gaol and the gallows, may merge in the demeanour of a free man;
that of the latter, after a decade of prison-service you or I might have
remitted, will hang by him till death.
Uncle Mo may have detected, through the mere blood-poisoning of the
prison, the inherent baseness of the man, or may have recoiled from the
type. Anyway, his instinct was to get rid of him. And evidently the less
he said about anyone in Sapps Court the better. So he replied, surlily
enough considering his really amiable disposition:--"No--I could _not_
say what countrywoman she is, master." Then he thought a small trifle of
fiction thrown in might contribute to the detachment of this man's
curiosity from Mrs. Prichard, and added carelessly:--"Some sort of a
foringer I take it." Which accounted, too, for his knowing nothing about
her. No true Englishman knows anything about that benighted class.
Now the boy Michael, all eyes and ears, had somehow come to an imperfect
knowledge that Mrs. Prichard had been in Australia once on a time. The
imperfection of this knowledge had affected the name of the place, and
when he officiously struck in to supply it, he did so inaccurately.
"Horstrian she is!" He added:--"Rode in a circus, she did." But this was
only the reaction of misinterpretation on a too inventive brain.
"Then she ain't any use to me. Austrian, is she?" Thus the stranger; who
then, after a slow glare up and down the Court, in search of further
widows perhaps, turned to go, saying merely:--"I'll wish you a
good-morning, guv'nor. Good-morning!" Uncle Mo watched him as he lurched
up the Court, noting the oddity of his walk. This man, you see, had been
chained to another like himself, and his bias went to one side like a
horse that has gone in harness. This gait is known in the class he
belonged to as the "darby-roll," from the name by which fetters are
often spoken of.
"How long has that charackter been makin' the Court stink, young
Carrots?" said Uncle Moses to Michael.
"Afore you come up, Mr. Moses."
"Afore I come up. How long afore I come up?"
Michael appeared to pass through a paroxysm of acute calculation, ending
in a lucid calm with particulars. "Seven minute and a half," said he
resolutely. "Wanted my name, he did!"
"What did you tell him?"
"I told 'im a name. Orl correct it was. Only it warn't mine. I was too
fly for him."
"What name did you tell him?"
"Mr. Eking's at the doctor's shop. He'll find that all right. He can
read it over the door. He's got eyes in his head." No doubt sticklers
for conscience will quarrel with the view that the demands of Truth can
be satisfied by an authentic name applied to the wrong person.
It did not seem to grate on Uncle Moses, who only said:--"Sharp boy! But
don't you tell no more lies than's wanted. Only now and again to shame
the Devil, as the sayin' is. And you, little Dave, don't you tell
nothing but the truth, 'cos your Aunt M'riar she says not to it." Dave
promised to oblige.
Aunt M'riar, returning home with Dolly from a place known as "Chapel"--a
place generally understood to be good, and an antidote to The Rising
Sun, which represented Satan and was bad--only missed meeting this
visitor to Sapps by a couple of minutes. She might have just come face
to face with him the very minute he left the Court, if she had not
delayed a little at the baker's, where she had prevailed on
Sharmanses--the promoter of some latent heat in the bowels of the earth
which came through to the pavement, making it nice and dry and warm to
set upon in damp, cold weather--to keep the family Sunday dinner back
just enough to guarantee it brown all through, and the potatoes crackly
all over. Sharmanses was that obliging he would have kep' it in--it was
a shoulder of mutton--any time you named, but he declined to be
responsible that the gravy should not dry up. So Dolly carried her
aunt's prayer-book, feeling like the priests, the Sons of Levi, which
bare the Ark of the Covenant; and Aunt M'riar carried the Tin of the
Shoulder of Mutton, and took great care not to spill any of the Gravy.
The office of the Sons of Levi was a sinecure by comparison.
Why did our astute young friend Michael keep his counsel about the
identity of the bloke that come down the Court that Sunday morning?
Well--it was not mere astuteness or vulgar cunning on the watch for an
honorarium. It was really a noble chivalry akin to that of the schoolboy
who will be flogged till the blood comes, rather than tell upon his
schoolfellow, even though he loathes the misdemeanour of the latter. It
was enough for Michael that this man was wanted by Scotland Yard, to
make silence seem a duty--silence, at any rate, until interrogated. He
was certainly not going to volunteer information--was, in fact, in the
position of the Humanitarian who declined to say which way the fox had
gone when the scent was at fault; only with this difference--that the
hounds were not in sight. Neither was he threatened with the
hunting-whip of an irate M.F.H. "Give the beggar his chance!"--that was
how Michael looked at it. He who knows the traditions of the class this
boy was born in will understand and excuse the feeling.
Michael was--said his _entourage_--that sharp at twelve that he could
understand a'most anything. He had certainly understood that the man
whom he saw in the grip of the police-officer overturned in the Thames
was wanted by Scotland Yard, to pay an old score, with possible
additions to it due to that officer's death. He had understood, too,
that the attempt to capture the man had been treacherous according to
his ideas of fair play, while he had no information about his original
crime. He did not like his looks, certainly, but then looks warn't much
to go by. His conclusion was--silence for the present, without prejudice
to future speech if applied for. When that time came, he would tell no
more lies than were wanted.
CHAPTER XIV
OF A VISIT MICHAEL PAID HIS AUNT, AND OF A FISH HE NEARLY CAUGHT.
THE PIGEONS, NEXT DOOR, AND A PINT OF HALF-AND-HALF. MISS JULIA
HAWKINS AND HER PARALYTIC FATHER. HOW A MAN IN THE BAR BROKE HIS
PIPE. OF A VISIT MICHAEL'S GREAT-AUNT PAID MISS HAWKINS. TWO
STRANGE POLICEMEN. HOW MR. DAVERILL MIGHT HAVE ESCAPED HAD HE NOT
BEEN A SMOKER. A MIRACULOUS RECOVERY, SPOILED BY A STRAIGHT SHOT
Michael Ragstroar's mysterious attraction to his great-aunt at
Hammersmith was not discountenanced or neutralised by his family in
Sapps Court, but rather the reverse: in fact, his visits to her
received as much indirect encouragement as his parents considered might
be safely given without rousing his natural combativeness, and
predisposing him against the ounce of influence which she alone
exercised over his rebellious instincts. Any suspicion of moral culture
might have been fatal, holy influences of every sort being eschewed by
Michael on principle.
So when Michael's mother, some weeks later than the foregoing incident,
remarked that it was getting on for time that her branch of the family
should send a quartern of shelled peas and two pound of cooking-cherries
to Aunt Elizabeth Jane as a seasonable gift, her lord and master had
replied that he wasn't going within eleven mile of Hammersmith till
to-morrow fortnight, but that he would entrust peas and cherries, as
specified, to "Old Saturday Night," a fellow-coster, so named in
derision of his adoption of teetotalism, his name being really Knight.
He was also called Temperance Tommy, without irony, his name being
really Thomas. He, a resident in Chiswick, would see that Aunt Elizabeth
Jane got the consignment safely.
Michael's father did this in furtherance of a subtle scheme which
succeeded. His son immediately said:--"Just you give _him_ 'em, and see
if he don't sneak 'em. See if he don't bile the peas and make a blooming
pudd'n of the cherries. You see if he don't! That's all I say, if you
arsk me." A few interchanges on these lines ended in Michael undertaking
to deliver the goods personally as a favour, time enough Sunday morning
for Aunt Elizabeth Jane herself to make a pudding of the cherries,
blooming or otherwise.
As a sequel, Michael arrived at his aunt's so early on the following
Sunday that the peas and the cherries had to wait for hours to be
cooked, while Aunt Elizabeth Jane talked with matrons round in the
alley, and he himself took part in a short fishing expedition, nearly
catching a roach, who got away. The Humanitarian--is that quite the
correct word, by-the-by?--must rejoice at the frequency of this result
in angling.
"The 'ook giv'," said Michael, returning disappointed. "Wot can you
expect with inferior tarkle?" He then undertook to get a brown Toby jug
filled at The Pigeons; though, being church-time--the time at which the
Heathen avail themselves of their opportunity of stopping away from
church--the purchase of one pint full up, and no cheating, was a
statutable offence on the part of the seller.
But when a public has a little back-garden with rusticated woodwork
seats, painful to those rash enough to avail themselves of them, and a
negotiable wall you and your jug can climb over and descend from by the
table no one ever gets his legs under owing to this same rusticity of
structure, then you can do as Michael did, and make your presence felt
by whistling through the keyhole, without fear of incriminating the
Egeria of the beer-fountain in the locked and shuttered bar, near at
hand.
Egeria was not far off, for her voice came saying:--"Say your name
through the keyhole; the key's took out.... No, you ain't Mrs. Treadwell
next door! You're a boy."
"Ain't a party-next-door's grandnephew a boy?" exclaimed Michael
indignantly. "She's sent me with her own jug for a pint of arfnarf!
Here's the coppers, all square. You won't have nothing to complain of,
Miss 'Orkins."
Miss Hawkins, the daughter of The Pigeons, or at least of their
proprietor, opened the door and admitted Michael Ragstroar. Her father
had drawn his last quart for a customer many long years ago, and his
right-hand half was passing the last days of its life in a bedroom
upstairs. A nonagenarian paralysed all down one side may be described as
we have described Mr. Hawkins. He was still able to see dimly, with one
eye, the glorious series of sporting prints that lined the walls of his
room; and such pulses as he had left were stirred with momentary
enthusiasm when the Pytchley Hunt reached the surviving half of his
understanding. The other half of him had lived, and seemed to have died,
years ago. The two halves may have taken too much when they were able to
move about together and get at it--too much brandy, rum, whisky; too
many short nips and long nips--too cordial cordials. Perhaps his
daughter took the right quantity of all these to a nicety, but
appearances were against her. She was a woman of the type that must have
been recognised in its girlhood as stunning, or ripping, by the then
frequenters of the bar of The Pigeons, and which now was reluctant to
admit that its powers to rip or stun were on the wane at forty. It was
that of an inflamed blonde putting on flesh, which meant to have
business relations with dropsy later on, unless--which seemed
unlikely--its owner should discontinue her present one with those nips
and cordials. She had no misgivings, so far, on this point; nor any,
apparently, about the seductive roll of a really fine pair of blue eyes.
While as for her hair, the bulk and number of the curl-papers it was
still screwed up in spoke volumes of what its release would reveal to an
astonished Sunday afternoon when its hour should come--not far off now.
There was a man in the darkened bar, smoking a long clay. Michael felt
as if he knew him as soon as he set eyes on him, but it was not till the
pipe was out of his mouth that he saw who he was. He had been ascribing
to the weight or pressure of the pipe the face-twist which, when it was
removed, showed as a slight distortion. It was the man he had seen
twice, once in the garden he had just left, and once at Sapps Court.
Michael considered that he was entitled to a gratuity from this man,
having interpreted his language as a promise to that effect, and having
received nothing so far.
He was not a diffident or timid character, as we know. "Seen you afore,
guv'nor!" was his greeting.
The man gave a start, breaking his pipe in three pieces, but getting no
farther than the first letter of an oath of irritation at the accident.
"What boy's this?" he cried out, with an earnestness nothing visible
warranted.
"Lard's mercy, Mr. Wix!" exclaimed the mistress of the house, turning
round from the compounding of the half-and-half. "What a turn you giv'!
And along of nothing but little Micky from Mrs. Treadwell next door!
Which most, Micky? Ale or stout?"
"Most of whichever costis most," answered Michael, with simplicity.
Thereon he felt himself taken by the arm, and turning, saw the man's
face looking close at him. It was the sort of face that makes the end of
a dream a discomfort to the awakener.
"Now, you young beggar!--_where_ have you seen me afore? I ain't going
to hurt you. You tell up straight and tell the truth."
"Not onlest you leave hold of my arm!"
"You do like he says, Mr. Wix.... Now you tell Mr. Wix, Micky. _He_
won't hurt you." Thus Miss Julia, procuring liberty for the hand to
receive the half-and-half she was balancing its foam on.
Michael rubbed the arm with his free hand as he took the brown
jug, to express resentment in moderation. But he answered his
questioner:--"Round in Sappses Court beyont the Dials acrost Oxford
Street keepin' to your left off Tottenham Court Road. You come to see
for a widder, and there warn't no widder for yer. Mean to say there
was?"
"Where I sent you, Mr. Wix," said Miss Julia. "To Sapps Court, where
Mrs. Treadwell directed me--where her nephew lives. That's this boy's
father. You'll find that right."
"Your Mrs. Treadmill, _she's_ all right. Sapps Court's all right of
itself. But it ain't the Court I was tracking out. If it was, they'd
have known the name of Daverill. Why--the place ain't no bigger than a
prison yard! About the length of down your back-garden to the water's
edge. It's the wrong Court, and there you have it in a word. She's in
Capps Court or Gapps Court--some * * * of a Court or other--not Sapps."
A metaphor has to be omitted here, as it might give offence. It was not
really a well-chosen or appropriate one, and is no loss to the text.
"What's this boy's name, and no lies?" he added after muttering to
himself on the same lines volcanically.
"How often do you want to be told _that_, Mr. Wix? This boy's Micky
Rackstraw, lives with his grandmother next door.... Well--her sister
then! It's all as one. Ain't you, Micky?"
"Ah! Don't live there, though. Comes easy-like, now and again. Like the
noospapers."
"He's a young liar, then. Told me his name was Ikey." Miss Hawkins
pointed out that Ikey and Micky were substantially identical. But she
was unable to make the same claim for Rackstraw and Ekins, when told
that Micky had laid claim to the latter. She waived the point and
conducted the beer-bearer back the way he came, handing him the brown
jug over the wall, not to spill it.
But she suggested, in consideration of the high quality of the
half-and-half, that her next-door neighbour might oblige by stepping in
by the private entrance, to speak concerning Sapps Court and its
inhabitants; all known to her more or less, no doubt. Which Aunt
Elizabeth was glad to do, seeing that the cherry-tart was only just put
in the oven, and she could spare that few minutes without risk.
Now, this old lady, though she was but a charwoman depending for
professional engagements rather on the goodwill--for auld lang syne--of
one or two families in Chiswick, of prodigious opulence in her eyes, yet
was regarded by Sapps Court, when she visited her niece, Mrs. Rackstraw,
or Ragstroar, Michael's mother, as distinctly superior. Aunt M'riar
especially had been so much impressed with a grey shawl with fringes and
a ready cule--spelt thus by repute--which she carried when she come of a
Sunday, that she had not only asked her to tea, but had taken her to pay
a visit to Mrs. Prichard upstairs. She had also in conversation taken
Aunt Elizabeth Jane largely into her confidence about Mrs. Prichard,
repeating, indeed, all she knew of her except what related to her
convict husband. About that she kept an honourable silence.
It was creditable to Miss Juliarawkins, whose name--written as
pronounced--gives us what we contend is an innocent pleasure, that she
should have suspected the truth about Wix or Daverill's want of
shrewdness when he visited Sapps Court. She had been biased towards this
suspicion by the fact that the man, when he first referred to Sapps
Court, had spoken the name as though sure of it; and it was to test its
validity that she invited Aunt Elizabeth Jane round by the private door,
and introduced her to the darkened bar, where the ex-convict was
lighting another pipe. She had heard Mrs. Treadwell speak of Aunt
M'riar; and now, having formed a true enough image of the area of the
Court, had come to the conclusion that all its inhabitants would be
acquainted, and would talk over each other's affairs.
"Who the Hell's that?" Mr. Wix started as if a wasp had stung him, as
the old charwoman's knock came at the private entrance alongside of the
bar. He seemed very sensitive, always on the watch for surprises.
"Only old Treadwell from next door. _She_ ain't going to hurt you, Tom.
You be easy." Miss Hawkins spoke with another manner as well as another
name now that she and this man were alone. She may never possibly have
known his own proper name, he having been introduced to her as Thomas
Wix twenty years ago. An introduction with a sequel which scarcely comes
into the story.
His answer was beginning:--"It's easy to say be easy ..." when the woman
left the room to admit Aunt Elizabeth Jane. Who came in finishing the
drying of hands, suddenly washed, on a clean Sunday apron. "Lawsy me,
Miss Hawkins!" said she. "I didn't know you had anybody here."
It was not difficult to _entamer_ the conversation. After a short
interlude about the weather, to which the man's contribution was a grunt
at most, the old lady had been started on the subject of her nephew and
Sapps Court, and to this he gave attention. If she had had her
tortoiseshell glasses she might have been frightened by the way he
knitted his brows to listen. But she had left them behind in her hurry,
and he kept back in a dark corner.
"About this same aged widow body," said he, fixing the conversation to
the point that interested him. "What sort of an age now should you give
her? Eighty--ninety--ninety-five--ninety-nine?" He stopped short of a
hundred. Nobody one knows is a hundred. Centenarians are only in
newspapers.
"I can tell you her age from her lips, mister. Eighty-one next birthday.
And her name, Maisie Prichard."
Mr. Wix's attention deepened, and his scowl with it. "Now, can you make
that safe to go upon?" he said with a harsh stress on a voice already
harsh. "How came the old lady to say her own christened name? I'll pound
it I might talk to you most of the day and never know your first name.
Old folks they half forget 'em as often as not."
Miss Hawkins struck in:--"Now you're talking silly, Mr. Wix. How many
young folk tell you their christened names right off?" But she had got
on weak ground. She got off it again discreetly. "Anyhow, Mrs. Treadwell
she's inventing nothing, having no call to." She turned to Aunt
Elizabeth Jane with the question:--"How come she to happen to mention
the name, ma'am?"
"Just as you or I might, Miss Julia. Mrs. Wardle she said, 'I was
remarking of it to Mrs. Treadwell,' she said, 'only just afore we come
upstairs, ma'am,' she said, 'that you was one of twins, ma'am,' she
said. And then old Mrs. Prichard she says, 'Ay, to be sure,' she says,
'twins we were--Maisie and Phoebe. Forty-five years ago she died, Phoebe
did,' she says. 'And I've never forgotten Phoebe,' she says. 'Nor yet I
shan't forget Phoebe not if I live to be a hundred!'"
"Goard blind my soul!" Mr. Wix muttered this to himself, and though Aunt
Elizabeth Jane failed to catch the words, she shuddered at the manner of
them. She did not like this Mr. Wix, and wished she had not forgotten
her tortoiseshell spectacles, so as to see better what he was like. The
words she heard him say next had nothing in them to cause a shudder,
though the manner of them showed vexation:--"If that ain't tryin' to a
man's temper! There she was all the time!" It is true he qualified this
last substantive by the adjective the story so often has to leave out,
but it was not very uncommon in those days along the riverside between
Fulham and Kew.
"I thought you said the name was Daverill," said Miss Hawkins, taking
the opportunity to release a curl-paper at a looking-glass behind
bottles. It was just upon time to open, and the barmaid had got her
Sunday out.
"Why the Hell shouldn't the name be Daverill? In course I did! Ask your
pardon for swearing, missis...." This was to the visitor, who had begun
to want to go. "You'll excuse my naming to you all my reasons, but I'll
just mention this one, not to be misunderstood. This here old lady's a
sort of old friend of mine, and when I came back from abroad I says to
myself I'd like to look up old Mrs. Daverill. So I make inquiry, you
see, and my man he tells me--he was an old mate of mine, you see--she's
gone to live at Sevenoaks--do you see?--at Sevenoaks...."
"Ah, I see! I've been at Sevenoaks."
"Well--there she had been and gone away to town again. Then says I,
'What's her address?' So they told me they didn't know, it was so long
agone. But the old woman--_her_ name was Killick, or Forbes was it?--no,
Killick--remembered directing on a letter to Mrs. Daverill, Sapps Court.
And Juliar here she said she'd heard tell of Sapps Court. So I hunted
the place up and found it. Then your Mrs. Wardle's husband--I take it he
was Moses Wardle the heavyweight in my young days--he put me off the
scent because of the name. The only way to make Prichard of her I can
see is--she married again. Well--did no one ever hear of an old fool
that got married again?"
"That's nothing," said Miss Hawkins. "They'll marry again with the
rattle in their throats."
That tart was in the oven, and had to be remembered. Or else Aunt
Elizabeth Jane wanted to see no more of Mr. Wix. "I must be running back
to my cooking," said she. "But if this gentleman goes again to find out
Sappses, he's only got to ask for my niece at Number One, or Mrs. Wardle
at Number Seven, and he'll find Mrs. Prichard easy." She did not speak
directly to the man, and he for his part noticed her departure very
slightly, giving it a fraction of a grunt he wanted the rest of later.
Nor did Aunt Elizabeth Jane seem in a great hurry to get away when Miss
Hawkins had seen her to the door. She lingered a moment to refer to
Aunt's M'riar's talk of Widow Prichard. Certainly Mrs. Wardle at Number
Seven _she_ said nothing of any second marriage, and thought Prichard
was the name of the old lady's first husband, who had died in Van
Diemen's Land. Miss Julia paid very little attention. What business of
hers was Widow Prichard? She was much more interested in a couple of
policemen walking along the lane. Not a very common spectacle in that
retired thoroughfare! Also, instead of following on along the riverside
road it opened into, they both wheeled right-about-face and came back.
Miss Julia, taking down a shutter to reinstate The Pigeons as a tavern
open to customers, noted that the faces of these two were strange to
her. Also that they passed her with the barest good-morning,
forbiddingly. The police generally cultivate intercourse with
public-house keepers of every sort, but when one happens to be a lady
with ringlets especially so; even should her complexion be partly due to
correctives, to amalgamate a blotchiness. These officers overdid their
indifference, and it attracted Miss Julia's attention.
Aunt Elizabeth Jane thought at the time she might have mistaken what
she heard one of them say to the other. For, of course, she passed them
close. The words she heard seemed to be:--"That will be Hawkins."
Something in them rang false with her concept of the situation. But
there was the cherry-tart to be seen to, and some peas to boil. Only not
the whole lot at once for only her and Michael! As for that boy, she had
sent him off to the baker's, the minute he came back, to wait till the
bit of the best end of the neck was sure to be quite done, and bring it
away directly minute.
* * * * *
That day there was an unusually high spring-tide on the river, and
presumably elsewhere; only that did not concern Hammersmith, which
ascribed the tides to local impulses inherent in the Thames. Just after
midday the water was all but up to the necks of the piers of Hammersmith
Bridge, and the island at Chiswick was nearly submerged. Willows
standing in lakes were recording the existence of towing-paths no longer
able to speak for themselves, and the insolent plash of ripples over
wharves that had always thought themselves above that sort of thing
seemed to say:--"Thus far will I come, and a little farther for that
matter." Father Thames never quite touched the landing of the
boat-ladder, at the end of the garden at The Pigeons, but he went within
six inches of it.
"The water wasn't like you see it now, that day," said a man in the
stern of a boat that was hanging about off the garden. "All of five foot
lower down, I should figure it. _He_ didn't want no help to get up--not
he!"
"It was a tidy jump up, any way you put it," said the stroke oar.
"Well--he could have done it! But he was aiming to help his man to a
seat in the boat, not to get a lift up for himself. I've not a word to
say against Toby Ibbetson, mind you! He took an advantage some wouldn't,
maybe. And then it's how you look at it, when all's done. You know what
Daverill was wanted for?" Oh yes--both oars knew that. "I call to mind
the place--knew it well enough. Out near Waltham Abbey. Lonely sort of
spot.... Yes--the girl died. Not before she'd had time to swear to the
twist in his face. He had been seen and identified none so far off an
hour before. Quite a young girl. Father cut his throat. So would you.
Thought he ought to have seen the girl safe home. So he ought. Ain't
that our man's whistle?" The boat, slowly worked in towards The Pigeons,
lays to a few strokes off on the slack water. The tide's mandate to stop
has come. The sergeant is waiting for a second whistle to act.
Inside the tavern the woman has closed the street-door abruptly--has
given the alarm. "There's two in the lane!" she gasps. "Be sharp, Tom!"
"Through the garden?" he says. "Run out to see."
She is back almost before the door she opens has swung to. "It's all up,
Tom," she cries. "There's the boat!"
"Stand clear, Juli-ar!" he says. "I'll have a look at your roof. Needn't
say I'm at home. Where's the key?"
"I'll give it you. You go up!" She forgets something, though, in her
hurry. His pipe remains on the table where he left it smoking, lying
across the unemptied pewter. _He_ forgets it, too, though he follows her
deliberately enough. Recollection and emergency rarely shake hands.
She meets him on the stairs coming down from the room where the
paralysed man lies, hearing but little, seeing only the walls and the
ceiling. "It's on the corner of the chimney-piece," she says. "_He's_
asleep." Daverill passes her, and just as he reaches the door remembers
the pipe. It would be fatal to call out with that single knock at the
house-door below. Too late!
She still forgets that pipe, and only waits to be sure he is through, to
open the door to the knocker. By the time she does so he has found the
key and passed through the dormer door that gives on the leads. The
paralysed man has not moved. Moreover, he cannot see the short ladder
that leads to the exit. It is on his dead side.
"You've a party here that's wanted, missis. Name of Wix or Daverill. Man
about five-and-forty. Dark hair and light eyes. Side-draw on the mouth.
Goes with a lurch. Two upper front eye-teeth missing. Carries a gold
hunting-watch on a steel chain. Wears opal ring of apparent value.
Stammers slightly." So the police-officer reads from his warrant or
instructions, which he offers to show to Miss Hawkins, who scarcely
glances at it.
Who so surprised and plausible as she? Why--her father is the only man
in the house, and him on his back this fifteen years or more! What's
more, he doesn't wear an opal ring. Nor any ring at all, for that
matter! But come in and see. Look all over the house if desired. _She_
won't stand in the way.
"Our instruction is to search," says the officer. He looks like a
sub-inspector, and is evidently what a malefactor would consider a "bad
man" to have anything to do with. Miss Hawkins knows that her right of
sanctuary, if any, is a feeble claim, probably overruled by some police
regulation; and invites the officers into the house, almost too
demonstratively. Just then she suddenly recollects that pipe.
"You can find your way in, mister," she says; and goes through to the
bar. The moment she does so the officer shows alacrity.
"Keep an eye to that cellar-flap, Jacomb," he says to his mate, and
follows the lady of the house. He is only just in time. "Is that your
father's pipe?" he asks. In another moment she would have hidden it.
"Which pipe?--oh, this pipe?--_this_ pipe ain't nothing. Left stood
overnight, I suppose." And she paused to think of the best means of
getting the pipe suppressed. There was no open grate in the bar to throw
it behind. She was a poor liar, too, and was losing her head.
"Give me hold a quarter of a minute," says the officer. She cannot
refuse to give the pipe up. "Someone's had a whiff off this pipe since
closing-time last night," he continues, touching the still warm bowl;
for all this had passed very quickly. And he actually puts the pipe to
his lips, and in two or three draws works up its lingering spark. "A
good mouthful of smoke," says he, blowing it out in a cloud.
"You can look where you like," mutters the woman sullenly. "There's no
man for you. Only you won't want to disturb my father. He's only just
fell asleep."
"He'll be sleeping pretty sound after fifteen year." Thus the officer,
and the unhappy woman felt she had indeed made a complete mess of the
case. "Which is his room now, ma'am? We'll go there first."
Up the stairs and past a window looking on the garden. The day is hot
beneath the July sun, and the two men in uniform who are coming up the
so-called garden, or rather gravelled yard, behind The Pigeons, are
mopping the sweat from their brows. They might have been customers from
the river, but Miss Hawkins knows the look of them too well for that.
The house is surrounded--watched back and front. Escape is hopeless,
successful concealment the only chance.
"Been on his back like that for fifteen years, has he?" So says the
officer looking at the prostrate figure of the old man on the couch. He
is not asleep now--far from it. His mouth begins to move, uttering
jargon. His one living eye has light in it. There is something he wants
to say and struggles for in vain. "Can't make much out of that," is the
verdict of his male hearer. His daughter can say that he is asking his
visitor's name and what he wants. He can understand when spoken to, she
says. But the intruder is pointing at the door leading to the roof.
"Where does that go to?" he asks.
"Out on the tiles. I'll see for the key and let you through, if you'll
stop a minute." It is the only good bit of acting she has done. Perhaps
despair gives histrionic power. She sees a chance of deferring the
breaking-down of that door, and who knows what may hang on a few minutes
of successful delay? Before she goes she suggests again that the
paralysed man will understand what is said to him if spoke to plain.
Clearly, he who speaks plain to him will do a good-natured act.
Whether the officer's motives are Samaritan or otherwise, he takes the
hint. As the woman gets out of hearing, he says:--"You are the master of
this house, I take it?" And his hearer's crippled mouth half succeeds in
its struggle for an emphatic assent. He continues:--"In course you are.
I'm Sub-Inspector Cardwell, N Division. There's a man concealed in your
house I'm after. He's wanted.... Who is he?"--a right guess of an
unintelligible question--"You mean what name does he go by? Well--his
name's Daverill, but he's called Thornton or Wix as may be. P'r'aps you
know him, sir?" Whether or no, the name has had effect electrically on
its hearer, who struggles frantically--painfully--hopelessly for speech.
The officer says commiseratingly:--"Poor devil!--he's quite off his
jaw"; and then, going to the open window, calls out to his mates of the
river-service, below in the garden:--"Keep an eye on the roof, boys."
Then he goes out on the stair-landing. That woman is too long away--it
is out of all reason. As he passes the paralytic man, he notes that he
seems to be struggling violently for something--either to speak or to
rise. He cannot tell which, and he does best to hasten the return of the
woman who can.
Out on the landing, Miss Hawkins, who has not been looking for keys, but
supplying her first Sunday customers in their own jugs, protests that
she has fairly turned the house over in her key-hunt--all in vain! Her
interest seems vivid that these police shall not be kept off her roof.
She suggests that a builder's yard in the Kew Road will furnish a ladder
long enough to reach the roof. "Shut on Sunday!" says Sub-Inspector
Cardwell conclusively. Then let someone who knows how be summoned to
pick the lock. By all means, if such a person is at hand. But no trade
will come out Sunday, except the turn-cock, obviously useless. That is
the verdict. "You'll never be for breaking down the door, Mr. Inspector,
with my father there ill in the room!"--is the woman's appeal. "Not till
we've looked everywhere else," is the reply. "I'll say that much. I'll
see through the cupboards in the room, though. _That_ won't hurt him."
Little did either of them anticipate what met their eyes as the door
opened. There on the couch, no longer on his back, but sitting up and
gasping for clearer speech, which he seemed to have achieved in part,
was the paralysis-stricken man. The left hand, powerless no longer, was
still uncertain of its purpose, and wavered in its ill-directed motion;
the right, needed to raise him from his pillow, grasped the level
moulding of the couch-back. Its fingers still showed a better colour
than those of its fellow, which trembled and closed and reopened, as
though to make trial of their new-found power. His eyes were fixed on
this hand rather than on his daughter or the stranger. His knees jerked
against the light bondage of a close dressing-gown, and his right foot
was striving to lift or help the other down to the floor. Probably life
was slower to return to it than to the hand, as the blood returns
soonest to the finger-tips after frost. Only the face was quite
changed from its seeming of but ten minutes back. The voice choked
and stammered still, but speech came in the end, breaking out with a
shout-burst:--"Stop--stop--stop!"
"Easy so--easy so!" says the police-officer, as the woman gives way to a
fit of hysterical crying, more the breaking-point of nerve-tension than
either joy or pain. "Easy so, master!--easy does it. Don't you be
frightened. Plenty of time and to spare!"
The old man gets his foot to the floor, and his daughter, under no
impulse of reason--mere nerve-paroxysm--runs to his side crying
out:--"No, dear father! No, dear father! Lie down--lie down!" She is
trying to force him back to his pillow, while he chokes out something he
finds it harder to say than "Stop--stop!" which still comes at
intervals.
"I should make it easy for him, Miss Hawkins, if I was in your place.
Let the old gentleman please himself." Thus the officer, whose
sedateness of manner acts beneficially. She accepts the suggestion,
standing back from her father with a stupid, bewildered gaze, between
him and the exit to the roof. "Give him time," says Sub-Inspector
Cardwell.
He takes the time, and his speech dies down. But he can move that hand
better now--may make its action serve for speech. Slowly he raises it
and points--points straight at his daughter. He wants her help--is that
it? She thinks so, but when she acts on the impulse he repels her,
feebly shouting out: "No--no--no!"
"Come out from between him and the clock, missis," says the officer,
thinking he has caught a word right, and that a clock near the door is
what the old man points at. "He thinks it's six o'clock."
But the word was not _six_. The daughter moves aside, and yet the finger
points. "It's nowhere near six, father dear!" she says. "Not one o'clock
yet!" But still the finger points. And now a wave of clearer
articulation overcomes a sibilant that has been the worst enemy of
speech, and leaves the tongue free. "Wix!" That's the word.
"Got it!" exclaims the officer, and the woman with a shriek falls
insensible. He takes little notice of her, but whistles for his mate
below--a peculiar whistle. It brings the man who was keeping watch in
the lane. "Got him all right," says his principal. "Out here on the
tiles. That's your meaning, I take it, Mr. Hawkins?" The old man nods
repeatedly. "And he's took the key out with him and locked to the door.
That's it, is it?" More nods, and then the officer mounts the short
ladder and knocks hard upon the door. He speaks to the silence on the
other side. "You've been seen, Mr. Wix. It's a pity to spoil a good
lock. You've got the key. We can wait a bit. Don't hurry!"
Footsteps on the roof, and a shout from the garden below! He is seen
now--no doubt of it--whatever he was before. What is that they are
calling from the garden? "He's got a loose tile. Look out!"
"Don't give him a chance to aim with it," says Jacomb below to his chief
on the ladder. Who replies:--"He's bound to get half a chance. Keep your
eyes open!" A thing to be done, certainly, with that key sounding in the
lock.
The officer Cardwell only waited to hear it turn to throw his full
weight on the door, which opened outwards. He scarcely waited for the
back-click to show that the door, which had no hasp or clutch beyond the
key-service, was free on its hinges. Nevertheless, he was not so quick
but that the man beyond was quicker, springing back sharp on the turn of
his own hand. Cardwell stumbled as the door gave, unexpectedly easily,
and nearly fell his length on the leads.
Jacomb, on the second rung of the step-ladder, feels the wind of a
missile that all but touches his head. He does not look round to see
what it strikes, but he hears a cry; man or woman, or both. In front of
him is his principal, on his legs again, grasping the wrist of the right
hand that threw the tile, while his own is on its owner's throat.
"All right--all right!" says Mr. Wix. "You can stow it now. I could have
given you that tile under your left ear. But the right man's got the
benefit. You may just as well keep the snitchers for when I'm down.
There's no such * * * hurry." Nevertheless, the eyes of both officers
are keen upon him as he descends the ladder under sufferance.
On the floor below, beside the bed he lay on through so many weary
years, lies Miss Julia's old father, stunned or dead. Her own
insensibility has passed, but has left her in bewilderment, dizzy and
confused, as she kneels over him and tries for a sign of life in vain.
At the ladder-foot the officers have fitted their prisoner with
handcuffs; and then Cardwell, leaving him, goes to lift the old man back
to his couch. But first he calls from the window:--"Got him all right!
Fetch the nearest doctor."
Through the short interval between this and Daverill's removal, words
came from him which may bring the story home or explain it if events
have not done so already. "The old * * * has got his allowance. _He_
won't ask for no more. Who was he, to be meddling? You was old enough in
all conscience, July-ar!" His pronunciation of her name has a hint of a
sneer in it--a sneer at the woman he victimised, some time in the
interval between his desertion of his wife and his final error of
judgment--dabbling in burglary. She might have been spared insult; for
whatever her other faults were, want of affection for her betrayer was
not among them, or she would not have run the risks of concealing him
from the police.
Her paralytic father's sudden reanimation under stress of excitement
was, of course, an exceptionally well-marked instance of a phenomenon
well enough known to pathologists. It had come within his power to
avenge the wrong done to his daughter, and never forgiven by him.
Whether the officers would have broken down the door, if he had not
seized his opportunity, may be uncertain, but there can be no doubt that
the operative cause of Daverill's capture was his recovery of vital
force under the stimulus of excitement at the amazing chance offered him
of bringing it about.
The affair made so little noise that only a very few Sunday loiterers
witnessed what was visible of it in the lane, which was indeed little
more than the unusual presence of two policemen. Then, after a surgeon
had been found and had attended to the injured man, it leaked out that a
malefactor had been apprehended at The Pigeons and taken away in the
police-boat to the Station lower down the river.
That singular couple, Michael Ragstroar and his great-aunt, had got to
the cherry-tart before a passing neighbour, looking in at their window,
acquainted them what had happened. If after Michael come from the
bake-'us with the meat, which kep' hot stood under its cover in the sun
all of five minutes and no one any the worse, while the old lady boiled
a potato--if Michael had not been preoccupied with a puppy in this
interim, he might easy have seen the culprit took away in the boat. He
regretted his loss; but his aunt, from whom we borrow a word now and
then, pointed out to him that we must not expect everything in this
world. Also the many blessings that had been vouchsafed to him by a
Creator who had his best interests at heart. Had he not vouchsafed him a
puppy?--on lease certainly; but he would find that puppy here next time
he visited Hammersmith, possibly firmer in his gait and nothing like so
round over the stomach. And there was the cherry-tart, and the crust had
rose beautiful.
Michael got home very late, and was professionally engaged all the week
with his father. He saw town, but nothing of his neighbours, returning
always towards midnight intensely ready for bed. By the time he chanced
across our friend Dave on the following Saturday, other scenes of London
Life had obscured his memory of that interview at The Pigeons and its
sequel. So, as it happened, Sapps Court heard nothing about either.
The death of Miss Hawkins's father, a month later, did not add a
contemptible manslaughter to Thornton Daverill's black list of crimes.
For the surgeon who attended him--while admitting to her privately that,
of course, it was the blow on the temple that brought about the cause of
death--denied that it was itself the cause; a nice distinction. But it
seemed needless to add to the score of a criminal with enough to his
credit to hang him twice over; especially when an Inquest could be
avoided by accommodation with Medical Jurisprudence. So the surgeon, at
the earnest request of the dead man's daughter, made out a certificate
of death from something that sounded plausible, and might just as well
have been cessation of life. It was nobody's business to criticize it,
and nobody did.
CHAPTER XV
THE BEER AT THE KING'S ARMS. HOW UNCLE MO READ THE _STAR_, LIKE A
CHALDEAN, AND BROKE HIS SPECTACLES. HOW THE _STAR_ TOLD OF A
CONVICT'S ESCAPE FROM A JUG. HOW AUNT M'RIAR OVERHEARD THE NAME
"DAVERILL," AND WAS QUITE UPSET-LIKE. HER DEGREES AND DATES OF
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS MAN AND HIS ANTECEDENTS. UNCLE MO'S
IGNORANCE ABOUT HERS. HOW SHE DID NOT GIVE THE _STAR_ TO MRS. BURR
INTACT
The unwelcome visitor who, in the phrase of Uncle Mo, had made Sapps
Court stink--a thing outside the experience of its inhabitants--bade
fair to be forgotten altogether. Michael, the only connecting link
between the two, had all memory of the Hammersmith arrest quite knocked
out of his head a few days later by a greater incident--his father
having been arrested and fined for an assault on a competitor in
business, with an empty sack. It was entirely owing to the quality of
the beer at the King's Arms that Mr. Rackstraw lost his temper.
But Daverill's corruption of the Court's pure air was not destined to
oblivion. It was revived by the merest accident; the merest, that is, up
to that date. There have been many merer ones since, unless the phrase
has been incorrectly used in recent literature.
One day in July, when Uncle Moses was enjoying his afternoon pipe with
his old friend Affability Bob, or Jerry Alibone, and reading one of the
new penny papers--it was the one called the _Morning Star_, now no
more--he let his spectacles fall when polishing them; and, rashly
searching for them, broke both glasses past all redemption. He was much
annoyed, seeing that he was in the middle of a sensational account of
the escape of a prisoner from Coldbath Fields house of detention; a gaol
commonly known the "The Jug." It was a daring business, and Uncle Mo had
just been at the full of his enjoyment of it when the accident happened.
"Have you never another pair, Mo?" said Mr. Alibone. And Uncle Mo called
out to Aunt M'riar:--"M'riar!--just take a look round and see for them
old glasses upstairs. I've stood down on mine, and as good as spiled
'em. Look alive!" For, you see, he was all on end to know how this
prisoner, who had been put in irons for violence, and somehow got free
and overpowered a gaoler who came alone into his cell, had contrived his
final escape from the prison.
Mr. Alibone was always ready to deserve his name of Affability Bob.
"Give me hold of the paper, Mo," said he. "Where was you?... Oh
yes--here we are!... 'almost unparalleled audacity.' ... I'll go on
there." For Uncle Mo had read some aloud, and Mr. Alibone he wanted to
know too, to say the truth. And he really was a lot better scollard than
Mo--when it came to readin' out loud--and tackled "unparalleled" as if
it was just nothing at all; it being the word that brought Moses up
short; and, indeed, Aunt M'riar, whom we quote, had heard him wrestling
with it through the door, and considered it responsible for the
accident. Anyhow, Mr. Jerry was equal to it, and read the remainder of
the paragraph so you could hear every word.
"What I don't make out," said Uncle Mo, "is why he didn't try the same
game without getting the leg-irons on him. He hadn't any call to be
violent--that I see--barring ill-temper."
"That was all part of the game, Mo. Don't you see the game? It was
putting reliance on the irons led to this here warder making so free.
You go to the Zoarlogical Gardens in the Regency Park, and see if the
keeper likes walking into the den when the Bengal tiger's loose in it.
These chaps get like that, and they have to get the clinkers on 'em."
"Don't quite take your idear, Jerry. Wrap it up new."
"Don't you _see_, old Mo? He shammed savage to get the irons on his
legs, knowing how he might come by a file--which I don't, and it hasn't
come out, that I see. Then he spends the inside o' the night getting
through 'em, and rigs himself up like a picter, just so as if they was
on. So the officer was took in, with him going on like a lamb. Then up
he jumps and smashes his man's skull--makes no compliments about it, you
see. Then he closes to the door and locks it to enjoy a little leisure.
And then he changes their sootes of cloze across, and out he walks for
change of air. And he's got it!"
Uncle Mo reflected and said:--"P'r'aps!" Then Aunt M'riar, who had
hunted up the glasses without waking the children, reappeared, bringing
them; and Uncle Mo found they wouldn't do, and only prevented his seeing
anything at all. So he was bound to have a new pair and pay by the week.
A cheap pair, that would see him out, come to threepence a week for
three months.
The discovery of this painful fact threw the escaped prisoner into the
shade, and the _Morning Star_ would have been lost sight of--because it
was only Monday's paper, after all!--unless Aunt M'riar she'd put it by
for upstairs to have their turn of it, and Mrs. Burr could always read
some aloud to Mrs. Prichard, failing studious energy on the part of the
old lady. She reproduced it in compliance with the current of events.
For Uncle Moses, settling down to a fresh pipe after supper, said to his
friend, similarly occupied:--"What, now, was the name of that
charackter--him as got out at the Jug?"
"Something like Mackerel," said Mr. Alibone.
"Wrong you are, for once, Jerry! 'Twarn't no more Mackerel than it was
Camberwell."
Said Mr. Jerry:--"Take an even tizzy on it, Mo?" He twisted the paper
about to recover the paragraph, and found it. "Here we are! 'Ralph
Daverill, _alias_ Thornton, _alias_ Wix, _alias_!' ..."
"Never mind his ale-houses, Jerry. That's the name I'm consarned
with--Daverill.... What's the matter with M'riar?"
Uncle Mo had not finished his sentence owing to an interruption. For
Aunt M'riar, replacing some table-gear she was shifting, had sat down
suddenly on the nearest chair.
"Never you mind me, you two. Just you go on talking." So said Aunt
M'riar. Only she looked that scared it might have been a ghost. So Mrs.
Burr said after, who came in that very minute from a prolonged trying
on.
"Take a little something, M'riar," said Uncle Mo. He got up and went to
the cupboard close at hand, to get the something, which would almost
certainly have taken the form of brandy. But Aunt M'riar she said never
mind _her_!--she would be all right in a minute. And in a metaphorical
minute she pulled herself together, and went on clearing off the
supper-table. Suggestions of remedies or assistance seemed alike
distasteful to her, whether from Mrs. Burr or the two men, and there was
no doubt she was in earnest in preferring to be left to herself. So Mrs.
Burr she went up to her own supper, with thanks in advance for the
newspaper when quite done with, according to the previous intention of
Aunt M'riar.
The two smokers picked life up at the point of interruption, while Aunt
M'riar made a finish of her operations in the kitchen. Uncle Mo
said:--"Good job for you I didn't take your wager, Jerry. Camberwell
isn't in it. Mackerel goes near enough to landing--as near as Davenant,
which is what young Carrots called him."
This was the case--for Michael, though he had been silent at the time
about the Inquest, had been unable to resist the temptation to correct
Uncle Moses when the old boy asked: "_Wot_ did he say was the blooming
name of the party he was after--Daverill--Daffodil?" His answer
was:--"No it warn't! Davenant was what _he_ said." His acumen had gone
the length of perceiving in the stranger's name a resemblance to the
version of it heard more plainly in the Court at Hammersmith. This
correction had gratified and augmented his secret sense of importance,
without leading to any inquiries. Uncle Mo accepted Davenant as more
intrinsically probable than Daffodil or Daverill, and forgot both names
promptly. For a subsequent mention of him as Devilskin, when he referred
to the incident later in the day, can scarcely be set down to a
recollection of the name. It was quite as much an appreciation of the
owner.
"But what's your consarn with any of 'em, Mo?" said Mr. Jerry.
Uncle Moses took his pipe out of his mouth to say, almost
oratorically:--"Don't you _re_-member, Jerry, me telling you--Sunday six
weeks it was--about a loafing wagabond who came into this Court to hunt
up a widder named Daverill or Daffodil, or some such a name?" Uncle
Moses paused a moment. A plate had fallen in the kitchen. Nothing was
broke, Aunt M'riar testified, and closed the door. Uncle Mo
continued:--"I told you Davenant, because of young Radishes. But I'll
pound it I was right and he was wrong. Don't you call to mind,
Jeremiah?" For Uncle Mo often addressed his friend thus, for a greater
impressiveness. Jeremiah recalled the incident on reflection. "There you
are, you see," continued Uncle Mo. "Now you bear in mind what I tell
you, sir;"--this mode of address was also to gain force--"He's him! That
man's _him_--the very identical beggar! And this widder woman he was for
hunting up, she's his mother or his aunt."
"Or his sister--no!--sister-in-law."
"Not if she's a widder's usual age, Jerry." Uncle Mo always figured to
himself sisters, and even sisters-in-law, as essentially short of middle
life. You may remember also his peculiar view that married twins could
not survive their husbands.
"What sort of man did you make him out to be, Mo?"
"A bad sort in a turn-up with no rules. Might be handy with a knife on
occasion. Foxy sort of wiper!"
"Not your sort, Mo?"
"Too much ill-will about him. Some of the Fancy may have run into bad
feeling in my time, but mostly when they shook hands inside the ropes
they meant it. How's yourself, M'riar?" Here Aunt M'riar came in after
washing up, having apparently overheard none of the conversation.
"I'm nicely, Mo, thankee! Have you done with the paper, Mr. Alibone?...
Thanks--I'll give it to 'em upstairs.... Oh yes! I'm to rights. It was
nothing but a swimming in the head! Goodnight!" And off went Aunt
M'riar, leaving the friends to begin and end about two more pipes; to
talk over bygones of the Ring and the Turf, and to part after midnight.
* * * * *
Observe, please, that until Mr. Jerry read aloud from the _Star_ Mr.
Wix's _aliases_, Aunt M'riar had had no report of this escaped convict,
except under the name of Davenant; and, indeed, very little under that,
because Uncle Mo, in narrating to her the man's visit to Sapps Court,
though he gave the name of his inquiry as Davenant, spoke of the man
himself almost exclusively as Devilskin. And really she had paid very
little attention to the story, or the names given. At the time of the
man's appearance in the Court nothing transpired to make her associate
him with any past experience of her own. He was talked about at dinner
on that Sunday certainly; but then, consider the responsibilities of the
carving and distribution of that shoulder of mutton.
Aunt M'riar did not give the newspaper to Mrs. Burr, to read to Mrs.
Prichard, till next day. Perhaps it was too late, at near eleven
o'clock. When she did, it was with a reservation. Said she to Mrs.
Burr:--"You won't mind losing the bit I cut out, just to keep for the
address?--the cheapest shoes I ever did!--and an easy walk just out of
Oxford Street." She added that Dave was very badly off in this respect.
But she said nothing about what was on the other side of the shoe-shop
advertisement. Was she bound to do so? Surely one side of a
newspaper-cutting justifies the scissors. If Aunt M'riar could want one
side, ever so little, was she under any obligation to know anything
about the other side?
Anyhow, the result was that old Mrs. Prichard lost this opportunity of
knowing that her son was at large. And even if the paragraph had not
been removed, its small type might have kept her old eyes at bay.
Indeed, Mrs. Burr's testimony went to show that the old lady's
inspection of the paper scarcely amounted to solid perusal. Said she,
accepting the _Star_ from Aunt M'riar next morning, apropos of the
withdrawn paragraph: "That won't be any denial to Mrs. Prichard, ma'am.
There's a-many always wants to read the bit that's tore off, showin' a
contradictious temper like. But she ain't that sort, being more by way
of looking at the paper than studying of its contents." Mrs. Burr then
preached a short homily on the waste of time involved in a close
analysis of the daily press, such as would enable the reader to
discriminate between each day's issue and the next. For her part the
news ran similar one day with another, without, however, blunting her
interest in human affairs. She imputed an analogous attitude of mind to
old Mrs. Prichard, the easier of maintenance that the old lady's failing
sight left more interpretations of the text open to her imagination.
Mrs. Burr, moreover, went on to say that Mrs. Prichard had been that
upset by hearing about the builders, that she wasn't herself. This odd
result could not but interfere with the reading of even the lightest
literature. Its cause calls for explanation. Circumstances had arisen
which, had they occurred in the wintertime, would have been a serious
embarrassment to the attic tenants in Sapps Court. As it chanced, the
weather was warm and dry; otherwise old Mrs. Prichard and Mrs. Burr
would just have had to turn out, to allow the builder in, to attend to
the front wall. For there was no doubt that it was bulging and ought to
have been seen to, aeons ago. And it was some days since the landlord's
attention had been called, and Bartletts the builders had waked all the
dwellers in Sapps Court who still slept at six o'clock, by taking out a
half a brick or two to make a bearing for as many putlogs--pronounced
pudlocks--as were needed for a little bit of scaffold. For there was
more than you could do off a ladder, if you was God A'mighty Himself.
Thus Mr. Bartlett, and Aunt M'riar condemned his impiety freely. Before
the children! Closely examined, his speech was reverential, and an
acknowledgment of the powers of the Constructor of the Universe as
against the octave-stretch forlorn of our limitations. But it was
Anthropomorphism, no doubt.
CHAPTER XVI
OF LONDON BUILDERS, AND THEIR GREAT SKILL. OF THE HUMILIATING
POSITION OF A SHAMEFACED BAT. HOW MR. BARTLETT MADE ALL GOOD. A
PEEP INTO MRS. PRICHARD'S MIND, LEFT ALONE WITH HER PAST. MR.
BARTLETT'S TRUCK, AND DAVE WARDLE'S ANNEXATION OF IT. MRS.
TAPPING'S IMPRESSIONABILITY. AN ITALIAN MUSICIAN'S MONKEY. A CLEAN
FINISH. THE BULL AND THE DUCKPOND. OF MRS. PRICHARD'S JEALOUSY OF
MRS. MARROWBONE. CANON LAW. HOW DAVE DESCRIBED HER RIVAL. HER
SISTER PHOEBE. BUT--WHY DAVERILL, OF ALL NAMES IN THE WORLD?
FOURPENNYWORTH OF CRUMPETS
If you have ever given attention to buildings in the course of erection
in London, you must have been struck with their marvellous stability.
The mere fact that they should remain standing for five minutes after
the removal of the scaffold must have seemed to you to reflect credit on
the skill of the builder; but that they should do so for a
lifetime--even for a century!--a thing absolutely incredible. Especially
you must have been impressed by the nine-inch wall, in which every other
course at least consists of bats and closures. You will have marvelled
that so large a percentage of bricks can appear to have been delivered
broken; but this you would have been able to account for had you watched
the builder at work, noting his vicious practice of halving a sound
brick whenever he wants a bat. It is an instinct, deep-rooted in
bricklayers, against which unprofessional remonstrance is useless--an
instinct that he fights against with difficulty whenever popular
prejudice calls for full bricks on the face. So when the wall is not to
be rendered in compo or plaster, he just shoves a few in, on the courses
of stretchers, leaving every course of headers to a lifetime of
effrontery. What does it matter to him? But it must be most painful to a
conscientious bat to be taken for a full brick by every passer-by, and
to be unable to contradict it.
Now the real reason why the top wall of No. 7, Sapps Court was bulging
was one that never could surprise anyone conversant to this extent with
nine-inch walls. For there is a weakest point in every such wall, where
the plate is laid to receive the joists, or jystes; which may be
pronounced either way, but should always be nine-inch. For if they are
six-inch you have to shove 'em in nearer together, and that weakens
your wall, put it how you may. You work it out and see if it don't come
out so. So said the builder, Mr. Bartlett, at No. 7, Sapps Court, when
having laid bare the ends of the top-floor joists in Mrs. Prichard's
front attic it turned out just like he said it would--six-inch jystes
with no hold to 'em, and onto that all perished at the ends! Why ever
they couldn't go to a new floor when they done the new roof Mr. Bartlett
could not conceive. They had not, and what was worse they had carried up
the wall on the top of the old brickwork, adding to the dead weight; and
it only fit to pull down, as you might say.
However, the weather was fine and warm all the time Mr. Bartlett rebuilt
two foot of wall by sections; which he did careful, a bit at a time. And
all along, till they took away the scaffolding and made good them two or
three pudlock-holes off of a ladder, they was no annoyance at all to
Mrs. Prichard, nor yet to Mrs. Burr, excepting a little of that sort of
flaviour that goes with old brickwork, and a little of another that
comes with new, and a bit of plasterers' work inside to make good.
Testimony was current in and about the house to this effect, and may be
given broadly in the terms in which it reached Uncle Moses. His comment
was that the building trade was a bad lot, mostly; you had only to take
your eye off it half a minute, and it was round at the nearest bar
trying the four-half. Mr. Jerry's experience had been the same.
Mrs. Burr was out all day, most of the time; so it didn't matter to her.
But it was another thing for the old woman, sometimes alone for hours
together; alone with her past. At such times her sleeping or waking
dreams mixed with the talk of the bricklayers outside, or the sound of a
piano from one of the superior houses that back-wall screened the Court
from--though they had no call to give theirselves airs that the Court
could see--a piano on which talent was playing scales with both hands,
but which wanted tuning. Old Mrs. Prichard was not sensitive about a
little discord now and again. As she sat there alone, knitting worsteds
or dozing, it brought back old times to her, before her troubles began.
She and her sister could both play easy tunes, such as the "Harmonious
Blacksmith" and the "Evening Hymn," on the square piano she still
remembered so well at the Mill. And this modern piano--heard through
open windows in the warm summer air, and mixing with the
indistinguishable sounds of distant traffic--had something of the effect
of that instrument of seventy years ago, breaking the steady monotone of
rushing waters under the wheel that scarcely ever paused, except on
Sunday. What had become of the old square piano she and Phoebe learned
to play scales on? What becomes of all the old furnishings of the rooms
of our childhood? Did any man ever identify the bed he slept in, the
table he ate at, half a century ago, in the chance-medley of
second-hand--third-hand--furniture his father's insolvency or his own
consigned it to? Would she know the old square piano again now, with all
its resonances dead--a poor, faint jargon only in some few scattered
wires, far apart? Yes--she would know it among a hundred, by the inlaid
bay-leaves on the lid that you could lift up to look inside. But that
was accounted lawless, and forbidden by authority.
She dreamed herself back into the old time, and could see it all. The
sound of the piano became mixed, as she sat half dozing, with the smell
of the lilies of the valley which--according to a pleasing fiction of
Dolly Wardle--that little person's doll had brought upstairs for her,
keeping wide awake until she see 'em safe on the table in a mug. But the
sound and the smell were of the essence of the mill, and were sweet to
the old heart that was dying slowly down--would soon die outright. Both
merged in a real dream with her sister's voice in it, saying
inexplicably: "In the pocket of your shot silk, dear." Then she woke
with a start, sorry to lose the dream; specially annoyed that she had
not heard what the carman--outside with her father--had begun to say
about the thing Phoebe was speaking of. She forgot what that was, and it
was very stupid of her.
That was Mr. Bartlett outside, laying bricks; not the carman at all.
What was that he was saying?
"B'longed to a Punch's show, he did. Couldn't stand it no longer, he
couldn't. The tune it got on his narves, it did! If it hadn't 'a been
for a sort o' reel ease he got takin' of it quick and slow--like the
Hoarperer--he'd have gave in afore; so there was no pretence. It's all
werry fine to say temp'ry insanity, but I tell you it's the contrairy
when a beggar comes to his senses and drownds hisself. Wot'd the Pope do
if he had to play the same tune over and over and over and over?...
Mortar, John! And 'and me up a nice clean cutter. That's your quorlity,
my son." And the Court rang musically to the destruction of a good
brick.
John--who was only Mr. Bartlett's son for purposes of rhetoric--slapped
his cold unwholesome mortar-pudding with a spade; and ceded an
instalment, presumably. Then his voice came: "Wot didn't he start on a
new toon for, for a wariation?"
Mr. Bartlett was doing something very nice and exact with the
three-quarter he had just evolved, so his reply came in fragments as
from a mind preoccupied. "Tried it on he had--that game--more times
than once.... But the boys they took it up, and aimed stones.... And the
public kep' its money in its pocket--not to encourage noo Frenchified
notions--not like when they was a boy. So the poor beggar had to jump in
off of the end of Southend Pier, and go out with the tide." He added, as
essential, that Southend Pier was better than two mile long; so there
was water to drownd a man when the tide was in.
The attention of very old people may be caught by a familiar word,
though such talk as this ripples by unheeded. The sad tale of the
Punch's showman--the exoteric one, evidently--roused no response in the
mind of old Mrs. Prichard, until it ended with the tragedy at Southend.
The name brought back that terrible early experience of the sailing of
the convict-ship--of her despairing effort at a farewell to be somehow
heard or seen by the man whom she almost thought of as in a grave,
buried alive! She was back again in the boat in the Medway, keeping the
black spot ahead in view--the accursed galley that was bearing away her
life, her very life; the man no sin could change from what he was to
her; the treasure of her being. She could hear again the monotonous beat
of her rowers' pair of oars, ill-matched against the four sweeps of the
convicts, ever gaining--gaining....
Surely she would be too late for that last chance, that seemed to her
the one thing left to live for. And then the upspringing of that blessed
breeze off the land that saved it for her. She could recall her terror
lest the flagging of their speed for the hoisting of the sail should
undo them; the reassuring voice of a hopeful boatman--"You be easy,
missis; we'll catch 'em up!"--the less confident one of his mate--"Have
a try at it, anyhow!" Then her joy when the sail filled and the plashing
of her way spoke Hope beneath her bulwark as she caught the wind. Then
her dread that the Devil's craft ahead would make sail too, and
overreach them after all, and the blessing in her heart for her hopeful
oarsman, whose view was that the officer in charge would not spare his
convicts any work he could inflict. "He'll see to it they arn their
breaffastis, missis. _He_ ain't going to unlock their wristis off of the
oars for to catch a ha'porth o' blow. You may put your money on him for
that." And then the sweet ship upon the water, and her last sight of the
man she loved as he was dragged aboard into the Hell within--scarcely a
man now--only "213 M"!
Then the long hours that followed, there in the open boat beneath the
sun, whose setting found her still gazing in her dumb despair on what
was to be his floating home for months. Such a home! Scraps of her own
men's talk were with her still--the names of passing craft--the
discontent in the fleet--the names of landmarks on either coast. Among
these Southend--the word that caught her ear and set her a-thinking. But
there was no pier two miles long there then. She was sure of that.
What was it Mr. Bartlett was talking about now? A grievance this time!
But grievances are the breath of life to the Human Race. The source of
this one seemed to be Sapps proprietor, who was responsible for the
restrictions on Mr. Bartlett's enthusiasm, which might else have pulled
the house down and rebuilt it. "Wot couldn't he do like I told him
for?"--thus ran the indictment--"Goard A'mighty don't know, nor yet
anybody else! Why--_he_ don't know, hisself! I says to him, I says, just
you clear out them lodgers, I says, and give me the run of the premises,
I says, and it shan't cost you a fi'-pun note more in the end, I says.
Then if he don't go and tie me down to a price for to make good front
wall and all dy-lapidations. And onlest he says wot he means by good,
who's to know?... Mortar, John!" John supplied mortar with a slamp--a
sound like the fall of a pasty Titan on loose boards. The grievance was
resumed, but with a consolation. "Got 'im there, accordin' as I think of
it! Wot's his idear of _good?_--that's wot _I_ want to know. Things is
as you see 'em...." Mr. Bartlett would have said the _esse_ of things
was _percipi,_ had he been a Philosopher, and would have felt as if he
knew something. Not being one, he subsided--with truisms--into silence,
content with the weakness of Sapps owner's entrenchments.
Mr. Bartlett completed his contract, according to his interpretation of
the word "good"; and it seems to have passed muster, and been settled
for on the nail. Which meant, in this case, as soon as a surveyor had
condemned it on inspection, and accepted a guinea from Mr. Bartlett to
overlook its shortcomings; two operations which, taken jointly,
constituted a survey, and were paid for on another nail later. The new
bit of brickwork didn't look any so bad, to the eye of impartiality, now
it was pointed up; only it would have looked a lot better--mind you!--if
Mr. Bartlett had been allowed to do a bit more pointing up on the
surrounding brickwork afore he struck his scaffold. But Sapps landlord
was a narrer-minded party--a Conservative party--who wouldn't go to a
sixpence more than he was drove, though an economy in the long-run. The
remarks of the Court and its friends are embodied in these statements,
made after Mr. Bartlett had got his traps away on a truck, which
couldn't come down the Court by reason of the jam. It was, however, a
source of satisfaction to Dave Wardle, whose friends climbed into it
while he sat on the handle, outweighing him and lifting him into the
air. Only, of course, this joy lasted no longer than till they started
loading of it up.
It lasted long enough, for all that, to give quite a turn to Mrs.
Tapping, whom you may remember as a witness of Dave's accident--the bad
one--nine months ago. Ever since then--if Mrs. Riley, to whom she
addressed her remarks, would believe her--Mrs. Tapping's heart had been
in her mouth whenever she had lighted her eye on young children
a-playing in the gutters. As children were plentiful, and preferred
playing wherever the chances of being run over seemed greatest, this
must have been a tax on Mrs. Tapping's constitution. She had, however,
borne up wonderfully, showing no sign of loss of flesh; nor could her
flowing hair have been thinned--to judge by the tubular curls that
flanked her brows, which were neither blinkers nor cornucopias
precisely; but which, opened like a scroll, would have resembled the
one; and, spirally prolonged, the other. It was the careful culture of
these which distracted the nose of Mrs. Tapping's _monde_, preoccupied
by a flavour of chandled tallow, to a halo of pomatum. Mrs. Riley was
also unchanged; she, however, had no alarming cardiac symptoms to
record.
But as to that turn Dave Wardle giv' Mrs. Tapping. It really sent your
flesh through your bones, all on edge like, to see a child fly up in the
air like that. So she testified, embellishing her other physiological
experience with a new horror unknown to Pathologists. Mrs. Riley, less
impressionable, kept an even mind in view of the natural invulnerability
of childhood and the special guardianship of Divine Omnipotence. If
these two between them could not secure small boys of seven or eight
from disaster, what could? The unbiassed observer--if he had been
passing at the time--might have thought that Dave's chubby but vigorous
handgrip and his legs curled tight round the truck-handle were the
immediate and visible reasons why he was not shot across the truck into
space. Anyhow, he held on quite tight, shouting loudly the next item of
the programme--"Now all the other boys to jump out when oy comes to
free. One, two, _free_!" In view of the risk of broken bones the other
boys were prompt, and Dave came down triumphantly. Mrs. Riley's
confidence had been well founded.
"Ye'll always be too thinder-harruted about the young spalpeens, me
dyurr," she said. "Thrust them to kape their skins safe! Was not me son
Phalim all as bad or wurruss. And now to say his family of childher!"
Mrs. Tapping perceived her opportunity, and jumped at it. "That is the
truth, ma'am, what you say, and calls to mind the very words my poor
husband used frequent. So frequent, you might say, that as often as not
they was never out of his mouth. 'Mary Ann Tapping, you are too
tender-hearted for to carry on at all; bein', as we are, subjick.' And I
says back to him: 'Tapping'--I says--'no more than my duty as a
Christian woman should. Read your Bible and you will find,' I says. And
Tapping he would say:--'Right you are, Mary Ann, and viewin' all things
as a Gospel dispensation. But what I look at, Mary Ann'--he says--'is
the effect on your system. You are that 'igh-strung and delicate
organized that what is no account to an 'arder fibre tells. So bear in
mind what I say, Mary Ann Tapping'--he says--'and crost across the way
like the Good Samaritan, keepin' in view that nowadays whatever we are
we are no longer Heathens, and cases receive attention from properly
constitooted Authorities, or are took in at the Infirmary.' Referring,
Mrs. Riley, ma'am, to an Italian organ-boy bit by his own monkey, which
though small was vicious, and open to suspicion of poison...." Mrs.
Tapping dwelt upon her past experience and her meritorious attitude in
trying circumstances, for some time. As, in this instance, she had
offered refreshment to the victim, which had been requisitioned by his
monkey, who escaped and gave way to his appetite on the top of a
street-lamp, but was recaptured when the lamplighter came with his
ladder.
"Shure there'll be nothing lift of the barrow soon barring the bare
fragmints of it," said Mrs. Riley, who had been giving more attention to
the boys and the truck than to the Italian and the monkey. And really
the repetition of the pleasing performance with the handle pointed to
gradual disintegration of Mr. Bartlett's property.
However, salvage was at hand. A herald of Mr. Bartlett himself, or of
his representatives, protruded slowly from Sapps archway, announcing
that his scaffold-poles were going back to the sphere from which they
had emanated on hire. It came slowly, and gave a margin for a stampede
of Dave and his accomplices, leaving the truck very much aslant with the
handle in the air; whereas we all know that a respectable hand-barrer,
that has trusted its owner out of sight, awaits his return with the
quiet confidence of horizontality; or at least with the handle on the
ground. Mr. Bartlett's comment was that nowadays it warn't safe to take
one's eyes off of anything for half-a-quarter of a minute, and there
would have to be something done about it. He who analyses this remark
may find it hard to account for its having been so intelligible at first
hearing.
But Mrs. Tapping and Mrs. Riley--who were present--were not analytical,
and when Mr. Bartlett inquired suspiciously if any of them boys belonged
to either of you ladies, one of the latter replied with a
counter-inquiry:--"What harrum have the young boys done ye, thin,
misther? Shure it's been a playzin' little enjoyment forr thim afther
school-hours!" Which revealed the worst part of Mr. Bartlett's character
and his satellite John's, a sullen spirit of revenge, more marked
perhaps in the man than in the master; for while the former merely
referred to the fact that he would know them again if he saw them, and
would then give them something to recollect him by, the latter said he
would half-skin some of 'em alive if he could just lay hands on 'em. But
the subject dropped, and Mr. Bartlett loaded up his truck and departed.
And was presently in collision with the authorities for leaving it
standing outside the Wheatsheaf, while he and John consumed a
half-a-pint in at the bar.
When the coast was quite clear, the offenders felt their way back, not
disguising their satisfaction at their transgression. Mrs. Riley seemed
to think that she ought to express the feeling the Bench would have had,
had it been present. For she said: "You'll be laying yoursilves open to
pinalties, me boys, if ye don't kape your hands off other payple's
thrucks, and things that don't consurrun ye. So lave thim be, and attind
to your schooling, till you're riddy for bid." Dave's blue eyes dwelt
doubtfully on the speaker, expressing their owner's uncertainty whether
she was in earnest or not. Indeed, her sympathy with the offenders
disqualified her for judicial impressiveness. Anyhow, Dave remained
unimpressed, to judge by his voice as he vanished down the Court to
narrate this pleasant experience to Uncle Moses. It was on Saturday
afternoon that this took place. Have you ever noticed the strange
fatality which winds up all building jobs on Saturday? Only not _this_
Saturday--always next Saturday. It is called by some "making a clean
finish."
Old Mrs. Prichard lent herself to the fiction that she would rejoice
when the builders had made this clean finish. But she only did so to
meet expectation half-way. She had no such eagerness for a quiet Sunday
as was imputed to her. Very old people, with hearing at a low ebb, are
often like this. The old lady during the ten days Mr. Bartlett had
contrived to extend his job over--for his contract left all question of
extras open--had become accustomed to the sound of the men outside, and
was sorry when they died away in the distance, after breeding dissension
with poles in the middle distance; that is to say, the Court below. She
had felt alive to the proximity of human creatures; for Mr. Bartlett
and John still came under that designation, though builders by trade. If
it had not been Saturday, with a prospect of Dave and Dolly Wardle when
they had done their dinners, she would have had no alleviation in view,
and would have had to divide the time between knitting and dozing till
Mrs. Burr came in--as she might or might not--and tea eventuated: the
vital moment of her day.
However, this was Saturday, and Dave and Dolly came up in full force as
the afternoon mellowed; and Aunt M'riar accompanied them, and Mrs. Burr
she got back early off her job, and there was fourpennyworth of
crumpets. Only that was three-quarters of an hour later.
But Dave was eloquent about his adventure with the truck, judging the
old lady of over eighty quite a fit and qualified person to sympathize
with the raptures of sitting on a handle, and being jerked violently
into the air by a counterpoise of confederates. And no doubt she was;
but not to the extent imputed to her by Dave, of a great sense of
privation from inability to go through the experience herself.
Nevertheless there was that in his blue eyes, and the disjointed
rapidity of his exposition of his own satisfaction, that could bridge
for her the gulf of two-thirds of a century between the sad old now--the
vanishing time--and the merry _then_ of a growing life, and all the
wonder of the things to be. The dim illumination of her smile spread a
little to her eyes as she made believe to enter into the glorious
details of the exploit; though indeed she was far from clear about many
of them. And as for Dave, no suspicion crossed his mind that the old
lady's professions of regret were feigned. He condemned Aunt M'riar's
attitude, as that of an interloper between two kindred souls.
"There, child, that'll do for about Mr. Bartlett's truct." So the good
woman had said, showing her lack of _geist_--her Philistinism. "Now you
go and play at The Hospital with Dolly, and don't make no more noise
than you can help." This referred to a game very popular with the
children since Dave's experience as a patient. It promised soon to be
the only record of his injuries, as witness his gymnastics of this
morning.
But he was getting to be such a big boy now--seven, last birthday--that
playing at games was becoming a mere concession to Dolly's tender youth.
Old Mrs. Prichard's thin soprano had an appeal to this effect in it--on
Dave's behalf--as she said: "Oh, but the dear child may tell me, please,
all about the truck and some more things, too, before he goes to play
with Dolly. He has always such a many things to tell, has this little
man! Hasn't he now, Mrs. Wardle?"
Aunt M'riar--good woman as she was--had a vice. She always would improve
occasions. This time she must needs say:--"There, Davy, now! Hear what
Mrs. Prichard says--so kind! You tell Mrs. Prichard all about Mrs.
Marrowbone and the bull in the duckpond. You tell her!"
Dave, with absolute belief in the boon he was conferring on his
venerable hearer, started at once on a complicated statement, as one who
accepted the instruction in the spirit in which it was given. But first
he had to correct a misapprehension. "The bool wasn't in the duckpong.
The bool was in Farmer Jones's field, and the field was in the duckpong
on the other side. And the dusk was in the pong where there wasn't no
green." Evidently an oasis of black juice in the weed, which ducks
enjoy. Dave thought no explanation necessary, and went on:--"Then Farmer
Jones he was a horseback, and he rodid acrost the field, he did. And he
undooed the gate with his whip to go froo, and it stumbled and let the
bool froo, and Farmer Jones he rodid off to get the boy that
understoodid the bool. He fetched him back behind his saddle, he did.
And then the boy he got the bool's nose under control, and leaded him
back easy, and they shet to the gate." One or two words--"control," for
instance--treasured as essential and conscientiously repeated, gave Dave
some trouble; but he got through them triumphantly.
"Is that all the story, Dave?" said Mrs. Prichard, who was affecting
deep interest; although it was by now painfully evident that Dave had
involved himself in a narrative without much plot. He nodded decisively
to convey that it was substantially complete, but added to round it
off:--"Mr. Marrowbone the Smith from Crincham he come next day and
mended up the gate, only the bool he was tied to a post, and the boy
whistled him a tune, or he would have tostid Mr. Marrowbone the Smith."
Said Aunt M'riar irrelevantly:--"What was the tune he whistled, Dave?
You tell Mrs. Prichard what tune it was he whistled!" To which Dave
answered with reserve:--"A long tune." Probably the whistler's stock was
limited, and he repeated the piece, whatever it was, _da capo ad
libitum_. This legend--the thin plot of Dave's story--will not strike
some who have the misfortune to own bulls as strange. In some parts of
the country boys are always requisitioned to attend on bulls, who
especially hate men, perhaps resenting their monopoly of the term
_manhood_.
This conversation would scarcely have called for record but for what it
led to.
Old Mrs. Prichard, like Aunt M'riar, had a vice. It was jealousy. Her
eighty years' experience of a bitter world had left her--for all that
she would sit quiet for hours and say never a word--still longing for
the music of the tide that had gone out for her for ever. The love of
this little man--which had not yet learned its value, and was at the
service of age and youth alike--was to her even as a return of the
sea-waves to some unhappy mollusc left stranded to dry at leisure in the
sun. But her heart was in a certain sense athirst for the monopoly of
his blue eyes. She did not grudge him to any legitimate claimant--to
Uncle Mo or to Aunt M'riar, nor even to Mrs. Burr; though that good
woman scarcely challenged jealousy. Indeed, Mrs. Burr regarded Dave and
Dolly as mere cake-consumers--a public hungering for sweet-stuffs, and
only to be bought off by occasional concessions. It was otherwise with
unknown objects of Dave's affection, whose claims on him resembled Mrs.
Prichard's own. Especially the old grandmother at the Convalescent Home,
or whatever it was, where the child had recovered from his terrible
accident. She grudged old Mrs. Marrowbone her place in Dave's
affections, and naturally lost no opportunity of probing into and
analysing them.
Said the old lady to Dave, when the bull was disposed of: "Was Mr.
Marrowbone the Smith old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson?" Dave shook his
head rather solemnly and regretfully. It is always pleasanter to say
_yes_ than _no_; but in this case Truth was compulsory. "He wasn't
_anyfink_ of Granny Marrowbone's. No, he wasn't!" said he, and continued
shaking his head to rub the fact in.
"Now you're making of it up, Dave," said Aunt M'riar. "You be a good
little boy, and say Mr. Marrowbone the Smith was old Mrs. Marrowbone's
grandson. Because you know he was--now don't you, Davy? You tell Mrs.
Prichard he was old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson!" Dave, however, shook
his head obdurately. No concession!
"Perhaps he was her son," said Mrs. Prichard. But this surmise only
prolonged the headshake; which promised to become chronic, to pause only
when some ground of agreement could be discovered.
"The child don't above half know what he's talking about, not to say
_know_!" Thus Aunt M'riar in a semi-aside to the old lady. It was
gratuitous insult to add:--"He don't reely know what's a grandson,
ma'am."
Dave's blue eyes flashed indignation. "Yorse I _does_ know!" cried he,
loud enough to lay himself open to remonstrance. He continued under due
restraint:--"I'm going to be old Mrs. Marrowbone's grangson." He then
remembered that the treaty was conditional, and added a proviso:--"So
long as I'm a good boy!"
"Won't you be my grandson, too, Davy darling?" said old Mrs. Prichard.
And, if you can conceive it, there was pain in her voice--real pain--as
well as the treble of old age. She was jealous, you see; jealous of this
old Mrs. Marrowbone, who seemed to come between her and her little
new-found waterspring in the desert.
But Dave was embarrassed, and she took his embarrassment for reluctance
to grant her the same status as old Mrs. Marrowbone. It was nothing of
the sort. It was merely his doubt whether such an arrangement would be
permissible under canon law. It was bigamy, however much you chose to
prevaricate. The old lady's appealing voice racked Dave's feelings. "I
carn't!" he exclaimed, harrowed. "I've spromussed to be Mrs.
Marrowbone's grangson--I have." And thereupon old Mrs. Prichard,
perceiving that he was really distressed, hastened to set his mind at
ease. Of course he couldn't be her grandson, if he was already Mrs.
Marrowbone's. She overlooked or ignored the possible compromise offered
by the fact that two grandmothers are the common lot of all mankind. But
it would be unjust--this was clear to her--that Dave should suffer in
any way from her jealous disposition. So she put her little grievance
away in her inmost heart--where indeed there was scarcely room for it,
so preoccupied had the places been--and then, as an active step towards
forgetting it, went on to talk to Dave about old Mrs. Marrowbone,
although she was not Mr. Marrowbone the Smith's grandmother.
"Tell us, Dave dear, about old Mrs. Marrowbone. Is she very old? Is she
as old as me?" To which Aunt M'riar as a sort of Greek chorus
added:--"There, Davy, now, you be a good boy, and tell how old Mrs.
Marrowbone is."
Dave considered. "She's not the soyme oyge," said he. "She can walk to
chutch and back, Sunday morning." But this was a judgment from physical
vigour, possibly a fallible guide. Dave, being prompted, attempted
description. Old Mrs. Marrowbone's hair was the only point he could
seize on. A cat, asleep on the hearthrug, supplied a standard of
comparison. "Granny Marrowbone's head's the colour of this," said Dave,
with decision, selecting a pale grey stripe. And Widow Thrale's was like
that--one with a deeper tone of brown, with scarcely any perceptible
grey.
"And which on Pussy is most like mine, Dave?" said Mrs. Prichard. There
was no hesitation in the answer to this. It was "that sort";--that is,
the colour of Pussy's stomach, unequivocal white. And which did Dave
like best--an unfair question which deserved and got a Parliamentary
answer. "All free," said Dave.
But this was merely colour of hair, a superficial distinction. How about
Granny Marrowbone's nose. "It's the soyme soyze," was the verdict, given
without hesitation. What colour were her eyes? "Soyme as yours." But
Dave was destined to incur public censure--Aunt M'riar representing the
public--for a private adventure into description. "She's more teef than
you," said he candidly.
"Well, now, I do declare if ever any little boy was so rude! I never
did! Whatever your Uncle Moses would say if he was told, I can't think."
Thus Aunt M'riar. But her attitude was artificial, for appearance sake,
and she knew perfectly well that Uncle Moses would only laugh and
encourage the boy. The culprit did not seem impressed, though ready to
make concessions. Yet he did not really better matters by
saying:--"She's got some teef, she has"; leaving it to be inferred that
old Mrs. Prichard had none, which was very nearly true. The old lady did
not seem the least hurt. Nor was she hurt even when Dave--seeking merely
to supply accurate detail--added, in connection with the old hand that
wandered caressingly over his locks and brows:--"Her hands is thicker
than yours is, a lot!"
"I often think, Mrs. Wardle," said she, taking no advantage of the new
topic offered, "what we might be spared if only our teeth was less
untrustworthy. Mine stood me out till over fifty, and since then they've
been going--going. Never was two such rows of teeth as I took with me to
the Colony. Over fifty years ago, Mrs. Wardle!"
"To think of that!" said Aunt M'riar. It was the time--not the
teeth--that seemed so wonderful. Naturally old Mrs. Prichard's teeth
went with her. But fifty years! And their owner quite bright still, when
once she got talking.
She was more talkative than usual this afternoon, and continued:--"No, I
do not believe, Mrs. Wardle, there was ever a girl with suchlike teeth
as mine were then." And then this memory brought back its companion
memory of the long past, but with no new sadness to her voice: "Only my
dear sister Phoebe's, Mrs. Wardle, I've told you about. She was my twin
sister ... I've told you ... you recollect?..."
"Yes, indeed, ma'am, and died when you was in the Colony!"
"I've never seen another more beautiful than Phoebe." She spoke with
such supreme unconsciousness of the twinship that Aunt M'riar forgot it,
too, until her next words came. "I was never free to say it of her in
those days, for they would have made sport of me for saying it. There
was none could tell us apart then. It does not matter now." She seemed
to fall away into an absent-minded dream, always caressing Dave's sunny
locks, which wanted cutting.
Aunt M'riar did not instantly perceive why a twin could not praise her
twin's beauty; at least, it needed reflection. She was clear on the
point, however, by the time Dave, merely watchful till now, suddenly
asked a question:--"What are stwins?" He had long been anxious for
enlightenment on this point, and now saw his opportunity. His inquiry
was checked--if his curiosity was not satisfied--by a statement that
when a little boy had a brother the same age that was twins, incorrectly
_s_twins. He had to affect satisfaction.
The old woman, roused by Dave's question, attested the general truth of
his informant's statements; then went back to the memory of her sister.
"But I never saw her again," said she.
"No, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar. "So I understood. It was in England she
died?"
"No--no! Out at sea. She was drowned at sea. Fifty years ago ...
Yes!--well on to fifty years ago." She fell back a little into her
dreamy mood; then roused herself to say:--"I often wonder, Mrs. Wardle,
suppose my sister had lived to be my age, should we have kept on alike?"
Aunt M'riar was not a stimulus to conversation as far as perspicuity
went. A general tone of sympathy had to make up for it. "We should have
seen, ma'am," said she.
"Supposing it had all gone on like as it was then, and we had just grown
old together! Supposing we had neither married, and no man had come into
it, should we all our lives have been mistaken for one another, so you
could not tell us apart?"
Aunt M'riar said "Ah!" and shook her head. She was not imaginative
enough to contribute to a conversation so hypothetical.
There was nothing of pathos, to a bystander, in the old woman's musical
voice, beyond its mere age--its reedy tone--which would have shown in it
just as clearly had she been speaking of any topic of the day. Conceive
yourself speaking about long forgotten events of your childhood to a
friend born thirty--forty--fifty years later, and say if such speech
would not be to you what old Mrs. Prichard's was to herself and her
hearer, much like revival of the past history of someone else. It was
far too long ago now--if it had ever been real; for sometimes indeed it
seemed all a dream--to lacerate her heart in recollecting it. The
memories that could do that belonged to a later time; some very much
later--the worst of them. Not but that the early memories could sting,
too, when dragged from their graves by some remorseless
resurrectionist--some sound, like that piano; some smell, like those
lilies of the valley. Measure her case against your own experience, if
its span of time is long enough to supply a parallel.
Her speech became soliloquy--was it because of a certain want of pliancy
in Aunt M'riar?--and seemed to dwell in a disjointed way on the
possibility that her sister might have changed with time otherwise than
herself, and might even have been hard to recognise had they met again
later. It would be different with two girls of different ages, each of
whom would after a long parting have no guide to the appearance of her
sister; while twins might keep alike; the image of either, seen in the
glass, forecasting the image of the other.
Aunt M'riar made a poor listener to this, losing clues and forging false
constructions. But her obliging disposition made her seem to understand
when she did not, and did duty for intelligence. Probably Dave--on the
watch for everything within human ken--understood nearly as much as Aunt
M'riar. Something was on the way, though, to rouse her, and when it came
she started as from a blow. What was that the old lady had just said?
How came that name in her mouth?...
"What I said just now, Mrs. Wardle?... Let me see!... About what my
husband used to say--that Phoebe's memory would go to sleep, not like
mine, and I was a fool to fret so about her. I would not know her again,
maybe, if I saw her, nor she me.... Yes--he said all that.... What?"
"What was the _name_ you said just now? Ralph ... something! Ralph
what?"
"Oh--yes--I know! What Phoebe would have been if she had married my
husband's brother--Mrs. Ralph Daverill...."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Aunt M'riar.
"Ah, there now!" said the old lady. "To think I should never have told
you his name!" She missed the full strength of Aunt M'riar's
exclamation; accounted it mere surprise at what was either a reference
to a former husband or an admission of a pseudonym. Aunt M'riar was glad
to accept matters as they stood, merely disclaiming excessive
astonishment and suggesting that she might easy have guessed that Mrs.
Prichard had been married more than once. She was not--she said--one of
the prying sort. But she was silent about the cause of her amazement;
putting the name in a safe corner of her memory, to grapple with it
later.
The old woman, however, seemed to have no wish for concealments, saying
at once:--"I never had but one husband, Mrs. Wardle; but I'll tell you.
I've always gone by the name of Prichard ever since my son.... But I
never told you of him neither! It is he I would forget...." This
disturbed her--made her take the caressing hand restlessly from Dave's
head, to hold and be held by the other. She had to be silent a moment;
then said hurriedly:--"He was Ralph Thornton, after his father and
uncle. His father was Thornton--Thornton Daverill.... I'll tell you
another time." Thereupon Aunt M'riar held her tongue, and Mrs. Burr came
in with the fourpennyworth of crumpets.
* * * * *
An unskilful chronicler throws unfair burdens on his reader. The latter
need not read the chronicle certainly; there is always that resource!
If, however, he reads this one, let him keep in mind that Aunt M'riar
did _not_ know that the escaped prisoner of her newspaper-cutting had
been asking for a widow of the name of Daverill, whom he had somehow
traced to Sapps Court, any more than she knew--at that date--that old
Mrs. Prichard should really have been called old Mrs. Daverill. She only
knew that _his_ name was Daverill. So it was not in order to prevent
Mrs. Prichard seeing it that she cut that paragraph out of the _Morning
Star_. She must have had some other reason.
CHAPTER XVII
A LADY AND GENTLEMAN, WHO HUNG FIRE. NATURAL HISTORY, AND
ARTIFICIAL CHRONOLOGY. NEITHER WAS TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER.
CONFIDENCES ABOUT ANOTHER LADY AND GENTLEMAN, SOME YEARS SINCE. HOW
THE FIRST GENTLEMAN FINISHED HIS SECOND CIGAR. DR. LIVINGSTONE AND
SEKELETU. MR. NORBURY'S QUORUM. WHY ADRIAN TORRENS WOKE UP, AND
WHOSE VOICE PROMISED NOT TO MENTION HIS EYES. FEUDAL BEEF-TEA, AND
MRS. BAILEY. AN EARLY VISIT, FROM AN EARL. AN EXPERIMENT THAT
DISCLOSED A PAINFUL FACT
It is three weeks later at the Castle; three weeks later, that is, than
the story's last sight of it. It is the hottest night we have had this
year, says general opinion. Most of the many guests are scattered in the
gardens after dinner, enjoying the night-air and the golden moon, which
means to climb high in the cirrus-dappled blue in an hour or so. And
then it will be a fine moonlight night.
On such a night there is always music somewhere, and this evening
someone must be staying indoors to make it, as it comes from the windows
of the great drawing-room that opens on the garden. Someone is playing a
Beethoven sonata one knows well enough to pretend about with one's
fingers, theoretically. Only one can't think which it is. So says Miss
Smith-Dickenson, in the Shrubbery, to her companion, who is smoking a
Havana large enough to play a tune on if properly perforated. But she
wishes Miss Torrens would stop, and let Gwen and the Signore sing some
Don Juan. That is Miss Dickenson's way. She always takes exception to
this and to that, and wants t'other. It does not strike the Hon.
Percival Pellew, the smoker of the big cigar, as a defect in her
character, but rather as an indication of its illumination--a set-off to
her appearance, which is, of course, at its best in the half-dark of a
Shrubbery by moonlight, but is _passée_ for all that. Can't help that,
now, can we? But Mr. Pellew can make retrospective concession; she must
have told well enough, properly dressed, fifteen years ago. She don't
exactly bear the light now, and one can't expect it.
The Hon. Percival complimented himself internally on a greater
spirituality, which can overlook such points--mere clay?--and discern a
peculiar essence of soul in this lady which, had they met in her more
palatable days, might have been not uncongenial to his own. Rather a
pity!
Miss Dickenson could identify a glow-worm and correct the ascription of
its light to any fellow's cigar-end thrown away. She made the best
figure that was compatible with being indubitably _passée_ when she went
down on one knee in connection with this identification. Mr. Pellew felt
rather relieved. Her outlines seemed somehow to warrant or confirm the
intelligence he had pledged himself to. He remarked, without knowing
anything about it, that he thought glow-worms didn't show up till
September.
"Try again, Mr. Pellew. It's partridge-shooting that doesn't begin till
September. That's what you're thinking of."
"Well--August, then!"
"No--that's grouse, not glow-worms. You see, you are reduced to July,
and it's July still. Do take my advice, Mr. Pellew, and leave Natural
History alone. Nobody will ever know you know nothing about it, if you
hold your tongue."
The Hon. Percival was silent. He was not thinking about his shortcomings
as a Natural Historian. The reflection in his mind was:--"What a pity
this woman isn't twenty years younger!" He could discriminate--so he
imagined--between mere flippancy and spontaneous humour. The latter
would have sat so well on the girl in her teens, and he would then have
accepted the former as juvenile impertinence with so much less misgiving
that he was being successfully made game of. He could not quite shake
free of that suspicion. Anyhow, it was a pity Miss Smith-Dickenson was
thirty-seven. That was the age her friend Lady Ancester had assessed her
at, in private conversation with Mr. Pellew. "Though what the deuce my
cousin Philippa"--thus ran a very rapid thought through his mind--"could
think I wanted to know the young woman's age for, I can't imagine."
"There it is!" said the lady, stooping over the glow-worm. "Little hairy
thing! I won't disturb it." She got on her feet again, saying:--"Thank
you--I'm all right!" in requital of a slight excursion towards
unnecessary help, which took the form of a jerk cut short and an
apologetic tone. "But don't talk Zoölogy or Botany, please," she
continued. "Because there's something I want you to tell me about."
"Anything consistent with previous engagements. Can't break any
promises."
"Have you made any promises about the man upstairs?"
"Not the ghost of a one! But he isn't 'the man upstairs' to me. He's the
man in the room at the end of my passage. That's how I came to see him."
"You did see him?"
"Oh yes--talked to him till the nurse stopped it. I found we knew each
other. Met him in the Tyrol--at Meran--ten years ago. He was quite a boy
then. But he remembered me quite well. It was this morning."
"Did he recognise you, or you him?"
"Why--neither exactly. We found out about Meran by talking. No--poor
chap!--he can't recognise anybody, by sight at least. He won't do that
yet awhile."
The lady said "Oh?" in a puzzled voice, as though she heard something
for the first time; then continued: "Do you know, I have never quite
realised that ... that the eyes were so serious. I knew all along that
there was _something_, but ... but I understood it was only weakness."
"They have been keeping it dark--quite reasonably and properly, you
know--but there is it! He can't see--simply can't see. His eyes _look_
all right, but they won't work. His sister knows, of course, but he has
bound her over to secrecy. He made me promise to say nothing, and I've
broken my promise, I suppose. But--somehow--I thought you knew."
"Only that there was _something_--no idea that he was blind. But I won't
betray your confidence."
"Thank you. It's only a matter of time, as I gather. But a bad job for
him till he gets his sight again."
"He will, I suppose, in the end?"
"Oh yes--in the end. Sir Coupland is cautious, of course. But I don't
fancy he's really uneasy. His sight might come back suddenly, he said,
at any moment. Of course, _he_ believes his eyesight will come back.
Only meanwhile he wants--it was a phrase of his own--to keep all the
excruciation for his own private enjoyment. That's what he said!"
"I see. Of course, that makes a difference. And you think Sir Coupland
thinks he will get all right again?"
Mr. Pellew says he does think so, reassuringly. "It has always struck me
as peculiar," says he, "that Tim's family ... I beg pardon--I should
have said the Earl's. But you see I remember him as a kid--we are
cousins, you know--and his sisters always called him Tim.... Well, I
mean the family here, you know, seem to know so little of the Torrenses.
Lady Gwen doesn't seem to have recognised this chap in the Park."
"I believe she has never seen him. He has been a great deal abroad, you
know."
"Yes, he's been at German Universities, and games of that sort."
"Is that your third cigar, Mr. Pellew?"
"No--second. Come, I say, Miss Dickenson, two's not much...."
But her remark was less a tobacco-crusade than a protest against too
abrupt a production of family history by a family friend. Mr. Pellew
felt confident it would come, though; and it did, at about the third
whiff of the new cigar.
"I suppose you know the story?"
"Couldn't say, without hearing it first to know."
"About Philippa and Sir Hamilton Torrens?"
"Can't say I have. But then I'm the sort of fellah nobody ever tells
things to."
"I suppose I oughtn't to have mentioned it."
"I shall not tell anyone you did so. You may rely on that." Mr. Pellew
gave his cigar a half-holiday to say this seriously, and Miss Dickenson
felt that his type, though too tailor-made, was always to be relied on;
you had only to scratch it to find a Gentleman underneath. No audience
ever fails to applaud the discovery on the stage. Evidently there was no
reserve needed--a relation of the Earl, too! Still, she felt satisfied
at this passing recognition of Prudence on her part. Preliminaries had
been done justice to.
She proceeded to tell what she knew of the episode of her friend's early
engagement to the father of the gentleman who had been shot. It was
really a very flat story; so like a thousand others of its sort as
scarcely to claim narration-space. Youth, beauty, high spirits, the
London season, first love--warranted the genuine article--parental
opposition to the union of Romeo and Juliet, on the vulgar, unpoetical
ground of Romeo having no particular income and vague expectations; the
natural impatience of eighteen and five-and-twenty when they don't get
their own way in everything; misunderstandings, ups-and-downs,
reconciliations and new misunderstandings; finally one rather more
serious than its predecessors, and judicious non-interference of
bystanders--underhanded bystanders who were secretly favouring another
suitor, who wasn't so handsome and showy as Romeo certainly, but who was
of sterling worth and all that sort of thing. Besides, he was very
nearly an Earl, and Hamilton Torrens was three-doors off his father's
Baronetcy and Pensham Steynes. This may have had its weight with Juliet.
Miss Dickenson candidly admitted that she herself would have been
influenced; but then, no doubt she was a worldling. Mr. Pellew admired
the candour, discerning in it exaggeration to avoid any suspicion of
false pretence. He did not suspect himself of any undue leniency to this
lady. She was altogether too _passée_ to admit of any such idea.
The upshot of the flat episode, of course, was that Philippa "became
engaged" to her new suitor, and did _not_ fall out with him. They were
married within the year, and three months later her former _fiancé's_
father died, rather unexpectedly. His eldest son, coming home from
Burmah on sick-leave, died on the voyage, of dysentery; and his second
brother, a naval officer, was in the autumn of the same year killed by a
splinter at the Battle of Navarino. So by a succession of fatalities
Romeo found himself the owner of his father's estate, and a not very
distant neighbour of Juliet and his successful rival.
It appeared that he had consoled himself by marrying a Miss Abercrombie,
Miss Dickenson believed. These Romeos always marry a Miss Something;
who, owing to the way she comes into the story, is always on the
top-rung of the ladder of insipidity. Nobody cares for her; she appears
too late to interest us. No doubt there were several Miss Abercrombies
on draught, and he selected the tallest or the cleverest or the most
musical, avoiding, of course, the dowdiest.
However, there was Lady Ancester's romance, told to account for the
languid intercourse between the Castle and Pensham Steynes, and the
non-recognition of one another by Gwen and the Man in the Park. Miss
Dickenson added a rider to the effect that she could quite understand
the position. It would be a matter of mutual tacit consent, tempered
down by formal calls enough to allay local gossip. "I think Miss Torrens
has stopped," said she collaterally; you know how one speaks
collaterally? "Shall we walk towards the house?"
Then the Hon. Percival made a speech he half repented of later;
_videlicet_, when he woke next morning. It became the fulcrum, as it
were, of an inexplicable misgiving that Miss Dickenson would be bearing
the light worse than ever when he saw her at breakfast. The speech
was:--"It's very nice out here. One can hear the Don at Covent Garden.
Besides ... one can hear out here just as well." This must have been
taken to mean that two could. For the lady's truncated reply was:--"Till
you've finished your cigar, then!"
Combustion was lip-close when the cigar-end was thrown away. The reader
of this story may be able to understand a thing its writer can only
record without understanding--the fact that this gentleman felt grateful
to the fine moonlight night, now nearly a _fait-accompli_, for enhancing
this lady's white silk, which favoured a pretence that she was only
reasonably _passée_, and enabled him to reflect upon the contour of her
throat without interruption from its skin. For it had a contour by
moonlight. Well!--sufficient to the day is the evil thereof; daylight
might have its say to-morrow. Consider the clock put back a dozen years!
* * * * *
"Oh yes, he's asleep still, but I've seen him--looked in on my way down.
Do you know, I really believe he will be quite fit for the journey
to-morrow. He's getting such a much better colour, and last night he
seemed so much stronger." Thus the last comer to the morning-rally of
breakfast claimants, in its ante-room, awaiting its herald. Miss Irene
Torrens is a robust beauty with her brother's eyes. She has been with
him constantly since she came with her father three weeks ago, and the
two of them watched his every breath through the terrible day and night
that followed.
"Then perhaps he will let us see him," says Lady Gwen. "At last!"
"You must not expect too much," says Miss Torrens. She does not like
saying it, but facts are overpowering. Her brother has exacted a pledge
from her to say nothing, even now, about his blindness--merely to treat
him as weak-eyed temporarily. He will pass muster, he says--will squeak
through somehow. "I can't have that glorious girl made miserable," were
the words he had used to her, half an hour since. This Irene will be all
on tenterhooks till the interview is safely over. Meanwhile it is only
prudent not to sound too hopeful a note. It is as well to keep a margin
in reserve in case the performance should fall through.
Irene's response to her brother's words had been, "She is a glorious
girl," and she was on the way to "You should have seen her eyes last
night over that Beethoven!" But she broke down on the word _eyes_. How
else could it have been? Then the blind man had laughed, in the courage
of his heart, as big a laugh as his pitiable weakness could sustain, and
had made light of his affliction. He had never given way from the first
hour of his revival, when he had asked to have the shutters open, and
had been told they were already wide open, and the July sun streaming
into the room.
It was the Countess who answered Irene's caution, as accompaniment to
her morning salute. "We are not to expect _anything_, my dear. That is
quite understood. It would be unreasonable. And we won't stop long and
tire him. But this girl of mine will never be happy if he goes away
without our--well!--becoming acquainted, I might almost say. Because
really we are perfect strangers. And when one has shot a man, even by
accident...." Her ladyship did not finish, but went on to hope the
eyesight was recovering.
"Oh yes!" said Irene audaciously. "We are quite hopeful about it now. It
will be all right with rest and feeding up. Only, if I let you in to see
him you _will_ promise me, won't you--not to say a word about his eyes?
It only frightens him, and does no one any good." Of course, Miss
Torrens got her promise. It was an easy one to make, because reference
to the eyes only seemed a means towards embarrassment. Much easier to
say nothing about them. Gwen and Miss Torrens, very _liées_ already,
went out by the garden window to talk, but would keep within hearing
because breakfast was imminent.
More guests, and the newspapers; as great an event in the early fifties
as now, but with only a fraction of the twentieth century's allowance of
news. Old General Rawnsley, guilty of his usual rudeness in capturing
the _Times_ from all comers, had to surrender it to the Hon. Percival
because none but a dog-in-the-manger could read a letter from Sir C.
Napier of Scinde, and about Dr. Livingstone and Sekeletu and the
Leeambye all at the same time. All comers, or several male comers at
least, essayed to pinion the successful captor of the _Times_, thirsting
for information about their own special subjects of interest. No--the
Hon. Percival did _not_ see anything, so far, about the new Arctic
expedition that was to unearth, or dis-ice, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_;
but the inquirer, a vague young man, shall have the paper directly.
Neither has he come on anything, as yet, about a mutiny in the camp at
Chobham. But the paper shall be at the disposal of this inquirer, too,
as soon as the eye in possession has been run down to the bottom of this
column. In due course both inquirers get hold of corners at the moment
of surrender, and then have paroxysms of polite concession which neither
means in earnest, during which the bone of contention becomes the prey
of a passing wolf. Less poetically, someone else gets hold of the paper
and keeps it.
The Hon. Percival really surrendered the paper, not because his interest
in Lord Palmerston's speech had flagged, but because he had heard Miss
Dickenson come in, and that consideration about her endurance of the
daylight weighed upon him. On the whole, she is standing the glare of
day better than he expected, and her bodice seems very nicely cut. It
may have been an accident that she looked so dowdy yesterday morning. He
and she exchange morning greetings, passionlessly but with civility. The
lady may be accounting a _tête-à-tête_ by moonlight with a gentleman, an
hour long, an escapade, and he may be resolving on caution for the
future. By-the-by, _can_ a lady have a _tête-à-tête_ with another lady
by moonlight? Scarcely!
Mr. Norbury, the butler, always feels the likeness of the breakfast
rally to fish in a drop-net. If he acts promptly, he will land his usual
congregation. He must look in at the door to see if there is a quorum. A
quarum would do. A cujus is a great rarity; though even that happens
after late dances, or when influenza is endemic. Mr. Norbury looked in
at the rally and recognised its psychological moment. More briefly, he
announced that breakfast was ready, while a gong rang up distant sheep
astray most convincingly.
* * * * *
Adrian Torrens, too weak still to show alacrity in waking, hears the
sound and is convinced. How he would rejoice to join the party below! He
knows _that_, in his sleep; and resolves as soon as he can speak to
tell Mrs. Bailey the nurse he could perfectly well have got up for
breakfast. Yet he knows he is glad to be kept lying down, for all that.
He wakes cherishing his determination to say this to his tyrant, and is
conscious of the sun by the warmth, and the unanimity of the birds. He
knows, too, that the casement is open, by the sound of voices in the
garden below. His sister's voice and another, whose owner's image was
the last thing human he had seen, with the eyes that he dared not think
had looked their last upon the visible world when the crash came from
Heaven-knows-where and shut it out. He could identify it beyond a doubt;
could swear to it, now that he had come to understand the real story of
his terrible mishap, as the first sound that mixed with his returning
life, back from a painless darkness which was a Heaven compared to the
torture of his reviving consciousness. It was strange to be told now
that at that moment the medical verdict had been given that he was dead.
But he could swear to the voice--even to the words! What was it saying
now?
"You may rely on me--indeed you may--to say nothing about the eyes. He
will be just able to see us, I suppose?"
"He will hardly recognise you. How long was it altogether, do you
think?"
"At Arthur's Bridge? Five minutes--perhaps less."
"He took a good look at you?"
"I suppose so. I think he did, as soon as he had got the dog chained. Oh
yes--I should say certainly! I fancied he might have seen me before, but
it seems not."
"He says not. But you were not out when he went to Konigsberg."
"Oh no--I had quite a long innings after that.... Well!--it _does_ sound
like cricket, doesn't it? Go on."
"Oh--I see what you mean. What a ridiculous girl you are! What was I
saying!... Oh, I recollect! That was just after he graduated at Oxford.
Then he went to South America with Engelhardt. He really has been very
little at home for three years--over three years--past."
"We shall see if he knows me. I won't say anything to guide him." Then
he heard his sister's voice reply to the speaker with words she had used
before:--"You know you must not expect too much." To which Lady
Gwendolen reiterated: "Oh, you may trust me. I shall say nothing to him
about it.... Oh, you darling!" This was to Achilles, manifestly. He had
become restless at the sound of conversation below, and had been
looking round the door-jamb to see if by any chance a dog could get
out. The entry of the nurse a moment since, with a proto-stimulant on a
tray, had let him out to tear down the stairs to the garden, rudely
thrusting aside the noble owner of the house, out of bounds in a
dressing-gown and able to defy Society.
No lack of sight can quench the image in its victim's brain of Achilles'
greeting to the owners of the two voices. His sister has her fair share
of it--no more!--but her friend gets an accolade of a piece with the one
she received that morning by Arthur's Bridge, three weeks since. So his
owner's brain-image says, confirmed by sounds from without. He is
conscious of the absurdity of building so vivid and substantial a
superstructure on so little foundation, and would like to protest
against it.
"Good-morning, Nurse. I'm better. What is it?--beef-tea. Earls' cooks
make capital beef-tea. On the whole I am in favour of Feudalism. Nothing
can be sweeter or neater or completer--or more nourishing--than its
beef-tea. Don't put any salt in till I tell you.... Oh no--_I'm_ not
going to spill it!" This is preliminary; the protest follows. "Who's
talking to my sister under the window?... that's her voice." Of course,
he knew perfectly well all the time.
The nurse listens a moment. "That's her ladyship," says she, meaning the
Countess. Gwen's voice is not unlike her mother's, only fuller. "They
are just going in to breakfast. The gong went a minute ago."
Now is his time to condemn the tyranny which keeps him in bed in the
morning and lying down all day. "I _could_ have got up and gone
downstairs, Mrs. Bailey, you know I could."
Mrs. Bailey pointed out that had this scheme been carried out a life
would have been sacrificed. She explained to a newcomer, no less a
person than the Earl himself, that Mr. Torrens would kill himself in
five minutes if she did not keep the eyes of a lynx on him all the
blessed day. She is always telling him so without effect, he never being
any the wiser, even when she talks her head off. Patients never are,
being an unmanageable class at the best. A nurse with her head on ought
to be a rarity, according to Mrs. Bailey.
The image of the Earl in the blind man's mind is very little helped by
recollection of the few occasions, some years ago, on which he has seen
him. It becomes now, after a short daily chat with him each morning
since he gained strength for interviews, that of an elderly gentleman
with a hesitating manner anxious to accommodate difficulties, soothing
an unreasonable race with a benevolent optimism, pouring oil on the
troubled waters of local religion and politics, taking no real interest
in the vortices into which it has pleased God to drag him, all with one
distinct object in view--that of adding to his collections undisturbed.
That is the impression he has produced on Mr. Adrian Torrens in a dozen
of his visits to his bedside. His lordship has made it a practice to
look in at his victim--for that is the way he thinks of him, will he
nill he!--as early every day as possible, and as late. He has suffered
agonies from constant longings to talk about his Amatis or his Elzevirs
or his Petitots, checked at every impulse by the memory of the patient's
blindness. He is always beginning to say how he would like to show him
this or that, and collapsing. This also is an inference of Mr. Torrens,
drawn in the dark, from sudden hesitations and changes of subject.
"How are we this morning, Nurse?" On the mend, it seems, being more
refractory than ever; always a good sign with patients. But we must be
kept in bed, till midday at any rate, for some days yet. Or weeks or
months or years according to the degree of our intractability. The Earl
accepts this as common form, and goes to the bedside saying
sum-upwardly:--"No worse, at any rate!"
"Tremendously better, Lord Ancester! _Tremendously_ better, thanks to
you and Mrs. Bailey.... Catch hold of the cup, Nurse.... Yes, I've
drained it to the dregs.... I know what you are going to say, my
lord...."
"I was going to say that Mrs. Bailey and I are not on the same footing.
Mrs. Bailey didn't shoot you.... Yes, now grip hard! That's right!
Better since yesterday certainly--no doubt of it!"
"Mrs. Bailey didn't shoot me in the mere vulgar literal sense. But she
was contributory, if not an accessory after the fact. It was written in
the Book of Fate that Mrs. Bailey would bring me beef-tea this very day.
If she had accepted another engagement the incident would have had to be
rewritten; which is impossible by hypothesis. Moreover, so far as I can
be said to have been shot, it was as a trespasser, not as a man.... Is
there a close season for trespassers? If there is, I admit that you may
be technically right. _Qui facit per alium facit per se_.... By-the-by,
I hope poor Alius is happier in his mind...."
"Poor who?" says the Earl. He is not giving close attention to the
convalescent's disconnected chatter. He has been one himself, and knows
how returning life sets loose the tongue.
"The _alius_ you facitted per. The poor chap that had the bad luck to
shoot me. Old Stephen--isn't he? Poor old chap! _What_ a mischance!"
"Oh yes--old Stephen! I see--he's _alius_, of course. He comes over two
or three times a day to see how you are going on. They think him rather
a nuisance in the house, I believe. I have tried to comfort him as well
as I could. He will be glad of to-day's report. But he can't help being
dispirited, naturally."
"He's so unaccustomed to homicide, poor old chap! People should be
educated to it, in case of accidents. They might be allowed to kill a
few women and children for practice--should never be left to the mercy
of their consciences, all raw and susceptible. Poor old Stephen! I
really think he might be allowed to come and see me now. I'm so very
much improved that a visit from my assassin would be a pleasant
experience--a wholesome stimulus. Wouldn't throw me back at all! Poor
old Stephen!" He seemed seriously concerned about the old boy; would not
be content without a promise that he and his wife should pay him an
early visit.
He had been immensely better after that M.P. paid him a visit yesterday
morning. Mrs. Bailey confirmed this, testifying to the difficulty with
which the patient had been persuaded to remain in bed. But she had the
whip-hand of him there, because he couldn't find his clothes without her
help. This gives the Earl an idea of the condition of the patient's
eyesight beyond his previous concept of its infirmities. He has been
misled by its apparent soundness--for no one would have guessed the
truth from outward seeming--and the nurse's accident of speech rouses
his curiosity.
"Ah, by-the-by," he says, "I was just going to ask." Which is not
strictly true, but apology to himself for his own neglect, "How _are_
the eyes?"
"Oh, the eyes are right enough," says the patient. He goes on to explain
that they are no inconvenience whatever so long as he keeps them shut.
It is only when he opens them that he notices their defect; which is,
briefly, that he can't see with them. His lordship seems to feel that
eyes so conditioned are hardly satisfactory. It is really new knowledge
to him, and he accepts it restlessly. He spreads his fingers out before
the deceptive orbs that look so clear, showing indeed no defect but a
kind of uncertainty; or rather perhaps a too great stillness as though
always content with the object in front of them. "What do you see now?"
he asks in a nervous voice.
"Something dark between me and the light."
"Is that all? Can't you see what it is?"
"A book." A mere guess based on the known predilections of the
questioner.
"Oh dear!" says the Earl. "It was my hand." He sees that the nurse is
signalling with headshakes and soundless lip-words, but has not presence
of mind to catch her meaning.
The other seems to feel his speech apologetically, as though it were his
own fault. "I see better later in the day," he says. Which may be true
or not.
The nurse's signalling tells, and the questioner runs into an opposite
extreme. "One is like that in the morning sometimes," says he absurdly,
but meaning well. He is not an Earl who would be of much use in a
hospital for the treatment of nervous disorders. However, having grasped
the situation he shows tact, changing the conversation to the heat of
the weather and the probable earliness of the crops. No one should ever
_show_ tact. He will only be caught _flagrante delicto_. Mr. Torrens is
perfectly well aware of what is occurring; and, when he lies still and
unresponsive with his eyes closed, is not really resting after exertion,
which is the nurse's interpretation of the action, but trying to think
out something he wants to say to the Earl, and how to say it. It is not
so easy as light jesting.
The nurse telegraphs silently lipwise that the patient will doze now for
a quarter of an hour till breakfast; and the visitor, alive to the call
of discretion, has gone out gently before the patient knows he has left
the bedside.
Things that creak watch their opportunity whenever they hear silence. So
the Earl's gentle exit ends in a musical and penetrating _arpeggio_ of a
door-hinge, equal to the betrayal of Masonic secrecy if delivered at the
right moment. "Is Mrs. Bailey gone?" says the patient, ascribing the
wrong cause to it.
"His lordship has gone, Mr. Torrens. He thought you were dropping off."
"Stop him--stop him! Say I have something particular to say. Do stop
him!" It must be something very particular, Nurse thinks. But in any
case the patient's demand would have to be complied with. So the Earl is
recaptured and brought back.
"Is it anything I can do for you, Mr. Torrens? I am quite at your
service."
"Yes--something of importance to me. Is Mrs. Bailey there?"
"She is just going." She had not intended to do so. But this was a hint
clearly. It was accepted.
"All clear!" says the Earl. "And the door closed."
"My sister has promised to ask the Countess and your daughter--Lady
Gwen, is it not?"
"That is my daughter's name, Gwendolen. 'Has promised to ask them' ...
what?"
"To give me an opportunity before I go of thanking them both for all the
great kindness they have shown me, and of apologizing for my wish to
defer the interview."
"Yes--but why me?... I mean that that is all quite in order, but how do
I come in?" As the speaker's voice smiles as well as his face, his
hearer's blindness does not matter.
"Only this way. You know the doctors say my eyesight is not
incurable--probably will come all to rights of itself...."
"Yes--and then?"
"I want them--her ladyship and ..."
"My wife and daughter. I understand."
"... I want them to know as little about it as possible; to know
_nothing_ about it _if_ possible. You knew very little about it yourself
till just now."
"I was misled--kindly, I know--but misled for all that. And the
appearance is so extraordinary. Nobody could guess...."
"Exactly. Because the eyes are really unaffected and are sure to come
right. See now what I am asking you to do for me. Help me to deceive
them about it. They will not test my eyesight as you did just now...."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I heard Irene and your daughter talking in the garden a few
minutes ago--just after the breakfast-bell rang--talking about me, and I
eavesdropped as hard as I could. Lady Gwendolen has promised Irene to
say nothing about my eyesight for my sake. She will keep her
promise...."
"How do you know that?"
"By the sound of her voice."
"She is only a human girl."
"I am convinced that she will keep it; though, I grant you,
circumstances are against her. And neither she nor her mother will try
to find out, if they believe I see them dimly. That is where _you_ come
in. Only make them believe that. Don't let them suppose I am all in the
dark. Say nothing of your crucial experiment just now. Irene--dear
girl--has been a good sister to me, and has told many good round lies
for my sake. But she will explain to God. I cannot ask you, Lord
Ancester, to tell stories on my behalf. My petition is only for a modest
prevarication--the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain
a justifiable end. Consider the position analogous to that of one of
Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs,
you know--only what a truthful person tells instead of a fib! For my
sake!"
"I am not thinking of my character for veracity," says the Earl
thoughtfully. "You should be welcome to a sacrifice of that under the
circumstances. I was thinking what form of false representation would be
most likely to gain the end, and safest. Do you know, I am inclined to
favour the policy of saying as little as possible? My dear wife is in
the habit of imputing to me a certain slowness and defective observation
of surrounding event. It is a common wifely attitude. You need not fear
my being asked any questions. In any case, I fully understand your
wishes, and you may rely on my doing my best. Here is your breakfast
coming. I hope you will not be knocked up with all this talk."
CHAPTER XVIII
BLIND MEN CAN'T SMOKE. CAN'T THEY? HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER
DAUGHTER AT LAST INTERVIEWED THEIR GUEST. HIS SUBTLE ARRANGEMENTS
FOR SEEMING TO SEE THEM. A BLUNDER OVER A HANDSHAKE, AND ALL THE
FAT IN THE FIRE, NEARLY! AN ELECTRIC SHOCK. THE EXCELLENCE OF
ACHILLES' HEART. HOW MR. TORRENS SPOILED IT ALL! BLUE NANKIN IS NOT
CROWN DERBY. GWEN'S GREAT SCHEME. HOW SHE CARRIED IT OUT
The morning passed, with intermittent visitors, one at a time. Each one,
coming away from the bedside, confirmed the report of his predecessor as
to the visible improvement of the convalescent. Each one in turn, when
questioned about the eyesight, gave a sanguine report--an echo of the
patient's own confidence, real or affected, in its ultimate restoration.
He would be all right again in a week or so.
Underhand ways were resorted to of cheating despair and getting at the
pocket of Hope. Said one gentleman to the Earl--who was keeping his
counsel religiously--"He can't read small print." Whereto the Earl
replied--"Not yet awhile, but one could hardly expect that"; and felt
that he was carrying out his promise with a minimum of falsehood. Yet
his conscience wavered, because an eyesight may be unable to read small
print, and yet unable to read large print, or any print at all. Perhaps
he had better have left the first broad indisputable truth to impose on
its hearer unassisted.
Another visitor scored a success on behalf of Optimism by reporting that
the patient had smoked a cigar in defiance of medical prohibitions.
"Can't be much wrong with his eyes," said this one, "if he can smoke.
You shut your eyes, and try!" Put to the proof, this dictum received
more confirmation than it deserved, solely to secure an audience for the
flattering tales of Hope.
Much of the afternoon passed too, but without visitors. Because it would
never do, said Irene, for her brother not to be at his best when Gwen
and her mother came to pay their visit, resolved on this morning, at
what was usually the best moment of his day--about five o'clock.
Besides, he was to be got up and really dressed--not merely huddled into
clothes--and this was a fatiguing operation, never carried out in dire
earnest before. Doctor and Nurse had assented, on condition that Mr.
Torrens should be content to remain in his room, and not insist on going
downstairs. Where was the use of his doing so, with such a journey
before him to-morrow? Better surely to husband the last grain of
strength--the last inch-milligramme of power--for an eighteen-mile ride,
even with all the tonics in the world to back it! Mr. Torrens consented
to this reservation, and promised not to be rebellious.
So--in time--the hour was at hand when he would see.... No!--_not_
see--there was the sting of it!... that girl he had spoken with at
Arthur's Bridge. The vision of her in the sunset was upon him still. He
had pleaded with his sister that, come what might, she should not come
to him in his darkness, in the hope that this darkness might pass away
and leave her image open to him as before. For this hope had mixed
itself with that strong desire of his heart that his own disaster should
weigh upon her as little as possible. He had kept this meeting back
almost till the eleventh hour, hoping against hope that light would
break; longing each day for a gleam of the dawn that was to give him his
life once more, and make the whole sad story a matter of the past. And
now the time had come; and here he stood awaiting the ordeal he had to
pass successfully, or face his failure as he might.
If he could but rig up an hour's colourable pretext of vision, however
imperfect, the reality might return in its own good time--if that was
the will of Allah--and that time might be soon enough. She might never
know the terrible anticipations his underthought had had to fight
against.
"You look better in the blue Mandarin silk than you would in your
tailor's abominations," said Irene, referring to a dressing-gown costume
she had insisted on. "Only your hair wants cutting, dear boy! I won't
deceive you."
"That's serious!" He lets it pass nevertheless. "Look here, 'Rene, I
want you to tell me.... Where are you?--oh, here!--all right.... Now
tell me--should you say I saw you, by the look of my eyes?"
"Indeed I should. Indeed, indeed, _nobody_ could tell. Your eyes look as
strong as--as that hooky bird's that sits in the sun at the Zoölogical
and nictitates ... isn't that the word?... Goes twicky-twick with a
membrane...."
"Fish eagle, I expect."
"Shouldn't wonder! Only, look here!... You mustn't claw hold of Gwen
like that. How can you tell, without?"
"Where they are, do you mean? Oh, I know by the voice. You go somewhere
else and speak." Whereupon Irene goes furtively behind him, and says
suddenly:--"Now look at me!" It is a success, for the blind man faces
round, looking full at her.
She claps her hands. "Oh, Adrian!" she cries, "are you sure you don't
see--aren't you cheating?" A memory, in this, of old games of
blindman's-buff. "You always did cheat, darling, you know, when we
played on Christmas Eve. How do I know I can trust you?" She goes close
to him again caressing his face. "Oh, _do_ say, dear boy, you can see a
little!" But it is no use. He can say nothing.
There are a few moments of distressing silence, and then the brother
says:--"Never mind, dear! It will be all right. They say so. Take me to
the window that I may look out!" They stand together at the open
casement, listening to the voices of the birds. The shrewdest observer
might fail to detect the flaw in those two full clear eyes that seem to
look out at the leagues of park-land, the spotted deer in the distance,
the long avenue-road soon indistinguishable in the trees. The sister
sees those eyes, no other than she has always known them, but knows that
they see nothing.
"When I was here first," says the brother, "the thrushes were still
singing. They are off duty by now, the very last of them." He stops
listening. "That's a yellow-hammer. And that's a linnet. _You_ can't
tell one from the other."
"I know. I'm shockingly ignorant.... What, dear? What is it you want?"
Her brother has been exploring the window-frame with a restless hand,
as though in search of some latch or blind-cord. He cannot find what he
wants.
"I want to come to a clearness about the position of this blessed
window," he says. "Which direction is the bed in now? Well--describe it
this way, suppose! Say I'm looking north now, with my shoulder against
the window. Where's the bed? South-west--south-east--due south?"
"South-west by south. Perhaps that's not nautical, but you know what I
mean."
"All right! Now, look here! As I stand here--looking out
slantwise--where's the sunset? I mean, where would it be?--where does it
mean to be?"
"You would be looking straight at it. Of course, you are not really
looking north.... There--now you are!" She had taken her hands from the
shoulder they were folded on and turned his head to the right. "But, I
say, Adrian dear!..." She hesitates.
"What, for instance?"
"Don't try to humbug too much. Don't try to do it, darling boy. You'll
only make a hash of it."
"All right, goosey-woosey! I'll fry my own fish. Don't you be uneasy!"
And then they talk of other things: the journey home to-morrow, and how
it shall be as good as lying in bed to Adrian, in the big carriage with
an infinity of cushions; the new friends they have made here at the
Towers, with something of wonderment that this chance has been so long
postponed; the kindness they have had from them, and the ill-requital
Adrian made for it yesterday by breaking that beautiful blue china
tea-cup--any trifle that comes foremost--anything but the great grief
that underlies the whole.
For Irene would have her brother at his best, that the visit to him of
her new-made friend Gwen may go off well, and steer clear of the
ambushes that beset it. Better that that visit should never come off,
than that her friend should be left to share their fears for the future.
Each is hiding from the other a weakening confidence in the renewal of
suspended eyesight, weaker at the outset than either had been prepared
to admit to the other.
"Look here, 'Rene," says Adrian, an hour later, during which his sister
has read aloud to him, lying by the open window. "Never mind Becky
Sharp; she'll keep till the evening. Can we see Arthur's Bridge from
this window, where I saw your friend Lady Gwen? It was Arthur's, wasn't
it? What Arthur? King Arthur?"
"Yes, if you like. Only don't go and call it Asses' Bridge, as you did
the other day--not when the family's here. It sounds disrespectful."
"Not a bit. It only looks as if Euclid had been round. But answer my
question.... Oh, we _can_ see it! Very well, then; show me which way it
lies. Is it visible--the actual bridge itself, I mean--not the place
it's in?"
Irene got up and looked out of the window from behind her brother's
chair. "Yes," she said. "One sees the stone arch plain. How can I show
you?" She took his head in her hands again to guide it to a true line of
sight.
"Between us and the sunset?"
"Thereabouts. Rather on the left."
"Very good. Now we can go on with Becky Sharp."
"That's it, my lord, is it? Where was I?--oh, Sir Pitt Crawley...." And
then the reading was continued, till tea portended, and Irene went away
to capture her visitors.
All the sting of his darkness came upon him in its fulness as he heard
that voice on the stairs. Oh, could he but see her for one moment--only
one moment--to be sure that that dazzling image of three weeks since was
not a mere imagination! He knew well the enchantment of the rainbow
gleam on sea and earth and sky--the glory that makes Aladdin's palace of
the merest hovel. He could scarcely have said to a nicety why a
self-deception on this score seemed to him fraught with such evil. If it
was a terror on Gwen's behalf, that a false image cherished through a
period of reviving eyesight should in the end prove an injustice to her,
and cast a chill over his own passionate admiration--for it was that at
least that a chance of five minutes had enthralled him with--he banished
that terror artificially from his mind. What could it matter to _her_,
if he _was_ taken aback and disappointed at her not turning out what his
excited fancy had made her that evening at Arthur's Bridge? What was he
to _her_ that any chance man might not have been, after so scanty an
interchange of words?
That was his dominant feeling, or underlying it, as her voice neared the
door of his room, saying:--"Fancy your carrying him away without our
seeing him--so much as thinking of it! I call you a wicked, unprincipled
sister." To which another voice, a maternal sort of voice, said what
must have been: "Don't speak so loud!"--or its equivalent. For the
girl's voice dropped, her last words being:--"_He_ won't hear, at this
distance."
Then, she was actually coming in at the door! He could hear the
prodigious skirt-rustle that is now a thing of womanhood's past--though
we adored every comely example, mind you, we oldsters in those days, for
all that she carried a milliner's shop on her back--and as it climaxed
towards entry had to remember by force how slight indeed had been his
interchange of words with the visitor he wished to see--to see by
hearing, and to touch the hand of twice. For he had counted his coming
privileges in his heart already, even if his reason had made light of
its arithmetic. He would be on the safe side now--so he said to
himself--and think of the elder lady as the player of the leading
_rôle_. No disparagement to her subordinate; the merest deference to
convention!
There was no mishap about the first meeting; only a narrow escape of
one. The man in the dark reckoned it safest to extend his hand and leave
it, to await the first claimant. He took for granted this would be the
mother, and as his hand closed on a lady's, not small enough to call his
assumption in question, said half interrogatively:--"Lady Ancester?"
"That's Gwen," said his sister's voice. And at the word an electric
shock of a sort passed up his arm, the hand that still held his showing
no marked alacrity to release it.
"Yes, this is _me_," says the voice of its owner, "_that's_ mamma."
Lady Ancester, standing close to her, meets his outstretched hand and
shakes it cordially. Then follows pleasantry about mistaking the mother
for the daughter, with assumption of imperfect or dim vision only to
account for it, and a declaration from Adrian that he had been cautioned
not to confuse the one with the other. There _is_ a likeness, as a
matter of fact, and Irene has talked to him of it. The whole thing is
slighter than the telling of it.
Then the three ladies and the one man have grouped--composed
themselves--for reasonable chat. He is in his invalid chair by special
edict, at the window, and the two visitors face him half-flanking it.
His sister leans over him behind on the chair-back. She has kept very
close to him, guiding him under pretence that he wants support, which is
scarcely the case now, so rapid has been his progress in this last week.
She is very anxious lest her brother should venture too rashly on
fictitious proofs of eyesight that does not exist. But it can all be put
down to uneasiness about his strength.
The platitudes of mere chat ensue, the Countess being prolocutrix. But
she can be sincerely earnest in speaking of her own concern about the
accident, and her family's. Also to the full about the rejoicing of
everyone when it was "certain that all would turn out well." She has
been bound over to say nothing about the eyesight, and keeps pledges;
almost too transparently, perhaps. A word or two about it as a thing of
temporary abeyance might have been more plausible.
Gwen has become very silent since that first warmth of her greeting. She
is leaving the conversation to her mother, which puzzles Irene, who had
framed a different picture of the interview, and is disappointed so far.
Achilles, the dog, too, may be disappointed--may be feeling that
something more demonstrative is due to the position. Irene imputes this
view to him, inferring it from his restless appeals to Gwen, as he leans
against her skirts, throwing back a pathetic gaze of remonstrance for
something too complex for his powers of language. Her comment:--"He is
always like that,"--seems to convey an image of his whereabouts to his
master, confirmed perhaps by expressive dog-substitutes for speech.
"You mustn't let my bow-wow worry you, Lady Gwendolen. He presumes till
he's checked, on principle. Send him to lie down over here. Here, Ply,
Ply, Ply!... Oh, won't he come?" Probably Achilles knows that his
master, who speaks, is only being civil.
"No--because I'm holding him. I want him here. He's a darling!" So says
Gwen; and then continues:--"Oh yes, _I_ know why he's Ply--short for
Pelides. I think he thinks I think it was his fault, and wants
forgiveness."
"Possibly. But it is also possible that he sees his way by cajolery to
all the sweet biscuits with a little crown on them that come about with
tea. He wants none of us to have any. Pray do not think any the worse of
him. How is he to know that a well-bred person hungers for little crown
biscuits? We are so affected that there is nothing for him to go by."
"And he's a dear, candid darling! Of course he is. He shall have
everything he wants." Achilles appears to accept the concession as
deserved, but to be ready to requite it with undying love.
"It is all the excellence of his heart, I am aware, and a certain
simplicity and directness," says Adrian. "But all the same he mustn't
spoil ladies' dresses--beyond a certain point, of course. I have been
very curious to know, Lady Gwendolen, whether his paws came off--the
marks of them, I mean--on that lovely India muslin I saw you in three
weeks ago, just before this unfortunate affair which has given so much
trouble to everybody at--at ... Arthur's Bridge, of course! Couldn't
think of the name at the moment. At Arthur's Bridge. I'm afraid he
didn't do that dress any good."
"It wasn't a new dress," says Gwen, "as far as I remember." A point her
maid would know more about, clearly.
Lady Ancester seems to think a little _ex post facto_ chaperonage would
not be inappropriate. "Gwen was out of bounds, I understand," she says;
which means absolutely nothing, but sounds well.
The remark seems somehow to focus the conversation, and become a
stepping-stone to a review of the recent events. Evidently the principal
actor in them takes that view. "I had no idea whom I was speaking to,"
he says, "still less that Lady Gwendolen had taken the trouble to come
away from the house with so kind a motive. Of course, I have heard all
about it from my sister."
Gwen perfectly understands. "And then you walked over to Drews Thurrock,
and Achilles' collar broke, and he got away." She speaks as one who
waits for more.
"He did, and I am sorry to say he forgot himself. The old Adam broke out
in him in connection with the sudden springing of a hare, just under his
nose. It was almost the moment after his collar broke, and it is quite
possible he thought I meant to let him go. But after all, Achilles is
human, and really I could not blame him in any case. Try to see the
thing from his point of view. Fancy discovering an unused faculty lying
dormant--art, song, eloquence--and an unprecedented opportunity for its
use! Do you know, I don't believe Achilles had ever so much as seen a
hare before?--not a live one! He smelt one once at a poulterer's--a dead
one that was starting for the Antipodes with its legs crossed. The
poulterer lost his temper, very absurdly...."
"Well--did he catch the hare? I mean the first hare."
"That I can't say. Both vanished, and I suspect the hare got away. I'm
sure of one thing, that if Achilles did catch him he didn't know what to
do with him. He has not the sporting spirit. Cats interest him in his
native town, but when they show fight he comes and complains to me that
they are out of order. He overhauled a kitten three weeks old once, that
had come out to see the world, and it defied him to mortal combat.
Achilles talked to me all the way down the street about that kitten."
"I want to know what happened next." From Gwen.
"Yes--silly old chatterbox!--keep to the point." Thus Irene; and Lady
Ancester, who has been accepting the hare and the cats with dignity,
even condescension, adds:--"We were just at the most interesting part
of the story." This was practically her ladyship's first sight of the
son of the man she had gone so near to marrying over five-and-twenty
years ago. The search to discover a _modus vivendi_ between a past and
present at war may have thrown her a little out of her usual demeanour.
Gwen wondered why mamma need be so ceremonious.
Adrian was perfectly unconscious of it, even if Irene was not. He ran
on:--"Oh--the story! Yes--Achilles forgot himself, and was off after the
hare like a whirlwind.... I don't know, Lady Ancester, whether you have
ever blown a whistle in the middle of an otherwise unoccupied landscape,
with no visible motive?"
Her ladyship had not apparently. Irene found fault with the narrator's
style, suggesting a more prosaic one. But Gwen said: "Oh, Irene dear,
what a perfect _sister_ you are! Why can't you let Mr. Torrens tell his
tale his own way?"
So Mr. Torrens went on:--"It doesn't matter. If you had ever done so, I
believe you would confirm my experience of the position. If Orpheus had
whistled, instead of singing to a lute, Eurydice would have stopped with
Pluto, and Orpheus would have cut a very poor figure. I began to
perceive that Achilles wasn't going to respond, and I knew the hare
wouldn't, all along. So I walked on and got to a wood of oaks with an
interesting appearance. The interesting appearance was inviting, so I
went inside. Achilles was sure to turn up, I thought. Poor dear!--I
didn't see him for some days after that, when I came to and heard all
about it. He had been very uneasy about me, I'm afraid."
"But inside the wood with the interesting appearance--what happened
then?" Gwen would not tolerate digression.
"Well, I came to the edge of a wall with a little sunk glade beyond, and
was looking across some blackberry bushes when I heard a rifle-shot, and
the whirr of a bullet. I had just time to notice that the whirr came
_with_ the gunshot--if it had been in the opposite direction it would
have followed it--when I was struck on the head and fell. It was the
fall that knocked me insensible, but it was the gunshot that was
responsible for all that bleeding.... Do you know, I can't tell you how
sorry I am for that old boy that fired the shot? I can't imagine
anything more miserable than shooting a man by accident."
It was then that an uneasy feeling about those eyes, that looked so
clear and might be so deceiving, took hold of Gwen's mind, and would not
be ignored on any terms. The speaker's "you"--was it addressed in this
case to her or to her mother? The line of his vision seemed to pass
between them. If he could see at all, ever so dimly, he could look
towards the person he addressed. One does not always do so; true enough!
But one does not stare to right or to left of him. And she felt sure
these words had been spoken to herself.
So while her mother was joining in commiseration of old Stephen, towards
whom she herself felt rather brutal, she was casting about for some
means of coming at the truth. Irene was no good, however altruistic her
motives might be for story-telling.... No!--his eyes looked at her in
quite another fashion that evening at Arthur's Bridge, in the light of
the sunset. She _must_ get at the truth, come what might!
She left her mother to express sympathy for old Stephen, remaining
rather obdurately silent; checking a wish to say that it served the old
man right for meddling with loaded guns. She waited for the subject to
die down, and then recurred to its predecessor. Did Mr. Torrens walk
straight from Arthur's Bridge to the Thurrock or go roundabout? She did
not really want to know--merely wanted to get him to talk about himself
again. He might say something about his sight, by accident.
He replied:--"I did not go absolutely straight. I went first to where a
couple of stones--a respectable married couple, I should say--were
standing close together in the fern, with big initials cut on them.
Their own, I presume." Gwen said she knew them; they were parish
boundaries. "Well--probably that hare was trying what it felt like to be
in two parishes at once, for he jumped from behind that stone and
started for the Thurrock--that's right, isn't it?"
"Drews Thurrock? Yes."
"It was unfortunately just then that the collar broke. I whistled until
I felt undignified, and then went straight for the said Thurrock, rather
dreading that I should find Achilles awaiting applause for an
achievement in--in leporicide, I suppose...."
"I'm sure you didn't."
"I did not. So I waited a little, and was thinking what I had better do
next, when the shot came. You can almost see the place from this
window." He got up from his chair, standing exactly where he had stood
when his sister made his hand point out Arthur's Bridge in blind show.
He made a certain amount of pretence that he could see; and, indeed,
seemed to do so. No stranger to the circumstances could have detected
it. "I couldn't be sure about the place of the stones, though," said he,
carefully avoiding direct verbal falsehood; at least, so Irene thought,
trembling at his rashness. He went on:--"Oh dear, how doddery one does
feel on one's legs after a turn out of this kind!" and fell back in his
chair, his sister alone noticing how he touched it with his hand first
to locate it. "I shall be better after a cup of tea," said he. And the
whole thing was so natural that although he had not said in so many
words that he could see anything, the impression that he could was so
strong that Gwen could have laughed aloud for joy. "He really does see
_something_!" she exclaimed to herself.
If he could only have been content with this much of success! But he
must needs think he could improve upon it--reinforce it. His remark
about the cup of tea had half-reference to its appearance on the
horizon; or, rather on the little carved-oak table near the window,
whose flaps were being accommodated for its reception as he spoke. The
dwellers in this part of the country considered five o'clock tea at this
time an invention of their own, and were rather vain of it. Another
decade made it a national institution.
"If there is one thing I enjoy more than another," he said, "it is a
copper urn that boils furiously by magic of its own accord. When I was a
kid our old cook Ursley used to allow me to come into the kitchen and
see the red-hot iron taken out of the fire and dropped into the inner
soul of ours, which was glorious." This was all perfectly safe, because
there was the urn in audible evidence. Indeed, the speaker might have
stopped there and scored. Why need he go on? "And these blue Nankin cups
are lovely. I never could go crockery-mad as some people do. But good
Nankin blue goes to my heart." And he really thought, poor fellow, that
he had done well, and been most convincing.
Alas for his flimsy house of cards! Down it came. For there had only
been four left of that blue tea-service, and he had broken one. The urn
was hissing and making its lid jump in the middle of a Crown Derby
tea-set, so polychromatic, so self-assertive in its red and blue and
gold, that no ghost of a chance was left of catching at the skirts of
colour-blindness to find a golden bridge of escape from the blunder. The
most colour-blind eyes in the world never confuse monochrome and
polychrome.
There is a sudden terror-struck misgiving on the beautiful face of Gwen,
and an uneasy note of doubt in her mother's voice, seeking by vague
speech to elude and slur over the difficulty. "The patterns are quite
alike," she says weakly. The blind man feels he has made a mistake, and
is driven to safe silence. He understands his slip more clearly when the
servant, speaking half-aside, but audibly, to the Countess, says:--"Mrs.
Masham said the blue was spoiled for four, my lady, and to bring four
of the China." Crown Derby is more distinctly China in English
vernacular than Nankin blue.
Please understand that the story is giving at great length incidents
that passed in fractions of a minute--incidents Time recorded _currente
calamo_ for Memory to rearrange at leisure.
The incident of the tea-cups was easily slurred over and forgotten.
Adrian Torrens saw the risks of attempting too much, and gave up
pretending that he could see. Irene and the Countess let the subject go;
the former most willingly, the latter with only slight reluctance. Gwen
alone dwelt upon it, or rather it dwelt upon her; her memory could not
shake it off. Do what she would the thought came back to her: "He cannot
see _at all_. I must know--I _must_ know!" She could not join in the
chit-chat which went on under the benevolent influence of the tea-leaf,
the great untier of tongues. She could only sit looking beautiful,
gazing at the deceptive eyes she felt so sure were blind to her beauty,
devising some means of extracting confession from their owner, and
thereby knowing the worst, if it was to come. It was interesting to her,
of course, to hear Mr. Torrens talk of the German Universities, with
which he seemed very familiar; and of South America, the area of which,
he said, had stood in the way of his becoming equally familiar with it.
He had been about the world a good deal for a man of five-and-twenty.
"Gwen thought you were more," said Irene. "At Arthur's Bridge, you know!
She thought you were twenty-seven."
"Because I was so wet through. Naturally. I was soaked and streaky. Are
you sure it wasn't thirty-seven, Lady Gwendolen?"
It has been mentioned that Lady Ancester had a matter-of-fact
side to her character. But was it this that made her say
thoughtfully:--"Twenty-five perhaps--certainly not more!" Probably her
mind had run back nearly thirty years, and she was calculating from the
date of this man's father's marriage, which she knew; or from that of
his eldest brother's birth, which she also knew. She was not so clear
about Irene. At the time of that young lady's first birthday--her only
one, in fact--her close observation of her old flame's family dates was
flagging. But she was clear that this Adrian's birth had followed near
upon that of her own son Frank, drowned a few years since so near the
very place of this gunshot accident. The coincidence may have made her
identifications keener. Or Adrian's reckless chat, so like his father's
in old days that she had more than once gone near to comment on it, may
have roused old memories and set her a-fixing dates.
Adrian laughed at the way his age seemed to be treated as an open
question. "We have the Registrar on our side, at any rate, Lady
Ancester. I can answer for that. By-the-by, wasn't my father ... did not
my father?..." He wanted to say: "Was not my father a friend of your
brother in old days?" But it sounded as if the friendship, whatever it
was, had lessened in newer days, and he knew of nothing to warrant the
assumption. He knew nothing of his father's early love passages, of
course. Fathers don't tell their sons what narrow escapes they have had
of being somebody else, or somebody else being they--an awkward
expression!
Her ladyship thought over a phrase or two before she decided on:--"Your
father used to come to Clarges Street in my mother's time." She was
pleased with the selection; but less so with a second, one of several
she tried to herself and rejected. "We have really scarcely met since
those days. I thought him wonderfully little changed."
Has a parent of yours, you who read--or of ours, for that matter--ever
spoken to one or other of us, I wonder, of some fancy of his or her
bygone days; one whose greeting, company manners apart, was an embrace;
whose letters were opened greedily; whose smile was rapture, and whose
frown a sleepless night? If he or she did so, was the outcome better
than the Countess's?
She wanted to run away, but could not just yet. She made believe to talk
over antecedents--making a conversation of indescribable baldness, and
setting Irene's shrewd wits to work to find out why. It was not _her_
brother, but her husband's, who had been Sir Hamilton's college-friend.
Yes, her father was well acquainted with Mr. Canning, and so on. This
was her contribution to general chat, until such time had elapsed as
would warrant departure and round the visit plausibly off.
It was Clarges Street that had done it. Irene was sure of that! She, the
daughter of the Miss Abercrombie her father had married, sitting there
and coming to conclusions!
However, the Countess meant to go--no doubt of it. "You have paid my
brother such a short visit, after all," said Irene. "Please don't go
away because you fancy you are tiring him." But it was no use. Her
ladyship meant to go, and went. Regrets of all sorts, of course;
explanatory insincerities about stringent obligations elsewhere; even
specific allegations of expected guests; false imputation of exacting
claims to the Earl. All with one upshot--departure.
Gwen had taken little or no notice of what was passing, since that
betraying incident of the Crown Derby set. Her mind was at work on
schemes for discovery of the truth about those eyes. She got on the
track of a good one. If she could only contrive to be alone with him for
one moment. Yes--it _was_ worth trying?
It was her mother's inexplicable alacrity to be gone that gave the
opportunity. Her ladyship said good-bye to Mr. Torrens; was sorry she
had to go, but the Earl was so fussy about anything the least like an
appointment--some concession to conscience in the phrasing of this--in
short, go she must! Having committed herself thus, to wait for her
daughter would have been the merest self-stultification. She went out
multiplying apologies, and Irene naturally accompanied her along
the lobby, assisted and sanctioned by Achilles. Gwendolen was
alone with the man who was still credited with sight enough to see
_something_--provided that it was a palpable something. Now--if she
could only play her part right!
"Mamma is always in such a fuss to go somewhere and do something else,"
she said, rather affecting the drawl of a fashionable young lady; for
she could hide anxiety better, she felt, that way. "Do you know, Mr.
Torrens, I don't believe a word of all that about people coming.
Nobody's coming. If there is, they've been there ever so long. I did so
want to talk to you about one of your poems. I mustn't stop now, I
suppose, or I shall be in a scrape." But all the while that she was
saying this she was standing with her right hand outstretched, as though
to say good-bye. Only the word remained unspoken.
"Which of my poems was it?" He was to all seeming looking full at her,
yet his hand did not come out to meet hers. There was hope still. How
could he ratify an adieu with a handshake, on the top of a question that
called for an answer?
Gwen had not arranged the point in her mind--had not thought of any
particular poem in fact. She took the first that occurred to her. "It's
the one called 'A Vigil in Darkness,'" she said. And then she would have
been so glad to withdraw it and substitute another. That was not
possible--she had to finish:--"I wanted to know if any other English
poet has ever used 'starren' for stars."
Adrian laughed. "I remember," said he; then quoted: "'The daughters of
the dream witch come and go,' don't they? 'The black bat hide the
_starren_ of the night.' That's it, isn't it?... No--so far as I know!
But they are a queer lot. Nobody ever knows what they'll be at next in
the way of jargon. It's some rubbish I wrote when I was a boy. I put it
with the others to please 'Re." This was his shortest for Irene.
If he would only have toned down his blank ignorance of the beautiful
white hand stretched out so appealingly to him--made the least
concession! If he had but held in readiness an open-fingered palm, with
intent, there would have been hope. But alas!--no such thing. When,
instead, he thrust both hands into the pockets of the blue Mandarin-silk
dressing-gown, Gwen felt exactly as if a knife had cut her heart. And
there were his two beautiful eyes looking--looking--straight at her!
Need Fate have worded an inexorable decree so cruelly?
Hope caught at a straw, _more suo_. What was more likely than that
darkness was intermittent? Many things--most things for that matter! Any
improbability to outwit despair. Anything rather than final surrender.
Therefore, said Gwen to herself, her hand outstretched should await his,
however sick at heart its owner felt, till the last pretext of belief
had flagged and died--belief in the impossibility of so terrible a doom,
consistently with any decent leniency of the Creator towards His
creatures.
"Oh--to please Irene, was it?" said Gwen, talking chancewise; not
meaning much, but hungering all the while for the slightest aliment for
starving Hope. "Who were 'the daughters of the Dream Witch?'" And then
she was sorry again. Better that a poem about darkness should have been
forgotten! She kept her hand outstretched, mind you!--even though Adrian
made matters worse by folding his hands round his arms on a high
chair-back, and leaning on it. "I wonder who she is," was the girl's
thought, as she looked at a ring.
"Let me see!" said he. "How does it go?" Then he quoted, running the
lines into one: "'In the night-watches in the garden of Night ever the
watchman sorrowing for the light waiteth in silence for the silent Dawn.
Dead sleep is on the city far below.' Then the daughters of the Dream
Witch came and went as per contract. No--I haven't the slightest idea
who they were. They didn't leave their names."
"You will never be serious, Mr. Torrens." She felt too heartsick to
answer his laugh. She never moved her hand, watching greedily for a sign
that never came. There was Irene coming back, having disposed of her
ladyship! "I _must_ go," said Gwen, "because of mamma. She's the Dream
Witch, I suppose. I _must_ go. Good-bye, Mr. Torrens! But I can leave
_my_ name--Gwen or Gwendolen. Choose which you prefer." She had to
contrive a laugh, but it caught in her throat.
"Gwen, I think." It was such a luxury to call her by her name, holding
her hand in his--for, the moment she spoke "good-bye," his hand had
come to meet hers like a shot--that he seemed in no hurry to relinquish
it. Nor did she seem concerned to have it back at the cost of dragging.
"Did you ever live abroad?" said he. "In Italy they always kiss
hands--it's rather rude not to. Let's pretend it's Italy."
She was not offended; might have been pleased, in fact--for Gwen was no
precisian, no drawer of hard-and-fast lines in flirtation--if it had not
been for the black cloud that in the last few minutes had been stifling
her heart. As it was, Adrian's trivial presumption counted for nothing,
unless, indeed, it was as the resolution of a difficulty. It was good so
far. Even so two pugilists are glad of a way out of a close grip
sometimes. It ended a handshake neither could withdraw from gracefully.
"Good-bye, Mr. Torrens," she said, and contrived another laugh. "I'll
come again to talk about the poetry. I _must_ go now." She passed Irene,
coming in from a moment's speech with the nurse outside, with a hurried
farewell, and ran on to her mother's room breathless.
CHAPTER XIX
GWEN'S PESSIMISM. IT WAS ALL OUR FAULT! HOW SHE KNEW THAT ADRIAN
TORRENS WAS FIANCE, AND HOW HER MOTHER TOOK KINDLY TO THE IDEA.
PEOPLE ONLY KNOW WHAT THE WILL OF GOD IS, NOT WHAT IT ISN'T. BUT
ADRIAN TORRENS DID _NOT_ COME TO TABLE. LONELINESS, AND NIGHT--ALL
BUT SLEEPLESS. WANT OF COMMON SENSE. THE FATE OF A FEATHER.
COUNTING A THOUSAND. LOOKING MATTERS CALMLY IN THE FACE. A GREAT
DECISION, AND WHAT GWEN SAW IN A MIRROR
Lady Ancester, not sorry to get away from a position which involved the
consideration that she was unreasonable in feeling reluctance to remain
in it, endeavoured on arriving in her own room to congratulate herself
on her own share in an embarrassing interview.
She had got through it very well certainly, but not so well as she had
been led to expect by her meeting with his father three weeks since. She
had had her misgivings before that interview, and had been pleasantly
surprised to find how thoroughly the inexorable present had ridden
rough-shod over the half-forgotten past. Their old identities had
vanished, and it was possible to be civil and courteous, and that sort
of thing; even to send messages of sympathy, quite in earnest, to the
lady who up till now had been little more than the Miss Abercrombie
Hamilton Torrens married. Being thus set at ease about what seemed rocks
of embarrassment ahead, in the father's case, Lady Ancester had looked
forward with perfect equanimity to making the acquaintance of the
son--had, in fact, only connected him in her mind with this deplorable
accident, which, however, she quite understood to be going to be a thing
of the past. All in good time. Her equanimity had, however, been
disturbed by the young man's inherited manner, which his father had so
completely lost; above all things by his rapid nonsense, one of his
father's leading characteristics in youth. She condemned it as more
nonsensical, which probably only meant that she herself was older. But
the manner--the manner of it! How it brought back Clarges Street and her
mother, and the family earthquake over her resolution to marry a young
Dragoon, with three good lives between him and his inheritance! She was
taken aback to find herself still so sensitive about that old story.
She had not succeeded in ridding herself of her disquieting memories
when her daughter followed her, choking back tense excitement until she
had fairly closed the door behind her. Then her words came with a rush,
for all that she kept her voice in check to say them.
"He cannot _see_, mamma--he cannot see _at all_! He is dead
stone-blind--for life--for life! And _we_ have done it--_we_ have done
it!" Then she broke down utterly, throwing herself on a sofa to hide in
its cushions the torrent of tears she could no longer keep back. "_We_
have done it--_we_ have done it!" she kept on crying. "_We_ have ruined
his life, and the guilt is ours--ours--_all_!"
The Countess, good woman, tried to mix consolation with protest against
such outrageous pessimism. She pointed out that there was no medical
authority for such an extreme view as Gwen's. On the contrary, Sir
Coupland had spoken most hopefully. And, after all, if Mr. Torrens could
see Arthur's Bridge he could not be absolutely blind.
"He could not see Arthur's Bridge _at all_," said Gwen, sitting up and
wiping her tears, self-possessed again for the moment from the stimulus
of contradiction, always a great help. "I stood facing him for five
minutes holding out my hand for him to shake, and he never--_never_--saw
it!"
"Perhaps he doesn't like shaking hands," said her mother weakly. "Some
people don't."
"They do mine," said Gwen. "Besides, he did in the end, and...."
"And what?"
"And nothing." At which point Gwen broke down again, crying out as
before that he was blind, and she knew it. The doctors were only talking
against hope, and _they_ knew it. "Oh, mother, mother," she cried out,
addressing her mother as she would often do when in trouble or excited,
"how shall we bear it, years from now, to know that he can see
nothing--_nothing!_--and to know that the guilt of his darkness lies
with us--is ours--is yours and mine? Have we ever either of us said a
word of protest against that wicked dog-shooting order? It was in the
attempt to commit a crime that we sanctioned, that old Stephen tried to
shoot that darling Achilles. Oh, I know it was no fault of old
Stephen's!" She became a little calmer from indulgence of speech that
had fought for hearing. "Oh no, mother dear, it's no use talking. If Mr.
Torrens never recovers his eyesight he has only us to thank for it." She
paused a moment, and then added:--"And how I shall look that girl in the
face I don't know!"
"What girl?"
"Oh, didn't you see? The girl he's got that engaged ring on his finger
about. You didn't see? You never _do_ see, mamma dear!"
"I didn't notice any particular ring, dear." Her ladyship may have felt
a relief about something, to judge by her manner. "Has Irene said
anything to you?" she asked.
Gwen considered a little. "Irene talks a good deal about a Miss Gertrude
Abercrombie, a cousin. But she has never _said_ anything."
"Oh!--it's Miss Gertrude Abercrombie?..."
"_I_ know nothing about it. I was only guessing. She may be Miss
Gertrude Anybody. Whoever she is, it's the same thing. _Think_ what
she's lost!"
"She has, indeed, my dear," says the elder lady, who is not going to
give up this acceptable Miss Gertrude Anybody, even at the risk of
talking some nonsense about her. "And we must all feel for the cruelty
of her position. But if she is--as I have no doubt she is--truly
attached to Mr. Torrens, she will find her consolation in the thought
that it is given to her to ... to...." But the Countess was not
rhetorician enough to know that choice words should be kept for
perorations. She had quite taken the edge off her best arrow-head. She
could not wind up "to be a consolation to her husband" with any
convincingness. So when Gwen interrupted her with:--"I see what you
mean, but it's nonsense," she fell back upon the strong entrenchment of
seniors, who know the Will of God. They really do, don't you know? "At
least," she said, "this Miss Abercrombie must admit that no blame can
fairly be laid at our door for what was so manifestly ordained by the
Almighty. Sir Hamilton Torrens himself was the first to exonerate your
father. His own keeper is instructed to shoot all dogs except poodles."
"It was not the Will of God at all...."
"My dear!--how _can_ you know that?"
"Well--not more than everything else is! It was old Stephen's not
hitting his mark. And he would have killed Achilles, then. Oh dear, how
I do sometimes wish God could be kept out of it!... No, mamma, it's no
use looking shocked. Whatever makes out that it was not our fault is
wrong, and Sir Hamilton Torrens didn't mean that when he said it."
"My dear, it is his own son."
"Very well, then, all the more! Oh, you know what I mean.... No, mamma,"
said she as she left the room, "it isn't any use. I am utterly miserable
about it."
And she was, though she herself scarcely knew yet how miserable. So long
as she had someone else to speak to, the whole deadly truth lingered on
the threshold of her mind and would not enter. She ascribed weight to
opinions she would have disregarded had she had no stake on the chance
of their correctness.
She caught at the narration of her maid Lutwyche, prolonging her
hair-combing for talk's sake. Lutwyche had the peculiarity of always
accommodating her pronunciation to the class she was speaking with,
elaborating it for the benefit of those socially above her. So her
inquiry how the gentleman was getting on was accounted for by her having
seen him from the guardian. Speaking with an equal, she would have said
garden. She had seen him therefrom, and been struck by his appearance of
recovered vigour, especially by his visible enjoyment of the land
escape. She would have said landscape to Cook. Pronounced anyhow, her
words were a comfort to her young mistress, defending her a very little
against the black thoughts that assailed her. Similarly, Miss Lutwyche's
understanding that Mr. Torrens would come to table this evening was a
flattering unction to her distressed soul, and she never questioned her
omniscient handmaid's accuracy. On the contrary, she utilised a memory
of some chance words of her mother to Irene, suggesting that her brother
might be "up to coming down" that evening, as a warrant for
replying:--"I believe so."
Nevertheless, she had no hope of seeing him make his appearance in the
brilliantly illuminated Early Jacobean drawing-room, where at least two
of the upstairs servants had to light wax tapers for quite ten minutes
at dusk, to be even with a weakness of the Earl's for wax-candlelight
and no other. And when Irene appeared without him, her "Oh dear!--your
brother wasn't up to coming down, then?" was spiritless and perfunctory.
Nor did she believe her friend's "No--we thought it best to be on the
safe side." For she knew now why it was that this absence from the
evening banquet--"family dinner-table" is too modest a phrase--had been
so strenuously insisted on. There was no earthly reason why Irene's
brother should not have dressed and sat at table. Were there no sofas in
the Early Jacobean drawing-room? There was no reason against his
presence at all except that his absolute blindness must needs have been
manifest to every observer. She could see it all now.
"You know, dear," said Irene, "if Adrian were a reasonable being, there
would be no harm in his dining down, as Lutwyche calls it. He could sit
up to dinner perfectly, but no earthly persuasion would get him up to
bed till midnight. And as for lying down on sofas in the drawing-room
after dinner, you could as soon get a mad bull to lie down on a sofa as
Adrian, if there was what Lutwyche calls company."
So that evening the beauty of the Earl's daughter--whose name among the
countryfolk, by-the-by, was "Gwen o' the Towers"--was less destructive
than usual to the one or two new bachelors who helped the variation of
the party. For monumental beauty kills only poets and dreamers, and
these young gentlemen were Squires. The verdict of one of them about her
tells its tale:--"A stunner to look at, but too standoffish for my
money!" She was nothing of the sort; and would gladly, to oblige, have
shot a smile or an eye-flash at either of them if her heart had not been
so heavy. But she wanted terribly to be alone and cry all the evening,
and was of no use as a beauty. Perhaps it was as well that it was so,
for these unattached males.
When the time came for the loneliness of night she was frightened of it,
and let Irene go at her own door with reluctance. In answer to whom she
said at parting:--"No--no, dear! I'm perfectly well, and nothing's the
matter." Irene spoke back after leaving her:--"You know _I'm_ not the
least afraid about him. It will be all right." Then Gwen mustered a poor
laugh, and with "Of course it will, dear!" vanished into her bedroom.
She got to sleep and slept awhile; then awoke to the worst solitude a
vexed soul knows--those terrible "small hours" of the morning. Then,
every mere insect of evil omen that daylight has kept in bounds grows
to the size of an elephant, and what was the whirring of his wings
becomes discordant thunder. Then palliatives lose their market-value,
and every clever self-deception that stands between us and acknowledged
ill bursts, bubblewise, and leaves the soul naked and unarmed against
despair.
Gwen waked without provocation at about three in the morning; waked
Heaven knew why!--for there was all the raw material of a good night's
rest; the candidate for the sleepership; a prodigiously comfortable bed;
dead silence, not so much as an owl in the still night she looked out
into during an excursion warranted to promote sleep--but never sleep
itself! She had been dragged reluctantly from a dreamless Nirvana into
the presence of a waking nightmare--two great beautiful eyes that looked
at her and saw nothing; and this coercion, she somehow felt, was really
due to an unaccountable absence of mind on her part. Surely she could
have kept asleep with a little more common sense. She would go back from
that excursion reinforced, and bid defiance to that nightmare. Sleep
would come to her, she knew, if she could find a _modus vivendi_ with a
loose flood of golden hair, and could just get hold of a feather-quill
that was impatient of imprisonment and wanted to see the world. She
searched for it with the tenderest of finger-tips because she knew--as
all the feather-bed world knows--that if one is too rough with it, it
goes in, and comes out again just when one is dropping off....
There!--it was caught and pulled out. She would not burn it. It would
smell horribly and make her think of Lutwyche's remedy for fainting
fits, burned feathers held to the nostrils. No!--she would put it
through the casement into the night-air, and it would float away and
think of its days on the breast of an Imbergoose, and believe them back
again. Oh, the difference between the great seas and winds, and the
inside of that stuffy ticking! Poor little breast-feather of a foolish
bird! Yes--now she could go to sleep! She knew it quite well--she had
only to contrive a particular attitude.... There, that was right! Now
she had only to put worrying thoughts out of her head and count a
thousand ... and then--oblivion!
Alas, no such thing! In five minutes the particular attitude was a thing
of the past, and the worrying thoughts were back upon her with a
vengeance. Or, rather, the worrying thought; for her plural number was
hypocrisy. She was in for a deadly wakeful night, a night of growing
fever, with those sightless eyes expelling every other image from her
brain. She was left alone with the darkness and a question she dared not
try to answer. Suppose that when those eyes looked upon her that
evening at Arthur's Bridge for the first time--suppose it was also the
last? What then? How could she know it, and know how the thing came
about, and whom she held answerable for it, and go on living?...
No--her life would end with that. Nothing would again be as it had been
for her. Her childhood had ended when she first saw Death; when her
brother's corpse was carried home dripping from within a stone's throw
of this new tragedy. But was not that what bills of lading call the "Act
of God"--fair play, as it were, on the part of Fate? What was this?...
Come--this would never do, with a pulse like that!
No one should ever feel his pulse, or hers, at night. Gwen was none the
better for doing it. Nor did she benefit by an operation which her mind
called looking matters calmly in the face. It consisted in imaginary
forecasts of a _status quo_ that was to come about. She had to skip some
years as too horrible even to dream of; years needed to live down the
worst raw sense of guilt, and become hardened to inevitable life. Then
she filled in her _scenario_ with Sir Adrian Torrens, the blind Squire
of Pensham Steynes, and his beautiful and accomplished wife, a dummy
with no great vitality, constructed entirely out of a ring on Mr.
Torrens's finger and an allusion of Irene's to the Miss Gertrude
Abercrombie, whose skill in needlework surpassed Arachne's. Gwen did not
supply this lady with a sufficiently well-marked human heart. Perhaps
the temptation to make her clever and shrewd but not sympathetic, not
quite up to her husband's deserts, was irresistible. It allowed of an
unprejudiced consciousness of what she, Gwen, would have been in this
dummy's situation. It allowed latitude to a fancy that portrayed Lady
Gwendolen Whatever-she-had-become--because, of course, _she_ would have
to marry some fool--as the staunch and constant friend of the family at
Pensham. Her devotion to the dummy when in trouble--and, indeed, she
piled up calamities for the unhappy lady--was monumental; an example to
her sex. And when, to the bitter grief of her devoted husband, the dummy
died--all parties being then, at a rough estimate, forty--and she
herself, his dearest friend, stood by the dummy's grave with him, and,
generally speaking, sustained him in his tribulation, a disposition to
get the fool out of the way grew strong enough to make its victim doubt
her own vouchers for her own absolute disinterestedness. She turned
angrily upon her fancies, tore them to tatters, flung them to the winds.
One does this, and then the pieces join themselves together and reappear
intact.
She was no nearer sleep after looking matters calmly in the face, that
way, for a full hour. Similar trials to dramatize a probable future all
ended on the same lines, and each time Gwen was indignant with herself
for her own folly. What was this man to her, whom she had seen twice?
Little enough!--she pledged herself to it in the Court of Conscience!
What was she to him, who had spoken with her twice certainly; but _seen_
her--oh, how little! Why, _she_ had seen _him_ more, of the two, if one
came to close quarters with Time. See how long he was stooping over that
unfortunate dog-chain!
Sitting up in bed in the dim July dawn, wild-eyed in an unshepherded
flock of golden locks, this young lady was certainly surpassingly
beautiful. She was revolving in her poor, aching head a contingency she
had not fully allowed for. Suppose--merely to look other things in the
face, you see!--suppose there were _no_ dummy! What chance would the
poor fellow have then of winning the love of any woman, with those blind
eyes in his head? Gwen got up restlessly and went to the casement,
meeting a stream of level sunlight that the swallows outside in the ivy
were making the subject of comment, and stood looking out over the
leagues of the ancient domain of her forefathers. "Gwen o' the
Towers"--that was her name. It seemed to join chorus with her own answer
to the last question, to her satisfaction.
To offer the consolation of her love, to give all she had to give, to
this man as compensation for the great curse that had fallen on him
through the fault of her belongings, seemed to her in her excited state
easy and nowise strange--mere difficulty of the negotiation apart. She
elected to shut her eyes to a fact we and the story can guess--we are so
shrewd, you see!--and to make a parade in her own eyes of a
self-renunciation approaching that of Marcus Curtius. If only the gulf
would open to receive her she would fling herself in. She ignored the
dissimilarities of detail in the two cases, especially the conceivable
promised land at the bottom of _her_ gulf. The Roman Eques had nothing
but death and darkness to look forward to.
The difficulties of the scheme shot across her fevered conception of it.
How if, though he was not affianced to the dummy, or any other lay
figure she might provide, his was a widowed heart left barren by the
hand of Death? How if some other disappointment had marred his
life?--some passion for a woman who had rashly accepted somebody else
before meeting him? This happens we know; so did Gwen, and was sorry.
How if some minx--Lutwyche's expression--had bewitched him and slighted
him? He might nurse a false ideal of her till Doomsday. Men did
sometimes, _coeteris paribus_. But how could she--how _could_ she?...
Anyhow, Gwen might have seen her way through that difficulty with a fair
chance. But--to be invisible!
The morning sun had been at variance with some flames, hard to believe
clouds, and had just dispersed them so successfully that their place in
the heavens knew them no more. His rays, unveiled, bore hard upon the
blue eyes, sore with watching, of the girl a hundred million miles off,
and drove her from her casement. Gwen of the Towers fell back into the
room, all the flowing lawn of the most luxurious _robe-de-nuit_ France
could provide turned to gold by the touch of Phoebus. She paused a
moment before a mirror, to glance at her pallor in it, and to wonder at
the sunlight in the wealth of its setting of ungroomed, uncontrollable
locks. It was not vanity exactly that provoked the despairing
thought:--"But he will never see me--never!" A girl would have been a
hypocrite indeed who could shut her eyes to what Gwen saw in that
looking-glass. She knew all about it--had done so from babyhood.
Some relaxation of the mind gave Morpheus an opportunity, and he took
such advantage of a willing victim that Lutwyche, coming three hours
later, scarcely knew how to deal with the case, and might have been
uneasy at such an intensive cultivation of sleep if she had been a
nervous person. But she was prosaic and phlegmatic, and held to the
general opinion that nothing unusual ever happened. So she was content
to make a little extra noise; and, when nothing came of it, to go away
till rung for. That was how Gwen came to be so late at breakfast that
morning.
CHAPTER XX
HOW THE HON. PERCIVAL GAVE MISS DICKENSON HIS ACCOUNT OF THE BLIND
MAN. HOW THAT ANY YOUNG MAN SOEVER IS GLAD THAT ANY YOUNG LADY
SOEVER ISN'T _FIANCEE_, EXCEPT SHE BE UGLY. MISS DICKENSON'S
EFFRONTERY. HOW MR. PELLEW SAID "POOH!" IRENE'S ABSENCE, VISITING.
EVERYONE'S ELSE ABSENCE, EXCEPT THE BLIND MAN'S, GWEN'S, AND MRS.
BAILEY'S, WHO HAD A LETTER TO WRITE
The Hon. Percival Pellew had not been at the Towers continuously
throughout the whole three weeks following the accident. The best club
in London could not have spared him as long as that. He had returned to
his place in the House a day or two later, had voted on the Expenses at
Elections Bill, and had then gone to a by-election in Cornwall to help
his candidate to keep his expenses at a minimum. His way back to the
club did not lie near Ancester Towers, but he reconciled a renewal of
his visit there to his conscience by the consideration that an unusually
late Session was predicted. A little more country air would do him no
harm, and the Towers was the best club in the country.
He had had absolutely no motive whatever for going there, outside what
this implies. Unless, indeed, something else was implied by his pledging
his honour to himself that this was the case. Self-deception is an art
that Man gives a great deal of attention to, and Woman nearly as much.
The Countess said to him, on the evening of his reappearance in time to
dress for dinner:--"Everybody's gone, Percy--I mean everybody of your
lot a fortnight ago." Whereto he replied:--"How about the wounded man?"
and her ladyship said:--"Mr. Torrens? Oh yes, Mr. Torrens is here still
and his sister--they'll be here a few days longer.... There's nobody
else. Yes, there's Constance Dickenson. Norbury, tell them to keep
dinner back a little because of Mr. Pellew." This was all in one
sentence, chiefly to the butler. She ended:--"All the rest are new," and
the gentleman departed to dress in ten minutes--long ones probably. This
was two or three evenings before Miss Dickenson saw that glow-worm in
the garden. Perhaps three, because two are needed to account for the
lady's attitude about that cigar, and twelve hours for a coolness
occasioned by her ladyship's saying in her inconsiderate way:--"Oh, you
are quite old friends, you two, of course--I forgot." Only fancy saying
that a single lady and gentleman were "quite old friends"! Both parties
exhibited mature courtesy, enriched with smiles in moderation. But for
all that their relations painfully resembled civility for the rest of
that evening.
However, whatever they were then, they were reinstated by now; that is
to say, by the morning after Gwen's bad night. Eavesdrop, please, and
overhear what you can in the arbutus walk, half-way through the Hon.
Percival's first cigar.
The gentleman is accounting for something he has just said. "What made
me think so was his being so curious about our friend Cumberworld. As
for Gwen, I wouldn't trust her not to be romantic. Girls are."
The lady speaks discreetly:--"Certainly no such construction would have
occurred to me. One has to be on one's guard against romantic ideas.
She might easily be--a--_éprise_, to some extent--as girls are...."
"But spooney, no! Well--perhaps you're right."
"I don't know whether I ought to say even that. I shouldn't, only to
you. Because I know I can rely on your discretion...."
"Rather. Only you must admit that when she appeared this morning--and
last night--she was looking ..."
"Looking what?"
"Well ... rather too statuesque for jollity."
"Perhaps the heat. I know she complains of the heat; it gives her a
headache."
"Come, Miss Dickenson, that's not fair. You know it was what _you_ said
began it."
"Began what?"
"Madam, what I am saying arises naturally from ..."
"There!--do stop being Parliamentary and be reasonable. What you mean
is--have those two fallen head over ears in love, or haven't they?"
Discussions of this subject of Love are greatly lubricated by
exaggeration of style. It is almost as good as a foreign tongue. She
continued more seriously:--"Tell me a little more of what Mr. Torrens
said."
"When I saw him this morning?" Mr. Pellew looked thoughtfully at what
was left of his cigar, as if it would remind him if he looked long
enough, and then threw it abruptly away as though he gave it up as a bad
job. "No," he said, falling back on his own memory. "It wasn't what he
said. It was the way of saying it. Manner is incommunicable. And he said
so little about her. He talked a good deal about Philippa in a chaffy
sort of way--said she was exactly his idea of a Countess--why had one
such firm convictions about Countesses and Duchesses and Baronets and so
on? It led to great injustice, causing us to condemn nine samples out of
ten as Pretenders, not real Countesses or Duchesses or Baronets at all.
He was convinced his own dear dad was a tin Baronet; or, at best,
Britannia-metal. Alfred Tennyson had spoken of two sorts--little
lily-handed ones and great broad-shouldered brawny Englishmen. Neither
would eat the sugar nor go to sleep in an armchair with the _Times_ over
his head. _His_ father did both. I admitted the force of his criticism,
but could not follow his distinction between Countesses and Duchesses.
Duchesses were squarer than Countesses, just as Dukes were squarer than
Earls."
"I think they are," said Miss Dickenson. She shut her eyes a moment for
reflection, and then decided:--"Oh yes--certainly squarer--not a doubt
of it!" Mr. Pellew formed an image in his mind, of this lady fifteen
years ago, with its eyes shut. He did not the least know why he did so.
"Torrens goes on like that," he continued. "Makes you laugh sometimes!
But what I was going to say was this. When he had disposed of Philippa
and chaffed Tim a little--not disrespectfully you know--he became
suddenly serious, and talked about Gwen--spoke with a hesitating
deference, almost ceremoniously. Said he had had some conversation with
Lady Gwendolen, and been impressed with her intelligence and wit. Most
young ladies of her age were so frivolous. He was the more impressed
that her beauty was undeniable. The brief glimpse he had had of her had
greatly affected him artistically--it was an Aesthetic impression
entirely. He overdid this."
Miss Dickenson nodded slightly in confidence with herself. _Her_ insight
jotted down a brief memorandum about Mr. Pellew's, and the credit it did
him. That settled, she recalled a something he had left unfinished
earlier. "You were asking about Lord Cumberworld, Mr. Pellew?"
"Whether there was anything afoot in that quarter? Yes, he asked that,
and wanted to know if Mrs. Bailey, who had been retailing current
gossip, was rightly informed when she said that there was, and that it
was going to come off. He was very anxious to show how detached he was
personally. Made jokes about its 'coming off' like a boot...."
"Stop a minute to see if I understand.... Oh yes--I see. 'If there was
anything afoot.' Of course. Go on."
"It was a poor quip, and failed of its purpose. His relief was too
palpable when I disallowed Mrs. Bailey.... By-the-by, that's a rum
thing, Miss Dickenson,--that way young men have. I believe if I did it
once when I was a young fillah I did it fifty times."
"Did what?"
"Well--breathed free on hearing that a girl wasn't engaged. Doesn't
matter how doosid little they know of her--only seen her in the Park on
horseback, p'r'aps--they'll eat a lot more lunch if they're told she's
still in the market. Fact!"
Miss Dickenson said that no doubt Mr. Pellew knew best, and that it was
gratifying to think how many young men's lunches her earlier days might
have intensified without her knowing anything about it. The gentleman
felt himself bound to reassure and confirm, for was not the lady
_passée_? "Rather!" said he; this favourite expression this time
implying that the name of these lunches was no doubt Legion. An awkward
sincerity of the lady caused her to say:--"I didn't mean that." And
then she had to account for it. She was intrepid enough to venture on:
"What I meant was, never being engaged," but not cool enough to keep of
one colour exactly. It didn't rise to the height of embarrassment, but
something rippled for all that.
A cigar Mr. Pellew was lighting required unusual and special attention.
It had a mission, that cigar. It had to gloss over a slight flush on its
smoker's cheeks, and to take the edge off the abruptness with which he
said,--"Oh, gammon!" as he threw a Vesuvian away.
He picked up the lost thread at the point of his own indiscreet
excursion into young-manthropology--his own word when he apologized for
it. "Anyhow," said he, "it struck me that our friend upstairs was very
hard hit. He made such a parade of his complete independence. Of course,
I'm not much of a judge of such matters. Not my line. I understand that
he has been prorogued--I mean his departure has. He's to try his luck at
coming downstairs this evening after feeding-time. He funks finding the
way to his mouth in public. Don't wonder--poor chap!"
Then this lady had a fit of contrition about the way in which she had
been gossiping, and tried to back out. She had the loathsome meanness to
pretend that she herself had been entirely passive, a mere listener to
an indiscreet and fanciful companion. "What gossips you men are!" said
she, rushing the position boldly. "Fancy cooking up a romance about this
Mr. Torrens and Gwen, when they've hardly so much as," she had nearly
said, "set eyes on each other"; but revised it in time for press. It
worked out "when she has really only just set eyes on him, and chatted
half an hour."
Mr. Pellew's indignation found its way through a stammer which expressed
the struggle of courtesy against denunciation. "Come--hang it all!" said
he. "It wasn't _my_ romance.... Oh, well, perhaps it wasn't yours
either. Only--play fair, Miss Dickenson. Six of the one and half a dozen
of the other! Confess up!"
The lady assumed the tone of Tranquillity soothing Petulance. "Never
mind, Mr. Pellew!" she said. "You needn't lie awake about it. It doesn't
really matter, you know.... _Have_ you got the right time? Because I
have to be ready at half-past eleven to drive with Philippa. I
promised.... What!--a quarter past? I must run." She looked back to
reassure possible perturbation. "It really does _not_ matter between
_us_," said she, and vanished down the avenue.
The Hon. Percival Pellew walked slowly in the opposite direction in a
brown study, leaving his thumbs in his armholes, and playing _la ci
darem_ with his fingers on his waistcoat. He played it twice or thrice
before he stopped to knock a phenomenal ash off his cigar. Then he
spoke, and what he said was "Pooh!"
The story does not know why he said "Pooh!" It merely notes, apropos of
Miss Dickenson's last words, that the first person plural pronoun, used
as a dual by a lady to a gentleman, sometimes makes hay of the thirdness
of their respective persons singular. But if it had done so, this time,
"Pooh!" was a weak counter-blast against its influence.
* * * * *
Irene's friend Gretchen von Trendelenstein had written that morning that
she was coming to stay with the Mackworth Clarkes at Toft, only a couple
of miles off. She would only have two days, and could not hope to get as
far as Pensham, but couldn't Irene come to _her_? She was, you see,
Irene's bosom friend. The letter had gone to Pensham and been forwarded,
losing time. This was the last day of visiting-possibility at Toft. So
Irene asked to be taken there; and, if she stayed, would find her way
back somehow. Mr. Norbury, however, after referring to Archibald, the
head of the stables, made _dernier ressorts_ needless, and Irene was
driven away behind a spirited horse by the young groom, Tom Kettering.
Her brother would have devolved entirely on Mrs. Bailey and chance
visitors, if he had not struck vigorously against confinement to his
room, after a recovery of strength sufficient to warrant his removal to
his home eighteen miles away. If he was strong enough for that, he was
strong enough for an easy flight of stairs, down and up, with tea
between. Mrs. Bailey, the only obstacle, was overruled. Indeed, that
good woman was an anachronism by now, her only remaining function being
such succour as a newly blinded man wants till he gets used to his
blindness. Tonics and stimulants were coming to an end, and her
professional extinction was to follow. Nevertheless, Mr. Torrens held
fast to dining in solitude until he recovered his eyesight, or at least
until he had become more dexterous without it.
Now, it happened that on this day of all others three attractive events
came all at once--the Flower Show at Brainley Thorpe, the Sadleigh
Races, and a big Agricultural Meeting at King's Grantham, where the
County Members were to address constituents. The Countess had promised
to open the first, and the absence of the Earl from the second would
have been looked upon as a calamity. All the male non-coronetted members
of the company of mature years were committed to Agriculture or
Bookmaking, and the younger ones to attendance on Beauty at the Flower
Show. Poor Adrian Torrens!--there was no doubt he had been forgotten.
But he was not going to admit the slightest concern about that. "Go away
to your Von, darling Stupid!" said he. "And turn head over heels in her
and wallow. Do you want to be the death of me? Do you want to throw me
back when I'm such a credit to Mrs. Bailey and Dr. Nash?" Irene had her
doubts--but there!--wasn't Gretchen going to marry an Herr Professor and
be a Frau when she went back to Berlin, and would she ever see her
again? Moreover, Gwen said to her:--"He won't be alone if he's
downstairs in the drawing-room. Some of the women are sure to stop. It's
too hot for old Lady Cumberworld to go out. I heard her say so."
"_She'll_ be no consolation for him," said Irene.
"No--that she won't! But unless there's someone else there she'll have
Inez--you've seen the Spanish _dame-de-compagnie_?--and _she'll_ enjoy a
flirtation with your brother. He'll speak Spanish to her, and she'll
sing Spanish songs. _He_ won't hurt for a few hours."
So Tom Kettering drove Irene away in the gig, and Adrian was guided
downstairs to an empty hall by Mrs. Bailey at four o'clock, so as to get
a little used to the room before anyone should return. Prophecy depicted
Normal Society coming back to tea, and believed in itself. Achilles
sanctioned his master's new departure by his presence, accompanying him
to the drawing-room. This dog was not only tolerated but encouraged
everywhere. Dogs are, when their eyes are pathetic, their coats
faultless, and their compliance with household superstitions
unhesitating.
"Anybody in sight, Mrs. Bailey?"
"Nobody yet, Mr. Torrens."
"_Speriamo!_ Perhaps there's a piano in the room, Mrs. Bailey?"
"There's two. One's stood up against the wall shut. The other's on three
legs in the middle of the room." That one was to play upon, she
supposed, the other to sing to.
"If you will be truly obliging--you always are, you know--and conduct me
to the one on three legs in the middle of the room, I will play you an
air from Gluck's 'Orfeo,' which I am sure you will enjoy.... Oh yes--I
can do without any music-books because I have played it before, not
infrequently...."
"I meant to set upon." In fact, Mrs. Bailey regarded this as the primary
purpose of music-books; and so it was, at the home of her niece, who
could play quite nicely. There was only two and they "just did." She
referred to this while Mr. Torrens was spinning the music-stool to a
suitable height for himself. He responded with perfect gravity--not a
fraction of a smile--that books were apt to be too high or too low. It
was the fault of the composers clearly, because the binders had to
accept the scores as they found them. If the binders were to begin
rearranging music to make volumes thicker or thinner, you wouldn't be
able to play straight on. Mrs. Bailey concurred, saying that she had
always said to her niece not to offer to play a tune till she could play
it right through from beginning to end. Mr. Torrens said that was
undoubtedly the view of all true musicians, and struck a chord,
remarking that the piano had been left open. "How ever could you tell
_that_ now, Mr. Torrens?" said Mrs. Bailey, and felt that she was in the
presence of an Artist.
Nevertheless, she seemed to be lukewarm about _Che faro_, merely
remarking after hearing it that it was more like the slow tunes her
niece played than the quick ones. The player said with unmoved gravity
this was _andante_. Mrs. Bailey said that her niece, on the contrary,
had been christened Selina. She could play the Polka. So could Mr.
Torrens, rather to the good woman's surprise and, indeed, delight. He
was so good-humoured that he played it again, and also the
_Schottische_; and would have stood Gluck over to meet her taste
indefinitely, but that voices came outside, and the selection was
interrupted.
The voice of Lady Ancester was one, saying despairingly:--"My dear, if
you're not ready we must go without you. I _must_ be there in time."
Miss Dickenson's was another, attesting that if the person addressed did
not come, sundry specified individuals would be in an awful rage.
"Well, then, you must go without me. Flower shows always bore me to
death." This was a voice that had not died out of the blind man's ears
since yesterday; Lady Gwendolen's, of course. It added that its owner
must finish her letter, or it would miss the six o'clock post and not
catch the mail; which would have, somehow, some disastrous result. Then
said her mother's voice, she should have written it before. Then
justification and refutation, and each voice said its say with a
difference--more of expounding, explaining--with a result like in Master
Hugues of Saxe-Gotha's mountainous fugue, that one of them, Gwen's,
stood out all the stiffer hence. No doubt you know your Browning. Gwen
asserted herself victor all along the line, and remonstrance died a
natural death. But what was she going to do all the afternoon? A wealth
of employments awaited her, she testified. Rarely had so many arrears
remained unpaid. Last and least she must try through that song, because
she had to send the music back to the Signore. So the Countess supposed
she must go her own way, and presently Adrian Torrens was conscious that
her ladyship had gone hers, by the curt resurrection of sounds in
abeyance somewhile since; sounds of eight hoofs and four wheels;
suddenly self-assertive, soon evanescent.
Was Gwen really going to come to sing at this piano? _That_ was
something worth living for, at least. But no!--conclusions must not be
jumped in that fashion. Perhaps she had a piano in her own room. Nothing
more likely.
Achilles had stepped out, hearing sounds as of a departure; and now
returned, having seen that all was in satisfactory order. He sighed over
his onerous responsibilities, and settled down to repose--well-earned
repose, his manner suggested.
"I suppose I shall have to clear out when her young ladyship comes in to
practise," said Mrs. Bailey. Mr. Torrens revolted inwardly against
ostracising the good woman on social grounds; but then, _did_ he want
her to remain if Gwen appeared? Just fancy--to have that newcomer all to
himself for perhaps an hour, as he had her for five minutes yesterday!
Too good to be true! He compromised with his conscience about Mrs.
Bailey. "Don't go away till she does, anyhow," said he. And then he sang
Irish Melodies with Tom Moore's words, and rather shocked his hearer by
the message the legatee of the singer received about his heart. She
preferred the Polka.
It chanced that Mrs. Bailey also had weighty correspondence on hand,
relating to an engagement with a new patient; and, with her,
correspondence was no light matter. Pride had always stood between Mrs.
Bailey and culture, ever since she got her schooling done. Otherwise she
might have acquired style and a fluent caligraphy. As it was, her style
was uncertain and her method slow. Knowing this--without admitting
it--she was influenced by hearing a six o'clock post referred to, having
previously thought her letters went an hour later. So she developed an
intention of completing her letter, of which short instalments had been
turned out at intervals already, as soon as ever the advent of a guest
or visitor gave her an excuse for desertion. Of course a member of the
household was better than either; so she abdicated without misgiving
when--as she put it--she heard her young ladyship a-coming.
Her young ladyship was audible outside long enough for Mrs. Bailey to
abdicate before she entered the room. They met on the stairs and spoke.
Was that Mr. Torrens at the piano?--asked Gwen. Because if it was she
mustn't stop him. She would cry off and try her song another time.
But Mrs. Bailey reassured her, saying:--"He won't go on long, my lady.
You'll get your turn in five minutes," in an undertone. She added:--"He
won't see your music-paper. Trust him for that." These words must have
had a new hope in them for the young lady, for she said quickly: "You
think he _does_ see _something_, then?" The answer was ambiguous.
"Nothing to go by." Gwen had to be content with it.
* * * * *
Is there any strain of music known to man more harrowingly pathetic than
the one popularly known as _Erin go bragh_? Does it not make hearers
without a drop of Erse blood in their veins thrill and glow with a
patriotism that complete ignorance of the history of Ireland never
interferes with in the least? Do not their hearts pant for the blood of
the Saxon on the spot, even though their father's name be Baker and
their mother's Smith? Ours does.
Adrian Torrens, though his finger-tips felt strange on the keys in the
dark, and his hands were weak beyond his own suspicion of their
weakness, could still play the Polka for Mrs. Bailey. When his audience
no longer claimed repetition of that exciting air, he struck a chord or
two of some Beethoven, but shook his head with a sigh and gave it up.
However, less ambitious attempts were open to him, and he had happened
on Irish minstrelsy; so, left to himself, he sang _Savourneen Dheelish_
through.
Gwen, entering unheard, was glad she could dry her eyes undetected by
those sightless ones that she knew showed nothing to the singer--nothing
but a black void. The pathos of the air backed by the pathos of a voice
that went straight to her heart, made of it a lament over the blackness
of this void--over the glorious bygone sunlight, never a ray of it to be
shed again for him! There was no one in the room, and it was a relief to
her to have this right to unseen tears.
The feverish excitement of her sleepless night had subsided, but the
memory of a strange resolve clung to her, a resolution to do a thing
that then seemed practicable, reasonable, right; that had seemed since,
more than once, insurmountable--yes! Insane--yes! But _wrong_--no! Now,
hard hit by _Savourneen Dheelish_, the strength to think she might cross
the barriers revived, and the insanity of the scheme shrank as its
rightness grew and grew. After all, did she not belong to herself? To
whom else, except her parents? Well--her duty to her parents was clear;
to ransom their consciences for them; to enable them to say "We
destroyed this man's eyesight for him, but we gave him Gwen." If only
this pianist could just manage to love her on the strength of Arthur's
Bridge and that rainbow gleam! But how to find out? She could see
herself in a mirror near by as she thought it, and the resplendent
beauty that she could not handle was a bitterness to her; she gazed at
it as a warrior might gaze at his sword with his hands lopped off at the
wrists. Still, he _had_ seen her; that was something! She would not have
acknowledged later, perhaps, that at this moment her mind was running on
a foolish thought:--"Did I, or did I not, look my best at that moment?"
She never noticed the curious _naïveté_ which left unquestioned her
readiness to play the part she was casting for herself--the _rôle_ of an
eyeless man's mate for life--yet never taxed her with loving him.
Perhaps it was the very fact that the circumstances of the case released
her from confessing her love, that paved the way for her to action that
would else have been impossible. "By this light," said Beatrice to
Benedick, "I take thee for pure pity." It was a vast consolation to
Beatrice to say this, no doubt.
Achilles stopped _Savourneen Dheelish_ by his welcome to the newcomer.
To whom Gwen said:--"Oh, you darling!" But to his master she said:--"Go
on, it's me, Mr. Torrens. Gwen."
"I know--'Gwen or Gwendolen.'" How easy it would have been for this
quotation from yesterday's postscript to seem impertinent! This man had
just the right laugh to put everything in its right place, and this time
it disclaimed audacious Christian naming. He went on:--"I mustn't
monopolize your ladyship's piano," and accommodated this mode of address
to the previous one by another laugh, exactly the right protest against
misinterpretation.
"My ladyship doesn't want her piano," said Gwen. "She wants to hear you
go on playing. I had no idea you were so musical. Say good-evening, and
play some more."
He went his nearest to meeting her hand, and his guesswork was not much
at fault. A galvanic thrill again shot through him at her touch, and
again neither of them showed any great alacrity to disconnect. "You are
sorry for me," said he.
"Indeed I am. I cannot tell you how much so." She seemed to keep his
hand in hers to say this, and the action and the word were mated, to his
mind. She could not have done this but for my misfortune, thought he to
himself. But oh!--what leagues apart it placed them, that this
semi-familiarity should have become possible on so short an
acquaintance! Society reserves would have kept him back still in the
ranks of men. This placed him among cripples, a disqualified ruin.
His heart sank, for he knew now that she had no belief that this awful
darkness would end. So be it! But, for now, there was the pure joy of
holding that hand for a moment! Forget it all--forget everything!--think
only of this little stolen delirium I can cheat the cruelty of God out
of, before I am the forsaken prey of Chaos and black Night. That was his
thought. He said not a word, and she continued:--"How much can you play?
I mean, can you do the fingering in spite of your eyes? Try some more."
She had barely withdrawn her hand even then.
"I only make a very poor business of it at present," he said. "I shall
have to practise under the new circumstances. When the music jumps half
a mile along the piano I hit the wrong note. Anything that runs easy I
can play." He played the preliminary notes of the accompaniment of _Deh
vieni alla finestra_. "Anything like that. But I can't tackle anything
extensive. My hands haven't quite got strong again, I suppose. Now you
come!"
He was beginning a hesitating move from the music-stool with a sense of
the uncertainty before him when his anchorage was forsaken, but
postponed it as a reply to his companion's remark:--"I'm not coming yet.
I'll play presently.... You were accompanying yourself just now. I was
listening to you at the end of the piano."
"Anybody can accompany himself; he's in his own confidence." He struck a
chord or two, of a duet, this time, and she said:--"Yes--sing that. I
can recollect it without the music. I've sung it with the Signore no end
of times." They sang it together, and Gwen kept her voice down. She was
not singing with the tenor known all over Europe, this time; nor was the
room at any time, big as it was, more than large enough for this young
lady _à pleine voix_. Besides, Mr. Torrens was not in force, on that
score. In fact, at the end of this one song he dropped his fingers on
his knees from the keyboard, and said in a tone that professed amusement
at his own exhaustion: "That's all I'm good for. Funny, isn't it?"
CHAPTER XXI
BOTHER MRS. BAILEY! A GOOD CREATURE. MARCUS CURTIUS AND
UNMAIDENLINESS. THE DREAM WITCH AND HER DAUGHTERS. HOW GWEN TOLD OF
HER TRICK, AND MR. TORRENS OF HOW HE WAKED UP TO HIS OWN BLINDNESS.
THE PECULIARITIES OF DOWAGER-DUCHESSES. CAN GRIGS READ DIAMOND
TYPE? THE HYPOTHESIS MR. TORRENS WAS AFFIANCED TO. ADONIS, AND THAT
DETESTABLE VENUS. EARNESTNESS AND A CLIMAX. AN EARTHQUAKE, OR
HEARTQUAKE
The Philosopher may see absurdity in the fact that, when two persons
make concordant consecutive noises for ten minutes, the effect upon
their relativities is one that without them might not have come about in
ten weeks. We are not prepared to condemn the Philosopher, for once. He
is prosy, as usual; but what he says refers to an indisputable truth.
Nothing turns diversity into duality quicker than Music.
Gwen did not think the breakdown of the tenor at all funny, and was
rather frightened, suggesting Mrs. Bailey. "Bother Mrs. Bailey!" said
Adrian. "Only it's very ungrateful of me to bother Mrs. Bailey." Said
Gwen:--"She really is a good creature." He replied:--"That's what she is
precisely. A good creature!" Gwen interpreted this as disposing of Mrs.
Bailey. Acting as her agent, she piloted the blind man through the
perils of the furniture to a satisfactory sofa, but could not prevail on
him to lie down on it. He seemed determined to assert his claim to a
discharge cured; allowing a small discount, of course, in respect of
this plaguy eye-affection. In defence of his position that it was a
temporary inconvenience, sure to vanish with returning vigour, he simply
nailed his colours to the mast--would hear of no surrender.
Tea was negotiated, as customary at the Towers, and he made a parade of
his independence over it. No great risks were involved, the little
malachite table placed as a cup-haven being too heavy to knock over
easily. He was able, too, to make a creditable show of eyesight over the
concession of little brown biscuits to Achilles; only really Achilles
did all the seeing. A certain pretence of vision was possible too, in
the distinguishing of those biscuits which were hard from a softer sort;
which Achilles accepted, under protest always, with an implication that
he did it to oblige the donor. He had sacrificed his sleep--that was his
suggestion--and he did not deserve to be put off with shoddy goods.
"He always has a nap during music now," said his master. "He used to
insist on singing too, if he condescended to listen. I had some trouble
to convince him that he couldn't sing--hadn't been taught to produce his
voice...."
"Dear creature!--his voice produced itself like mine. M. Sanson--you
know the great training man?--wanted me to sing in one of my thoraxes or
glottises or oesophaguses. I believe I have several, but I don't know
which is which. He said my voice would last better. But I said I would
have both helpings at once; a recollection of nursery dinner, you
know...."
"I understand--Achilles's view. There, you see!" This was a claim that
an audible tail-flap on the ground was applause. It really was nothing
but its owner's courteous recognition of his own name, to which he was
always alive.
Gwen continued:--"Luckily I met the Signore, who told me Sanson's view
was very natural. What would become of all the trainers if people
produced their own voices?"
"What, indeed? But you did get some sort of drill?"
"Of course. The dear old Signore gave me some lessons. He told me an
infallible rule for people with souls. I was to sing as if the composer
was listening. I might sing scales and exercises if I liked. They had a
use. They prevented one's spoiling the great composers by hacking them
over and over before one could sing."
Adrian felt that chat of this sort was the best after all, to keep safe
for him his _modus vivendi_ with this girl, in a world she was suddenly
lighting up for him in defiance of his darkness. He _could_ have
friendship, and he was not prepared to admit that estrangement might be
the more livable _modus_ of the two. So he shut his mental eyes as close
as his physical ones, and chatted. He told a story of how a great poet,
being asked a question in a lady's album:--"What is your favourite
employment?" wrote in reply:--"Cursing the schoolmaster who made me hate
Horace in my boyhood." It was a pity to spoil "Ah vous dirai-je, maman?"
for the young pianist, but _pluies de perles_ taught nobody anything.
Gwen for her part was becoming painfully alive to the difficulties of
her Quixotic undertaking. Marcus Curtius's self-immolation was easy by
comparison, with all the cheers of assembled Rome crowding the Forum to
back him. If only the horse her metaphor had mounted would take the bit
in his teeth and bolt, tropically, how useful a phantasy it would be!
She became terribly afraid her heroic resolve might die a natural death
during intelligent conversation. Bother _pluies de perles_ and the young
pianist! This dry alternation of responses quashed all serious
conversation. And if this Adrian Torrens went away, to-morrow or next
day, what chance would there be in the uncertain future to compare with
this one? When could she be sure of being alone with him for an hour, at
his father's house or elsewhere? She must--she would--at least find from
him whether some other parallel of the Roman Knight had bespoken the
plunge for herself. She could manage that surely without being
"unmaidenly," whatever that meant. If she couldn't, she would just cut
the matter short and _be_ unmaidenly. But know she _must_!
There is a time before the sun commits himself to setting--as he has
done every day till now, and we all take it for granted he will do
to-morrow--when the raw afternoon relents and the shadows lengthen over
the land; an hour that is not sunset yet, but has begun to know what
sunset means to do for roof and tree-top, and the high hills when a
forecast of the night creeps round their bases; and also for the good
looks of man and wench and beast, and even ugly girls. This hour had
come, and with it the conviction that everybody was sure to be very late
to-night, before Gwen, sitting beside the blind man on the sofa he had
flouted as a couch, got a chance to turn the conversation her way--to
groom the steed, so to speak, of Marcus Curtius for that appointment in
the Forum. It came in a lull, consequent on the momentary dispersion of
subject-matter by the recognition of Society's absence and its probable
late recurrence.
"I was so sorry yesterday, Mr. Torrens." A modulation of Gwen's tone was
not done intentionally. It came with her wish to change the subject.
"What for, then?" said Mr. Torrens, affecting a slight Irish accent with
a purpose not quite clear to himself. It might have given his words
their degree on a seriometer, granted the instrument.
"Don't laugh at me, because I'm in earnest. I mean for being so
unfeeling...."
"Unfeeling?"
"Yes. I don't think talking about it again can make it any worse. But I
do want you to know that I only said it because I got caught--you know
how words get their own way sometimes...."
"But what?--why?--when? What words got their way this time?"
"I'm almost sorry I've spoken, if you didn't notice it. Because then I'm
such a fool for raking it up again.... Why, of course, when I pitched on
those lines of yours. And any others would have done just as well...."
"Lord 'a massy me!--as Mrs. Bailey says. 'The daughters of the Dream
Witch'? What's the matter with _them_? _They're_ all right."
"Oh yes--they're all right, no doubt. But I was thinking of.... Oh, I
can't bear to talk about it!... Oh dear!--I wish I hadn't mentioned
it...."
"Yes, but _do_ mention it. Mention it again. Mention it lots of times.
Besides, I know what you mean...."
"What?"
"The 'watchman sorrowing for the light,' of course! It seemed like me.
Do you know it never crossed my mind in that connection?"
"Is that really true? But, then, what an idiot I was for saying anything
about it! Only I couldn't help myself. I was so miserable! It laid me
awake all night to think of it." This was not absolutely true, because
Gwen had really lain awake on the main question, the responsibility of
her family for that shot of old Stephen's. But, to our thinking, she was
justified in using any means that came to hand. She went on:--"I'm not
sure that it would not have come to nearly the same thing in any
case--the sleepless night, I mean. I did not know till yesterday how ...
b-bad your eyes were"--for she had nearly said the word
_blind_--"because they kept on making the best of it for our sakes,
Irene and Mrs. Bailey did...."
Adrian cut her speech across with an ebullition of sound sense--a
protest against extremes--a counterblast to hysterical judgments.
Obviously his duty! He succeeded in saying with a sufficient infusion of
the correct bounce:--"My dear Lady Gwendolen, indeed you are distressing
yourself about me altogether beyond anything that this unlucky mishap
warrants. In a case of this sort we must submit to be guided by medical
opinion; and nothing that either Sir Coupland Merridew or Dr. Nash has
said amounts to more than that recovery will be a matter of time. We
must have patience. In the meantime I am really the gainer by the
accident, for I shall always look upon my involuntary intrusion on your
hospitality as one of the most fortunate events of my life...."
"'Believe me to remain very sincerely yours, Adrian Torrens.'" She
struck in with a ringing laugh, and finished up what really would have
been a very civil letter from him. "Now, dear Mr. Torrens, do stop being
artificial. Say you're sorry, and you won't do so any more."
"Please, I'm sorry and I won't do so any more.... But I did do it very
well, now didn't I? You must allow that."
"You did indeed, and Heaven knows how glad I should be to be able to be
taken in by it and believe every word the doctors say. But when one has
been hocus-pocussed about anything one ... one feels very strongly
about, one gets suspicious of everybody.... Oh yes--indeed, I think very
likely the doctors are right, and if Dr. Merridew had only said that you
couldn't see at all now, but that the sight was sure to come back, I
should have felt quite happy yesterday when...." She stopped,
hesitating, brought up short by suddenly suspecting that she was driving
home the fact of his blindness, instead of helping him to keep up heart
against it. But how could she get to her point without doing so? How
could Marcus Curtius saddle up for his terrible leap, and keep the words
of the Oracle a secret?
At any rate, he could not see her confusion at her own
_malapropos_--that was something! She recovered from it to find him
saying:--"But what I want to know is--_what_ happened yesterday? I mean,
how came you to know anything you did not know before? Was it anything
_I_ did? I thought I got through it so capitally." He spoke more
dejectedly than hitherto, palpably because his efforts at pretence of
vision had failed. The calamity itself was all but forgotten.
Gwen saw nothing ahead but confession. Well--it might be the best way to
the haven she wanted to steer for. "It was not what you _did_," said
she. "You made believe quite beautifully all the time we were sitting
there, talking talk. It was when I was just going. You remember when
mamma had gone away with 'Rene, and I put my foot in it over those
verses?"
"Yes, indeed I do. Only, you know, that wasn't because of the Watchman.
I never mixed him in--not with my affairs. A sort of Oriental
character!"
"Well--that was my mistake. You remember when, anyhow? Now, do you know,
all the time I was standing there talking about the Watchman, I was
holding out my hand to you to say good-night, and you never offered to
take it, and put your hands in your pockets? It must have gone on for
quite two minutes. And I was determined not to give a hint, and there
was no one else there...." Gwen thought she could understand the
gesture that made her pause, a sudden movement of the blind man's right
hand as though it had been stung by the discovery of its own
backwardness.
He dropped it immediately in a sort of despairing way, then threw it up
impatiently. "All no use!" he said. "No use--no use--no use!" The sound
of his despair was in his voice as he let the hand fall again upon his
knee. He gave a heart-broken sigh:--"Oh dear!" and then sat on silent.
Gwen was afraid to speak. For all she knew, her first word might be
choked by a sob. After a few moments he spoke again:--"And there was
I--thinking--thinking...." and stopped short.
"Thinking what?" said Gwen timidly.
"I will tell you some time," he said. "Not now!" And then he drew a long
breath and spoke straight on, as though some obstacle to speech had
gone. "It has been a terrible time, Lady Gwendolen--this first knowledge
of ... of what I have lost. Put recovery aside for a moment--let the
chance of it lie by, until it is on the horizon. Think only what the
black side of the shield means--the appalling darkness in the miserable
time to come--the old age when folk will call me the blind Mr. Torrens;
will say of me:--'You know, he was not born blind--it was an accident--a
gunshot wound--a long while back now.' And all that long while back will
have been a long vacuity to me, and Heaven knows what burden to
others.... I have known it all from the first. I knew it when I waked to
my senses in the room upstairs--to all my senses but one. I knew it when
I heard them speak hopefully of the case; hope means fear, and I knew
what the fear was they were hoping against. That early morning when
stupor came to an end, and my consciousness came back, I remembered all.
But I thought the darkness was only the sweet, wholesome darkness of
night, and my heart beat for the coming of the day. The day came, sure
enough, but I knew nothing of it. The first voice I heard was Mrs.
Bailey's, singing paeans over my recovery. She had been lying in wait for
it, in a chair beside the bed which I picture to myself as a chair of
vast scope and pretensions. I did not use my tongue, when I found it, to
ask where I was--because I knew I was somewhere and the bed was very
comfortable. I asked what o'clock it was, and was told it was near nine.
Then, said I, why not open the shutters and let in the light?"
"What did Mrs. Bailey say?"
"Mrs. Bailey said Lord have mercy, gracious-goodness-her, and I at once
perceived that I was in the hands of a good creature. I must have done
so, because I exhorted her to act in her official capacity. When she
said:--'Why ever now, when the sun's a-shining fit to brile the house
up!' I said to her--to remove ambiguity, you see--'Do be a good creature
and tell me, _is_ the room light or dark? She replied in a form of
affidavit:--'So help me, Mr. Torrens, if this was the last Bible word I
was to speak, this room is light, not dark, nor yet it won't be, not
till this blessed evening when there come candles or the lamp, as
preferred.' I had a sickening perplexity for a while whether I was sane
or mad, awake or dreaming, lying there with my heart adding to my
embarrassment needlessly by beating in a hurry. Then I remember how it
came to me all at once--the whole meaning of it. Till now, blind men had
been other people. Now I was to be one myself.... Say something!... I
don't like my own voice speaking alone.... there _is_ no one else in the
room, is there?"
"Not a soul. And nobody will come. The dowager-duchess is having tea in
her own room, and all the others will be late."
Something in this caused Mr. Torrens to say, with ridiculous
inconsecutiveness:--"Then you're not engaged to Lord Cumberworld?"
"I certainly am _not_ engaged to Lord Cumberworld," said Gwen with cold
emphasis. "Why did you think I was?"
"Mrs. Bailey."
"Mrs. Bailey! And why did you think I wasn't?"
"That requires thought. I don't quite see, now I come to think of it,
why a lady shouldn't be engaged to a party and speak about his grandma
as ..."
"As I spoke of his just now? Why not, indeed? She _is_ a
dowager-duchess."
"I admit it. But there are ways and ways of calling people
dowager-duchesses. It struck me that your way suggested that there was
something ridiculous about ... about _dowadging_."
"So there is--to me. I believe it arose from the newspaper saying, when
we had a ball in London for me to come out, that the Dowager Lady
Scamander had a magnificent diamond stomacher. Perhaps you don't happen
to know the shape of that good lady?... Never mind. Anyhow, I am _not_
engaged to this one's grandson; and she's safe in the west wing, where
the ghost never goes. We've got it all to ourselves. Go on!"
"My first idea was how to prevent Europe and Asia finding it out and
frightening my family, at least until my eyes had had time to turn
round. The next voice I heard was the doctor's, summoned, I suppose, by
Mrs. Bailey. It was cheerful, and said that was good hearing, and now
we should do. He said:--'You lie quiet, Mr. Torrens, and I'll tell you
what it all was; because I daresay you don't know, and would like to.' I
said yes--very much. So he told me the story in a comfortable optimist
way--said it was a loss of blood from the occipital artery that had made
such a wreck of me, but that a contusion of the head had been the cause
of the insensibility, which had nearly stopped the action of the heart,
else I might have bled to death...."
"Oh, how white you were when we found you!" Gwen exclaimed--"So terribly
white! But I half think I can see how it happened. Your heart stopped
pumping the blood out, because you were stunned, and that gave the
artery a chance to pull itself together. That's the sort of idea Dr.
Merridew gave me, with the long words left out."
"What a very funny thing!" said Adrian thoughtfully, "to have one's life
saved by being nearly killed by something else. _Similia similibus
curantur._ However, all's fish that comes to one's net. Well--when Sir
Coupland had told me his story, he said casually:--'What's all this Mrs.
Bailey was telling me about your finding the room so dark?' I humbugged
a little over it, and said my eyesight was very dim. Whatever he
thought, he said very little to me about it. Indeed, he only said that
he was not surprised. A shock to the head and loss of blood might easily
react on the optic nerve. It would gradually right itself with rest. I
said I supposed he could try tests--lenses and games--to find out if the
eyes were injured. He said he would try the lenses and games later, if
it seemed necessary. For the present I had better stay quiet and not
think about it. It would improve. Then my father and 'Rene came, and
were jolly glad to hear my voice again. For I had only been
half-conscious for days, and only less than half audible, if, indeed, I
ever said anything. But I was on my guard, and my father went away home
without knowing, and I don't believe 'Rene quite knows now. It was your
father who spotted the thing first. Had he told you, to put you up to
the hand-shaking device?"
"He never said a word. The handshaking was my own brilliant idea. When I
found--what I did find out--I went away and had a good cry in mamma's
room." This speech was an effort on Gwen's part to get a little
nearer--ever so little--to Marcus Curtius; nearer, that is, to her
metaphorical parallel of his heroism. Marcus had got weaker as an
imitable prototype during the conversation, and it had seemed to Gwen
that he might slip through her fingers altogether, if no help came. Her
"good cry" reinforced Marcus, and quite blamelessly; for who could find
fault with her for that much of concern for so fearful a calamity? What
had she said that she might not have said to a friend's husband, cruelly
and suddenly stricken blind? Indeed, could she as a friend have said
less? Was her human pity to be limited to women and children and cases
of special licence, or pass current merely under _chaperonage_? No--she
was safe so far certainly.
"Oh, Lady Gwendolen, I can't stand this," was Adrian's exclamation in a
tone of real distress. "Why--why--should I make you miserable and lay
you awake o' nights? I couldn't help your finding out, perhaps. But what
a selfish beast I am to go on grizzling about my own misfortune....
Well--I _have_ been grizzling! And all the while, as like as not, the
medicos are right, and in six weeks I shall be reading diamond type as
merry as a grig...."
"Do grigs read diamond type?"
"_I_ may be doing so, anyhow, grigs or no!" He paused an instant, his
absurdity getting the better of him. "I may have employed the expression
'grigs' rashly. I do not really know how small type they can read. I
withdraw the grigs. Besides, there's another point of view...."
"What's that?" Gwen is a little impatient and absent. Marcus Curtius has
waned again perceptibly.
"Why--suppose I had been knocked over two miles off, carried in, for
instance, at the Mackworth Clarkes', where 'Rene's gone...!"
"But you weren't!"
"Lady Gwendolen, you don't understand the nature of an hypothesis"--his
absurdity gets the upper hand again--"the nature of an hypothesis is
that its maker is always in the right. I am, this time. If I had been
nursed round at the Mackworth Clarkes', you would have known nothing
about me except as a mere accident--a person in the papers--a person one
inquires after...."
Gwen interrupts him with determination. "Stop, Mr. Torrens," she says,
"and listen to me. If you had been struck by a bullet fired by my
father's order, by his servant, on his land, it would not have mattered
what house you were taken to, nor who nursed you round. I should have
felt that the guilt--yes, the guilt!--the _sin_ of it was on the
conscience of us all; every one of us that had had a hand, a finger, in
it, directly or indirectly. How could I have borne to look your sister
in the face...?"
"You wouldn't have known her! Come, Lady Gwen!"
"Very well, then, give her up. Suppose, instead, the girl you are
engaged to had been a friend of mine, how could I have borne to look
_her_ in the face?"
"_She's_ a hypothesis. There's no such interesting damsel--that I know
of...."
"Oh, isn't there?... Well--she's a hypothesis, and I've a right to as
many hypothesisses as you have."
"I can't deny it."
"Then how should I look her in the face? Answer my question, and don't
prevaricate."
"What a severe--Turk you are! But I won't prevaricate. You wouldn't be
called on to look the hypothesis in the face. She would have broken me
off, like a sensible hypothesis that knew what was due to itself and its
family...."
"Do be serious. Indeed _I_ am serious. It was in my mind all last
night--such a dreadful haunting thought!--what would this girl's
feelings be to me and mine? I made several girls I know stand for the
part. You know how one overdoes things when one is left to oneself and
the darkness?..."
"Yes--that I do! No doubt of it!" The stress of a meaning he could not
help forced its way into his words, in spite of himself. Surely you need
not have shown it, said an inner voice to him. He made no reply. But he
did not see how.
Almost before he had time to repent she had cried out:--"Oh, there now!
See what I have done again! I did not mean it. Do forgive me!" Neither
saw a way to patching up this lapse, and it was ruled out by tacit
consent. Gwen resumed:--"You know, I mean, how one dreams a thousand
things in a minute, and everything is as big as a house, even when it's
only strong coffee. This was worse than strong coffee. There were plenty
of them, these hypothesisses.... Oh yes!--we know plenty of girls you
do. I could count you up a dozen...."
"--One's enough!--that means that one's the allowance, not that it's one
too many...."
"Well--there were a many reproachful dream-faces, and every one of them
said to me:--'See what you have made of my life that might have been so
happy. See how you have con ...'" Gwen had very nearly said _condemned_,
but stopped in time. She could not refer to the demands of an eyeless
mate for constant help in little things, and all the irksomeness of a
home.
Adrian, pretending not to hear "con," spoke at once. "But did none of
these charming girls--I'm sure I should have loved heaps of them--did
none of them remind you that they were hypothetical?"
"Dear Mr. Torrens, I can't tell you how good and brave you seem to me
for laughing so much, and turning everything to a joke. But I _was_ in
earnest."
"So was I."
"_Then_ I did not understand."
"What did you think I meant?"
"I thought you were playing fast and loose with the nonsense about the
hypothesis. I did indeed."
"Well, I was serious underneath. Listen, and I'll tell you. This
_fiancée_ of mine that you seem so cocksure about has no existence. I
give you my honour that it is so, and that I am glad of it.... Yes--glad
of it! How could I bear to think I was inflicting myself on a woman I
loved, and making her life a misery to her?"
Gwen thought of beginning:--"If she loved you," and giving a little
sketch of a perfect wife under the circumstances. It never saw the
light, owing to a recrudescence of Marcus Curtius, who stood to win
nothing by his venture--was certainly not in love with Erebus. An act of
pure self-sacrifice on principle! Nothing could be farther from her
thoughts, be so good as to observe, than that she _loved_ this man!
He went on uninterrupted:--"No, indeed I am heartily glad of it. It
would be a terrible embarrassment at the best. I should want to let her
off, and she would feel in honour bound to hold on, and really of all
the things I can't abide self-sacrifice is.... Well, Lady Gwendolen,
only consider the feelings of the chap on the altar! Hasn't he a right
to a little unselfishness for his own personal satisfaction?" This was a
sad wet blanket for Marcus Curtius.
Gwen did not believe that Adrian's disclaimer of any preoccupation of
his affections was genuine. According to her theory of life--and there
is much to be said for it--a full-blown Adonis, that is to say, a
lovable man, refusing to love any woman on any terms, was a sort of
monstrosity. The original Adonis of Art and Song was merely an _homme
incompris_, according to this young lady. He hated Venus--odious
woman!--and no wonder. _She_ to claim the rank of a goddess! Besides,
Gwen suspected that Adrian was only prevaricating. Trothplight was one
thing, official betrothal another. It was almost too poor a shuffle to
accuse him of, but she was always flying at the throat of equivocation,
even when she knew she might be outclassed by it. "You are playing with
words, Mr. Torrens," said she. "You mean that you and this young lady
are not 'engaged to be married'? Perhaps not, but that has nothing to
do with the matter. I cannot feel it in my bones--as Mrs. Bailey
says--that any woman you could care for would back out of it because you
... because of this dreadful accident." Her voice was irresolute in
referring to it, and some wandering wave of that electricity that her
finger-tips were so full of made a cross-circuit and quickened the
beating of her hearer's heart. The vessel it struck in mid-ocean had no
time to right itself before another followed. "Surely--if she were worth
a straw--if she were worth the name of a woman at all--she would feel it
her greatest happiness to make it up to you for such...." She was going
to say "a privation," but she always shied off designating the calamity.
In her hurry to escape from "privation" she landed her speech in a
phrase she had not taken the full measure of--"Well--perhaps I oughtn't
to say that! I may be taking the young woman's name in vain. I only mean
that that is what _I_ should feel in her position."
It had come as a chance speech before she saw its bearings. There was
not the ghost of an _arrière pensée_ behind the simple fact that she had
no choice but to judge another woman's mind by her own; a natural
thought! Her first instinct was to spoil the force she had not meant it
to have, by dragging the red herring of some foolish joke across the
trail.
But--to think of it! Here had she been hatching such a brave scheme of
making her own life, and all the devotion she somehow believed she could
give, a compensation for a great wrong, and here she was now affrighted
at the smell of powder! Pride stepped in, and the memory of Quintus
Curtius. No--she would not say a single word to undo the effect of her
heedlessness. Let the worst stand! They had left her in the place of
that hypothesis whom she had herself discarded. It was no fault of hers
that had involved her personally. Was she bound to back out? She bit her
lip to check her own impulse to utter some cheap corrective.
Until that rather scornful disclaimer of the Duke's son, Mrs. Bailey's
piece of fashionable intelligence had served--whether Adrian believed it
or not--as a sort of chaperon's aegis extended over this interview. It
had protected him against himself--against his impulse to break through
a silence that his three weeks' memory of this girl's image had made
painful. Recollect that her radiant beauty, in that setting sun-gleam,
was the last thing human his eyes had rested on before the night came on
him--the night that might be endless. It was not so easy, now that an
imaginary _fiancée_ had been curtly swept away, to fight against a
temptation he conceived himself bound in honour not to give way to. Not
so easy because _something_, that he hoped was not his vanity, was
telling him that this girl beside him, her very self that he had seen
once, whose image was to last for ever, was at least not placing
obstacles in his way. For anything that _she_ was doing to prevent it,
he might drive a coach-and-six through the social code that blocks a
declaration of passion to a girl under age without the consent of her
parents. He was conscious of this code, and his general acceptance of
it. But he was not so law-abiding but that he must needs get on the
box--of the coach-and-six--and flick the leaders with his whip.
For he asked abruptly:--"How do you know that?" driving home the nail of
personality to the head.
"Perhaps I am wrong," said Gwen, dropping her flag an inch. "But I was
thinking so all last night. I was in a sort of fever, you see, because I
felt so guilty, and it grew worse and worse...."
"You were thinking that...?"
"Well--you know--it was before I had any idea she was a hypothesis. I
thought she was real because of the ring."
"My ring! Fancy!... But I'll tell you about my ring presently. Tell me
what you were thinking...."
"Why--what I said before!"
"But what _was_ it?"
"Do you know, I think it was only a sort of attempt to get a little
sleep. You were so fearfully on my conscience, and it made it so much
easier to bear.... Only it worried me to think that perhaps she might
turn round and say:--'This was no fault of mine. Why should I bear for
life the burden of other people's sins?' ... If she was a perfect
beast--_beast_, you know!..."
"The hypothesis would not have been a perfect beast. She would have been
a perfect lady, and Mrs. Bailey would have attested it. She would have
pointed out the desirability of a sister's love--at reasonable
intervals; visits and so on--for a man with his eyes poked out. She
might even have gone the length of insinuating that the finger of
Providence did it...."
"Now you are talking nonsense again. Do be serious!"
"Well--let's be serious! Suppose you tell me what it was you were
thinking that made the existence of that very dry and unsatisfying
hypothesis such a consolation!"
"I should like to tell you--only I know I shall say it wrong, and you
will think me an odd girl; or unfeeling; which is worse."
"I should do nothing of the sort. But I'll tell you what I should
think--what I have thought all this time I have been hearing your
voice--I merely mention it as a thing of pathological interest...."
"Go on."
"I should think it didn't matter what you said so long as you went on
speaking. Because whenever I hear your voice I can shut my eyes and
forget that I am blind."
"Is that empty compliment, or are you in earnest?"
"I was jesting a minute ago, but now I am in earnest. I mean what I say.
Your voice takes the load off my heart and the darkness off my brain,
and we are standing again by that stone bridge over yonder--Arthur's
Bridge--and I see you in all your beauty--oh! such beauty--as I look up
from Ply's cut collar against the sunset sky. That was my last hour of
vision, and its memory will go with me to the grave. And now when I hear
your voice, it all comes back to me, and the terrible darkness has
vanished--or the sense of it anyhow!..."
"If that is so you shall hear it until your sight comes back--it
will--it must!"
"How if it never comes back? How if I remain as I am now for life?"
"I shall not lose my voice."
How it came about neither could ever say; but each knew that it happened
then, just at that turn in the conversation, and that no one came
rushing into the drawing-room as they easily might have done--this lax
structure of language was employed later in reference to it--nor did any
of the thousand interruptions occur that might have occurred. Mrs.
Bailey might have come to Mr. Torrens to know how many g's there were in
agreeable, or a tea-collector might have prowled in to add relics to her
collection, or even the sound of the carriage afar--inaudible by
man--might have caused Achilles to requisition the opening of the
drawing-room door, that he might rush away to sanction its arrival. Two
guardian angels--the story thinks--stopped any of these things
happening. What did happen was that Gwen and Adrian, who a moment before
were nominally a lady and gentleman chatting on a sofa near the piano,
whose separation involved no consequences definable for either, were
standing speechless in each other's arms--speechless but waiting for the
power to speak. For nobody can articulate whose heart is thumping out of
all reason. He has to wait--or she, as may be. One of each is needed to
develope an earthquake of this particular kind.
It was just as well that the Hon. Percival Pellew and Aunt Constance
Smith-Dickenson, who had started to walk from the flower-show with a
couple of young monkeys whose object in life was to spare everybody else
their company from selfish motives, did _not_ come rushing into the
drawing-room just then, but a quarter of an hour later. For even if the
parties had caught the sound of their arrival in time, the peculiarity
of Mr. Torrens' blindness would have stood in the way of any successful
pretence that he and Lady Gwendolen had been keeping their distance up
to Society point. We know how easy it is for normal people, when caught,
to pretend they are looking at dear Sarah's interesting watercolours
together, or anything of that sort. And even if the blind man had been
able to strike a bar or two carelessly on the piano, to advertise his
isolation, their faces would have betrayed them. Not that the tears of
either could have been identified on the face of the other. It was a
matter of expression. Every situation in this world has a stamp of its
own for the human face, and no stamp is more easily identified than that
on the face of lovers who have just found each other out.
* * * * *
Anyhow this story cannot go on, until the absurd tempest that has passed
over these two allows them to speak. Then they do so on an absolutely
new footing, and the man calls the girl his dearest and his own, and
Heaven knows what else. There one sees the difference between the B.C.
and A.D. of the Nativity of Love. It is a new Era. Call it the Hegira,
if you like.
"I saw you once, dear love,"--he is saying--"I saw you once, and it was
you--you--you! The worst that Fate has in store for me cannot kill the
memory of that moment. And if blindness was to be the price of this--of
this--why, I would sooner be blind, and have it, than have all the eyes
of Argus and ... and starve."
"You wouldn't know you were starving," says Gwen, who is becoming
normal--resuming the equanimities. "Besides, you would be such a Guy.
No--please don't! Somebody's coming!"
"Nobody's coming. It's all right. I tell you, Gwen, or Gwendolen--do you
know I all but called you that, when you came in, before we sang...?"
"Why didn't you quite? However, I'm not sorry you didn't on the whole.
It might have seemed paternal, and I should have felt squashed. And then
it might never have happened at all, and I should just have been a young
lady in Society, and you a gentleman that had had an accident."
"It would have happened just the same, _I_ believe. Because why? I had
_seen_ you. At least, it _might_ have."
"It _has_ happened, and must be looked in the face. Now whatever you
do, for Heaven's sake, don't go talking to papa and being penitent, till
I give you leave."
"What should I be able to say to him? _I_ don't know. I can't justify my
actions--as the World goes...."
"Why not?"
"Nobody would hold a man blameless, in my circumstances, who made an
offer of marriage to a young lady under...."
"It's invidious to talk about people's ages."
"I wasn't going to say twenty-one. I was going to say under her father's
roof...."
"Nobody ever makes offers of marriage on the top of anybody's father's
roof. Besides, you never made any offer, strictly speaking. You
said...."
"I said that if I had my choice I would have chosen it all as it now is,
only to hear your voice in the dark, rather than to be without it and
have all the eyes of ... didn't I say Argus?"
"Yes--you said Argus. But that was a _façon-de-parler_; at least I hope
so, for the sake of the Hypothesis.... Oh dear!--what nonsense we two
are talking...." Some silence; otherwise the _status quo_ remained
unchanged. Then he said:--"_I_ wonder if it's all a dream and we shall
wake." And she replied: "Not both--that's absurd!" But she made it more
so by adding:--"Promise you'll tell me your dream when we wake, and I'll
tell you mine." He assented:--"All right!--but don't let's wake yet."
By now the sun was sinking in a flame of gold, and every little rabbit's
shadow in the fern was as long as the tallest man's two hours since, and
longer. The level glare was piercing the sheltered secrets of the
beechwoods, and choosing from them ancient tree-trunks capriciously, to
turn to sudden fires against the depths of hidden purple beyond--the
fringe of the mantle the vanguard of night was weaving for the hills.
Not a dappled fallow-deer in the coolest shade but had its chance of a
robe of glory for a little moment--not a bird so sober in its plumage
but became, if only it flew near enough to Heaven, a spark against the
blue. And the long, unhesitating rays were not so busy with the world
without, but that one of them could pry in at the five-light window at
the west end of the Jacobean drawing-room at the Towers, and reach the
marble Ceres the Earl's grandfather brought from Athens. And on the way
it paused and dwelt a moment on a man's hand caressing the stray locks
of a flood of golden hair he could not see--might never see at all. Or
who might live on--such things have been--to find it grey to a
half-illuminated sight in the dusk of life. So invisible to him now; so
vivid in his memory of what seemed to him no more than a few days
since! For half the time, remember, had been to him oblivion--a mere
blank. And now, in the splendid intoxication of this new discovery, he
could well afford to forget for the moment the black cloud that overhung
the future, and the desperation that might well lie hidden in its heart,
waiting for the day when he should know that Hope was dead. That day
might come.
"Shall I tell you now, my dearest, my heart, my life"--this is what he
is saying, and every word he says is a mere truth to him; a sort of
scientific fact--"shall I tell you what I was going to say an hour
ago?..."
"It's more than an hour, but I know when. About me sticking my hand
out?"
"Just exactly then. I was thinking all the while that in another moment
I should have your hand in mine, and keep it as long as I dared. Eyes
were nothing--sight was nothing--life itself was nothing--nothing was
anything but that one moment just ahead. It would not last, but it would
fill the earth and the heavens with light and music, and keep death and
the fiend that had been eating up my soul at bay--as long as it lasted.
Dear love, I am not exaggerating...."
"Do you expect me to believe that? Now be quiet, and perhaps I'll tell
you what I was thinking when I found out you couldn't see--have been
thinking ever since. I thought it well over in the night, and when I
came into this room I meant it. I did, indeed."
"Meant what?"
"Meant to get at the truth about that ring of yours. I had got it on the
brain, you see. I meant to find out whether she was anybody or nobody.
And if she was nobody I was going to...." She comes to a standstill;
for, even now--even after such a revelation, with one of his arms about
her waist, and his free hand caressing her hair--Marcus Curtius sticks
in her throat a little.
"What were you going to?" said Adrian, really a little puzzled. Because
even poets don't understand some women.
"Well--if it wasn't you I wouldn't tell. I ... I had made up my mind to
apply for the vacant place." This came with a rush, and might not have
come at all had she felt his eyes could see her; knowing, as she did,
the way the blood would quite unreasonably mount up to her face the
moment she had uttered it. "It all seemed such plain sailing in the
middle of the night, and it turned out not quite so easy as I thought it
would be. You know.... Be quiet and let me talk now!... it was the
guilt--my share in it--that was so hard to bear. I wanted to do
_something_ to make it up to you. And what could I do? A woman is in
such a fix. Oh, how glad I was when you opened fire on your own account!
Only _frightened_, you know." He was beginning to say something, but she
stopped him with:--"I know what you are going to say, but that's just
where the difficulty came in. If only I hadn't cared twopence about you
it would have been so easy!... Did you say how? Foolish man!--can't you
see that if I hadn't loved you one scrap, or only half across your lips
as we used to say when we were children, it would have been quite a
let-off to be met with offers of a brother's love ... and that sort of
thing.... Isn't that them?" This was colloquial. No doubt Gwen was
exceptional, and all the other young ladies in the Red Book would have
said:--"Are not these they?"
This story does not believe that Gwen's statement of her recent
embarrassment covered the facts. Probably a woman in her position would
be less held at bay by the chance of a rebuff, than by a deadly fear of
kisses chilled by a spirit of self-sacrifice.... Ugh!--the hideous
suspicion! The present writer, from information received, believes that
little girls like to think that they are made of sugar and spice and all
that's nice, and that their lover's synthesis of slugs and snails and
puppy-dogs' tails doesn't matter a rap so long as they are ravenous. But
they mustn't snap, however large a percentage of puppy-dogs they
contain.
Anyhow, Marcus Curtius never came off. He was really impossible; and, as
we all know, what's impossible very seldom comes to pass. And this case
was not among the exceptions.
It wasn't them. But a revision of the relativities was necessary. When
Miss Dickenson and the Hon. Percival did come in, Gwen was at the piano,
and Adrian at the right distance for hearing. Nothing could have been
more irreproachable. The newcomers, having been audibly noisy on the
stairs, showed as hypocritical by an uncalled-for assumption of
preternatural susceptibility to the absence of other members of their
party acknowledging their necessity to make up a Grundy quorum. There is
safety in number when persons are of opposite sexes, which they
generally are.
"Can't imagine what's become of them!" said Mr. Pellew, rounding off
some subject with a dexterous implication of its nature. "By
Jove!--that's good, though! Mr. Torrens down at last!" Greetings and
civilities, and a good pretence by the blind man of seeing the hands he
meets half-way.
"That young Lieutenant What's-his-name and the second Accrington girl,
Gwen dear. They must have missed us and gone round by Furze Heath. I
shall be in a fearful scrape with Lady Accrington, I know. Why didn't
you come to the flower-show?" Thus Miss Dickenson, laying unnecessary
stress on the absentees.
"I had a headache," says Gwen, "and Gloire de Dijon roses always make my
headaches worse.... Yes, it's very funny. Mr. Torrens and I have been
boring one another half the afternoon. But I've written some letters. Do
you know this in the new Opera--Verdi's?" She played a phrase or two of
the _Trovatore._ For it was the new Opera that year, and we were boys
... _eheu fugaces_!
"I really think I ought to walk back a little and see about those young
people," says Aunt Constance fatuously. Thereupon Gwen finds she would
like a little walk in the cool, and will accompany Aunt Constance. But
just after they have left the room Achilles, whose behaviour has really
been perfect all along, is seized with a paroxysm of interest in an
inaudible sound, and storms past them on the stairs to meet the carriage
and keep an eye on things. So they only take a short turn on the terrace
in the late glow of the sunset, and go up to dress.
Adrian and the Hon. Percival spend five minutes in the growing twilight,
actively ignoring all personal relations during the afternoon. They
discuss flower-shows on their merits, and recent Operas on theirs. They
censure the fashions in dress--the preposterous crinolines and the
bonnets almost hanging down on the back like a knapsack--touch politics
slightly: Louis Napoleon, Palmerston, Russian Nicholas. But they follow
male precedents, dropping trivialities as soon as womankind is out of
hearing, and preserve a discreet silence--two discreet silences--about
their respective recencies. They depart to their rooms, Adrian risking
his credit for a limited vision by committing himself to Mr. Pellew's
arm and a banister.
CHAPTER XXII
THEOPHILUS GOTOBED. HOW A TENOR AND A SOPRANO VANISHED. HOW GWEN
ANNOUNCED HER INTENDED MARRIAGE. PRACTICAL ENCOURAGEMENT. AUNT
CONSTANCE AND MR. PELLEW, AND HOW THEY WERE OLDER THAN ROMEO,
JULIET, GWEN, AND MR. TORRENS. HOW THEY STAYED OUT FIVE MINUTES
LONGER, AND MISS DICKENSON CAME ACROSS THE EARL WITH A CANDLE-LAMP.
HOW GWEN'S FATHER KNEW ALL ABOUT IT. NEVERTHELESS THE EARL DID NOT
KNOW BROWNING. BUT HE SUSPECTED GWEN OF QUIXOTISM, FOR ALL THAT.
ONE'S TONGUE, AND THE CHOICE BETWEEN BITING IT OFF OR HOLDING IT.
HOW GWEN HAD BORROWED LORD CUMBERWORLD'S PENCIL. MRS. BAILEY AND
PARISIAN PROFLIGACY
The galaxy of wax lights had illuminated the Jacobean drawing-room long
enough to have become impatient, if only they had had human souls,
before the first conscientious previous person turned up dressed for
dinner, and felt ashamed and looked at a book. He affected superiority
to things, saying to the subsequent conscientious person:--"Seen
this?--'The Self-Renunciation of Theophilus Gotobed?'--R'viewers sayts
'musing;" and handing him Vol. I., which he was obliged to take. He just
looked inside, and laid it on the table. "Looks intristin'!" he said.
It was bad enough, said Mr. Norbury to Cook sympathetically in
confidence, to put back three-quarters of an hour, without her ladyship
making his lordship behindhander still. This was because news travelled
to the kitchen--mind you never say anything whatever in the hearing of a
servant!--that their two respective ships were in collision in the
Lib'ary; _harguing_ was the exact expression. It was the heads of the
household who were late. Lady Gwendolen apologized for them, saying she
was afraid it was her fault. It was. But she didn't look penitent. She
looked resplendent.
The two couples who had parted company, being anxious to advertise their
honourable conduct, executed a quartet-without-music in extenuation of
what appeared organized treachery. The soprano and tenor had lost sight
of the alto and basso just on the other side of Clocketts Croft, where
you came to a stile. They had from sheer good-faith retraced their steps
to this stile and sat on it reluctantly, in bewilderment of spirit,
praying for the spontaneous reappearance of the wanderers. These latter
testified unanimously that they had seen the tenor assist the soprano
over this stile, and that then the couple had disappeared to the right
through the plantation of young larches, and they had followed them
along a path of enormous length with impenetrable arboriculture on
either hand, without seeing any more of them, and expected to find them
on arriving. The tenor and soprano gave close particulars of their
return along this self-same path. All the evidence went to show that a
suspension of natural laws had taken place, the simultaneous presence of
all four at that stile seeming a mathematical certainty from which
escape was impossible.
Guilty conscience--so Gwen thought at least--was discernible in every
phrase of the composition. This was all very fine for Lieutenant Tatham
and Di Accrington, the two young monkeys. But why Aunt Constance and her
middle-aged M.P.? If they wanted to, why couldn't they, without any
nonsense? That was the truncated inquiry Gwen's mind made.
She herself was radiant, dazzling, in the highest spirits. But her
mother was silent and pre-occupied, and rather impatient with her more
than once during the evening. The Earl was the same, minus the
impatience.
This was because of two very short colloquies under pressure, between
Gwen's departure upstairs and the Countess's overdue appearance at
dinner. The first began in the lobby outside Gwen's room, where her
mother overtook her on her way to her own. Here it is in full:
"Oh--there you are, child! What a silly you were not to come! How's your
headache?... I do wish your father would have those stairs altered. It's
like the ascent of Mount Parnassus." Buckstone was presenting a
burlesque of that name just then, and her ladyship may have had it
running in her head.
"It wasn't a real headache--only pretence. Come in here, mamma. I've
something to say.... No--I haven't rung for Lutwyche yet. _She's_ all
right. Come in and shut the door."
"Why, girl, what's the matter? Why are you...?"
"Why am I what?"
"Well--twinkling and--breathing and--and altogether!" Her ladyship's
descriptive power is fairly good as far as it goes, but it has its
limits.
"I don't believe I'm either twinkling or breathing or altogether....
Well, then--I'm whatever you like--all three! Only listen to me, mamma
dear, because there's not much time. I'm going to marry Adrian Torrens.
There!"
"Oh--my dear!" It is too much for the Countess after those stairs! She
sinks on a chair clutching her fingers tight, with wide eyes on her
daughter. It is too terrible to believe. But even in that moment Gwen's
beauty has such force that the words "A blind man!--never to see it!"
are articulate in her mind. For her child never looked more
beautiful--one half queenly effrontery, her disordered locks against the
window-light making a halo of rough gold round a slight flush its wearer
would resent the name of shame for; the other half, the visible
flinching from confession she would resent still more for justifying it.
"Why--do you know anything against him?"
"Darling!--you might marry anybody, and you know it."
"Oh yes; I know all about it. I prefer this one. But _do_ you know
anything against him?"
"Only ... only his _eyes_!... Oh dear! You know you said so yourself
yesterday--that the sight was destroyed...."
"Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!"
"If you are going to take that tone, Gwendolen, I really cannot talk
about it. You and your father must settle it between you somehow. It was
an accident--a very terrible accident, I know--but I must go away to
dress. It's eight.... Anyhow, _one_ thing, dear! You haven't given him
any encouragement--at least, I _hope_ not...."
"Given him any what?"
"Any practical encouragement ... any ..."
"Oh yes--any quantity." She has to quash that flinching and brazen it
out. One way is as good as another. "I didn't tell him to pull my hair
down, though. I didn't mind. But if he had been able to see I should
have been much more strict."
"Gwen dear--you are perfectly ... _shameless_!... Well--you are a very
odd girl...." This is concession; oddity is not shamelessness.
"Come, mamma, be reasonable! If you can't see anybody and you mayn't
touch them, it comes down to making remarks at a respectful distance,
and then it's no better than acquaintance--visiting and leaving cards
and that sort of thing.... Come in!" Lutwyche interrupted with hot
water, her expression saying distinctly:--"I am a young woman of
unimpeachable character, who can come into a room where a titled lady
and her daughter are at loggerheads, no doubt about a love-affair, and
can shut my eyes to the visible and my ears to the audible. Go it!"
Nevertheless, the disputants seemed to prefer suspension of their
discussion, and the elder lady departed, saying they would both be late
for dinner.
This was the first short colloquy. The second was in the Earl's
dressing-room, from which he was emerging when his wife, looking scared,
met him coming out in _grande tenue_ through the district common to
both, the room Earls and Countesses had occupied from time immemorial.
He saw there was some excitement afoot, but was content to await the
information he knew would come in the end. Tacit reciprocities of
misunderstanding ensuing, he felt it safest to say:--"Nothing wrong, I
hope?" This is what followed:
"I think you might show more interest. I have been very much startled
and annoyed.... But I must tell you later. There's no time now."
"I think," says his lordship deferentially, "that, having mentioned it,
it might be better to ..."
"I suppose you mean I oughtn't to have mentioned it.... Starfield, I
cannot possible wear that thick dress to-night. It's suffocating. Get
something thinner.... Oh, well--if I must tell you I must tell you! Go
back in your room a minute while Starfield finds that dress.... Oh
no--_she's_ not listening ... never mind _her_! There, the door's shut!"
"Well--what _is_ it?"
"It's Gwen. However, I dare say it's only a flash in the pan, and she'll
be off after somebody else. If only my advice had been taken he never
would have come into the house...."
"But who _is_ he, and what is _it_?"
"My dear, I'll tell you if you'll not be so impatient. It's this young
Torrens.... Yes--now you're shocked. So was I." For no further
explanations are necessary. When one hears that "it" is John and Jane,
one knows.
"But, Philippa, are you sure? It seems to me perfectly incredible."
"Speak to her yourself."
"She's barely seen him; and as for him, poor fellow, he has never seen
_her_ at all." The rapidity of events seems out of all reason to a
constitutionally cautious Earl.
"My dear, how unreasonable you are! If he could _see_ her, of course,
she wouldn't think of him for one moment. At least, I suppose not."
"I _cannot_ understand," says the bewildered Earl. And then he begins
repeating her ladyship's words "If--he--could ..." as though inviting a
more intelligible repetition. This is exasperating--a clear insinuation
of unintelligibility.
"Oh dear, how slow men are!" The lady passes through a short phase of
collapse from despair over man's faculties, then returns to a difficult
task crisply and incisively. "Well, at any rate, you can see _this_? The
girl's got it into her head that the accident was _our_ fault, and that
it's _her_ duty to make it up to him."
"But, then, she's not really in love with him, if it's a self-denying
ordinance."
The Countess is getting used to despair, so she only shrugs a submissive
shoulder and remarks with forbearance:--"It is _no_ use trying to make
you understand. Of course, it's _because_ she is in love with him that
she is going in for ... what did you call it?..."
"A self-denying ordinance."
"_I_ call it heroics. If she wasn't in love with him, do you suppose she
would want to fling herself away?"
"Then it isn't a self-denying ordinance at all. I confess I _don't_
understand. I must talk to Gwen herself."
"Oh, talk to her by all means. But don't expect to make any impression
on her. I know what she is when she gets the bit in her teeth. Certainly
talk to her. I really must go and dress now...."
"Stop one minute, Philippa...."
"Well--what?"
"Apart from the blindness--poor fellow!--is there anything about this
young man to object to? There's nothing about his family. Why!--his
father's Hamilton Torrens, that was George's great friend at Christ
Church. And his mother was an Abercrombie...."
"I can't go into that now." Her ladyship cuts Adrian's family very
short. Consider her memories of bygones! No wonder she became acutely
alive to her duties as a hostess. She had created a precedent in this
matter, though really her husband scarcely knew anything about her
_affaire de coeur_ with Adrian's father thirty years ago. It was not a
hanging matter, but she could not object to the young man's family after
such a definite attitude towards his father.
Here ends the second short colloquy, which was the one that caused the
Earl to be so more than usually absent that evening. It had the opposite
effect on her ladyship, who felt better after it; braced up again to
company-manners after the first one. Gwen, as mentioned before, was
dazzling; superb; what is apt to be called a cynosure, owing to
something Milton said. Nevertheless, the Shrewd Observer, who happened
in this case to be Aunt Constance, noticed that at intervals the young
lady let her right-hand neighbour talk, and died away into
preoccupation, with a vital undercurrent of rippled lip and thoughtful
eye. Another of her shrewd observations was that when the Hon. Percival,
referring to Mr. Torrens, still an absentee by choice, said:--"I tried
again to persuade him to come down at feeding-time, but it was no go,"
Gwen came suddenly out of one dream of this sort to say from her end of
the table, miles off:--"He really prefers dining by himself, I know,"
and went in again.
It was this that Aunt Constance referred to in conversation with Mr.
Pellew, at about half-past ten o'clock in that same shrubbery walk. They
had cultivated each other's absence carefully in the drawing-room, and
had convinced themselves that neither was necessary to the other. That
clause having been carried nem. con., they were entitled to five
minutes' chat, without prejudice. Neither remembered, perhaps, the
convert to temperance who decided that passing a public-house door _à
contre-coeur_ entitled him to half-a-pint.
"How did you get on with little Di Accrington?" the lady had said. And
the gentleman had answered:--"First-rate. Talked to her about _your_
partner all the time. How did you hit it off with him?" A sympathetic
laugh over the response: "Capitally--he talked about _her_, of course!"
quite undid the fiction woven with so much pains indoors, and also as it
were lighted a little collateral fire they might warm their fingers at,
or burn them. However, a parade of their well-worn seniority, their old
experience of life, would keep them safe from _that_. Only it wouldn't
do to neglect it.
Mr. Pellew recognised the obligation first. "Offly amusin'!--young
people," said he, claiming, as the countryman of Shakespeare, his share
of insight into Romeo and Juliet.
"Same old story, over and over again!" said Aunt Constance. They posed
as types of elderliness that had no personal concern in love-affairs,
and could afford to smile at juvenile flirtations. Mr. Pellew felt
interested in Miss Dickenson's bygone romances, implied in the slight
shade of sentiment in her voice--wondered in fact how the doose this
woman had missed her market; this was the expression his internal
soliloquy used. She for her part was on the whole glad that an intensely
Platonic friendship didn't admit of catechism, as she was better pleased
to leave the customers in that market to the uninformed imagination of
others, than to be compelled to draw upon her own.
The fact was that, in spite of its thinness and slightness, this
Platonic friendship with a mature bachelor whose past--while she
acquitted him of atrocities--she felt was safest kept out of sight, had
already gone quite as near to becoming a love-affair as anything her
memory could discover among her own rather barren antecedents. So there
was a certain sort of affectation in Aunt Constance's suggestion of
familiarity with Romeo and Juliet. She wished, without telling lies, to
convey the idea that the spinsterhood four very married sisters did not
scruple to taunt her with, was either of her own choosing or due to some
tragic event of early life. She did not relish the opposite pole of
human experience to her companion's. Of course, he was a bachelor
nominally unattached--she appreciated that--just as she was a spinster
very actually unattached. But all men of his type she had understood
were alike; only some--this one certainly--were much better than others.
Honestly she was quite unconscious of any personal reason for assigning
to him a first-class record.
Attempts to sift the human mind throw very little light upon it, and the
dust gets in the eyes of the story. Perhaps that is why it cannot give
Miss Dickenson's reason for not following up her last remark with:--"And
will go on so, I suppose, to the end of time!" as she had half-intended
to do, philosophically. Possibly she thought it would complicate the
topic she was hankering after. It would be better to keep that
provisionally clear of subjects made to the hand of writers of plays.
She would not go beyond hypnotic suggestion at present. She approached
it with the air of one who dismisses a triviality.
"It seems Mr. Adrian Torrens is a musician as well as a poet."
"Had they been playing the piano?"
"Really, Mr. Pellew, how absurd you are! Where does 'they' come in?"
"Oh--well--a--of course--I thought you were referring to ..."
"_Whom_ did you suppose I was referring to?" Aggressive equanimity here
that can wait weeks, if necessary.
"Torrens and my cousin Gwen! Be hanged if I can see why I shouldn't
refer to them!"
"Do so by all means. I wasn't, myself; but it doesn't matter. It was
Nurse Bailey told Lutwyche, whom I borrow from Gwen sometimes, that Mr.
Torrens was a great musician."
"How does Nurse Bailey know?"
"He was playing to her quite beautiful in the drawing-room just before
her young ladyship came in. And then Mrs. Bailey went upstairs to write
a letter because there was plenty of time before the post."
"Can't say I believe Nurse Bailey's much of a dab at music." Mr. Pellew
was reflecting on the humorous background of Miss Dickenson's
character, clear to his insight in her last speech. "But it was just
post-time when we got back from the flower-show.... What then? Why, her
young ladyship must have been there long enough for Mrs. Bailey to write
a letter."
"Is that the way you gossip at your Club, Mr. Pellew?"
"Come, I say, Miss Dickenson, that's too bad! I merely remark that a
lady and gentleman must have had plenty of time for music, and you call
it 'gossip.'"
"Precisely."
"Well, I say it's a jolly shame!... You don't suppose there _is_
anything there, do you?" This came with a sudden efflux of seriousness.
Aunt Constance had landed her fish and was blameless. Nobody could say
she had been indiscreet. She, too, could afford to be suddenly serious.
"I don't mind saying so to you, Mr. Pellew," she said, "because I know I
can rely upon you. But did you notice at dinner-time, when you said you
had tried to persuade Mr. Torrens to come down, that Gwen took upon
herself to answer for him all the way down the table?"
"By Jove--so she did! I didn't notice it at the time. At least, I mean I
did notice it at the time, but I didn't take much notice of it.
Well--you know what I mean!" As Miss Dickenson knows perfectly well, she
tolerates technical flaws of speech with a nod, and allows Mr. Pellew to
go on:--"But, I say, this will be an awful smash for the family. A blind
man!" Then he becomes aware that a conclusion has been jumped at, and
experiences relief. "But it may be all a mistake, you know." Aunt
Constance's silence has the force of speech, and calls for further
support of this surmise. "They haven't had the time. She has only known
him since yesterday. At least he had never seen her but once--he told me
so--that time just before the accident."
"Gwen is a very peculiar girl," says the lady. "A spark will fire a
train. Did you notice nothing when we came in from the flower-show?"
"Nothing whatever. Did you?"
"Little things. However, as you say, it may be all a mistake. I don't
think anything of the time, though. Some young people are volcanic. Gwen
might be."
"I saw no sign of an eruption in him--no lunacy. He chatted quite
reasonably about the division on Thursday, and the crops and the
weather. Never mentioned Gwen!"
"My dear Mr. Pellew, you really are quite pastoral. Of course, Gwen is
exactly what he would _not_ mention."
Mr. Pellew seems to concede that he is an outsider. "You think it was
Love at first sight, and that sort of thing," he says. "Well--I hope it
will wash. It don't always, you know."
"Indeed it does not." The speaker cannot resist the temptation to
flavour philosophy with a suggestion of tender regrets--a hint of a
life-drama in her own past. No questions need be answered, and will
scarcely be asked. But it is candid and courageous to say as little as
may be about it, and to favour a cheerful outlook on Life. She is bound
to say that many of the happiest marriages she has known have been
marriages of second--third--fourth--fifth--_n_th Love. She had better
have let it stand at that if she wanted her indistinct admirer to screw
up his courage then and there to sticking point. For the Hon. Percival
had at least seen in her words a road of approach to a reasonably tender
elderly avowal. But she must needs spoil it by adding--really quite
unconsciously--that many such marriages had been between persons in
quite mature years. Somehow this changed the nascent purpose kindled by
a suggestion of _n_th love in Autumn to a sudden consciousness that the
conversation was sailing very near the wind--some wind undefined--and
made Mr. Pellew run away pusillanimously.
"By-the-by, did you ever see the Macganister More man that died the
other day? Married the Earl's half-sister?"
"Never. Of course, I know Clotilda perfectly well."
"Let's see--oh yes!--she's Sister Nora. Oh yes, of course I know
Clotilda. She's his heiress, I fancy--comes into all the property--no
male heir. She'll go over to Rome, I suppose."
"Why?"
"Always do--with a lot of independent property. Unless some fillah cuts
in and snaps her up."
"Do tell me, Mr. Pellew, why it is men can never credit any woman with
an identity of her own?"
"Well, I only go by what I see. If they don't marry they go over to
Rome--when there's property--dessay I'm wrong.... What o'clock's
that?--ten, I suppose. No?--well, I suppose it must be eleven, when one
comes to think of it. But it's a shame to go in--night like this!" And
then this weak-minded couple impaired the effect of their little
declaration of independence of the united state--the phrase sounds
familiar somehow!--by staying out five or six minutes longer, and going
in half an hour later; two things only the merest pedant would declare
incompatible. But it kept the servants up, and Miss Dickenson had to
apologise to Mr. Norbury.
How many of us living in this present century can keep alive to the fact
that the occupants of country-mansions, now resplendent with an electric
glare which is destroying their eyesight and going out suddenly at
intervals, were sixty years ago dependent on candles and moderator
lamps, which ran down and had to be wound up, and then ran down again,
when there was no oil. There was no gas at the Towers; though there
might have been, granting seven miles of piping, from which the gas
would have escaped into the roots of the beeches and killed them.
Even if there had been, it does not follow that Miss Dickenson, in full
flight to her own couch, would not have come upon the Earl in the lobby
near Mr. Torrens's quarters, with a candle-lamp in his hand, which he
carried about in nocturnal excursions to make sure that a great
conflagration was not raging somewhere on the premises. He seemed, Miss
Dickenson thought, to be gazing reproachfully at it. It was burning all
right, nevertheless. She wished his lordship good-night, and fancied it
was very late. The Earl appeared sure of it. So did a clock with clear
ideas on the subject, striking midnight somewhere, ponderously. The lady
passed on; not, however, failing to notice that the lamp stopped at a
door on the way, and that its bearer was twice going to knock thereat
and didn't. Then a dog within intimated that he should bark presently,
unless attention was given to an occurrence he could vouch for, which
his master told him to hold his tongue about; calling out "Come in!"
nevertheless, to cover contingencies.
The passer-by connected this with Gwen's behaviour at dinner, and other
little things she had noticed, and meant to lie awake on the chance of
hearing his lordship say good-night to Mr. Torrens, perhaps illuminating
the situation. But resolutions to lie awake are the veriest gossamer,
blown away by the breath that puts the bedside candle out. Miss
Dickenson and Oblivion had joined hands some time when his lordship said
good-night to Mr. Torrens.
He had found him standing at his window, as though the warm night-air
was a luxury to him, in the blue silk dressing-gown he had affected
since his convalescence. There was no light in the room; indeed, light
would have been of no service to him in his state. He did not move, but
said: "I suppose I ought to be thinking of turning in now, Mrs. Bailey?"
"It isn't Mrs. Bailey," said the Earl. "It's me. Gwen's father."
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Adrian, starting back from the window. "I
thought it was the good creature. I had given you up, Lord Ancester--it
got so late." For his lordship had made a visit of inquiry and a short
chat with this involuntary guest an invariable finish to his daily
programme, since the latter recovered consciousness. "I'm afraid there's
no light in the room," said Adrian. "I told 'Rene to blow the candles
out. I can move about very fairly, you see, but I never feel safe about
knocking things down. I might set something on fire." If he had had his
choice, he would rather not have had another interview with his host
until he was at liberty to confess all and say _peccavi_. Even "Gwen's
father's" announcement of himself did not warrant his breaking his
promise.
"There is no light," said the visitor, "except mine that I have brought
with me. I expected to find you in the dark--indeed, I was afraid I
might wake you out of your first sleep. I came because of Gwen--because
I felt I _must_ see you before I went to bed myself." He paused a
moment, Adrian remaining silent, still at a loss; then continued:--"This
has been very sudden, so sudden that it has quite ..."
Then Adrian broke out:--"Oh, how you must be blaming me! Oh, what a
_brute_ I've been!..."
"No--no, no--_no!_ Not that, not that _at all_! Not a word of blame for
anybody! None for you--none for Gwen. But it has been so--so sudden...."
Indeed, Gwen's father seems as though all the breath, morally speaking,
had been knocked out of his body by this escapade of his daughter's.
For, knowing from past experience the frequent tempestuous suddenness of
her impulses, and convinced that Adrian in his position neither could
nor would have shown definitely the aspirations of a lover, his image of
their interview made Gwen almost the first instigator in the affair.
"Why, you--you have hardly _seen_ her----" he says, referring only to
the shortness of their acquaintance, not to eyesight.
Adrian accepts the latter meaning without blaming him. "Yes," he says,
"but see her I _did_, though it was but a glimpse. I tell you this, Lord
Ancester--and it is no rhapsody; just bald truth--that if this day had
never come about.... I mean if it had come about otherwise; I might have
gone away this morning, for instance ... and if I had had to learn, as I
yet may, that this black cloud I live in was to be my life for good, and
all that image I saw for a moment of Gwen--Gwen in her glory in the
light of the sunset, for one moment--one moment!..." He breaks down over
it.
The Earl's voice is not in good form for encouragement, but he does his
best. "Come--come! It's not so bad as all that yet. See what Merridew
said. Couldn't say anything for certain for another three months.
Indeed he said it might be more, and yet you might have your sight back
again without a flaw in either eye. He really said so!"
"Well--he's a jolly good fellow. But what I mean is, what I was going to
say was that my recollection of her in that one moment would have been
the one precious thing left for me to treasure through the
pitch-darkness.... You remember--or perhaps not--that about a hand's
breadth of it--the desert, you know--shining alone in the salt leagues
round about...."
"N-no. I don't think I do. Is it ... a ... Coleridge?"
"No--Robert Browning. He'd be new to you. You would hardly know him.
However, I should try to forget the rest of the desert this time."
The Earl did not follow, naturally, and changed the subject. "It is very
late," he said, "and I have only time to say what I came to say. You may
rely on my not standing arbitrarily in the way of my daughter's wishes
when the time comes--and it has not come yet--for looking at that side
of the subject. It can only come when it is absolutely certain that she
knows her own mind. She is too young to be allowed to take the most
important step in life under the influence of a romantic--it may be
Quixotic--impulse. I have just had a long talk with her mother about it,
and I am forced to the conclusion that Gwen's motives are not so unmixed
as a girl's should be, to justify bystanders in allowing her to act upon
them--bystanders I mean who would have any right of interference.... I
am afraid I am not very clear, but I shrink from saying what may seem
unfeeling...."
"Probably you would not hurt me, and I should deserve it, if you did."
"What I mean is that Gwen's impulse is ... is derived from ... from, in
short, your unhappy accident. I would not go so far as to say that she
has schemed a compensation for this cruel disaster ... which we need
hardly be so gloomy about yet awhile, it seems to me. But this I do
say"--here the Earl seemed to pick up heart and find his words
easier--"that if Gwen has got that idea I thoroughly sympathize with
her. I give you my word, Mr. Torrens, that not an hour passes, for me,
without a thought of the same kind. I mean that I should jump at any
chance of making it up to you, for mere ease of mind. But I have nothing
to give that would meet the case. Gwen has a treasure--herself! It is
another matter whether she should be allowed to dispose of it her own
way, for her own sake. Her mother and I may both feel it our duty to
oppose it."
Adrian said in an undertone, most dejectedly: "You would be right. How
could I complain?" Then it seemed to him that his words struck a false
note, and he tried to qualify them. "I mean--how could I say a word of
any sort? Could I complain of any parents, for trying to stop their girl
linking her life to mine? And such a life as hers! And yet if it were
all to do again, how could I act otherwise than as I did a few hours
since. Is there a man so strong anywhere that he could put a curb on his
heart and choke down his speech to convention-point, if he thought that
a girl like Gwen ... I don't know how to say what I want. All speech
goes wrong, do what I will."
"If he thought that a girl like Gwen was waiting for him to speak out?
Is that it?... Oh--well--not exactly that! But something of the sort,
suppose we say?" For Adrian's manner had entered a protest. "Anyhow I
assure you I quite understand my Gwen is--very attractive. But nobody is
blaming anybody. After all, what would the alternative have been? Just
some hypocritical beating about the bush to keep square with the
regulations--to level matters down to--what did you call
it?--convention-point! Nothing gained in the end! Let's put all that on
one side. What _we_ have to look at is this--meaning, of course, by
'we,' my wife and myself:--Is Gwen really an independent agent? Is she
not in a sense the slave of her own imagination, beyond and above the
usual enthralment that one accepts as part of the disorder. I myself
believe that she is, and that the whole root and essence of the business
may be her pity for yourself, and also I should say an exaggerated idea
of her own share in the guilt...."
"There _was_ none," Adrian struck in decisively. "But I understand your
meaning exactly. Listen a minute to this. If I had thought what you
think possible--well, I would have bitten my tongue off rather than
speak. Why, think of it! To ask a girl like that to sacrifice herself to
a cripple--a half-cripple, at least...."
"Without good grounds for supposing she was waiting to be asked," said
the Earl; adding, to anticipate protest:--"Come now!--that's what we
mean. Let's say so and have done with it," to which Adrian gave tacit
assent. His lordship continued:--"I quite believe you; at least, I
believe you would rather have held your tongue than bitten it off. I
certainly should. But--pardon my saying so--I cannot understand ... I'm
not finding fault or doubting you ... I _cannot_ understand how you came
to be so--so ... I won't say cocksure--let's call it sanguine. If there
had been time I could have understood it. But I cannot see where the
time came in."
Adrian fidgetted uneasily, and felt his cheeks flush. "I can answer for
when it began, with me. I walked across that glade from Arthur's Bridge
quite turned into somebody else, with Gwen stamped on my brain like a
Queen's head on a shilling, and her voice in my ears as plain as the
lark's overhead. But whether we started neck and neck, I know not. I do
know this, though, that I shall never believe that if I had been first
seen by her in my character as a corpse, either she or I would ever have
been a penny the wiser."
"You are the wiser?--quite sure?" The Earl seemed to have his doubts.
"Quite sure. Do you recollect how 'the Duke grew suddenly brave and
wise'? He was only the 'fine empty sheath of a man' before. But it's no
use quoting Browning to you."
"Not the slightest. I suppose he was referring to a case of love at
first sight--is that it?... It is a time-honoured phenomenon, only it
hardly comes into practical politics, because young persons are so
secretive about it. I can't recollect any lady but Rosalind who
mentioned it at the time--or any gentleman but Romeo, for that matter.
Gwen has certainly kept her own counsel for three weeks past."
"Dear Lord Ancester, you are laughing at me...."
"No--no! No, I wouldn't do that. Perhaps I was laughing a little at
human nature. That's excusable. However, I understand that you _are_
cocksure--or sanguine--about the similarity of Romeo's case. I won't
press Gwen about Rosalind's. Of course, if she volunteers information, I
shall have to dismiss the commiseration theory--you understand me?--and
suppose that she is healthily in love. By healthily I mean selfishly. If
no information is forthcoming, all I can say is--the doubt remains; the
doubt whether she is not making herself the family scapegoat, carrying
away the sins of the congregation into the wilderness."
"You know I think that all sheer nonsense, whatever Gwen thinks? She may
think the sins of the congregation are as scarlet. To me they are white
as wool."
"The whole question turns on what Gwen thinks. Believing, as I do, that
my child may be sacrificing herself to expiate a sin of mine, I have no
course but to do my best to prevent her, or, at least to postpone
irrevocable action until it is certain that she is animated by no such
motive. I might advocate that you and she should not meet, for--suppose
we say--a twelvemonth, but that I have so often noticed that absence
not only 'makes the heart grow fonder,' as the song says, but also makes
it very turbulent and unruly. So I shall leave matters entirely
alone--leave her to settle it with her mother.... Your sister knows of
this, I suppose?"
"Oh yes! Gwen told her of it across the table at dinner-time."
"Across the table at dinner-time? _Imp_-ossible!"
"Well--look at this!" Adrian produces from his dressing-gown pocket a
piece of paper, much crumpled, with a gilt frill all round, and holds it
out for the Earl to take. While the latter deciphers it at his
candle-lamp, he goes on to give its history. Irene had been back very
late from the Mackworth Clarkes, and had missed the soup. She had not
spoken with Gwen at all, and as soon as dessert had effloresced into
little _confetti_, had been told by that young lady to catch, the thing
thrown being the wrapper of one of these, rolled up and scribbled on.
"She brought it up for me to see," says Adrian, without thought of cruel
fact. Blind people often speak thus.
The Earl cannot help laughing at what he reads aloud. "'I am going to
marry your brother'--that's all!" he says. "That's what she borrowed
Lord Cumberworld's pencil for. Really Gwen _is_...!" But this wild
daughter of his is beyond words to describe, and he gives her up.
If the Duke's son had not been honourable, he might have peeped and
known his own fate. For he had been entrusted with this missive, to hand
across the table to Irene lower down. Lady Gwendolen ought to have given
it to Mr. Norbury, to hand to Miss Torrens on a tray. That was Mr.
Norbury's opinion.
When the Earl looked up from deciphering the pencil-scrawl, he saw that
Adrian's powers were visibly flagging; and no wonder, convalescence
considered, and such a day of strain and excitement. He rose to go,
saying:--"You see what I want--nothing in a hurry."
Adrian's words were slipping away from him as he replied, or tried to
reply:--"I see. If I were to get my eyes back, Gwen might change her
mind." But he failed over the last two letters. Mrs. Bailey, still in
charge, lived on the other side of a door, at which the Earl tapped,
causing a scuttling and a prompt appearance of the good creature, who
seemed to have an ambush of grog ready to spring on her patient. It was
what was wanted.
"Remember this, Mr. Torrens," said his lordship, when a rally encouraged
him to add a postscript, "that in spite of what you say, I feel just as
Gwen does, that the blame of your mishap lies with me and mine--with me
chiefly...."
"All nonsense, my lord! Excuse my contradicting you flatly. Your
instruction, not expressed but implied, to old Stephen, was clearly
_not_ to miss his mark. If he had killed Achilles you _would_ have been
responsible, as Apollo was responsible for the arrow of Paris.... Yes,
my dear, we were talking about you." This was to the collie, who woke up
from deep sleep at the sound of his name, and felt he could mix with a
society that recognised him. But not without shaking himself violently
and scratching his head, until appealed to to stop.
The Earl let further protest stand over, and said good-night, rather
relieved at the beneficial effect of the good creature's ministrations.
The excellent woman herself, when the grog was disposed of, facilitated
her charge's dispositions for the night, and retired to rest with an
ill-digested idea that she had interrupted a conversation about the
corrupt gaieties of a vicious foreign capital, inhabited chiefly by
atheists and idolaters.
* * * * *
The Countess's long talk with her husband, wedged in between an early
abdication of the drawing-room and the sound of Gwen laughing
audaciously with Miss Torrens on the staircase, and more temperate
good-nights below, had tended towards a form of party government in
which the Earl was the Liberal and her ladyship the Conservative party.
The Bill before the House was never exactly read aloud, its contents
being taken for granted. When the Countess had said, in their previous
interview, first that it was Gwen, and then that it was this young
Torrens, she had really exhausted the subject.
Nevertheless she seemed now to claim for herself credit for a clear
exposition of the contents of this Bill, in spite of constant
interruptions from a factious Opposition. "I hope," she said, "that, now
that I have succeeded in making you understand, you will speak to Gwen
yourself. I suppose she's not going to stop downstairs all night."
The Earl also supposed not. But even in that very improbable event the
resources of human ingenuity would not be exhausted. He could, for
instance, go downstairs to speak to her. But other considerations
intervened. Was her ladyship's information unimpeachable? Was it
absolutely impossible that she should have been misled in any
particular? Could he, in fact, consider his information official?
The Countess showed unexampled forbearance under extreme trial. "My
dear," she said, "how perfectly absurd you are! How can there be any
doubt of the matter? Listen to me for one moment and think. When a girl
insists on talking to her mother when both are late for dinner, and have
hardly five minutes to dress, and says flatly, 'Mamma dear, I am going
to marry So-and-so, or So-and-so'--because it's exactly the same thing,
whoever it is--how can there be any possibility of a mistake?"
"Very little, certainly," says the Earl reflectively. He seemed to
consider the point slowly. "But it can hardly be said to be exactly the
same thing in all cases. This case is peculiar--is peculiar."
"I can't see where the peculiarity comes in. You mean his eyes. But a
girl either is, or is not, in love with a man, whether he has eyes in
his head or not."
"Indisputably. But it complicates the case. You must admit, my dear,
that it complicates the case."
"You mean that I am unfeeling? Wouldn't it be better to say so instead
of beating about the bush? But I am nothing of the sort."
"My dear, am I likely to say so? Have you ever heard me hint such a
thing? But one may be sincerely sorry for the victim of such an awful
misfortune, and yet feel that his blindness complicates matters. Because
it does."
"I'm not sure that I understand what you are driving at. Perhaps we are
talking about different things." This is not entirely without
forbearance--may show a trace of uncalled-for patience, as towards an
undeserved conundrum-monger.
"Perhaps we are, my dear. But as to what I'm driving at. Can you recall
what Gwen said about his eyes?"
"I think so. Let me see.... Yes--she said did I know anything against
him. I said--nothing except his eyes. And then she said--I recollect it
quite plainly--'Who destroyed his sight? Tell me that!'"
"What did you answer to that?"
"I refused to talk any longer, and said you and she must settle it your
own way."
"Nothing else?"
"Oh--well--nothing--nothing to speak of! Lutwyche came worrying in with
hot water."
The Earl sat cogitating until her ladyship roused him by saying "Well!"
rather tartly. Then he echoed back:--"Well, Philippa, I think possibly
you are right."
"Only possibly!"
"Probably then. Yes--certainly probably!"
"What about?"
"I thought I understood you to say that, in your opinion, Gwen had got
it into her head that ..."
"Oh dear!... There--never mind!--go on." She considered her husband a
prolix Earl, sometimes.
"... That the accident was _our_ fault, and that it was _her_ duty to
make it up to him."
"Of course she has. What did you suppose?"
"I supposed she might have--a--fallen in love with him. I thought you
thought so, too, from what you said."
"My dear Alexander, shall I never make you understand?" Her ladyship
only used the long inconvenient name to emphasize rhetoric, which she
did also in this instance by making every note _staccato_. "Gwen, has,
fallen, in, love, with, Mr. Torrens, because, we, _did it_? _Now_ do you
see?"
"She has a--mixture of motives, in fact?"
"Absolutely none whatever! She's over head and ears in love with him
_because_ his eyes are out. No other reason in life! What earthly good
do you think the child thinks she could do him if she _didn't_ love him?
Men will never understand girls if they live till Doomsday."
The Earl did not grapple with the problems this suggested; but
reflected, while her ladyship waited explicitly. At last he said:--"It
certainly appears to me that if Gwen's ... predilection for this man
depends in any degree on a mistaken conviction of duty, the only course
open to us is to--to temporise--to deprecate rash actions and
undertakings. Under the circumstances it would be impossible to condemn
or find fault with either. It is perfectly inconceivable that poor
Torrens--should have--should have taken any initiative...."
"Oh, my dear, what nonsense! Of course, Gwen did that. She proposed to
him when I was away at the flower-show...."
"Philippa--how _can_ you? How would such a thing be _possible_?
Really--_really!_ ..."
"Well, _really really_ as much as you like, but any woman could propose
to a blind man--a little way off, certainly--only I don't know that Gwen
..." However, the Countess stopped short of her daughter's reference to
a respectful distance and card-leaving.
It was at this point that Gwen and Irene were audible on the stairs,
suggesting the lateness of the hour. The Earl said:--"I think I shall go
and see Torrens as soon as there's quiet. I have gone to him every
evening till now. I may speak to him about this." To which her ladyship
replied:--"Now mind you put your foot down. What I am always afraid of
with you is indecision." He made no answer, but listened, waiting for
the last disappearance couchwards. Then he went to his room for his
hand-lamp, as described, and after satisfying himself about that
conflagration's non-existence, was just in time to cross Miss Dickenson,
a waif overdue, and wonder what on earth had made that very spirit and
image of all conformity guilty of such a lapse.
Then followed his interview with Mr. Torrens already detailed. Perhaps
the foregoing should have come first. If ever you retell the tale you
can make it do so. But whatever you do be careful to insist on that
point of not talking before the servants. Dwell on the fact that Miss
Lutwyche went straight to the Servants' Hall, after putting a finishing
touch on her young ladyship, and said to the housekeeper:--"You'll be
very careful, Mrs. Masham, to say nothing whatever about her young
ladyship and Mr. Torrenson"; it being one of her peculiarities to alter
the names of visitors on the strength of alleged secret information, to
prove that she was in the confidence of the family. To which Mrs. Masham
replied:--"Why not be outspoken, Anne Lutwyche?" provoking, or
licensing, further illumination on the subject; with the result that in
half an hour the household was observing discreet silence about it, and
exacting solemn promises of equal discretion from acquaintances as
discreet as itself. But there were words between Mrs. Starfield, the
Countess's abettor in dressing, and Miss Lutwyche; the former having
found herself forestalled in her theory of the argument in the Lib'ary,
which she had reported as the cause of delay, by the latter's prompt
expression of cautious reserve, and having accused her of throwing out
hints and nothing to go upon. Whereupon the young woman had indignantly
repudiated the idea that a frank nature like hers could be capable of an
underhand _insinuendo_, and had felt a great and just satisfaction with
her powers of handling her mother-tongue.
CHAPTER XXIII
PSYCHOLOGIES ABOUT THE COUNTESS. HOW GWEN WOULDN'T GO TO ATHENS, OR
ROME, OR TO STONE GRANGE. BUT SHE WOULD GO WITH HER COUSIN CLO TO
CAVENDISH SQUARE. HOW THEY DROVE OVER TO GRANNY MARRABLE'S, AND
DAVE'S LETTER WAS TALKED ABOUT. HIS AMANUENSIS. OH, BUT HOW STRANGE
THAT PHOEBE SHOULD READ MAISIE'S WRITING AGAIN! AN ODIOUS LITTLE
GIRL, WITH A STYE IN HER EYE. AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE. HOW
MICHAEL'S FRIENDS SHOULD BE ESCHEWED, IF NOT HIMSELF. HOW GRANNY
MARRABLE AND HER SISTER HAD MADE SLIDES ON ICE THAT THAWED SEVENTY
YEARS AGO. HOW A LADY AND GENTLEMAN JUMPED FARTHER OFF
The Countess of Ancester was mistaken when she said to Gwen's mother
that that young lady was sure to cool down, as other young ladies,
noteworthily her own mother's daughter, had done under like
circumstances. The story prefers this elaborate way of referring to what
that august lady said to herself, to more literal and commonplace
formulas of speech; because it emphasizes the official, personal, and
historical character of the speaker, the hearer, and the instance she
cited, respectively. She spoke as a Countess, a Woman of the World, one
who knew what her duty was to herself and her daughter, and had made up
her mind to perform it, and not be influenced by sentimental nonsense.
She listened as a parent, really very fond of this beautiful creature
for which she was responsible, and painfully conscious of a bias towards
sentimental nonsense, which taxed her respect for her official adviser.
She referred to her historical precedent--her own early experience--with
a confidence akin to that of the passenger in sight of Calais, who dares
to walk about the deck because he knows how soon it will be safe to say
he was always a very good sailor.
But just as that very good sailor is never quite free from painful
memories of moments on the voyage, over which he might have had to draw
a veil, so this lady had to be constantly on her guard against recurrent
images of her historical precedent, during her periods of wavering
between her two suitors. Could she not remember--could she ever forget
rather?--Romeo's passionate epistles and Juliet's passionate answers,
during that period of enforced separation; when the latter had not begun
to cool down, and was still able to speak of Gwen's father--undeveloped
then in that capacity--as a tedious, middle-aged prig whom her
ridiculous aunt wanted to force upon her? Was it a sufficient set-off
against all this fiery correspondence that she had burned one
preposterous--and red-hot--effusion, and started seriously on cooling,
because a friend brought her news that Romeo was not pining at all, but
had, on the contrary, danced three waltzes with a fascinating cousin of
hers? Of course it was, said the Countess officially, and she had
behaved like a good historical precedent, which Gwen would follow in due
course. Give her time.
Nevertheless her unofficial self was grave and reflective more than once
over the likeness of this young Adrian to Hamilton, his father,
especially in his faculty for talking nonsense. Some people seemed to
think his verses good. Perhaps the two things were not incompatible.
Hamilton had never written verses, as far as she knew. No doubt that
Miss Abercrombie his father married was responsible for the poetry. If
he had married another Miss Abercrombie it might have been quite
different. She found it convenient to utilise a second example of the
same name; some suppositions are more convenient than others. She
shirked one which would have cancelled Gwen, as an impossibility. One
_must_ look accomplished facts in the face.
The cooling down did not start with the alacrity which her ladyship had
anticipated. She had expected a fall of at least one degree in the
thermometer within a couple of months. Time seems long or short to us in
proportion as we are, so to speak, brought up against it. Only the
unwatched pot boils over; and, broadly speaking, pudding never cools,
and blowing really does very little good. This lady would have _blown_
her daughter metaphorically--perhaps thrown cold water on her passion
would be a better metaphor--if her husband had not earnestly dissuaded
her from doing so. It would only make matters worse. If Gwen was to
marry a blind man, at least do not let her do it in order to contradict
her parents. Fights and Love Affairs alike are grateful to bystanders
who do not interfere; but interference is admissible in the former, to
assist waverers up to the scratch. In the latter, the sooner time is
called, the better for all parties. But if time is called too soon, ten
to one the next round will last twice as long.
The Earl also interposed upon his wife's attempt to stipulate for a
formal declaration of reciprocal banishment. "Very well, my dear
Philippa!" said he. "Forbid their meeting, if you like! You can do it,
because Adrian is bound in honour to forward it if we insist. But in my
opinion you will by doing so destroy the last chance of the thing dying
a natural death." Said Philippa:--"I don't believe you want it to"--a
construction denounced, we believe, by sensitive grammarians. The Earl
let it pass, replying:--"I do not wish it to die a violent death." Her
ladyship dropped the portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless
reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's
father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The
rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their
brows and woven into the patterns of the garments. Among them, two
images--a potential Adrian and a potential Gwen--each with one variation
of parentage, but quite out of court for St. George's, Hanover Square.
Are the Countess's thoughts obscure to you? They were, to her. So she
refused to entertain them.
In the Earl's mind there was an element bred of his short daily visits
to the young man, whose disaster had been a constant source of
self-reproach to him. If only its victim had been repugnant to him, he
would have been greatly helped in the continual verdicts of the Court of
his own conscience, which frequently discharged him without a stain on
his character. How came it, then, that he so soon found himself back in
the dock, or re-arguing the case as counsel for the prisoner? Probably
his sentiments towards the young man himself were responsible for some
of his discontent with his own impartial justice, however emphatically
he rejected the idea. There is nothing like a course of short
attendances at the bedside of a patient to generate an affection for its
occupant, and in this case everything was in its favour. All question of
responsibility for Adrian's accident apart, there was enough in his
personality to get at the Earl's soft corners, especially the one that
constantly reminded its owner that he was now without a son and heir.
For, since his son Frank was drowned, he was the father of daughters
only. It was not surprising that he should enter some protest against
any but a spontaneous cancelling of Gwen's trothplight. It was only fair
that spontaneity should have a chance. He did not much believe that the
cooling down process would be materially assisted by a spell of
separation; but if Philippa would not be content without it, try it, by
all means! If she could persuade her daughter to go with her to Paris,
Rome, Athens--New York, for that matter!--why, go! But the Earl's shrug
as he said this meant that her young ladyship had still to be reckoned
with, and that pig-headed young beauties in love were kittle cattle to
shoe behind. Those were the words his brain toyed with, over the case,
for a moment.
The reckoning bristled with difficulties, and every unit was disputed.
Paris was not fit to be visited, with the present government; and was
not safe, for that matter. Cholera was raging in Rome. Athens was a mass
of ruins from the recent earthquakes. Gwen wavered a moment over New
York, not seriously suggested. It was so absurd as to be worth a
thought. This seems strange to us, nowadays; but it was then nearly as
far a cry to Broadway as it is now to Tokio.
Appeals to Gwen to go abroad with her mother failed. She also made
difficulties--good big ones--about going with her parents to Scotland.
Her scheme was transparent, though she indignantly disclaimed it. How
could anything be more absurd than to accuse her of conspiring with
Irene towards a visit to that young lady at Pensham Steynes? Had she not
promised to live without seeing Adrian for six months, and was she not
to be trusted to keep her word?
She really wished to convince her father of the reality of her
attachment, apart from compensation due to loss of sight. So she agreed
to accompany Cousin Clotilda to London, and to stay with her at the
town-mansion of the Macganister More, who had just departed this life,
leaving the whole of his property to the said Cousin, his only daughter
and heiress. She rather looked forward to a sojourn in the great house
in Cavendish Square, a mysterious survival of the Early Georges, which
had not been really tenanted for years, though Sister Nora had camped in
it on an upstairs floor you could see Hampstead Heath from. It would be
fun to lead a gypsy life there, building castles in the air with Sister
Nora's great inheritance, and sometimes peeping into the great
unoccupied rooms, all packed-up mirrors and chandeliers and consoles and
echoes and rats--a very rough inventory, did you say? But admit that you
know the house! Its individuality is unimportant here, except in so far
as it supplied an attraction to London for a love-sick young lady. Its
fascination and mystery were strong. So were the philanthropies that
Sister Nora was returning to, refreshed by a twelve-month of total
abstinence, with more power to her elbow from a huge balance at her
banker's, specially contrived to span the period needed for the putting
of affairs in order.
So when Miss Grahame--that was the family name--went on to London, after
a month's stay at the Towers, Gwen was to accompany her. That was the
arrangement agreed upon. But before they departed, they paid a visit to
Granny Marrable at Chorlton, who was delighted at the reappearance of
Sister Nora, and was guilty of some very transparent insincerity in her
professions of heartfelt sorrow for the Macganister More. He, however,
was very soon dismissed from the conversation, to make way for Dave
Wardle.
Her young ladyship from the Castle hardly knew anything about Dave. In
fact, his fame reached her for the first time as they drove past the
little church at Chorlton on their way to Strides Cottage, Mrs.
Marrable's residence. Sister Nora was suddenly afraid she had "forgotten
Dave's letter after all." But she found it, in her bag; and rejoiced,
for had she not promised to return it to Granny Marrable, to whom--not
to herself--it was addressed, after Dave's return last year to his
parents. Lady Gwendolen was, or professed to be, greatly interested;
reading the epistle carefully to herself while her cousin and Granny
Marrable talked over its writer. But she was fain to ask for an
occasional explanation of some obscurity in the text.
It was manifestly a dictated letter, written in a shaky hand as of an
old person, but not an uneducated one by any means; the misspellings
being really intelligent renderings of the pronunciation of the
dictator. As, for instance, the opening:--"Dear Granny Marrowbone,"
which caused the reader to remark:--"I suppose that doesn't mean that
the writer thinks you spell your name that way, Mrs. Marrable, only that
the child _says_ Marrowbone." The owner of the name assented,
saying:--"That would be so, my lady, yes." And her ladyship proceeded:
"I like you. I like Widow Thrale. I like Master Marmaduke!"--This was
the other small convalescent, he who had an unnatural passion for Dave's
crutch, likened to Ariadne--"I like Sister Nora. I like the Lady. I like
Farmer Jones, but not much. I am going to scrool on Monday, and shall
know how to read and write with a peng my own self." "Quite a
love-letter," said Gwen, after explanations of the persons referred
to--as that "the lady" was the mother of her own personal ladyship; that
is, the Countess herself. Gwen continued, identifying one of the
characters:--"But that was hypocrisy about Farmer Jones. He didn't like
Farmer Jones at all. I don't.... That's not all. What's this?" She went
on, reading aloud:--"'Writited for me by Mrs. Picture upstairs on her
decks with hink.' I see he has signed it himself, rather large. I wonder
who is Mrs. Picture, who writes for him."
"We heard a great deal about Mrs. Picture, my lady." Sister Nora thought
her name might be Mrs. Pitcher, though odd. "I could hardly say myself,"
said Granny Marrable diffidently.
Gwen speculated. "Pilcher, or Pilchard, perhaps! It couldn't be Picture.
What did he tell you about her?"
"Oh dear--a many things! Mrs. Picture had been out to sea, in a ship.
But she will be very old, too, Mrs. Picture. I call to mind now, that
the dear child couldn't tell _me_ from Mrs. Picture when he first came,
by reason of the white hair. So she may be nigh my own age."
Gwen was looking puzzled over something in the letter. "'Out to sea in a
ship!'" she repeated. "I wonder, has 'decks' anything to do with
that?... N-n-no!--it must be 'desk.' It can't be anything else." It was,
of course, Mrs. Prichard's literal acceptance of Dave's pronunciation.
But it had a nautical air for the moment, and seemed somehow in keeping
with that old lady's marine experience.
Widow Thrale then came in, bearing an armful of purchases from the
village. With her were two convalescents; who must have nearly done
convalescing, they shouted so. The ogress abated them when she found her
granny had august company, and removed them to sup apart with an anaemic
eight-year-old little girl; in none of whom Sister Nora showed more than
a lukewarm interest, comparing them all disparagingly with Dave. In
fact, she was downright unkind to the anaemic sample, likening her to
knuckle of veal. It was true that this little girl had a stye in her
eye, and two corkscrew ringlets, and lacked complete training in the use
of the pocket-handkerchief. All the ogress seemed to die out of Widow
Thrale in her presence, and the visitors avoided contact with her
studiously. She seemed malignant, too, driving her chin like a knife
into the _nuque_ of one of the small boys, who kicked her shins
justifiably. However, they all went away to convalesce elsewhere, as
soon as their guardian the ogress had transplanted from a side-table a
complete tea-possibility; a tray that might be likened to Minerva,
springing fully armed from the head of Jove. "Your ladyship will take
tea," said Granny Marrable, in a voice that betrayed a doubt whether the
Norman Conquest could consistently take tea with Gurth the Swineherd.
Her ladyship had no such misgiving. But an aristocratic prejudice
dictated a reservation:--"Only it must be poured straight off before it
gets like ink.... Oh, stop!--it's too black already. A little hot water,
thank you!" And then Mrs. Thrale, in cold blood, actually stood her
Rockingham teapot on the hob; to become an embittered deadly poison, a
slayer of the sleep of all human creatures above a certain standard of
education. When all other class distinctions are abolished, this one
will remain, like the bones of the Apteryx.
"We'll pay a visit to Dave," said Sister Nora. "Perhaps he'll introduce
us to Mrs. Picture." Nothing hung on the conversation, and Mrs. Picture,
always under that name--there being indeed none to correct it--cropped
up and vanished as often as Dave was referred to. One knows how readily
the distortions of speech of some lovable little man or maid will
displace proper names, whose owners usually surrender them without
protest. That Granny Marrowbone and Mrs. Picture were thereafter
accepted as the working designations of the old twins was entirely owing
to Dave Wardle.
"Mrs. Picture lives upstairs, it seems," said Gwen, referring to the
letter. "I wonder you saw nothing of her, Cousin Chloe."
"Why should I, dear? I never went upstairs. I heard of her because the
little sister-poppet wanted to take the doll I gave her to show to a
person the old prizefighter spoke of as the old party two-pair-up. But I
thought the name was Bird."
"A prizefighter!" said Gwen. "How interesting! We _must_ pay a visit to
the Wardle family. Is it a very awful place they live in?" This question
was asked in the hope of an affirmative answer, Gwen having been
promised exciting and terrible experiences of London slums.
"Sapps Court?" said Miss Grahame, speaking from experience. "Oh
no!--quite a respectable place. Not like places I could show you out of
Drury Lane. I'll show you the place where Jo was, in this last Dickens."
Which would fix the date of this story, if nothing else did.
Granny Marrowbone looked awestruck at this lady's impressive knowledge
of the wicked metropolis, and was, moreover, uneasy about Dave's
surroundings. She had had several other letters from Dave; the latter
ones to some extent in his own caligraphy, which often rendered them
obscure. But the breadth of style which distinguished his early dictated
correspondence was always in evidence, and such passages as lent
themselves to interpretation sometimes contained suggestions of
influences at work which made her uneasy about his future. These were
often reinforced by hieroglyphs, and one of these in particular appeared
to refer to persons or associations she shrank from picturing to herself
as making part of the child's life. She handed the letter which
contained it to Sister Nora, and watched her face anxiously as she
examined it.
Sister Nora interpreted it promptly. "A culprit running away from the
Police, evidently. His legs are stiff, but the action is brisk. I should
say he would get away. The police seem to threaten, but not to be
acting promptly. What do you think, Gwen?"
"Unquestionably!" said Gwen. "The Police are very impressive with their
batons. But what on earth is this thing underneath the malefactor?"
Sister Nora went behind her chair, and they puzzled over it, together.
It was inscrutable.
At last Sister Nora said slowly, as though still labouring with
perplexity:--"Is it possible?--but no, it's impossible--possible he
means that?..."
"Possible he means what?"
"My idea was--but I think it's quite out of the question---- Well!--you
know there is a prison called 'The Jug,' in that sort of class?"
"I didn't know it. It looks very like a jug, though--the thing does....
Yes--he's a prisoner that's got out of prison. He must have had the Jug
all to himself, though, it's so small!"
"I do believe that's what it is, upon my word. There was an escape from
Coldbath Fields--which is called the Stone Jug--some time back, that was
in the papers. It made a talk. That's it, I do believe!" Sister Nora was
pleased at the solution of the riddle; it was a feather in Dave's cap.
Said Gwen:--"He did escape, though! I'm glad. He must have been a
cheerful little culprit. I should have been sorry for him to get into
the hands of those wooden police." Her acceptance of Dave's
Impressionist Art as a presentment of facts was a tribute to the force
of his genius. Some explanatory lettering, of mixed founts of type, had
to be left undeciphered.
The ogress came back from the convalescents; having assigned them their
teas, and enjoined peace. "You should ask her ladyship to read what's on
the back, Granny," she said; not to presume overmuch by direct speech to
the young lady from the Towers. The old lady said acquiescingly:--"Yes,
child, that _would_ be best. If you please, my lady!"
"This writing here?" said Gwen, turning the paper. "Oh yes--this is Mrs.
Picture again. 'Dave says I am to write for him what this is he has
drawed for Granny Marrowbone to see. The lady may see it, too.' ...
That's not me; he doesn't know me.... Oh, I see!--it's my mother...."
"Yes--that's Cousin Philippa. Go on."
Gwen went on:--"'It is the Man in High Park at the Turpentine
Micky'--some illegible name--'knew and that is Michael in the corner
larfing at the Spolice. The Man has got out of sprizzing and the Spolice
will not cop him.' There was no room for Michael Somebody, and he
hasn't worked out well," said Gwen, turning the image of Michael several
ways up, to determine its components. But it was too Impressionist. "I
suppose 'cop' means capture?" said she.
"That's it," said Sister Nora. "I think I know who Michael is. He's
Michael Rackstraw, a boy. Dave's Uncle had a bad impression of him--said
he would live to be hanged at an early date. He wouldn't be surprised to
hear that that young Micky had been pinched, any minute. 'Pinched' is
the same as 'copped.' Uncle Moses' slang is out-of-date."
She looked again at the undeciphered inscription. "I think 'Michael'
explains this lot of big and little letters," she said; and read them
out as: "'m, i, K, e, y, S, f, r, e, N, g.' Mickey's friend, evidently!"
"Oh, dearie me!" said the old lady. "To think now that that dear child
should be among such dreadful ways. I do wonder now--and, indeed, my
lady and Miss Nora, I've been thinking a deal about him, with his blue
eyes and curly brown hair, and him but just turned of seven.... I have
been thinking, my lady, only perhaps it's hardly for me to say ... I
_have_ been a wondering whether this ... elderly person ... only God
forgive me if I do her wrong!... whether this Mrs. Picture...." Granny
Marrable wavered in her indictment--hoped perhaps that one of the ladies
would catch her meaning and word her interpretation.
Sister Nora understood, and was quite ready with one. "Oh yes, I see
what you mean, Mrs. Marrable--whether the old woman is the right sort of
old woman for Dave. And it's very natural and quite right of you to
wonder. _I_ should if I hadn't seen the boy's parents--his uncle and
aunt.... Oh yes, of course, they are not his parents in the vulgar
sense! Don't be commonplace, Gwen!... nice, quiet, old-fashioned sort of
folk, devoted to the children. As for the prizefighting, I don't think
anything of that. I'm sure he fought fair; and it was the same for both
anyhow! He's an old darling, _I_ think. I'll show him to you, Gwen, down
his native court. Really, dear Granny Marrable, I don't think you need
be the least uneasy. We'll go and see Dave the moment we get up to
London--won't we, Gwen?"
"We'll go there first," said Gwen. But for all this reassurance the old
lady was clearly uneasy. "With regard to the boy Michael," said she
hesitatingly, "did you happen, ma'am, to _see_ the boy Michael.... I
mean, did he?..."
"Did he turn up when I was there, you mean? Well--no, he didn't! But
after all, what does the boy Michael come to in it? He'd made a slide
down the middle of the Court, and Uncle Moses prophesied his death on
the gallows! But, dear me, all children make slides--girls as well as
boys. I used to make slides, all by myself, in Scotland."
Granny Marrable's mind ran back seventy years or so. "Yes, indeed, that
is true; and so did I." She nodded towards the chimneyshelf, where the
mill-model stood--Dave's model. "There's the mill where I had my
childhood, and it's there to this day, they tell me, and working. And
the backwater above the dam, it's there, too, I lay, where my sister
Maisie and I made a many slides when it froze over in the winter
weather. And there's me and Maisie in our lilac frocks and white
sun-bonnets. Five-and-forty years ago she died, out in Australia. But
I've not forgotten Maisie."
She could mention Maisie more serenely than Mrs. Prichard, _per contra_,
could mention Phoebe. But, then, think how differently the forty-five
years had been filled out in either case. Maisie had been forced to
_ricordarsi del tempo felice_ through so many years of _miseria_.
Phoebe's journey across the desert of Life had paused at many an oasis,
and their images remained in her mind to blunt the tooth of Memory. The
two ladies at least heard nothing in the old woman's voice that one does
not hear in any human voice when it speaks of events very long past.
Gwen showed an interest in the mill. "You and your sister were very much
alike," she said.
"We were twins," said Granny Marrable. But, as it chanced, Gwen at this
moment looked at her watch, and found it had stopped. She missed the old
woman's last words. When she had satisfied herself that the watch was
still going she found that Granny Marrable's speech had lost its slight
trace of sadness. She had become a mere recorder, _viva voce_. "Maisie
married and went abroad--oh dear, near sixty years ago! She died out
there just after our father--yes, quite forty-five--forty-six years
ago!" Her only conscious suppression was in slurring over the gap
between Maisie's departure and her husband's; for both ladies took her
meaning to be that her sister married to go abroad, and did not return.
It was more conversation-making than curiosity that made Gwen
ask:--"Where was 'abroad'? I mean, where did your sister go?" The old
lady repeated:--"To where she met her death, in Australia.
Five-and-forty years ago. But I have never forgotten Maisie." Gwen,
looking more closely at the mill-model as one bound to show interest,
said:--"And this is where you used to slide on the ice with her, on the
mill-dam, all that time ago. Just fancy!" The reference to Maisie was
the merest chat by the way; and the conversation, at this mention of the
ice, harked back to Sapps Court.
"Of course you made slides, Granny Marrable," said Sister Nora; "and
very likely somebody else tumbled down on the slides. But you have never
been hanged, and Michael won't be hanged. It was only Uncle Moses's fun.
And as for old Mrs. Picture, I daresay if the truth were known, Mrs.
Picture's a very nice old lady? I like her for taking such pains with
Dave's letter-writing. But we'll see Mrs. Picture, and find out all
about it. Won't we, Gwen?" Gwen assented _con amore_, to reassure the
Granny, who, however, was evidently only silenced, not convinced, about
this elderly person in London, that sink of iniquities.
Gwen resumed her seat and took another cup of tea, really to please her
hosts, as the tea was too strong for anything. Then Feudalism asserted
itself as it so often does when County magnates foregather with village
minimates--is that the right word? Landmarks, too, indisputable to need
recognition were ignored altogether, and all the hearsays of the
countryside were reviewed. The grim severance between class and class
that up-to-date legislation makes every day more and more well-defined
and bitter had no existence in fifty-four at Chorlton-under-Bradbury.
Granny Marrable and the ogress, for instance, could and did seek to know
how the gentleman was that met with the accident in July. Of course,
_they_ knew the story of the gentleman's relation with "Gwen o' the
Towers," and both visitors knew they knew it; but that naturally did not
come into court. It underlay the pleasure with which they heard that Mr.
Adrian Torrens was all but well again, and that the doctors said his
eyesight would not be permanently affected. Gwen herself volunteered
this lie, with Sir Coupland's assurance in her mind that, if Adrian's
sight returned, it would probably do so outright, as a salve to her
conscience.
"There now!" said Widow Thrale. "There will be good hearing for Keziah
when she comes nigh by us next, maybe this very day. For old Stephen
he's just gone near to breaking his heart over it, taking all the fault
to himself." Keziah was Keziah Solmes, Stephen Solmes's old wife, whose
sentimentalism would have saved Adrian Torrens's eyesight if she had not
had such an obstinate husband. Stephen was a connection of the departed
saddler, the speaker's husband.
Said Sister Nora as they rose to rejoin the carriage:--"Now
remember!--you're not to fuss over Dave, Mrs. Thrale. _We'll_ see that
he comes to no harm." The ogress did not seem so uneasy about the child,
saying:--"It's the picture of the man running from the Police Granny
goes by, and 'tis no more than any boy might draw." Whereat Sister Nora
said, laughing: "You needn't get scared about Mickey, if that's it. He's
just a young monkey." But the old woman seemed still to be concealing
disquiet, saying only:--"I had no thought of the boy." She had formed
some misapprehension of Dave's surrounding influences, which seemed hard
to clear up.
Riding home Gwen turned suddenly to her cousin, after reflective
silence, saying:--"What makes the old Goody so ferocious against the
little boy's Mrs. Picture?" To which the reply was:--"Jealousy, I
suppose. What a beautiful sunset! That means wind." But Sister Nora was
talking rather at random, and there may have been no jealousy of old
Maisie in the heart of old Phoebe.
Moreover, Gwen's was not an inquiry-question demanding an answer. It was
interrogative chat. She was thinking all the while how amused Adrian
would have been with Dave's letter and the escaped prisoner. Then her
thought was derailed by one of the sudden jerks that crossed the line so
often in these days. Chat with herself must needs turn on the mistakes
she had made in not borrowing that letter to enclose with her next one
to Adrian, for him to ... to _what_? There came the jerk! What could he
see? Indeed, one of the sorest trials of this separation from him was
the way her correspondence--for she had insisted on freedom in this
respect--was handicapped by his inability to read it. How could she
allow all she longed to say to pass under the eyes even of Irene, dear
friend though she had become? She would have given worlds for an
automaton that could read aloud, whose speech would repeat all its eyes
saw, without passing the meaning of it through an impertinent mind.
Sister Nora was quite in her confidence about her love-affair; in fact,
she had seen Adrian for a moment, her arrival at the Towers on her way
from Scotland after her father's death having overlapped his
departure--which had been delayed a few days by pretexts of a shallow
nature--just long enough to admit of the introduction. She inclined to
partisanship with the Countess. Why--see how mad the whole thing was!
The girl had fancied herself in love with him after seeing him barely
once, for five minutes. It never could last. She was, however, quite
prepared to back Gwen if it did show signs of being, or becoming, a
_grande passion_. Meanwhile, evidently the kindest thing was to turn
her mind in another direction, and the inoculation of an Earl's
daughter with the virus of an enthusiasm which has been since called
_slumming_ presented itself to her in the light of an effort-worthy end.
Sister Nora was far ahead of her time; it should have fallen twenty
years later.
But she was not going to imperil her chances of success by using too
strong a _virus_ at the first injection. Caution was everything. This
projected visit to Sapps Court was a perfect stepping-stone to a
stronger regimen, such as an incursion into the purlieus of Drury Lane.
Tom-all-alone's might overtax the nervous system of a neophyte. The
full-blown horrors which civilisation creates wholesale, and remedies
retail, were not to be grappled with by untrained hands. A time might
come for that; meanwhile--Sapps Court, clearly!
The two ladies had a quiet drive back to the Towers. How very quiet the
latter end of a drive often is, as far as talk goes! Does the Ozymandian
silence on the box react upon the rank and file of the expedition, or is
it the hypnotic effect of hoof-monotony? Lady Gwen and Miss Grahame
scarcely exchanged a word until, within a mile of the house, they
identified two pedestrians. Of whom their conversation was precisely
what follows, not one word more or less:--
"There they are, Cousin Chloe, exactly as I prophesied."
"Well--why shouldn't they be?"
"I didn't say anything about shoulds and shouldn't. I merely referred to
facts.... Come--_say_ you think it ridiculous!"
"I can't see why. Their demeanour appears to me unexceptionable, and
perfectly dignified. Everything one would expect, knowing the
parties...."
"Are they going to walk about like that to all eternity, being
unexceptionable? That's what I want to know?"
"You are too impatient, dear!"
"They have been going on for months like that; at least, it _seems_
months. And never getting any nearer! And then when you talk to them
about each other, they speak of each other _respectfully_! They really
do. He says she is a shrewd observer of human nature, and she says he
appears to have had most interesting experiences. Indeed, I'm not
exaggerating."
"My dear Gwen, what _do_ you expect?"
"Oh--_you_ know! You're only making believe. Why, when I said to him
that she had been a strikingly pretty girl in her young days, and had
refused no end of offers of marriage, he ... _What_ do you say?"
"I said 'not no end.'"
"Well--of course not! But I thought it as well to say so."
"And what did he say to that?"
"He got his eyeglass right to look at her, as if he had never seen her
before, and came to a critical decision:--'Ye-es, yes, yes--so I should
have imagined. Quite so!' It amounted to acquiescing in her having gone
off, and was distinctly rude. She's better than that when I speak to her
about him certainly. This morning she said he smoked too many cigars."
"How absurd you are, Gwen! Why was that better?"
"H'm--it's a little difficult to say! But it _is_ better, distinctly.
There--they've heard us coming!"
"Why?"
"Because they both jumped farther off. They were far enough already,
goodness knows!... Good evening, Percy! Good evening, Aunt Constance!
We've had such a lovely drive home from Chorlton. I suppose the others
are on in front." And so forth. Every _modus vivendi_, at arm's length,
between any and every single lady and gentleman, was to be fooled to the
top of its bent, in their service.
The carriage was aware it was _de trop_, but was also alive to the
necessity of pretending it was not. So it interested itself for a moment
in some palpable falsehoods about the cause of the pedestrians figuring
as derelicts; and then, representing itself as hungering for the society
of their vanguard, started professedly to overtake it. It was really
absolutely indifferent on the subject.
"I suppose," said Miss Grahame enigmatically, as soon as inaudibility
became a certainty, "I suppose that's why you wanted Miss
Smith-Dickenson to come to Cavendish Square?"
Gwen did not treat this as a riddle; but said, equally
inexplicably:--"He could call." And very little light was thrown on the
mystery by the reply:--"Very well, Gwen dear, go your own way." Perhaps
a little more, though not much, by Gwen's marginal comment:--"You know
Aunt Constance lives at an outlandish place in the country?"
"Do you know, Gwen dear," said Miss Grahame, after reflection, "I really
think we ought to have offered them a lift up to the house. Stop,
Blencorn!" Blencorn stopped, without emotion. Gwen said:--"What
nonsense, Cousin Chloe! They're perfectly happy. Do leave them alone. Go
on, Blencorn!" Who, utterly unmoved, went on. But Sister Nora
said:--"No, Gwen dear, we really ought! Because I know Mr. Pellew has to
catch his train, and he'll be late. Don't go on, Blencorn!" Gwen
appearing to assent reluctantly, the arrangement stood; as did the
horses, gently conversing with each other's noses about the caprices of
the carriage.
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW IT CAME ABOUT THAT THE LADY AND GENTLEMAN COULD JUMP FARTHER
OFF. WHAT MISS DICKENSON WANTED TO SAY AND DIDN'T, AND THE REPLY
MR. PELLEW DIDN'T MAKE, IN FULL. OF A SPLIT PATHWAY, AND THE
SHREWDNESS OF RABBITS. BUT THERE WAS NO RABBIT, AND WHEN BLENCORN
STOPPED AGAIN, THEY OVERTOOK THE CARRIAGE. THEIR FAREWELL, AND HOW
MR. PELLEW RAN AGAINST THE EARL
The Hon. Percival was called away to town that evening, and was to catch
the late train at Grantley Thorpe, where it stopped by signal. There was
no need to hurry, as he belonged to the class of persons that catch
trains. This class, when it spends a holiday at a country-house, dares
to leave its packing-up, when it comes away, to its valet or lady's-maid
_pro tem._, and knows to a nicety how low it is both liberal and
righteous to assess their services.
If this gentleman had not belonged to this class, it is, of course,
possible that he would still have joined the party that had walked over,
that afternoon, to see the Roman Villa at Ticksey, the ancient
Coenobantium, in company with sundry Antiquaries who had lunched at the
Towers, and had all talked at once in the most interesting possible way
on the most interesting possible subjects. It was the presence of these
gentlemen that, by implication, supplied a reason why Gwen and Sister
Nora should prefer the others, on in front, to the less pretentious
stragglers whom they had overtaken.
Archaic Research has an interest short of the welfare of Romeo and
Juliet; or, perhaps, murders. But neither of these topics lend
themselves, at least until they too become ancient history, to
discussion by a Society, or entry on its minutes. Perhaps it was the
accidental occurrence of the former one, just as the party started to
walk back to the Towers, that had caused Mr. Percival and Aunt Constance
to lag so far behind it, and substitute their own interest in a
contemporary drama for the one they had been professing, not very
sincerely, in hypocausts and mosaics and terra-cottas.
For this lady had then remarked that, for her part, she thought the
Ancient Romans were too far removed from our own daily life for any but
Antiquarians to enter sympathetically into theirs. She herself doted on
History, but was inclined to draw the line at Queen Ann. It would be
mere affectation in her to pretend to sympathize with Oliver Cromwell or
the Stuarts, and as for Henry the Eighth he was simply impossible. But
the Recent Past touched a chord. Give her the four Georges. This was
just as she and the Hon. Percival began to let the others go on in
front, and the others began to use their opportunity to do so.
Three months ago the gentleman might have decided that the lady was
talking rot. Her position now struck him as original, forcible, and new.
But he was so keenly alive to the fact that he was not in the least in
love with her, that it is very difficult to account for his leniency
towards this rot. It showed itself as even more than leniency, if he
meant what he said in reply:--"By Jove, Miss Dickenson, I shouldn't
wonder if you were right. I never thought of it that way before!"
"I'm not quite sure I ever did," she answered; telling the truth; and
not seeming any the worse, in personality, for doing so. "At least,
until I got rather bored by having to listen. I really hate speeches and
lectures and papers and things. But what I said is rather true, for all
that. I'm sure I shall be more interested in the house the Prince Regent
was drunk in, where I'm going to stay in town, than in any number of
atriums. It _does_ go home to one more--now, doesn't it?"
Mr. Pellew did not answer the question. He got his eyeglass right, and
looked round--he had contracted a habit of doing this--to see if Aunt
Constance was justifying the tradition of her youth, reported by her
adopted niece. He admitted that she was. Stimulated by this conviction,
he decided on:--"Are you going to stay in town? Where?"
"At Clotilda's--Sister Nora, you know. In Cavendish Square. I hope it's
like what she says. Scarcely anything has been moved since her mother
died, when she was a baby, and for years before that the drawing-rooms
were shut up. Why did you ask?" This was a perfectly natural question,
arising out of the subject before the house.
Nevertheless it frightened the gentleman into modifying what he meant to
say next, which was:--"May I call on you there?" He gave it up, as too
warm on the whole, considering the context, and said instead:--"I could
leave your book." Something depended on the lady's answer to this. So
she paused, and worded it:--"By all means bring it, if you prefer doing
so," instead of:--"You needn't take any trouble about returning the
book."
Only the closest analysis can be even with the contingencies of some
stages in the relativities of grown-ups, however easily one sees through
the common human girl and boy. Miss Dickenson's selected answer just
saved the situation by the skin of its teeth. For there certainly was a
situation of a sort. Nobody was falling in love with anybody, that saw
itself; but for all that a fatality dictated that Mr. Pellew and Aunt
Constance were in each other's pockets more often than not. Neither had
any wish to come out, and popular observation supplied the language the
story has borrowed to describe the fact.
The occupant of Mr. Pellew's pocket was, however, dissatisfied with her
answer about the book. Her tenancy might easily become precarious. She
felt that the maintenance of Cavendish Square, as a subject of
conversation, would soften asperities and dispel misunderstandings, if
any. So, instead of truncating the subject of the book-return, she
interwove it with the interesting mansion of Sister Nora's family,
referring especially to the causes of her own visit to it. "Gwen and
Cousin Clo, as she calls her, very kindly asked me to go there if I came
to London; and I suppose I shall, if my sister Georgie and her husband
are not at Roehampton. Anyway, even if I am not there, I am sure they
will be delighted to see you.... Oh no!--Roehampton's much too far to
come with it, and I can easily call for it." This was most ingenious,
for it requested Mr. Pellew to make his call a definite visit, while
depersonalising that visit by a hint at her own possible absence. This
uncertainty also gave latitude of speech, her hypothetical presence
warranting an attitude which would almost have implied too warm a
welcome from a certainty. She even could go so far as to add:--"However,
I should like to show you the Prince's drawing-room--they call it so
because he got drunk there; it's such an honour, you see!--so I hope I
shall be there."
"Doosid int'ristin'--shall certainly come! Gwen's to go to London to get
poor Torrens out of her head--that's the game, isn't it?"
"That sort of thing, I believe. Change of scene and so on." Miss
Dickenson spoke as one saturated with experience of refractory lovers,
not without a suggestion of having in her youth played a leading part in
some such drama.
"Well--I'm on his side. P'r'aps that's not the right way to put it; I
suppose I ought to say _their_ side. Meaning, the young people's, of
course! Yes, exactly."
"One always takes part against the stern parent." The humour of this
received a tributary laugh. "But do you really think Philippa wrong,
Mr. Pellew? I must say she seems to me only reasonable. The whole thing
was so absurdly sudden."
Mr. Pellew was selecting a cigar--why does one prefer smoking the best
one first?--and was too absorbed to think of anything but "Dessay!" as
an answer. His choice completed, he could and did postpone actually
striking a match to ask briefly:--"Think anything'll come of it?"
Miss Dickenson, being a lady and non-smoker, could converse
consecutively, as usual. "Come of what, Mr. Pellew? Do you mean come of
sending Gwen to London to be out of the young man's way, or come of ...
come of the ... the love-affair?"
"Well--whichever you like! Either--both!" The cigar, being lighted, drew
well, and the smoker was able to give serious attention. "What do you
suppose will be the upshot?"
"Impossible to say! Just look at all the circumstances. She sees him
first of all for five minutes in the Park, and then he gets shot. Then
she sees him when he's supposed to be dead, just long enough to find out
that he's alive. Then she doesn't see him for a fortnight--or was it
three weeks? Then she sees him and finds out that his eyesight is
destroyed...."
"That's not certain."
"Perhaps not. We'll hope not. She finds out--what she finds out, suppose
we say! Then they get left alone at the piano the whole of the
afternoon, and ..."
"And all the fat was in the fire?"
"What a coarse and unfeeling way of putting it, Mr. Pellew!"
"Well--_I_ saw it was, the moment I came into the room. So did you, Miss
Dickenson! Don't deny it."
"I certainly had an impression they had been precipitate."
"Exactly. Cut along!"
"And then, you know, he was to have gone home next day, and didn't. He
was really here four days after that; and, of course, all that time it
got worse."
"_They_ got worse?"
"I was referring to their infatuation. It comes to the same thing.
Anyhow, there was plenty of time for it, or for them--which ever one
calls it--to get up to fever-heat. Four days is plenty, at their time of
life. But the question is, will it last?"
"I should say no!... Well, no--I should say yes!"
"Which?"
"H'm--well, perhaps _no!_ Yes--_no!_ At the same time, the parties are
peculiar. He'll last--there's no doubt of that!... And I don't see any
changed conditions ahead.... Unless...."
"Unless what?"
"Unless he gets his eyesight again."
"Do you mean that Gwen will put him off, if he sees her?"
"No--come now--I say, Miss Dickenson--hang it all!"
"Well, I didn't know! How was I to?"
Some mysterious change in the conditions of the conversation came about
unaccountably, causing a laugh both joined in with undisguised
cordiality; they might almost be said to have hob-nobbed over a
unanimous appreciation of Gwen. Its effect was towards a mellower
familiarity--an expurgation of starch, which might even hold good until
one of them wrote an order for some more. For this lady and gentleman,
however much an interview might soften them, had always hitherto
restiffened for the next one. At this exact moment, Mr. Pellew entered
on an explanation of his meaning in a lower key, for seriousness; and
walked perceptibly nearer the lady. Because a dropped voice called for
proximity.
"What I meant to say was, that pity for the poor chap's misfortune may
have more to do with Gwen's feelings towards him--you understand?--than
she herself thinks."
"I quite understand. Go on."
"If he were to recover his sight outright there would be nothing left to
pity him for. Is it not conceivable that she might change altogether?"
"She would not admit it, even to herself."
"That is very likely--pride and _amour propre_, and that sort of thing!
But suppose that he suspected a change?"
"I see what you mean."
"These affairs are so confoundedly ... ticklish. Heaven only knows
sometimes which way the cat is going to jump! It certainly seems to me,
though, that the peculiar conditions of this case supply an element of
insecurity, of possible disintegration, that does not exist in ordinary
everyday life. You must admit that the circumstances are ... are
abnormal."
"Very. But don't you think, Mr. Pellew, that circumstances very often
_are_ abnormal?--more often than not, I should have said. Perhaps that's
the wrong way of putting it, but you know what I mean." Mr. Pellew
didn't. But he said he did. He recognised this way of looking at the
unusual as profound and perspicuous. She continued, reinforced by his
approval:--"What I was driving at was that when two young folks are
very--as the phrase goes--spooney, they won't admit that peculiar
conditions have anything to do with it. They have always been destined
for one another by Fate."
"How does that apply to Gwen and Torrens?"
"Merely that when Mr. Torrens's sight comes back.... What?"
"Nothing. I only said I was glad to hear you say _when_, not _if_. Go
on."
"When his sight comes back--unless it comes back very quickly--they will
be so convinced they were intended for one another from the beginning of
Time, that they won't credit the accident with any share in the
business."
"Except as an Agent of Destiny. I think that quite likely. It supplies a
reason, though, for not getting his sight back in too great a hurry. How
long should you say would be safe?"
"I should imagine that in six months, if it is not broken off, it will
have become chronic. At present they are rather ... rather ..."
"Rather underdone. I see. Well--I don't understand that anyone wants to
take them off the hob...."
"I think her mother does."
"Not exactly. She only wishes them to stand on separate hobs for three
months. They will hear each other simmer. My own belief is that they
will be worked up to a sort of frenzy, compared to which those two
parties in Dante ... you know which I mean?..."
"Paolo and Francesca?"
Mr. Pellew thought to himself how well enformed Miss Dickenson was. He
said aloud:--"Yes, them. Paolo and Francesca would be quite
lukewarm--sort of negus!--compared to our young friends. Correspondence
is the doose. Not so bad in this case, p'r'aps, because he can't read
her letters himself.... I don't know, though--that might make it
worse.... Couldn't say!" And he seemed to find that cigar very good,
and, indeed, to be enjoying himself thoroughly.
Had Aunt Constance any sub-intent in her next remark? Had it any
hinterland of discussion of the ethics of Love, provocative of practical
application to the lives of old maids and old bachelors--if the one,
then the other, in this case--strolling in a leisurely way through
bracken and beechmast, fancy-free, no doubt? If she had, and her
companion suspected it, he was not seriously alarmed, this time. But
then he was off to London in a couple of hours.
Her remark was:--"You seem to be quite an authority on the subject, Mr.
Pellew."
"No--you don't mean that? Does me a lot of credit, though! Guessin', I
am, all through. No experience--honour bright!"
"You don't expect me to believe that, Mr. Pellew?"
"Needn't believe it, unless you like, Miss Dickenson. But it's true, for
all that. Never was in love in my life!"
"You must have found life very dull, Mr. Pellew. How a man can contrive
to exist without.... Isn't that wheels?" It didn't matter whether it was
or not, but the lady's speech had stumbled into a pitfall--she was
exploring a district full of them--and she thought the wheels might
rescue her.
But the gentleman was not going to let her off, though he was ready to
suppose the wheels were the carriage coming back. "It won't catch us up
for ever so long, you'll see! Such a quiet evening as this, one hears
miles off...." He interrupted his own speech by a variation of tone,
repeating the pitfall words:--"'Contrive to exist without'"--and then
supplied as sequel:--"'womankind somehow or other.' That's what you mean
to say, isn't it?"
"Yes." No qualification!--more pitfalls, perhaps.
"Only I never said anything of the sort! Never meant it, anyhow. What I
meant was that I had never caught the disorder like my blind friend. He
went off at score like Orlando in 'Winter's Tale.'"
"In 'As You Like It.'"
"I meant 'As You Like It.' I suppose it was because he happened to come
across thingummybob--Rosalind."
"It always is."
"P'r'aps I never came across Rosalind. Anyhow, I give you my honour I
never had any experience to make me an authority on the subject. I
expect you are a much better one than I."
"Why?" Miss Dickenson's share of the conversation had become very dry
and monosyllabic.
What was passing in her mind, and reducing her to monosyllables, was the
thought that she was a woman, and, as such, handicapped in speech with a
man; while he could say all he pleased about himself, and expect her to
listen to it with interest. They had been gradually becoming intimate
friends, and this intimacy had ripened sensibly even during this short
chat, the sequel of the separation from the Archaeological Congress,
which it suited them to believe only just out of sight and hearing:
quite within shot considered as _chaperons_. Their familiarity had got
to such a pitch that the Hon. Percival had contrived to take her into
his confidence about his own life, and she had to remain tongue-tied
about hers, being a woman.
How could she say to him:--"I have never had the ghost of a love-affair
in the whole of my colourless, but irreproachable, life. A mystic usage
of my family of four sisters, a nervous invalid mother, and an
absent-minded father, determined my status in early girlhood. I was to
show a respectful interest in the love-affairs of my sisters, who were
handsome and pretty and charming and attractive and _piquantes_, while I
was relatively plain and backward, besides having an outcrop on one
cheek which has since been successfully removed. I was not to presume
upon my position as a sister to express opinions about these said
love-affairs, because I was not supposed to know anything about such
matters. They were not in my department. My _rôle_ was a domestic one,
and I had a high moral standpoint; which I would gladly have dispensed
with, but the force of family tradition overpowered me. It has been a
poor consolation to me to carry about this standpoint like a campstool
to the houses of the friends I visit at intervals, now that my sisters
are all married, and my mother has departed this life, and my father has
married a Mrs. Dubosc, with whom I don't agree. I lead a life of
constant resentment against unattached mankind, who decide, after
critical inspection, that they won't, when I have really never asked
them to. You and I have been more companionable--more like keeping
company, as Lutwyche would say--than any man I ever came across, and I
should like to be able to say to you that, even as you never met with
Rosalind, even so I never met with Orlando, but without any phase of my
career to correspond with the one you so delicately hinted at just now,
in your own. For I fancied I read between your lines that your scheme of
life had not been precisely that of an anchorite. Pray understand that I
have never supposed it was so, and that I rather honour your attempt to
indicate the fact to me without outraging my maidenly--old maidish, if
you will--susceptibilities"?
It was because Miss Constance Dickenson, however improbable it may seem,
had wanted to say all this and a great deal more, and could not see her
way to any of it, that she had become dry and monosyllabic. It was
because of this compulsory silence that she felt that even her
brief:--"Why?" in answer to Mr. Pellew's suggestion that an Orlando must
have come on her stage though no Rosalind had come on his, struck her
after it had passed her lips as a false step.
He in his turn was at a loss to get something worded so as not to
overstep his familiarity-licence. Rough-hewn, it might have run
thus:--"Because no girl, as pretty as you must have been, fifteen or
twenty years ago, ever goes without a lover _in posse_, though he may
never work out as a husband _in esse_, nor even a _fiancé_." He did not
see his way to polishing and finishing it so that it would be safe. He
could manage nothing better than "Obviously!" He said it twice
certainly, and threw away the end of his cigar to repeat it. But he
might not have done this if he had not been so near departure.
Somehow, it left them both silent. Sauntering along on the new-fallen
beechmast, struck by the gleams of a sunset that seemed to be giving
satisfaction to the ringdoves overhead, it could not be necessary to
prosecute the conversation. All the same, if it had paused on a
different note, an incredibly slight incident that counted for something
quite measurable in the judgment of each, might have had no importance
whatever.
But really it was so slight an incident that the story is almost ashamed
to mention it. It was this. An island of bracken, with briars in its
confidence, not negotiable by skirts--especially in those days--must
needs split a path of turf-velvet wide enough for acquaintances, into
two paths narrow enough for lovers. Practically, the choice between
walking in one of these at the risk of some little rabbit
misinterpreting their relations, and going round the island, lay with
the gentleman. The Hon. Percival did not mince the matter, as he might
have done last week, but diminished his distance from his companion in
order that one narrow pathway should accommodate both. It was just after
they had passed the island that Miss Dickenson exclaimed:--"There's the
carriage," and Gwen perceived their consciousness of its proximity. The
last episode of the story comes abreast of the present one.
The story is ashamed of its own prolixity. But how is justice to be done
to the gradual evolution of a situation if hard-and-fast laws are to be
laid down, restricting the number of words that its chronicler shall
employ? Condemn him by all means, but admit at least that every smallest
incident of the foregoing narrative had its share of influence on the
future of its actors.
It is true that nothing very crucial followed. For when, after the
carriage had pulled up and interrupted the current of conversation, and
gone on again leaving it doubtful how it should be resumed, it again
stopped for the pedestrians to overtake it, it became morally incumbent
on them to do so, and also prudent to accept its statement that it was
nearly half-past six, and to take advantage of a lift that it offered.
For Mr. Pellew must not miss that train. The carriage may have noticed
that it never overtook the Archaeological Congress, which must have
walked very quick, unless indeed the two stragglers walked very slow.
* * * * *
Miss Dickenson must have dressed for dinner much quicker than they
walked along the avenue. For when Mr. Pellew, after a short snack, on
his way to put himself in the gig beside his traps, looked in at the
drawing-room to see if there was anyone he had failed to say good-bye
to, he found that lady very successfully groomed in spite of her
alacrity, and suggesting surprise at its success. Fancy her being down
before everyone else after all! Here is the conversation:
"Well, good-bye! I'll remember the book. I've enjoyed my visit
enormously."
"It has been quite delightful. We've had such wonderful weather. Don't
put yourself out of the way to bring the book, though. I don't want it
back yet a while."
"All right. Thursday morning you leave here, didn't I hear you say? I
shall have read it by then. I could drop round Thursday evening. Just
suit me!"
"That will do perfectly. Only not if it's the least troublesome to bring
it."
"Oh no; not the very slightest! Nine?--half-past?"
"Nine--any time. I would say come to dinner, only I haven't mentioned it
to Miss Grahame, and I don't know her arrangements...."
"Bless me, no--the idea! I'll drop round after dinner at the Club. Nine
or half-past."
"We shall expect you. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" But Mr. Pellew, turning to go and leaving his eyes behind
him, collided with the Earl, who was adhering to a conscientious rule of
always being punctual for dinner.
"Oh--Percy! You'll lose your train. Stop a minute!--there was something
I wanted to say. What _was_ it?... Oh, I know. Gwen's address in
London--have you got it? She's going to stay with her cousin, you
know--hundred-and-two, Cavendish Square. She'll be glad to see you if
you call, I know." This was founded on a misapprehension, which the
family resented, that it was not able to take care of itself in his
absence. The Countess would have said:--"Fancy Gwen wanting to be
provided with visitors!"
This estimable nobleman was destined to suspect he had put his foot in
it, this time, from the way in which his suggestion was received. An
inexplicable _nuance_ of manner pervaded his two guests, somewhat such
as the Confessional might produce in a penitent with a sense of humour,
who had committed a funny crime. It was, you see, difficult to assign a
plausible reason why Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson should have already
signed a treaty on the subject.
Perhaps it was not altogether disinterested in the gentleman to look at
his watch, and accept its warning that nothing short of hysterical haste
would catch his train for him. However, the grey mare said, through her
official representative in the gig behind her, that we should do it if
the train was a minute or so behind. So possibly he was quite sincere.
CHAPTER XXV
CONCERNING CAVENDISH SQUARE, AND ITS WHEREABOUTS IN THE EARLY
FIFTIES. MRS. FITZHERBERT AND PRINCESS CAROLINE. TWO LONG-FORGOTTEN
CARD-PACKS. DUMMY, AND HOW MR. PELLEW TOOK HIS HAND. GWEN'S
PERVERTED WHIST-SENSE. THE DUST OF AGES, AT ITS FINEST. HOW IT
TURNED THE TALK, AND MOULDED EVENT. HOW GWEN'S PEN SCRATCHED ON
INTO THE NIGHT
Aesthetic Topography is an interesting study. Seen by its light, at the
date of this story, Oxford Street was certainly at one and the same time
the South of the North of London, and the North of the South. For
whereas Hanover Square, which is only a stone's throw to the south of
it, is, so to speak, saturated with Piccadilly--and when you are there
you may just as well be in Westminster at once--it is undeniable that
Cavendish Square is in the zone of influence of Regent's Park, and that
Harley and Wimpole Streets, which run side by side north from it, never
pause to breathe until they all but touch its palings. Once in Regent's
Park, how can Topography--the geometric fallacy apart--ignore St. John's
Wood? And once St. John's Wood is admitted, how is it possible to turn a
cold shoulder to Primrose Hill? Cross Primrose Hill, and you may just as
well be out in the country at once.
But there!--our impressions may be but memories of fifty years ago, and
our reader may wonder why Cavendish Square suggests them.
He himself, probably very much our junior--a bad habit other people
acquire as Time goes on--may consider Harley Street and Wimpole Street
just as much town as Hanover Square, and St. John's Wood--even Primrose
Hill!--as on all fours with both. We forgive him. One, or possibly we
ought to say several, should learn to be tolerant of the new-fangled
opinions of hot-headed youth. We were like that ourself, when a boy. But
let him have his own way. These streets shall be unmitigated Town now,
to please him, in spite of the walks Dr. Johnson had in Marylebone
Fields. To be sure, Marylebone Fields soon became Gardens then-abouts,
like Ranelagh, and you drove along Harley Street to a musical
entertainment there, with music by Pergolesi and Galuppi.
The time of this story is post-Johnsonian, but it is older than its
readers; unless, indeed, a chance oldster now and then opens it to see
if it is a proper book to have in the house. The world in the early
fifties was very unlike what it is in the present century, and _that_
isn't yet in its teens. It was also very unlike what it had been in the
days when the family mansion in Cavendish Square, that had not had a
family in it then for forty years, was as good as new. It was so, no
doubt, for a good while after George the Third ceased to be King,
because the thorough griming it has had since had hardly begun, and
fields were sweet at Paddington, and the Regent could be bacchanalian in
that big drawing-room on the first floor without any consciousness that
he had a Park in the neighbourhood. Oh dear--how near the country
Cavendish Square was in those days!
By the time Queen Victoria was on the throne the grime had set in in
earnest, and was hard at work long before the fifty-one Exhibition
reported progress--progress in bedevilment, says the Pessimist? Never
mind him! Let him sulk in a corner while the Optimist dwells on the
marvellous developments of which fifty-one was only symptomatic--the
quick-firing guns and smokeless powder; the mighty ships, a dozen of
them big enough to take all the Athenians of the days of Pericles to the
bottom at once; the machines that turn out books so cheap that their
contents may be forgotten in six months, and no one be a penny the
worse; the millionaires who have so much money they can't spend
it--heaps and heaps of wonders up-to-date that no one ever feels
surprised at nowadays. The Optimist will tell you all about them. For
the moment, let's pretend that none of them have come to pass, and get
back to Cavendish Square at the date of the story, and the suite of
rooms on the second floor that had been Sister Nora's town anchorage
when she first made Dave Wardle's acquaintance as an unconscious
Hospital patient, and that had been renovated since her father's death
to serve as a _pied-à-terre_ until she could be sure of her arrangements
in the days to come.
Her friends were not the least too tired, thank you, after the journey,
to be shown the great drawing-room, on which the touching incident in
the life of a Royal Personage had conferred an historical dignity. "I
think--" said she "--only I haven't quite made up my mind yet--that I
shall call this ward Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the next room Princess
Caroline. Or the other way round. Which do you think?" For one of her
schemes was to turn the old family mansion into a Hospital.
"Let me see!" said Gwen. "I've forgotten my history. Mrs. Fitzherbert
was his wife, wasn't she?"
Miss Dickenson was always to be relied on for general information.
"Unquestionably," said she. "But he repudiated her for political
reasons, a course open to him as heir to the throne. Legally, Princess
Caroline of Brunswick was his lawful wife...."
"And, lawfully," said Gwen, "Mrs. Fitzherbert was his legal wife.
Nothing can be clearer. Yes--I should say certainly call the big room
Mrs. Fitzherbert. Whom shall you call the other rooms after, Clo?"
"All the others. There's any number! Mrs. Robinson, Lady Jersey, Lady
Conyngham ... one for every room in the house, and several over. Just
fancy!--the room has never been altered, since those days. It was
polished up for my poor mother--whom no doubt I saw in my youth, but
took no notice of. You see, I wasn't of an age to take notice, when she
departed to Kingdom-come, and my father exiled himself to Scotland...."
"And he kept it packed up like this--how long?"
"Well--you know how old I am. Twenty-seven."
Aunt Constance corrected dates. "George the Fourth," said she
chronologically, "ascended the throne in 1820. Consequently he cannot
have become intoxicated in this room...."
Sister Nora interrupted. Of course he couldn't--not in her father's
time. The cards and dice were going in her great-uncle's time, who drank
himself to death forty years ago. "There used to be some packs of
cards," said she, "in one of these drawers. I know I saw some there,
only it's a long time back--almost the only time I ever came into the
room. I'll look.... Take care of the dust!"
It was lucky that the cabinet-maker who framed that inlaid table knew
his business--they did, in his day--or the rounded front might have
called for a jerk, instead of giving easily to the pull it had awaited
so patiently, through decades. "There they are!" said Gwen, "with
nobody to deal them. Poor cards--locked up in the dark all these years!
Do let's have them out and play dummy to-night."
A spirit of Conservatism suggested that it would be impious to disturb a
_status quo_ connected with Royalty. But Gwen said, touching a visible
ace:--"Just think, Clo, if _you_ were an ace, and had a chance of being
trumps, how would you like to be shut up in a drawer again?" This appeal
to our common humanity had its effect, and a couple of packs were
brought out for use. No language could describe the penetrating powers
of the dust that accompanied their return to active duties. It ended the
visit _en passant_ of these three ladies, who were not sorry to find
themselves in an upstairs suite of rooms with a kitchen and a miniature
household, just established regardless of expense. Because three hundred
a year was what Miss Grahame was "going to" live upon, as soon as she
had "had time to turn round," and for the moment it was absurd to draw
hard and fast lines. Just wait and give her time, to get a little
settled!
The fatigue of the journey was enough to negative any idea of going out
anywhere, and indeed there was nothing in the way of theatre or concert
that was at all tempting. But it was not enough to cause collapse, and
whist became plausible within half an hour after dinner. There was
something delightful in the place, too, with its windows opening on the
tree-tops of the Square, and the air of a warm autumn evening bringing
in the sound of a woebegone brass band from afar, mixed with the endless
hum of wheels with hoof-beats in the heart of it, like currants in a
cake. The air was all the sweeter that a whiff of chimney-smoke broke
into it now and again, and emphasized its quality. When the band left
off the "Bohemian Girl" and rested, and imagination was picturing the
trombone in half, at odds with condensation, a barrel-organ was able to
make itself heard, with _Il Pescatore_, till the band began again with
The Sicilian Bride, and drowned it.
Miss Dickenson had been discreet about her expectation of a visitor. She
maintained her discretion even when the sound of a hansom's lids,
followed by "Yes--this house!" and a double knock below, turned out not
to be a mistake, but the Hon. Percival Pellew, Carlton Club. She
nevertheless roused the interested suspicion of Gwen and her hostess,
who looked at each other, and said respectively:--"Oh, it's my cousin
Percy," and "Oh, Mr. Pellew"; the former adding:--"He can take Dummy's
hand"; the latter,--"Oh, of course, ask him to come up, Maggie! Don't
let him go away on any account." But neither of these ladies expressed
any surprise at the rather prompt recrudescence of Mr. Pellew, last seen
at the Towers two days since.
The only flaw in a pretext that Mr. Pellew had come to leave Tennyson's
"Princess," with his card in it, and run away as if the book-owner would
bite him, was perhaps the ostentation with which that lady left his
detention to her hostess. It would have been at once more candid and
more skilful to say, "Oh yes, it's my book. But I didn't want Mr. Pellew
to bother about bringing it back," with a judicious infusion of
enthusiasm that the visitor's efforts to get away should fail. However,
the flaw was slight, and no one cared about the transparency of the
pretext. Moreover, Maggie, a new importation from the Highlands, thought
that her young ladyship, whose beauty had overwhelmed her, was at the
bottom of it--not Aunt Constance.
"Now you _are_ here, Percy, you had better make yourself useful. Sit as
we are. I'm not sorry you're come, because I hate playing dummy." This
was Gwen, naturally.
The impersonality of Dummy furnished a topic to tide over the
assimilation of things, and help the social _fengshui_ to plausibility.
There was a fillah--said Mr. Pellew--at the Club, who wouldn't take
Dummy unless that fiction was accommodated with a real chair. And there
was another fillah who couldn't play unless the vacant chair was taken
away. Something had happened to this fillah when he was a boy, and
anything like a ghost was uncongenial to him. You shouldn't lock up
children in the dark or make grimaces at them if you wanted them not to
be nervous in after-life ... and so forth.
Gwen was a bad whist-player, sometimes taking a very perverted view of
the game. As, for instance, when, after Mr. Pellew had dealt, she asked
her partner how many trumps she held. "Because, Clo," said she, "I've
only got two, and unless you've got at least four, I don't see the use
of going on." Public opinion condemned this attitude as unsportsmanlike,
and demanded another deal. Gwen welcomed the suggestion, having only a
Knave and a Queen in all the rest of her hand.
Her partner expressed disgust. "I think," she said, "you might have held
your tongue, Gwen, and played it out. But I shan't tell you why."
"Oh, I know, of course, without your telling me. You're made of trumps.
I'm so sorry, dear! There--see!--I've led." She played Knave.
"This," said Mr. Pellew, with shocked gravity, "is not whist."
"Well," said Gwen, "I can _not_ see why one shouldn't say how many
cards one has of any suit. Everyone knows, so it must be fair. Everyone
sees Dummy's hand."
"I see your point. But it's not whist."
"Am I to play, or not?" said Aunt Constance. She looked across at her
partner, as a serious player rather amused at the childish behaviour of
their opponents. A sympathetic bond was thereby established--solid
seriousness against frivolity.
"Fire away!" said Gwen. "Second player plays lowest." Miss Dickenson
played the Queen. "_That's_ not whist, aunty," said Gwen triumphantly.
Her partner played the King. "There now, you see!" said Gwen. She
belonged to the class of players who rejoice aloud, or show depression,
after success or failure.
This time her exultation was premature. Mr. Pellew, without emotion,
pushed the turn-up card, a two, into the trick, saying to his
partner:--"Your Queen was all right. Quite correct!" The story does not
vouch for this. It may have been wrong.
"Do you _mean_ to _say_, Cousin Percy"--thus Gwen, with indignant
emphasis--"that you've not got a club in your hand, at the very first
round. You _cannot_ expect us to believe _that_!" Mr. Pellew pointed out
that if he revoked he would lose three tricks. "Very well," said Gwen.
"I shall keep a very sharp look out." But no revoke came, and she had to
console herself as a loser with the reflection that it was only the odd
trick, after all--one by cards and honours divided.
This is a fair sample of the way this game went on establishing a
position of moral superiority for Mr. Pellew and his partner, who looked
down on the irregularities of their opponents from a pinnacle of True
Whist. Their position as superior beings tended towards mutual
understandings. A transition state from their relations in that
easy-going life at the Towers to the more sober obligations of the
metropolis was at least acceptable; and this isolation by a better
understanding of tricks and trumps, a higher and holier view of ruffing
and finessing, appeared to provide such a state. There was partnership
of souls in it, over and above mere vulgar scoring.
Nothing of interest occurred until, in the course of the second rubber,
Gwen made a misdeal. Probably she did so because she was trying at the
same time to prove that having four by honours was absurd in itself--an
affront to natural laws. It was the merest accident, she maintained,
when all the court-cards were dealt to one side--no merit at all of the
players. Her objection to whist was that it was a mixture of skill and
chance. She was inclined to favour games that were either quite the one
or quite the other. Roulette was a good game. So was chess. But whist
was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.... Misdeal! The
analysis of games stopped with a jerk, the dealer being left without a
turn-up card.
"But what a shame!" said Gwen. "Is it fair I should lose my deal when
the last card's an ace? How would any of you like it?" The appeal was
too touching to resist, though Mr. Pellew again said this wasn't whist.
A count of the hands showed that Aunt Constance held one card too few
and Gwen one too many. A question arose. If a card were drawn from the
dealer's hand, was the trump to remain on the table? Controversy ensued.
Why should not the drawer have her choice of thirteen cards, as in every
analogous case? On the other hand, said Gwen, that ace of hearts was
indisputably the last card in the pack; and therefore the trump-card, by
predestination.
Mr. Pellew pointed out that it mattered less than Miss Dickenson
thought, as if she pitched on this very ace to make up her own thirteen,
its teeth would be drawn. It would be no longer a turn-up card, and some
new choice of trumps would have to be made, somehow; by _sortes
Virgilianae_, or what not. Better have another deal. Gwen gave up the
point, under protest, and Miss Dickenson dealt. Spades were trumps, this
time.
It chanced that Gwen, in this deal, held the Knave and Queen of hearts.
She led the Knave, and only waiting for the next card, to be sure that
it was a low one, said deliberately to her partner:--"Don't play your
King, Cousin Clo; Percy's got the ace," in defiance of all rule and
order.
"Can't help it," said Cousin Clo. "Got nothing else!" Out came the King,
and down came the ace upon it, naturally.
"There now, see what I've done," said Gwen. "Got your King squashed!"
But she was consoled when Mr. Pellew pointed out that if Miss Grahame
had played a small card her King would almost certainly have fallen to a
trump later. "It was quite the right play," said he, "because now your
Queen makes. You couldn't have made with both."
"I believe you've been cheating, and looking at my hand," said Gwen.
"How do you know I've got the Queen?"
"How did you know I had got the ace?" said Mr. Pellew. And really this
was a reasonable question.
"By the mark on the back. I noticed it when I turned it up, when hearts
were trumps, last deal. I don't consider that cheating. All the same, I
enjoy cheating, and always cheat whenever I can. Card games are so very
dull, when there's no cheating."
"But, Gwen dear, I don't see any mark." This was Miss Grahame, examining
the last trick. She put the ace, face down, before this capricious
whist-player, who, however, adhered to her statement, saying
incorrigibly:--"Well, look at it!"
"I only see a shadow," said Mr. Pellew. But it wasn't a shadow. A shadow
moves.
Explanation came, on revision of the ace's antecedents. It had lain in
that drawer five-and-twenty years at least, with another card
half-covering it. In the noiseless air-tight darkness where it lay,
saying perhaps to itself:--"Shall I ever take a trick again?" there was
still dust, dust of thought-baffling fineness! And it had fallen, fallen
steadily, with immeasurable slowness and absolute impartiality, on all
the card above had left unsheltered. There was the top-card's
silhouette, quite recognisable as soon as the shadow was disestablished.
"It will come out with India-rubber," said Miss Grahame.
"I shouldn't mess it about, if I were you," said Gwen. "I know
India-rubber. It grimes everything in, and makes black streaks." Which
was true enough in those days. The material called bottle-rubber was
notable for its power of defiling clean paper, and the sophisticated
sort for becoming indurated if not cherished in one's trouser-pockets.
The present epoch in the World's history can rub out quite clean for a
penny, but then its _dramatis personae_ have to spend their lives dodging
motor-cars and biplanes, and holding their ears for fear of gramophones.
Still, it's _something_!
Mr. Pellew suggested that the best way to deal with the soiled card
would be for whoever got it to exhibit it, as one does sometimes when a
card's face is seen for a moment, to make sure everyone knows. We were
certainly not playing very strictly. This was accepted _nem. con._
But the chance that had left that card half-covered was to have its
influence on things, still. Who can say events would have run in the
same grooves had it not directed the conversation to dust, and caused
Mr. Pellew to recollect a story told by one of those Archaeological
fillahs, at the Towers three days ago? It was that of the tomb which,
being opened, showed a forgotten monarch of some prehistoric race,
robed, crowned, and sceptred as of old; a little shrunk, perhaps, a bit
discoloured, but still to be seen by his own ghost, if earth-bound and
at all interested. Still to be seen, even by Cook's tourists, had he but
had a little more staying-power. But he was never seen, as a matter of
fact, by any man but the desecrator of his tomb. For one whiff of fresh
air brought him down, a crumbling heap of dust with a few imperishable
ornaments buried in it. His own ghost would not have known him again;
and, in less time than it takes to tell, the wind blew him about, and he
had to take his chance with the dust of the desert.
"I suppose it isn't true," said Gwen incredulously. "Things of that sort
are generally fibs."
"Don't know about this one," said Mr. Pellew, sorting his cards. "Funny
coincidence! It was in the _Quarterly Review_--very first thing I opened
at--Egyptian Researches.... That's our trick, isn't it?"
"Yes--my ten. I'll lead.... Yes!--I think I'll lead a diamond. I always
envy you men your Clubs. It must be so nice to have all the newspapers
and reviews...." Aunt Constance said this, of course.
"It wasn't at the Club. Man left it at my chambers three
months ago--readin' it by accident yesterday evening--funny
coincidence--talkin' about it same morning! Knave takes. No--you can't
trump. You haven't got a trump."
"Now, however did you know that?" said Gwen.
"Very simple. All the trumps are out but two, and I've got them here in
my hand. See?"
"Yes, I see. But I prefer real cheating, to taking advantages of things,
like that.... What are you putting your cards down for, Cousin Percy?"
"Because that's game. Game and the rubber. We only want two by cards,
and there they are!"
When rubbers end at past ten o'clock at night, well-bred people wait for
their host to suggest beginning another. Ill-bred ones, that don't want
one, say suddenly that it must be getting late--as if Time had slapped
them--and get at their watches. Those that do, say that that clock is
fast. In the present case no disposition existed, after a good deal of
travelling, to play cards till midnight. But there was no occasion to
hustle the visitor downstairs.
Said Miss Dickenson, to concede a short breathing pause:--"Pray, Mr.
Pellew, when a gentleman accidentally leaves a book at your rooms, do
you make no effort to return it to him?"
"Well!" said Mr. Pellew, tacitly admitting the implied impeachment. "It
_is_ rather a jolly shame, when you come to think of it. I'll take it
round to him to-morrow. Gloucester Place, is it--or York Place--end of
Baker Street?... Can't remember the fillah's name to save my life.
Married a Miss Bergstein--rich bankers. Got his card at home, I expect.
However, that's where he lives--York Place. He's a Sir Somebody
Something.... What were you going to say?"
"Oh--nothing.... Only that it would have been very interesting to read
that account. However, Sir Somebody Something must be wanting his
_Quarterly Review_.... Never mind!"
Gwen said:--"What nonsense! He's bought another copy by this time. He
can afford it, if he's married a Miss Bergstein. Bring it round
to-morrow, Percy, to keep Aunt Constance quiet. We shan't take her with
us to see Clo's little boy. We should make too many." Then, in order to
minimise his visit next day, Mr. Pellew sketched a brief halt in
Cavendish Square at half-past three precisely to-morrow afternoon, when
Miss Dickenson could "run her eye" through the disintegration of that
Egyptian King, without interfering materially with its subsequent
delivery at Sir Somebody Something's. It was an elaborate piece of
humbug, welcomed with perfect gravity as the solution of a perplexing
and difficult problem. Which being so happily solved, Mr. Pellew could
take his leave, and did so.
"Didn't I do that capitally, Clo?"
"Do which, dear?"
"Why--making her stop here to see him. Or giving her leave to stop; it's
the same thing, only she would rather do it against her will. I mean
saying we should make too many at Scraps Court, or whatever it is."
"Oh yes--quite a stroke of genius! Gwen dear, what an inveterate
matchmaker you are!"
"Nonsense, Clo! I never...." Here Gwen hung fire for a moment,
confronted by an intractability of language. She took the position by
storm, _more suo_:--"I never _mutchmoke_ in my life.... What?--Well, you
may laugh, Clo, but I never _did_! Only when two fools irritate one by
not flying into each other's arms, and wanting to all the time.... Oh,
it's exasperating, and I've no patience!"
"You are quite sure they do ... want to?"
"Oh yes--I think so. At least, I'm quite sure Percy does."
"Why not Aunt Constance?"
"Because I can't imagine anyone wanting to rush into any of my cousins'
arms--my he-cousins. It's a peculiarity of cousins, I suppose. If any of
mine had been palatable, he would have caught on, and it would have come
off. Because they all want _me_, always."
"That's an old story, Gwen dear." The two ladies looked ruefully at one
another, with a slight shoulder-shrug apiece over a hopeless case. Then
Miss Grahame said:--"Then you consider Constance Dickenson is still
palatable?" She laughed on the word a little--a sort of protest. "At
nearly forty?"
"Oh dear, yes! Not that she's forty, nor anything like it. She's
thirty-six. Besides, it has nothing to do with age. Or very little.
Why--how old is that dear old lady at Chorlton that was jealous of your
little boy's old woman in London?"
"Old Goody Marrable? Over eighty. But the other old lady is older still,
and Dave speaks well of her, anyhow! We shall see her to-morrow. We must
insist on that."
"Well--I could kiss old Goody Marrable. I should be sorry for her bones,
of course. But they're not her fault, after all! She's quite an old
darling. I hope Aunt Connie and Percy will manage a little common sense
to-morrow. They'll have the house to themselves, anyhow. Ta bye-bye,
Chloe dear!"
* * * * *
Miss Grahame looked in on her way to her own room to see that Miss
Dickenson had been provided with all the accessories of a good night--a
margin of pillows and blankets _à choix_, and so on. Hot-water-bottle
time had scarcely come yet, but hospitality might refer to it. There
was, however, a word to say touching the evening just ended. What did
Miss Grahame think of Gwen? Aunt Constance's _parti pris_ in life was a
benevolent interest in the affairs of everybody else.
Miss Grahame thought Gwen was all right. The amount of nonsense she had
talked to-night showed she was a little excited. A sort of ostentatious
absurdity, like a spoiled child! Well--she has been a spoiled child. But
she--the speaker--always had believed, did still believe, that Gwen was
a fine character underneath, and that all her nonsense was on the
surface.
"Will she hold to it, do you think?"
"How can I tell? I should say yes. But one never knows. She's writing
him a long letter now. She's in the next room to me, and I heard her
scratching five minutes after she said good-night. I hope she won't
scribble all night and keep me awake. My belief is she would be better
for some counter-excitement. A small earthquake! Anything of that sort.
Good-night! It's very late." But it came out next day that Gwen's pen
was still scratching when this lady got to sleep an hour after.
CHAPTER XXVI
A PROFESSIONAL CONSULTATION ACROSS A COUNTER, AND HOW THE STORY OF
THE MAN IN HYDE PARK WAS TOLD BY DOLLY. HOW AUNT M'RIAR KNEW THE
NAME WAS NOT "DARRABLE." HOW SHE TOLD UNCLE MO WHOSE WIFE SHE WAS
AND WHOSE MOTHER MRS. PRITCHARD WAS. HOW POLLY DAVERILL JUNIOR HAD
DIED UNBAPTIZED, AND ATTEMPTS TO BULLY THE DEVIL ARE FUTILE. HOW
HER MOTHER WAS FORMERLY BARMAID AT THE ONE TUN, BUT BECAME AUNT
M'RIAR LATER, AND HOW THE TALLOW CANDLE JUST LASTED OUT. HOW DOLLY,
VERY SOUND ASLEEP, WAS GOOD FOR HER AUNT
"I shouldn't take any violent exercise, if I was you, Mr. Wardle," said
Mr. Ekings, the Apothecary, whose name you may remember Michael
Ragstroar had borrowed and been obliged to relinquish. "I should be very
careful what I ate, avoiding especially pork and richly cooked food. A
diet of fowls and fish--preferably boiled...."
"Can't abide 'em!" said Uncle Moses, who was talking over his symptoms
with Mr. Ekings at his shop, with Dolly on his knee. "And whose a-going
to stand Sam for me, livin' on this and livin' on that? Roasted
chicking's very pretty eating, for the sake of the soarsages, when
you're a Lord Mayor; but for them as don't easy run to half-crowns for
mouthfuls, a line has to be drawed. Down our Court a shilling has to go
a long way, Dr. Ekings."
The medical adviser shook his head weakly. "You're an intractable
patient, Mr. Moses," he said. He knew that Uncle Moses's circumstances
were what is called moderate. So are a church mouse's; and, in both
cases, the dietary is compulsory. Mr. Ekings tried for a common ground
of agreement. "Fish doesn't mount up to much, by the pound," he said,
vaguely.
"Fishes don't go home like butcher's meat," said Uncle Moses.
"You can't expect 'em to do that," said Mr. Ekings, glad of an
indisputable truth. "But there's a vast amount of nourishment in 'em,
anyway you put it."
"So there is, Dr. Ekings. In a vast amount of 'em. But you have to eat
it all up. Similar, grass and cows. Only there's no bones in the grass.
Now, you know, what I'm wanting is a pick-me-up--something with a nice
clean edge in the smell of it, like a bottle o' salts with holes in the
stopper. And tasting of lemons. I ain't speaking of the sort that has to
be shook when took. Nor yet with peppermint. It's a clear sort to see
through, up against the light, what I want."
Mr. Ekings, a humble practitioner in a poor neighbourhood, supplied more
mixtures in response to suggestions like Uncle Mo's, than to legitimate
prescriptions. So he at once undertook to fill out the order, saying in
reply to an inquiry, that it would come to threepence, but that Uncle Mo
must bring or send back the bottle. He then added a few drops of chloric
ether and ammonia, and some lemon to a real square bottleful of aq. pur.
haust., and put a label on it with superhuman evenness, on which was
written "The Mixture--one tablespoonful three times a day." Uncle Moses
watched the preparation of this _elixir vitae_ with the extremest
satisfaction. He foresaw its beneficial effect on his system, which he
had understood was to blame for his occasional attacks of faintness,
which had latterly been rather more frequent. Anything in such a clean
phial, with such a new cork, would be sure to do his system good.
Mrs. Riley came in for a bottle which was consciously awaiting her in
front of the leeches, and identified it as "the liniment," before Mr.
Ekings could call to mind where he'd stood it. She remarked, while
calculating coppers to cover the outlay, that she understood it was to
be well r-r-r-rhubbed in with the parrum of her hand, and that she was
to be thr-rusted not to lit the patiint get any of it near his mouth,
she having been borrun in Limerick morr' than a wake ago. She remarked
to Uncle Mo that his boy was looking his bist, and none the wurruss for
his accidint. Uncle Mo felt braced by the Celtic atmosphere, and thanked
Mrs. Riley cordially, for himself and Dave.
"Shouldn't do that, if I was you, Mr. Wardle," said Mr. Ekings the
Apothecary, as Uncle Mo hoisted Dolly on his shoulder to carry her home.
"No more shouldn't I, if you was me, Dr. Ekings," was the intractable
patient's reply. "Why, Lard bless you, man alive, Dolly's so light it's
as good as a lift-up, only to have her on your shoulders! Didn't you
never hear tell of gravitation? Well--that's it!" But Uncle Mo was out
of his depth.
"It'll do ye a powerful dale of good, Mr. Wardle," said Mrs. Riley.
"Niver you mind the docther!" And Uncle Mo departed, braced again, with
his _elixir vitae_ in his left hand, and Dolly on his right shoulder,
conversing on a topic suggested by Dr. Ekings's remarks about diet.
"When Dave tooktid Micky to see the fisses corched in the Turpentine,
there was a jenklum corched a fiss up out of the water, and another
jenklum corched another fiss up out of the water...." Dolly was pursuing
the subject in the style of the Patriarchs, who took their readers'
leisure for granted, and never grudged a repetition, when Uncle Mo
interrupted her to point out that it was not Dave who took Michael
Ragstroar to Hy' Park, but _vice versa_. Also that the whole proceeding
had been a disgraceful breach of discipline, causing serious alarm to
himself and Aunt M'riar, who had nearly lost their reason in
consequence--the exact expression being "fritted out of their wits." If
that young Micky ever did such a thing again, Uncle Mo said, the result
would be a pretty how-do-you-do, involving possibly fatal consequences
to Michael, and certainly local flagellation of unheard-of severity.
Dolly did not consider this was to the point, and pursued her narrative
without taking notice of it. "There was a jenklum corched a long fiss,
and there was another jenklum corched a short fiss, and there was
another jenklum corched a short fiss...." This seemed to bear frequent
repetition, but came to an end as soon as history ceased to supply the
facts. Then another phase came, that of the fishers who didn't corch no
fiss, whose name appeared to be Legion. They lasted as far as the arch
into Sapps Court, and Uncle Mo seemed rather to relish the monotony than
otherwise. He would have made a good Scribe in the days of the Pharaohs.
But Dolly came to the end of even the unsuccessful fishermen. Just as
they reached home, however, she produced her convincing incident, all
that preceded it having evidently been introduction pure and simple.
"And there was a man saided fings to Micky, and saided fings to Dave,
and saided fings to...." Here Dolly stuttered, became confused, and
ended up weakly: "No, he didn't saided no fings, to no one else."
A little _finesse_ was necessary to land the _elixir vitae_ on the
parlour chimney-piece, and Dolly on the hearthrug. Then Uncle Mo sat
down in his own chair to recover breath, saying in the course of a
moment:--"And what did the man say to Dave, and what did he say to young
Sparrowgrass?" He did not suppose that "the man" was a person capable of
identification; he was an unknown unit, but good to talk about.
"He saided Mrs. Picture." Dolly placed the subject she proposed to treat
broadly before her audience, with a view to its careful analysis at
leisure.
"What on 'arth did he say Mrs. Picture for? _He_ don't know Mrs.
Picture." The present tense used here acknowledged the man's
authenticity, and encouraged the little maid--three and three-quarters,
you know!--to further testimony. It came fairly fluently, considering
the witness's recent acquisition of the English language.
"He doos know Mrs. Picture, ass he doos, and he saided Mrs. Picture to
Micky, ass he did." This was plenty for a time, and during that time the
witness could go on nodding with her eyes wide open, to present the
subject lapsing, for she had found out already how slippery grown-up
people are in argument. Great force was added by her curls, which lent
themselves to flapping backwards and forwards as she nodded.
It was impossible to resist such evidence, outwardly at least, and Uncle
Mo appeared to accept it. "Then the man said Mrs. Picture to Dave," said
he. "And Dave told it on to you, was that it?" He added, for the general
good of morality:--"_You're_ a nice lot of young Pickles!"
But this stopped the nodding, which changed suddenly to a negative
shake, of great decision. "The man never saided nuffint to Dave, no he
didn't."
"Thought you said he did. You're a good 'un for a witness-box! Come up
and sit on your old uncle. The man said Mrs. Picture to young
Sparrowgrass--was that it?" Dolly nodded violently. "And young
Sparrowgrass he passed it on to Dave?" But it appeared not, and Dolly
had to wrestle with an explanation. It was too much involved for
letterpress, but Uncle Mo thought he could gather that Dave had been
treated as a mere bystander, supposed to be absorbed in angling, during
a conversation between Michael Ragstroar and the Man. "Dave he came home
and told you what the Man said to Micky--was that it?" So Uncle Mo
surmised aloud, not at all clear that Dolly would understand him. But,
as it turned out, he was right, and Dolly was glad to be able to attest
his version of the facts. She resumed the nodding, but slower, as though
so much emphasis had ceased to be necessary. "Micky toldited Dave," she
said. She then became immensely amused at a way of looking at the event
suggested by her uncle. The Man had told Micky; Micky had told Dave;
Dave had told Dolly; and Dolly had told Uncle Mo, who now intensified
the interest of the event by saying he should tell Aunt M'riar. Dolly
became vividly anxious for this climax, and felt that this was life
indeed, when Uncle Mo called out to Aunt M'riar:--"Come along here,
M'riar, and see what sort of head and tail you can make of this here
little Dolly!" Whereupon Aunt M'riar came in front out at the back, and
listened to a repetition of Dolly's tale while she dried her arms, which
had been in a wash-tub.
"Well, Mo," she said, when Dolly had repeated it, more or less
chaotically, "if you ask me, what I say is--you make our Dave speak out
and tell you, when he's back from school, and say you won't have no
nonsense. For the child is that secretive it's all one's time is worth
to be even with him.... What's the Doctor's stuff for you've been
spending your money on at Ekingses?"
"Only a stimulatin' mixture for to give tone to the system. Dr. Ekings
says it'll do it a world o' good. Never known it fail, he hasn't."
"Have you been having any more alarming symptoms, Mo, and never told
me?"
"Never been better in my life, M'riar. But I thought it was getting on
for time I should have a bottle o' stuff, one sort or other. Don't do to
go too long without a dose, nowadays." Whereupon Aunt M'riar looked
incredulous, and read the label, and smelt the bottle, and put it back
on the mantelshelf. And Uncle Mo asked for the wineglass broke off
short, out of the cupboard; because it was always best to be beforehand,
whether you had anything the matter or not.
Whatever Aunt M'riar said, Dave was not secretive. Probably she meant
communicative, and was referring to the fact that Dave, whenever he was
called on for information, though always prompt to oblige, invariably
made reply to his questioner in an undertone, in recognition of a mutual
confidence, and exclusion from it of the Universe. He had a soul above
the vulgarities of publication. Aunt M'riar merely used a word that
sounded well, irrespective of its meaning--a common literary practice.
Therefore Dave, when applied to by Uncle Mo for particulars of what "the
Man" said, made a statement of which only portions reached the general
public. This was the usual public after supper; for Mr. Alibone's
companionship in an evening pipe was an almost invariable incident at
that hour.
"What's the child a-sayin' of, Mo?" said Aunt M'riar.
"Easy a bit, old Urry Scurry!" said Uncle Mo, drawing on his imagination
for an epithet. "Let me do a bit of listening.... What was it the party
said again, Davy--just _pre_cisely?..." Dave was even less audible than
before in his response to this, and Uncle Mo evidently softened it for
repetition:--"Said if Micky told him any--etceterer--lies he'd rip his
heart out? Was that it, Dave?"
"Yorce," said Dave, aloud and emphatically. "_This_ time!" Which seemed
to imply that the speaker had refrained from doing so, to his credit, on
some previous occasion. Dave laid great stress on this point.
Aunt M'riar seemed rather panic struck at the nature of this revelation.
"Well now, Mo," said she, "I do wonder at you, letting the child tell
such words! And before Mr. Alibone, too!"
Mr. Jerry's expression twinkled, as though he protested against being
credited with a Pharisaical purity, susceptible to shocks. Uncle Mo
said, with less than usual of his easy-going manner:--"I'm a going,
M'riar, to get to the bottom of this here start. So you keep outside o'
the ropes!" and then after a little by-play with Dave and Dolly, which
made the hair of both rougher than ever, he said suddenly to
Dave:--"Well, and wasn't you frightened?"
"Micky wasn't frightened," said Dave, discreetly evasive. He objected to
pursuing the subject, and raised a new issue. The sketch that followed
of the interview between Micky and the Man was a good deal blurred by
constant India-rubber, but its original could be inferred from
it--probably as follows, any omissions to conciliate public censorship
being indicated by stars. Micky speaks first:
"Who'll you rip up? You lay 'ands upon me, that's all! You do, and I'll
blind your eyesight, s'elp me! Why, I'd summing a Police Orficer, and
have you took to the Station, just as soon as look at you...." It may be
imagined here that Michael's voice rose to a half-shriek, following some
movement of the Man towards him. "I would, by Goard! You try it on,
that's all!"
"Shut up with your * * row, you * * young * * ... No, master, I ain't
molestin' of the boy; only just frightening him for a bit of a spree!
_I_ don't look like the sort to hurt boys, do I, guv'nor?" This was
addressed to a bystander, named in Dave's report as "the gentleman." Who
was accompanied by another, described as "the lady." The latter may have
said to the former:--"I think he looks a very kind-hearted man, my dear,
and you are making a fuss about nothing." The latter certainly said
"Hggrromph!" or something like it, which the reporter found difficult to
render. Then the man assumed a hypocritical and plausible manner, saying
to Michael:--"I'm your friend, my boy, and there's a new shilling for
you, good for two * * tanners any day of the week." Micky seemed to have
been softened by this, and entered into a colloquy with the donor,
either not heard or not understood by Dave, whose narrative seemed to
point to his having been sent to a distance, with a doubt about
inapplicable epithets bestowed on him by the Man, calling for asterisks
in a close report. Some of these were probably only half-understood,
even by Micky; being, so to speak, the chirps of a gaol-bird. But Dave's
report seemed to point to "Now, is that * * young * * to be trusted not
to split?" although he made little attempt to render the asterisky parts
of speech.
Uncle Mo and Mr. Jerry glanced at one another, seeming to understand a
phrase that had puzzled Aunt M'riar.
"That was it, Mo," said Mr. Jerry, exactly as if Uncle Mo had spoken,
"_spit upon_ meant _split upon_." Dave in his innocence had supposed
that a profligacy he was himself sometimes guilty of had been referred
to. He felt that his uncle's knee was for the moment the stool of
repentance, but was relieved when a new reading was suggested. There
could be no disgrace in splitting, though it might be painful.
"And, of course," said Uncle Mo, ruffling Dave's locks, "of course, you
kept your mouth tight shut--hay?" Dave, bewildered, assented. He
connected this _bouche cousue_ with his own decorous abstention, not
without credit to himself. Who shall trace the inner workings of a small
boy's brain? "Instead of telling of it all, straight off, to your poor
old uncle!" There was no serious indignation in Uncle Mo's tone,
but the boy was too new for nice distinctions. The suggestion of
disloyalty wounded him deeply, and he rushed into explanation.
"Becorze--becorze--becorze--becorze," said he--"becorze Micky said _not_
to!" He arrived at his climax like a squib that attains its ideal.
"Micky's an owdacious young varmint," said Uncle Mo. "Small boys that
listened to owdacious young varmints never used to come to much good,
not in _my_ time!" Dave looked shocked at Uncle Mo's experience. But he
had reservations to offer as to Micky, which distinguished him from
vulgar listeners to incantations. "Micky said not to, and Micky said
Uncle Mo didn't want to hear tell of no Man out in Hoy' Park, and me to
keep my mouth shut till I was tolded to speak."
"And you told him to speak, and he spoke!" said Mr. Jerry, charitably
helping Dave. "You couldn't expect any fairer than that, old Mo." Public
opinion sanctioned a concession in this sense, and Dave came off the
stool of repentance.
"Very good, then!" said Uncle Mo. "That's all squared, and we can cross
it off. But what I'm trying after is, how did this here ...
bad-languagee"--he halted a minute to make this word--"come to know
anything about Goody Prichard upstairs?"
"Did he?" said Mr. Jerry, who of course had only heard Dave on the
subject.
"This young party said so," said Uncle Mo, crumpling Dolly to identify
her, "at the very first go off. Didn't you, little ginger-pop, hay?"
This new epithet was a passing recognition of the suddenness with which
Dolly had broken out as an informant. It gratified her vanity, and made
her chuckle.
Dave meanwhile had been gathering for an oratorical effort, and now
culminated. "I never told Dolly nuffint _about_ Mrs. Picture upstairs.
What _I_ said was 'old widder lady.'"
"Dolly translated it, Mo, don't you see?" said Mr. Jerry. Then, to
illuminate possible obscurity, he added:--"Off o' one slate onto the
other! Twig?"
"I twig you, Jerry." Uncle Mo winked at his friend to show that he was
alive to surroundings and tickled Dave suddenly from a motive of policy.
"How come this cove to know anything about any widder lady--hay? That's
a sort of p'int we've got to consider of." Dave was impressed by his
uncle's appearance of profound thought, and was anxious not to lag
behind in the solution of stiff problems. He threw his whole soul into
his answer. "Because he was _The Man_." Nathan the prophet can scarcely
have been more impressive. Perhaps, on the occasion Dave's answer
recalls, someone said:--"Hullo!" in Hebrew, and gave a short whistle.
That was what Mr. Jerry did, this time.
Uncle Mo enjoined self-restraint, telegraphically; and said,
verbally:--"What man, young Legs? Steady a minute, and tell us who he
was." Which will be quite intelligible to anyone whose experience has
included a small boy in thick boots sitting on his knee, and becoming
excited by a current topic.
Dave restrained his boots, and concentrated his mind on a statement. It
came with pauses and repetitions, which may be omitted. "He worze the
same Man as when you and me and Micky, only not Dolly, see him come
along down the Court Sunday morning. _Munce_ ago!" This was emphatic, to
express the date's remoteness. "He wanted for to be told about old Widow
Darrable who lived down this Court, and Micky he said no such name, nor
yet anywhere's about this neighbourhood, he said. And the Man he said
Micky was a young liar. And Micky he said who are you a-callin'
liar?..."
"_What_ name did he say?" Uncle Mo interrupted, with growing interest.
Dave repeated his misapprehension of it, which incorporated an idea
that similar widows would have similar surnames. If one was Marrable, it
was only natural that another should be Darrable.
Aunt M'riar, whose interest also had been some time growing, struck in
incisively. "The name was Daverill. He's mixed it up with the old lady
in the country he calls his granny." She was the more certain this was
so owing to a recent controversy with Dave about this name, ending in
his surrender of the pronunciation "Marrowbone" as untenable, but
introducing a new element of confusion owing to Marylebone Church, a
familiar landmark.
There was something in Aunt M'riar's manner that made Uncle Mo
say:--"Anything disagreed, M'riar?" Because, observe, his interest in
this mysterious man in the Park turned entirely on Mrs. Prichard's
relations with him, and he had never imputed any knowledge of him to
Aunt M'riar. Why should he? Indeed, why should we, except from the
putting of two and two together? Of which two twos, Uncle Mo might have
known either the one or the other--according to which was which--but not
both. This story has to confess occasional uncertainty about some of its
facts. There may have been more behind Uncle Mo's bit of rudeness about
Aunt M'riar's disquiet than showed on the surface. However, he never
asked any questions.
* * * * *
Those who have ever had the experience of keeping their own counsel for
a long term of years know that every year makes it harder to take others
into confidence. A concealed troth-plight, marriage, widowhood--to name
the big concealments involving no disgrace--gets less and less easy to
publish as time slips by, even as the hinges rust of doors that no man
opens. There may be nothing to blush about in that cellar, but the key
may be lost and the door-frame may have gripped the door above, or the
footstone jammed it from below, and such fungus-growth as the darkness
has bred has a claim to freedom from the light. Let it all rest--that is
its owner's word to his own soul--let it rest and be forgotten! All the
more when the cellar is full of garbage, and he knows it.
There was no garbage in Aunt M'riar's cellar that she was guilty of, but
for all that she would have jumped at any excuse to leave that door
tight shut. The difficulty was not so much in what she had to tell--for
her conscience was clear--as in rousing an unprepared mind to the
hearing of it. Uncle Mo, quite the reverse of apathetic to anything that
concerned the well-being of any of his surroundings, probably accounted
Aunt M'riar's as second to none but the children's. Nevertheless, the
difficulty of rousing him to an active interest in this hidden
embarrassment of hers, of which he had no suspicion, was so palpable to
Aunt M'riar, that she was sorely put to it to decide on a course of
action. And the necessity for action was not imaginary. Keep in mind
that all Uncle Mo's knowledge of Aunt M'riar's antecedents was summed up
in the fact of her widowhood, which he took for granted--although he had
never received it _totidem verbis_ when she first came to supplant Mrs.
Twiggins--and which had been confirmed as Time went on, and no husband
appeared to claim her. Even if he could have suspected that her husband
was still living, there was nothing in the world to connect him with
this escaped convict. No wonder Uncle Mo's complete unconsciousness
seemed to present an impassable barrier to a revelation. Aunt M'riar had
not the advantages of the Roman confessional, with its suggestive
_guichet_. Had some penitent, deprived of that resource, been driven
back on the analogous arrangement of a railway booking-office, the
difficulty of introducing the subject could scarcely have been greater.
However, Aunt M'riar was not going to be left absolutely without
assistance. That evening--the evening, that is, of the day when Dave
told the tale of the Man in the Park--Uncle Moses showed an unusual
restlessness, following on a period of thoughtfulness and silence. After
supper he said suddenly:--"I'm a-going to take a turn out, M'riar. Any
objection?"
"None o' my making, Mo. Only Mr. Jerry, he'll be round. What's to be
told him?"
"Ah--I'll tell you. Just you say to Jerry--just you tell him...."
"What'll I tell him?" For Uncle Mo appeared to waver.
"Just you tell him to drop in at The Sun, and bide till I come. They've
a sing-song going on to-night, with the pianner. He'll make hisself
happy for an hour. I'll be round in an hour's time, tell him."
"And where are you off for all of an hour, Mo?"
"That's part of the p'int, M'riar. Don't you be too inquis-eye-tive....
No--I don't mind tellin' of ye, if it's partic'lar. I'm going to drop
round to the Station to shake hands with young Simmun Rowe--they've made
him Inspector there--he's my old pal Jerky Rowe's son I knew from a boy.
Man under forty, as I judge. But he won't let me swaller up _his_ time,
trust him! Tell Jerry I'll jine him at half-after nine, the very
latest."
"I'll acquaint him what you say, Mo. And you bear in mind what Mr.
Jeffcoat at The Sun had to say about yourself, Mo."
"What was it, M'riar? Don't you bottle it up."
"Why, Mr. Jeffcoat he said, after passing the time of day, round in
Clove Street, 'I look to Mr. Wardle to keep up the character of The
Sun,' he said. So you bear in mind, Mo."
Whereupon Uncle Mo departed, and Aunt M'riar was left to her own
reflections, the children being abed and asleep by now; Dolly certainly,
probably Dave.
Presently the door to the street was pushed open, and Mr. Jerry
appeared. "I don't see no Moses?" said he.
Aunt M'riar gave her message, over her shoulder. To justify this she
should have been engaged on some particular task of the needle, easiest
performed when seated. Mr. Alibone, to whom her voice sounded unusual,
looked round to see. He only saw that her hands were in her lap, and no
sign was visible of their employment. This was unlike his experience of
Aunt M'riar. "Find the weather trying, Mrs. Wardle?"
"It don't do me any harm."
"Ah--some feels the heat more than others."
Aunt M'riar roused herself to reply:--"If you're meaning me, Mr.
Alibone, it don't touch me so much as many. Only my bones are not so
young as they were--that's how it came I was sitting down. Now,
supposin' you'd happened in five minutes later, you might have found me
tidin' up. I've plenty to do yet awhile." But this was not convincing,
although the speaker wished to make it so; probably it would have been
better had less effort gone to the utterance of it. For Aunt M'riar's
was too obvious.
Mr. Jerry laughed cheerfully, for consolation. "Come now, Aunt M'riar,"
said he, "_you_ ain't the one to talk as if you was forty, and be making
mention of your bones. Just you let them alone for another fifteen year.
That'll be time." Mr. Jerry had been like one of the family, so
pleasantry of this sort was warranted.
It was not unwelcome to Aunt M'riar. "I'm forty-six, Mr. Jerry," she
said. "And forty-six is six-and-forty."
"And fifty-six is six-and-fifty, which is what I am, this very next
Michaelmas. Now I call that a coincidence, Mrs. Wardle."
Aunt M'riar reflected. "I should have said it was an accident, Mr.
Jerry. Like anythin' else, as the sayin' is. You mention to Mo, not to
be late, no more than need be. Not to throw away good bedtime!" Mr.
Jerry promised to impress the advantages of early hours, and went his
way. But his reflections on his short interview with Aunt M'riar took
the form of asking himself what had got her, and finding no answer to
the question. Something evidently had, from her manner, for there was
nothing in what she said.
He asked the same question of Uncle Mo, coming away from The Sun, where
they did not wait for the very last tune on the piano, to the disgust of
Mr. Jeffcoat, the proprietor. "What's got Aunt M'riar?" said Uncle Mo,
repeating his words. "Nothin's got Aunt M'riar. She'd up and tell me
fast enough if there was anything wrong. What's put you on that lay,
Jerry?"
"I couldn't name any one thing, Mo. But going by the looks of it, I
should judge there was a screw loose in somebody's wheelbarrow. P'r'aps
I'm mistook. P'r'aps I ain't. S'posing you was to ask her, Mo!--asking
don't cost much."
Uncle Moses seemed to weigh the outlay. "No," he said. "Asking wouldn't
send me to the work'us." And when he had taken leave of his friend at
their sundering-point, he spent the rest of his short walk home in
speculation as to what had set Jerry off about Aunt M'riar. It was with
no misgiving of hearing of anything seriously amiss that he said to her,
as he sat in the little parlour recovering his breath, after walking
rather fast, while she cultured the flame of a candle whose wick had
been cut off short:--"Everything all right, M'riar?" He was under the
impression that he asked in a nonchalant, easy-going manner, and he was
quite mistaken. It was only perfectly palpable that he meant it to be
so, and he who parades his indifference is apt to overreach himself.
Aunt M'riar had been making up her mind that she must tell Mo what she
knew about this man Daverill, at whatever cost to herself. It would have
been much easier had she known much less. Face to face with an
opportunity of telling it, her resolution wavered and her mind,
imperfectly made up, favoured postponement. To-morrow would do. "Ho
yes," said she. "Everything's all right, Mo. Now you just get to bed.
Time enough, I say, just on to midnight!" But her manner was defective
and her line of argument ill-chosen. Its result was to produce in her
hearer a determination to discover what had got her. Because it was
evident that Jerry was right, and that _something_ had.
"One of the kids a-sickenin' for measles! Out with it, M'riar! Which is
it--Dave?"
"No, it ain't any such a thing. Nor yet Dolly.... Anyone ever see such a
candle?"
"Then it's scarlatinar, or mumps. One or other on 'em!"
"Neither one nor t'other, Mo. 'Tain't neither Dave nor Dolly, this
time." But something or other was somebody or something, that was clear!
Aunt M'riar may have meant this, and yet not seen how very clear she
made it. She recurred to that candle, and a suggestion of Uncle Mo's.
"It's easy sayin', 'Run the toller off,' Mo; but who's to do it with
such a little flame?"
Presently the candle, carefully fostered, picked up heart, and the
tension of doubt about its future was relieved. "She'll do now," said
Uncle Mo, assigning it a gender it had no claim to. "But what's gone
wrong, M'riar?"
The appeal for information was too simple and direct to allow of keeping
it back; without, at least, increasing its implied importance. Aunt
M'riar only intensified this when she answered:--"Nothing at all! At
least, nothing to nobody but me. Tell you to-morrow, Mo! It's time we
was all abed. Mind you don't wake up Dave!" For Dave was becoming his
uncle's bedfellow, and Dolly her aunt's; exchanges to vary monotony
growing less frequent as the children grew older.
But Uncle Mo did not rise to depart. He received the candle, adolescent
at last, and sat holding it and thinking. He had become quite alive now
to what had impressed Mr. Jerry in Aunt M'riar's appearance and manner,
and was harking back over recent events to find something that would
account for it. The candle's secondary education gave him an excuse. Its
maturity would have left him no choice but to go to bed.
A light that flashed through his mind anticipated it. "It's never that
beggar," said he, and then, seeing that his description was
insufficient:--"Which one? Why, the one we was a-talking of only this
morning. Him I've been rounding off with Inspector Rowe--our boy's man
he saw in the Park. You've not been alarmin' yourself about _him_?" For
Uncle Mo thought he could see his way to alarm for a woman, even a
plucky one, in the mere proximity of such a ruffian. He would have gone
on to say that the convict was, by now, probably again in the hands of
the police, but he saw as the candle flared that Aunt M'riar's usually
fresh complexion had gone grey-white, and that she was nodding in
confirmation of something half-spoken that she could not articulate.
He was on his feet at his quickest, but stopped at the sound of her
voice, reviving. "What--what's that, M'riar?" he cried. "Say it again,
old girl!" So strange and incredible had the words seemed that he
thought he heard, that he could not believe in his own voice as he
repeated them:--"_Your_ husband!" He was not clear about it even then;
for, after a pause long enough for the candle to burn up, and show him,
as he fell back in his seat, Aunt M'riar, tremulous but relieved at
having spoken, he repeated them again:--"Your _husband_! Are ye sure
you're saying what you mean, M'riar?"
That it was a relief to have said it was clear in her reply:--"Ay, Mo,
that's all right--right as I said it. My husband. You've known I had a
husband, Mo." His astonishment left him speechless, but he just managed
to say:--"I thought him dead;" and a few moments passed. Then she added,
as though deprecatingly:--"You'll not be angry with me, Mo, when I tell
you the whole story?"
Then he found his voice. "Angry!--why, God bless the wench!--what call
have I to be angry?--let alone it's no concern of mine to be meddlin'
in. Angry! No, no, M'riar, if it's so as you say, and you haven't gone
dotty on the brain!"
"I'm not dotty, Mo. You'll find it all right, just like I tell you...."
"Well, then, I'm mortal sorry for you, and there you have it, in a word.
Poor old M'riar!" His voice went up to say:--"But you shan't come to no
harm through that character, if that's what's in it. I'll promise ye
that." It fell again. "No--I won't wake the children.... I ain't quite
on the shelf yet, nor yet in the dustbin. There's my hand on it,
M'riar."
"I know you're good, Mo." She caught at the hand he held out to give
her, and kept it. "I know you're good, and you'll do like you say. Only
I hope he won't come this way no more. I hope he don't know I'm here."
She seemed to shudder at the thought of him.
"Don't he know you're here? That's rum, too. But it's rum, all round.
Things _are_ rum, sometimes. Now, just you take it easy, M'riar, and if
there's anything you'll be for telling me--because I'm an old friend
like, d'ye see?--why, just you tell me as much as comes easy, and no
more. Or just tell me nothing at all, if it sootes you better, and I'll
set here and give an ear to it." Uncle Mo resumed his former seat, and
Aunt M'riar put back the hand he released in her apron, its usual place
when not on active service.
"There's nothing in it I wouldn't tell, Mo--not to you--and it won't use
much of the candle to tell it. I'd be the easier for you to know, only
I'm not so quick as some at the telling of things." She seemed puzzled
how to begin.
Uncle Moses helped. "How long is it since you set eyes on him?"
"Twenty-five years--all of twenty-five years."
Uncle Mo was greatly relieved at hearing this. "Well, but,
M'riar--twenty-five years! You're shet of the beggar--clean shet of him!
You are _that_, old girl, legally and factually. But then," said he,
"when was you married to him?"
"I've got my lines to show for that, Mo. July six, eighteen
twenty-nine."
Uncle Mo repeated the date slowly after her, and then seemed to plunge
into a perplexing calculation, very distorting to the natural repose of
his face. Touching his finger-tips appeared to make his task easier.
After some effort, which ended without clear results, he said:--"What
I'm trying to make out is, how long was you and him keeping house?
Because it don't figure up. How long should you say?"
"We were together six weeks--no more."
"And you--you never seen him since?"
"Never since. Twenty-five years agone, this last July!" At which Uncle
Mo was so confounded that words failed him. His only resource was a long
whistle. Aunt M'riar, on the contrary, seemed to acquire narrative
powers from hearing her own voice, and continued:--"I hadn't known him a
twelvemonth, and I should have been wiser than to listen to him--at my
age, over one-and-twenty!"
"But you made him marry you, M'riar?"
"I did that, Mo. And I have the lines and my ring, to show it. But I
never told a soul, not even mother. I wouldn't have told her, to be
stopped--so bad I was!... What!--Dolly--Dolly's mother? Why, she was
just a young child, Dave's age!... How did I come to know him? It was
one day in the bar--he came in with Tom Spring, and ordered him a quart
of old Kennett. He was dressed like a gentleman, and free with his
money...."
"I knew old Tom Spring--he's only dead this two years past. I s'pose
that was The Tun, near by Piccadilly, I've heard you speak on."
"... That was where I see him, Mo, worse luck for the day! The One Tun
Inn. They called him the gentleman from Australia. He was for me and him
to go to Brighton by the coach, and find the Parson there. But I stopped
him at that, and we was married in London, quite regular, and we went to
Brighton, and then he took me to Doncaster, to be at the races. There's
where he left me, at the Crown Inn we went to, saying he'd be back afore
the week was out. But he never came--only letters came with money--I'll
say that for him. Only no address of where he was, nor scarcely a word
to say how much he was sending. But I kep' my faith towards him; and the
promise I made, I kep' all along. And I've never borne his name nor said
one word to a living soul beyond one or two of my own folk, who were
bound to be quiet, for their sake and mine. Dolly's mother, she came to
know in time. But the Court's called me Aunt M'riar all along."
A perplexity flitted through Uncle Mo's reasoning powers, and vanished
unsolved. Why had he accepted "Aunt M'riar" as a sufficient style and
title, almost to the extent of forgetting the married name he had heard
assigned to its owner five years since? He would probably have forgotten
it outright, if the post had not, now and then--but very rarely--brought
letters directed to "Mrs. Catchpole," which he had passed on, if he saw
them first, with the comment:--"I expect that's meant for you, Aunt
M'riar"; treating the disposition of some person unknown to use that
name as a pardonable idiosyncrasy. When catechized about her, he had
been known to answer:--"She ain't a widder, not to my thinking, but her
husband he's as dead as a door-nail. Name of Scratchley; or
Simmons--some such a name!" As for the designation of "Mrs. Wardle" used
as a ceremonial title, it was probably a vague attempt to bring the
household into tone. Whoever knows the class she moved in will have no
trouble in recalling some case of a similar uncertainty.
This is by way of apology for Uncle Mo's so easily letting that
perplexity go, and catching at another point. "What did he make you
promise him, M'riar? Not to let on, I'll pound it! He wanted you to keep
it snug--wasn't that the way of it?"
"Ah, that was it, Mo. To keep it all private, and never say a word."
Then Aunt M'riar's answer became bewildering, inexplicable. "Else his
family would have known, and then I should have seen his mother. Seein'
I never did, it's no wonder I didn't know her again. I might have, for
all it's so many years." It was more the manner of saying this than the
actual words, that showed that she was referring to a recent meeting
with her husband's mother.
Uncle Mo sat a moment literally open-mouthed with astonishment. At
length he said:--"Why, when and where, woman alive, did you see his
mother?"
"There now, Mo, see what I said--what a bad one I am at telling of
things! Of course, Mrs. Prichard upstairs, she's Ralph Daverill's
mother, and he's the man who got out of prison in the _Mornin' Star_
and killed the gaoler. And he's the same man came down the Court that
Sunday and Dave see in the Park. That's Ralph Thornton Daverill, and
he's my husband!"
Uncle Mo gave up the idea of answering. The oppression of his
bewilderment was too great. It seemed to come in gusts, checked off at
intervals by suppressed exclamations and knee-slaps. It was a knockdown
blow, with no one to call time. But then, there were no rules, so when a
new inquiry presented itself, abrupt utterance followed:--"Wasn't there
any?... wasn't there any?..." followed by a pause and a difficulty of
word-choice. Then in a lowered voice, an adjustment of its terms, due to
delicacy:--"Wasn't there any consequences--such as one might expect, ye
know?"
Aunt M'riar did not seem conscious of any need for delicacies. "My baby
was born dead," she said. "That's what you meant, Mo, I take it?" Then
only getting in reply:--"That was it, M'riar," she went on:--"None knew
about it but mother, when it was all over and done with, later by a year
and more. I would have called the child Polly, being a girl, if it had
lived to be christened.... Why would I?--because that was the name he
knew me by at The Tun."
Uncle Mo began to say:--"If the Devil lets him off easy, I'll ..." and
stopped short. It may have been because he reflected on the limitations
of poor Humanity, and the futility of bluster in this connection, or
because he had a question to ask. It related to Aunt M'riar's
unaccountable ignorance throughout of Daverill's transportation to
Norfolk Island, and the particular felony that led to it. "If you was
not by way of seeing the police-reports, where was all your friends, to
say never a word?"
"No one said nothing to me," said Aunt M'riar. She seemed hazy as to the
reason at first; then a light broke:--"They never knew his name, ye see,
Mo." He replied on reflection:--"Course they didn't--right you are!" and
then she added:--"I only told mother that; and she's no reader."
A mystery hung over one part of the story--how did she account for
herself to her family? Was she known to have been married, or had
popular interpretation of her absence inclined towards charitable
silence about its causes--asked no questions, in fact, giving up
barmaids as past praying for? She seemed to think it sufficient light on
the subject to say:--"It was some length of time before I went back
home, Mo," and he had to press for particulars.
His conclusion, put briefly, was that this deserted wife, reappearing
at home with a wedding-ring after two years' absence, had decided that
she would fulfil her promise of silence best by giving a false married
name. She had engineered her mother's inspection of her marriage-lines,
so as to leave that good woman--a poor scholar--under the impression
that Daverill's name was Thornton; not a very difficult task. The name
she had chosen was Catchpole; and it still survived as an identifying
force, if called on. But it was seldom in evidence, "Aunt M'riar"
quashing its unwelcome individuality. The general feeling had been that
"Mrs. Catchpole" might be anybody, and did not recommend herself to the
understanding. There was some sort o' sense in "Aunt M'riar."
The eliciting of these points, hazily, was all Uncle Mo was equal to
after so long a colloquy, and Aunt M'riar was not in a condition to tell
more. She relit another half-candle that she had blown out for economy
when the talk set in, and called Uncle Mo's attention to the moribund
condition of his own:--"There's not another end in the house, Mo," said
she. So Uncle Mo had to use that one, or get to bed in the dark.
He had been already moved to heartfelt anger that day against this very
Daverill, having heard from his friend the Police-Inspector the story of
his arrest at The Pigeons, at Hammersmith; and, of course, of the
atrocious crime which had been his latest success with the opposite sex.
This Police-Inspector must have been Simeon Rowe, whom you may remember
as stroke-oar of the boat that was capsized there in the winter, when
Sergeant Ibbetson of the river-police met his death in the attempt to
capture Daverill. Uncle Mo's motive in visiting the police-station had
not been only to shake hands with the son of an old acquaintance. He had
carried what information he had of the escaped convict to those who were
responsible for his recapture.
* * * * *
If you turn back to the brief account the story gave of Maisie
Daverill's--or Prichard's--return to England, and her son's marriage,
and succeed in detecting in Polly the barmaid at the One Tun any trace
of the Aunt M'riar with whom you were already slightly acquainted, it
will be to the discredit of the narrator. For never did a greater change
pass over human identity than the one which converted the _beauté de
diable_ of the young wench just of age, who was serving out stimulants
to the Ring, and the Turf, and the men-about-town of the late twenties,
to that of the careworn, washtub-worn, and needle-worn manipulator of
fine linen and broidery, who had been in charge of Dolly and Dave
Wardle since their mother's death three years before. Never was there a
more striking testimony to the power of Man to make a desolation of the
life of Woman, nor a shrewder protest against his right to do so. For
Polly the Barmaid, look you, had done nothing that is condemned by the
orthodox moralities; she had not even flown in the face of her legal
duty to her parents. Was she not twenty-one, and does not that magic
numeral pay all scores?
The Australian gentleman had one card in his pack that was Ace of Trumps
in the game of Betrayal. He only played it when nothing lower would take
the trick. And Polly got little enough advantage from the sanction of
the Altar, her marriage-lines and her wedding-ring, in so far as she
held to the condition precedent of those warrants of respectability,
that she should observe silence about their existence. The only
duplicity of which she had been guilty was the assumption of a false
married name, and that had really seemed to her the only possible
compromise between a definite breach of faith and passive acceptance of
undeserved ill-fame. And when the hideous explanation of Daverill's long
disappearance came about, and _éclaircissement_ seemed inevitable, she
saw the strange discovery she had made of his relation to Mrs. Prichard,
as an aggravation to the embarrassment of acknowledging his past
relation to herself.
There was one feeling only that one might imagine she might have felt,
yet was entirely a stranger to. Might she not have experienced a
longing--a curiosity, at any rate--to set eyes again on the husband who
had deserted her all those long years ago? And this especially in view
of her uncertainty as to how long his absence had been compulsory? As a
matter of fact, her only feeling about this terrible resurrection was
one of shrinking as from a veritable carrion, disinterred from a grave
she had earned her right to forget. Why need this gruesome memory be
raked up to plague her?
The only consolation she could take with her to a probably sleepless
pillow was the last charge of the old prizefighter to her not to fret.
"You be easy, M'riar. He shan't come a-nigh _you_. I'll square _him_
fast enough, if he shows up down this Court--you see if I don't!" But
when she reached it, there was still balm in Gilead. For was not Dolly
there, so many fathoms deep in sleep that she might be kissed with
impunity, long enough to bring a relieving force of tears to help the
nightmare-haunted woman in her battle with the past?
As for Mo, his threat towards this convicted miscreant had no connection
with his recent interview with his police-officer friend--no hint of
appeal to Law and Order. The anger that burnt in his heart and sent the
blood to his head was as unsullied, as pure, as any that ever Primeval
Man sharpened flints to satisfy before Law and Order were invented.
CHAPTER XXVII
HOW UNCLE MO MADE THE DOOR-CHAIN SECURE, AND A SUNFLOWER LOOKED ON
THE WHILE. HOW AUNT M'RIAR STOPPED HER EARS. A BIT OF UNCLE MO'S
MIND. HOW DOLLY KISSED HIM THROUGH THE DOOR-CRACK, BUT NOT MRS.
BURR. CONCERNING RATS, TO WHICH UNCLE MO TOOK THE OPPOSITE VIEW. OF
ONE, OR SOME, WHICH TRAVELLED OUT TO AUSTRALIA WITH OLD MRS.
PRICHARD. HOW DAVE MET THREE LADIES IN A CARRIAGE, NONE OF WHOM
KISSED HIM. HOW UNCLE MO WENT UPSTAIRS WITH THE CHILDREN, IN
CONNECTION WITH THE RATS HE HAD DISCREDITED, AND STAYED UP QUITE A
TIME. HOW HE INTERVIEWED MR. BARTLETT ABOUT THEM
"You're never fidgeting about _him_?" said Aunt M'riar to Uncle Mo, one
morning shortly after she had told him the story of her marriage. "He's
safe out of the way by now. You may rely on your police-inspectin'
friend to inspect _him_. Didn't he as good as say he was took, Mo?"
"That warn't precisely the exact expression used, M'riar," said Uncle
Mo, who was doing something with a tool-box at the door that opened on
the front-garden that opened on the Court. Dolly was holding his tools,
by permission--only not chisels or gouges, or gimlets, or bradawls, or
anything with an edge to it--and the sunflower outside was watching
them. Uncle Mo was extracting a screw with difficulty, in spite of the
fact that it was all but out already. He now elucidated the cause of
this difficulty, and left the Police Inspector alone. "'Tain't stuck, if
you ask me. I should say there never had been no holt to this screw from
the beginning. But by reason there's no life in the thread, it goes
round and round rayther than come out.... Got it!--wanted a little
coaxin', it did." That is to say, a few back-turns with very light
pressure brought the screw-head free enough for a finger-grip, and the
rest was easy. "It warn't of any real service," said Uncle Mo. "One size
bigger would ketch and hold in. This here one's only so much
horse-tentation. Now I can't get a bigger one through the plate, and I
can't rimer out the hole for want of a tool--not so much as a small
round file.... Here's a long 'un, of a thread with the first. He'll
ketch in if there's wood-backin' enough.... That's got him! Now it'll
take a Hemperor, to get _that_ out." Uncle Mo paused to enjoy a moment's
triumph, then harked back:--"No--the precise expression made use of was,
they might put their finger on him any minute."
"Which don't mean the same thing," said Aunt M'riar.
"No more it don't, M'riar, now you mention it. But he won't trust his
nose down this Court. If he does, and I ain't here, just you do like I
tell you...."
Aunt M'riar interrupted. "I couldn't find it in me to give him up, Mo.
Not for all I'm worth!" She spoke in a quick undertone, with a stress in
her voice that terrified Dolly, who nearly let go a hammer she had been
allowed to hold, as harmless.
"Not if you knew what he's wanted for, this time?"
"Don't you tell me, Mo. I'd soonest know nothing.... No--no--don't you
tell me a word about it!" And Aunt M'riar clapped her hands on her ears,
leaving an iron, that she had been trying to abate to a professional
heat, to make a brown island on its flannel zone of influence. All her
colour--she had a fair share of it--had gone from her cheeks, and Dolly
was in two minds whether she should drop the hammer and weep.
Uncle Mo's reassuring voice decided her to do neither, this time. "Don't
you be frightened, M'riar," said he. "I wasn't for telling you his last
game. Nor it wouldn't be any satisfaction to tell. I was only going to
say that if he was to turn up in these parts, just you put the chain
down--it's all square and sound now--and tell him he'll find me at The
Sun." He closed the door and put the chain he had been revising on its
mettle; adding as he did so, in defiance of Astronomy:--"'Tain't any so
far off, The Sun." Dolly's amusement at the function of the chain, and
its efficacy, was so great as to cause her aunt to rule, as a point of
Law, that six times was plenty for any little girl, and that she must
leave her uncle a minute's peace.
Dolly granting this, Aunt M'riar took advantage of it, to ask what
course Uncle Mo would pursue, if she complied with his instructions. "If
you gave him up to the Police, Mo," she said, "and I'd sent him to you,
it would be all one as if I'd done it."
"I'll promise not to give him to the Police, if he comes to me off of
your sending, M'riar. In course, if he's only himself to thank for
coming my way, that's another pair of shoes."
"But if it was me, what'll you do, Mo?" Aunt M'riar wasn't getting on
with those cuffs.
"What'll I do? Maybe I'll give him ... a bit of my mind."
"No--what'll you do, Mo?" There was a new apprehension in her voice as
she dropped it to say:--"He's a younger man than you, by nigh twenty
years."
The anticipation of that bit of Uncle Mo's mind had gripped his jaw and
knitted his brow for an instant. It vanished, and left both free as he
answered:--"You be easy, old girl! I won't give him a chance to do _me_
no harm." Aunt M'riar bent a suspicious gaze on him for a moment, but it
ended as an even more than usually genial smile spread over the old
prizefighter's face, and he gave way to Dolly's request to be sut out
only dest this once more; which ended in a Pyramus and Thisbe
accommodation of kisses through as much thoroughfare as the chain
permitted. They were painful and dangerous exploits; but it was not on
either of those accounts that Mrs. Burr, coming home rather early,
declined to avail herself of Dolly's suggestion that she also should
take advantage of this rare opportunity for uncomfortable endearments;
but rather in deference to public custom, whose rules about kissing
Dolly thought ridiculous.
The door having to be really shut to release the chain, its reopening
seemed to inaugurate a new chapter, at liberty to ignore Dolly's
flagrant suggestions at the end of the previous one. Besides, it was
possible for Uncle Mo to affect ignorance; as, after all, Dolly was
outside. Mrs. Burr did not tax him with insincerity, and the subject
dropped, superseded by less interesting matter.
"I looked in to see," said Aunt M'riar, replying to a question of Mrs.
Burr's. "The old lady was awake and knitting, last time. First time
she'd the paper on her knee, open. Next time she was gone off sound."
"That's her way, ma'am. Off and on--on and off. But she takes mostly to
the knitting. And it ain't anything to wonder at, I say, that she drops
off reading. I'm sure I can't hold my eyes open five minutes over the
newspaper. And books would be worse, when you come to read what's wrote
in them, if it wasn't for having to turn over the leaves. Because you're
bound to see where, and not turn two at once, or it don't follow on."
Aunt M'riar and Uncle Mo confirmed this view from their own experience.
It was agreed further that small type--Parliamentary debates and the
like--was more soporific than large, besides spinning out the length and
deferring the relaxation of turning over, when in book-form. Short
accidents, and not too prolix criminal proceedings were on the whole
the most palatable forms of literature. It was not to be wondered at
that old Mrs. Prichard should go to sleep over the newspaper at her age,
seeing that none but the profoundest scholars could keep awake for five
minutes while perusing it. The minute Dave came in from school he should
take Dolly upstairs to pay the old lady a visit, and brighten her up a
bit.
"Very like she's been extra to-day"--thus Mrs. Burr continued--"by
reason of rats last night, and getting no sleep."
"There ain't any rats in your room, missis," said Uncle Mo. "We should
hear 'em down below if there was."
"What it is if it ain't rats passes me then, Mr. Wardle. I do assure you
there was a loud crash like a gun going off, and we neither of us hardly
got any sleep after."
"Queer, anyhow!" said Uncle Mo. But he evidently doubted the statement,
or at least thought it exaggerated.
"I'll be glad to tell her you take the opposite view to rats, Mr.
Moses," said Mrs. Burr. "For it sets her on fretting when she gets
thinking back. And now she'll never be tired of telling about the rats
on the ship when she was took out to Australia. Running over her face,
and starting her awake in the night! It gives the creeps only to hear."
"There, Dolly, now you listen to how the rats run about on Mrs. Picture
when she was on board of the ship." Thus Aunt M'riar, always with that
haunting vice of perverting Art, Literature, Morals, and Philosophy to
the oppressive improvement of the young. She seldom scored a success,
and this time she was hoisted with her own petard. For Dolly jumped with
delight at the prospect of a romance of fascinating character, combining
Zoölogy and Travel. She applied for a place to hear it, on the knee of
Mrs. Burr, who, however, would have had to sit down to supply it. So she
was forced to be content with a bald version of the tale, as Mrs. Burr
had to see to getting their suppers upstairs. She was rather
disappointed at the size and number of the rats. She enquired:--"Was
they large rats, or small?" and would have preferred to hear that they
were about the size of small cats--not larger, for fear of
inconveniencing old Mrs. Picture. And a circumstance throwing doubt on
their number was unwelcome to her. For it appeared that old Mrs. Picture
slept with her fellow-passengers in a dark cabin, and no one might light
a match all night for fear of the Captain. And rats ran over those
passengers' faces! But it may have been all the same rat, and to Dolly
that seemed much less satisfactory than troops. She was rather cast
down about it, but there was no need to discourage Dave. She could
invent some extra rats, when he came back from school.
* * * * *
Lay down the book, you who read, and give but a moment's thought to the
strangeness of these two episodes, over half a century apart. One, in
the black darkness of an emigrant's sleeping-quarters on a ship
outward-bound, all its tenants huddled close in the stifling air; child
and woman, weak and strong, sick and healthy even, penned in alike to
sleep their best on ranks of shelves, a mere packed storage of human
goods, to be delivered after long months of battle with the seas, ten
thousand miles from home. Or, if you shrink from the thought that
Maisie's luck on her first voyage was so cruel as that, conceive her
interview with those rodent fellow-passengers as having taken place in
the best quarters money could buy on such a ship--and what would _they_
be, against a good steerage-berth nowadays?--and give her, at least, a
couch to herself. Picture her, if you will, at liberty to start from it
in terror and scramble up a companion ladder to an open deck, and pick
her way through shrouds and a bare headway of restless sprits above, and
Heaven knows what of coiled cordage and inexplicable bulkhead underfoot,
to some haven where a merciful old mariner, alone upon his watch, shuts
his eyes to his duty and tolerates the beautiful girl on deck, when he
is told by her that she cannot sleep for the rats. Make the weather
fair, to keep the picture at its best, and let her pass the hours till
the coming of the dawn, watching the mainmast-truck sway to and fro
against the Southern Cross, as the breeze falls and rises, and the
bulwark-plash is soft or loud upon the waters.
And then--all has vanished! That was half a century ago, and more. And a
very little girl with very blue eyes and a disgracefully rough shock of
golden curls has just been told of those rats, and has resolved to add
to their number--having power to do so, like a Committee--when she comes
to retell the tale to her elder brother; and then they will both--and
this is the strangest of all!--they will both go and make a noisy and
excited application to an authority to have it confirmed or
contradicted. And this authority will be that girl who sat on that deck
beneath the stars, and listened to the bells sounding the hours through
the night, to keep the ship's time for a forgotten crew, on a ship that
may have gone to the bottom many a year ago, on its return voyage home
perhaps--who knows?
Before Dave heard Dolly's version of the rats, he had a tale of his own
to tell, coming in just after Mrs. Burr had departed. As he was excited
by the event he was yearning to narrate, he did not put it so lucidly as
he might have done. He said:--"Oy saw the lady, and another lady, and
another lady, all in one carriage. And they see me. And the lady"--he
still pronounced this word _loydy_--"she see me on the poyvement, and
'Stop' she says. And then she says, 'You're Doyvy, oyn't you, that had
the ax-nent?' I says these was my books I took to scrool...."
"Didn't you _say_ you was Davy?" said Uncle Mo. And Aunt M'riar she
actually said:--"Well, I never!--not to tell the lady who you was!"
Dave was perplexed, looking with blue-eyed gravity from one to the
other. "The loydy said I _was_ Doyvy," said he, in a slightly injured
tone. He did not at all like the suggestion that he had been guilty of
discourtesy.
"In course the lady knew, and knew correct," said Uncle Mo, drawing a
distinction which is too often overlooked. "Cut along and tell us some
more. What more did the lady say?"
Dave concentrated his intelligence powerfully on accuracy:--"The loydy
said to the yuther loydy--the be-yhooterful loydy...."
"Oh, there was a beautiful lady, was there?"
Dave nodded excessively, and continued:--"Said here's a friend of mine,
Doyvy Wardle, and they was coming to poy a visit to, to-morrow
afternoon."
"And what did the other lady say?"
Dave gathered himself together for an effort of intense fidelity:--"She
said--she said--'He's much too dirty to kiss in the open street'--she
said, 'and better not to touch.' Yorce!" He seemed magnanimous towards
Gwen, in spite of her finical delicacy.
Aunt M'riar turned his face to the light, by the chin. "What's the child
been at?" said she.
"The boys had some corks," was Dave's explanation. Nothing further
seemed to be required; Uncle Mo merely remarking: "It'll come off with
soap." However, there was some doubt about the identity of these
carriage ladies. Was one of them the original lady of the rings; who had
taken Dave for a drive or _vice versa_. "Not her!" said Dave; and went
on shaking his head so long to give his statement weight, that Aunt
M'riar abruptly requested him to stop, as her nervous system could not
bear the strain. It was enough, she said, to make her eyes come out by
the roots.
"She must have been somebody else. She couldn't have been nobody," said
Uncle Mo cogently. "Spit it out, old chap, Who was she?"
It was easy to say who she was; the strain of attestation had turned on
who she wasn't. Dave became fluent:--"Whoy, the loydy what was a
cistern, and took me in the roylwoy troyne and in the horse-coach to
Granny Marrowbone." For he had never quite dissociated Sister Nora from
ball-taps and plumbings. He added after reflection:--"Only not dressed
up like then!"
At this point Dolly, whose preoccupation about those rats had stood,
between her and a reasonable interest in Dave's adventure, struck in
noisily and rudely with disjointed particulars about them, showing a
poor capacity for narrative, and provoking Uncle Mo to tickling her with
a view to their suppression. Aunt M'riar seized the opportunity to
capture Dave and subject him to soap and water at the sink.
As soon as the boys' corks, or the effect of using them after ignition
as face-pigments, had become a thing of the past, Dave and Dolly were
ready to pay their promised visit to Mrs. Prichard. Uncle Mo suggested
that he might act as their convoy as far as the top-landing. This was a
departure from precedent, as stair-climbing was never very welcome to
Uncle Mo. But Aunt M'riar consented, the more readily that she was all
behind with her work. Uncle Mo not only went up with the children, but
stayed up quite a time with the old lady and Mrs. Burr. When he came
down he did not refer to his conversation with them, but went back to
Dave's encounter with his aristocratic friends in the street.
"The lady that sighted our boy out," said he, "she'll be Miss
What's-her-name that come on at the Hospital--her with the clean white
tucker...." This referred to a vaguely recollected item of the costume
in which Sister Nora was dressed up at the time of Dave's accident. It
had lapsed, as inappropriate, during her nursing of her father in
Scotland, and had not been resumed.
"That's her," said Aunt M'riar. "Sister of Charity--that's what _she_
is. The others are ladyships, one or both. They all belong." The tone of
remoteness might have been adopted in speaking of inhabitants of Mars
and Venus.
"I thought her the right sort, herself," said Uncle Mo, implying that
others of her _monde_ might be safely assumed to be the wrong sort,
pending proof of the contrary. "Anyways, she's coming to pay Dave a
visit, and I'll be glad of a sight of her, for one!"
"Oh, I've no fault to find, Mo, if that's what you mean." Aunt M'riar
was absorbed in her mystery, doing justice to what was probably a lady's
nightgear, of imperial splendour. So she probably had spoken rather at
random; and, indeed, seemed to think apology necessary. She took
advantage of the end of an episode to say, while contemplating the
perfection of two unimpeachable cuffs:--"So long as the others don't
give theirselves no airs." Isolated certainly, as to structure; but,
after all, has speech any use except to communicate ideas?
Uncle Mo presumably understood, as he accepted the form of speech,
saying:--"And so long as we do ourselves credit, M'riar."
"Well, Mo, you never see me do anything but behave."
"That I never did, M'riar. Right you are!" Which ended a little colloquy
that contained or implied a protest against the compulsory association
of classes, expressed to a certain extent by special leniency towards an
exceptional approach from without. Having entered his own share of the
protest, Uncle Mo announced his intention of seeking Mr. Bartlett the
builder, to speak to him about them rats. This saying Aunt M'riar did
not even condemn as enigmatical, so completely did all that relates to
buildings lie outside her jurisdiction.
"I've got my 'ands so full just now," said Mr. Bartlett, when Uncle Mo
had explained the object of his visit, "or I'd step round to cast an eye
on that bressumer. Only you may make your mind easy, and say I told you
to it. If we was all of us to get into a perspiration whenever a board
creaked or a bit of loose parging come down a chimley, we shouldn't have
a minute's peace of our lives. Some parties is convinced of Ghosts the
very first crack! Hysterical females in partic'lar." Mr. Bartlett did
not seem busy, externally; but he contrived to give an impression that
he was attending to a job at Buckingham Palace.
Uncle Mo felt abashed at his implied rebuke. It was not deserved, for he
was guiltless of superstition. However, he had accepted the position of
delegate of the top-floor, which, of course, was an hysterical floor,
owing to the sex of its tenants. For Mr. Bartlett's meaning was the
conventional one, that all women were hysterical, not some more than
others. Uncle Mo felt that his position was insecure; and that he had
better retire from it. Noises, he conceded, was usually nothing at all;
but he had thought he would mention them, in this case.
Mr. Bartlett professed himself sincerely obliged to all persons who
would mention noises, in spite of their equivocal claims to existence.
It might save a lot of trouble in the end, and you never knew. As soon
as he had a half an hour to spare he would give attention. Till Tuesday
he was pretty well took up. No one need fidget himself about the noises
he mentioned; least of all need the landlord be communicated with, as he
was not a Practical Man, but in Independent Circumstances. Moreover, he
lived at Brixton.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OF A RAID ON DOLLY'S GARDEN. THAT YOUNG DRUITT'S BEHAVIOUR TO HIS
SISTER. MR. RAGSTROAR'S ACCIDENT, AND HIS MOKE. HOW THE TWO LADIES
CAME AT LAST. LADY GWENDOLEN RIVERS, AND HOW DOLLY GOT ON HER LAP.
HOW DAVE WENT UPSTAIRS TO GET HIS LETTER. HOW MRS. PRICHARD HAD
TAKEN MRS. MARROWBONE TO HEART, AND VICE VERSA. HOW DOLLY GOT A
LOCK OF GWEN'S HAIR, AND VICE VERSA. HOW DAVE DELAYED AND DOLLY AND
GWEN WENT TO FETCH HIM. A REMARKABLE SOUND. THEN GOD-KNOWS-WHAT,
OUTSIDE!
An effort of horticulture was afoot in the front-garden of No. 7, Sapps
Court. Dave Wardle and Dolly were engaged in an attempt to remedy a
disaster that had befallen the Sunflower. There was but one--the one
that had been present when Uncle Mo was adjusting that door-chain.
Its career had been cut short prematurely. For a boy had climbed up over
the end wall of those gardens acrost the Court, right opposite to where
it growed; and had all but cut through the stem, when he was cotched in
the very act by Michael Ragstroar. That young coster's vigorous
assertion of the rights of property did a man's heart good to see,
nowadays. The man was Uncle Mo, who got out of the house in plenty of
time to stop Michael half-murdering the marauder, as soon as he
considered the latter had had enough, he being powerfully outclassed by
the costermonger boy. Why, he was only one of them young Druitts, when
all was said and done! Michael felt no stern joy in him--a foeman not
worth licking, on his merits. But the knife that he left behind, with a
buckhorn handle, was a fizzing knife, and was prized in after-years by
Michael.
The Wardle household had gone into mourning for the Sunflower. Was it
not the same Sunflower as last year, reincarnated? Dolly sat under it,
shedding tears. Uncle Mo showed ignorance of gardening, saying it might
grow itself on again if you giv' it a chance; not if you kep' on at it
like that. Dave disagreed with this view, but respectfully. His Hospital
experience had taught him the use of ligatures; and he kept on at it,
obtaining from Mrs. Burr a length of her wide toyp to tie it in
position. If limbs healed up under treatment, why not vegetation? The
operator was quite satisfied with his handiwork.
In fact, Dave and Dolly both foresaw a long and prosperous life for the
flower. They rejected Aunt M'riar's suggestion, that it should be cut
clear off and stood in water, as a timid compromise--a stake not worth
playing for. And Michael Ragstroar endorsed the flattering tales Hope
told, citing instances in support of them derived from his own
experience, which appeared to have been exceptional. As, for instance,
that over-supplies of fruit at Covent Garden were took back and stuck on
the stems again, as often as not. "I seen 'em go myself," said he. "'Ole
cartloads!"
"Hark at that unblushing young story!" said Aunt M'riar, busy in the
kitchen, Michael being audible without, lying freely. "He'll go on like
that till one day it'll surprise me if the ground don't open and swallow
him up."
But Uncle Mo had committed himself to an expression of opinion on the
vitality of vegetables. He might condemn exaggeration, but he could
scarcely repudiate a principle he had himself almost affirmed. He took
refuge in obscurity. "'Tain't for the likes of us, M'riar," said he,
shaking his head profoundly, "to be sayin' how queer starts there mayn't
be. My jiminy!--the things they says in lecters, when they gets the
steam up!" He shook his head a little quicker, to recover credit for a
healthy incredulity, and arranged a newspaper he was reading against
difficulties, to gain advantages of position and a better discrimination
of its columns.
"If it was the freckly one with the red head," said Aunt M'riar,
referring back to the fracas of the morning, "all I can say is, I'm
sorry you took Micky off him." From which it appeared that this culprit
was not unknown. Indeed, Aunt M'riar was able to add that Widow Druitt
his mother couldn't call her soul her own for that boy's goings on.
"He'd got a tidy good punishing afore I got hold of the scruff of my
man's trousers," said Uncle Mo, who seemed well contented with the
culprit's retribution; and, of course, _he_ knew. "Besides," he added,
"he had to get away over them bottles." That is to say, the wall-top,
bristling with broken glass. Humanity had paved the way for the enemy's
retreat. Uncle Mo added inquiry as to how the freckly one's behaviour to
his family had come to the knowledge of Sapps Court.
"You can see acrost from Mrs. Prichard's. He do lead 'em all a life,
that boy! Mrs. Burr she saw him pour something down his sister's back
when she was playing scales. Ink, she says, by the look. But, of course,
it's a way off from here, over to Mrs. Druitt's."
"Oh--she's the one that plays the pyanner. Same tune all through--first
up, then down! Good sort of tune to go to sleep to!"
"'Tain't a tune, Mo. It's _scales_. She's being learned how. One day
soon she'll have a tune to play. An easy tune. Mrs. Prichard says _she_
could play several tunes before she was that girl's age. Then she hadn't
no brother to werrit her. I lay that made a difference." Aunt M'riar
went on to mention other atrocities ascribed by Mrs. Burr to the freckly
brother. His behaviour to his musical sister had, indeed, been a matter
of serious concern to the upstairs tenants, whose window looked directly
upon the back of Mrs. Druitt's, who took in lodgers in the main street
where Dave had met with his accident.
The boy Michael was suffering from enforced leisure on the day of this
occurrence, as his father's cart had met with an accident, and was under
repair. Its owner had gone to claim compensation personally from the
butcher whose representative had ridden him down; not, he alleged, by
misadventure, but from a deep-rooted malignity against all poor but
honest men struggling for a livelihood. No butcher, observe, answers
this description. Butchers are a class apart, whose motives are
extortion, grease, and blood. They wallow in the last with joy, and
practise the first with impunity. If they can get a chance to run over
you, they'll do it! Trust them for that! Nevertheless, so hopeless would
this butcher's case be if his victim went to a lawyer, that it was worth
having a try at it afore he done that--so Mr. Rackstraw put it, later.
Therefore, he had this afternoon gone to High Street, Clapham, to apply
for seven pun' thirteen, and not take a penny less. Hence his son's
ability to give attention to local matters, and a temporary respite to
his donkey's labours in a paddock at Notting Hill. As for Dave, and for
that matter the freckly boy, it was not term-time with them, for some
reason. Dave was certainly at home, and was bidden to pay a visit to
Mrs. Prichard in the course of the afternoon, if those lady-friends of
his whom he met in the street yesterday did not come to pay _him_ a
visit. It was not very likely they would, but you never could tell. Not
to place reliance!
Uncle Mo kept looking at his watch, and saying that if this here lady
meant to turn up, she had better look alive. Being reproved for
impatience by Aunt M'riar, he said very good, then--he'd stop on to the
hour. Only it was no use runnin' through the day like this, and nothing
coming of it, as you might say. This was only the way he preferred of
expressing impatience for the visit. It is a very common one, and has
the advantages of concealing that impatience, putting whomsoever one
expects in the position of an importunate seeker of one's society, and
suggesting that one is foregoing an appointment in the City to gratify
him. Uncle Mo did unwisely to tie himself to the hour, as he became
thereby pledged to depart, he having no particular wish to do so, and no
object at all in view.
But he was not to be subjected to the indignity of a recantation. As the
long hand of his watch approached twelve, and he was beginning to feel
on the edge of an embarrassment, Dave left off watering the Sunflower,
and ran indoors with the news that there were two ladies coming down the
Court, one of whom was Sister Nora, and the other "the other lady."
Dave's conscience led him into a long and confused discrimination
between this other lady and the other other lady, who had shared with
her the back-seat in that carriage yesterday. It was quite unimportant
which of the two had come, both being unknown to Dave's family.
Moreover, there was no time for the inventory of their respective
attributes Dave wished to supply. He was still struggling with a detail,
in an undertone lest it should transpire in general society, when he
found himself embraced from behind, and kissed with appreciation. He had
not yet arrived at the age when one is surprised at finding oneself
suddenly kissed over one's shoulder by a lady. Besides, this was his old
acquaintance, whom he was delighted to welcome, but who made the
tactical mistake of introducing "the other lady" as Lady Gwendolen
Rivers. Stiffness might have resulted, if it had not been for the
conduct of that young lady, which would have thawed an iceberg. It was
not always thus with her; but, when the whim was upon her, she was
irresistible.
"I know what Dave was saying to you when we came in, Mr. Wardle," said
she, after capturing Dolly to sit on her knee, and coming to an anchor.
"He was telling you exactly what his friend had said to him about me. He
was Micky. I've heard all about Micky. This chick's going to tell me
what Micky said about me. Aren't you, Dolly?" She put Dolly at different
distances, ending with a hug and a kiss, of which Dolly reciprocated the
latter.
Dolly would have embarked at once on a full report, if left to herself.
But that unfortunate disposition of Aunt M'riar's to godmother or
countersign the utterances of the young, very nearly nipped her
statement in the bud. "There now, Dolly dear," said the excellent
woman, "see what the lady says!--you're to tell her just exactly what
Micky said, only this very minute in the garden." Which naturally
excited Dolly's suspicion, and made her impute motives. She retired
within herself--a self which, however, twinkled with a consciousness of
hidden knowledge and a resolution not to disclose it.
Gwen's tact saved the position. "Don't you tell _them_, you know--only
me! You whisper it in my ear.... Yes--quite close up, like that." Dolly
entered into this with zest, the possession of a secret in common with
this new and refulgent lady obviously conferring distinction.
Sister Nora--not otherwise known to Sapps Court--was resuming history
during the past year for the benefit of Uncle Mo. She had seen nothing
of Dave, or, indeed, of London, since October; till, yesterday, when she
got back from Scotland, whom should she see before she had been five
minutes out of the station but Dave himself! Only she hardly knew him,
his face was so black. Here Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar shook penitential
heads over his depravity. Sister Nora paid a passing tribute to the
Usages of Society, which rightly discourage the use of burnt cork on the
countenance, and proceeded. She had heard of him, though, having paid a
visit to Widow Thrale in the country, where he got well after the
Hospital.
This was a signal for Dave to find his voice, and he embarked with
animation on a variegated treatment of subjects connected with his visit
to the country. A comparison of his affection for Widow Thrale and
Granny Marrable, with an undisguised leaning to the latter; a reference
to the lady with the rings, her equipage, and its driver's nose; Farmer
Jones's bull, and its untrustworthy temper; the rich qualities of
duckweed; the mill-model on the mantelshelf, and individualities of his
fellow-convalescents. This took time, although some points were only
touched lightly.
Possibly Uncle Moses thought it might prove prolix, as he said:--"If I
was a young shaver now, and ladies was to come to see me, I should get a
letter I was writing, to show 'em." The delicacy and tact with which
this suggestion was offered was a little impaired by Aunt
M'riar's:--"Yes, now you be a good boy, Dave, and ..." and so forth.
Many little boys would not have been so magnanimous as Dave, and would
have demurred or offered passive resistance. Dave merely removed Sister
Nora's arm rather abruptly from his neck, saying:--"Storp a minute!" and
ran up the stairs that opened on the kitchen where they were sitting.
There was more room there than in the little parlour.
Uncle Moses explained:--"You see, ladies, this here young Dave, for all
he's getting quite a scholar now, and can write any word he can spell,
yet he don't take to doing it quite on his own hook just yet a while. So
he gets round the old lady upstairs, for to let him set and write at her
table. Then she can tip him a wink now and again, when he gets a bit
fogged."
"That's Mrs. Picture," said Gwen, interested. But she did not speak loud
enough to invite correction of her pronunciation of the name, and Sister
Nora merely said:--"That's her!" and nodded. Dolly at once launched into
a vague narrative of a misadventure that had befallen her putative
offspring, the doll that Sister Nora had given her last year. Struvvel
Peter had met with an accident, his shock head having got in a
candle-flame in Mrs. Picture's room upstairs, so that he was quite
smooth before he could be rescued. The interest of this superseded other
matter.
"Davy he's a great favourite with the ladies," said Uncle Mo, as
Struvvel Peter subsided. "He ain't partic'lar to any age. Likes 'em a
bit elderly, if anythin', I should say." He added, merely to generalise
the conversation, and make talk:--"Now this here old lady in the country
she's maybe ten years younger than our Mrs. Prichard, but she's what you
might call getting on in years."
"Prichard," said Gwen, for Sister Nora's ear. "I thought it couldn't be
Picture."
"Prichard, of course! How funny we didn't think of it--so obvious!"
"Very--when one knows! I think I like Picture best."
Aunt M'riar, not to be out of the conversation, took a formal exception
to Uncle Mo's remark:--"The ladies they know how old Old Mrs. Marrable
in the country is, without your telling of 'em, Mo."
"Right you are, M'riar! But they don't know nothing about old Mrs.
Prichard." Uncle Mo had spoken at a guess of Mrs. Marrowbone's age, of
which he knew nothing. It was a sort of emulation that had made him
assess _his_ old lady as the senior. He felt vulnerable, and changed the
conversation. "That young Squire's taking his time, M'riar. Supposin'
now I was just to sing out to him?"
But both ladies exclaimed against Dave being hurried away from his old
lady. Besides, they wanted to know some more about her--what sort of
classification hers would be, and so on. There were stumbling-blocks in
this path. Better keep clear of classes--stick to generalities, and hope
for lucky chances!
"What made Dave think the old souls so much alike, Mrs. Wardle?" said
Sister Nora. "Children are generally so sharp to see differences."
"It was a kind of contradictiousness, ma'am, no better I do think,
merely for to set one of 'em alongside the other, and look at." Aunt
M'riar did not really mean contradictiousness, and can hardly have meant
_contradistinction_, as that word was not in her vocabulary. We incline
to look for its origin in the first six letters, which it enjoys in
common with contrariwise and contrast. This, however, is Philology, and
doesn't matter. Let Aunt M'riar go on.
"Now just you think how alike old persons do get, by reason of change.
'Tain't any fault of their own. Mrs. Prichard she's often by way of
inquiring about Mrs. Marrowbone, and I should say she rather takes her
to heart."
"How's that, Mrs. Wardle? Why 'takes her to heart'?" A joint question of
the ladies.
"Well--now you ask me--I should say Mrs. Prichard she wants the child
all to herself." Aunt M'riar's assumption that this inquiry had been
made without suggestion on her own part was unwarranted.
"_I'll_ tell you, ladies," said Uncle Mo, rolling with laughter. "The
old granny's just as jealous as any schoolgirl! She's _that_, and you
may take my word for it." He seemed afraid this might be interpreted to
Mrs. Prichard's disadvantage; for he added, recovering gravity:--"Not
that I blame her for it, mind you!"
"Do you hear _that_, Gwen?" said Sister Nora. "Mrs. Picture's jealous of
Granny Marrowbone.... I must tell you about that, Mrs. Wardle. It's
really as much as one's place is worth to mention Mrs. Prichard to Mrs.
Marrable. I assure you the old lady believes I-don't-know-what about
her--thinks she's a wicked old witch who will make the child as bad as
herself! She does, indeed! But then, to be sure, Goody Marrable thinks
everyone is wicked in London.... What's that, Gwen?"
"We want a pair of scissors, Dolly and I do. Do give us a pair of
scissors, Aunt Maria.... Yes, go on, Clo. I hear every word you say. How
very amusing!... Thank you, Aunt Maria!" For Gwen and Dolly had just
negotiated an exchange of locks of hair, which had distracted the full
attention of the former from the conversation. She had, however, heard
enough to confirm a half-made resolution not to leave the house without
seeing Mrs. Prichard.
"Ass! Vis piece off vat piece," says Dolly, making a selection from the
mass of available gold, which Gwen snips off ruthlessly.
"Well!" says Aunt M'riar, with her usual record of inexperience of
childhood. "I never, never did, in all my christened days!"
"Quip off a bid, bid piece with the fidders," says Dolly, delighted at
the proceeding. "A bid piece off me at the vethy top." The ideal in her
mind is analogous to the snuffing of a candle. A lock of a browner gold
than the one she gives it for is secured--big enough, but not what she
had dreamed of.
Uncle Mo was seriously concerned at Dave's prolonged absence. Not that
he anticipated any mishap!--it was only a question of courtesy to
visitors. Supposing Aunt M'riar was to go up and collar Dave and fetch
him down, drastically! Uncle Mo always shirked stair-climbing, partly
perhaps because he so nearly filled the stairway. He overweighted the
part, aesthetically.
Gwen perceived her opportunity. "Please do nothing of the sort, Aunt
Maria," said she. "Look here! Dolly and I are going up to fetch him.
Aren't we, Dolly?"
It would have needed presence of mind to invent obstacles to prevent
this, and neither Uncle Mo nor Aunt M'riar showed it, each perhaps
expecting Action on the other's part. Moreover, Dolly's approval took
such a tempestuous form that opposition seemed useless. Besides, there
was that fatal assurance about Gwen that belongs to young ladies who
have always had their own way in everything. It cannot be developed in
its fulness late in life.
Aunt M'riar's protest was feeble in the extreme. "Well, I should be
ashamed to let a lady carry me! That I should!" If Aunt M'riar had known
the resources of the Latin tongue, she might have introduced the
expression _ceteris paribus_. No English can compass that amount of
slickness; so her speech was left crude.
Uncle Mo really saw no substantial reason why this beautiful vision
should not sweep Dolly upstairs, if it pleased her. He may have felt
that a formal protest would be graceful, but he could not think of the
right words. And Aunt M'riar had fallen through. Moreover, his memory
was confident that he had left his bedroom-door shut. As to miscarriage
of the expedition into Mrs. Prichard's territory, he had no misgiving.
Miss Grahame was convinced that the incursion would have better results
if she left it to its originator, than if she encumbered it with her own
presence. After all, the room could be no larger than the one she sat
in, and might be smaller. Anyhow, they could get on very well without
her for half an hour. And she wanted a chat with Dave's guardians; she
did not really know them intimately.
"The two little ones must be almost like your own children to you, Mr.
Wardle," said she, to broach the conversation.
"Never had any, ma'am," said Uncle Mo, literal-minded from
constitutional good-faith.
"If you _had_ had any was what I meant." Perhaps the reason Miss
Grahame's eye wandered after Aunt M'riar, who had followed Gwen and
Dolly--to "see that things were straight," she said--was that she felt
insecure on a social point. Uncle Mo's eye followed hers.
"Nor yet M'riar," said he, seeing a precaution necessary. "Or perhaps I
should say _one_. Not good for much, though! Born dead, I believe--years
before ever my brother married her sister. Never set eyes on M'riar's
husband! Name of Catchpole, I believe.... That's her coming down." He
raised his voice, dropped to say this, as she came within
hearing:--"Yes--me and M'riar we share 'em up, the two young characters,
but we ain't neither of us their legal parents. Not strickly as the Law
goes, but we've fed upon 'em like, in a manner of speaking, from the
beginning, or nigh upon it. Little Dave, he's sort of kept me a-going
from the early days, afore we buried his poor father--my brother David,
you see. He died down this same Court, four year back, afore little
Dolly was good for much, to look at.... They all right, M'riar?"
"They're making a nice racket," said Aunt M'riar. "So I lay there ain't
much wrong with _them_." She picked up a piece of work to go on with,
and explored a box for a button to meet its views. Evidently a garment
of Dolly's. Probably this was a slack season for the higher needlework,
and the getting up of fine linen was below par.
Uncle Mo resumed:--"So perhaps you're right to put it they are like my
own children, and M'riar's." He was so chivalrously anxious not to
exclude his co-guardian from her rights that he might have laid himself
open to be misunderstood by a stranger. Miss Grahame understood him,
however. So she did, thoroughly, when he went on:--"I don't take at all
kindly, though, to their growing older. Can't be helped, I suppose.
There's a many peculiar starts in this here world, and him as don't
like 'em just has to lump 'em. As I look at it, changes are things one
has to put up with. If we had been handy when we was first made, we
might have got our idears attended to, to oblige. Things are fixtures,
now."
Miss Grahame laughed, and abstained consciously from referring to the
inscrutable decrees of Providence which called aloud for recognition.
"Of course, children shouldn't grow," she said. "I should like them to
remain three, especially the backs of their necks." Uncle Mo's
benevolent countenance shone with an unholy cannibalism, as he nodded a
mute approval. There was something very funny to his hearer in this old
man's love of children, and his professional engagements of former
years, looked at together.
Aunt M'riar took the subject _au serieux_. "Now you're talking silly,
Mo," she said. "If the children never grew, where would the girls be?
And a nice complainin' you men would make then!"
Miss Grahame made an effort to get away from abstract Philosophy. "I'm
afraid it can't be helped now, anyhow," said she. "Dave _is_ growing,
and means to be a man. Oh dear--he'll be a man before we know it. He'll
be able to read and write in a few months."
Uncle Mo's face showed a cloud. "Do ye really think that, ma'am?" he
said. "Well--I'm afeared you may be right." He looked so dreadfully
downcast at this, that Miss Grahame was driven to the conclusion that
the subject was dangerous.
She could not, however, resist saying:--"He _must_ know _some_ time, you
know, Mr. Wardle. Surely you would never have Dave grow up uneducated?"
"Not so sure about that, ma'am!" said Uncle Mo, shaking a dubious head.
"There's more good men spiled by schoolmasters than we hear tell of in
the noospapers." What conspiracy of silence in the Press this pointed at
did not appear. But it was clear from the tone of the speaker that he
thought interested motives were at the bottom of it.
Now Miss Grahame was said by critical friends--not enemies; at least,
they said not--to be over-anxious to confer benefits of her own
selection on the Human Race. Her finger-tips, they hinted, were itching
to set everyone else's house in order. Naturally, she had a strong bias
towards Education, that most formidable inroad on ignorance of what we
want to know nothing about. Uncle Mo regarded the human mind, if not as
a stronghold against knowledge, at least as a household with an
inalienable right to choose its guests. Miss Grahame was in favour of
invitations issued by the State, and _visé'd_ by the Church. Everything
was to be correct, and sanctioned. But it was quite clear to her that
these views would not be welcome to the old prizefighter, and she was
fain to be content with the slight protest against Obscurantism just
recorded. In short, Miss Grahame found nothing to say, and the subject
had to drop.
She could, however, lighten the air, and did so. "What on earth are they
about upstairs?" said she. "I really think I might go up and see." And
she was just about to do so, with the assent of Aunt M'riar, when the
latter said suddenly:--"My sakes and gracious! What's that?" rather as
though taken aback by something unaccountable than alarmed by it.
Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said,
placidly:--"Water-pipes, _I_ should say." For in a London house no
sound, even one like the jerk of a stopped skid on a half-buried
boulder, is quite beyond the possible caprice of a choked supply-pipe.
Miss Grahame would have accepted the sound as normal, with some
reservation as to the strangeness of everyday noises in this house, but
for Aunt M'riar's exclamation, which made her say:--"Isn't that right?"
It was not, and the only human reply to the question was a further
exclamation from Aunt M'riar--one of real alarm this time--at a
disintegrating cracking sound, fraught with an inexplicable sense of
insecurity. "_That_ ain't water-pipes," said Uncle Mo.
Then something--something terrifying--happened in the Court outside.
Something that came with a rush and roar, and ended in a crash of
snapping timber and breaking glass. Something that sent a cloud of dust
through the shivered window-panes into the room it darkened. Something
that left behind it no sound but a sharp cry for help and moaning cries
of pain, and was followed by shouts of panic and alarm, and the tramp of
running feet--a swift flight to the spot of helpers who could see it
without, the thing that had to be guessed by us within. Something that
had half-beaten in the door that Uncle Mo, as soon as sight was
possible, could be seen wrenching open, shouting loudly,
inexplicably:--"They are underneath--they are underneath!"
_Who_ were underneath? The children? And underneath what?
A few seconds of dumb terror seemed an age to both women. Then, Gwen on
the stairs, and her voice, with relief in its ring of resolution. "Don't
talk, but come up _at once_! The old lady _must_ be got down,
_somehow_! Come up!" A consciousness of Dolly crying somewhere, and of
Dave on the landing above, shouting:--"Oy say, oy say!" more, Miss
Grahame thought, as a small boy excited than one afraid; and then, light
through the dust-cloud. For Uncle Mo, with a giant's force, had released
the jammed door, and a cataract of brick rubbish, falling inwards, left
a gleam of clear sky to show Gwen, beckoning them up, none the less
beautiful for the tension of the moment, and the traces of a rough
baptism of dust.
What was it that had happened?
CHAPTER XXIX
OF A LADY AND GENTLEMAN ON THE EDGE OF A LONG VOYAGE TOGETHER.
SHALL THEY TAKE THE TICKETS? HOW MR. PELLEW HEARD SEVERAL CLOCKS
STRIKE ONE. HOW HE CALLED NEXT DAY, AND HEARD ABOUT THE CHOBEY
FAMILY. THE PROFANITY OF POETS, WHEN PROFANE. HOW MR. PELLEW
SOMETIMES WENT TO CHURCH. THE POPULAR SUBJECT OF LOVE, IN THE END.
MRS. AMPHLETT STARFAX'S VIEWS. KISSING FROM A NEW STANDPOINT. HOW
MR. PELLEW FORGOT, OR RECOLLECTED, HIMSELF. BONES, BELOW, AND HIS
BAD GUESSING. HOW THE CARRIAGE CAME BACK WITH A FRIEND IT HAD
PICKED UP, WHOM MR. PELLEW CARRIED UPSTAIRS. UNEQUIVOCAL SIGNS OF
AN ATTACHMENT WHICH
Had Gwen really been able to see to the bottom of her cousin's, the Hon.
Percival's mind, she might not have felt quite so certain about his
predispositions towards her adopted aunt. The description of these two
as wanting to rush into each other's arms was exaggerated. It would have
been fairer to say that Aunt Constance was fully prepared to consider an
offer, and that Mr. Pellew was beginning to see his way to making one.
The most promising feature in the lady's state of mind was that she was
formulating consolations, dormant now, but actively available if by
chance the gentleman did not see his way. She was saying to herself that
if another flower attracted this bee, she herself would thereby only
lose an admirer with a disposition--only a slight one perhaps, but still
undeniable--to become corpulent in the course of the next few years. She
could subordinate her dislike of smoking so long as she could suppose
him ever so little in earnest; but, if he did waver by any chance, what
a satisfaction it would be to dwell on her escape from--here a mixed
metaphor came in--the arms of a tobacco shop! She could shut her eyes,
if she was satisfied of the sincerity of a redeeming attachment to
herself, to all the contingencies of the previous life of a middle-aged
bachelor about town; but they would no doubt supply a set-off to his
disaffection, if that was written on the next page of her book of Fate.
In short, she would be prepared in that case to accept the conviction
that she was well rid of him. But all this was subcutaneous. Given only
the one great essential, that he was not merely philandering, and then
neither his escapades in the past, nor his cigars, nor even his
suggestions towards a corporation, would stand in the way of a
whole-hearted acceptance of a companion for life who had somehow managed
to be such a pleasant companion during that visit at the Towers. At
least, she would be better off than her four sisters. For this lady had
a wholesome aversion for her brothers-in-law, tending to support the
creed which teaches that the sacrament of marriage makes of its
votaries, or victims, not only parties to a contract, but one flesh, and
opens up undreamed-of possibilities of real fraternal dissension.
The gentleman, on the other hand, was in what we may suppose to be a
corresponding stage of uncertainty. He too was able to perceive, or
affect a perception, that, after all, if he came to the scratch and the
scratch eventuated--as scratches do sometimes--in a paralysis of
astonishment on the lady's part that such an idea should ever have
entered into the applicant's calculations, it wouldn't be a thing to
break his heart about exactly. He would have made rather an ass of
himself, certainly. But he was quite prepared not to be any the worse.
This was, however, not subcutaneous, with him. He said it to himself,
quite openly. His concealment of himself from himself turned on a sort
of passive resistance he was offering to a growing reluctance to hear a
negative to his application. He was, despite himself, entertaining the
question:--Was this woman whom he had been assessing and wavering over,
_more masculino_, conceivably likely to reject him on his merits? Might
she not say to him:--"I have seen your drift, and found you too pleasant
an acquaintance to condemn offhand. But now that you force me to ask
myself the question, 'Can I love you?' you leave me no choice but to
answer, 'I can't.'" And he was beginning to have a misgiving that he
would very much rather that that scratch, if ever he came to it, should
end on very different lines from this. All this, mind you, was under the
skin of his reflections.
As he walked away slowly in the moonlight, with the appointment fresh in
his mind to return next day on a shallow archaeological pretext, he may
have been himself at a loss for his reason for completing a tour of the
square, and pausing to look up at the house before making a definite
start for his Club, or his rooms in Brook Street. Was any reason
necessary, beyond the fineness of the night? He had an indisputable
right to walk round Cavendish Square without a reason, and he exercised
it. He rather resented the policeman on his beat saying goodnight to
him, as though he were abnormal, and walked away in the opposite
direction from that officer, who was searchlighting areas for want of
something to do, with an implication of profound purpose. He decided on
loneliness and a walk exactly the length of a cigar, throwing its last
effort to burn his fingers away on his doorstep. He carried the
animation of his thoughts on his face upstairs to bed with him, for it
lasted through a meditation at an open window, through a chorus of cats
about their private affairs, and the usual controversy about the hour
among all the town-clocks, which becomes embittered when there is only
one hour to talk about, and compromise is impossible. Mr. Pellew heard
the last opinion and retired for the night at nine minutes past. But he
first made sure that that _Quarterly Review_ was in evidence, and
glanced at the Egyptian article to confirm his impression of the
contents. They were still there. He believed all his actions were sane
and well balanced, but this was credulity. One stretches a point
sometimes, to believe oneself reasonable.
It was a model September afternoon--and what can one say more of
weather?--when at half-past three precisely Mr. Pellew's hansom overshot
the door of 102, Cavendish Square, and firmly but amiably insisted on
turning round to deposit its fare according to the exact terms of its
contract. Its proprietor said what he could in extenuation of its
maladroitness. They shouldn't build these here houses at the corners of
streets; it was misguiding to the most penetrating intellect. He
addressed his fare as Captain, asking him to make it another sixpence.
He had been put to a lot of expense last month, along of the strike, and
looked to the public to make it up to him. For the cabbies had struck,
some weeks since, against sixpence a mile instead of eightpence. Mr.
Pellew's heart was touched, and he conceded the other sixpence.
There at the door was Miss Grahame's open landaulet, and there were she
and Gwen in it, just starting to see the former's little boy. That was
how Dave was spoken of, at the risk of creating a scandal. They
immediately lent themselves to a gratuitous farce, having for its
object the liberation of Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson from external
influence.
"Constance _was_ back, wasn't she?" Thus Miss Grahame; and Gwen had the
effrontery to say she was almost certain, but couldn't be quite sure. If
she wasn't there, she would have to go without that pulverised Pharaoh,
as Sir Somebody Something's just yearnings for his _Quarterly_ were not
to be made light of. "Don't you let Maggie take the book up to her,
Percy. You go up in the sitting-room--you know, where we were playing
last night?--and if she doesn't turn up in five minutes don't you wait
for her!" Then the two ladies talked telegraphically, to the exclusion
of Mr. Pellew, to the effect that Aunt Constance had only gone to buy a
pair of gloves in Oxford Street, and was pledged to an early return. The
curtain fell on the farce, and a very brief interview with Mary at the
door ended in Mr. Pellew being shown upstairs, without reservation. So
he and Aunt Constance had the house to themselves.
To do them justice, the attention shown to the covering fiction of the
book-loan was of the very smallest. It could not be ignored altogether;
so Miss Dickenson looked at the article. She did not read a word of it,
but she looked at it. She went further, and said it was interesting.
Then it was allowed to lie on the table. When the last possible book has
been printed--for even Literature must come to an end some time, if Time
itself does not collapse--that will be the last privilege accorded to
it. It will lie on the table, while all but a few of its predecessors
will stand on a bookshelf.
"It's quite warm out of doors," said Mr. Pellew.
"Warmer than yesterday, I think," said Miss Dickenson. And then talk
went on, stiffly, each of its contribuents execrating its stiffness, but
seeing no way to relaxation.
"Sort of weather that generally ends in a thunderstorm."
"Does it? Well--perhaps it does."
"Don't you think it does?"
"I thought it felt very like thunder an hour ago."
"Rather more than an hour ago, wasn't it?"
"Just after lunch--about two o'clock."
"Dessay you're right. I should have said a quarter to." Now, if this
sort of thing had continued, it must have ended in a joint laugh, and
recognition of its absurdity. Aunt Constance may have foreseen this,
inwardly, and not been prepared to go so fast. For she accommodated the
conversation with a foothold, partly ethical, partly scientific.
"Some people feel the effect of thunder much more than others. No doubt
it is due to the electrical condition of the atmosphere. Before this was
understood, it was ascribed to all sorts of causes."
"I expect it's nerves. Haven't any myself! Rather like tropical storms
than otherwise."
Here was an opportunity to thaw the surface ice. The lady could have
done it in an instant, by talking to the gentleman about himself. That
is the "Open Sesame!" of human intercourse. She preferred to say that in
their village--her clan's, that is--in Dorsetshire, there was a sept
named Chobey that always went into an underground cellar and stopped its
ears, whenever there was a thunderstorm.
Mr. Pellew said weakly:--"It runs in families." He had to accept this
one as authentic, but he would have questioned its existence if
anonymous. He could not say:--"How do you know?" to an informant who
could vouch for Chobey. Smith or Brown would have left him much freer.
The foothold of the conversation was giving way, and a resolute effort
was called for to give it stability. Mr. Pellew thought he saw his way.
He said:--"How jolly it must be down at the Towers--day like this!"
"Perfectly delicious!" was the answer. Then, in consideration of the
remoteness of mere landscape from personalities, it was safe to
particularise. "I really think that walk in the shrubbery, where the
gentian grew in such quantity, is one of the sweetest places of the kind
I ever was in."
"I know I enjoyed my ..." Mr. Pellew had started to say that he enjoyed
himself there. He got alarmed at his own temerity and backed out ... "my
cigars there," said he. A transparent fraud, for the possessive pronoun
does not always sound alike. "My," is one thing before "self," another
before "cigars." Try it on both, and see. Mr. Pellew felt he was
detected. He could slur over his blunder by going straight on; any topic
would do. He decided on:--"By-the-by, did you see any more of the dog?"
"Achilles? He went away, you know, with Mr. Torrens and his sister, a
few days after."
"I meant that. Didn't you say something about seeing him with the
assassin--the old gamekeeper--what was his name?"
"Old Stephen Solmes? Yes. I saw them walking together, apparently on the
most friendly terms. Gwen told me afterwards. They were walking towards
his cottage, and I believe Achilles saw him safe home, and came back."
"Just so. Torrens told me about the dog when old Solmes came to say
good-bye to him, and do a little more penance in sackcloth and ashes. I
am using Torrens's words. The old chap made a scene--went down on his
knees and burst out crying--and the dog tried to console him. Torrens
seemed quite clear about what was passing in the dog's mind."
"What did he say the dog meant? Can you remember?" Miss Dickenson was
settling down to chat, perceptibly.
"Pretty well. Achilles had wished to say that he personally, so far from
finding fault with Mr. Solmes for trying to shoot him, fully recognised
that he drew trigger under a contract to do so, given circumstances
which had actually come about. He would not endeavour to extenuate his
own conduct, but submitted that he was entitled to a lenient judgment,
on the ground that a hare, the pursuit of which was the indirect cause
of the whole mishap, had jumped up from behind a stone.... Well--I
suppose I oughtn't to repeat all a profane poet thinks fit to say...."
"Please do! Never mind the profanity!" It really was a stimulus to the
lady's curiosity.
Mr. Pellew repeated the apology which the collie's master had ascribed
to him. Achilles had only acted in obedience to Instincts which had been
Implanted in him in circumstances for which he was not responsible, and
which might, for anything he knew, have been conceived in a spirit of
mischief by the Author of all Good. This levity was stopped by a shocked
expression on the lady's face. "Well," said the gentleman, "you mustn't
blow _me_ up, Miss Dickenson. I am only repeating, as desired, the words
of a profane poet. He had apologized, he told me, for what he said, when
his sister boxed his ears."
"Serve him right. But what was his apology?"
"That he owed it to Achilles, who was unable to speak for himself, to
lay stress on what he conceived to be the dog's Manichaean views, which
he had been most unwillingly forced to infer from his practice of
suddenly barking indignantly at the Universe, in what certainly seemed
an unprayerful spirit."
"It was only Mr. Torrens's nonsense. He wanted to blaspheme a little,
and jumped at the opportunity. They are all alike, Poets. Look at Byron
and Shelley!"
Mr. Pellew, for his own purposes no doubt, managed here to insinuate
that he himself was not without a reverent side to his character. These
fillahs were no doubt the victims of their own genius, and presumably
Mr. Torrens was a bird of the same feather. He himself was a stupid
old-fashioned sort of fillah, and couldn't always follow this sort of
thing. It was as delicate a claim as he could make to sometimes going
to Church on Sunday, as was absolutely consistent with Truth.
To his great relief, Miss Dickenson did not catechize him closely about
his religious views. She only remarked, reflectively and vaguely:--"One
hardly knows what to think. Anyone would have said my father was a
religious man, and what does he do but marry a widow, less than three
years after my mother's death!"
Certainly the coherency of this speech was not on its surface. But Mr.
Pellew accepted it contentedly enough. At least, it clothed him with
some portion of the garb of a family friend; say shoes or gloves, not
the whole suit. Whichever it was, he pulled them on, and felt they
fitted. He began to speak, and stopped; was asked what he was going to
say, and went on, encouraged:--"I was going to say, only I pulled up
because it felt impertinent...."
"Not to me! Please tell me exactly!"
"I was going to ask, how old is your father? Is he older than me?"
"Why, of course he is! I'm thirty-six. How old are you? Tell the truth!"
At this exact moment a funny thing happened. The _passée_ elderly young
lady vanished--she who had been so often weighed, found wanting, and
been put back in the balance for reconsideration. She vanished, and a
desirable _alter ego_--Mr. Pellew's, as he hoped--was looking across at
him from the sofa by the window, swinging the tassel of the red blind
that kept the sun in check, and hushed it down to a fiery glow on the
sofa's occupant waiting to know how old he was.
"I thought I had told you. Nearly forty-six."
"Very well, then! My father is five-and-twenty years your senior."
"If you had to say exactly _why_ you dislike your father's having
married again, do you think you could?"
"Oh dear, no! I'm quite sure I couldn't. But I think it detestable for
all that."
"I'm not sure that you're right. You may be, though! Are you sure it
hasn't something to do with the ... with the party he's married?"
"Not at all sure." Dryly.
"Can't understand objecting to a match on its own account. It's always
something to do with the outsider that comes in--the one one knows least
of."
"You wouldn't like this one." It may seem inexplicable, that these words
should be the cause of the person addressed taking the nearest chair to
the speaker, having previously been a nomad with his thumbs in the
armholes of his waistcoat. Close analysis may connect the action with an
extension of the family-friendship wardrobe, which it may have
recognised--a neckcloth, perhaps--and may be able to explain why it
seemed doubtful form to the Hon. Percival to keep his thumbs in those
waistcoat-loops. To us, it is perfectly easy to understand--without any
analysis at all--why, at this juncture, Miss Dickenson said:--"I suppose
you know you may smoke a cigarette, if you like?"
In those days you might have looked in tobacconist's shopwindows all day
and never seen a cigarette. It was a foreign fashion at which sound
smokers looked askance. Mossoos might smoke it, but good, solid John
Bull suspected it of being a kick-shaw not unconnected with Atheism. He
stuck to his pipe chiefly. Nevertheless, it was always open to skill to
fabricate its own cigarettes, and Mr. Pellew's aptitude in the art was
known to Miss Dickenson. The one he screwed up on receipt of this
licence was epoch-making. The interview had been one that was going to
last a quarter of an hour. This cigarette made its duration
indeterminate. Because a cigarette is not a cigar. The latter is like a
chapter in a book, the former like a paragraph. At the chapter's end
vacant space insists on a pause for thought, for approval or
condemnation of its contents. But every paragraph is as it were kindled
from the last sentence of its predecessor; as soon as each ends the next
is ready. The reader aloud is on all fours with the cigarette-smoker. He
doesn't always enjoy himself so much, but that is neither here nor
there.
It was not during the first cigarette that Mr. Pellew said to Aunt
Constance:--"Where is it they have gone to-day, do you know?" That first
one heard, if it listened, all about the lady's home in Dorsetshire and
her obnoxious stepmother. It may have wondered, if it was an observant
cigarette, at the unreserve with which the narrator took its smoker into
the bosom of her confidence, and the lively interest her story provoked.
If it had--which is not likely, considering the extent of its
experience--a shrewd perception of the philosophy of reciprocity,
probably it wondered less. It heard to the end of the topic, and Mr.
Pellew asked the question above stated, as he screwed up its successor,
and exacted the death-duty of an ignition from it.
"They ought to be coming back soon," was the answer. "I told them I
wouldn't have tea till they came. They're gone to see a _protégée_ of
Clotilda's, who lives down a Court. It's not very far off; under a mile,
I should think. We saw him in the street, coming from the
railway-station. He looked a nice boy. That is to say, he would have
looked nice, only he and his friends had all been blacking their faces
with burnt cork."
"What a lark! Why didn't you go to the Court?... I'm jolly glad you
didn't, you know, but you might have...." This was just warm enough for
the position. With its slight extenuation of slang, it might rank as
mere emphasized civility.
It was Miss Dickenson's turn to word something ambiguous to cover all
contingencies. "Yes, I should have been very sorry if you had come to
bring the book, and not found me here." This was clever, backed by a
smile. She went on:--"They thought two would be quite enough,
considering the size of the Court."
A spirit of accommodation prevailed. Oh yes--Mr. Pellew quite saw that.
Very sensible! "It don't do," said he, "to make too much of a descent on
this sort of people. They never know what to make of it, and the thing
don't wash!" But he was only saying what came to hand; because he was
extremely glad Miss Dickenson had not gone with the expedition. How far
he perceived that his own visit underlay its arrangements, who can say?
His perception fell short of being ignorant that he was aware of it.
Suppose we leave it at that!
Still, regrets--scarcely Jeremiads--that she had not been included would
be becoming, all things considered. They could not be misinterpreted. "I
was sorry not to go," she said. "His father was a prizefighter and seems
interesting, according to Clotilda. Her idea is to get Gwen enthusiastic
about people of this sort, or any of her charitable schemes, rather than
dragging her off to Switzerland or Italy. Besides, she won't go!"
"That's a smasher! The idea, I suppose, is to get her away and let the
Torrens business die a natural death. Well--it won't!"
"You think not?"
"No thinking about it! Sure of it! I've known my cousin Gwen from a
child--so have you, for that matter!--and I know it's useless. If she
will, she will, you may depend on't; and if she won't she won't, and
there's an end on't. You'll see, she'll consent to go fiddling about for
three months or six months to Wiesbaden or Ems or anywhere, but she'll
end by fixing the day and ordering her trousseau, quite as a matter of
course! As for _his_ changing--pooh!" Mr. Pellew laughed aloud. Miss
Dickenson looked a very hesitating concurrence, which he felt would bear
refreshing. He continued:--"Why, just look at the case! A man loses his
eyesight and is half killed five minutes after seeing--for the first
time, mind you, for the first time!--my cousin Gwen Rivers, under
specially favourable circumstances. When he comes to himself he finds
out in double quick time that she loves him? _He_ change? Not he!"
"Do tell me, Mr. Pellew.... I'm only asking, you know; not expressing
any opinion myself.... Do tell me, don't you think it possible that it
might be better for both of them--for Gwen certainly, if it ... if it
never...."
"If it never came off? If you ask me, all I can say is, that I haven't
an opinion. It is so absolutely their affair and nobody else's. That's
my excuse for not having an opinion, and you see I jump at it."
"Of course it is entirely their affair, and one knows. But one can't
help thinking. Just fancy Gwen the wife of a blind country Squire. It is
heartbreaking to think of--now isn't it?"
But Mr. Pellew was not to be moved from his position. "It's their own
look out," said he. "Nobody else's!" He suddenly perceived that this
might be taken as censorious. "Not finding fault, you know! You're all
right. Naturally, you think of Gwen."
"Whom ought I to think of? Oh, I see what you mean. It's true I don't
know Mr. Torrens--have hardly seen him!"
"I saw him a fairish number of times--one time with another. He's a sort
of fillah ... a sort of fillah you can't exactly describe. Very unusual
sort of fillah!" Mr. Pellew held his cigarette a little way off to look
at it thoughtfully, as though it were the usual sort of fellow, and he
was considering how he could distinguish Mr. Torrens from it.
"You mean he's unusually clever?"
"Yes, he's that. But that's not exactly what I meant, either. He's
clever, of course. Only he doesn't give you a chance of knowing it,
because he turns everything to nonsense. What I wanted to say was, that
whatever he says, one fancies one would have said it oneself, if one had
had the time to think it out."
Miss Dickenson didn't really identify this as a practicable shade of
character, but she pretended she did. In fact she said:--"Oh, I know
exactly what you mean. I've known people like that," merely to lubricate
the conversation. Then she asked: "Did you ever talk to the Earl about
him?"
"Tim? Yes, a little. He doesn't disguise his liking for him, personally.
He's rather ... rather besotted about him, I should say."
"_She_ isn't." How Mr. Pellew knew who was meant is not clear, but he
did.
"Her mother, you mean," said he. "Do you know, I doubt if Philippa
dislikes him? I shouldn't put it that way. But I think she would be glad
for the thing to die a natural death for all that. Eyes apart, you
know." When people begin to make so very few words serve their purpose
it shows that their circumferences have intersected--no mere tangents
now. A portion of the area of each is common to both. Forgive geometry
this intrusion on the story, and accept the metaphor.
"Yes, that's what it is," said Aunt Constance. And then in answer to a
glance that, so to speak, asked for a confirmation of a telegram:--"Oh
yes, I know we both mean the same thing. You were thinking of that old
story--the old love-affair. I quite understand." She might have added
"this time," because the last time she knew what Mr. Pellew meant she
was stretching a point, and he was subconscious of it.
"That's the idea," said he. "I fancy Philippa's feelings must be rather
difficult to define. So must his papa's, I should think."
"I can't fancy anything more embarrassing."
"Of course Tim has a mighty easy time of it, by comparison."
"Does he necessarily know anything about it?"
"He must have heard of it. It wasn't a secret, though it wasn't
announced in the papers. These things get talked about. Besides, she
would tell him."
"Tell him? Of course she would! She would tell him that that young
Torrens was a 'great admirer' of hers."
"Yes--I suppose she _would_ make use of some expression of that sort.
Capital things, expressions!"
Aunt Constance seemed to think this phrase called for some sort of
elucidation. "I always feel grateful," said she, "to that
Frenchman--Voltaire or Talleyrand or Rochefoucauld or somebody--who said
language was invented to conceal our thoughts. That was what you meant,
wasn't it?"
"Precisely. I suppose Sir Torrens--this chap's papa--told the lady he
married ..."
"She was a Miss Abercrombie, I believe."
"Yes--I believe she was.... Told her he was a great admirer of her
ladyship once on a time--a boyish freak--that sort of thing! Pretends
all the gilt is off the gingerbread now. Wish I had been there when Sir
Hamilton turned up at the Towers, after the accident."
"I _was_ there."
"Well! And then?"
"Nothing and then. They were--just like anybody else. When I saw them
was after his son had begun to pull round. Till then I fancy neither he
nor the sister ..."
"Irene. ''Rene,' he calls her. Jolly sort of girl, and very handsome."
"Neither Irene nor her father came downstairs much. It was after you
went away."
"And what did they say?--him and Philippa, I mean."
"Oh--say? What _did_ they say? Really I can't remember. Said what a long
time it was since they met. Because I don't believe they _had_ met--not
to shake hands--for five-and-twenty years!"
"What a rum sort of experience! Do you know?... only of course one can't
say for certain about anything of this sort ..."
"Do I know? Go on."
"I was going to say that if I had been them, I should have burst out
laughing and said what a couple of young asses we were!" The Hon.
Percival was very colloquial, but syntax was not of the essence of the
contract, if any existed.
Aunt Constance was not in the mood to pooh-pooh the _tendresses_ of a
youthful passion. She was, if you will have it so, sentimental. "Let me
think if I should," said she, with a momentary action of closing her
eyes, to keep inward thought free of the outer world. In a moment they
were open again, and she was saying:--"No, I should not have done
anything of the sort. One laughs at young people, I know, when they are
so very inflammatory. But what do we think of them when they are not?"
She became quite warm and excited about it, or perhaps--so thought Mr.
Pellew as he threw his last cigarette-end away through that open
window--the blaze of a sun that was forecasting its afterglow made her
seem so. Mr. Pellew having thrown away that cigarette-end
conscientiously, and made a pretence of seeing it safe into the front
area, was hardly bound to go back to his chair. He dropped on the sofa,
beside Miss Dickenson, with one hand over the back. He loomed over her,
but she did not shy or flinch.
"What indeed!" said he seriously, answering her last words. "A young man
that does not fall in love seldom comes to any good." He was really
thinking to himself:--"Oh, the mistakes I should have been saved in
life, if only this had happened to me in my twenties!" He was not making
close calculation of what the lady's age would have been in those days.
She was dwelling on the abstract question:--"You know, say what one may,
the whole of their lives is at stake. And we never think them young
geese when the thing comes off, and they become couples."
"No. True enough. It's only when it goes off and they don't."
"And what is so creepy about it is that we never know whether the couple
is the right couple."
"Never know anything at all about anything beforehand!" Mr. Pellew was
really talking at random. Even the value of this trite remark was
spoiled. For he added:--"Nor afterwards, for that matter!"
Miss Dickenson admitted that we could not lay too much stress on our own
limitations. But she was not in the humour for platitudes. Her mind was
running on a problem that might have worried Juliet Capulet had she
never wedded her Romeo and taken a dose of hellebore, but lived on to
find that County Paris had in him the makings of a lovable mate. Quite
possible, you know! It was striking her that if a trothplight were
nothing but a sort of civil contract--civil in the sense of courteous,
polite, urbane, accommodating--an exchange of letters through a callous
Post Office--a woman might be engaged a dozen times and meet the males
implicated in after-life, without turning a hair. But even a hand-clasp,
left to enjoy itself by its parents--not nipped in the bud--might poison
their palms and recrudesce a little in Society, long years after! While,
as for lips....
Something crossed her reflections, just on the crux of them--their most
critical point of all. "There!" said she. "Did you hear that? I knew we
should have thunder."
But Mr. Pellew had heard nothing and was incredulous. He verified his
incredulity, going to the window to look out. "Blue sky all round!" said
he. "Must have been a cart!" He went back to his seat, and the
explanation passed muster.
Miss Dickenson picked up her problem, with that last perplexity hanging
to it. No, it was no use!--- that equable deportment of Sir Hamilton and
Philippa remained a mystery to her. She, however--mere single Miss
Dickenson--could not of course guess how these two would see themselves,
looking back, with all the years between of a growing Gwen and Adrian;
to her, it was just the lapse of so much time, nothing more--a year or
so over the time she had known Philippa. For Romeo and Juliet were
metaphors out of date when she came on the scene, and Philippa was a
Countess.
She was irritated by the inability she felt to comment freely on these
views of the position. It would have been easier--she saw this--to do so
had Mr. Pellew gone back to his chair, instead of sitting down again
beside her on the sofa. It was her own fault perhaps, because she could
not have sworn this time that she had not seemed to make room. That
unhappy sex--the female one--lives under orders to bristle with
incessant safeguards against misinterpretation. Heaven only knows--or
should we not rather say, Hell only knows?--what latitudes have claimed
"encouragement" as their excuse! That lady in Browning's poem never
should have looked at the gentleman so, had she meant he should not love
her. So _he_ said! But suppose she saw a fly on his nose--how then?
Therefore it would never have done for Miss Dickenson to go into close
analysis of the problems suggested by the meeting of two undoubted
_fiancés_ of years long past, and the inexplicable self-command with
which they looked the present in the face. She had to be content with
saying:--"Of course we know nothing of the intentions of Providence. But
it's no use pretending that it would not feel very--queer." She had to
clothe this word with a special emphasis, and backed it with an implied
contortion due to teeth set on edge. She added:--"All I know is, I'm
very glad it wasn't _me_." After which she was clearly not responsible
if the topic continued.
Mr. Pellew took the responsibility on himself of saying with deep-seated
intuition:--"I know precisely what you mean. You're perfectly right.
Perfectly!"
"A hundred little things," said the lady. The dragging in of ninety-nine
of these, with the transparent object of slurring over the hundredth,
which each knew the other was thinking of, merely added to its
vividness. Aunt Constance might just as well have let it alone, and
suddenly talked of something else. For instance, of the Sun God's
abnormal radiance, now eloquent of what he meant to do for the
metropolis when he got a few degrees lower, and went in for setting, in
earnest. Or if she shrank from that, as not prosaic enough to dilute the
conversation down to mere chat-point, the Ethiopian Serenaders who had
just begun to be inexplicable in the Square below. But she left the
first to assert its claim to authorship of the flush of rose colour that
certainly made her tell to advantage, and the last to account for the
animation which helped it. For the enigmatic character of South Carolina
never interferes with a certain brisk exhilaration in its bones. She
repeated in a vague way:--"A hundred things!" and shut her lips on
particularisation.
"I don't know exactly how many," said Mr. Pellew gravely. He sat drawing
one whisker through the hand whose elbow was on the sofa-back, with his
eyes very much on the flush and the animation. "I was thinking of one in
particular."
"Perhaps _I_ was. I don't know."
"I was thinking of the kissin'."
"Well--so was I, perhaps. I don't see any use in mincing matters." She
had been the mincer-in-chief, however.
"Don't do the slightest good! When it gets to kissin'-point, it's all
up. If I had been a lady, and broken a fillah off, I think I should have
been rather grateful to him for getting out of the gangway. Should have
made a point of getting out, myself."
The subject had got comfortably landed, and could be philosophically
discussed. "I dare say everyone does not feel the point as strongly as I
do," said Miss Dickenson. "I know my sister Georgie--Mrs. Amphlett
Starfax--looks at it quite differently, and thinks me rather a ... prig.
Or perhaps _prig_ isn't exactly the word. I don't know how to put
it...."
"Never mind. I know exactly what you mean."
"You see, the circumstances are so different. Georgie had been engaged
six times before Octavius came on the scene. But, oh dear, how I _am_
telling tales out of school!..."
"Never mind Georgie and Octavius. They're not your sort. You were saying
how you felt about it, and that's more interesting. Interests me more!"
Conceive that at this point the lady glanced at the speaker ever so
slightly. Upon which he followed a slight pause with:--"Yes, why are you
a _prig_, as she thought fit to put it?"
"Because I told her that if ever I found a young man who suited me--and
_vice versa_--and it got to ... to what you called just now
'kissing-point,' I should not be so ready as she had been to pull him
off like an old glove and throw him away. That was when I was very
young, you know. It was just after she jilted Ludwig, who afterwards
married my sister Lilian--Baroness Porchammer; my eldest sister...."
"Oh, _she_ jilted Ludwig, and _he_ married your sister Lilian, was that
it?" Mr. Pellew, still stroking that right whisker thoughtfully, was
preoccupied by something that diverted interest from this family
history.
Aunt Constance did not seem to notice his abstraction, but talked on.
"Yes--and what is so funny about Georgie with Julius is that they don't
seem to mind kissing now from a new standpoint. Georgie particularly. In
fact, I've seen her kiss him on both sides and call him an old stupid.
However, as you say, the cases are not alike. Perhaps if Philippa's old
love had married her sister--Lady Clancarrock of Garter, you
know--instead of Uncle Cosmo, as they call him, they could have got used
to it, by now. Only one must look at these things from one's own point
of view, and by the light of one's experience." A ring on her right hand
might have been one of the things, and the sun-ray through the
blind-slip the light of her experience, as she sat accommodating the
flash-light of the first to the gleam of the second.
If everyone knew to a nicety his or her seeming at the precise point of
utterance of any speech, slight or weighty, nine-tenths of our wit or
profundity would remain unspoken. Man always credits woman with knowing
exactly what she looks like, and engineering speech and seeming towards
the one desired end of impressing him--important Him! He acquits himself
of studying the subject! Probably he and she are, as a matter of fact,
six of the one and half a dozen of the other. Of this one thing the
story feels certain, that had Miss Dickenson been conscious of her
neighbour's incorporation into a unit of magnetism--he being its
victim--of her mere outward show in the evening light with the
subject-matter of her discourse, this little lecture on the ethics of
kissing would never have seen the light. But let her finish it. Consider
that she gives a pause to the ring-gleam, then goes on, quite in
earnest.
"It's very funny that it should be so, I know--but there it is! If I had
ever been engaged, or on the edge of it--I never have, really and
truly!--and the infatuated youth had ... had complicated matters to that
extent, I never should have been able to wipe it off. That's an
expression of a small niece of mine--three-and-a-quarter.... Oh
dear--but I never _said_ you might!..."
For the gentleman's conduct had been extraordinary! unwarranted,
perhaps, according to some. According to others, he may only have
behaved as a many in his position would have behaved half an hour
sooner. "I am," said he, "the infatuated youth. Forgive me, Aunt
Constance!" For he had deliberately taken that lady in his arms and
kissed her.
The foregoing is an attempt to follow through an interview the
development of events which led to its climax--a persistent and
tenacious attempt, more concerned with its purpose than with inquiring
into the interest this or that reader may feel who may chance to light
upon this narrative. No very close analysis of the sublatent impulses
and motives of its actors is professed or attempted; only a fringe of
guesswork at the best. But let a protest be recorded against the
inevitable vernacular judgment in disfavour of the lady. "Of
course--the minx! As if she didn't know what she was about the whole
time. As if she wasn't leading him on!" Because that is the attitude of
mind of the correct human person in such a case made and provided. That
is, if an inevitable automatic action can be called an attitude of mind.
Is rotation on its axis an attitude of a wheel's mind? To be sure,
though, a wheel may turn either of two ways. A ratchet-wheel is needed
for this metaphor.
However, the correct human person may be expressing a universal opinion.
This is only the protest of the story, which thinks otherwise. But even
if it were so, was not Miss Dickenson well within her rights? The story
claims that, anyhow. At the same time, it records its belief that
four-fifths of the _dénouement_ was due to Helios. The magic golden
radiance intoxicated Mr. Pellew, and made him forget--or
remember--himself. The latter, the story thinks. That ring perhaps had
its finger in the pie--but this may be to inquire too curiously.
One thing looks as though Miss Dickenson had not been working out a
well-laid scheme. Sudden success does not stop the heart with a jerk, or
cause speechlessness, even for a moment. Both had happened to her by the
time she had uttered her _pro forma_ remonstrance. Her breath lasted it
out. Then she found it easiest to remain passive. She was not certain it
would not be correct form to make a show of disengaging herself from the
arms that still held her. But--she didn't want to!
This may have justified Mr. Pellew's next words:--"You do forgive me,
don't you?" more as assertion than inquiry.
She got back breath enough to gasp out:--"Oh yes--only don't talk! Let
me think!" And then presently:--"Yes, I forgive you in any case.
Only--I'll tell you directly. Let's look out of the window. I want to
feel the air blow.... You startled me rather, that's all!"
Said Mr. Pellew, at the window, as he reinstated an arm dispossessed
during the transit:--"I did it to ... to _clinch_ the matter, don't you
see? I thought I should make a mess of it if I went in for eloquence."
"It was as good as any way. I wasn't the least angry. Only...."
"Only what?"
"Only by letting you go on like this"--half a laugh came in here--"I
don't consider that I stand committed to anything."
"I consider that _I_ stand committed to everything." The arm may have
slightly emphasized this.
"No--that's impossible. It _must_ be the same for both."
"Dearest woman! Just as you like. But I know what I mean." Indeed, Mr.
Pellew did seem remarkably clear about it. Where, by-the-by, was that
_passée_ young lady, and that middle-aged haunter of Clubs? Had they
ever existed?
Bones was audible from below, as they stood looking out at the west,
where some cirro-stratus clouds were waiting to see the sun down beyond
the horizon, and keep his memory golden for half an hour. Bones was
affecting ability to answer conundrums, asked by an unexplained person
with a banjo, who treated him with distinction, calling him "Mr. Bones."
Both were affecting an air of high courtesy, as of persons familiar with
the Thrones and Chancelleries of Europe. The particulars of these
conundrums were inaudible, from distance, but the scheme was clear.
Bones offered several solutions, of a fine quality of wit, but wrong. He
then produced a sharp click or snap, after his kind, and gave it up. His
friend or patron then gave the true solution, whose transcendent humour
was duly recognised by Europe, and moved Bones to an unearthly dance,
dryly but decisively accompanied on his instrument. A sudden outburst of
rhythmic banjo-thuds and song followed, about Old Joe, who kicked up
behind and before, and a yellow girl, who kicked up behind Old Joe. Then
the Company stopped abruptly and went home to possible soap and water.
Silence was left for the lady and gentleman at No. 102 to speak to one
another in undertones, and to wonder what o'clock it was.
"They ought to be back by now," says she. "I wonder they are so late.
They are making quite a visitation of it."
Says he:--"Gwen is fascinated with the old prizefighter. Just like her!
I don't care how long they stop; do you?"
"I don't think it matters," says she, "to a quarter of an hour. The
sunset is going to be lovely." This is to depersonalise the position. A
feeble attempt, under the circumstances.
It must have been past the end of that quarter of an hour, when--normal
relations having been resumed, of course--Miss Dickenson interrupted a
sub-vocal review of the growth of their acquaintance to say, "Come in!"
The tap that was told to come in was Maggie. Was she to be making the
tea? Was she to lay it? On the whole she might do both, as the delay of
the absentees longer was in the nature of things impossible.
But, subject to the disposition of Mr. Pellew's elbows on the
window-sill, they might go on looking out at the sunset and feel
_réglés_. Short of endearments, Maggie didn't matter.
The self-assertion of Helios was amazing. He made nothing of what one
had thought would prove a cloud-veil--tore it up, brushed it aside. He
made nothing, too, of the powers of eyesight of those whose gaze dwelt
on him over boldly.
"It _is_ them," said Miss Dickenson, referring to a half-recognised
barouche that had turned the corner below. "But who on earth have they
got with them? I can't see for my eyes."
"Only some friend they've picked up," said Mr. Pellew. But he rubbed his
own eyes, to get rid of the sun. Recovered sight made him exclaim:--"But
what are the people stopping for?... I say, something's up! Come along!"
For, over and above a mysterious impression of the unusual that could
hardly be set down to the bird's-eye view as its sole cause, it was
clear that every passer-by was stopping, to look at the carriage.
Moreover, there was confusion of voices--Gwen's dominant. Mr. Pellew did
not wait to distinguish speech. He only repeated:--"Come along!" and was
off downstairs as fast as he could go. Aunt Constance kept close behind
him.
She was too bewildered to be quite sure, offhand, why Gwen looked so
more than dishevelled, as she met them at the stairfoot, earnest with
excitement. Not panic-struck at all--that was not her way--but at
highest tension of word and look, as she made the decision of her voice
heard:--"Oh, there you are, Mr. Pellew. Make yourself useful. Go out and
bring her in. Never mind who! Make haste. And Maggie's to fetch the
doctor." Mr. Pellew went promptly out, and Miss Dickenson was
beginning:--"Why--what?..." But she had to stand inquiry over. For
nothing was possible against Gwen's:--"Now, Aunt Connie dear, don't ask
questions. You shall be told the whole story, all in good time! Let's
get her upstairs and get the doctor." They both followed Mr. Pellew into
the street, where a perceptible crowd, sprung from nowhere, was already
offering services it was not qualified to give, in ignorance of the
nature of the emergency that had to be met, and in defiance of a
policeman.
Mr. Pellew had taken his instructions so quickly from Miss Grahame,
still in the carriage, that he was already carrying the doctor's
patient, whoever and whatever she was, but carefully as directed, into
the house. At any rate it was not Miss Grahame herself, for that lady's
voice was saying, collectedly:--"I don't think it's any use Maggie
going, Gwen, because she doesn't know London. James must fetch him, in
the carriage. Dr. Dalrymple, 65, Weymouth Street, James! Tell him he
_must_ come, at once! Say _I_ said so." It was then that Aunt Constance
perceived in the clear light of the street, that not only was the
person Mr. Pellew was carrying into the house--whom she could only
identify otherwise as having snow-white hair--covered with dust and
soiled, but that Gwen and Miss Grahame were in a like plight, the latter
in addition being embarrassed by a rent skirt, which she was fain to
hold together as she crossed the doorstep. Once in the house she made
short work of it, finishing the rip, and acquiescing in the publicity of
a petticoat. It added to Aunt Constance's perplexity that the carriage
and James appeared in as trim order as when they left the door three
hours since. These hours had been eventful to her, and she was really
feeling as if the whole thing must be a strange dream.
She got no explanation worth the name at the time of the incident. For
Gwen's scattered information after the old snow-white head was safe on
her own pillow--she insisted on this--and its owner had been guaranteed
by Dr. Dalrymple, was really good for very little. The old lady was
Cousin Clo's little boy's old Mrs. Picture, and she was the dearest old
thing. There had been an accident at the house while they were there,
and a man and a woman had been hurt, but no fatality. The man had not
been taken to the Hospital, as his family had opposed his going on the
ground of his invulnerability. The old prizefighter was uninjured, as
well as those two nice children. They might have been killed. But as to
the nature of the accident, it remained obscure, or perhaps the
ever-present consciousness of her own experience prevented Aunt
Constance getting a full grasp of its details. The communication,
moreover, was crossed by that lady's exclamation:--"Oh dear, the events
of this afternoon!" just at the point where the particulars of the
mishap were due, to make things intelligible.
At which exclamation Gwen, suddenly alive to a restless conscious manner
of Aunt Constance's, pointed at her as one she could convict without
appeal, saying remorselessly:--"Mr. Pellew has proposed and you have
accepted him while we were away, Aunt Connie! Don't deny it. You're
engaged!"
"My dear Gwen," said Miss Dickenson, "if what you suggest were true, I
should not dream for one moment of concealing it from you. But as for
any engagement between us, I assure you there is no such thing. Beyond
showing unequivocal signs of an attachment which...."
Gwen clapped the beautiful hands, still soiled with the dirt of Sapps
Court, and shook its visible dust from her sleeve. Her laugh rang all
through the House. "_That's_ all right!" she cried. "He's shown
unequivocal signs of an attachment which. Well--what more do you want?
Oh, Aunt Connie, I'm _so_ glad!"
All that followed had for Miss Dickenson the same dream-world character,
but of a dream in which she retained presence of mind. It was needed to
maintain the pretext of unruffled custom in her communications with her
male visitor; the claim to be, before all things, normal, on the part of
both, in the presence of at least one friend who certainly knew all
about it, and another who may have known. Because there was no trusting
Gwen. However, she got through it very well.
Regrets were expressed that Sir Somebody Something had not got his
_Quarterly_ after all; but it would do another time. Hence consolation.
After Mr. Pellew had taken a farewell, which may easily have been a
tender one, as nobody saw it, she heard particulars of the accident,
which shall be told here also, in due course.
Some embarrassment resulted from Gwen's headstrong action in bringing
the old lady away from the scene of this accident. She might have been
provided for otherwise, but Gwen's beauty and positiveness, and her
visible taking for granted that her every behest would be obeyed, had
swept all obstacles away. As for her Cousin Clotilda, she was secretly
chuckling all the while at the wayward young lady's reckless incurring
of responsibilities towards Sapps Court.
CHAPTER XXX
THE LETTER GWEN WROTE TO MR. TORRENS, TO TELL OF IT. MATILDA, WHO
PLAYED SCALES, BUT NOT "THE HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH." THE OLD LADY'S
JEALOUSY OF GRANNY MARROWBONE, AND DAVE'S FIDELITY TO BOTH. HOW
BEHEMOTH HICCUPPED, AND DAVE WENT TO SEE WHAT WAS BROKEN. THE
EARTHQUAKE AT PISA. IT WAS OWING TO THE REPAIRS. HOW PETER JACKSON
APPEARED BY MAGIC. HOW MR. BARTLETT SHORED NO. 7 UP TEMPORY, AND
THE TENANTS HAD TO MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT WAS LEFT OF IT. UNCLE MO's
ENFORCED BACHELOR LIFE
If love-letters were not so full of their writers' mutual satisfaction
with their position, what a resource amatory correspondence would be to
history!
In the letters to her lover with which Gwen at this time filled every
available minute, the amatory passages were kept in check by the hard
condition that they had to be read aloud to their blind recipient. So
much so that the account which she wrote to him of her visit to Sapps
Court will be very little the shorter for their complete omission.
It begins with a suggestion of suppressed dithyrambics, the suppression
to be laid to the door of Irene. But with sympathy for her, too--for how
can she help it? It then gets to business. She is going to tell "the
thing"--spoken of thus for the first time--in her own way, and to take
her own time about it. It is not even to be read fast, but in a
leisurely way; and, above all, Irene is not to look on ahead to see what
is coming; or, at least, if she does she is not to tell. Quite enough
for the present that he should know that she, Gwen, has escaped without
a scratch, though dusty. She addresses her lover, most unfairly, as "Mr.
Impatience," in a portion of the letter that seems devised expressly to
excite its reader's curiosity to the utmost. The fact is that this young
beauty, with all her inherent stability and strength of character, was
apt to be run away with by impish proclivities, that any good, serious
schoolgirl would have been ashamed of. This letter offered her a rare
opportunity for indulging them. Let it tell its own tale, even though we
begin on the fifth page.
"I must pause now to see what sort of a bed Lutwyche has managed to
arrange for me, and ring Maggie up if it isn't comfortable. Not but what
I am ready to rough it a little, rather than that the old lady should be
moved. She is the dearest old thing that ever was seen, with the
loveliest silver hair, and must have been surpassingly beautiful, I
should say. She keeps on reminding me of someone, and I can't tell who.
It may be Daphne Palliser's grandmother-in-law, or it may be old Madame
Edelweissenstein, who's a _chanoinesse_. But the nice old lady on the
farm I told you of keeps mixing herself up in it--and really all old
ladies are very much alike. By-the-by, I haven't explained her yet.
Don't be in such a hurry!... There now!--my bed's all right, and I
needn't fidget. Clo says so. The old lady is asleep with a stayed pulse,
says Dr. Dalrymple, who has just gone. And anything more beautiful than
that silver hair in the moonlight I never saw. Now I really must begin
at the beginning.
"Clo and I started on our pilgrimage to Sapps Court at half-past three,
without the barest suspicion of anything pending, least of all what I'm
going to tell. Go on. We left Mr. Percival Pellew on the doorstep,
pretending he was going to leave a book for Aunt Constance, and go away.
Such fun! He went upstairs and stopped two hours, and I do believe
they've got to some sort of decorous trothplight. Only A. C. when
accused, only says he has shown unmistakable evidence of something or
other, I forget what. Why on earth need people be such fools? There they
both _are_, and what more _can_ they want? She admits, however, that
there is 'no engagement'! When anybody says _that_, it means they've
been kissing. You ask Irene if it doesn't. Any female, I mean. Now go
on.
"A more secluded little corner of the world than Sapps Court I never
saw! Clo's barouche shot us out at the head of the street it turns out
of, and went to leave a letter at St. John's Wood and be back in half an
hour. We had no idea of a visitation, then. Besides, Clo had to be at
Down Street at half-past five. There is an arch you go in by, and we
nearly stuck and could go neither way. I was sorry to find the houses
looked so respectable, but Clo tells me she can take me to some much
better ones near Drury Lane. Dave, the boy, and his Uncle and Aunt, and
a little sister, Dolly, whom I nearly ate, live in the last house down
the Court. When we arrived Dolly was watering a sunflower, almost
religiously, in the front-garden eight feet deep. It would die vethy
thoon, she said, if neglected. She told us a long screed, about Heaven
knows what--I think it related to the sunflower, which a naughty boy had
chopped froo wiv a knife, and Dave had tighted on, successfully.
"The old prizefighter is just like Dr. Johnson, and I thought he was
going to hug Clo, he was so delighted to see her, and so affectionate.
So was Aunt Maria, a good woman who has lost her looks, but who must
have had some, twenty years ago. I got Dolly on my knee, and _we_ did
the hugging, Dolly telling me secrets deliciously, and tickling. She is
four next birthday, a fact which Aunt Maria thought should have produced
a sort of what the _Maestro_ calls _precisione_. I preferred Dolly as
she was, and we exchanged locks of hair.
"We had only been there a very short time when Uncle Moses suggested
that Dave should fetch a letter he was writing, from 'Old Mrs.
Prichard's Room' upstairs, and Dave--who is a dear little chap of six or
seven or eight--rushed upstairs to get it. I forgot how much I told you
about the family, but I know I said something in yesterday's letter.
Anyhow, 'old Mrs. Prichard' was not new to me, and I was very curious to
see her. So when more than five minutes had passed and no Dave
reappeared, I proposed that Dolly and I should go up to look for him,
and we went, Aunt Maria following in our wake, to cover contingencies.
She went back, after introducing me to the very sweet old lady in a
high-backed chair, who comes in as the explanation of the beginning of
this illegible scrawl. How funny children are! I do believe Uncle Moses
was right when he said that Dave, if anything, preferred his loves to be
'a bit elderly.' I am sure these babies see straight through wrinkles
and decay and toothless gums to the burning soul the old shell
imprisons, and love it. Do you recollect that picture in the Louvre we
both had seen, and thought the same about?--the old man with the sweet
face and the appalling excrescence on the nose, and the little boy's
unflinching love as he looks up at him. Oh, that nose!!! However, there
is nothing of that in old Mrs. Picture, as Dave called her, according to
her own spelling. _Her_ face is simply perfect.... There!--I went in to
look at it again by the moonlight, and I was quite right. And as for her
wonderful old white hair!... I could write for ever about her.
"I think our incursion must have frightened the old soul, because she
had lived up there by herself, except for her woman-friend who is out
all day, and Aunt Maria and the children now and then, since she came to
the house; so that a perfect stranger rushing in lawlessly--well, can't
you fancy? However, she really stood it very well, considering.
"'I have heard of you, ma'am, from Dave. He's told me all about your
rings. Where is the boy?... Haven't you, Dave--told me all about the
lady's rings?'
"Dave came from some absorbing interest at the window, to say:--'It
wasn't her,' with a sweet, impressive candour. He went back immediately.
Something was going on outside. I explained, as I was sharp enough to
guess, that my mother was the lady with the rings. I got into
conversation with the old lady, and we soon became friends. She was very
curious about 'old Mrs. Marrable' in the country. Indeed, I believe
Uncle Mo was not far wrong when he said she was as jealous as any
schoolgirl. It is most amusing, the idea of these two octogenarians
falling out over this small bone of contention!
"While we talked, Dave and Dolly looked out of the window, Dave
constantly supplying bulletins of the something that was going on
without. I could not make it out at first, and his interjections of 'Now
she's took it off'--'Now she's put it on again'--made me think he was
inspecting some lady who was 'trying on' in the opposite house. It
appeared, however, that the thing that was taken off and put on was not
a dress, but some sort of plaister or liniment applied to the face of a
boy, the miscreant who had made a raid on Dave's garden that morning,
and spoiled his sunflower (see _ante_). It was because Dave had become
so engrossed in this that he had not come downstairs again with his
letter.
"The old lady, I am happy to say, was most amiable, and took to me
immensely. I couldn't undertake to say now exactly how we got on such
good terms so quickly. We agreed about the wickedness of that boy,
especially when Dave reported ingratitude on his part towards the
sister, who was tending him, whom he smacked and whose hair he pulled.
To think of his smacking that dear girl that played the piano so nicely
all day! And pulling her back-tails so she called out when she was
actually succouring his lacerated face. I gathered that her name may
have been Matilda, and that she wore plaits.
"'I think her such a nice, dear girl,' said old Mrs. Picture--I like
that name for her--'because she plays the piano all day long, and I sit
here and listen, and think of old times.' I asked a question. 'Why, no,
my dear!--I can't say she knows any tunes. But she plays her scales all
day, very nicely, and makes me think of when my sister and I played
scales--oh, so many years ago! But we played tunes too. I sometimes
think I could teach her "The Harmonious Blacksmith," if only we was a
bit nearer.' I could see in her old face that she was back in the Past,
listening to a memory. How I wished I had a piano to play 'The
Harmonious Blacksmith' for her again!
"I got her somehow to talk of herself and her antecedents, but rather
stingily. She married young and went abroad, but she seemed not to want
to talk about this. I could not press her. She had come back home--from
wherever she was--many years after her husband's death, with an only
son, the survivor of a family of four children. He was a man, not a boy;
at least, he married a year or so after. She 'could not say that he was
dead.' Otherwise, she knew of no living relative. Her means of
livelihood was an annuity 'bought by my poor son before....'--before
something she either forgot to tell, or fought shy of--the last, I
think. 'I'm very happy up here,' she said. 'Only I might not be, if I
was one of those that wanted gaiety. Mrs. Burr she lives with me, and it
costs her no rent, and she sees to me. And my children--I call 'em
mine--come for company, 'most every day. Don't you, Dave?'
"Dave tore himself away from the pleasing spectacle of his enemy in
hospital, and came to confirm this. 'Yorce!' said he, with emphasis. 'Me
and Dolly!' He recited rapidly all the days of the week, an appointment
being imputed to each. But he weakened the force of his rhetoric by
adding:--'Only not some of 'em always!' Mrs. Picture then said:--'But
you love your old granny in the country better than you do me, don't
you, Davy dear?' Whereupon Dave shouted with all his voice:--'I
_doesn't_!' and flushed quite red, indignantly.
"The old lady then said, most unfairly:--'Then which do you love best,
dear child? Because you must love _one_ best, you know!' I thought
Dave's answer ingenious:--'I loves whichever it _is_, best.' If only all
young men were as candid about their loves, wouldn't they say the same?
"Dolly had picked up the recitation of the days of the week for her own
private use, and was repeating it _ad libitum_ in a melodious undertone,
always becoming louder on Flyday, Tackyday, Tunday. She was hanging over
the window-sill watching the surgical case opposite. How glad I am now
when I recollect my impulse to catch the little maid and keep her on my
knee! Dolly's good Angel prompted this, and had a hand in my inspiration
to tell the story of Cinderella, with occasional refrains of song which
I do believe old Mrs. Picture enjoyed as much as the two smalls. I
shudder as I think what it would have been if they had still been at the
window when it came--the thing I have been so long postponing.
"It came without any warning that it would have been possible to act
upon. We might certainly have shouted to those below to stand clear, _if
we had ourselves understood_. But how _could_ we? You can have no idea
how bewildering it was.
"When something you can't explain portends Heavens-know-what, what
on earth can you do? Pretend it's ghosts, and very curious and
interesting? I think I might have done so this time, when an alarming
noise set all our nerves on the jar. It was not a noise capable of
description--something like Behemoth hiccuping goes nearest. Only I
didn't want to frighten the babies, so I said nothing about the ghosts.
Dolly said it wasn't her--an obvious truth. Old Mrs. Picture said it
must have been her chair--an obvious fallacy. She then deserted her
theory and suggested that Dave should 'go down and see if anything was
broken,' which Dave immediately started to do, much excited.
"I felt very uncomfortable and creepy, for it recalled the shock of
earthquake Papa and I were in at Pisa two years ago--it is a feeling one
never gets over, that _terremotitis_, as Papa called it. I believe I was
more alarmed than Dolly, and as for Dave, I am sure that so far he
thought the whole thing the best fun imaginable. Picture to yourself, as
he slams the door behind him and shouts his message to the world below,
that I remain seated facing the light, while Dolly on my knee listens
to a postscript of Cinderella. My eyes are fixed on the beauty of the
old side-face I see against the light. Get this image clear, and then I
will tell you what followed.
"Even as I sat looking at the old lady, that noise came again, and
plaster came tumbling down from the ceiling, obscuring the window
behind. As I fixed my eyes upon it, falling, I saw beyond it what really
made me think at first that I was taking leave of my senses. The houses
opposite seemed to shoot straight up into the air, as though they were
reflections in a mirror which had fallen forward. An instant after, I
saw what had happened. It was the window that was moving, not the
houses.
"It was so odd! I had time to see all this and change my mind, before
the great crash came to explain what had happened. For until the roar of
a cataract of disintegrated brickwork, followed by a cloud of choking
dust, showed that the wall of the room had fallen outwards, leaving the
world clear cut and visible under a glorious afternoon sky until that
dust-cloud came and veiled it, I could not have said what the thing was,
or why. There seemed to be time--good solid time!--between the sudden
day-blaze and the crash below, and I took advantage of it to wonder what
on earth was happening.
"Then I knew it all in an instant, and saw in another instant that the
ceiling was sagging down; for aught I knew, under the weight of a
falling roof.
"Old Mrs. Picture was not frightened at all. 'You get this little Dolly
safe, my dear,' said she to me. 'I can get myself as far as the landing.
But don't you fret about me. I'm near my time.' She seemed quite alive
to the fact that the house was falling, but at eighty, what did that
matter? She added quite quietly:--'It's owing to the repairs.' Dolly
suddenly began to weep, panic-struck.
"I saw that Mrs. Picture could not rise from her chair, though she
tried. But what could I do? Any attempt of mine to pick her up and carry
her would only have led to delay. I saw it would be quicker to get help,
and ran for it, overtaking Dave on the stairs.
"Below was chaos. The kitchen where I had left my cousin talking with
Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud
of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door,
which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an
avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt
Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand
clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with
marvellous alacrity for a man of his years, and no consideration at all
for glass or crockery. I felt sick, you may fancy, when it came home to
me that someone was crying aloud with pain, buried under that heap of
fallen brickwork.
"But we could be of no use yet a while, so I told Clo and Aunt Maria to
come upstairs and help to get the old lady down. They did as they were
bid, being, in fact, terrified out of their wits, and quite unable to
make suggestions. A male voice came from within the room where I had
just left Mrs. Picture by herself. I took it quite as a matter of
course.
"'You keep out on that landing, some of you, till I tell you to come in.
This here floor won't carry more than my weight.' This was what I heard
a man say, speaking from where the window had been, mysteriously. I was
aware that he had stepped from some ladder on to the floor of the room,
jumping on it recklessly as though to test its bearing power. Then that
he had gathered up my old new acquaintance in a bundle, carefully made
in a few seconds, and had said:--'Come along down!' to all whom it might
concern. He shepherded us, all three women and the two children, into a
back-bedroom below, and went away, leaving his bundle on the bed;
saying, after glancing round at the cornice:--'You'll be safe enough
here for a bit, just till we can see our way.' He had a peculiar hat or
cap, and I saw that he was a fireman. I did not know that firemen held
any intercourse with human creatures. It appears that they do
occasionally, under reserves.
"Then it was that I became alarmed about my old lady. Her face had lost
what colour it had, and her finger-tips had become blue and lifeless.
But she spoke, faintly enough, although quite clearly, always urging us
to go to a safer place, and leave her to her luck. This was, of course,
nonsense. Nor was there any safer place to go to, so far as I understood
the position. Aunt Maria went down to find brandy, if possible, in the
heart of the confusion below. She found half a wineglassful somewhere,
and brought back with it a report of progress. They had to be cautious
in removing the rubbish, so that no worse should come to the sufferer it
had half buried. We kept it from the old lady that this was her
fellow-lodger, Mrs. Burr, and made her take some brandy, whether she
liked it or no. I then went down to see for myself, and Clo came too.
"The police had taken prompt possession of the Court, and only a
limited force of volunteers were allowed to share in the removal of the
rubbish. Uncle Mo and the fireman, who seemed to be a personal friend,
were attacking the ruin from within, throwing the loose bricks back into
the kitchen, and working for the dear life.
"As we came in they halted, in obedience to, 'Easy a minute, you inside
there. Gently does it,' from the spontaneous leading mind, whoever he
was, without. Uncle Mo, streaming with perspiration, and forgetful of
social niceties, turned to me saying:--'You go back, my dear, you go
back! 'Tain't for you to see. You go back!' I replied:--'Nonsense, Mr.
Wardle! What do you take me for?' For had I not stood beside _you_, my
darling, when you lay dead in the Park?
"I could see what had taken place. The woman had been just about to
knock at the door when the wall fell from above. Nothing had struck her
direct, else she would almost surely have been killed. The ruin had
fallen far enough from the house to avoid this, but the recoil of its
disintegration (I'm so proud of that expression) had jammed her against
the wall and choked the door.... I'm so sleepy I can't write another
word."
* * * * *
No doubt the sequel described how Mrs. Burr, rescued alive, but
insensible, was borne away on a stretcher to the Hospital, and how the
party were released from the house, whose complete collapse must have
presented itself to their excited imaginations as more than a
possibility. No doubt also obscure points were made plain; as, for
instance, the one which is prominent in the short newspaper report,
which runs as follows:--"A singular fall of brickwork, the consequences
of which might easily have proved fatal, occurred on Thursday last at
Sapps Court, Marylebone, when the greater part of the front-wall of No.
7 fell forward into the street, blocking the main entrance and causing
for a time the greatest alarm to the inhabitants, who, however, were all
ultimately rescued uninjured. A remarkable circumstance was that the
cloud of dust raised by the shower of loose brickwork was taken for
smoke and was sufficient to cause an alarm of fire; as a matter of fact,
two engines had arrived before the circumstances were explained. The
mistake was not altogether unfortunate, as an escape ladder which was
passing at the time was of use in reaching the upper floors, whose
tenants were at one time in considerable danger. A sempstress, Mrs.
Susan Burr, living upstairs, was returning home at the moment of the
calamity, and was severely injured by the falling brickwork, but no
serious result is anticipated. A costermonger of the name of Rackstraw
also received some severe contusions, but if we may trust the report of
his son, an intelligent lad of thirteen, he is very little the worse by
his misadventure."
Although "no serious result was anticipated" in Mrs. Burr's case--in the
newspaper sense of the words, which referred to the Coroner--the results
were serious enough to Mrs. Burr. She was disabled from work
indefinitely, and was too much damaged to hope to leave the Hospital,
for weeks at any rate. A relative was found, ready to take charge of her
when that time should arrive, but apparently not ready to disclose her
own name. For, so far as can be ascertained, she was never spoken of at
Sapps Court otherwise than as "Mrs. Burr's married niece."
Mr. Bartlett was on the spot, within an hour, taking measures for the
immediate safety of the inmates, and his own ultimate pecuniary
advantage. He pointed out it was quite unnecessary for anyone to turn
out of the rooms below, although he admitted that the open air had got
through the top story. His immediate resources were quite equal to a
temporary arrangement practicable in a couple of hours or so. A
contrivance of inconceivable slightness, involving no drawbacks whatever
to families occupying the premises it was engendered in, was necessary
to hold the roof up tempory, for fear it should come with a run. It was
really a'most nothing in the manner of speaking. You just shoved a
len'th of quartering into each room, all down the house to the bottom,
with a short scaffold-board top and bottom to distribute out the weight,
and tapped 'em across with a 'ammer, and there you were! The top one
ketched the roof coming down, and you had no need to be apprehensive,
because it would take a tidy weight--double what Mr. Bartlett was going
to put upon it.
This was a security against a complete collapse of the roof and upper
floor, but if it come on heavy rain, what would keep Aunt M'riar's room
dry? She and Dolly could not sleep in a puddle. Mr. Bartlett, however,
pledged himself to make all that good with a few yards of tarpauling,
and Aunt M'riar and Dolly went to bed, with sore misgivings as to
whether they would wake alive next day. Dolly woke in the night and
screamed with terror at what she conceived was a spectre from the grave,
but which was really nothing but a short length of scaffold-pole
standing upright at the foot of her bed.
This was bad enough, but it further appeared next day that a new floor
would be _de rigueur_ overhead in Mrs. Prichard's room. Not only were
sundry timber balks shoved up against the house outside so they couldn't
constitoot a hindrance to anyone--so Mr. Bartlett said when he giv' in a
price for the job--but the street-door wouldn't above half shet to, and
all the windows had to be seen to. Add to this afflictions from
tarpaulings that would keep you bone-dry even if there come a
thunderstorm--or perhaps, properly speaking, that would have done so
only they were just a trifle wore at critical points--and smells of damp
plaster that quite took away the relish from your food, and you will
form some idea what remaining in the house during the repairs meant to
Uncle Mo and his belongings.
Not that Dolly and Dave took their sufferings to heart much. The
novelties of the position went far to compensate them for its drawbacks.
One supreme grief there was for them, certainly. The avalanche of
brickwork had destroyed, utterly and irrevocably, that cherished
sunflower. They had clung to a lingering hope that, as soon as the
claims of humanity had been discharged by the rescue of the victims of
the catastrophe, the attention of the rescuers would be directed to
carefully removing the _débris_ from above their buried treasure. They
were shocked at the callous indifference shown to its fate. It was an
early revelation of the heartlessness of mankind. Nevertheless, the
shattered sunflower was recovered in the end, and Dolly took it to bed
with her, and cried herself to sleep over it.
* * * * *
So it seemed impossible for Dave and Dolly, and their uncle and aunt,
all to remain on in the half-wrecked house. But then--where had they to
go to? It was clear that Dolly and her aunt would have to turn out, and
the only resource seemed to be that they should go away for a while to
her grandmother's, an old lady at Ealing, who existed, but went no
further. She had never entered Sapps Court, but her daughters, Aunt
M'riar and Dolly's mother, had paid her dutiful visits. There was no
ill-feeling--none whatever! So to Ealing Aunt M'riar went, two or three
days later, and Dave went too, although he was convinced Uncle Mo
couldn't do without him.
The old boy himself remained in residence, being fed by The Rising Sun;
which sounds like poetry, but relates to chops and sausages and a
half-a-pint, a monotonous dietary on which he subsisted until his family
returned a month later to a reinstated mansion. He lived a good deal at
The Sun during this period, relying on the society of his host and his
friend Jerry. His retrospective chats with the latter recorded his
impressions of the event which had deprived him of his household, and
left him a childless wanderer on the surface of Marylebone.
"Red-nosed Tommy," said he, referring to Mr. Bartlett, "he wouldn't have
put in that bit of bressemer to ketch up those rotten joists over
M'riar's room if I hadn't told him. We should just have had the floor
come through and p'r'aps my little maid and M'riar squashed dead right
off. You see, they would have took it all atop, and no mistake. Pore
Susan got it bad enough, but it wasn't a dead squelch in her case. It
come sideways." Uncle Mo emptied his pipe on the table, and thoughtfully
made the ash do duty first for Mrs. Burr, and then for Aunt M'riar and
Dolly, by means of a side-push and a top-squash with his finger. He
looked at the last result sadly as he refilled his pipe--a
hypothetically bereaved man. Dolly might have been as flat as that!
"How's Susan Burr getting on?" asked Mr. Alibone.
"That's according to how much money you're inclined to put on the
doctors. Going by looks only--what M'riar says--she don't give the idea
of coming to time. Only then, there's Sister Nora--Miss Grahame they
call her now; very nice lady--she's on the doctor's side, and says Mrs.
Burr means to pull round. Hope so!"
"How's Carrots--Carrots senior--young Radishes' dad?"
"Oh--him? _He's_ all right. He ain't the sort to take to bein' doctored.
He's getting about again."
"I thought a bit of wall came down on him."
"Came down bodily, he says. But it don't foller that it did, because he
says so. Anyhow, he got a hard corner of his nut against it. _He_ ain't
delicate. He says he'll have it out of the landlord--action for
damages--wilful neglect--'sorlt and battery--that kind o' thing!"
"Won't Mrs. Burr?"
"Couldn't say--don't know if a woman counts. But it don't matter. Sister
Nora, she'll see to _her_. Goes to see her every day. She or the other
one. I say, Jerry!..."
"What say, old Mo?"
"You haven't seen the other one."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" Mr. Jerry spoke perceptively, appreciatively.
For Uncle Mo, by partly closing one eye, and slightly varying the
expression of his lips, had contrived somehow to convey the idea that he
was speaking of dazzling beauty, not by any means unadorned.
"I tell you this, Jerry, and you can believe me or not, as you like. If
I was a young feller, I'd hang about Hy' Park all day long only to get a
squint at her. My word!--there's nothing to come anigh her--ever I saw!
And there she was, a-kissing our little Dolly, like e'er a one of us!"
"What do you make out her name to be?" said Mr. Jerry.
"Sister Nora called her _Gwen_," replied Mo, speaking the name
mechanically but firmly. "But what the long for that may be, I couldn't
say. 'Tain't Gwenjamin, anyhow." He stopped to light his pipe.
"It was this young ladyship that carried off old Prichard in a two-horse
carriage, I take it."
Uncle Mo nodded. "Round to Sister Nora's--in Cavendish Square--with a
black Statute stood upright--behind palin's. M'riar she's been round to
see the old lady there, being told to. And seemin'ly this here young
Countess"--Uncle Mo seemed to object to using this word--"she's a-going
to carry the old lady off to the Towels, where she lives when she's at
home...."
"The Towels? Are you sure it isn't _Towers_? Much more likely!"
Uncle Mo made a mental note about Jerry, that he was tainted with John
Bull's love of a lord. How could anything but a reverent study of
Debrett have given such an insight into the names of Nobs' houses? "It
don't make any odds, that I can see!" was his comment. The correction,
however, resulted in an incumbrance to his speech, as he was only half
prepared to concede the point. He continued:--"She's a-going, as I
understand from M'riar, to pack off Mrs. Prichard to this here Towels,
or Towers, accordin' as we call it. And, as I make it out, she'll keep
her there till so be as Mr. Bartlett gets through the repairs. Or she'll
send her back to a lodgin'; or not, as may be. Either, or eye-ther."
Having thus, as it were, saturated his speech with freedom of
alternative, Uncle Mo dismissed the subject, in favour of Gwen's beauty.
"But--to look at her!" said he. The old man was quite in love.
Mr. Jerry disturbed his contemplation of the image Gwen had left him.
"How long does Bartlett mean to be over the job?" he asked.
"He means to complete in a month. If you trust his word. I can't say I
do."
"When _will_ he complete, Mo? That's the question. What's the answer?"
"The Lord alone knows." Uncle Mo shook his head solemnly. But he
recalled his words. "No--He don't! Even the Devil don't know. I tell you
this, Jerry--there never was a buildin' job finished at any time spoke
of aforehand. It's always _after_ any such a time. And if you jump on
for to catch it up, it's _afterer_."
"Best to hold one's tongue about it, eh? Anyway, the old lady's got a
berth for a time. Rum story! She'd have been put to it if it hadn't been
for the turn things took. When's she to go?"
"To these here Towels, or Towers, whichever you call 'em? M'riar didn't
spot that. When she's took back, I suppose. When the young lady goes."
"What'll your young customer say to Mrs. Prichard being gone, when his
aunt brings him back?"
Uncle Mo seemed to cogitate over this. He had not perhaps been fully
alive to the disappointment in store for Dave when he came back and
found no Mrs. Picture at Sapps Court. Poor little man! The old
prizefighter's tender heart was touched on his boy's behalf. But after
all there would be worse trials than this on the rough road of life for
Dave. "He'll have to lump it, I expect, Jerry," said he. "Besides, Mrs.
P., she'll come back as soon as the new plaster's dry. She's not going
to stop at the Towels--Towers--whatever they are!--for a thousand
years."
CHAPTER XXXI
HOW GWEN GOT AT MRS. PRICHARD's HISTORY, OR SOME OF IT. ONE CRIME
MORE OF HER SON'S. THE WALLS OF TROY, AND THOSE OF SAPPS COURT.
AUNT M'RIAR'S VISIT OF INSPECTION. HOW SHE CALLED ON MRS.
RAGSTROAR, WHO SENT HER SECRETIVE SON ROUND. HIS MESSAGE FROM MR.
WIX. WHO WAS COMING TO SEE HIS MOTHER, UNLESS SHE WAS SOMEBODY
ELSE. A MESSAGE TO MR. WIX, UNDERTAKEN BY MICHAEL. UNCLE MO's JOY
AT THE PROSPECT OF DAVE AND DOLLY
How very improbable the Actual would sometimes feel, were it not for our
knowledge of the events which led up to it!
Nothing could have been more improbable _per se_ than that old Mrs.
Prichard, upstairs at No. 7, down Sapps Court, should become the guest
of the Earl and Countess of Ancester, at The Towers in Rocestershire.
But a number of improbable antecedent events combined to make it
possible, and once its possibility was established, it only needed one
more good substantial improbability to make it actual. Gwen's
individuality was more than enough to supply this. But just think what
a succession of coincidences and strange events had preceded the demand
for it!
To our thinking the New Mud wanted for Dave's _barrage_ was responsible
for the whole of it. But for that New Mud, Dave would not have gone to
the Hospital. But for the Hospital, he would never have excited a tender
passion in the breast of Sister Nora; would never have visited Granny
Marrowbone; would never have been sought for by The Aristocracy at his
residence in Sapps Court. Some may say that at this point nothing else
would have occurred but for the collapse of Mr. Bartlett's brickwork,
and that therefore the rarity of sound bricks in that conglomerate was
the _vera causa_ of the events that followed. But why not equally the
imperfection of old Stephen's aim at Achilles? If he had killed
Achilles, it is ten to one Gwen would have gone abroad with her mother,
instead of being spirited away to Cavendish Square by her cousin in
order that she should thereby become entangled in slums. Or for that
matter, why not the death of the Macganister More? Had he been living
still, Cousin Clo would never have visited Ancester Towers at all.
No--no! Depend upon it, it was the New Mud. But then, Predestination
would have been dreadfully put out of temper if, instead of imperious
impulsive Gwen, ruling the roast and the boiled, and the turbot with
_mayonnaise_, and everything else for that matter, some young woman who
could be pulverised by a reproof for Quixotism had been her understudy
for the part, and she herself had had mumps or bubonic plague at the
time of the accident. In that case Predestination would hardly have
known which way to turn, to get at some sort of compromise or
accommodation that would square matters. For there can be no reasonable
doubt that what did take place was quite in order, and that--broadly
speaking--everyone had signed his name over the pencil marks, and filled
in his witness's name and residence, in the Book of Fate. If Gwen's
understudy had been called on, there would have been--to borrow a
favourite expression of Uncle Mo's--a pretty how-do-you-do, on the part
of Predestination.
Fortunately no such thing occurred, and Predestination's powers of
evasion were not put to the test. The Decrees of Fate were fulfilled as
usual, and History travelled on the line of least resistance, to the
great gratification of The Thoughtful Observer. In the case of lines of
compliance with the will of Gwen, there was no resistance at all. Is
there ever any, when a spoiled young beauty is ready to kiss the
Arbiters of Destiny as a bribe, rather than give way about a whim,
reasonable or unreasonable?
And, after all, so many improbabilities having converged towards
creating the situation, there was nothing so very unreasonable in Gwen's
whim that old Mrs. Picture should go back with her to the Towers. It was
only the natural solution of a difficulty in a conjunction of
circumstances which could not have varied materially, unless Gwen and
her cousin had devolved the charge of the old lady on some
Institution--say the Workhouse Infirmary--or a neighbour, or had
forsaken her altogether. They preferred carrying her off, as the story
has seen, in a semi-insensible state from the shock, to their haven in
Cavendish Square. Next day an arrangement was made which restored to
Gwen--who had slept on a sofa, when she was not writing the letter
quoted in the foregoing text--the couch she had insisted on dedicating
to "Old Mrs. Picture," as she continued to call her.
* * * * *
It was very singular that Gwen, who had seen the old twin sister--as
_we_ know her to have been--should have fallen so in love with the one
whose acquaintance she last made. The story can only accept the fact
that it was so, without speculating on its possible connection with the
growth of a something that is not the body. It may appear--or may
not--to many, that, in old Maisie's life, a warp of supreme love,
shuttle-struck by a weft of supreme pain, had clothed her soul, as it
were, in a garment unlike her sister's; a garment some eyes might have
the gift of seeing, to which others might be blind. Old Granny Marrable
had had her share of trouble, no doubt; but Fate had shown her fair
play. Just simple everyday Death!--maternity troubles lived through in
shelter; nursing galore, certainly--who escapes it? Of purse troubles,
debts and sordid plagues, a certain measure no doubt, for who escapes
_them_? But to that life of hers the scorching fires that had worked so
hard to slay her sister's heart, and failed so signally, had never
penetrated. Indeed, the only really acute grief of her placid life had
been the supposed death of this very sister, now so near her, unknown.
Still, Gwen might, of course, have taken just as strongly to Granny
Marrable if some slight chance of their introduction had happened
otherwise.
The old lady remained at Cavendish Square three weeks, living chiefly in
an extra little room, which had been roughly equipped for service, to
cover the contingency. As Miss Lutwyche seemed to fight shy of the task,
Maggie, the Scotch servant, took her in hand, grooming her carefully and
exhibiting her as a sort of sweet old curiosity picked up out of a
dustheap, and now become the possession of a Museum. Aunt Constance, who
kept an eye of culture on Maggie's dialect, reported that she had said
of the old lady, that she was a "douce auld luckie": and that she stood
in need of no "bonny-wawlies and whigmaleeries," which, Miss Grahame
said, meant that she had no need of artificial decoration. She was very
happy by herself, reading any easy book with big enough print. And
though she was probably not so long without the society of grown people
as she had often been at Sapps Court, she certainly missed Dave and
Dolly. But she seemed pleased and gratified on being told that Dave was
not gone, and was at present not going, anywhere near old Mrs. Marrable
in the country.
The young lady broached her little scheme to her venerable friend, or
_protégée_, as soon as it became clear that a return to the desolation
to which Mr. Bartlett had converted Sapps Court might be a serious
detriment to her health. Mr. Bartlett himself admitted the facts, but
disputed the inferences to be drawn from them. Yes--there was, and there
would be, a trifle of myesture hanging round; nothing in itself, but
what you might call traces of ewaporation. You saw similar phenomena in
sinks, and at the back of cesterns. But you never come across anyone the
worse for 'em. He himself benefited by a hatmosphere, as parties called
it nowadays, such as warn't uncommon in basements of unoccupied
premises, and in morasses. But you were unable to account for other
people's constitutions not being identical in all respects with your
own. Providence was inscrutable, and you had to look at the symptoms.
These were the only guides vouchsafed to us. He would, however, wager
that as soon as the paperhanger was out of the house and the plaster
giv' a chance to 'arden, all the advantages of a bone-dry residence
would be enjoyed by an incoming tenant.
Portions of this opinion leaked out during a visit of Aunt M'riar to
Mrs. Prichard, at Cavendish Square, she having come from Ealing by the
'bus to overhaul the position with Uncle Mo, and settle whether she and
Dave and Dolly could return next week with safety. They had decided in
the negative, and Mr. Bartlett had said it was open to them to soote
themselves. Uncle Mo's sleeping-room had, of course, been spared by the
accident, so he only suffered from a clammy and depressing flavour that
wouldn't hang about above a day or two. At least, Mr. Bartlett said so.
Gwen treated the idea that Mrs. Prichard should so much as talk about
returning to her quarters, with absolute derision.
"I'm going to keep you here and see you properly looked after, Mrs.
Picture, till I go to the Towers. And then I shall just take you with
me." For she had installed the name Picture as the old lady's working
designation with such decision that everyone else accepted it, though
one or two used it in inverted commas. "I always have my own way," she
added with a full, rich laugh that Lord William Bentinck might have
heard on his black pedestal in the Square below.
Aunt M'riar departed, not to be too late for her 'bus, and Gwen stayed
for a chat. She often spent half an hour with the old lady, trying
sometimes to get at more of her past history, always feeling that she
was met by reticence, never liking to press roughly for information.
The two thin old palms that had once been a beautiful young girl's
closed on the hand that was even now scarcely in its fullest glory of
life, as its owner's eyes looked down into the old eyes that had never
lost their sweetness. The old voice spoke first. "Why--oh why," it said,
"are you so kind to me? My dear!"
"Is it strange that I should be kind to you?" said Gwen, speaking
somewhat to herself. Then louder, as though she had been betrayed into a
claim to benevolence, and was ashamed:--"The kindness comes to very
little, when all's said and done. Besides, you can ..." She paused a
moment, taking in the pause a seat beside the arm-chair, without loosing
the hand she held; then made her speech complete:--"Besides, you can pay
it all back, you know!"
"I pay! How can I pay it back?"
"You can. I'm quite in earnest. You can pay me back everything I can do
for you--everything and more--by telling me.... Now, you mustn't be put
out, you know, if I tell you what it is." Gwen was rather frightened at
her own temerity.
"My dear--just fancy! Why should I want you not to know--anything I can
tell, if I can remember it to tell you? What is it?"
"How you come to be living in Sapps Court. And why you are so poor.
Because you _are_ poor."
"No, I have a pound a week still. I have been better off--yes! I have
been well off."
"But how came you to live in Sapps Court?"
"How came I?... Let me see!... I came there from Skillicks, at
Sevenoaks, where I was last. Six shillings was too much for me alone. It
is only seven-and-sixpence at Sapps for both of us. It was through poor
Susan Burr that I came there. To think of her in the Hospital!"
"She's going on very nicely to-day. I went to see her with my cousin. Go
on. It was through her?..."
"Through her I came to Sapps. She wanted to be in town for her work, and
found Sapps. She had no furniture, or just a bed. And I had been able to
keep mine. Then, you see, I wanted a helping hand now and again, and she
had her sight, and could make shift to keep order in the place. I had
every comfort, be sure!" This was spoken with roused emphasis, as though
to dissipate uneasiness about herself.
"I saw you had some nice furniture," said Gwen. "I was on the look out
for your desk, where Dave's letters were written."
"Yes, it's mahogany. I was frightened about it, for fear it should be
scratched. But Davy's Aunt Maria was saying Mr. Bartlett's men had been
very civil and careful, and all the furniture was safe in the bedroom at
the back, and the door locked."
"But where did the furniture come from?"
"From the house."
"The house where you lived with your husband?"
The old woman started. "Oh no! Oh no--no! All that was long--long ago."
She shrank from disinterring all but the most recent past.
But it was the deeper stratum of oblivion that had to be reached,
without dynamite if possible. "I see," Gwen said. "Your own house after
his death?"
Memory was restive, evidently--rather resented the inquiry. Still, a
false inference could not be left uncorrected. "Neither my husband's nor
mine," was the answer. "It was my son's house, after my husband's
death." Its tone meant plainly:--"I tell you this, for truth's sake.
But, please, no more questions!"
Gwen's idea honestly was to drop the curtain, and her half-dozen words
were meant for the merest epilogue. When she said:--"And he is dead,
too?" she only wanted to round off the conversation. She was shocked
when the two delicate old hands hers lay between closed upon it almost
convulsively, and could hardly believe she heard rightly the articulate
sob, rather than speech, that came from the old lady's lips.
"Oh, I hope so--I hope so!"
"Dear Mrs. Picture, you _hope_ so?" For Gwen could not reconcile this
with the ideal she had formed of the speaker. At least, she could not be
happy now without an explanation.
Then she saw that it would come, given time and a sympathetic listener.
"Yes, my dear, I hope so. For what is his life to him--my son--if he is
alive? The best I can think of for him, is that he is long dead."
"Was he mad or bad?"
"Both, I hope. Perhaps only mad. Then he would be neither bad nor good.
But he was lost for me, and we were well apart: before he was"--she
hesitated--"sent away...."
"Sent away! Yes--where?"
"I ought not to tell you this ... but will you promise me?..."
"To tell no one? Yes--I promise."
"I know you will keep your promise." The old lady kept on looking into
the beautiful eyes fixed on hers, still caressing the hand she held, and
said, after a few moments' silence:--"He was sent to penal servitude,
not under his own name. They said his name was ... some short name ...
at the trial. That was at Bristol." Then, after another pause, as though
she had read Gwen's thoughts in her scared, speechless face:--"It was
all right. He deserved his sentence."
"Oh, I am so glad!" Gwen was quite relieved. "I was afraid he was
innocent. I thought he could not be guilty, because of you. But was he
really wicked--_bad_, I mean--as well as legally guilty?"
"I like to hope that he was mad. The offence that sent him to Norfolk
Island was scarcely a wicked one. It was only burglary, and it was a
Bank." The old face looked forgiving over this, but set itself in lines
of fixed anger as she added:--"It was not like the thing that parted
us."
"You wish not to tell me that?"
"My dear, it is not a thing for you to hear." The gentleness of the
speaker averted the storm of indignation and contempt which similar
expressions of the correctitudes had more than once excited in this
rebellious young lady.
But Gwen felt at liberty to laugh a little at them, or could not resist
the temptation to do so. "Oh dear!" she cried. "Am I a new-born baby, to
be kept packed in cotton-wool, and not allowed to hear this and hear
that? Do, dear Mrs. Picture--you don't mind my calling you by Dave's
name?--do tell me what it was that parted you and your son. _I_ shall
understand you. I'm not Mary that had a little lamb."
"Well, my dear, when I was about your age, before I was married, I'm not
at all sure that _I_ should have understood. Perhaps that is really the
reason why I took the girl's part...."
"Why you took the girl's part?" said Gwen, who had _not_ understood, so
far, and was puzzled at the expression.
"Yes. I believed her story. They tried to throw the blame on her; he
did, himself. My dear, it was his cowardice and treachery that made me
hate him. You are shocked at that?"
"No--at least, I mean, I don't believe you meant it."
"I meant it at the time, my dear. And I counted him as dead, and tried
to forget him. But it is hard for a mother to forget her son."
"I should have thought so." Gwen was not quite happy about old Mrs.
Picture's inner soul. How about a possible cruel corner in it?
The old lady seemed to suspect this question's existence, unexpressed.
Apology in her voice hinted at need of forgiveness--pleaded against
condemnation. "But," she said, after a faltered word or two, short of
speech, "you do not know, my dear, how bad a man can be. How should
you?"
Perhaps the tone of her voice threw a light on some obscurity accepted
ambiguities had left. For Gwen said, rather suddenly: "You need not tell
me any more. You have told me plenty and I understand it." And so she
did, for working purposes, though perhaps some latitudes in the sea of
this Ralph Daverill's iniquities were by her unexplored and
unexplorable.
This particular atrocity of his has no interest for the story, beyond
the fact that it was the one that led to his separation from his mother,
and that it accounts for the very slight knowledge that she seems to
have had of the details of his conviction and deportation. It must have
happened between his desertion of his lawful wife, Dave's Aunt M'riar,
and his ill-advised attempt at burglary. Whether his offence against
"the girl" whose part his mother took was made the subject of a criminal
indictment is not certain, but if it was he must have escaped with a
slight punishment, to be able to give his attention to the strong room
of that Bank so soon after. Those who are inclined to think that his
mother was unforgiving towards her own son, to the extent of
vindictiveness, may find an excuse for her in a surmise which some facts
connected with the case made plausible, that he adduced some childish
levities on this girl's part as a warrant for his atrocious behaviour
towards her, and so escaped legal penalty. Those who know with what
alacrity male jurymen will accept evasions of this sort, will admit that
this is at least possible.
This is conjecture, by the way, as Gwen asked to know no more of the
incident, seeming to shrink from further knowledge of it in fact. She
allowed it to pass out of the conversation, retaining the pleasant and
wholesome attempt to redistribute the Bank's property as at least fit
for discussion, and even pardonable--an act due to a mistaken economic
theory--redistribution of property by a free lance, not wearing the
uniform of a School of Political Thought.
"But how long was his term of service?" she asked, coming back into the
fresher air of mere housebreaking.
"I am afraid it was for fourteen years. But I have never known. I can
hardly believe it now, but I know it is true for all that, that he was
convicted and transported without the trial coming to my ears at the
time. I only knew that he had disappeared, and thought it was by his own
choice. And what means had I of finding him, if I had wanted to? _That_
I never did."
"Because of ... because of the girl?"
"Because of the girl Emma.... Oh yes! I was his mother, but ..." She
stopped short. Her meaning was clear; some sons would cripple the
strongest mother's love.
"Then you had to give up the house," said Gwen, to help her away from
the memory that stung her, vividly.
"I gave it up and sold the furniture, all but one or two bits I kept by
me--Dave Wardle's desk, and the arm-chair. I went to a lodging at
Sidcup--a pretty place with honeysuckles round my window. I lived there
a many years, and had friends. Then the railway came, and they pulled
the cottage down--Mrs. Hutchinson's. And all the folk I knew were driven
away--went to America, many of them; all the Hutchinsons went. I
remember that time well. But oh dear--the many moves I had after that! I
cannot tell them all one from another...."
"It tires you to talk. Never mind now. Tell me another time."
"No--I'm not tired. I can talk. Where was I? Oh--the lodgings! I moved
many times--the last time to Sapps Court, not so very long ago. I made
friends with Mrs. Burr at Skillicks, as I told you."
"And that is what made you so poor?"
"Yes. I have only a few hundred pounds of my own, an annuity--it comes
to sixty pounds a year. I have learned how to make it quite enough for
me." Nevertheless, thought Gwen to herself, the good living in her
temporary home in Cavendish Square had begun to tell favourably. Enough
is seldom as good as a feast on sixty pounds a year. The old lady
seemed, however, to dismiss the subject, going on with something
antecedent to it:--"You see now, my dear, why I said 'I hope.' What
could the unhappy boy be to me, or I to him? But I shall never know
where he died, nor when."
Gwen tried to get at more about her past; but, at some point antecedent
to this parting from her son, she seemed to become more reserved, or
possibly she had overtasked her strength by so much talk. Gwen noticed
that, in all she had told her, she had not mentioned a single name of a
person. Some slight reference to Australia, which she had hoped would
lead naturally to more disclosure, seemed rather, on second thoughts, to
furnish a landmark or limit, with the inscription: "Thus far and no
farther." You--whoever you are, reading this--may wonder why Gwen, who
had so lately heard of Australia, and Mrs. Marrable's sister who went
there over half-a-century ago, did not forthwith put two and two
together, and speculate towards discovery of the truth. It may be
strange to you to be told that she _was_ reminded of old Mrs. Marrable's
utterance of the word "Australia" when old Mrs. Prichard spoke it, and
simply let the recollection drop idly, _because_ it was so unlikely the
two two's would add up. To be sure, she had quite forgotten, at the
moment, _what_ the old Granny at Chorlton had said about the Antipodes.
It is only in books that people remember all through, quite to the end.
Bear this in mind, that this sisterhood of Maisie and Phoebe was
entrenched in its own improbability, and that one antecedent belief of
another mind at least would have been needed to establish it. A hint, a
suggestion, might have capitalised a dozen claims to having said so all
along. But all was primeval silence. There was not a murmur in Space to
connect the two.
* * * * *
Mr. Bartlett, the builder, after inspecting the collapse of the wall,
lost no time in drawing up a contract to reinstate same and make good
roof, replacing all defective work with new where necessary; only in his
haste to come to his impressive climax--"the work to be done to the
satisfaction of yourself or your Surveyor for the sum of £99.8.4
(ninety-nine pounds eight shillings and fourpence),"--he spelt this last
word _nesseracy_. He called on the landlord, the gentleman of
independent means at Brixton, with this document in his pocket and a
strong conviction of his own honesty in his face, and pointed out that
what he said all along had come to pass. As his position had been that
unless the house was rebuilt--by him--at great expense, it was pretty
sure to come tumbling down, as these here old houses mostly did, it was
difficult for the gentleman of independent means to gainsay him,
especially as the latter's wife became a convert to Mr. Bartlett on the
spot. It was his responsible and practical manner that did it. She
directed her husband--a feeble sample of the manhood of Brixton--not to
set up his judgment against that of professional experience, but to
affix his signature forthwith to the document made and provided. He
said weakly:--"I suppose I must." The lady said:--"Oh dear, no!--he must
do as he liked." He naturally surrendered at discretion, and an almost
holy expression of contentment stole over Mr. Bartlett's countenance,
superseding his complexion, which otherwise was apt to remain on the
memory after its outlines were forgotten.
To return once more to the drying of the premises after their
reconstruction. The accepted view seemed to be that as soon as Mr.
Bartlett and his abettors cleared out and died away, the walls would
begin to dry, and would make up for lost time. Everyone seemed inclined
to palliate this backwardness in the walls, and to feel that they,
themselves, had they been in a like position, could not have done much
drying--with all them workmen in and out all day; just think!
But now a new era had dawned, and what with letting the air through, and
setting alight to a bit of fire now and again, and the season keeping
mild and favourable, with only light frosts in the early morning--only
what could you expect just on to Christmas?--there seemed grounds for
the confidence that these walls would do themselves credit, and yield up
their chemically uncombined water by evaporation. HO2, who existed in
those days, was welcome to stay where he was.
However, these walls refused to come to the scratch on any terms. Homer
is silent as to how long the walls of Ilium took to dry; they must have
been wet if they were built by Neptune. But one may be excused for
doubting if they took as long as wet new plaster does, in premises
parties are waiting to come into, and getting impatient, in London.
Ascribe this laxity of style to the historian's fidelity to his sources
of information.
Not that it would be a fair comparison, in any case. For the walls of
Troy were peculiar, having become a meadow with almost indecent haste
during the boyhood of Ascanius, who was born before Achilles lost his
temper; and before the decease of Anchises, who was old enough to be
unable to walk at the sacking of the city. But no doubt you will say
that that is all Virgil, and Virgil doesn't count.
The point we have to do with is that the walls at No. 7 did _not_ dry.
And you must bear in mind that it was not only Mrs. Prichard's apartment
that was replastered, but that there was a lot done to the ceiling of
Aunt M'riar's room as well, and a bit of the cornice tore away where the
wall gave; so that the surveyor he ordered, when he come to see it, all
the brickwork to come down as far as flush with the window, which had to
be allowed extra for on the contract. Hence the decision--and even that
was coming on to November--that the children should stop with their
granny at Ealing while their aunt come up to get things a little in
order, and the place well aired.
Aunt M'riar's return for this purpose drags the story on two or three
weeks, but may just as well be told now as later.
When she made this second journey up to London, she found Mr. Bartlett's
ministrations practically ended, his only representatives being a man, a
boy, and a composite smell, whereof one of the components was the smell
of the man. Another, at the moment of her arrival, putty, was going
shortly to be a smell of vivid green paint, so soon as ever he had got
these two or three panes made good. For he was then going to put a
finishing coat on all woodwork previously painted, and leave his pots in
the way till he thought fit to send for them, which is a house-painter's
prerogative. He seemed to be able to absorb lead into his system without
consequences.
"There's been a young sarsebox making inquiry arter you, missis," said
this artist, striving with a lump of putty that no incorporation could
ever persuade to become equal to new. He was making it last out, not to
get another half-a-pound just yet a while. "Couldn't say his name, but I
rather fancy he belongs in at the end house."
Aunt M'riar identified the description, and went up to her room
wondering why that young Micky had been asking for her. Uncle Moses was
away, presumably at The Sun. She busied herself in endeavours to
reinstate her sleeping-quarters. Disheartening work!--we all know it,
this circumventing of Chaos. Aunt M'riar worked away at it, scrubbed the
floor and made the bed, taking the dryness of the sheets for granted
because it was only her and not Dolly to-night, and she could give them
a good airing in the kitchen to-morrow. The painter-and-glazier,
without, painted and glazed; maintaining a morose silence except when he
imposed its observance also on a boy who was learning the trade from him
very gradually, and suffering from _ennui_ very acutely. He said to this
boy at intervals:--"You stow that drumming, young Ebenezer, and 'and me
up the turps"--or some other desideratum. Which suspended the drumming
in favour of active service, after which it was furtively resumed.
Uncle Mo evidently meant to be back late. The fact was, his home had no
attraction for him in the absence of his family, and the comfort of The
Sun parlour was seductive. Aunt M'riar's visit was unexpected, as she
had not written in advance. So when the painter-and-glazier began to
prepare to leave his tins and pots and brushes and graining-tools behind
him till he could make it convenient to call round and fetch them, Aunt
M'riar felt threatened by loneliness. And when he finally took his
leave, with an assurance that by to-morrow morning any person so
disposed might rub his Sunday coat up against _his_ day's work, and
never be a penny the worse, Aunt M'riar felt so forsaken that she just
stepped up the Court to hear what she might of its news from Mrs.
Ragstroar, who was momentarily expecting the return of her son and
husband to domestic dulness, after a commercial career out Islington
way. They had only got to stable up their moke, whose home was in a
backyard about a half a mile off, and then they would seek their
Penates, who were no doubt helping to stew something that smelt much
nicer than all that filthy paint and putty.
"That I could not say, ma'am," said Mrs. Ragstroar, in answer to an
inquiry about the object of Micky's visit. "Not if you was to offer five
pounds. That boy is Secrecy Itself! What he do know, and what he do not
know, is 'id in his 'art; and what is more, he don't commoonicate it to
neither me nor his father. Only his great-aunt! But I can send him
round, as easy as not."
Accordingly, about half an hour later, when Aunt M'riar was beginning to
wonder at the non-appearance of Uncle Mo, Master Micky knocked at her
door, and was admitted.
"'Cos I've got a message for you, missis," said he. He accepted the
obvious need of his visit for explanation, without incorporating it in
words. "It come from that party--party with a side-twist in the
mug--party as come this way of a Sunday morning, askin' for old Mother
Prichard--party I see in Hy' Park along of young Dave...."
Aunt M'riar was taken aback. "How ever come you to see more of _him_?"
said she. For really this was, for the moment, a greater puzzle to her
than why, being seen, he should send _her_ a message.
Micky let the message stand over, to account for it. "'Cos I did see
him, and I ain't a liar. I see him next door to my great-aunt, as ever
is. Keep along the 'Ammersmith Road past the Plough and Harrow, and so
soon as ever you strike the Amp'shrog, you bear away to the left, and
anybody'll tell you The Pidgings, as soon as look at you. Small 'ouse,
by the river. Kep' by Miss Horkings, now her father's kicked. Female
party." This was due to a vague habit of the speaker's mind, which
divided the opposite sex into two genders, feminine and neuter; the
latter including all those samples, unfortunate enough--or fortunate
enough, according as one looks at it--to present no attractions to
masculine impulses. Micky would never have described his great-aunt as a
female party. She was, though worthy, neuter beyond a doubt.
Aunt M'riar accepted Miss Hawkins, without further analysis. "_She_
don't know me, anyways," said she. "Nor yet your Hyde Park man, as far
as I see. How come he to know my name? Didn't he never tell you?" She
was incredulous about that message.
"He don't know nobody's name, as I knows on. Wot he said to me was a
message to the person of the house at the end o' the Court. Same like
you, missis!"
"And what was the message?"
"I'll tell you that, missis, straight away and no lies." Micky gathered
himself up, and concentrated on a flawless delivery of the message:--"He
said he was a-coming to see his mother; that's what _he_ said--his
_mother_, the old lady upstairs. Providin' she wasn't nobody else! He
didn't say no names. On'y he said if she didn't come from Skillick's she
_was_ somebody else."
"Mrs. Prichard, she came from Skillick's, I know. Because she said so.
That's over three years ago." Aunt M'riar was of a transparent, truthful
nature. If she had been more politic, she would have kept this back.
"Didn't he say nothing else?" she asked.
"Yes, he did, and this here is what it was:--'Tell the person of the
house,' he says, 'to mention my name,' he says. 'Name o' Darvill,' he
says. So I was a-lyin', missis, you see, by a sort o' chance like, when
I said he said no names. 'Cos he _did_. He said his own. Not but what he
goes by the name of Wix."
"What does he want of old Mrs. Prichard now?"
"A screw. Sov'rings, if he can get 'em. Otherwise bobs, if he can't do
no better."
"Mrs. Prichard has no money."
"He says she has and he giv' it her. And he's going to have it out of
her, he says."
"Did he say that to you?"
"Not he! But he said it to Miss Horkings. Under his nose, like." No
doubt this expression, Michael's own, was a derivative of "under the
rose." It owed something to _sotto voce_, and something to the way the
finger is sometimes laid on the nose to denote acumen.
"Look you here, Micky! You're a good boy, ain't you?"
"Middlin'. Accordin'." An uncertain sound. It conveyed a doubt of the
desirability of goodness.
"You don't bear no ill-will neither to me, nor yet to old Mrs.
Prichard?"
"Bones alive, no!" This also may have been coined at home. "That was the
idear, don't you twig, missis? I never did 'old with windictiveness,
among friends."
"Then you do like I tell you. When are you going next to your aunt at
Hammersmith?"
Micky considered a minute, as if the number of his booked engagements
made thought necessary, and then said decisively: "To-morrow mornin', to
oblige."
"Very well, then! You go and find out this gentleman...."
"He ain't a gentleman. He's a varmint."
"You find him out, and say old Mrs. Prichard she's gone in the country,
and you can't say where. No more you can't, and I ain't going to tell
you. So just you say that!"
"I'm your man, missis. On'y I shan't see him, like as not. He don't stop
in one place. The orficers are after him--the police."
Then Aunt M'riar showed her weak and womanish character. Let her excuse
be the memory of those six rapturous weeks, twenty-five years ago, when
she was a bride, and all her life was rosy till she found herself
deserted--left to deal as she best might with Time and her loneliness.
You see, this man actually _was_ her husband. Micky could not understand
why her voice should change as she said:--"The police are after
him--yes! But you be a good boy, and leave the catching of him to them.
'Tain't any concern of yours. Don't you say nothing to them, and they
won't say nothing to you!"
The boy paused a moment, as though in doubt; then said with
insight:--"I'll send 'em the wrong way." He thought explanation due,
adding:--"I'm fly to the game, missis." Aunt M'riar had wished not to be
transparent, but she was not good at this sort of thing. True, she had
kept her counsel all those years, and no one had seen through her, but
that was mere opacity in silence.
She left Micky's apprehension to fructify, and told him to go back and
get his supper. As he opened the door to go Uncle Mo appeared, coming
along the Court. The sight of him was welcome to Aunt M'riar, who was
feeling very lonesome. And as for the old boy himself, he was quite
exhilarated. "Now we shall have those two young pagins back!" he said.
CHAPTER XXXII
WHY NOT KEEP COMPANY WHEN YOU HAVE A CHANCE? GUIZOT AND
MONTALEMBERT. MRS. BEMBRIDGE CORLETT's EYEGLASSES. KINKAJOUS. THE
PYTHON'S ATTITUDE. AN OSTRICH'S CARESS. HOW SIR COUPLAND MERRIDEW
CALLED ON LADY GWENDOLEN WITH A LETTER. ROYALTY. NECROSIS.
ILLEGIBILITY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN CALLED AGAIN IN SAPPS
COURT, AND KNOCKED IN VAIN. HOW OLD MRS. PRICHARD WAS SPIRITED AWAY
TO ROCESTERSHIRE, AND THOUGHT SHE WAS DREAMING
Mr. Percival Pellew and Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson had passed, under
the refining influence of Love, into a new phase, that of not being
formally engaged. It was to be distinctly understood that there was to
be nothing precipitate. This condition has its advantages; very
particularly that it postpones, or averts, family introductions. Yet it
cannot be enjoyed to the full without downright immorality, and it
always does seem to us a pity that people should be forced into Evil
Courses, in order to shun the terrors of Respectability. Why should not
some compromise be possible? The life some couples above suspicion
contrive to lead, each in the other's pocket as soon as the eyes of
Europe wander elsewhere, certainly seems to suggest a basis of
negotiation.
No doubt you know that little poem of Browning about the lady and
gentleman who watched the Seine, and saw Guizot receive Montalembert,
who rhymed to "flare"? Of course, the case was hardly on all fours with
that of our two irreproachables, but we suspect a point in common. We
feel sure that those lawless loiterers in a dissolute capital were
joyous at heart at having escaped the fangs of the brothers of the one,
and the sisters of the other, respectively, although at the cost of
having the World's bad names applied to both. In this case there were no
brothers on the lady's part, and only one sister on the gentleman's. But
Aunt Constance was not sorry for a breathing-pause before being
subjected to an inspection through glasses by the Hon. Mrs. Bembridge
Corlett, which was the name of the unique sister-sample, and herself
subjecting Mr. Pellew to a similar overhauling by her own numerous
relatives. She had misgivings about the _accolade_ he might receive from
Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, and also about the soul-communion which her
sister Lilian, who had a sensitive nature, demanded as the price of
recognition in public a second time of all persons introduced to her
notice.
Mr. Pellew's description of the Hon. Mrs. Corlett had impressed her with
the necessity of being ready to stand at bay when the presentation came
off.
"Dishy will look at you along the top of her nose, with her chin in the
air," said he. "But you mustn't be alarmed at that. She only does it
because her glasses--we're all short-sighted--slip off her nose at
ordinary levels. And when you come to think of it, how can she hold them
on with her fingers when she looks at you. Like taking interest in a
specimen!"
"I am a little alarmed at your sister Boadicea, Percy, for all that,"
said Miss Dickenson, and changed the conversation. This was only a day
or two after the Sapps Court accident, and the phase of not being
formally engaged had begun lasting as long as possible, being found
satisfactory. So old Mrs. Prichard was a natural topic to change to.
"Isn't it funny, this whim of Gwen's, about the old lady you carried
upstairs?"
"What whim of Gwen's?"
"Oh, don't you know. Of course you don't! Gwen's fallen in love with
her, and means to take her to the Towers with her when she goes back."
"Very nice for the old girl. What's she doing that for?"
"It's an idea of hers. However, there is some reason in it. The old
lady's apartments must be dry before she goes back to them, and that may
be weeks."
"Why can't she stop where she is?"
"All by herself? At least, only the cook! When Miss Grahame goes to
Devonshire, Maggie goes with her, to lady's-maid her."
"I thought we were going to be pastoral, and only spend three hundred a
year on housekeeping."
"So we are--how absurdly you do put things, Percy!--when we make a fair
start. But just till we begin in earnest, there's no need for such
strictness. Anyhow, if Maggie doesn't go to Devonshire, she'll go back
to her parents at Invercandlish. So the old lady can't stop. And Gwen
will go back to the Towers, of course. I don't the least believe they'll
hold out six months, those two.... What little ducks Kinkajous are! Give
me a biscuit.... No--one of the soft ones!"
For, you see, they were at the Zoölogical Gardens. They had felt that
these Gardens, besides being near at hand, were the kind of Gardens in
which the eyes of Europe would find plenty to occupy them, without
staring impertinently at a lady and gentleman who were not formally
engaged. Who would care to study them and _their_ ways when he could see
a Thibetan Bear bite the nails of his hind-foot, or observe the habits
of Apes, or sympathize with a Tiger about his lunch? Our two visitors to
the Gardens had spent an hour on these and similar attractions, noting
occasionally the flavour that accompanies them, and had felt after a
visit to the Pythons, that they could rest a while out of doors and
think about the Wonders of Creation, and the drawbacks they appear to
suffer from. But a friendly interest in a Python had lived and
recrudesced as the Kinkajou endeavoured to get at some soft biscuit, in
spite of a cruel wire screen no one bigger than a rat could get his
little claw through.
"I don't believe that fillah _was_ moving. He was breathing. But he
wasn't moving. I know that chap perfectly well. He never moves when
anyone is looking at him, out of spite. He hears visitors hope he'll
move, and keeps quite still to disappoint them." It was Mr. Pellew who
said this. Miss Dickenson shook her head incredulously.
"He _was_ moving, you foolish man. You should use your eyes. That long
straight middle piece of him on the shelf moved; in a very dignified
way, considering. The move moved along him, and went slowly all the way
to his tail. When I took my eyes off I thought the place was moving,
which is a proof I'm right.... Oh, you little darling, you've dropped
it! I'm so sorry. I must have another, because this has been in the mud,
and you won't like it." This was, of course, to the Kinkajou.
Mr. Pellew supplied a biscuit, but improved the occasion:--"Now if this
little character could only keep his paws off the Public, he wouldn't
want a wire netting. Couldn't you give him a hint?"
"I could, but he wouldn't take it. He's a little darling, but he's
pig-headed...." A pause, and then a quick explanatory side-note:--"Do
you know, I think that's Sir Coupland Merridew coming along that path. I
hope he isn't coming this way.... I'm afraid he is, though. You know who
I mean? He was at the Towers...."
"I know. Yes, it's him. He's coming this way. If he sees it's us, he'll
go off down the side-path. But he won't see--he's too short-sighted.
Can't be helped!"
"Oh dear--what a plague people are! Let's be absorbed in the Kinkajou.
He'll pass us."
But the great surgeon did nothing of the sort. On the contrary he
said:--"I saw it was you, Miss Dickenson." Then he reflected about her
companion, and said he was Mr. Pellew, he thought, and further:--"Met
you at Ancester in July." It was a great relief that he did _not_
say:--"You are a lady and gentleman, and can perhaps explain yourselves.
_I_ can't!" He appeared to decide on silence about _them_, as
irrelevant, and went on to something more to the purpose--"Perhaps you
know if the family are in town--any of them?" Miss Dickenson testified
to the whereabouts of Lady Gwendolen Rivers, and Sir Coupland wrote it
in a notebook. There seemed at this point to be an opportunity to say
how delightful the Gardens were this time of the year, so Miss Dickenson
seized it.
"I didn't come to enjoy the gardens," said the F.R.C.S. "I wish I had
time. I came to see to a broken scapula. Keeper in the Ostrich
House--bird pecked him from behind. Did it from love, apparently. Said
to be much attached to keeper. Two-hundred-and-two, Cavendish Square, is
right, isn't it?"
"Two-hundred-and-two; corner house.... Must you go on? Sorry!--you could
have told us such interesting things." The effect of this one word "us,"
indiscreetly used, was that Sir Coupland, walking away to his carriage
outside the turnstiles, wondered whether it would come off, and if it
did, would there be a family? Which shows how very careful you have to
be, when you are a lady and gentleman.
The former, in this case, remained unconscious of her _lapsus linguae_;
saying, in fact:--"I think we did that very well! I wonder whether he
will go and see Gwen!"
"I hope he will. Do you know, I couldn't help suspecting that he had
something to say about Torrens's eyesight--something good. Perhaps it
was only the way one has of catching at straws. Still, unless he has,
why should he want to see Gwen? He couldn't want to tell her there was
no hope--to rub it in!"
"I see what you mean. But I'm afraid he only put down the address for us
to tell her he did so--just to get the credit of a call without the
trouble."
"When did you take to Cynicism, madam?... No--come, I say--that's not
fair! It's only my second cigar since I came to the Gardens...." The
byplay needed to make this intelligible may be imagined, without
description.
Does not the foregoing lay further stress on the curious fact that the
_passée_ young lady and the oscillator between Pall Mall and that Club
at St. Stephen's--this describes the earlier seeming of these two--have
really vanished from the story? Is it not a profitable commentary on
the mistakes people make in the handling of their own lives?
* * * * *
Sir Coupland Merridew was not actuated by the contemptible motive Aunt
Constance had ascribed to him. Moreover, the straw Mr. Pellew caught at
was an actual straw, though it may have had no buoyancy to save a
swimmer. It must have had _some_ though, or Sir Coupland would never
have thrown it to Gwen, struggling against despair about her lover's
eyesight. Of course he did not profess to do so of set purpose; that
would have pledged him to an expression of confidence in that straw
which he could hardly have felt.
When he called at Cavendish Square two days later at an unearthly hour,
and found Gwen at breakfast, he accounted for his sudden intrusion by
producing a letter recently received from Miss Irene Torrens, of which
he said that, owing to the peculiarity of the handwriting, he had
scarcely been able to make out anything beyond that it related to her
brother's blindness. Probably Lady Gwendolen knew her handwriting
better than he did. At any rate, she might have a shot at trying
to make it out. But presently, when she had time! He, however,
would take a cup of coffee, and would then go on and remove a
portion of a diseased thigh-bone from a Royal leg--that of Prince
Hohenslebenschlangenspielersgeiststein--only he never could get the name
right.
The story surmises that, having carefully read every word of the letter,
he chose this way of letting Gwen know of a fluctuation in Adrian's
eye-symptoms; which, he had inferred, would not reach her otherwise. But
he did not wish false hopes to be built on it. The deciphering of the
illegibilities by Gwen, under correctives from himself, would exactly
meet the case.
"I can _not_ see that 'Rene's writing is so very illegible," said Gwen.
"Now be quiet and let me read it." She settled down to perusal, while
Sir Coupland sipped his coffee, and watched her colour heighten as she
read. That meant, said he to himself, that he must be ready to throw
more cold water on this letter than he had at first intended.
Said Gwen, when she had finished:--"Well, that seems to me very plain
and straightforward. And as for illegibility, I know many worse hands
than 'Re's."
"What's that word three lines down?... Yes, that one!"
"'Dreaming.'"
"I thought it was 'drinking.'"
"It certainly is 'dreaming' plain enough!"
"What do you make of it? Don't read it all through. Tell me the upshot."
"I don't mind reading it. But I'll tell it short, as you're in a hurry.
Adrian dropped asleep on the sofa, and woke with a start,
saying:--'What's become of Septimius Severus on the bookshelf?' It was a
bust, it seems. 'Re said:--'How did you know it had been moved?' and he
seemed quite puzzled and said:--'I can't tell. I forgot I was blind, and
saw the whole room.' Then 'Re said, he must have been dreaming. 'But,'
said he, 'you say it _has_ been moved.' So what does 'Re do but say he
_must_ have heard somehow that it was moved, _because_ it was impossible
that he should have been able to see only just that much and no more....
Oh dear!" said Gwen, breaking off suddenly. "What a pleasure people do
seem to take in being silly!"
Sir Coupland proceeded to show deference to correct form. "It is far
more likely," said he, "that Mr. Torrens had heard someone say the bust
was moved, and had forgotten it till he woke up out of a dream, than
that he should have a sudden flash of vision." A more cautious method
than Irene's, of assuming the point at issue.
Gwen paid no attention to this, putting it aside to apologize to Irene.
"However, 'Re had the sense to write straight to you about it. I'll say
that for her." Then she read the letter again while Sir Coupland spun
out his cup of coffee. She was still dwelling on it when he looked at
his watch suddenly and said: "I must be off. Consider Prince
Hohenschlangen's necrosis!" Then said Gwen, pinning him to truth with
the splendour of her eyes:--"You are perfectly and absolutely certain,
Dr. Merridew, that a momentary gleam of true vision in such a case would
be _impossible_?"
"I never said _that_," said Sir Coupland.
"What _did_ you say?" said Gwen.
"As improbable as you please, short of impossible. Now I'm off.
Impossible's a long word, you know, and very hard to spell." Sir
Coupland went off in a hurry, leaving Irene's letter in Gwen's
possession, which was dishonourable; because he had really read the
injunction it contained, on no account to show it to Gwen in case she
should build false hopes on it. But then Gwen had not read this passage
aloud to him, so he did not know it officially.
Lunch was the next conclave of the small household, and although Mr.
Pellew was there--it was extraordinary how seldom he was anywhere
else!--Irene's letter was freely handed round the table and made the
subject of comment.
"It won't do to build upon it," said Cousin Clo.
"Why not?" said Gwen.
"It never does to be led away," said Miss Dickenson. Her reputation for
sagacity had to be maintained.
"Doesn't it?" said Gwen.
Mr. Pellew was bound, in consideration of his company, to dwell upon the
desirableness of keeping an even mind. Having done full justice to this
side of the subject, he added a rider. He had always said the chances
were ten to one Torrens would recover his eyesight, and this sort of
thing looked uncommonly like it. Now didn't it? Whereupon Gwen, who
shook hands with him across the table to show her approval, said that
anyhow she must hear Adrian's own account of this occurrence from his
own mouth forthwith, and she should go back to-morrow to the Towers, and
insist upon driving over to Pensham Steynes, whether or no!
Miss Grahame remonstrated with her later, when Aunt Constance and her
swain had departed to some dissipation--the story is not sure it was not
Madame Tussaud's--and pointed out that she really had solemnly promised
not to see Mr. Torrens for six months. She admitted this, but
counterpointed out that she could just see him for half an hour to hear
his own account of the incident, and then they could begin fair. She was
a girl of her word, and meant to keep it. Only, no date had been fixed.
As for her pledges to assist her cousin's schemes for benefiting Sapps
Court and its analogues, in Drury Lane or elsewhere, was she not going
to carry off the old fairy godmother she had discovered and give her
such a dose of fresh air and good living as she had not had for twenty
years past? Could any Patron Saint of Philanthropy ask more?
Gwen, of course, had her way. She did not cut her visit to Cavendish
Square needlessly short. She remained there long enough to give some
colour to the pretext that she was exploring slums with philanthropy in
view, and actually to make a visit with her cousin to the reconstructed
home of the Wardles in Sapps Court. But no response came to knocking at
door or window, and it was evident that Aunt M'riar had not returned.
Michael Ragstroar, the making of whose acquaintance on this occasion
gratified both ladies, offered to go to The Sun for Uncle Mo and bring
him round; but his offer was declined, as their time was limited. This
must have been a few days before the return of Aunt M'riar and the
children, and in the interim her young ladyship had taken flight to the
home of her ancestors, contriving somehow to convey away with her her
new-made old friend, and to provide her with comfortable lodgment in the
housekeeper's quarters, making Mrs. Masham, the housekeeper, responsible
for her comforts.
As for the old lady herself, she was very far from being sure that she
was not dreaming.
END OF PART I
WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
PART II
CHAPTER I
MICKY'S AUNT, WHO HAD A COLD. MASCHIL THE CHIEF MUSICIAN, AND DOEG
THE EDOMITE. A SUNDAY-RAPTURE. THE BEER. HOW MISS JULIA HAWKINS
THOUGHT THE GLASS A FRAUD. HOW MICKY DELIVERED HIS MESSAGE. A
CONDITIONAL OFFER OF MARRIAGE. JANUS HIS BASKET. ALETHEA'S AUNT
TREBILCOCK. A SHREWD AND HOOKY KITTEN WHO GOT OUT. HER MAJESTY'S
HORSE-SLAUGHTERER. OF A LEAN LITTLE GIRL. HER BROTHER'S NOSE. HOW
MR. WIX KNOCKED AT AUNT M'RIAR'S DOOR. THE CHAIN. HOW AUNT M'RIAR
IMPRESSED MR. WIX AS AN IDIOT. WHO WAS THE WOMAN? HOW SHE OPENED
THE DOOR FOR MICKY'S SAKE, AND LOOKED HARD AT HER HUSBAND. HIS
LAWFUL WIFE! SCRIPTURE READINGS IN HELL. HOW SHE WENT TO FETCH ALL
THE MONEY SHE HAD IN THE HOUSE. HOW MR. WIX CAPTURED UNCLE MO'S OLD
WATCH. HOW AUNT M'RIAR TRIPPED UNCLE MO UP
The return of the two young pagans to Sapps Court, and the complete
re-establishment of Uncle Mo's household, had to be deferred yet one or
two more days, to his great disappointment. On the morning following
Aunt M'riar's provisional return, the weather set in wet, and the old
boy was obliged to allow that there ought to be a fire in the grate of
Aunt M'riar's wrecked bedroom for at least a couple of days before Dolly
returned to sleep in it. He attempted a weak protest, saying that his
niece was a dry sort of little party that moisture could not injure. But
he conceded the point, to be on the safe side.
Aunt M'riar said never a word to him about the message she had received
from the convict through the boy Micky, and the answer she had returned.
She had not forgotten Uncle Mo's communications with that Police
Inspector, and felt confident that her reception of a message from Mr.
Wix at his old haunt would soon be known to the latter if she did not
keep her counsel about it. The words she used in her heart about it were
nearly identical with Hotspur's. Uncle Moses would not utter what he did
not know. She had not a thought of blame for Mo, for she knew that her
disposition to shield this man was idiosyncrasy--could not in the nature
of things be shared, even by old and tried friends.
There was a fine chivalric element about this defensive silence of hers.
The man was now nothing to her--dust and ashes, dead and done with! This
last phrase was the one her heart used about him--not borrowed from
Browning any more than its other speech from Shakespeare. "I've done
with _him_ for good and all," said she to herself. "But the Law shall
not catch him along o' me." He was vile--vile to her and to all
women--but she could bear her own wrong, and she was not bound to fight
the battles of others. He was a miscreant and a felon, the mere blood on
those hands was not his worst moral stain. He was foul from the terms of
his heritage of life, with the superadded foulness of the galleys. But
she _had_ loved him once, and he was her husband.
Micky kept his word, going over to his great-aunt the following Sunday;
to oblige, as he said. Mrs. Treadwell had a cold, and was confined to
the house; but the boy was a welcome visitor. "There now, Michael," said
she, "I was only just this minute thinking to myself, if Micky was here
he could go on reading me the Psalms, where I am, instead of me putting
my eyes out. For the sight is that sore and inflamed, and my glasses
getting that wore out from being seen through so much, that I can't
hardly make out a word."
Micky's only misgivings on his visits to Aunt Elizabeth Jane were
connected with a Family Bible to which his old relative was devoted, and
with her disposition to make him read the Psalms aloud. Neither of them
attached any particular meaning to the text; she being contented with
its religious _aura_ and fitness for Sunday, and he absorbed in the
detection of correct pronunciation by spelling, a syllable at a time. So
early an allusion to this affliction disheartened Micky on this
occasion, and made him feel that his long walk from Sapps Court had been
wasted, so far as his own enjoyment of it was concerned.
"Oh, 'ookey, Arntey," said he dejectedly, "I say now--look here! Shan't
I make it Baron Munch Hawson, only just this once?" For his aunt
possessed, as well as the Holy Scriptures, a copy of Baron Munchausen's
Travels and a Pilgrim's Progress. Conjointly, they were an Institution,
and were known as Her Books.
But she resisted the secular spirit. "On Sunday morning, my dear!" she
exclaimed, shocked. "How ever you _can_! Now if on'y your father was to
take you to Chapel, instead of such a bad example, see what good it
would do you both."
The ounce of influence that Aunt Elizabeth Jane alone possessed told on
Michael's stubborn spirit, and he did not contest the point. "Give us
the 'Oly Bible!" said he briefly. "Where's where you was?"
"That's a good boy! Now you just set down and read on where I was. 'To,
the, chief, musician,' and the next word's a hard word and you'll have
to spell it." For, you see, Aunt Elizabeth Jane's method was to go
steadily on with a text, and not distinguish titles and stage
directions.
So her nephew, being docile, tackled the fifty-second Psalm, and did not
flinch from _m_, _a_, _s_, mass--_c_, _h_, _i_, _l_, chill; total,
Mass-Chill--nor from _d_, _o_, do; _e_, _g_, hegg; total, Do-Hegg. But
when he came to Ahimelech, he gave him up, and had to be told. However,
he laboured on through several verses, and the old charwoman listened in
what might be called a Sunday-rapture, conscious of religion, but not
attaching any definite meaning to the words. As for Micky, he only
perceived that David and Saul, Doeg the Edomite, and Ahimelech the
Priest, were religious, and therefore bores. He had a general idea that
the Psalmist could not keep his hair on. He might have enjoyed the
picturesque savagery of the story if Aunt Elizabeth Jane had known it
well enough to tell him. But when you read for flavour, and ignore
import, the plot has to go to the wall.
Aunt Elizabeth Jane kept her nephew to his unwelcome devotional
enterprise until the second "Selah"--a word which always seemed to
exasperate him--provoked his restiveness beyond his powers of restraint.
"I say, Aunt Betsy," said he, "shan't I see about gettin' in the beer?"
This touched a delicate point, for his visit being unexpected, rations
were likely to be short.
Some reproof was necessary. "There now, ain't you a tiresome boy,
speaking in the middle!" But this was followed by: "Well, my dear, I
can't take anything myself, the cold's that heavy on me. But that's no
reason against a glass for you, after your walk. On'y I tell you, you'll
have to make your dinner off potatoes and a herring, that you will, by
reason there's nothing else for you. And all the early shops are shut an
hour ago."
Then Michael showed how great his foresight and resource had been.
"Bought a mutting line-chop coming along, off of our butcher. Fivepence
'a'pen'y. Plenty for two if you know how to cook it right, and don't cut
it to waste." In this he showed a thoughtfulness beyond his years, for
the knowledge that the amount of flesh, on any bone, may be
doubled--even quadrupled--by the skill of its carver, is rarely found
except in veterans.
Aunt Elizabeth Jane paid a tribute of admiration. "My word!" said she,
"who ever would have said a boy could! Now you shall cook that chop
while I tell you how." So the fifty-second Psalm lapsed, and Michael was
at liberty to forget Doeg the Edomite.
But the glass of beer claimed attention first, because it would never do
to leave that chop to get cold while he went for it next door. Aunt
Elizabeth Jane allowed Michael to take the largest glass, as he had read
so good and bought his own chop, and with it he crossed the wall into
the garden of The Pigeons, as the story has seen him do before.
Miss Juliarawkins, summoned by a whistle through the keyhole, looked a
good deal better in sackcloth and ashes than she had done in several
discordant colours. She was going to stop as long as ever she could in
mourning for her father, so as to get the wear out of the stuff, and
make it of some use. Some connection might die, by good luck. She was
one of those that held with making the same sackcloth and ashes do for
two.
She looked critically at the rather large tumbler Micky had brought for
his beer, and made difficulties about filling of it right up, even with
the top. For this was a supply under contract. A glass full was to be
paid for as a short half-pint. But as Miss Hawkins truly said, no glass
had any call to be half as big as Saint Paul's. Her customer, however,
was not to be put off in this way. A glass was a glass, and a half-pint
was a half a pint. There was no extry reduction when the glass was
undersized. You took the good with the bad.
A voice Micky knew growled from a recess:--"Give the young beggar full
measure, Juli_ar_. What he means is, you go by a blooming average."
Miss Hawkins filled up the glass this once, but said:--"You tell your
Aunt Treadwell she'll have to keep below the average till Christmas. _I_
never see such a glass!"
Micky was not sorry to find that he could deliver his message direct. He
had not hoped to come upon the man himself. He paid for his beer on
contract terms, and said confidentially:--"I say, missis, I got a
message for him in there."
"Mrs. Treadwell's nephew Michael from next door says he's got a message
for you, and you can say if you'll see him. Or not." This was spoken
snappishly, as though a coolness were afoot.
The man replied with mock amiability, meant to irritate. "You can send
him in here, Juliar. You're open to." But when in compliance with the
woman's curt:--"You hear--you can go in," the boy entered the little
back-parlour, he turned on him suddenly and fiercely, saying:--"You're
the * * * young nark of some damned teck--some * * * copper, by Goard!"
If the boy had flinched before this accusation, which meant that he was
a police-spy employed by a detective, he might have repented it. But
Micky was no coward, and stood his ground; all the more firmly that he
fully grasped the man's precarious position, in the very house where he
had been once before captured. He answered resolutely:--"I could snitch
upon you this minute, master, if I was to choose. But you aren't no
concern of mine, further than I've got a message for you."
"The boy's all safe," said Miss Hawkins briefly, outside. Whereupon the
man, after a subsiding growl or two, said:--"You gave the party my
message? What had she got to say back again? You may mouth it out and
cut your lucky."
Micky gave his message in a plain and business-like manner. "Mrs. Wardle
she's back after the accident, and Mrs. Prichard she's in the country,
and she don't know where."
"Who don't know where? Mrs. Prichard?"
"Mrs. Wardle. I said you was a-coming to see your mother, onlest the old
lady wasn't your mother. Then you shouldn't come."
"What did she say about Skillicks?"
"Said Mrs. Prichard come from Skillickses. Three year agone."
"You hear that, Miss Hawkins?" Mr. Wix seemed pleased, as one who had
scored, adding:--"I knew it was the old woman.... Anything else she
said?"
Micky appeared to consider his answer; then replied:--"Said I wasn't to
split upon you."
"What the Hell does she say that for? She don't know who I am."
Micky considered again, and astutely decided, perceiving his mistake, to
say as little as possible about Aunt M'riar's seeming interest in Mr.
Wix's safety from the Law. Then he said:--"She don't know nothing about
you, but when I says to her the Police was after you, she cuts in sharp,
and says, she does, that was no concern o' mine, and I was to say
nothing to them, and they wouldn't say nothing to me."
Mr. Wix said, "Rum!" and Miss Hawkins, who had been keeping her ears
open close at hand, looked in through the barcasement to say:--"You go
_there_, Wix, and back to gaol you go! I only tell you." And retired,
leaving the convict knitting tighter the perplexed scowl on his face. He
called after her:--"Come back here, you Juliar!"
"I can hear you."
"What the Devil do you mean?"
"Can't you see for yourself? This woman don't want the boy to get fifty
pound. If I was in her shoes, I shouldn't neither." Micky only heard
this imperfectly.
"You wouldn't do anything under a hundred, _you_ wouldn't. Good job for
me they don't double the amount.... Easy does it, Juliar--only a bit of
my fun!" For Miss Hawkins, even as a woman stung by a cruel insult, had
shown her flashing eyes, heightened colour, and panting bosom at the
bar-opening as before. Mr. Wix seemed gratified. "Pity you don't flare
up oftener, Juliar," said he. "You've no idea what a much better woman
you look. Damn it, but you _do_!"
The woman made an effort, and choked her anger. "God forgive you, Wix!"
said she, and fell back out of sight. Michael thought he heard her sob.
He was not too young to understand this little drama, which took less
time to act than to tell.
The convict had lost the thread of his examination, and had to hark
back. _Why_ was it, Mrs. Prichard had gone away into the country?... Oh,
the house had fallen down, had it? But, then, how came Mrs. Wardle to be
living in it still? Because, said Michael, it was only the wall fell off
of the front, and now Mr. Bartlett he'd made all that good, and Mrs.
Prichard was only kep' out by the damp. Did Mrs. Wardle _really_ not
know where Mrs. Prichard was? She had not told Michael, that was all he
could say. Old Mo he'd never slept out of the house, only the family.
And they was coming back soon now. Was old Mo an invalid, who never went
out? "No fear!" said Michael. "He's all to rights, only a bit oldish,
like. He spends the afternoons round at The Sun, and then goes home to
supper." The interview ended with a present of half-a-bull to Micky from
the convict, which the boy seemed to stickle at accepting. But he took
it, and it strengthened his resolution not to turn informer, which was
probably Mr. Wix's object.
He came away with an impression that Miss Hawkins had said:--"The boy's
lying. How could the front-wall of a house fall down?" But he had heard
no more and was glad to come away. He went back to his Aunt Betsy and
cooked his chop under her tutelage. What a time he had been away, said
she!
If Micky had remembered word for word the whole of this interview, he
might have had misgivings of the effect of one thing he had said
unawares. It was his reference to Uncle Mo's absence at The Sun during
the late afternoon. Manifestly, it left the house in Mr. Wix's
imagination untenanted, during some two hours of the day, except by Aunt
M'riar, and the children perhaps. And what did _they_ matter?
"You're mighty wise, Juliar, about the party of the house and the
fifty-pun' reward." So said the convict when the woman came back, after
seeing that Micky had crossed the wall unmolested by authority. "Folk
ain't in any such a hurry to get a man hanged when they know what'll
happen if they fail of doing it. Not even for fifty pound!"
"What _will_ happen?"
"Couldn't say to a nicety. But she would stand a tidy chance of getting
ripped up, next opportunity." He seemed pleased at his expression of
this fact, as he took the first pulls at a fresh pipe, on the
window-seat with his boots against the shutter and a grip of interlaced
fingers behind his close-cut head for support. Why in Heaven's name does
the released gaol-bird crop his hair? One would have thought the first
instinct of regained freedom would have been to let it grow.
Miss Hawkins looked at him without admiration. "I often wonder," said
she, "at the many risks I run to shelter you, for you're a bloody-minded
knave, and that's the truth. It was a near touch but I might have lost
my licence, last time."
"The Beaks were took with your good looks, Juliar. They're good judges
of a fine woman. An orphan you was, too, and the mourning sooted you,
prime!" He looked lazily at her, puffing--not without admiration, of a
sort. Her resentment seemed to gratify him more than any subserviency.
He continued:--"Well, nobody can say I haven't offered to make an honest
woman of _you_, Juliar."
"Much it was worth, your offer! As if you was free! And me to sell The
Pigeons and go with you to New York! No--no! I'm better off as I am,
than that."
"I'm free, accordin' to Law. Never seen the girl, nor heard from
her--over twenty years now--twenty-three at least. Scot-free of _her_,
anyhow! Don't want none of her, cutting in to spoil my new start in
life. Re-spectable man--justice of peace, p'r'aps." He puffed at his
pipe, pleased with the prospect. Then he sounded the keynote of his
thought, adding:--"Why--how much could you get for the freehold of this
little tiddleywink?"
If Miss Julia had been ever so well disposed towards being made
technically an honest woman by her betrayer of auld lang syne, this
declaration of his motives might easily have hardened her heart against
him. What fatuity of affection could have survived it? Yet his candour
was probably his only redeeming feature. He was scarcely an invariable
hypocrite; he was merely heartless, sensual, and cruel to the full
extent of man's possibilities. Nevertheless, he could and would have
lied black white with a purpose. He was, this time, thrown off his
guard, as it were, and truthful by accident. Whether the way in which
the woman silently repelled his offer was due to her disgust at its
terms, or whether she had her doubts of the soundness of his
jurisprudence, the story can only guess. Probably the latter. She merely
said:--"I'm going to open the house," and left his inquiry unanswered.
This was notice to him that his free run of the lower apartments was
ended. He went upstairs to some place of concealment.
* * * * *
"What was you and young Carrots so busy about below here?" said Uncle Mo
next day, coming down the stairs to breakfast in the kitchen an hour
later than Aunt M'riar.
"Telling me of his Aunt Betsy yesterday. Mind your shirt-sleeve. It's
going in the butter."
"What's Aunt Betsy's little game?... No, it's all right--the butter's
too hard to hurt.... Down Chiswick way, ain't she?"
"Hammersmith." Aunt M'riar wasn't talkative; but then, this morning, it
was bloaters. They should only just hot through, or they dry.
"Who was the bloke he was talking about? Somebody he called _him_."
Uncle Mo's ears had been too sharp.
"There!--I've no time to be telling what a boy says. No one any good,
I'll go bail!" Whereupon, as Uncle Mo's curiosity was not really keenly
excited, the subject dropped.
But, as a matter of fact, Michael had contrived in a short time to give
an account of his experience of yesterday. And he had left Aunt M'riar
in a state of disquiet and apprehension which had to be concealed,
somehow. For she was quite clear that she would not take Mo into her
confidence. She saw she had to choose between risking an interview with
this convict husband of hers, and giving him up to the Law, probably to
the gallows.
The man would come again to seek out his old mother, to extort money
from her; that was beyond a doubt. But would he of necessity recognise
the wife of twenty-three years ago in the very middle-aged person Aunt
M'riar saw in the half of a looking-glass that Mr. Bartlett's careful
myrmidons had not broken? Would she recognise him? Need either see the
other? Well--no! Communications might be restricted to speech through a
door with the chain up.
She took the boy Michael freely into her confidence about her
unwillingness to see this man. But that she could do on the strength of
his bad character; her own relation to him of course remained concealed.
She puzzled her confidant not a little by her seeming inconsistency--so
repugnant was she to the miscreant himself, yet so anxious that he
should not fall into the hands of the Police. Micky kept his perplexity
to himself, justifying his mother's estimate of his character.
But this much was clearly understood between them, that should the
convict be seen by Micky on his way to the house, he should forthwith
take one of two courses. If Uncle Mo was absent at the time, he was to
warn Aunt M'riar of Mr. Wix's approach. If otherwise, he was to warn the
unwelcome visitor of the risk he would run if he persisted in his
attempt to procure an interview. Of course the chances were that Micky
would be away on business, selling apples, potatoes, and turnips.
As it turned out, however, he was able to observe one of the conditions
of this compact.
* * * * *
It was on the Tuesday following the boy's visit to his great-aunt that
Mrs. Tapping had words with her daughter Alethea. They arose out of
Alethea's young man, an upstart. At least, he was so designated by Mrs.
Tapping, for aspiring to the hand of this young lady; who, though plain
by comparison with her mother at the same age, and no more figure than
what you see, was that sharp with her tongue when provoked, it made your
flesh curdle within you to hear her expressions. We need hardly say that
we have to rely on her mother for these facts. It was, however, the
extraction of Alethea that determined the presumptuousness of her young
man's aspirations. He was marrying into two families, the Tappings and
the Davises, which, though neither of them lordly, had always held their
heads high and their behaviour according. Whereas this young Tom was
metaphorically nobody, though actually in a shoe-shop and giving
satisfaction to his employers, with twenty-one shillings a week certain
and a rise at Christmas. You cannot do that unless you are a physical
entity, but when your grandmother is in an almshouse and your father met
his death in an inferior capacity at a Works, you have no call to give
yourself airs, and the less you say the better.
This brief sketch of the _status quo_ was given to Mrs. Riley by Mrs.
Tapping, in her woollen shawl for the first time, because of the sharp
edge in the wind, with a basket on her arm that Janus would have found
useful, owing to its two lids, one each side the handle. They were at
the entrance to Mrs. Riley's shop, and that good woman was bare-armed
and bonnetless in the cold north wind. She had not lost her Irish
accent.
"It is mesilf agrays with you intoirely," said she sympathetically.
"Not but what I do freely admit," said Mrs. Tapping, pursuing her topic
in a spirit of magnanimity, "that young Rundle himself never makes bold,
and is always civil spoke, which we might expect, seeing what is called
for, measuring soles. For I always do say that the temptation to forget
theirself is far more than human, especially flattenin' down the toe to
get the len'th, though of course the situation would be sacrificed, and
no character." This was an allusion to the delicacy of the position of
one who adjusts a sliding spanner to the foot of Beauty, to determine
its length to a nicety. The subject suggests curious questions.
Suppose--to look at its romantic side, as easier of discussion--that
you, young lady, were passionately adored by the young man at your
shoe-shop, and he were to kiss your foot as Vivien did Merlin's, could
you--would you--complain at the desk and lose him his situation? And how
about the Pope? Is his Holiness never measured--_sal a reverentia!_--for
his shoes? Or does the Oecumenical Council guess, and strike an
average? However, the current of the story need not be interrupted to
settle that.
"He intinds will," said Mrs. Riley. This was merely a vague compliment
to Alethea's suitor. "Ye see, me dyurr, it's taking the young spalpeen's
part she'll be, for shure! It is the nature of thim." That is to say,
lovers.
"But never to the point of calling tyrant, Mrs. Riley. Nor ojus
vulgarity. Nor epithets I will not repeat, relating to family
connections. Concerning which, _I_ say, God forgive Alethear! For the
accommodation at a nominal rent of persons in reduced circumstances is
not an almshouse, say what she may. And her Aunt Trebilcock is not a
charitable object, nor yet a deserving person, having mixed with the
best. And in so young a girl texts are not becoming, to a parent."
"Which was the tixt, thin?" said Mrs. Riley, interested. "I'm bel'avin'
ye, me dyurr!" This was to encourage Mrs. Tapping, and disclaim
incredulity.
"Since you're asking me, Mrs. Riley ma'am, I will not conceal from you
the Scripture text used only this morning by my own daughter, to my
face. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a
fall.' Whereupon I says to Alethear, 'Alethear,' I says, 'be truthful,
and admit that old Mrs. Rundle and your Aunt Trebilcock are on a
dissimular footing, one being distinctly a Foundation in the Whitechapel
Road, and the other Residences, each taking their own Milk.'" Some
further particulars came in here, relating to the bone of that mornin's
contention, which had turned on Mrs. Tapping's objections to her
daughter's demeaning, or bemeaning, herself, by marrying into a lower
rank of life than her own.
All this conversation of these two ladies has nothing to do with the
story. The only reason for referring to it is that it took place at this
time, just opposite Mrs. Riley's shop, and led her to remark:--"You lave
the young payple alone, Mrs. Tapping, and they'll fall out. You'll only
kape thim on, by takin' order with thim. Thrust me. Whativer have ye got
in the basket?"
Mrs. Tapping explained that she was using it to convey a kitten, born in
her establishment, to Miss Druitt at thirty-four opposite, who had
expressed anxiety to possess it. It was this kitten's expression of
impatience with its position that had excited Mrs. Riley's curiosity.
"Why don't ye carry the little sowl across in your hands, me dyurr?"
said she; not unreasonably, for it was only a stone's-throw. Mrs.
Tapping added that this was no common kitten, but one of preternatural
activity, and possessed of diabolical tentacular powers of entanglement.
"I would not undertake," said she, "to get it across the road, ma'am,
only catching hold. Nor if I got it safe across, to onhook it, without
tearing." Mrs. Riley was obliged to admit the wisdom of the Janus
basket. She knew how difficult it is to be even with a kitten.
This one was destined to illustrate the resources of its kind. For as
Mrs. Tapping endeavoured to conduct the conversation back to her
domestic difficulties, she was aware that the Janus basket grew suddenly
lighter. Mrs. Riley exclaimed at the same moment:--"Shure, and the
little baste's in the middle of the road!" So it was, hissing like a
steam-escape, and every hair on its body bristling with wrath at a large
black dog, who was smelling it in a puzzled, thoughtful way, _sans
rancune_. A cart, with an inscription on it that said its owner was
"Horse-Slaughterer to Her Majesty," came thundering down the street,
shaking three drovers seriously. The dog, illuminated by some new idea,
started back to bark in a sudden panic-stricken way. Who could tell what
new scourge this was that dogdom had to contend with?
Her Majesty's Horse-Slaughterer pulled his cart up just in time. It
would else have run over a man who was picking the kitten up. All the
males concerned exchanged execrations, and then the cart went on. The
dog's anxiety to smell the phenomenon survived, till the man kicked him
and told him to go to Hell.
"Now who does this here little beggar belong to?" said the man, whom
Mrs. Riley did not like the looks of. Mrs. Tapping claimed the cat, and
expressed wonder as to how it had got out of the basket. Heaven only
knew! It is only superhuman knowledge, divine or diabolical, that knows
how cats get out of baskets; or indeed steel safes, or anything.
"As I do not think, mister," said Mrs. Tapping--deciding at the last
moment not to say "my good man"--"it would be any use to try getting of
it inside of this basket out here in the street, let alone its aptitude
for getting out when got in, I might trouble you to be so kind as to
fetch it into my shop next door here, by the scruff of its neck
preferable.... Thank you, mister!" She had had some idea of making it
"Sir," but thought better of it.
The kitten, deposited on the counter, concerned itself with a
blue-bottle fly. The man remarked that it was coming on to rain. Mrs.
Tapping had not took notice of any rain, but believed the statement. Why
is it that one accepts as true any statement made by a visibly
disreputable male? Mrs. Tapping did not even look out at the door, for
confirmation or contradiction. She was so convinced of this rain that
she suggested that the man should wait a few minutes to see if it didn't
hold up, because he had no umbrella. His reply was:--"Well, since you're
so obliging, Missis, I don't mind if I do. My mate I'm waiting for,
he'll be along directly." He declined a chair or stool, and waited,
looking out at the door into the _cul de sac_ street that led to Sapps
Court, opposite. Mrs. Tapping absented herself in the direction of a
remote wrangle underground, explaining her motive. She desired that her
daughter, whose eyesight was better than her own, should thread a piece
of pack-thread through a rip in the base of the Janus basket, which had
to account for the kitten's appearance in public. She did not seem
apprehensive about leaving the shop ungarrisoned.
But had she been a shrewder person, she might have felt misgivings about
this man's character, even if she had acquitted him of such petty theft
as running away with congested tallow candles. For no reasonable theory
could be framed of a mate in abeyance, who would emerge from anywhere
down opposite. A mate of a man who seemed to be of no employment, to
belong to no recognised class, to wear description-baffling clothes--not
an ostler's, nor an undertaker's, certainly; but some suspicion of one
or other, Heaven knew why!--and never to look straight in front of him.
Without some light on his vocation, imagination could provide no mate.
And this man looked neither up nor down the street, but remained
watching the _cul de sac_ from one corner of his eye. It was not coming
on to rain as alleged, and he might have had a better outlook nearer the
door. But he seemed to prefer retirement.
The wrangle underground fluctuated slightly, went into another key, and
then resumed the theme. A lean little girl came in, who tapped on the
counter with a coin. She called out "'A'p'orth o' dips!" taking a tress
of her hair from between her teeth to say it, and putting it back to
await the result. She had a little brother with her, who was old
enough to walk when pulled, but not old enough to discipline his
own nose, being dependent on his sister's good offices, and her
pocket-handkerchief. He offered a sucked peardrop to the kitten, who
would not hear of it.
There certainly was no rain, or Mrs. Riley would never have remained
outside, with those bare arms and all. There she was, saying
good-evening to someone who had just come from Sapps Court. The man in
the shop listened, closely and curiously.
"Good-avening, Mr. Moses, thin! Whin will we see the blessed chilther
back? Shure it's wakes and wakes and wakes!" Which written, looks odd;
but, spoken, only conveyed regretful reference to the time Dave and
Dolly had been away, without taxing the hearer's understanding. "They
till me your good lady's been sane, down the Court."
Uncle Mo had just come out, on his way to a short visit to The Sun. He
was looking cheerful. "Ay, missis! Their aunt's bringin' of 'em back
to-morrow from Ealing. _I_'ll be glad enough to see 'em, for one."
"And the owld sowl upstairs. Not that I iver set my eyes on her, and
that's the thrruth."
"Old Mother Prichard? Why--that's none so easy to say. So soon as her
swell friends get sick of her, I suppose. She's being cared for, I take
it, at this here country place."
"'Tis a nobleman's sate in the Norruth, they sid. Can ye till the name
of it, to rimimber?" Mrs. Riley had an impression shared by many, that
noblemen's seats are, broadly speaking, in the North. She had no
definite information.
Uncle Mo caught at the chance of warping the name, uncorrected. "It's
the Towels in Rocestershire," said he with effrontery. "Some sort of a
Dook's, good Lard!" Then to change the subject:--"She won't have no
place to come back to, not till Mrs. Burr's out and about again."
"The axidint, at the Hospital. No, indade! And how's the poor woman,
hersilf? It was the blissin' of God she wasn't kilt on the spot!"
"It warn't a bad bit of luck. She'll be out of hospital next week, I'm
told. They're taking their time about it, anyhow! Good-night to ye,
missis! The rain's holdin' off." And Uncle Mo departed. Aunt M'riar had
insisted on his not discontinuing any of his lapses into bachelorhood
proper; which implies pub or club, according to man's degree.
* * * * *
Just a few minutes ago--speaking abreast of the story--Aunt M'riar,
getting ready at last to do a little work after so much tidying up, had
to go to the door to answer a knock. Its responsible agent was Michael,
excited. "It's _him_!" said he. "I seen him myself. Over at Tappingses.
And Mr. Moses, he's a-conversing with Missis Riley next door." He went
on to offer to make an affidavit, as was his practice, not only on the
Testament, but on most any book you could name.
It was not necessary: Aunt M'riar believed him. "You tell him," she
replied, "that Mrs. Prichard's gone away, and no time fixed for coming
back. Then he'll go. If he don't go, and comes along, just you say to
him Mr. Wardle he'll be back in a minute. He'll be only a short time at
The Sun."
"I'll say wotsumever you please, Missis Wardle. Only that won't carry no
weight, not if I says it ever so. He's a sly customer. Here he is
a-coming. Jist past the post!" That is, the one Dave broke his head off.
Aunt M'riar's heart thumped, and she felt sick. "_You_ say there's no
one in the house then," said she. This was panic, and loss of judgment.
For the interview was palpable to anyone approaching down the Court.
Micky must have felt this, but he only said:--"I'll square him how I
can, missis," and withdrew from the door. Mr. Wix's lurching footstep,
with the memory of its fetters on it, approached at its leisure. He
stopped and looked round, and saw the boy, who acknowledged his stare.
"I see you a-coming," said Michael.
Mr. Wix said:--"Young Ikey." He appeared to consider a course of action.
"Now do you want another half-a-bull?"
"Ah!" Micky was clear about that.
"Then you do sentry-go outside o' this, in the street, and if you see a
copper turning in here, you run ahead and give the word. Understand?
This is Wardle's, ain't it?"
"That's Wardle's. But there ain't nobody there."
"You young liar. I saw you talking through the door, only this minute."
"That warn't anybody, only Aunt M'riar. Party you wants is away--gone
away for a change. Mr. Moses ain't there, but he'll be back afore you
can reckon him up. You may knock at that door till you 'ammer in the
button, and never find a soul in the house, only Aunt M'riar. You try!
'Ammer away!" There was a _faux air_ of self-justification in this,
which did not bear analysis. Possibly Micky thought so himself, for he
vanished up the Court. He would at least be able to bring a false alarm
if any critical juncture arose.
The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then knocked at the door,
and waited. The woman inside had been listening to his voice with a
quaking heart--had known it for that of her truant husband of twenty
years ago, through all the changes time had made, and in spite of such
colour of its own as the prison taint had left in it. And he stood there
unsuspecting; not a thought in his mind of who she was, this Aunt
M'riar! Why indeed should he have had any?
She could not trust her voice yet, with a heart thumping like that. She
might take a moment's grace, at least, for its violence to subside. She
sat down, close to the door, for she felt sick and the room went round.
She wanted not to faint, though it was not clear that syncope would make
matters any the worse. But the longer he paused before knocking again,
the better for Aunt M'riar.
The knock came, a _crescendo_ on the previous one. She _had_ to respond
some time. Make an effort and get it over!
"That * * * young guttersnipe's given me a bad character," muttered Wix,
as he heard the chain slipped into its sheath. Then the door opened, and
a tremulous voice came from within.
"What is it ... you want?" it said. Its trepidation was out of all
proportion to the needs of the case. So thought Mr. Wix, and decided
that this Aunt M'riar was some poor nervous hysteric, perhaps an idiot
outright.
"Does an old lady by the name of Prichard live here, mistress?" He hid
his impatience with this idiot, assuming a genial or conciliatory
tone--a thing he perfectly well knew how to do, on occasion. "An old
lady by the name of Prichard.... You've got nothing to be frightened of,
you know. I'm not going to do _her_ any harm, nor yet you." He spoke as
to the idiot, in a reassuring tone. For the hysterical voice had tried
again for speech, and failed.
Aunt M'riar mustered a little more strength. "Old Mrs. Prichard's away
in the country," she said almost firmly. "She's not likely to be back
yet awhile. Can I take any message?"
"Are _you_ going in the country?"
"For when she comes back, I should have said."
"Ah--but when will that be? Next come strawberry-time, perhaps! I'll
write to her."
"I can't give her address." Aunt M'riar had an impression that the
omission of "you" after "give" just saved her telling a lie here. Her
words might have meant: "I am not at liberty to give her address to
anyone." It was less like saying she did not know it.
His next words startled her. "_I_ know her address. Got it written down
here. Some swell's house in Rocestershire." He made a pretence of
searching among papers.
Aunt M'riar was so taken by surprise at this that she had said
"Yes--Ancester Towers" before she knew it. She was not a person to
entrust secrets to.
"Right you are, mistress! Ancester Towers it is." He was making a
pretence, entirely for his own satisfaction, of confirming this from a
memorandum. Mr. Wix had got what he wanted, but he enjoyed the success
of his ruse. Of course, he had only used what he had just overheard from
Uncle Moses.
The thought then crossed Aunt M'riar's mind that unless she inquired of
him who he was, or why he wanted Mrs. Prichard, he would guess that she
knew already. It was the reaction of her concealed knowledge--a sort of
innocent guilty conscience. It was not a reasonable thought, but a vivid
one for all that--vivid enough to make her say:--"Who shall I say asked
for her?"
"Any name you like. It don't matter to me. I shall write to her myself."
Guilty consciences--even innocent ones--can never leave well alone. The
murderer who has buried his victim must needs hang about the spot to be
sure no one is digging him up. One looks back into the room one lit a
match in, to see that it is not on fire. A diseased wish to clear
herself from any suspicion of knowing anything about her visitor,
impelled Aunt M'riar to say:--"Of course I don't know the name you go
by." Obviously she would have done well to let it alone.
A person who had never borne an _alias_ would have thought nothing of
Aunt M'riar's phrase. The convict instantly detected the speaker's
knowledge of himself. Another thought crossed his mind:--How about that
caution this woman had given to Micky? Why was she so concerned that the
boy should not "split upon" him? "Who the devil are you?" said he
suddenly, half to himself. It was not the form in which he would have
put the question had he reflected.
The exclamation produced a new outcrop of terror or panic in Aunt
M'riar. She found voice to say:--"I've told you all I can, master." Then
she shut the door between them, and sank down white and breathless on
the chair close at hand, and waited, longing to hear his footsteps go.
She seemed to wait for hours.
Probably it was little over a minute when the man outside knocked
again--a loud, sepulchral, single knock, with determination in it. Its
resonance in the empty house was awful to the lonely hearer.
But Aunt M'riar's capacity for mere dread was full to the brim. She was
on the brink of the reaction of fear, which is despair--or, rather,
desperation. Was she to wait for another appalling knock, like that, to
set her heartstrings vibrating anew? To what end? No--settle it now,
under the sting of this one.
She again opened the door as before. "I've told you all I know about
Mrs. Prichard, and it's true. You must just wait till she comes back. I
can't tell you no more."
"I don't want any more about Mrs. Prichard. I want to see side of this
door. Take that * * * chain off, and speak fair. I sent you a civil
message through that young boy. He gave it you?"
"He told me what you said."
"What did he say I said? If he told you any * * * lies, I'll half murder
him! What did he say?"
"He said you was coming to see your mother, and Mrs. Prichard she must
be your mother if she comes from Skillicks. So I told him she come from
Skillicks, three year agone. Then he said you wanted money of Mrs.
Prichard...."
"How the devil did he know that?"
"He said it. And I told him the old lady had no money. It's little
enough, if she has."
"And that was all?"
"All about Mrs. Prichard."
"Anything else?"
"He told me your name."
"What name?"
"Thornton Daverill." The moment Aunt M'riar had said this she was sorry
for it. For she remembered, plainly enough considering the tension of
her mind, that Micky had only given her the surname. Her oversight had
come of her own bitter familiarity with the name. Think how easy for her
tongue to trip!
"Anything else?"
"No--nothing else."
"You swear to Goard?"
"I have told you everything."
"Then look you here, mistress! I can tell you this one thing. That young
boy never told you Thornton. I've never named the name to a soul since I
set foot in England. How the devil come you to know it?"
Aunt M'riar was silent. She had given herself away, and had no one but
herself to thank for it.
"How the devil come you to know it?" The man raised his voice harshly to
repeat the question, adding, more to himself:--"You're some * * * jade
that knows me. Who the devil _are_ you?"
The woman remained dumb, but on the very edge of desperation.
"Open this damned door! You hear me? Open this door--or, look you, I
tell you what I'll do! Here's that * * * young boy coming. I'll twist
his neck for him, by Goard, and leave him on your doorstep. You put me
to it, and I'll do it. I'm good for my word." A change of tone, from
savage anger to sullen intent, conveyed the strength of a controlled
resolve, that might mean more than threat. At whatever cost, Aunt M'riar
could not but shield Micky. It was in her service that he had provoked
this man's wrath.
She wavered a little, closed the door, and slipped the chain-hook up to
its limit. Even then she hesitated to withdraw it from its socket. The
man outside made with his tongue the click of acceleration with which
one urges a horse, saying, "Look alive!" She could see no choice but to
throw the door open and face him. The moment that passed before she
could muster the resolution needed seemed a long one.
That she was helped to it by an agonising thirst, almost, of curiosity
to see his face once more, there can be no doubt. But could she have
said, during that moment, whether she most desired that he should have
utterly forgotten her, or that he should remember her and claim her as
his wife? Probably she would not have hesitated to say that worse than
either would be that he should recognise her only to slight her, and
make a jest, maybe, of the memories that were his and hers alike.
She had not long to wait. It needed just a moment's pause--no more--to
be sure no sequel of recognition would follow the blank stare that met
her gaze as she threw back the door, and looked this husband of hers
full in the face. None came, and her heart throbbed slower and slower.
It would be down to self-command in a few beats. Meanwhile, how about
that chance slip of her tongue? "Thornton" had to be accounted for.
The man's stare was indeed blank, for any sign of recognition that it
showed. It was none the less as intent and curious as was the scrutiny
that met it, looking in vain for a false lover long since fled, not a
retrievable one, but a memory of a sojourn in a garden and a collapse in
a desert. So little was left, to explain the past, in the face some
violence had twisted askew, close-shaved and scarred, one white scar on
the temple warping the grip in which its contractions held a cold green
orb that surely never was the eye that was a girl-fool's _ignis fatuus_,
twenty odd years ago. So little of the flawless teeth, which surely
those fangs never were!--fangs that told a tale of the place in which
they had been left to decay; for such was prison-life three-quarters of
a century since. It was strange, but Aunt M'riar, though she knew that
it was he, felt sick at heart that he should be so unlike himself.
He was the first to speak. "You'll know me again, mistress," he said. He
took his eyes off her to look attentively round the room. Uncle Mo's
sporting prints, prized records of ancient battles, caught his eye.
"Ho--that's it, is it?" said he, with a short nod of illumination, as
though he had made a point as a cross-examiner. "That's where we
are--Figg and Broughton--Corbet--Spring?... That's your game, is it? Now
the question is, where the devil do I come in? How come you to know my
name's Thornton? That's the point!"
Now nothing would have been easier for Aunt M'riar than to say that Mrs.
Prichard had told her that her only surviving son bore this name. But
the fact is that the old lady, quite a recent experience, had for the
moment utterly vanished from her thoughts, and the man before her had
wrenched her mind back into the past. She could only think of him as the
cruel betrayer of her girlhood, none the less cruel that he had failed
in his worst plot against her, and used a legitimate means to cripple
her life. She could scarcely have recalled anything Mrs. Prichard had
said, for the life of her. She was face to face with the past, yet
standing at bay to conceal her identity.
Think how hard pressed she was, and forgive her for resorting to an
excusable fiction. It was risky, but what could she do? "I knew your
wife," said she briefly. "Twenty-two years agone."
"You mean the girl I married?" He had had to marry one of them, but
could only marry one. That was how he classed her. "What became of that
girl, I wonder? Maybe you know? Is she alive or dead?"
"I couldn't say, at this len'th of time." Then, she remembered a
servant, at the house where her child was born, and saw safety for her
own fiction in assuming this girl's identity. Invention was stimulated
by despair. "She was confined of a girl, where I was in service. She
gave me letters to post to her husband. R. Thornton Daverill." That was
safe, anyhow. For she remembered giving letters, so directed, to this
girl.
The convict sat down on the table, looking at her no longer, which she
found a relief. "Did that kid live or die?" said he. "Blest if I
recollect!"
"Born dead. She had a bad time of it. She came back to London, and I
never see any more of her." Aunt M'riar should have commented on this
oblivion of his own child. She was letting her knowledge of the story
influence her, and endangering her version of it.
The man stopped and thought a little. Then he turned upon her suddenly.
"How came you to remember that name for twenty-two years?" said he.
A thing she recollected of this servant-girl helped her at a pinch. "She
asked me to direct a letter when she hurt her hand," she said. "When
you've wrote a name, you bear it in mind."
"What did she call the child?"
"It was born dead."
"What did she mean to call it?"
The answer should have been "She didn't tell me." But Aunt M'riar was a
poor fiction-monger after all. For what must she say but "Polly, after
herself"?
"Not Mary?"
Then Aunt M'riar forgot herself completely. "No--Polly. After the name
you called her, at The Tun." She saw her mistake, too late.
Daverill turned his gaze on her again, slowly. "You seem to remember a
fat lot about this and that!" said he. He got down off the table, and
stepped between Aunt M'riar and the door, saying: --"Come you here,
mistress!" The harshness of his voice was hideous to her. He caught her
wrist, and pulled her to the window. The only gas-lamp the Court
possessed shone through it on her white face. "Now--what's your * * *
married name?"
Aunt M'riar could not utter a word.
"I can tell you. You're that * * * young Polly, and your name's
Daverill. You're my lawful wife--d'ye hear?" He gave a horrible laugh.
"Why, I thought you was buried years ago!"
She began gasping hysterically:--"Leave me--leave me--you are nothing to
me now!" and struggled to free herself. Yet, inexpressibly dreadful as
the fact seemed to her, she knew that her struggle was not against the
grasp of a stranger. Think of that bygone time! The thought took all the
spirit out of her resistance.
He returned to his seat upon the table, drawing her down beside him.
"Yes, Polly Daverill," said he, "I thought you dead and buried, years
ago. I've had a rough time of it, since then, across the water." He
paused a moment; then said quite clearly, almost passionlessly:--"God
curse them all!" He repeated the words, even more equably the second
time; then with a rough bear-hug of the arm that gripped her
waist:--"What have _you_ got to say about it, hay? Who's your * * *
husband now? Who's your prizefighter?"
The terrified woman just found voice for:--"He's not my husband." She
could not add a word of explanation.
The convict laughed unwholesomely, beneath his breath. "_That's_ what
you've come to, is it? Pretty Polly! Mary the Maid of the Inn! The man
you've got is not your husband. Sounds like the parson--Holy Scripture,
somewhere! I've seen him. He's at the lush-ken down the road. Now you
tell the truth. When's he due back here?"
She had only just breath for the word seven, which was true. It was past
the half-hour, and he would not have believed her had she said sooner.
But it was as though she told him that she knew she was helplessly in
his power for twenty-five minutes. Helplessly, that is, strong
resolution and desperation apart!
"Then he won't be here till half-past. Time and to spare! Now you listen
to me, and I'll learn you a thing or two you don't know. You are
my--lawful--wife, so just you listen to me! Ah, would you?..." This was
because he had supposed that a look of hers askant had rested on a knife
upon the table within reach. It was a pointed knife, known as "the bread
knife," which Dolly was never allowed to touch. He pulled her away from
it, caught at it, and flung it away across the room. "It's a narsty,
dangerous thing," he said, "safest out of the way!" Then he went
on:--"You--are--my--lawful--wife, and what St. Paul says mayhap you
know? 'Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as it is fit in the
Lord.' ... What!--me not know my * * * Testament! Why!--it's the only *
* * book you get a word of when you're nursing for Botany Bay fever. God
curse 'em all! Why--the place was Hell--Hell on earth!"
Aunt M'riar now saw too late that she should not have opened that door,
at any cost. But how about Micky? Surely, however, that was a mere
threat. What had this man to gain by carrying it out? Why had she not
seen that he would never run needless risk, to gain no end?
The worst thorn in her heart was that, changed as he was from the
dissolute, engaging youth that she had dreamed of reforming, she still
knew him for himself. He was, as he said, her husband. And, for all that
she shrank from him and his criminality with horror, she was obliged to
acknowledge--oh, how bitterly!--that she wanted help against herself as
much as against him. She was obliged to acknowledge the grisly force of
Nature, that dictated the reimposition of the yoke that she had through
all these years conceived that she had shaken off. And she knew that she
might look in vain for help to Law, human or theological. For each in
its own way, and for its own purposes, gives countenance to the only
consignment of one human creature to the power of another that the slow
evolution of Justice has left in civilised society. Each says to the
girl trapped into unholy matrimony, from whom the right to look inside
the trap has been cunningly withheld:--"Back to your lord and master! Go
to him, he is your husband--kiss him--take his hand in thine!" Neither
is ashamed to enforce a contract to demise the self-ownership of one
human being to another, when that human being is a woman. And yet Nature
is so inexorable that the victim of a cruel marriage often needs help
sorely--help against herself, to enable her, on her own behalf, to shake
off the Devil some mysterious instinct impels her to cling to. Such an
instinct was stirring in Aunt M'riar's chaos of thought and feeling,
even through her terror and her consciousness of the vileness of the man
and the vileness of his claim over her. The idea of using the power that
her knowledge of his position gave her never crossed her mind. Say
rather that the fear that a call for help would consign him to a just
retribution for his crimes was the chief cause of her silence.
A dread that she might be compelled to do so was lessened by his next
speech. "You've no call to look so scared, Polly Daverill. You do what
I tell you, and be sharp about it. What are you good for?--that's the
question! Got any money in the house?"
She felt relieved. Now he would take his arm away. That arm was all the
worse from the fact that her shrinking from it was one-sided. "A
little," she answered. "It's upstairs. Let me get it."
He relaxed the arm. "Go ahead!" he said. "I'll follow up."
She cried out with sudden emphasis:--"No--I will not. I will not." And
then with subdued earnestness:--"Indeed I will bring it down. Indeed I
will."
"You won't stick up there, by any chance, till your man that's not your
husband happens round?"
She addressed him by name for the first time. "Thornton, did I ever tell
you a lie?"
"I never caught you in one, that I know of. Cut along!"
She went like a bird released. Once in her room, and clear of him, she
could lock her door and cry for help. She turned the key, and had
actually thrown up the window-sash, when her own words crossed her
mind--her claim to veracity. No--she would keep a clear conscience, come
what might. She glanced up the Court, and saw Micky coming through the
arch; then closed the window, and took an old leather purse from the
drawer of the looking-glass Mr. Bartlett's men had not broken. It
contained the whole of her small savings.
After she left the room, Daverill had glanced round for valuables. An
old silver watch of Uncle Mo's, that always stopped unless allowed to
lie on its back, was ticking on the dresser. The convict slipped it into
his pocket, and looked round for more, opening drawers, looking under
dish-covers. Finding nothing, he sat again on the table, with his hands
in the pockets of his velveteen corduroy coat. His face-twist grew more
marked as he wrinkled the setting of a calculating eye. "I should have
to square it with Miss Juliar," said he, in soliloquy. He was evidently
clear about his meaning, whatever it was.
The boy came running down the Court, and entering the front-yard, whose
claim to be a garden was now _nil_, tapped at the window excitedly.
Daverill went to the door and opened it.
"Mister Moses coming along. Stopping to speak to Tappingses. You'd best
step it sharp, Mister Wix!"
"Polly Daverill, look alive!" The convict shouted at the foot of the
stairs, and Aunt M'riar came running down. "Where's the * * * cash?"
said he.
"It's all I've got," said poor Aunt M'riar. She handed the purse to
him, and he caught it and slipped it in a breast-pocket, and was out in
the Court in a moment, running, without another word. He vanished into
the darkness.
Five minutes later, Uncle Mo, escaping from Mrs. Tapping, came down the
Court, and found the front-door open and no light in the house. He
nearly tumbled over Aunt M'riar, in a swoon, or something very like it,
in the chair by the door.
CHAPTER II
HOW ADRIAN TORRENS COULD SING WITHOUT WINCING. FIGARO. DICTATION OF
LETTERS. HOW ADRIAN BROKE DOWN. THE LERNAEAN HYDRA'S EYE-PEEPS. HOW
ADRIAN COULD SEE NOTHING IN ANY NUMBER OF LOOKING-GLASSES. HOW
GWEN, IN SPITE OF APPEARANCES, HELD TO THE SOLEMN COMPACT. SIR
MERRIDEW'S TREACHERY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN HAD BEEN TO LOOK
AT ARTHUR'S BRIDGE. A KINKAJOU IS NOT A CARCAJOU. OF THE
PECULIARITIES OF FIRST-CLASS SERVANTS. MRS. PICTURE'S STORY
DIVULGED BY GWEN. HOW DAVE'S RIVAL GRANNIES WERE SAFEST APART
Old folk and candles burn out slowly at the end. But before that end
comes they flicker up, once, twice, and again. The candle says:--"Think
of me at my best. Remember me when I shone out thus, and thus; and never
guttered, nor wanted snuffing. Think of me when you needed no other
light than mine, to look in Bradshaw and decide that you had better go
early and ask at the Station." Thus says the candle.
And the old man says to the old woman, and she says it back to
him:--"Think of me in the glorious days when we were dawning on each
other; of that most glorious day of all when we found each other out,
and had a tiff in a week and a reconciliation in a fortnight!" Then each
is dumb for a while, and life ebbs slowly, till some chance memory stirs
among the embers, and a bright spark flickers for a moment in the dark.
The candle dies at last, and smells, and mixes with the elements. And
some say you and I will do the very same--die and go out. Possibly! Just
as you like! Have it your own way.
It is even so with the Old Year in his last hours. Is ever an October so
chill that he may not bid you suddenly at midday to come out in the
garden and recall, with him, what it was like in those Spring days when
the first birds sang; those Summer days when the hay-scent was in
Cheapside, and a great many roses had not been eaten by blights, and it
was too hot to mow the lawn? Is ever a November so self-centred as to
refuse to help the Old Year to a memory of the gleams of April, and the
nightingale's first song about the laggard ash-buds? Is icy December's
self so remorseless, even when the holly-berries are making a parade of
their value as Christmas decorations?--even when it's not much use
pretending, because the Waits came last night, and you thought, when you
heard them, what a long time ago it was that a little boy or girl, who
must have been yourself, was waked by them to wonder at the mysteries of
Night? But nothing is of any use in December, because January will come,
and this year will be dead and risen from its tomb, and the
metaphorically disposed will be hoping that Resurrection is not so
uncomfortable as all that comes to.
That time was eight weeks ahead one morning at Pensham Steynes, which
has to be borne in mind, as the residence of Sir Hamilton Torrens,
Bart., when the blind man, his son, was dictating to his sister Irene
one of the long missives he was given to sending to his _fiancée_ in
London. It was just such a late October day as the one indirectly
referred to above; in fact, it would quite have done for a Spring day,
if only you could have walked across the lawn without getting your feet
soaked. The chance primroses that the mild weather had deluded into
budding must have felt ashamed of their stupidity, and disgusted at the
sight of the stripped trees, although they may have reaped some
encouragement from a missel-thrush that had just begun again after the
holiday, and been grateful to the elms and oaks that had kept some
decent clothing on them. Irene had found one such primrose in a morning
walk, and a confirmation of it in the morning's _Times_.
"Why didn't you say the ground was covered with them, 'Re? I could have
believed in any number on your authority. Surely, a chap with his eyes
out is entitled to the advantages which seeing nothing confers on him.
Do please perjure yourself about violets and crocuses on my behalf. It
is quite a mistake to suppose I shall be jealous. You've no idea what a
magnanimous elder brother you've got." So Adrian had said when they came
in, and had felt his way to the piano--it was extraordinary how he had
learned to feel his way about--and had played the air of "Sumer is
ycumin in, lhude sing cucu," with the courage of a giant. Not only that,
but actually sang it, and never flinched from:--"Groweth seed and
bloweth meed and springeth wood anew." And his heart was saying to him
all the while that he might never again see the springing of the young
corn, and the daisies in the grass, and the new buds waiting for the
bidding of the sun.
Irene, quite alive to her brother's intrepidity, but abstaining
resolutely from spoken acknowledgment--for would not that have been an
admission of the need for courage?--had gone through a dramatic effort
on her own behalf, a kind of rehearsal of the part she had to play. She
had arranged writing materials for action, and affected the attitude of
a patient scribe, longing for dictation. She had assumed a hardened
tone, to say:--"When you're ready!" Then Adrian had deserted the piano,
and addressed himself to dictation. "Where were we?" said he. For the
letter was half written, having been interrupted by visitors the day
before.
"When the Parysfort women came in?" said Irene. "We had got to the old
woman. After the old woman--what next?"
Adrian repeated, "After the old woman--after the old woman." Then he
said suddenly:--"Bother the old woman. I tell you what, 'Re, we must
tear this letter up, and start fair. Those people coming in spoiled it."
His tone was vexed and restless. The weariness of his blindness galled
him. This fearful inability to write was one of his worst trials. He
fought hard against his longing to cry out--to lighten his heart, ever
so little, by expression of his misery; but then, the only one thing he
could do in requital of the unflagging patience of this dear amanuensis,
was to lighten the weight of her sorrow for him. And this he could only
do by showing unflinching resolution to bear his own burden. One worst
unkindest cut of all was that any word of exasperation against the
cruelty of a cancelled pen might seem an imputation on her of
ineffective service, almost a reproach. It was perhaps because the
visitors of yesterday were so evidently to blame for the miscarriage of
this letter, that Adrian felt, in a certain sense, free to grieve aloud.
It was a relief to him to say:--"The Devil fly away with the Honourable
Misses Parysforts!"
"Suppose we have a clean slate, darling, and I'll tear the letter up,
old woman and all. Or shall I read back a little, to start you?"
"Oh no--please! On no account read anything again.... Suppose I confess
up! Make some stars, and go on like this:--'These are not Astronomy, but
to convey the idea that I have forgotten where I was, and that we have
to make it a rule never to re-read, for fear I should tear it up. I
believe I was trying to find a new roundabout way of saying how much
more to me you were than anything in Heaven or Earth.'" The dictation
paused.
"Go on," said the amanuensis. "After 'Heaven and Earth'?" She paused
with an expectant pen, her eyes on the paper. Then she looked up, to see
that her brother's face was in his hands, dropped down on the
side-cushion of the sofa. She waited for him to speak, knowing he would
only think she did not see him. But she had to wait overlong for the
lasting powers of this excuse; so she let it lapse, and went to sit
beside him, and coaxed his hands from his face, kissing away something
very like a tear. "But why now, darling?" said she. "You know what I
mean. What was it in the letter?"
"Why--I was going to say," replied Adrian, recovering himself, "I was
going on to 'the thing that makes day of my darkness' or something of
that sort--some poetical game, you know--and then I thought what a many
things I could write if I could write them myself, and shut them in the
envelope for Gwen alone, that I can't say now, though the dearest sister
ever man had yet writes them for me. I _can_ say to _her_, darling, that
if I were offered my eyesight back, by some irritating fairy
godmother--that kind of thing--in exchange for the Gwen that is mine, I
would not accept her boon upon the terms. I should, on the contrary,
wish I were the Lernaean Hydra, that I might give the balance of seven
pairs of eyes rather than ..."
"Rather than lose Gwen." Irene spoke, because he had hesitated.
"Exactly. But I got stuck a moment by the reflection that Gwen's
sentiments might not have remained altogether unchanged, in that case.
In fact, she might have run away, at Arthur's Bridge. It is an obscure
and difficult subject, and the supply of parallel cases is not all one
could wish."
"I don't see why we shouldn't put all or any of that in the letter." For
Irene always favoured her brother's incurable whimsicality as a resource
against the powers of Erebus and dark Night, and humoured any approach
to extravagance, to disperse the cloud that had gathered. This one
pleased him.
"How shall we put it?... somehow like this.... By-the-by, do you know
how to spell Lernaean?..." He paused abruptly, and seemed to listen.
"Sh--sh a minute! What's that outside? I thought I heard somebody
coming." Irene listened too.
"Ply hears somebody," she said. And then she had all but said "Look at
him!" in an unguarded moment.
An instant later the dog had started up and scoured from the room as if
life and death depended on his presence elsewhere. Adrian heard
something his sister did not, and exclaimed "What's that?"
"Nothing," said Irene. "Only someone at the front-door. Ply's always
like that."
"I didn't mean Ply. Listen! Be quiet." The room they were in was remote
from the front-door of the house, and the voice they heard was no more
than a musical modulation of silence. It had a power in it, for all
that, to rouse the blind man to excitement. He had to put a restraint on
himself to say quietly:--"Suppose you go and see! Do you mind?" Irene
left the room.
Anyone who had seen Adrian then for the first time, and watched him
standing motionless with his hands on a chairback and the eyes that saw
nothing gazing straight in front of him, but not towards the door, would
have wondered to see a man of his type apparently so interested in his
own image, repeated by the mirror before him as often as eyesight could
trace its give-and-take with the one that faced it on the wall behind
him. He was the wrong man for a Narcissus. The strength of his framework
was wrong throughout. Narcissus had no bone-distances, as artists say,
and his hair was in crisp curls, good for the sculptor. No one ever
needed to get a pair of scissors to snip it. But though anyone might
have marvelled at Adrian Torrens's seeming Narcissus-like intentness on
his own manifold image, he could never have surmised that cruel
blindness was its apology. He could never have guessed, from anything in
their seeming, that the long perspective of gazing orbs, vanishing into
nothingness, were not more sightless than their originals.
He only listened for a moment. For, distant as she was, Irene's cry of
surprise on meeting some new-comer was decisive as to that new-comer's
identity. It could be no one but Gwen. Irene's welcome settled that.
The blind man was feeling his way to the door when Gwen opened it. Then
she was in his arms, and what cared he for anything else in the heavens
above or the earth beneath? His exultation had to die down, like the
resonant chords in the music he had played an hour since, before he
could come to the level of speech. Then he said prosaically:--"This is
very irregular! How about the solemn compact? How are we going to look
our mamma in the face?"
"Did it yesterday evening!" said Gwen. "We had an explosion.... Well, I
won't say that--suppose we call it a warm discussion, leading to a more
reasonable attitude on the part of ... of the people who were in the
wrong. The other people, that is to say!"
"Precisely. They always are. I vote we sit on the sofa, and you take
your bonnet off. I know it's on by the ribbons under your chin--not
otherwise."
"What a clever man he is--drawing inferences! However, bonnets _have_
got very much out of sight, I admit. Hands off, please!... There!--now I
can give particulars."
Irene, who--considerately, perhaps--had not followed closely, here came
in, saying:--"Stop a minute! I haven't heard anything yet....
There!--now go on."
She found a seat, and Gwen proceeded.
"I came home yesterday, with an old woman I've picked up, who certainly
is the dearest old woman...."
"Never mind the old woman. Why did you come?"
"I came home because I chose. I came here because I wanted to.... Well,
I'll tell you directly. What I wish to mention now is that I have not
driven a coach-and-six through the solemn compact. I assented to a
separation for six months, but no date was fixed. I assure you it
wasn't. I was looking out all the time, and took good care."
"Wasn't it fixed by implication?" This was Irene.
"Maybe it was. But _I_ wasn't. We can put the six months off, and start
fair presently. Papa quite agreed."
"Mamma didn't?" This was Adrian.
"Of course not. That was the basis of the ... warm discussion which
followed on my declaration that I was coming to see you to-day. However,
we parted friends, and I slept sound, with a clear conscience. I got up
early, to avoid complications, and made Tom Kettering drive me here in
the dog-cart. It took an hour and a half because the road's bad. It's
like a morass, all the way. I like the sound of the horse's hoofs when I
drive, not mud-pie thuds."
"We didn't hear any sound at all, except Ply.... Yes, dear!--of course
_you_ heard. I apologize." Irene said this to Achilles, who, catching
his name, took up a more active position in the conversation, which he
conceived to be about himself. Some indeterminate chat went on until
Gwen said suddenly:--"Now I want to talk about what I came here for."
"Go it!" said Adrian.
"I want to know all about what 'Re said to Dr. Merridew in her
letter.... Well, what's the matter?"
Amazement on Irene's fact had caused this. "And that man calls himself
an F.R.C.S.!" said she.
Adrian, uninformed, naturally asked why not. Gwen supplied a clue for
guessing. "He said he couldn't read your handwriting, and gave me your
letter to make out."
"What nonsense! I write perfectly plainly."
"So I told him. But he maintained he had hardly been able to make out a
word of it. Of course I read it. Your caution to him not to tell me was
a little obscure, but otherwise I found it easy enough. Anyhow, I read
all about it. And now I know."
"Well--I'll never trust a man with letters after his name again. Of
course he was pretending."
"But what for?"
"Because he wanted to tell you, and didn't want to get in a scrape for
betraying my confidence."
Adrian struck in. Might he ask what the rumpus was about? Why Sir
Merridew, and why letters?
Irene supplied the explanation. "I wrote to him about you and Septimius
Severus.... Don't you recollect? And I cautioned him particularly not to
tell Gwen.... Why not? Why--of course not! It was sheer, inexcusable
dishonesty, and I shall tell him so next time I see him."
Gwen appeared uninterested in the point of honour. "I wonder," she said,
"whether he thought telling me of it this way would prevent my building
too much on it, and being disappointed. That would be so exactly like
Dr. Merridew."
"I think," said Adrian deliberately, "that I appreciate the position.
Septimius Severus figures in it as a bust, or as an indirect way of
describing a circumstance; preferably the latter, I should say, for it
must be most uncomfortable to be a bust. As an Emperor he is
inadmissible. I remember the incident--but I suspect it was only a
dream." His voice fell into real seriousness as he said this; then went
back to mock seriousness, after a pause. "However, I am bound to say
that 'inexcusable dishonesty' is a strong expression. I should suggest
'pliable conscience,' always keeping in view the motive of ... Yes,
Pelides dear, but I have at present nothing for you in the form of cake
or sugar. Explain yourself somehow, to the best of your ability." For
Achilles had suddenly placed an outstretched paw, impressively, on the
speaker's knee.
"I see what it was," said Gwen. "You said 'pliable conscience'--just
now."
"Well?"
"He thought he was the first syllable. Never mind _him_! I want you to
tell me about Septimius Severus. He's what I came about. What was it
that happened, exactly?" Thereupon Adrian gave the experience which the
story knows already, in greater detail.
In the middle, a casual housekeeper was fain to speak to Miss Torrens,
for a minute. Who therefore left the room and became a voice,
housekeeping, in the distance.
Then Gwen made Adrian tell the story again, cross-examining him as one
cross-examines obduracy in the hope of admissions that will at least
countenance a belief in the truth that we want to be true. If Adrian had
seen his way to a concession that would have made matters pleasant, he
would have jumped at the chance of making it. But false hope was so much
worse than false despair. Better, surely, a spurious growth of the
latter, with disillusionment to come, than a stinted instalment of the
former with a chance of real despair ahead. Adrian took the view that
Sir Coupland was really a weak, good-natured chap who had wanted Gwen to
have every excuse for hope that could be constructed, even with unsound
materials; but who also wanted the responsibilities of the jerry-builder
to rest on other shoulders than his own. Gwen discredited this view of
the great surgeon's character in her inner consciousness, but hardly had
courage to raise her voice against it, because of the danger of
fostering false hopes in her lover's mind. Nevertheless she could not be
off fanning a little flame of comfort to warm her heart, from the
conviction that so responsible an F.R.C.S. would never have gone out of
his way to show her the letter if he had not thought there was some
chance, however small, of a break in the cloud.
After Sir Coupland's letter and its subject had been allowed to lapse,
Gwen said:--"So now you see what I came for, and that's all about it.
What do you think I did, dearest, yesterday as soon as I had seen my old
lady comfortably settled? She was dreadfully tired, you know. But she
was very plucky and wouldn't admit it."
"Who the dickens _is_ your old lady?"
"Don't be impatient. I'll tell you all in good time. First I want to
tell you where I went yesterday afternoon. I went across the garden
through the rose-forest ... you know?--what you said must be a
rose-forest to smell like that...."
"I know. And you went through the gate you came through,"--even so a
Greek might have spoken to Aphrodite of "the sea-foam you sprang
from"--"and along the field-path to the little bridge fat men get stuck
on...." This was an exaggeration of an overstatement of a disputed fact.
"Yes, my dearest, and I was there by myself. And I stood and looked over
to Swayne's Oak and thought to myself if only it all could happen again,
and a dog might come with a rush and kiss me, and paw me with his dirty
paws! And then if you--_you_--_you_ were to come out of the little
coppice, and come to the rescue, all wet through and dripping, how I
would take you in my arms, and keep you, and not let you go to be shot.
I _would_. And I would say to you:--'I have found you in time, my
darling, I have found you, in time to save you. And now that I have
found you, I will keep you, like this. And you would look at me, and see
that it was not a forward girl, but me myself, your very own, come for
you.... I wonder what you would have said."
"I wonder what I should have said. I think I know, though. I should have
said that although a perfect stranger, I should like, please, to remain
in Heaven as long--I am quoting Mrs. Bailey--as it was no inconvenience.
I might have said, while in Heaven, that we were both under a
misapprehension, having taken for granted occurrences, to the
development of which our subsequent experiences were essential. But I
should have indulged the misapprehension...."
"Of course you would. Any man in his senses would...."
"I agree with you."
"Unless he was married or engaged or something."
"That might complicate matters. Morality is an unknown quantity.... But,
darling, let's drop talking nonsense...."
"No--don't let's! It's such sensible nonsense. Indeed, dearest, I saw it
all plain, as I stood there yesterday at Arthur's Bridge. I saw what it
had all meant. I did not know _at the time_, but I should have done so
if I had not been a fool. I did not see then why I stood watching you
till you were out of sight. But I do see now."
Adrian answered seriously, thoughtfully, as one who would fain get to
the heart of a mystery. "I knew quite well then--I am convinced of
it--why I turned, when I thought I was out of sight, to see if you were
still there. I turned because my heart was on fire--because my world was
suddenly filled with a girl I had exchanged fifty words with. I was not
unhappy before you dawned--only tranquil."
"What were you thinking of, just before you saw me, when you were wading
through the wet fern? I think _I_ was only thinking how wet the ferns
must have been. How little I thought then who the man was, with the
dog! You were only 'the man' then."
"And then--I got shot! I'm so glad. Just think, dearest, what a
difference it would have made to me if that ounce of lead had gone an
inch wrong...."
"And you had been killed outright!"
"I didn't mean that. I meant the other way. Suppose it had missed, and I
had finished my walk with my eyes in my head, and come back here and got
an introduction to the girl I saw in the Park, and not known what to say
to her when I got it!"
"I should have known you at once."
"Dearest love, some tenses of verbs are kittle-cattle to shoe behind.
'Should have' is one of the kittlest of the whole lot. You would have
thought me an interesting author, and I should have sent you a copy of
my next book. And then we should have married somebody else."
"Where is the organ of nonsense in Poets' heads, I wonder. It must be
this big one, on the top."
"No--that's veneration. My strong point. It shows itself in the
readiness with which I recognise the Finger of Providence. I discern in
the nicety with which old Stephen's bullet did its predestined work a
special intervention on my behalf. A little more and I should have been
sleeping with my fathers, or have joined the Choir of Angels, or anyhow
been acting up to my epitaph to the best of my poor ability. A little
less, and I should have gone my way rejoicing, ascribing my escape from
that bullet to the happy-go-lucky character of the Divine disposition of
human affairs. I should never have claimed the attentions due to a
slovenly, unwholesome corpse...."
"You shall _not_ talk like that. Blaspheme as much as you like. I don't
mind blasphemy."
Adrian kissed the palm of the hand that stopped his mouth, and continued
speech, under drawbacks. "An intelligent analysis will show that my
remarks are reverential, not blasphemous. You will at least admit that
there would have been no Mrs. Bailey."
Gwen removed her hand. "None whatever! Yes, you may talk about Mrs.
Bailey. There would have been no Mrs. Bailey, and I should never have
lain awake all night with your eyes on my conscience.... Yes--the night
after mamma and I had tea with you...."
"My eyes on your conscience! Oh--my eyes be hanged! Would I have my eyes
back now?--to lose _you_! Oh, Gwen, Gwen!--sometimes the thought comes
to me that if it were not for my privation, my happiness would be too
great to be borne--that I should scarcely dare to live for it, had the
price I paid for it been less. What is the loss of sight for life to set
against...."
"Are you aware, good man, that you are talking nonsense? Be a reasonable
Poet, at least!"
She was drawing her hand caressingly over his, and just as she said
this, lifted it suddenly, with a start. "Your ring scratches," said she.
"Does it?" said he, feeling it. "Oh yes--it does. I've found where. I'll
have it seen to.... I wonder now why I never noticed that before."
"It's a good ring that won't scratch its wearer. I suppose I was
unpopular with it. It didn't hurt. Perhaps it was only in fun. Or
perhaps it was to call attention to the fact that you have never told me
about it. You haven't, and you said you would."
"So I did, when we had The Scene." He meant the occasion on which,
according to Gwen's mamma, she had made him an offer of her affections
in the Jacobean drawing-room. "It's a ring with magic powers--nothing to
do with any young lady, as you thought. It turns pale at the approach of
poison."
"Let's get some poison, and try. Isn't there some poison in the house?"
"I dare say there is, in the kitchen. You might touch the bell and ask."
"I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean private poison--doctor's
bottles--blue ones with embossed letters.... _You_ know?"
"_I_ know. My maternal parent has any number. But all empty, I'm afraid.
She always finishes them. Besides--don't let's bring her in! She has
such high principles. However, I've got some poison--what an Irish
suicide would consider the rale cratur--only I won't get it out even for
this experiment, because I may want it...."
"You _may want it_!"
"Of course." He suddenly deserted paradox and levity, and became
serious. "My dearest, think of this! Suppose I were to lose you, here in
the dark!... Oh, I know all that about duty--_I_ know! I would not kill
myself at once, because it would be unkind to Irene. But suppose I lost
Irene too?"
"I can't reason it out. But I can't believe it would ever be right to
destroy oneself."
"Possibly not, but once one was effectually destroyed...."
"That sounds like rat-paste." Gwen wanted to joke her way out of this
region of horrible surmise.
But Adrian was keen on his line of thought. "Exactly!" said he. "Vermin
destroyer. _I_ should be the vermin. But once destroyed, what contrition
should I have to endure? Remorse is a game that takes two selves to play
at it--a criminal and a conscientious person! Suppose the rat-paste had
destroyed them both!"
"But would it?"
"Absolute ignorance, whether or no, means an even chance of either. I
would risk it, for the sake of that chance of rich, full-blown
Non-Entity. Oh, think of it!--after loneliness in the dark!--loneliness
that once was full of life...."
"But suppose the other chance--how then?"
"Suppose I worked out as a disembodied spirit--and I quite admit it's as
likely as not, neither more nor less--it does not necessarily follow
that Malignity against Freethinkers is the only attribute of the
Creator. When one contemplates the extraordinary variety and magnitude
of His achievements, one is tempted to imagine that He occasionally
rises above mere personal feeling. It certainly does seem to me that
damning inoffensive Suicides would be an unwarrantable abuse of
Omnipotence. The fact is, I have a much better opinion of the Most High
than many of His admirers."
"But, nonsense apart.... Yes--it _is_ nonsense!... do you mean that you
would kill yourself about me?"
"Yes."
"I'm so glad, because I shan't give you the chance. But dear, silly
man--dearest, silliest man!--I do wish you would give me up that bottle.
I'll promise to give it back if ever I want to jilt you. Honour bright!"
"I dare say. With the good, efficacious poison emptied away; and tea, or
rum, or Rowland's Macassar instead! I cannot conceive a more equivocal
position than that of a suicide who has taken the wrong poison under the
impression that he has launched himself into Eternity."
"Oh no--I could never do that! It would be such a cruel hoax. Now,
dearest love, do let me have that bottle to take care of. Indeed, if
ever I jilt you, you shall have it back. Engaged girls--honourable
ones!--always give presents back on jilting. _Do_ let me have it!"
Adrian laughed at her earnestness. "_I'm_ not going to poison myself,"
said he. "Unless you jilt me! So it comes to exactly the same thing,
either way. There--be easy now! I've promised. Besides, the Warroo or
Guarano Indian who gave it me--out on the Essequibo; it was when I went
to Demerara--told me it wouldn't keep. So I wouldn't trust it. Much
better stick to nice, wholesome, old-fashioned Prussic Acid." He had
quite dropped his serious tone, and resumed his incorrigible levity.
"Did you really have it from a wild Indian? Where did he get it? Did he
make it?"
"No--that's the beauty of it. The Warroos of Guiana are great dabs at
making poisons. They make the celebrated Wourali poison, the smallest
quantity of which in a vein always kills. It has never disappointed its
backers. But he didn't make this. He brought it from the World of
Spirits, beyond the grave. It is intended for internal use only, being
quite inoperative when injected into a vein. Irene unpacked my valise
when I came back, and touched the bottle. And an hour afterwards she saw
that her white cornelian had turned red."
"Nonsense! It was a coincidence. Stones do change."
"I grant you it was a coincidence. Sunrise and daybreak are
coincidences. But one is because of t'other. Irene believed my poison
turned her stone red, or she would never have refused to wear it a
minute longer, from an unreasonable dislike of the Evil One, whose
influence she discerned in this simple, natural phenomenon. I considered
myself justified in boning the ring for my own use, so I had it enlarged
to go on my finger, and there it is, on! I shall never see it again,
unless Septimius Severus turns up trumps. What colour should you say it
was now?"
Gwen took the hand with the mystic ring on it, turning it this way and
that, to see the light reflected. "Pale pink," she said. "Yes--certainly
pale pink." She appeared amused, and unconvinced. "I had no idea 'Re was
superstitious. You are excusable, dearest, because, after all, you are
only a man. One expects a woman to have a little commonsense. Now
if...." She appeared to be wavering over something--disposed towards
concessions.
"Now if what?"
"If the ring had had a character from its last place--if it had
distinguished itself before...."
"Oh, I thought I told you about that. I forgot. It was a ring with a
story, that came somehow to my great-great-grandfather, when he was in
Paris. It had done itself great credit--gained quite a reputation--at
the Court of Louis Quatorze, on the fingers I believe of the Marchioness
de Brinvilliers and Louise de la Vallière.... Yes, I think both, but
close particulars have always been wanting. 'Re only consented to wear
it on condition she should be allowed to disbelieve in it, and then when
this little stramash occurred through my bringing home the Warroo
poison, her powers of belief at choice seem to have proved
insufficient.... Isn't that her, coming back?"
It was; and when she came into the room a moment later, Gwen
said:--"We've been talking about your ring, and a horrible little bottle
of Red Indian poison this silly obstinate man has got hidden away and
won't give me."
"I know," said Irene. "He's incorrigible. But don't you believe him,
Gwen, when he justifies suicide. It's only his nonsense." Irene had come
back quite sick and tired of housekeeping, and was provoked by the
informal _status quo_ of the young lady and gentleman on the sofa into
remarking to the latter:--"Now you're happy."
"Or ought to be," said Gwen.
"Now, go on exactly where you were," said Irene.
"I will," said Adrian. "I was just expressing a hope that Gwen had been
regular in her attendance at church while in London." He did not seem
vitally interested in this, for he changed almost immediately to another
subject. "How about your old lady, Gwen? She's your old lady, I suppose,
whose house tumbled down?"
"Yes, only not quite. We got her out safe. The woman who lived with her,
Mrs. Burr.... However, I wrote all that in my letter, didn't I?"
"Yes--you wrote about Mrs. Burr, and how she was a commonplace person.
We thought you unfeeling about Mrs. Burr."
"I was, quite! I can't tell you how it has been on our consciences,
Clo's and mine, that we have been unable to take an interest in Mrs.
Burr. We tried to make up for it, by one of us going every day to see
her in the hospital. I must say for her that she asked about Mrs.
Prichard as soon as she was able to speak--asked if she was being got
out, and said she supposed it was the repairs. She is not an imaginative
or demonstrative person, you see. When I suggested to her that she
should come to look after Mrs. Prichard in the country, till the house
was rebuilt, she only said she was going to her married niece's at
Clapham. I don't know why, but her married niece at Clapham seemed to me
indisputable, like an Act of Parliament. I said 'Oh yes!' in a convinced
sort of way, as if I knew this niece, and acknowledged Clapham."
"Then you have got the old lady at the Towers?"
"Yes--yesterday. I don't know how it's going to answer."
Adrian said: "Why shouldn't it answer?"
Irene was sharper. "Because of the servants, I suppose," said she.
Gwen said:--"Ye-es, because of the household."
"I thought," said Adrian, "that she was such a charming old lady." This
took plenty of omissions for granted.
"So she is," said Gwen. "At least, _I_ think her most sweet and
fascinating. But really--the British servant!"
"_I_ know," said Irene.
"Especially the women," said Gwen. "I could manage the men, easily
enough."
"You _could_," said Adrian, with expressive emphasis. And all three
laughed. Indeed, it is difficult to describe the subserviency of her
male retinue to "Gwen o' the Towers." To say that they were ready to
kiss the hem of her garment is but a feeble expression of the truth.
Say, rather, that they were ready to fight for the privilege of doing
so!
"I can't say," Gwen resumed, "precisely what I found my misgivings on.
Little things I can't lay hold of. I can't find any _fault_ with
Lutwyche when she was attending on the dear old soul in Cavendish
Square. But I couldn't help thinking...."
"What?"
"Well--I thought she showed a slightly fiendish readiness to defer to my
minutest directions, and perhaps, I should say, a fell determination not
to presume." Telegraphies of slight perceptive nods and raised eyebrows,
in touch with shoulder shrugs not insisted on, expressed mutual
understanding between the two young ladies. "Of course, I may be wrong,"
said Gwen. "But when I interviewed Mrs. Masham last thing last night, it
was borne in upon me, Heaven knows how, that she had been in collision
with Lutwyche about the old lady."
"What is it you call her?" said Irene. "Old Mrs. Picture? There's
nothing against her, is there?"
Adrian had seemed to be considering a point. "Did you not say
something--last letter but one, I think--about the old lady's husband
having been convicted and transported?"
"Oh _yes_!--but that's not to be talked about, you know! Besides, it was
her son, not her husband, that I wrote about. I only found out about the
husband a day or two ago. Only you must be very careful, dearest, and
remember it's a dead secret. I promise not to tell things, and then of
course I forget, when it's you. Old Mrs. Picture would quite understand,
though, if I told her."
Adrian said that he really must have some more of the secret to keep, or
it would not be worth keeping.
So Gwen told them then and there all that old Mrs. Picture had told her
of her terrible life-story. It may have contained things this present
narrative has missed, or _vice versa_, but the essential points were the
same in both.
"What a queer story!" said Adrian. "Did the old body cry when she told
it?"
"Scarcely, if at all. She looked very beautiful--you've no idea how
lovely she is sometimes--and told it all quite quietly, just as if she
had been speaking of someone else."
"I have always had a theory," said Adrian, "that one gets less and less
identical, as Time goes on...."
"What do you mean by that?" said Gwen.
"Haven't the slightest idea!" Adrian had been speaking seriously, but at
this point his whimsical mood seized him. He went on:--"You don't mean
to say, I hope, that you are going to make meaning a _sine qua non_ in
theories? It would be the death-knell of speculation."
"You don't know what a goose you are engaged to, Gwen," said Irene
parenthetically.
"Yes, I do. But he meant something this time. He _does_, you know, now
and again, in spite of appearances to the contrary. What _did_ you mean,
please?"
"I can only conjecture," said Adrian incorrigibly. Then, more in
earnest:--"I think it was something like this. I know that I am the same
man that I was last week so long as I remember what happened last week.
Suppose I forget half--which I do, in practice--I still remain the same
man, according to my notion of identity. But it is an academical
notion, of no use in everyday life. A conjurer who forgets how to
lay eggs in defiance of natural law, or how to find canaries in
pocket-handkerchiefs, is not the same conjurer, in practical politics.
And yet he is the same man. Dock and crop his qualities and attributes
as you will, he keeps the same man, academically. But not for working
purposes. By the time you can say nothing about him, that was true of
him last week, he may just as well be somebody else."
"Mind you recollect all that, and it will do in a book," said his
sister. "But what has it to do with Gwen's old woman?"
"Yes--what has it to do with my old woman?" said Gwen.
"Didn't you say," Adrian asked, "that the old lady told all about her
past quite quietly, just as if she had been speaking of somebody else?
Your very expression, ma'am! You see, she was to all intents and
purposes somebody else then, or has become somebody else now. I always
wonder, whether, if one had left oneself--one of one's selves--behind
in the past, like old Mrs. Picture, and some strange navigation on the
sea of life were to land one in a long-forgotten port, where the memory
still hung on, in a mind or two, of the self one had left behind--would
the self one had grown to be bring conviction to the mind or two?
Wouldn't the chance survivors who admitted that you were Jack or Jim or
Polly be discouraged if they found that Jack or Jim or Polly had
forgotten the old pier that was swept away, or the old pub which the new
hotel was, once. Wouldn't they discredit you? Wouldn't they decide that,
for all your bald, uninteresting identity--mere mechanical sameness--you
wouldn't wash?"
"Rip van Winkle washed," said Gwen.
"Because Washington Irving chose. I sometimes imagine Rip isn't really
true. Anyhow, his case doesn't apply. _He_ remembered everything as if
it was yesterday. For him, it _was_ yesterday. So he was the same man,
both in theory and practice. Jack and Jim and Polly were to forget, by
hypothesis."
"Does old Mrs. Picture?" asked Irene.
"I should say--very little," said Gwen. "Less now than when I took her
first to Cavendish Square. She'll get very communicative, I've no doubt,
if she's fed up, in the country air. I shall see to that myself. So Mrs.
Masham had better look out."
"There's mamma!" said Irene suddenly. "I'll go and see that she gets her
writing things.... No--don't you move! She won't come in here. She wants
to write important letters. You sit still." And Irene went off to
intercept the Miss Abercrombie her father had married all those years
ago instead of Gwen's mother. She does not come much into this story,
but its reader may be interested to know that she was an enthusiastic
Abolitionist, and a friend of the Duchess of Sutherland. There was only
one thing in those days that called for abolition--negro slavery in
America; so everyone who recollects the fifties will know what an
Abolitionist was. Nevertheless, though Lady Torrens happens to keep
outside the story, it would have been quite another story without her.
Adrian was a good son, and loved his mother duly. She returned his
affection, but could not stand his poetical effusions, which she thought
showed an irreverent spirit. We are not quite sure they did not.
CHAPTER III
HOW AN OLD LADY WAS TAKEN FOR A DRIVE, AND SAW JONES'S BULL, ALL IN
A DREAM. STRIDES COTTAGE AND A STRANGE CONTIGUITY. AFTER SIXTY
YEARS! HOW TOBY SMASHED A PANE OF GLASS WITH A HORSE-CHESTNUT, AND
NEARLY HAD NO SUGAR IN HIS BREAD-AND-MILK. HOW THE OLD BODY
CURTSIED AND THE OLD SOUL DIDN'T GO TO SLEEP. HOW GWEN NEARLY
FORGOT TO INTRODUCE THEM. HOW MRS. PICTURE KNOCKED UP AND RAN
DOWN,--BUT WOULD NOT HAVE MUTTON BROTH. BUT NEITHER KNEW! HOW MRS.
PICTURE THOUGHT MRS. MARRABLE A NICE PERSON. HOW GWEN LUNCHED WITH
HER PARENTS. "REALLY, OUR DAUGHTER!" HOW LOOKING AMUSED DOES NO
GOOD. WAS GWEN JONES'S BULL, OR HOW? NORBURY AS AN ORACLE. HOW THE
EARL WENT ROUND TO SEE THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
It had all come on the old woman like a bewildering dream. It began with
the sudden appearance, as she dozed in her chair at Sapps Court, all the
memories of her past world creeping spark-like through its half-burned
scroll, a dream of Gwen in her glory, heralded by Dave; depositing
Dolly, very rough-headed, on the floor, and explaining her intrusion
with some difficulty owing to those children wanting to explain too.
This was dreamlike enough, but it had become more so with the then
inexplicable crash that followed a discomfort in the floor; more so with
that strange half-conscious drive through the London streets in the glow
of the sunset; more so yet, when, after an interval of real dreams, she
woke to the luxury of Sister Nora's temporary arrangements, pending the
organization of the Simple Life; more dreamlike still when she woke
again later, to wonder at the leaves of the creeper that framed her
lattice at the Towers, ruby in the dawn of a cloudless autumn day, and
jewelled with its dew. She had to look, wonderingly, at her old
unchanged hands, to be quite sure she was not in Heaven. Then she caught
a confirmatory glimpse of her old white head in a mirror, and that
settled it. Besides, her old limbs ached; not savagely, but quite
perceptibly, and that was discordant with her idea of Heaven.
Her acquiescence was complete in all that had happened. Not that it was
clearly what she would have chosen, even if she could have foreseen all
its outcomings, and pictured to herself what she would have been
refusing, had refusal been practicable. Her actual choice, putting aside
newly kindled love for this mysterious and beautiful agency, half
daughter and half Guardian Angel, that had been sprung upon her life so
near its close, might easily have been to face the risks of some
half-dried plaster, and go back to her old chair by the fire in Sapps
Court, and her day-dreams of the huge cruel world she had all but seen
the last of; to watch through the hours for what was now the great
relaxation of her life, the coming of Dave and Dolly, and to listen
through the murmur of the traffic that grew and grew in the silence of
the house, for the welcome voices of the children on the stairs. But how
meet Gwen's impulsive decisions with anything but acquiescence? It was
not, with her, mere ready deference to the will of a superior; she might
have stickled at that, and found words to express a wish for her old
haunts and old habits of life. It was much more nearly the feeling a
mother might have had for a daughter, strangely restored to her, after
long separation that had made her a memory of a name. It was mixed with
the ready compliance one imputes to the fortunate owner of a Guardian
Angel, who is deserving of his luck. No doubt also with the fact that no
living creature, great or small, ever said nay to Gwen. But, for
whatever reason, she complied, and wondered.
Remember, too, the enforced associations of her previous experience.
Think how soon the conditions of her early youth--which, if they
afforded no high culture, were at least those of a respected middle
class in English provincial life--came to an end, and what they gave
place to! Then, on her return to England, how little chance her
antecedents and her son's vicious inherited disposition gave her of
resuming the position she would have been entitled to had her exile, and
its circumstances, not made the one she had to submit to abnormal! Aunt
M'riar and Mrs. Burr were good women, but those who study class-niceties
would surely refuse to _ranger_ either with Granny Marrable. And even
that old lady is scarcely a fair illustration; for, had her sister's
bridegroom been what the bride believed him, the social outcome of the
marriage would have been all but the same as of her own, had she wedded
his elder brother.
It is little wonder that old Mrs. Picture, who once was Maisie, should
succumb to the influences of this dazzling creature with all the world
at her feet. And less that these influences grew upon her, when there
was none to see, and hamper free speech with conventions. For when they
were alone, it came about that either unpacked her heart to the other,
and Gwen gave all the tale of the shadow on her own love in exchange
for that of the blacker shadows of the galleys--of the convict's cheated
wife, and the terrible inheritance of his son.
The story is sorry to have to admit that Gwen's bad faith to the old
lady, in the matter of her pledge of secrecy, did not show itself only
in her repetition of the story to her lover and his sister. She told her
father, a nobleman with all sorts of old-fashioned prejudices, among
others that of disliking confidences entrusted to him in disregard of
solemn oaths of secrecy. His protest intercepted his daughter's
revelation at the outset. "Unprincipled young monkey!" he exclaimed.
"You mustn't tell me when you've promised not to. Didn't you, now?"
"Of course I did! But _you_ don't count. Papas don't, when trustworthy.
Besides, the more people of the right sort know a secret, the better it
will be kept." Gwen had to release her lips from two paternal fingers to
say this. She followed it up by using them--she was near enough--to run
a trill of kisslets across the paternal forehead.
"Very good!" said the Earl. "Fire away!" It has been mentioned that Gwen
always got her will, somehow. This _how_ was the one she used with her
father. She told the whole tale without reserves; except, perhaps,
slight ones in respect of the son's misdeeds. They were not things to be
spoken of to a good, innocent father, like hers.
She answered an expression on his face, when she had finished,
with:--"As for any chance of the story not being true, that's
impossible."
"Then it must be true," was the answer. Not an illogical one!
"Don't agree meekly," says Gwen. "Meek agreement is contradiction....
What makes you think it fibs?"
"I don't think it fibs, my darling. Because I attach a good deal of
weight to the impression it has produced upon you. But other people
might, who did not know you."
"Other people are not to be told, so they are out of it.... Well,
perhaps that _has_ very little to do with the matter."
"Not very much. But tell me!--does the old lady give no names at all?"
"N-no!--I can remember none. Her real name is not Picture, of course ...
I should have said Prichard."
"I understand. But couldn't you get at her husband's name, to verify the
story?"
"I don't want it verified. Where's the use?... No, she hasn't told me a
single surname of any of the people.... Oh yes--stop a minute! Of
course she told me Prichard was a name in her family--some old nurse's.
But it's such a common name."
"Did she not say where she came from--where her family belonged?"
"Yes--Essex. But Essex is like Rutlandshire. Nobody has ever been to
either, or knows anyone that is there by nature."
"I didn't know that was the case, but I have no interest in proving the
contrary. Suppose you try to get at her husband's name--her real married
name. I could tell my man in Lincoln's Inn to hunt up the trial. Or even
if you could get the exact date it might be enough. There cannot have
been so very many fathers-in-laws' signatures forged in one year."
But Gwen did not like to press the old lady for information she was
reluctant to give, and the names of the family in Essex and the
delinquent remained untold; or, if told to Gwen, were concealed more
effectually by her than the narrative they were required to fill out.
And as the confidants to whom she had repeated that narrative were more
loyal to her than she herself had been to its first narrator, it
remained altogether unknown to the household at the Towers; and, indeed,
to anyone who could by repeating it have excited suspicion of the
twinship of the farmer's widow at Chorlton-under-Bradbury and the old
lady whom her young ladyship's eccentricities had brought from London.
Apart from their close contiguity, nothing occurred for some time to
make mutual recognition more probable than it had been at any moment
since Dave's visit to Chorlton had disclosed to each the bare fact of
the other's existence. They were within five miles of one another, and
neither knew it; nor had either a thought of the other but as a memory
of long ago; still cherished, as a sepulchral stone cherishes what Time
leaves legible, while his slow hand makes each letter fainter day by
day.
And yet--how near they went on one occasion to what must have led to
recognition, had the period of their separation been less cruelly long,
and its strange conditions less baffling! How near, for instance, three
or four days after old Maisie's arrival at the Towers, when Gwen the
omnipotent decided that she would take Mrs. Picture for a long drive in
the best part of the day--the longest drive that would not tire her to
death!
Whether the old soul that her young ladyship had taken such a fancy
to--that was how Blencorn the coachman and Benjamin the coachboy thought
of her--really enjoyed the strange experience of gliding over smooth
roads flanked by matchless woodlands or primeval moorland; cropless
Autumn fields or pastures of contented cattle; through villages of the
same mind about the undesirableness of change that had been their creed
for centuries, with churches unconscious of judicious restoration and an
unflawed record of curfews; by farms with all the usual besetting sins
of farms, black duck-slush and uncaptivating dung-heaps; cattle no
persuasion weighs with; the same hen that never stops the same
dissertation on the same egg, the same cock that has some of the vices
of his betters, our male selves to wit--whether the said old soul really
enjoyed all this, who can say? She may have been pretending to satisfy
her young ladyship. If so, she succeeded very well, considering her
years. But it was all part of a dream to her.
In that dream, she waked at intervals to small realities. One of these
was Farmer Jones's Bull. Not that she had more than a timid hope of
seeing that celebrated quadruped himself. She was, however,
undisguisedly anxious to do so; inquiring after him; the chance of his
proximity; the possibility of cultivating his intimate acquaintance. No
other bull would serve her purpose, which was to take back to Dave, who
filled much of her thoughts, an authentic report of Farmer Jones's.
"Dave must be a very nice little boy," said Gwen. "Anyhow, he's pretty.
And Dolly's a darling." This may have been partly due to the way in
which Dolly had overwhelmed the young lady--the equivalent, as it were,
of a kind of cannibalism, or perhaps octopus-greed--which had stood in
the way of a maturer friendship with her brother. However, there had
really been very little time.
"You see, my dear," said the old lady, "if I was to _see_ Farmer Jones's
Bull, I could tell the dear child about him in London. Isn't that a
Bull?" But it wasn't, though possibly a relation he would not have
acknowledged.
"I think Blencorn might make a point of Farmer Jones's Bull," said Gwen.
"Blencorn!"
"Yes, my lady."
"I want to stop at Strides Cottage, coming back. _You_ know--Mrs.
Marrable's!"
"Yes, my lady."
"Well--isn't that Farmer Jones's farm, on the left, before we get there?
Close to the Spinney." Now Mr. Blencorn knew perfectly well. But he was
not going to admit that he knew, because farms were human affairs, and
he was on the box. He referred to his satellite, the coachboy, whose
information enabled him to say:--"Yes, my lady, on the left." Gwen then
said:--"Very good, then, Blencorn, stop at the gate, and Benjamin can
go in and say we've come to see the Bull. Go on!"
"I wonder," said old Mrs. Prichard, with roused interest, "if that is
Davy's granny I wrote to for him. Such a lot he has to say about her!
But it was Mrs.... Mrs. Thrale Dave went to stop with."
"Mrs. Marrable--Granny Marrable--is Mrs. Thrale's mother. A nice old
lady. Rather younger than you, and awfully strong. She can walk nine
miles." In Rumour's diary, the exact number of a pedestrian's miles is
vouched for, as well as the exact round number of thousands Park-Laners
have _per annum_. "I dare say we shall see her," Gwen continued. "I hope
so, because I promised my cousin Clo to give her this parcel with my own
hands. Only she may be out.... Aren't you getting very tired, dear Mrs.
Picture?"
Mrs. Picture was getting tired, and admitted it. "But I must see the
Bull," said she. She closed her eyes and leaned back, and Gwen
said:--"You can drive a little quicker, Blencorn." There had been plenty
of talk through a longish drive, and Gwen was getting afraid of
overdoing it.
This was the gate of the farm, my lady. Should Benjamin go across to the
house, and express her ladyship's wishes? Benjamin was trembling for the
flawless blacking of his beautiful boots, and the unsoiled felt of his
leggings. Yes, he might go, and get somebody to come out and speak to
her ladyship, or herself, as convenient. But while Benjamin was away on
this mission, the unexpected came to pass in the form of a boy. We all
know how rarely human creatures occur in fields and villages, in
England. This sporadic example, in answer to a question "Are you Farmer
Jones's boy?" replied guardedly:--"Ees, a be woon."
"Very well then," said Gwen. "Find Farmer Jones, to show us his Bull."
The boy shook his head. "Oo'r Bull can't abide he," said he. "A better
tarry indowers, fa'ather had, and leave oy to ha'andle un. A be a foine
Bull, oo'r Bull!"
"You mean, you can manage your Bull, and father can't. Is that it?"
Assent given. "And how can you manage your Bull?"
"Oy can whistle un a tewun."
"Is he out in the field, or here in his stable or house, or whatever
it's called?"
"That's him nigh handy, a-roomblin'." It then appeared that this youth
was prepared, for a reasonable consideration, to lead this formidable
brute out into the farmyard, under the influence of musical cajolery. He
met a suggestion that his superiors might disapprove of his doing so, by
pointing out that they would all keep "yower side o' th' gayut" until
the Bull--whose name, strange to say, seemed to be Zephyr--was safe in
bounds, chained by his nose-ring to a sufficient wall-staple.
Said old Mrs. Picture, roused from an impending nap by the interest of
the event:--"This must be the boy Davy told about, who whistled to the
Bull. Why--the child can never tire of telling that story." It certainly
was the very selfsame boy, and he was as good as his word, exhibiting
the Bull with pride, and soothing his morose temper as he had promised,
by monotonous whistling. Whether he was more intoxicated with his
success or with a shilling Gwen gave him as recompense, it would have
been hard to say.
The old lady was infinitely more excited and interested about this Bull,
on Dave's account, than about any of the hundred-and-one things Gwen had
shown her during her five-mile drive. When Gwen gave the direction:--"Go
on to Strides Cottage, Blencorn," and Blencorn, who had scarcely
condescended to look at the Bull, answered:--"Yes, my lady," her
interest on Dave's account was maintained, but on a rather different
line. She was, however, becoming rapidly too fatigued to entertain any
feelings of resentment against her rival, and none mixed with the
languid interest the prospect of seeing her aroused during the
three-minutes' drive from Farmer Jones's to Strides Cottage.
* * * * *
This story despairs of showing to the full the utter strangeness of the
position that was created by this meeting of old Maisie and old Phoebe,
each of whom for nearly half a century had thought the other dead. It is
forced to appeal to its reader to make an effort to help its feeble
presentations by its own powers of imagery.
Conceive that suddenly a voice that imposed belief on its hearers had
said to each of them:--"This is your sister of those long bygone
years--slain, for you, by a cunning lie; living on, and mourning for a
death that never was; dreaming, as you dreamed, of a slowly vanishing
past, vanishing so slowly that its characters might still be visible at
the end of the longest scroll of recorded life. Look upon her, and
recognise in that shrunken face the lips you kissed, the cheeks you
pressed to yours, the eye that laughed and gave back love or mockery!
Try to hear in that frail old voice the music of its speech in the years
gone by; ask for the song it knew so well the trick of. Try to caress
in those grey, thin old tresses the mass of gold from whose redundance
you cut the treasured locks you almost weep afresh to see and handle,
even now." Then try to imagine to yourself the outward seeming of its
hearers, always supposing them to understand. It is a large supposition,
but the dramatist would have to accept it, with the ladies in the stalls
getting up to go.
Are _you_ prepared to accept, off the stage, a snapshot recognition of
each other by the two old twins, and curtain? It is hard to conceive
that mere eyesight, and the hearing of a changed voice, could have
provoked such a result. However, it is not for the story to decide that
in every case it would be impossible. It can only record events as they
happened, however much interest might be gained by the interpolation of
a little skilful fiction.
* * * * *
That morning, at Strides Cottage, a regrettable event had disturbed
Granny Marrable's equanimity. A small convalescent, named Toby, who was
really old enough to know better, had made a collection of beautiful,
clean, new horse-chestnuts from under the tree in the field behind the
house. Never was the heart of man more embittered by this sort being no
use for cooking than in the case of these flawless, glossy rotundities.
Each one was a handful for a convalescent, and that was why Toby so
often had his hands in his pockets. He was, in fact, fondling his
ammunition, like Mr. Dooley. For that was, according to Toby, the
purpose of Creation in the production of the horse-chestnut tree. He had
awaited his opportunity, and here it was:--he was unwatched in the large
room that was neither kitchen nor living-room, but more both than
neither, and he seized it to show his obedience to a frequent injunction
not to throw stones. He was an honourable convalescent, and he proved it
in the choice of a missile. His first horse-chestnut only gave him the
range; his second smashed the glass it was aimed at. And that glass was
the door or lid of the automatic watermill on the chimney-piece!
The Granny was quite upset, and Widow Thrale was downright angry, and
called Toby an undeserving little piece, if ever there was one. It was a
harsh censure, and caused Toby to weep; in fact, to roar. Roaring,
however, did nothing towards repairing the mischief done, and nearly led
to a well-deserved penalty for Toby, to be put to his bed and very
likely have no sugar in his bread-and-milk--such being the exact wording
of the sentence. It was not carried out, as it was found that the
watermill and horses, the two little girls in sun-bonnets, and the
miller smoking at the window, were all intact; only the glass being
broken. There was no glazier in the village, which broke few windows,
and was content to wait the coming round of a peripatetic plumber, who
came at irregular intervals, like Easter, but without astronomical
checks. So, as a temporary expedient to keep the dust out, Widow Thrale
pasted a piece of paper over the breakage, and the mill was hidden from
the human eye. Toby showed penitence, and had sugar in his
bread-and-milk, but the balance of his projectiles was confiscated.
Consequently, old Mrs. Marrable was not in her best form when her young
ladyship arrived, and Benjamin the coachboy came up the garden pathway
as her harbinger to see if she should descend from the carriage to
interview the old lady. She did not want to do so, as she felt she ought
to get Mrs. Prichard home as soon as possible; but wanted, all the same,
to fulfil her promise of delivering Sister Nora's parcel with her own
hands. She was glad to remain in the carriage, on hearing from Benjamin
that both Granny Marrable and her daughter were on the spot; and would,
said he, be out in a minute.
"They'll curtsey," said Gwen. "Do, dear Mrs. Picture, keep awake one
minute more. I want you so much to see Dave's other Granny. She's such a
nice old body!" Can any student of language say why these two old women
should be respectively classed as an old soul and an old body, and why
the cap should fit in either case?
"I won't go to sleep," said Mrs. Prichard, making a great effort. "That
must be Dave's duck-pond, across the road." The duck-pond had no alloy.
She did not feel that her curiosity about Dave's other Granny was quite
without discomfort.
"Oh--had Dave a duck-pond? It looks very black and juicy.... Here come
the two Goodies! I've brought you a present from Sister Nora, Granny
Marrable. It's in here. I know what it is because I've seen it--it's
nice and warm for the winter. Take it in and look at it inside. I
mustn't stop because of Mrs.... There now!--I was quite forgetting...."
It shows how slightly Gwen was thinking of the whole transaction that
she should all but tell Blencorn to drive home at this point, with the
scantiest farewell to the Goodies, who had curtsied duly as foretold.
She collected herself, and continued:--"You remember the small boy, Mrs.
Marrable, when I came with Sister Nora, whose letter we read about the
thieves and the policeman?"
"Ah, dear, indeed I do! That dear child!--why, what would we not give,
Ruth and me, to see him again?"
"Well, this is Mrs. Picture, who wrote his letter for him. This is
Granny Marrable, that Dave told you all about. She says she wants him
back."
And then Maisie and Phoebe looked each other in the face again after
half a century of separation. Surely, if there is any truth in the
belief that the souls of twins are linked by some unseen thread of
sympathy, each should have been stirred by the presence of the other. If
either was, she had no clue to the cause of her perturbation. They
looked each other in the face; and each made some suitable recognition
of her unknown sister. Phoebe hoped the dear boy was well, and Maisie
heard that he was, but had not seen him now nigh a month. Phoebe had had
a letter from him yesterday, but could not quite make it out. Ruth would
go in and get it, for her ladyship to see. Granny Marrable made little
direct concession to the equivocal old woman who might be anything, for
all she was in her ladyship's carriage.
"I suppose," said Gwen, "the boy has tried to describe the accident, and
made a hash of it. Is that it?"
"Indeed, my lady, he does tell something of an accident. Only I took it
for just only telling--story-book like!... Ah, yes, that will be the
letter. Give it to her ladyship."
Gwen took the letter from Widow Thrale, but did not unfold it. "Mayn't I
take it away," she said, "for me and Mrs. Picture to read at home? I
want to get her back and give her some food. She's knocking up."
Immediately Granny Marrable's heart and Widow Thrale's overflowed. What
did the doubts that hung over this old person matter, whatever she was,
if she was running down visibly within the zone of influence of
perceptible mutton-broth; which was confirming, through the door, what
the wood-smoke from the chimney had to say about it to the Universe? Let
Ruth bring out a cup of it at once for Mrs. Picture. It was quite good
and strong by now. Granny Marrable could answer for that.
But it was one thing to be generous to a rival, another to accept a
benevolence from one. Mrs. Picture quite roused herself to acknowledge
the generosity, but she wouldn't have the broth on any terms, evidently.
Gwen thought she could read the history of this between the lines. As we
have seen, she was aware of the sort of jealousy subsisting between
these two old Grannies about their adopted grandson. She thought it best
to favour immediate departure, and Blencorn jumped at the first symptom
of a word to that effect. The carriage rolled away, waving farewells to
the cottage, and the tenants of the latter went slowly back to the
mutton-broth.
And neither of the two old women had the dimmest idea whose face it was
that she had looked at in the broad full light of a glorious autumn day;
not passingly, as one glances at a stranger on the road, who comes one
knows not whence, to vanish away one knows not whither; but inquiringly,
as when a first interview shows us the outward seeming of one known by
hearsay--one whom our mind has dwelt on curiously, making conjectural
images at random, and wondering which was nearest to the truth. And to
neither of those who saw this meeting, for all they felt interest to
note what each would think of the other, did the thought come of any
very strong resemblance between them. They were two old women--that was
all!
And yet, in the days of their girlhood, these old women had been so much
alike that they were not allowed to dress in the same colour, for mere
mercy to the puzzled bystanders. So much alike that when, for a frolic,
each put on the other's clothes, and answered to the other's name, the
fraud went on for days, undetected!
It seems strange, but gets less strange as all the facts are sorted out,
and weighed in the scale. First and foremost the whole position was so
impossible _per se_--one always knows what is and is not possible!--that
any true version of the antecedents of the two old women would have
seemed mere madness. Had either spectator noted that the bones of the
two old faces were the same, she would have condemned her own powers of
observation rather than doubt the infallibility of instinctive
disbelief, which is the attitude of the vernacular mind not only to what
it wishes to be false, but to anything that runs counter to the
octave-stretch forlorn--as Elizabeth Browning put it--of its limited
experience. Had either noted that the eyes of the two were the same, she
would have attached no meaning to the similarity. So many eyes are the
same! How many shades of colour does the maker of false eyes stock, all
told? Guess them at a thousand, and escape the conclusion that in a
world of a thousand million, a million of eyes are alike, if you can. If
they had compared the hair still covering the heads of both, they would
have found Dave's comparison of it with Pussy's various tints a good and
intelligent one. Maisie was silvery white, Phoebe merely grey. But the
greatest difference was in the relative uprightness and strength of the
old countrywoman, helped--and greatly helped--by the entire difference
in dress.
No!--it was not surprising that bystanders should not suspect offhand
that something they would have counted impossible was actually there
before them in the daylight. Was it not even less so that Maisie and
Phoebe, who remembered Phoebe and Maisie last in the glory and beauty of
early womanhood, should each be unsuspicious, when suspicion would have
gone near to meaning a thought in the mind of each that the other had
risen from the grave? It is none the less strange that two souls,
nourished unborn by the same mother, should have all but touched, and
that neither should have guessed the presence of the other, through the
outer shell it dwelt in.
How painfully we souls are dependent on the evidence of our
existence--eyes and noses and things!
To get back to the thread of the story. Mrs. Picture, on her part,
seemed--so far as her fatigue allowed her to narrate her impressions--to
take a more favourable view of her rival than the latter of herself. She
went so far as to speak of her as "a nice person." But she was in a
position to be liberal; being, as it were, in possession of the bone of
contention--unconscious Dave, equally devoted to both his two Grannies!
Would she not go back to him, and would not he and Dolly come up and
keep her company, and Dolly bring her doll? Would not Sapps Court rise,
metaphorically speaking, out of its ashes, and the rebuilt wall of that
Troy get bone-dry, and the window be stood open on summer evenings by
Mrs. Burr, for to hear Miss Druitt play her scales? It was much easier
for Maisie to forgive Phoebe her claim on Dave's affection than _vice
versa_.
She was, however, so thoroughly knocked up by this long drive that she
spoke very little to Gwen about Strides Cottage or anything else, at the
time. Gwen saw her on the way to resuscitation, and left her rather
reluctantly to Mrs. Masham and Lutwyche; who would, she knew, take very
good care that her visitor wanted for nothing, however much she
suspected that those two first-class servants were secretly in revolt
against the duty they were called on to execute. They would not enter
their protest against any whim of her young ladyship, however mad they
might think it, by any act of neglect that could be made the basis of an
indictment against them.
She herself was overdue at the rather late lunch which her august
parents were enjoying in solitude. They were leaving for London in the
course of an hour or so, having said farewell in the morning to such
guests as still remained at the Towers; and intended, after a short stay
in town, to part company--the Earl going to Bath, where it was his
practice each year to go through a course of bathing, by which means he
contended his life might be indefinitely prolonged--to return in time
for Christmas, which they would probably celebrate--or, as the Earl
said, undergo--at Ancester Towers, according to their usual custom.
"What on earth have you been doing, Gwen, to make you so late?" said the
Countess. "We couldn't wait."
"It doesn't matter," was her daughter's answer. "I can gobble to make up
for lost time. Don't bring any arrears, Norbury. I can go on where they
are. What's this--grouse? Not if it's grousey, thank you!...
Oh--well--perhaps I can endure it ... What have I been doing? Why,
taking a drive!... Yes--hock. Only not in a tall glass. I hate tall
glasses. They hit one's nose. Besides, you get less.... I took my old
lady out for a drive--all round by Chorlton, and showed her things. We
saw Farmer Jones's Bull."
"Is that the Bull that killed the man?" This was the Earl. His eyes were
devouring his beautiful daughter, as they were liable to do, even at
lunch, or in church.
"I believe he did. It was a man that beat his wife. So it was a good
job. He's a dear Bull, but his eyes are red. He had a little boy ...
Nonsense, mamma!--why don't you wait till I've done? He had a little boy
to whistle to him and keep his nerves quiet. The potatoes could have
waited, Norbury." The story hopes that its economies of space by
omitting explanations will not be found puzzling.
The Countess's mien indicated despair of her daughter's manners or
sanity, or both. Also that attempts to remedy either would be futile.
Her husband laughed slightly to her across the table, with a
sub-shrug--the word asks pardon--of his shoulders. She answered it by
another, and "Well!" It was as though they had said:--"Really--our
daughter!"
"And where else did you go?" said the Earl, to re-rail the conversation.
"And what else did you see?"
"Mrs. Picture was knocking up," said Gwen. "So we didn't see so much as
we might have done. We left a parcel from Cousin Clo at Goody
Marrable's, and then came home as fast as we could pelt. You know Goody
Marrable, mamma?"
"Oh dear, yes! I went there with Clo, and she gave us her strong-tea."
Gwen nodded several times. "Same experience," said she. "Why is it they
_will_?" The story fancies it referred, a long time since, to this vice
of Goody Marrable's. No doubt Gurth the Swineherd would have made tea on
the same lines, had he had any to make.
The Countess lost interest in the tea question, and evidently had
something to say. Therefore Gwen said:--"Yes, mamma! What?" and got for
answer:--"It's only a suggestion."
"But _what_ is a suggestion?" said the Earl.
"No attention will be paid to it, so it's no use," said her ladyship.
"But what _is_ it?" said the Earl. "No harm in knowing _what_ it is,
that I can see!"
"My dear," said the Countess, "you are always unreasonable. But Gwen may
see some sense in what I say. It's no use your looking amused, because
that doesn't do any good." After which little preliminary skirmish she
came to the point, speaking to Gwen in a half-aside, as to a
fellow-citizen in contradistinction to an outcast, her father. "Why
should not your old woman be put up at Mrs. Marrable's? They do this
sort of thing there. However, perhaps Mrs. Marrable is full up."
"I didn't see anybody there but the two Goodies. I didn't go in, though.
But why is Mrs. Picture not to stop where she is?"
"Just as you please, my dear." Her ladyship abdicated with the
promptitude of a malicious monarch, who seeks to throw the Constitution
into disorder. "How long do you want to stop here yourself?"
"I haven't made up my mind. But _why_ is Mrs. Picture not to stop where
she is?" This was put incisively.
Her ladyship deprecated truculence. "My dear Gwen!--really! _Are_ you
Farmer Jones's Bull, or who?" Then, during a lull in the servants, for
the moment out of hearing, she added in an undertone:--"You can ask
Norbury, and see what _he_ thinks. Only wait till Thomas is out of the
room." To which Gwen replied substantially that she was still in
possession of her senses.
Now Norbury stood in a very peculiar relation to this noble Family.
Perhaps it is best described as that of an Unacknowledged Deity,
tolerating Atheism from a respect for the Aristocracy. He was not
allowed altars or incense, which might have made him vain; but it is
difficult to say what questions he was not consulted on, by the Family.
Its members had a general feeling that opinions so respectful as his
_must_ be right, even when they did not bear analysis.
Gwen let the door close on Thomas before she approached the Shrine of
the Oracle. It must be admitted that she did so somewhat as Farmer
Jones's Bull might have done. "_You've_ heard all about old Mrs.
Picture, Norbury?" said she.
Why should it have been that Mr. Norbury's "Oh _dear_, yes, my lady!"
immediately caused inferences in his hearers' minds--one of which, in
the Countess's, caused her to say to Gwen, under her voice:--"I told you
so!"?
But Gwen was consulting the Oracle; what did it matter to her what
forecasts of its decisions the Public had made? "But you haven't _seen_
her?" said she. No--Mr. Norbury had _not_ seen her; perfect candour must
admit that. She was only known to him by report, gathered from
conversations in which he himself was not joining. How could he be
induced to disclose that part of them that was responsible for a
peculiar emphasis in his reply to her ladyship's previous question?
Not by the Countess's--"She is being well attended to, I suppose?"
spoken as by one floating at a great height above human affairs, but to
a certain extent responsible if they miscarried. For this only produced
a cordial testimonial from the Oracle to the assiduity, care, and skill
with which every want of the old lady was being supplied. Gwen's method
was likely to be much more effective, helped as it was by her absolute
licence to be and to do whatever she liked, and to suffer nothing
counter to her wishes, though, indeed, she always gained them by
omnipotent persuasion. She had also, as we have seen, a happy faculty of
going straight to the point. So had Farmer Jones's Bull, no doubt, on
occasion shown.
"Which is it, Lutwyche or Mrs. Masham?" said she. What it was that was
either remained indeterminate.
Mr. Norbury set himself to say which, without injustice to anyone
concerned. He dropped his voice to show how unreservedly he was telling
the truth, yet how reluctant he was that his words should be overheard
at the other end of the Castle. "No blame attaches," said he, to clear
the air. "But, if I might make so bold, the arrangement would work more
satisfactory if put upon a footing."
The Countess said:--"You see, Gwen. I told you what it would be." The
Earl exchanged understandings with Norbury, which partly took the form
of inaudible speech. The fact was that Gwen had sprung the old lady on
the household without doing anything towards what Mr. Norbury called
putting matters on a footing.
CHAPTER IV
OLD MEMORIES, AGAIN. THE VOYAGE OUT, FIFTY YEARS SINCE. SAPPS
COURT, AND BREAD-AND-BUTTER SPREAD ON THE LOAF. HOW GWEN CAME INTO
THE DREAM SUDDENLY. HOW THEY READ DAVE'S LETTER, AND MUGGERIDGE WAS
UNDECIPHERABLE. HOW IT WASN'T THE MIDDLE AGES, BUT JEALOUSIES BRED
RUCTIONS. SO GWEN DINED ALONE, BUT WENT BACK. A CONTEMPTIBLE
HOT-WATER BOTTLE. MISS LUTWYCHE'S SKETCH OF THE RUCTIONS, AND HER
MAGNANIMITY. NAPOLÉON DE SOUCHY. HIS VANITY. BUT MAISIE AND
PHOEBE REMAINED UNCONSCIOUS, AS WHY SHOULD THEY NOT? INDEED, WHY
NOT POSTPONE THE DISCOVERY UNTIL AFTER THE GREAT INTERRUPTION,
DEATH?
The problem of where the anomalous old lady was to be lodged might have
been solved by what is called an accommodating disposition, but not by
the disposition incidental to the _esprit de corps_ of a large staff of
domestic servants. To control them is notoriously the deuce's own
delight, and old Nick's relish for it must grow in proportion as they
become more and more corporate. As Mr. Norbury said--and we do not feel
that we can add to the force of his words--her young ladyship had not
took proper account of tempers. Two of these qualities, tendencies,
attributes, or vices--or indeed virtues, if you like--had developed, or
germinated, or accrued, or suppurated, as may be, in the respective
bosoms of Miss Lutwyche and Mrs. Masham. It was not a fortunate
circumstance that the dispositions of these two ladies, so far from
being accommodating, were murderous. That is, they would have been so
had it happened to be the Middle Ages, just then. But it wasn't. Tempers
had ceased to find expression in the stiletto and the poison-cup, and
had been curbed and stunted down to taking the other party up short,
showing a proper spirit, and so on.
"What was that you were saying to Norbury, papa dear?" Gwen asked this
question of her father in his own room, half an hour later, having
followed him thither for a farewell chat.
"Saying at lunch?" asked the Earl, partly to avoid distraction from the
mild Havana he was lighting, partly to consider his answer.
"Saying at lunch. Yes."
"Oh, Norbury! Well!--we were speaking of the same thing as you and your
mother, I believe. Only it was not so very clear what that was. You
didn't precisely ... formulate."
"Dear good papa! As if everything was an Act of Parliament! What did
Norbury say?"
"I only remember the upshot. Miss Lutwyche has a rather uncertain
temper, and Mrs. Masham has been accustomed to be consulted."
"Well--and then?"
"That's all I can recollect. It's a very extraordinary thing that it
should be so, but I have certainly somehow formed an image in my mind of
all my much too numerous retinue of servants taking sides with Masham
and Miss Lutwyche respectively, in connection with this old lady of
yours, who must be a great curiosity, and whom, by the way, I haven't
seen yet." He compared his watch with a clock on the chimney-piece,
whose slow pendulum said--so he alleged--"I, am, right, you, are,
wrong!" all day.
"Suppose you were to come round and see her now!"
"Should I have time? Yes, I think I should. Just time to smoke this in
peace and quiet, and then we'll pay her a visit. Mustn't be a long one."
* * * * *
The day had lost its beauty, and the wind in the trees and the chimneys
was inconsolable about the loss, when Gwen said to the old
woman:--"Here's my father, come to pay you a visit, Mrs. Picture."
Thereon the Earl said:--"Don't wake her up, Gwennie." But to this she
said:--"She isn't really asleep. She goes off like this." And he
said:--"Old people do."
Her soft hand roused the old lady as gently as anything effectual could.
And then Mrs. Picture said:--"I heard you come in, my dear." And, when
Gwen repeated that her father had come, became alive to the necessity of
acknowledging him, and had to give up the effort, being told to sit
still.
"You had such a long drive, you see," said Gwen. "It has quite
worn you out. It was my fault, and I'm sorry." Then, relying on
inaudibility:--"It makes her seem so old. She was quite young when we
started off this morning."
"Young folks," said his lordship, "never believe in old bones, until
they feel them inside, and then they are not young folks any longer.
Why--where did we drive to, to knock ourselves up so? What's her
name--Picture?" He was incredulous, evidently, about such a name being
possible. But there was a sort of graciousness, or goodwill, about his
oblique speech in the first person plural, that more than outweighed
abruptness in his question about her.
She rallied under her visitor's geniality--or his emphasis, as might be.
"Maisie Prichard, my lord," said she, quite clearly. Her designation for
him showed she was broad awake now, and took in the position. She could
answer his question, repeated:--"And where _did_ we drive?" by
saying:--"A beautiful drive, but I've a poor head now for names." She
tried recollection, failed, and gave it up.
"Chorlton-under-Bradbury?" said the Earl.
"We went there too. I know Chorlton quite well, of course. The other
one!--where the clock was." Gwen supplied the name, a singular one,
Chernoweth; and the Earl said:--"Oh yes--Chernoweth. A pretty place. But
why 'Chorlton quite well, of course'?"
Gwen explained. "Because of the small boy, Dave. Don't you know,
papa?--I told you Mrs. Picture has directed no end of letters to
Chorlton, for Dave." The Earl was not very clear. "Don't you
remember?--to old Mrs. Marrable, at Strides Cottage?" Still not very
clear, he pretended he was, to save trouble. Then he weakened his
pretence, by saying:--"But I remember Mrs. Marrable, and Strides
Cottage, near forty years ago, when your Uncle George and I were two
young fellows. Fine, handsome woman she was--didn't look her age--she
had just married Farmer Marrable--was a widow from Sussex, I think.
Can't think what her name had been ... knew it once, too!"
"She's a fine-looking old lady now," said Gwen. "Isn't she, Mrs.
Picture?"
"I am sure she is that too, my dear, or you would not say so. Only my
eyesight won't always serve me nowadays as it did, not for seeing near
up." The reserves about Dave's other Granny were always there, however
little insisted on. Old Maisie was exaggerating about her eyesight. She
had seen her rival quite clearly enough to have an opinion about her
looks.
"Did you see the inside of the cottage, and the old chimney-corners? And
the well out at the back?" Thus the Earl.
"We didn't go in. I wanted to get home. But what a lot you recollect of
it, papa dear!"
"I ought to recollect something about it. It was Strides Cottage where
your Uncle George was taken when he broke his leg, riding."
"Oh, was it there? Yes, I've heard of that. His horse threw him on a
heap of stones, and bolted, and pitched into Dunsters Gap, and had to be
shot."
"Yes, he shouldn't have ridden that horse. But he was always at that
sort of thing, George." A sound came in here that had the same relation
to a sigh that a sip has to a draught. "Well!--Mrs. Marrable nursed him
up at Strides Cottage till he was fit to move--they were afraid about
his back at first--and I used to ride over every morning. We used to
chaff poor Georgy about his beautiful nurse.... Oh yes!--she was young
enough for that. Woman well under forty, I should say."
Gwen made calculations and attested possibilities. Oh dear, yes!--Granny
Marrable must have been under forty then. She surprised his lordship,
first by gently smoothing aside the silver hair on the old woman's
forehead, then by stooping down and kissing it. "Why, how old are you
now, dear?" she said, as though she were speaking to a child. He for his
part was only surprised, not dumfounded. He just felt a little glad his
Countess was elsewhere; and was not sorry, on looking round, to see that
no domestic was present. What a wild, ungovernable daughter it was, this
one of his, and how he loved it!
So did old Mrs. Picture, to judge by the illumination of the eyes she
turned up to the girl's young face above her. "How old am I now, my
dear?" said she. "Eighty-one this Christmas." Thereupon said Gwen:--"You
see, papa! Old Mrs. Marrable must have been quite a young woman in Uncle
George's time. She's heaps younger than Mrs. Picture." She again
smoothed the beautiful silver hair, adding:--"It's not unfeelingness,
because Uncle George died years before I was born."
"Killed at Rangoon in twenty-four," said the Earl, with another
semi-sigh. "Poor Georgy!" And then his visit was cut as short as--even
shorter than--his forecast of its duration, for his next words were:--"I
hear someone coming to fetch me. Your mamma is sure to start an hour
before the time. Good-bye, Mrs.... Picture. I hope you are being well
fed and properly attended to." To which the old lady replied:--"I thank
your lordship, indeed I am," in an old-fashioned way that went well with
the silver hair. And Gwen said:--"Dear old parent! Do you think _I_
shan't see to that?" and followed him out of the room.
"She's a nice old soul," said he, in the passage. "I wanted to see what
she was like. But I thought it best to say nothing about the convict."
"Of course not. I'll follow you round before you go, to say good-bye.
You won't start for half an hour." And Gwen returned to the old soul,
who presently said to her--to account to her for knowing how to say "my
lord" and "your lordship"--"When I first married, my husband's great
friend was Lord Pouralot. But I very soon called him Jack." This was a
reminiscence of her interim between her victimisation and loneliness,
which of course her innocence thought of as marriage. But was this early
lordship's really a ladyship, if such a one appeared, we wonder? Very
likely she was only another dupe, like Maisie. Possibly less fortunate,
in one way. For, owing to the high price of women, in the land of
Maisie's destiny, she--poor girl--never knew she was not a good one,
until she found she was not a widow, although her worthless love of a
lifetime was dead.
Oh, the difference Law's sanctions make! For a woman shall be the same
in thought and word and deed through all her sojourn on Earth, yet vary
as saint and sinner with the hall-mark of Lincoln's Inn.
* * * * *
Gwen followed the Earl very shortly, and left old Maisie to dream away
the time until, somewhile after the final departure of her parents, she
was free to return. When she did so she found the old woman sitting
where she had left her, to all seeming quite contented. The day had died
a sudden death intestate, and the flickering firelight meant to have its
say unmolested, till candletime. The intrusion of artificial light was
intercepted by Gwen, who liked to sit and talk to Mrs. Picture in the
twilight, thank you, Mrs. Masham! Take it away!
Where had the old mind wandered in that two hours' interval? Had the
actual meeting with her sister--utterly incredible even had she known
its claims to belief--taken any hold on it that bore comparison with
that of Farmer Jones's Bull, for instance, or the visit of a real live
Earl? Certainly not the former, while as for the latter it was at best a
half-way grip between the two; perhaps farther, if anything, from the
supreme Bull, the great enthralling interest that was to be vested in
her letter to Dave, to be written at the next favourable climax of
strength, nourished by repose. Some time in the morning--to-day she was
far too tired to think of it.
How she dwelt upon that appalling quadruped, and his savage breast--have
bulls breasts?--soothed by the charms of music! How she phrased the
various best ways of describing the mountain he was pleased to call his
neck, with its half-hundredweight of dewlap; the merciless strength of
his horns; the blast of steam from his nostrils into the chill of the
October day; the deep-seated objection to everybody in his lurid eyes,
attesting the unclubableness of his disposition! How she hesitated
between this way and that of expressing to the full his murderousness
and the beautiful pliancy of his soul, if got at the right way; showing,
as the pseudo-Browning has it, that "we never should think good
impossible"!
One thing she made up her mind to. She would not tell that dear boy,
that this bull--which was in a sense _his_ bull, or Sapps Court's,
according as you look at it--had ever had to succumb on a fair field of
battle. For Gwen had told her, as they rode home, and she had roused
herself to hear it, how one summer morning, so early that even rangers
were still abed and asleep, they were waked by terrific bellowings from
a distant glade in the parklands, and, sallying out to find the cause,
were only just in time to save the valued life of this same bull--even
Jones's. For he had broken down a gate and vanished overnight, and
wandered into the sacred precincts of the _villosi terga bisontes_, the
still-wild denizens of the last league of the British woodlands Caesar
found; and _Bos Taurus_ had risen in his wrath, and showed that an
ancient race was not to be trifled with, with impunity. Even Jones's
Bull went down in the end--though, mind you, evidence went to show that
he made an hour's stand!--before the overwhelming rush and the terrible
horns of the forest monarch. And the victor only gave back before a wall
of brandished torch and blazing ferns, that the unsportsmanlike spirit
of the keepers did not scruple to resort to. No--she would not admit
that Dave's bull had ever met his match. She would say how he had killed
a man, which Gwen had told her also; but to save the boy from too much
commiseration for this man, she would lay stress upon the brutality of
the latter to his wife, and even point out that Farmer Jones's Bull
might be honestly unconscious of the consequences that too often result
when one gores or tramples on an object of one's righteous indignation.
Strides Cottage played a very small part in the memories of the day.
Some interest certainly attached to the older woman who had emerged from
it to interview the carriage, but it was an interest apt to die down
when once its object had been ascertained to resemble any other handsome
old village octogenarian. Any peculiarity or deformity might have
intensified it, or at least kept it alive; mere good looks and upright
carriage, and strict conformity with the part of an ancient dependent of
a great local potentate, neither fed nor quenched the mild fires of her
rival granny's jealousy. Old Mrs. Picture had looked upon Granny
Marrable, and was none the wiser. That Granny had at least seen her way
to moralising on the way appearances might dupe us, and how sad it would
be if, after all, such a respectable-looking old person should be an
associate o£ thieves, a misleader of youth, and a fraud. But Mrs.
Picture found little to say to herself, and nothing to say to anybody
else, about Strides Cottage.
Rather, she fell back, as soon as Jones's Bull flagged, on her long
record of an unforgotten past. That wind that was growing with the
nightfall no longer moaned for her in the chimney, five centuries old,
of the strange great house strange Fate had brought her to, but through
the shrouds of a ship on the watch for what the light of sunrise might
show at any moment. She could hear the rush and ripple of the cloven
waters under the prow, just as a girl who leaned upon the gunwale,
intent for the first sight of land, heard it in the dawn over fifty
years ago. She could seem to look back at the girl--who was, if you
please, herself--and a man who leaned on the same timber, some few feet
away, intent on the horizon or his neighbour, as might be; for he stood
aft, and her face was turned away from him. And she could seem to hear
his words too, for all the time that came between:--"Say the word,
mistress, and I'll be yours for life. I would give all I have to give,
and all I may live to get, but to call you mine for an hour." And how
his petition seemed empty sound, that she could answer with a curt
denial, so bent was her heart on another man in the land she hoped to
see so soon. Yet he was a nice fellow, too, thought old Mrs. Prichard as
she sat before Mrs. Masham's fire at the Towers; and she forgave him the
lawlessness of his impulse for its warmth, bred in the narrow limits of
a ship on the seas for three long months!--how could he help it? Such a
common story on shipboard, and ... such an uncommon ending! Ask the
captains of passenger ships what _they_ think, even now that ships steam
twenty knots an hour. One's fellow-creatures are so human, you see.
Then a terrible dream of a second voyage, from Sydney to Port Macquarie,
that almost made her wish she had accepted this man's offer to see her
safe into the arms of her lawful owner, out on leave and growing
prosperous in Van Diemen's Land. Need she have said him nay so firmly?
Could she not have trusted to his chivalry? Or was the question she
asked herself not rather, could she have trusted her own heart, if that
chivalry had stood as gold in the furnace.
Back again to the throbbing wheel, and the ceaseless flow of the little
river at the Essex mill, and childhood! Why should her waking dream hark
back to the dear old time? The natural thing would have been to dream on
into the years she spent out there with the man she loved, who at least,
to all outward seeming, gave her back love for love, while he played the
sly devil against her for his own ends. But she knew nothing of this:
and, till his death revealed the non-legal character of their union, she
could leave him on his pinnacle. So it was not because her mind shrank
from these memories of her married life that it conjured back again the
scent of the honeysuckles on the house-porch that looked on the garden
with the sundial on the wall above it, its welcome to that of the June
roses; its dissension with the flavour of the damp weeds that clung to
the time-worn timbers of the water-wheel, or that of the grinding flour
when the wind blew from the mill, and carried with it from the
ventilators some of the cloud that could not help forward the whitening
of the roof. She might almost have been breathing again the air that
carried all these scents; and then, with them, the old mill itself was
suddenly upon her; and she and Phoebe were there, in the shortest waists
ever frockmaker dreamed of, and the deepest sunbonnets possible, with
the largest possible ribbons, very pale yellow to harmonize--as canons
then ruled--with the lilac of their dresses. They were there, they two,
watching the inexhaustible resource of interest to their childish lives;
the consignment of grain to storage in the loft above the whirling
stones, and the dapple-grey horse that was called Mr. Pitt, and the dark
one with the white mane that was Mr. Fox. She could remember _their_
names well; but by some chance all those years of utter change had
effaced that of the carman who slung the sacks on the fall-rope, which
by some mysterious agency bore them up to a landing they vanished from
into a doorway half-way to Heaven. What on earth was that man's name?
Her mind became obsessed with the name Tattenhall, which was entirely
wrong, and, moreover, stood terribly in the way of Muggeridge,
which--you may remember?--was the name Dave had carried away so clearly
from his inspection of the mill on Granny Marrable's chimney-piece.
* * * * *
Her memories of her old home had died away, and she was back in Sapps
Court again, sympathizing with Dolly over an accident to Shockheaded
Peter, the articulation of whose knee-joint had given way, causing his
leg to come off promptly, from lack of integuments and tendons. She had
pointed out to Dolly that it was still open to her, as The Authority,
to hush Peter to sleep as before, his leg being carefully replaced in
position, although without ligatures. Dolly had carried out this
instruction in perfect good faith; but it had not led to a satisfactory
result. It failed owing to the patient's restlessness. "He _will_ tit in
his s'eep, and he tums undone," said the little lady, hard to console.
Oh dear--how soon Dolly would be four, and begin to lose her early
versions of consonants!
Poor Susan Burr had then flashed across her recollection, provoked by
the bread-and-butter Dolly baptized with the bitter tears she shed over
Peter's leg. That naturally led to the household loaf, which was
buttered before the slice was cut; sometimes the whole round, according
to how many at tea. This led to a controversy of long standing between
Dave and Dolly, as to which half should be took first; Dave having a
preference for the underside, with the black left on. Students of the
half-quartern household loaf will appreciate the niceties involved. In
this connection, Susan Burr had come in naturally, like the officiating
priest at Mass. Poor Susan! Suppose, after all, that Europe had been
mistaken in what seemed to be its estimate of married nieces at Clapham!
Suppose Susan was being neglected--how then? But marriage and Clapham,
between them, soothed and reassured misgivings a mere unqualified niece
might easily generate. By this time the waking dreamer was on the
borderland of sleep, and Mrs. Burr's image crossed it with her and
became a real dream, and whistled the tune the boy had whistled to
Farmer Jones's Bull. And into that dream came, suddenly and unprovoked,
her sister Phoebe of old, beautiful and fresh as violets in April, and
ended a tale of how she would have none of Ralph Daverill, come what
might, by saying, "Why, you are all in the dark, and the fire's going
out!"
This resurrection of Phoebe, at this moment, may have been mere
coincidence--a reflex action of Gwen's sudden reappearance; her first
words creating, in her hearer's sleep-waking mind, the readiest image of
a youth and beauty to match her own. As soon as the dream died, the
dreamer was aware of the speaker's identity. "Oh, my dear!" she said,
"I've been asleep almost ever since you went away."
"Mrs. Masham was quite right, for once, not to let them disturb you. Now
they'll bring tea--it's never too late for tea--and then we can read
your little friend's letter." Thus Gwen, and the old woman brightened up
under a living interest.
"There now!" said she. "The many times I've told my boy that one day he
would write my letters for me, instead of me for him! To think of his
managing all by himself, spelling and all!"
"Well, we shall see what sort of a job the young man's made of it. Put
the candles behind Mrs. Picture, Lupin, so as not to glare her eyes."
Lupin obeyed, with a studied absence of protest on her face against
having to wait upon an anomaly. Who could be sure this venerable
person--from Sapps Court, think of it!--had never waited on anyone
herself? It was the ambiguity that was so disgusting.
"Please may I see it, to look at?" said Mrs. Picture. "I may not be able
to read it, quite, but you shall have it back, to read." She was eager
to see the young scribe's progress, but was baffled by obscurities, as
she anticipated. She was equal to:--"Dear Granny Marrable." No more!
"Hand it over!" said Gwen. "'Dear Granny Marrable.' That's all plain
sailing; now what's this? 'This crorce is for Dolly's love.' There's a
great big black cross to show it, and everything is spelt just as I say
it. 'I give you my love itself!' Really, he's full of the most excellent
differences, as Shakespeare says. I'll go on. 'Arnt M'riar she's
took....' Oh dear! this _is_ a word to make out! Whatever can it be?
Let's see what comes after.... Oh, it goes on:--'because she is not
here.' Really it looks as if Aunt Maria had gone to Kingdom Come. Is
there anything she _would_ have taken because she was 'not there,' that
you know of? Is your tea all right?"
"It's very nice indeed, my dear. I think perhaps it might be the
omnibus, because Aunt M'riar _did_ take the omnibus that day she came to
see me. She was to come again, without the children, to see all
straight."
"H'm!--it may be the omnibus, spelt with an H. Suppose we accept
_homliburst_, and see how it works out! '... because she is not here.
She is going'--he's put a W in the middle of going--'to see Mrs.'--I
know this word is Mrs., but he's put the S in the middle and the R at
the end--'to see Mrs. Spicture tookted away by Dolly's lady to Towel.'
That wants a little thinking out." Gwen stopped to think it over, and
wondrous lovely she looked, thinking.
"Perhaps," said the old lady diffidently, "I can guess what it means,
because I know Dave. Suppose Aunt M'riar came the day we came away, and
found us gone! If she came up to say goodbye?..."
"No, that won't do! Because we came on Wednesday. This was written on
Thursday. It's dated 'On Firsday.' Did he mean that Aunt Maria had come
up to Sapps Court, but would not come to Cavendish Square because she
knew you had come here? It's quite possible. I don't wonder Mrs.
Marrable couldn't make it out." The old lady seemed to think the
interpretation plausible, and Gwen read on:--"'I say we had an
axdnt'--that really is beautifully spelt--'because the house forled
over, and Mrs. Ber underneath and Me and Dolly are sory.'" Gwen stopped
a moment to consider the first two words of this sentence, and decided
that "I say" was an apostrophe. "I see," said she, "that the next
sentence has your name in it again, only he's left out the U, and made
you look something between Spider and Spectre."
"The dear boy! What does he say next about me?" The old lady was looking
intensely happy; a reflex action of Dave.
"There's a dreadful hard word comes next ... Oh--I see what it is!
'Supposing.' Only he's made it 'sorsppposing'--such a lot of P's! I
think it is only to show how diffidently he makes the suggestion. It
doesn't matter. Let's get on. 'Supposing you was to show'--something I
really cannot make head or tail of--'to Mrs. Spictre who is my other
graney?' I wonder what on earth it can be!"
"I don't think it's any use my looking, my dear. What letters does it
look most like?"
"Why!--here's an M, and a U, and a C, and an E, and an R, and an I, and
a J. That's a word by itself. 'Mucerij.' But what word can he mean? _It_
can't be _mucilage_; that's impossible! I thought it might be _museum_
at first, as it was to be shown. But it's written too plain, in a big
round hand--all in capitals. What _can_ it be?" And Gwen sat there
puzzling, turning the word this way and that, looking all the lovelier
for the ripple of amusement on her face at the absurd penmanship of the
neophyte.
Poor dear Dave! With the clearest possible perception of the name
Muggeridge, when spoken, he could go no nearer to correct writing of it
than this! He could hardly have known of the two G's, from the sound;
but the omission of the cross-bar from the one that was _de rigueur_ was
certainly a _lapsus calami_, and a serious one. The last syllable was
merely phonetic, and unrecognisable; but the G that looked like a C was
fatal.
It was an odd chance indeed that brought this name, or its distortion,
to challenge recognition at this moment, when the thought of its owner
had just passed off the mind that might have recognised it, helped by a
slight emendation. The story dwells on it from a kind of fascination,
due to the almost incredible strangeness of these two sisters' utter
unconsciousness of one another, and yet so near together! It was almost
as though a mine were laid beneath their feet, and this memory of a name
floated over it as a spark, and drifted away on a wind of chance to be
lost in a space of oblivion. However, sparks drift back, now and again.
This conversation over Dave's letter had no peculiar interest for either
speaker, over and above its mere face-value, which was of course far
greater for the elder of the two. Gwen deciphered it to the end,
laughing at the writer's conscientious efforts towards orthography. But
when the end came, with an attestation of affectionate grandsonship that
roused suspicions of help from seniors, so orthodox was the spelling,
she consigned the missive to its envelope after very slight revision of
points of interest. But she would talk a little about Dave too, in
deference to his other granny's solicitude about him. That was the
source of her own interest in what was otherwise a mere recollection of
an attractive _gamin_ with an even more attractive sister.
It was part of the embarrassment consequent on her own headstrong
creation of an anomalous social position, that Gwen could not decide,
nominally omnipotent as she was in her parents' absence, on telling the
servants to serve her dinner in the room Mrs. Picture occupied. Had it
not been for her suspicion of a hornet's nest at hand, she might have
dared to ordain that Mrs. Picture should be her sole guest in her own
section of the Towers, or at least that she herself should become the
table-guest of the old lady in Francis Quarles; "might have," not "would
have," because Mrs. Picture's own feelings had to be reckoned with.
Might she not be embarrassed, and overweighted by too emphatic a change
of circumstances? Indeed, had Gwen known it, she was only tranquil and
contented with things as they were in the sense in which one who passes
through a dream is tranquil and contented. It was the quietude of
bewilderment, alive to gratitude.
Uncertainty on this point co-operated with the possible hornet's nest,
and sent Gwen away to a lonely evening meal in her own rooms; for
nothing short of a suite of apartments was allotted to any inmate of
importance at the Towers. She had to submit to a banquet of a kind, if
only as a measure of conciliation to the household. But, the banquet
ended, she was free to return and take coffee with her _protégée_. She
had no objection to talking about her lover to Mrs. Picture, rather
welcoming the luxury of speaking of her marriage with him as a thing
already guaranteed by Fate.
"When we are married," said she, "I mean to have that delicious old
house we saw on the hill. That's why I wanted to show it to you. It's
all nonsense about the ghost. I dare say the Roundheads murdered the
ghost there--I mean the woman the ghost's the ghost of--but she wouldn't
appear to me. Ghosts never do. Did you ever see one?... But you wouldn't
be in the house. You would be at a sweet little cottage just close,
which is simply one mass of roses. You and Dolly. And Mrs. Burr." Mrs.
Burr was thrown into attend to the _ménage_.
Old Mrs. Picture did not quite know what to say. She had found out
instinctively that perpetual gratitude had its drawbacks for the
receiver as well as the giver. So she said, diffidently:--"Wouldn't it
cost a great deal of money?"
"Cost nothing," said Gwen. "The place belongs to my father. It's all
very well for people, that mind ghosts, not to live in it. But I don't
see why that should apply to Mr. Torrens and me."
"Doesn't he mind ghosts?"
"Not the least." She was going to say more, but was stopped, by danger
ahead. The chances of his seeing, or not seeing, a ghost, could hardly
be discussed. The old lady probably felt this too, for she seemed to
keep something back.
Her next words showed what it had been, in an odd way. "Is he not to
see?" she said, speaking almost as if afraid of the sound of her own
words.
Gwen's answer came in a hurried undertone:--"Oh, I dare not think so. He
_will_ see! He _must_ see!" Her distress was in her fingers, that she
could not keep still, as well as in her voice. She rose suddenly,
crossed the room to the window, and stood looking out on the darkness.
Presently she turned round, esteeming herself mistress of her strength
again, and hoping for the serenity of her companion's old face, and its
still white hair, to help her. Old Maisie could not shed a tear now on
her own behalf. But ... to think of the appalling sorrow of this
glorious girl! Gwen did not return to her seat; but preferred a
footstool, at the feet of the dear old lady, whose voice was
heart-broken.
"Oh, my dear--my dear! That he should never see _you_!... never!...
never!" The golden head with all its wealth was in her lap, and the
silver of her own was white against it as she spoke. No such tears had
yet fallen from Gwen's eyes as these that mixed with this old woman's,
the convict's relict--the convict's mother--from Sapps Court.
An effort against herself, to choke them back, and an ignominious
failure! A short breakdown, another effort, and a success! Gwen rose
above herself, morally triumphant. The beautiful young face, when it
looked up, assorted well with the words:--"This is all cowardice, dear
Mrs. Picture. He _has_ seen, though it was only a few seconds. The sight
is there. And look what Dr. Merridew said. His eyes might be as strong
as they had ever been in his life."
Then followed reflections on the pusillanimity of despair, the duty of
hoping, and an attempt on Gwen's part to forestall a possible shock to
the old lady should she ever come to the knowledge of Adrian's free
opinions. She wanted her to think well of her lover. But she could not
conscientiously give him a character for orthodoxy. She took refuge in a
position which is often a great resource in like cases, ascribing to him
an intrinsic devoutness, a hidden substantial sanctity compatible with
the utmost latitudes of heterodoxy; a bedrock of devout gneiss or
porphyry hidden under a mere alluvium of modern freethinking; a
reality--if the truth were known--of St. Francis of Assisi behind a mask
of Voltaire. Her hearer only half followed her reasoning, but that
mattered little, as she was brimming with assent to anything Gwen
advanced, with such beautiful and earnest eyes to back it.
"It's a great deal too far to drive you over to see him," said Gwen. "It
would knock you to pieces--eighteen miles each way! It's over two hours
and a half in the carriage, even when the roads are not muddy. The mare
got me there in an hour and three-quarters the other day, but you
couldn't stand that sort of thing. I'm going again in the gig
to-morrow.... Oh no!--not till eleven o'clock. I shall come and sit with
you and see all comfortable before I go. I shall get there at lunch. How
do you get on with Masham?" This was asked with a pretence of absence of
misgiving, and the response to it was a testimonial to Mrs. Masham,
rather overdone. Gwen extenuated Mrs. Masham. She had known Masham all
her life, and she really was a very good woman, in spite of her caps. As
for her expanse, it was not her fault, but the hand of Nature; and her
black jet ringlets were, Gwen believed, congenital.
But the next clock was going to say ten, however inaccurately. In fact,
a little one, in a hurry, got its word in first, and was condemned by a
reference to Gwen's repeater, which refused to go farther than nine.
She, however, rang up Masham, of whose voice, _inter alias_, she had
been half-conscious in the distance for some time past; and who gave the
impression of having recently shown a proper spirit.
"She'll be better in bed, I think, Masham. She's had such a tiring day.
It was my fault. I was rather afraid at the time. I suppose she'll be
all right. She gets everything she wants, I suppose?"
"I beg your ladyship's pardon!"
"She gets everything she wants?"
"So far as comes to my knowledge, my lady. Touching wishes not
expressed, I could not undertake to say." Mrs. Masham bridled somewhat,
and showed signs of having a right to feel injured. "If your ladyship
would make inquiry, and satisfy yourself...." Then something would be
revealed in the service of Truth. Only she did not finish the sentence.
It was Gwen's way to accept every challenge. "Is her bed nice and warm?"
said she, going straight to a point--the nearest in sight, for this took
place within view of the bed in question, seen through a half-open door.
Prudence would have waived investigation, but Gwen's prudence was never
at home when wanted. She ought not to have accepted the housekeeper's
suggestion that she could satisfy herself by an autopsy. The comfort of
this couch, warm or cold, was already leagues above its occupant's
wildest conception of luxury. What must her ladyship do but say:--"Yes,
thank you, Masham, I'll feel for myself." And there, if that young
hussy, Lupin, hadn't sent the hot bottle right down to the end!
This version of the incident, gathered from a subsequent communication
of the housekeeper, will be at once intelligible to all but the very few
to whom the hot bottle is a stranger. _They_ have not had the experience
so many of us are familiar with, of being too short to reach down all
that way, and having either to wallow under the coverlids like a Kobold,
or untuck the bed, and get at the remote bottle like a paper-knife.
Probably this bottle's prominence in the unpleasantness that germinated
among the servants who remained at the Towers after the departure of the
Earl and Countess was due to the extreme impalpability of other
grievances. It was something you could lay hold of; and was laid hold
of, for instance, by Miss Lutwyche, to flagellate Mrs. Masham. "At any
rate," said that severe critic, "what I took charge of, that I would act
up to. When I undertook the old party in Cavendish Square, she was kept
warm, and no playing fast and loose with bottles. And she didn't give
offence, that I see, but seemed"--here her love of new expressions came
in, tending to wards superiority--"but seemed of an accommodating
habit." This expression was far from unfortunate, and it was owing to
the disposition so described that old Maisie, as soon as she was fully
aware that she had been the unintentional cause of strained relations in
the household, became very uncomfortable; and, much as she loved the
beautiful but headstrong creature that had taken such a fancy to her,
felt more than ever that the sooner she returned to her own proper
surroundings the better.
Gwen returned to her own quarters after a certain amount of
good-humoured fault-finding, having listened to and made light of many
expressions of contrition from the old lady that she should have
occasioned what Miss Lutwyche afterwards spoke of as just so much
uncalled-for hot water. Gwen's youth and high spirits, and her supreme
contempt for the petty animosities of the domestics, made it less easy
for her to understand the feelings of her old guest, and the rather
anomalous position in which she had placed her. She thought she had said
all she need about it when she warned Mrs. Picture not to be put out by
Mrs. Masham and Lutwyche's nonsense. Servants were always like that.
Bother Mrs. Masham and Lutwyche!
The latter, however, when assisting her young mistress to retire for the
night--an operation which takes two when a young lady of position is
cast for the leading part--was eloquent about the hot water, which she
said no doubt prevailed, but appeared to her entirely unwarranted. Her
account of the position redounded to her own credit. Hers had been the
part of a peace-maker. She had made the crooked straight, and the rough
places plain. The substratum of everybody else's character was also
excellent, but human weakness, to which all but the speaker were liable,
stepped in and distorted the best intentions. If only Mrs. Masham did
not give away to the sharpness of her tongue, a better heart did not
exist. Mr. Norbury might frequently avoid misunderstandings if an acute
sense of duty and an almost startling integrity of motive were the only
things wanted to procure peace with honour in a disturbed household. But
that was where it was. You must have Authority, and a vacillating
disposition did not contribute to its exercise. In Mr. Norbury a fatal
indecision in action and a too great sensitiveness of moral fibre
paralysed latent energies of a high order which might otherwise have
made him a leader among men. As for the girls, the dove-like innocence
of inexperience, so far as it could exist among a lot of young monkeys,
was responsible for _their_ contribution to the hot water. A negligible
quantity of a trivial ingredient! Young persons were young persons, and
would always remain so--an enigmatical saying. As for the French Cook,
Napoléon de Souchy, he was in bed and knew nothing about it. Besides, he
went next day. He had, in fact, gone by the same train as the Earl,
travelling first-class, and had been taken for his lordship at Euston,
which hurt his vanity.
To this revelation Gwen listened with interest, hoping to hear more
precisely what the row was about. Why hot water at all, if uncalled for?
As she had not expected to hear much, she was very little surprised to
hear nothing. She pictured the attitude in action of Miss Lutwyche, whom
she knew well enough to know that she would coax history in her own
favour. The best of lady's-maids cannot be at once a Tartar and an
Angel. Gwen surmised that in the region of the servants' common-room and
the kitchen Miss Lutwyche would show so much of the former as had been
truly ascribed to her, whereas she herself would only see the latter.
The worst of it was that her old lady, being within hearing, would know
or suspect the dissensions she was the innocent cause of, and would be
uncomfortable. She must say or do something, consolatory or reassuring,
to-morrow. She fretted a little, till she fell asleep, over this matter,
which was really a trifle. Think of the thing she had seen that day,
that she was so profoundly unconscious of--the two sisters whose lips
met last a lifetime ago; whose grief, each for each, had nearly died of
time!--think of the two of them, then and there, face to face in the
daylight! But they too slept, that night, old Maisie and old Phoebe, as
calm as Gwen; and as safe, to all seeming, in their ignorance.
Would it not be better--thought thinks, involuntarily--that they should
remain in this ignorance, through the little span of Time still left
them, in a state which is a best decay? Would it not be best that the
few hours left should run their course, and that the two should either
pass away to nothingness and peace, as may be, or--as may be too, just
as like as not--wake to a wonder none can comprehend, an inconceivable
surprise, a sudden knowledge what the whole thing meant that must seem,
if they come to comprehend it now, a needless cruelty? If they--and you
and I, in our turn--are to be nothing, mere items of the past lost in
Oblivion, why not spare them the hideous revelation of the many, many
years of might-have-been, when the same sun shone unmoved on each, even
marked the hours for them alike, each unseen by the other, each beyond
the sound of the other's speech, the touch of the other's hand? Why
should either now, at the eleventh hour, come to know of the audacious
fraud that made them strangers?
But why--why anything, for that matter? Why the smallest pain, the
greatest joy? What end does either serve, but to pass and be forgotten.
What is left for us but the bald consolation of imaging a form for the
Supreme Power--one like ourselves by preference--and a concession to
it.... _Fiat voluntas tua!_ It doesn't really matter _what_ form, you
see! The phantasmata vary, but the invisible what?--or who?--remains the
same. Gloria in excelsis Deo, nomine quocunque!
CHAPTER V
HOW MRS. PICTURE SPOILED OLD PHOEBE'S DREAM, BUT WAS A NICE OLD
SOUL, TO LOOK AT. PARSON DUNAGE's MOTHER. A CLOCK THAT STRUCK,
BETWEEN TWO TWINS. HOW TOBY DID NOT WAKE, AND KEZIAH SOLMES CAME
NEXT DAY FOR HIM. THE WICKED MAN WHO DID IT AGAIN, AND HIS
RESEMBLANCE TO TOBY. THE COATINGS OF THE LATTER'S STOMACH. MRS.
LAMPREY. COLONEL WARRENDER AND THE PHEASANTS. HOW WIDOW THRALE AND
KEZIAH WENT TO SEE AN OLD SOUL NEXT DAY. A RETROSPECULATION.
SUPPOSE WIDOW THRALE HAD BEEN TOLD! ON IMPROBABILITY,
IMPOSSIBILITY, INCREDIBILITY, AND MAISIE's PILGRIMAGE TO A GRAVE
SHE NEVER FOUND. MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN, AND THEIR IRRELEVANCE
"'Tis pity she could not stop!" said Granny Marrable in the course of
evening chat with the niece, who was scarcely thought of as anything but
a daughter, by even the oldest village gossips. Indeed, when we reflect
that little Ruth Daverill, now Widow Thrale, was under four when her
mother tore herself from her to rejoin her husband, it is little wonder
that she should take the same view of her own parentage. For one thing,
there was the twinship between the mother and aunt. The child under four
can have seen little difference between them.
The pen almost shrinks from writing Widow Ruth's reply to old Phoebe, so
plainly did it word her ignorance of who this was that she had seen two
hours since. "Who, mother? Oh, the old person! Ay, but she has a kind
heart, has Gwen." This was not disrespectful familiarity. All the
villagers in those parts, talking among themselves, gave their
christened names to the Earl's family. The moment an outsider came in,
"The Family" consisted entirely of lordships and ladyships.
But how strange, that such a speech--actually the naming of a mother by
a daughter--should be so slightly spoken, in an ignorance so complete!
Granny Marrable's thought, of the two, dwelt more on "the old person";
whose identity, as Dave's other Granny, had made its impression on her.
Otherwise, for all she had seen of her, it might have passed from her
mind. Also, she was grieved about that mutton-broth. The poor old soul
had just looked worn to death, and all that way to drive! If she had
only just swallowed half a cup, it would have made such a difference. It
added to Granny Marrable's regret, that the mutton-broth had proved so
good. The old soul had passed on unrefreshed even while Strides Cottage
was endorsing that mutton-broth.
The Granny quite fretted over it, not even the beautiful fur tippet
Sister Nora had sent her having power to expel it from her mind. And,
quite late, nigh on to midnight, she woke with a start from a dream she
had had; it set her off talking again about old Mrs. Picture. For it was
one of this old lady's vices that she would sit up late and waste a deal
of good sleep out of bed in that venerable arm-chair of hers.
"There now, Ruth," said she, "I was asleep again and dreaming." For she
never would admit that this practice was an invariable one.
"What about, mother?" said Widow Thrale.
"That breaking of the glass set me a-dreaming over our old mill, and
your mother, child, that died across the seas. We was both there, girls
like, all over again. Only Dave's Mrs. Picture, she come across the
dream, and spoilt it."
It was not necessary for Mrs. Ruth to take her attention off the
pillow-lace she was at work upon. She remarked:--"I thought her a nice
old soul, to look at." This was not quite uncoloured by the vague
indictment against Mrs. Picture about Dave, who had, somehow, qualified
for the receipt of forgiveness. Which implies some offence to condone.
Shadowy as the offence was, Granny Marrable could not ignore it
altogether. "Good looks are skin-deep--so they say! But it's not for me
to be setting up for judge. At her time of life, and she a-looking so
worn out, too!" The memory of the mutton-broth rankled. Forgiveness was
setting in.
"At her time of life, mother? Why, she's none so much older than you.
What should you take her to be?" The subject was just worth spare
attention not wanted for the lace-spools.
"Why, now--there's Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory. She's
ninety-four this Christmas. This old soul she might be half-way on,
between me and Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory."
Mrs. Ruth dropped the spools, to think arithmetically, with her fingers.
"Eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight," she said, "Eighty-seven!...
This one's nearer your own age than that, mother." She went on with her
work.
"There now, Ruth, is not that just like you, all over? You will always
be making me out older than I am. I am not turned of eighty-one, child,
not till next year. My birthday comes the first day of the year."
"I thought you and my mother were both born at Christmas."
"Well, my dear, we always called it Christmas, for to have a birthday
together on New Year's Eve. But the church-clock got time to strike the
hour betwixt and between the two of us, so Maisie was my elder sister by
just that, and no more. She would say ... Ah dearie me!--poor Maisie!...
she would say by rights _she_ should marry first, being the elder. And
then I would tell her the clock was fast, and we were both of an age.
'Twas a many years sooner she married, as God would have it. All of
three years before ever I met poor Nicholas." And then the old woman,
who had hitherto kept back the story of her sister's marriage, made a
slip of the tongue. "Maybe I was wrong, but I was a bit scared of men
and marriage in those days."
It was no wonder Ruth connected this with the father she had never seen.
"Why _did_ my father go to Australia?" said she. It was asked entirely
as a matter of history, for did it not happen before the speaker was
born? The passive acceptance through a lifetime of such a fact can only
be understood by persons who have experienced a similar sealed
antecedent. Non-inquiry into such a one may be infused into a mother's
milk.
Granny Marrable could be insensible to pressure after a life-time of
silence. She had never thrown light on the mystery and she would not,
now. Her answer even suggested a false solution. "He grew to be rich
after your mother died. But I lost touch of him then, and when and where
he came by his death is more than I can tell ye, child!" There was
implication in this of a prosperous colonist, completely impatriated in
the land of his wealth.
Ruth's father's vanished history was of less importance than the clock's
statement that it was midnight. Her "Now, mother, we're later and later.
It's striking to-morrow, now!" referred to present life and present
bedtime, and her rapid adjustment of the spools meant business.
The old Granny showed no sense of having escaped an embarrassment. She
did not shy off to another subject. On the contrary, she went back to
the topic it had hinged on. "Eighty-one come January!" said she,
lighting her own candle. "And please God I may see ninety, and only be
the worse by the price of a new pair of glasses to read my Testament.
Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory, she's gone stone-deaf, and one
may shout oneself hoarse. But everyone else than you, child, _I_ can
hear plain enough. There's naught to complain of in _my_ hearing, yet a
while."
Granny Marrable's conscience stung her yet again about Mrs. Picture's
departure unrefreshed. "I would have been the happier for knowing that
that old soul was none the worse," said she. But all the answer she got
was:--"Be quiet, mother, you'll wake up Toby."
She harped on the same string next day, the immediate provocation to the
subject being a visit from Keziah Solmes the old keeper's wife--you
remember her connection Keziah; she who remonstrated with her husband
about the use of fire-arms, and nearly saved Adrian Torrens's
eyesight?--who had been driven over, in a carrier's cart that kept up a
daily communication between the Towers and Chorlton, in pursuance of an
arrangement suggested one day by Gwen. Why should not Widow Thrale's
convalescents, when good, enjoy the coveted advantages of a visit to the
Towers? Mrs. Keziah Solmes had welcomed the opportunity for her grandson
Seth. Seth was young, but with well-marked proclivities and aspirations,
one of which was a desire for male companionship, preferably of boys
older than himself, whom he could incite to acts of lawlessness and
destruction he was still too small to commit effectually. He despised
little girls. He had been pleased with the account given of the
convalescent Toby, and had consented to receive him on stated terms,
having reference to the inequitable distribution of cake in his own
favour. Hence this visit of his grandmamma to Strides Cottage, with the
end in view that she should return with Toby, who for his part had
undertaken to be good, with secret reservations in his own mind as to
special opportunities to be bad, created by temporary withdrawals of
control.
"He can be a very bad little boy indeed," said Widow Thrale, shaking her
head solemnly, "when he's forgotten himself. Who was it broke a pane of
glass Thursday morning before his breakfast, and very nearly had no
sugar?"
Toby said, "Me!" and did not show a contrite heart; seemed too much like
the wicked man that did it again.
Granny Marrable entered into undertakings for Toby's future conduct.
"He's going to be a wonderful good little boy this time," said she, "and
do just exactly whatever he's told, and nothing else." Toby looked very
doubtful, but allowed the matter to drop.
"He's vary hearty to look at now, Aunt Phoebe," said Mrs. Keziah--Granny
Marrable was always Aunt Phoebe to her husband's relations--when this
youth had gone away to conduct himself unexceptionably elsewhere, on his
own recognisances. "What has the little ma'an been ailing with?" Widow
Thrale gave particulars of Toby's disaster, which had let him in for a
long convalescence, the moral of which was that no little boy should
drink lotions intended for external use only, however inquiring his
disposition might be. Toby had nearly destroyed the coatings of his
stomach, and his life had only been preserved by a miracle; which,
however, _had_ happened, so it didn't matter.
Mrs. Solmes was to await the return of the carrier's cart in a couple of
hours, hence it was possible to review and report upon the little local
world, deliberately. Granny Marrable began near home. How was the
visitor's husband?
"He doan't get any yoonger, Aunt Phoebe," said Keziah. "But he has but a
vary little to complain of, at his time of life. If and only he could
just be off fretting! He's never been the same in heart since he went so
nigh to killing Mr. Torrens o' Pensham, him that yoong Lady Gwen is
ta'aking oop with. But a can't say a didn't forewarn him o' what cooms
of a lwoaded gwun. And he _doan't_--so I'll do him fair justice."
"Young Torrens of Pensham, _he_ can't complain," said a sharp, youngish
woman who had come into the room just soon enough to catch the thread of
the conversation. She was the housekeeper at Dr. Nash's, who supplied
what he prescribed, and was always very obliging about sending. She came
with a bottle.
"Why can't he complain, Mrs. Lamprey?" Widow Thrale asked this first, so
the others only thought it.
"Where would he have been, Mrs. Thrale, but for the accident? _Accident_
you may call it! A rare bit o' luck some'll think! Why--who would the
young gentleman have got for a wife, if nobody had shot him? Answer me
that! Some girl, I suppose!"
Yes, indeed! To marry Gwen o' the Towers! But how about the poor
gentleman's eyesight? This crux was conjointly propounded. "Think what
eyesight is to a man!" said Widow Thrale gravely and convincingly.
Mrs. Lamprey echoed back:--"His eyesight?" with a pounce on the first
syllable. But seemed to reflect, saying with an abated emphasis:--"Only
of course you wouldn't know _that_." Know what?--said inquiry.
"Why--about his eyesight! And perhaps I've no call to tell you, seeing I
had it in confidence, as you might say."
This was purely formal, in order to register a breach of confidence as
an allotropic form of good faith. All pointed out their perfect
trustworthiness; and Mrs. Lamprey, with very little further protest,
narrated how she had been present when her master, Dr. Nash--whom you
will remember as having attended Adrian after the accident--told how his
colleague at Pensham Steynes had written to him an account of the
curious momentary revival of Adrian's eyesight, or perhaps dream. But
Dr. Nash had thrown doubt on the dream, and had predicted to his wife
that other incidents of the same sort would follow, would become more
frequent, and end in complete recovery.
A general expression of rejoicing--most emphatic on the part of Keziah,
who had a strong personal interest at stake--was followed by a reaction.
It was hardly possible to concede Gwen o' the Towers to any consort
short of a monarch on his throne, or a coroneted lord of thousands of
acres at least, except by virtue of some great sacrifice on the part of
the fortunate man, that would average his lot with that of common
humanity. It wasn't fair. Let Fate be reasonable! Adrian, blind for
life, was one thing; but to call such a peerless creature wife, and have
eyes to see her! A line must be drawn, somewhere!
"We must hope," said Granny Marrable, as soon as a working eyesight was
fairly installed in each one's image of Mr. Torrens, "that he may prove
himself worthy."
Said Widow Thrale:--"'Tis no ways hard to guess which her ladyship would
choose. I would not have been happy to wed with a blind husband. Nor
yourself, Cousin Keziah!"
Said Mrs. Keziah:--"I'm a-looking forward to the telling of my good man.
But I lay he'll be for sayun' next, that he'll be all to blame if the
wedding turn out ill."
"How can ye put that down to him, to lay it at his door? The fault is
none of his, Cousin Keziah." Thus Widow Thrale.
"Truly the fault be none of his. But thou doesna knaw Ste'aphen Solmes
as I do. He'll be for sayun'--if that g'woon had a been unlwoaded,
Master Torrens had gone his way, and no harm done, nouther to him nor
yet to Gwen. But who can say for certain that 'tis not God's will all
along?"
Mrs. Lamprey interrupted. There was the child's medicine, to be taken
regular, three times a day as directed on the bottle, and she had to
take Farmer Jones his gout mixture. "But what I told you, that's all
correct," said she, departing. "The gentleman will get his eyesight
again, and Dr. Nash says so."
Keziah waited for Mrs. Lamprey to depart, and then went on:--"They do
say marriages are made in Heaven, and 'tis not unlike to be true. 'Tis
all one there whether we be high or low." This was a tribute to
Omnipotence, acknowledging its independence of County Families. So
august a family as the Earl's might wed as it would, without suffering
disparagement. Anyway, there was her young ladyship driving off this
very morning to Pensham, so there was every sign at present that the
decrees of Providence would hold good. She, Keziah, had heard from her
nephew, Tom Kettering, where he was to drive, the carrier's cart having
called at the Towers after picking her up at the cottage. Moreover,
she--having alighted to interchange greetings with the household--had
chanced to overhear her young ladyship say where she was going and when
she would be back. She was talking with an old person, a stranger, in
black, with silver-white hair.
"That would be Dave's old Mrs. Picture, Ruth," said Granny Marrable,
with apparent interest. She was not at all sorry to hear something of
her having arrived safely at the Towers, none the worse for her long
drive yesterday. Mrs. Keziah, however, showed a disposition to qualify
her report, saying:--"Th' o'ald la'ady was ma'akin' but a power show, at
that. She'll be a great age, shower-ly! Only they do say, creaking
dowers ha'ang longest."
Said Widow Thrale then, explanatorily:--"Mother will be fretting by
reason that the old soul would take no refreshment. But reckon you can't
with Wills and Won'ts, do what you may! They just drove away, sharp,
they did! I tell mother she took no harm, and if she did, t'was no fault
of hers, or mine, I lay!"
Two days later, Widow Thrale went over by arrangement to Mrs. Solmes's
cottage to recover her convalescent, Toby. She also travelled by the
carrier's cart, accepting the hospitality of her cousin for the night,
and returning next day with Toby. Granny Marrable was not going to be
left alone at the cottage, as she was bidden to spend a day or two with
her granddaughter, or more strictly grandniece, Maisie Costrell, to make
up for her inability, owing to a bad cold six weeks since, to accompany
Widow Thrale to the first celebration of the birthday of the latter's
grandchild, at whose entry into the world you may remember the old lady
was officiating when Dave visited Strides Cottage a year ago.
Said she, parting at the door from Widow Thrale:--"You'll keep it in
mind what I said, Ruth."
Said Ruth, in reply,--"Touching the two yards of calico, or young Davy's
London Granny?" For she had more than one mission to Keziah.
"If you name her so, child." This rather stiffly. "Anywise, her young
ladyship's old soul that come in the carriage. 'Tis small concern of
mine or none at all to be asking. But I would be the easier to be
assured that all went well with her, looking so dazed as she did. At her
time of life too! More like than not Keziah will be for taking you over
to the Castle, and maybe you'll see Mrs.--Picture...."
"Picture's not her real name, only young Davy he's made it for her."
"Well, child, 'tis the same person bears it, whatever the name be! Maybe
you'll see Mrs. Picture, and maybe she'll have something to tell of
little Davy. I would have made some inquiry of him from her myself, but
the time was not to spare." This Granny had not been at all disposed to
admit that another Granny could give her any information about Dave. But
curiosity rankled, and inquiry through an agent was another matter.
"Lawsey me, mother," said Widow Thrale. "I'll get Keziah to take me
round, and I'll get some gossip with the old soul. I'll warrant she
hasn't lost her tongue, even be she old as Parson Dunage's mother at the
Rectory. Good-bye, mother dear! Take care of yourself on the road to
Maisie's. Put on Sister Nora's fur tippet in the open cart, for the wind
blows cold at sundown." Granny Marrable disallowed the fur tippet, with
some scorn for the luxury of the Age.
If Brantock the carrier, who drove away with Widow Thrale, promising
that she should be in time for sooper at Soalmes's, and a bit thrown in,
had been told whose mother she would speak with next day, and when she
saw her last, he would probably have said nothing--for carriers don't
talk; they carry--but his manner would have betrayed his incredulity.
And Brantock was no more of a Sadducee than his betters. Who could have
believed that that afternoon Widow Thrale and Granny Marrable went away
in opposite directions, the former to her own mother, the latter to Mrs.
Picture's grandchild, amid the utter ignorance of all concerned? Yet the
facts of the case were just as we have stated them, and no one of the
incidents that brought them about was in itself incredible.
Brantock was not told anything at all about anything, and did not
himself originate a single remark, except that the rain was holding off.
It may have been. His horse appeared to have read the directions on all
the parcels, choosing without instruction the most time-saving routes to
their different destinations, and going on the moment they were paid
for. In fact, Mr. Brantock had frequently to resume his seat on a cart
in motion, at the risk of his life. When they arrived at the passenger's
destination, the horse looked round to make quite sure she was safe on
the ground, and then started promptly. His master showed his superiority
to the mere brute creation, at this point, by saying, "Goodnight,
mistress!" The horse said nothing.
Widow Thrale had only expected to hear a mixed report of the success of
her convalescent's visit, so she was not disappointed. It gradually came
out that Seth and Toby had at first glared suspiciously at one another;
the former, as the host, refusing to shake hands; the latter denying his
identity, saying to him explicitly:--"_You_ ain't the woman's little
boy!" They had then dissimulated their hostility, in order to mislead
their introducers. They had even gone the length of affecting readiness
to play together, in order that they might take advantage of the absence
of authority to arrange a duel without seconds. This was interrupted,
not because the unrestrained principals could injure each other--they
were much too small and soft to do that--but in order to do justice to
civilised usage, which defines the relations of host and guest; crossing
fisticuffs, even pacifisticuffs, off their programme altogether, and
only countenancing religion and politics with reservations. Being
separated, each laid claim to having licked the other. In which they
followed the time-honoured usage of embattled hosts, or at least of
their respective war correspondents. They then became fast friends till
death. Widow Thrale was grieved and shocked at the behaviour of a little
boy to whom she had ascribed superhuman goodness. A fallen idol!
However, as both were too young to be troubled with consciences, and
nothing appeared to overtax their powers of digestion, the visit was
considered a great success. In fact, it competed with a previous visit
last year, of our Dave Wardle, to the disadvantage of the latter; as
Dave and Seth had been too far apart in age, and the only point in which
Dave's visit scored was that he was big enough to carry Seth on his
shoulders, and even this had been prohibited owing to his recent
surgical experiences. The making of the comparison naturally led to the
connection of Dave, whatever it was, with the old woman at the Towers,
whom Lady Gwen had nigh lost her wits about--so folks said. "But tha
knowas what o'or Gwen be!" said Mrs. Keziah. Gwen's reputation with all
the countryside was that of waywardness and wilfulness carried to
excess, but always with an unerring nobility of object.
Old Stephen had something to say about this, and preferred to put it as
a contradiction to Keziah. "Na-ay, na-ay, wife! O'or Gwen can guess a
lady, by tokens, as well as thou or I. Tha-at be the story of it. Some
la-ady that's coom by ill-luck in her o'ald age, and no friend to hand.
She'm gotten a friend now, and a good one!" The old boy did not seem
nearly so depressed as his wife's account of him had led Strides Cottage
to believe. But then, to be sure, the first thing she had told him when
she reached home with the boy yesterday, was Mrs. Lamprey's story of Mr.
Torrens's probable restoration of sight. Hope was Hope, and the cloud
had lifted. His speculation about Mrs. Picture's possible social status
was quite a talkative effort, for him.
Somehow it did not seem convincing to his hearers. Keziah shook her head
in slow doubt. "If that were the right of it, husband, the housekeeper's
rooms would be no place for her. Gwen would not put it on her to bide
with Mrs. Masham."
Old Stephen did not acquiesce. "May happen the old soul would shrink shy
of the great folk at the Towers," said he.
"Ay, but there be none!" said his wife. She went on to say that there
was scarce a living soul now at the Castle, beyond Gwen and sundry
domestics, making ready for the Colonel on Monday. This was a gentleman
who scarcely comes into the story, a much younger brother of the
Countess, who was allowed to bring friends down for the shooting every
autumn to the Towers, and took full advantage of the permission. This
year had been an exceptionally good year for the pheasants; in _their_
sense, not the sportsman's. For all the Colonel's friends were in the
Crimea, and the October shooting had been sadly neglected except by the
poachers. He was now back from the Crimea, but was not good for much
shooting or fox-hunting, having been himself shot through the lungs in
September at the Battle of the Alma, and invalided home. But he was
already equal to the duties of host to a shooting-party, and though he
could kill nothing himself, he could hear others do so, and could smell
the nice powder. The Earl hated this sort of thing, and was glad to get
out of the way till the worst of it was over.
Widow Thrale kept modestly outside this review of the Castle's
economies, but when they were exhausted referred again to her wish to
get a sight of old Mrs. Picture, putting her anxiety to do so entirely
on the shoulders of the Granny, of whose wish to know that the old woman
had borne the rest of her journey she made the most. She was not
prepared to confess to her own curiosity, so she used this device to
absolve her of confession. Cousin Keziah also was really a little
inquisitive, so an arrangement was easily made that these two should
walk over to the Towers on the afternoon of next day, pledging old
Stephen to the keeping of a careful eye on the pranks of the two young
conspirators against the peace and well-being of maturity, whose
business it is to know the exact amount of licence permissible to youth,
and at what point the restraint of a firm enunciation of high moral
principles becomes a necessity.
* * * * *
If Widow Thrale had been seized with a sudden mania for the improbable,
and had set her wits to work their hardest on a carefully chosen typical
example, could she have lighted on one that would have imposed a greater
strain on human powers of belief than the presence, a mile off, of her
mother, dead fifty years since? How improbable it would have seemed to
her that her aunt and her kith and kin of that date should fall so
easily dupes to a fraud! How improbable that folk should be so content
without inquiry, on either side of the globe; that her own mother should
remain so for years, and should even lack curiosity, when she returned
to England, to seek out her sister's grave; an instinctive tribute, one
would have said, almost certain to be paid by so loving a survivor! How
improbable that no two lines of life of folk concerned should ever
intersect thereafter, through nearly fifty years! And then, how about
her father?--how about possible half-brothers and sisters of hers?--how
improbable that they should remain quiescent and never seek to know
anything about their own flesh and blood, surviving in England! What a
tissue of improbabilities!
But then, supposing all facts known, would not old Maisie's daughter
have admitted their possibility, even made concession as to
probability? Had the tale been told to her then and there, at the
Ranger's Lodge in the Park, the two forged letters shown her, and all
the devil's cunning of their trickery, would it have seemed so strange
that her simple old aunt should be caught in the snare, or others less
concerned in the detection of the fraud? And had she then come to know
this--that when her mother in the end, twenty years later, came back to
her native land, her first act was to seek out the grave where she knew
her father was buried, and to find his name alone upon it; that she was
then misled by a confused statement of a witness speaking from hearsay;
and that she went away thereupon, having kept a strict lock on her
tongue as to her own name, and the marriage she now knew to have been no
marriage--had Ruth Thrale been told all this, would it not have gone far
to soften the harshness of the tale's incredibility?
That story was a strange one, nevertheless, of Maisie's visit to the
little graveyard in Essex, where she thought to find the epitaph of
Phoebe and of Phoebe's husband probably, and her father's to a
certainty. For wherever her brother-in-law and his wife were interred,
her father's remains must have been placed beside her mother's, in the
grave she had known from her childhood. But nothing had been added to
the inscription of her early recollections, except her father's name and
appropriate Scriptural citations; with a date, as it chanced, near
enough to the one she expected, to rouse no suspicion of the deceptions
her husband had practised on her.
Her consciousness of her equivocal position had weighed upon her so
strongly that she hesitated to make herself known to any of the older
inhabitants of the village--indeed, she would have been at a loss whom
to choose--and least of all to any of her husband's relatives, though it
would have been easy to find them. No doubt also it made her speech
obscure to the only person of whom she made any inquiry. This person,
who may have been the parish clerk, saw her apparently looking for a
particular grave, and asked if he could give any information. Instead of
giving her sister's name, or her own, she answered:--"I am looking for
my sister's grave. We were the daughters of Isaac Runciman." His
reply:--"She went away. I could not tell you where" was evidently a
confused idea, involving a recollection by a man well under forty of
Maisie's own disappearance during a period of his boyhood just too early
for vital interest in two young women in their twenties. He had taken
her for Phoebe. But he must have felt the shakiness of his answer
afterwards. For nothing can make it a coherent one, as a speech to
Phoebe. On the other hand, it did not seem incoherent to Maisie. She
connected it with the false story of her sister's departure to nurse her
husband in Belgium, and the wreck of the steamer in which they recrossed
the Channel. Her tentative question:--"Did you know of the shipwreck?"
only confirmed this. His reply was:--"I was not here at the time, so I
only knew that she was going abroad to her husband." _He_ was speaking
of Maisie's own voyage to Australia, and took her speech to mean that
the ship _she_ sailed in was wrecked. _She_ was thinking of the forged
letter.
* * * * *
Have you, who read this, ever chanced to have an experience of how vain
it is to try to put oneself in touch with events of twenty or thirty
years ago? How came Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to be so near of a
tale if, as some fancy, they never put stylus to papyrus till Paul
pointed out their duty to them? Did they compare notes? But if they did,
why did they leave any work to be done by harmonizers?
However, this story has nothing to do with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Reflections suggest themselves, for all that, with unconscious Mrs. Ruth
Thrale in charge of her cousin by marriage, Keziah Solmes, making her
way by the road--because the short cut through the Park is too wet--to
the great old Castle, with a room in it where an old, old woman with a
sweet face and silver-white hair is watching the cold November sun that
has done its best for the day and must die, and waiting patiently for
the coming of a Guardian Angel with a golden head and a voice that rings
like music. For that is what Gwen o' the Towers is to old Mrs. Prichard
of Sapps Court, who came there from Skillicks.
What is that comely countrywoman on the road to old Mrs. Prichard? What
was old Mrs. Prichard to her, fifty-odd years ago, before she drew
breath? What, when that strong hand, a baby's then, tugged at those
silver locks, then golden?
CHAPTER VI
HOW OLD MAISIE RECEIVED A VISIT FROM HER DAUGHTER RUTH, AND REMADE
HER ACQUAINTANCE. HOW RUTH STAYED TO TEA. OF HER RESEMBLANCE TO
POMONA. OF DAVE'S CONFUSION, LAST YEAR, BETWEEN HIS TWO HONORARY
GRANNIES. OF MAGIC MUSIC, AND HOW AGGRAVATED AN ANGEL MIGHT HAVE
BEEN, WHO PLAYED, FOR DESTINY TO GUESS. HOW OLD MAISIE DIDN'T GO TO
SLEEP, AND POMONA MADE TOAST. OF A LOG, AND SOME LICHENS. HOW A
LITTLE BEETLE GOT BURNT ALIVE. AND POSSIBLY THE SERVANTS WERE NOT
QUARRELLING. HOW OLD MAISIE HEARD HERSELF CALLED "A PLAGUY OLD
CAT." MRS. MASHAM'S DUPLICITY. HOW OLD MAISIE WISHED FOR HER OWN
DAUGHTER, UNAWARES
Old Maisie had a difficulty in walking, owing to rheumatism. But this
had improved since her promotion from the diet of Sapps Court to that of
Cavendish Square; and later, of the Towers. So much so, that she would
often walk about the room, for change; and had even gone cautiously on
the garden-terrace, keeping near the house; which was possible, as
Francis Quarles had lodged on a ground-floor when he gave his name to
the room she occupied.
So, this afternoon, after wondering for some time whose voices those
were she heard, variously, in the several passages and antechambers of
the servants' quarters, and deciding that one broad provincial accent
was a native's, and the other, a softer and sweeter one, that of one of
the inhabitants of Strides Cottage, she could not be sure which, she got
up slowly from her chair by the fire, and made her way to the window, to
see the better the little that was left of the sunlight.
Was that cold red disk, going oval in the colder grey of the mist that
rose from the darkening land, the selfsame remorseless sun that, one
Christmas Day that she remembered well, blazed so over Macquarie that
the awkward well-handle, the work of a convict on ticket-of-leave, who
had started a forge near by, grew so hot it all but singed the sheep's
wool she wrapped round it to protect her hands? So hot that her husband,
even when the sun was as low as this, could light his pipe with a
burning-glass--a telescope lens whose tube had gone astray, to lead a
useless life elsewhere. She remembered that shoeing-smith well; a good
fellow, sentenced for life for a crime akin to Wat Tyler's, mercifully
reprieved from death by King George in consideration of his
provocation; for was he not, like Wat Tyler, the girl's father? She
remembered what she accounted that man's only weakness--his dwelling
with joy on the sound of the hammer-stroke of his swift, retributive
justice--the concussion of the remorseless wrought iron on the split
skull of a human beast. She remembered his words with a shudder:--"Ay,
mistress, I can shut my eyes and listen for it now. And many was the
time it gave me peace to think upon it. Ay!--in the worst of my twenty
years, the nights in the cursed river-boat they called the hulks, I
could bear them I was shut up with in the dark, and the vermin that
crawled about us, and a'most laugh to be able to hear it again, and
bless God that it sent him to Hell without time for a prayer!" The words
came back to her mind like the hideous incident of a dream we cannot for
shame repeat aloud, and made her flesh creep. But then, suppose the girl
had been her Dolly Wardle, grown big, or her own little maid, whom she
never saw again, who died near fifty years ago! Why--the sleeping face
of that baby was fresh on her lips still; had never lost its freshness
since she tore herself away to reach, at any cost, the man she loved!
Could not the sun have been content to set, without becoming a link with
a past she shrank from, so many were the evil memories that clung about
it? She was glad that someone should come into the room, to break
through this one. There was nothing in this good-humoured
villager--surely Pomona's self in a cotton print, somewhat older than is
usual with that goddess--nothing but what served to banish these
nightmares of her lonely recollection. Only, mind you, Sam Rendall--that
was Wat Tyler's name, this time--was a good man, who deserved to have
had that daughter's children on his knee. She, Maisie, had deserted
hers.
"May happen you'll call me to mind, ma'am, me and my old mother, at the
door of Strides Cottage, two days agone. I made bold to look in, hoping
to see you better." Thus Pomona, and old Maisie was grateful for the
wholesome voice. Still, she was puzzled, being unconscious that she had
seemed so ill. Pomona thought her introduction of herself had not been
clear, and repeated:--"Strides Cottage, just this side Chorlton, betwixt
Farmer Jones and the Reedcroft--where her young ladyship bid stop the
carriage...." She paused to let the old lady think. Perhaps she was
going too fast.
But no--it was not that at all. Old Maisie was quite clear about the
incident, and its whereabouts. "Oh yes!" said she. "I knew it was
Strides Cottage, because I had the name from my little Davy, for the
envelopes of his letters. And I knew Farmer Jones, because of his Bull.
It was only a bit of fatigue, with the long ride." Then as the bald
disclaimer of any need for solicitude seemed a chill return for Pomona's
cordiality, old Maisie hastened to add a corollary:--"I did not find the
time to thank your mother as I would have liked to do; but I get old and
slow, and the coachman was a bit quick of his whip. I should be sorry
for you to think me ungrateful, or your good mother."
It was as well that she added this, for there was a shade of wavering in
Ruth Thrale's heart as to whether the interview was welcome. A trace of
that jealousy about Dave just hung in Maisie's manner. And she rather
stood committed, by not having accepted the mutton-broth. That corollary
may have been Heaven-sent, to keep the mother and daughter in touch, in
the dark--just for a chance of light!
And yet it only just served its turn. For the daughter's half-hesitating
reply:--"But I thought I would look in," if expanded to
explanation-point, would have been worded:--"I came to show good-will,
more than from any grounded misgivings about your health, ma'am; and
now, having shown it, it is time to go." And she might have departed,
easily.
But Fate also showed good-will, and would not permit it. Old Mrs.
Picture became suddenly alive to the presence of a well-wisher, and to
her own reluctance to drive her away. "Oh, but you need not go yet,"
said she. "Or perhaps they want you?"
Oh dear no!--nobody wanted _her_. Her friend she came with, her Cousin
Keziah, was talking to Mrs. Masham. The pleasant presence would remain,
its owner said, and take a seat near the fire. The old lady was glad,
for she had had but little talk with anyone that day. Her morning
interview with Gwen had been a short one, for that young lady was
longing to get away for a second visit to her lover.
Old Maisie, to encourage possible diffidence to believe that a quiet
chat would really be welcome to her, made reference to the
disappointment such a short allowance of her young ladyship had been,
and resuming her high-backed chair, put on her spectacles to get a
better view of her visitor--oh, how unconsciously!
Think of the last kiss she gave a sleeping baby, half a century ago!
There was, of course, a topic they could speak of--little Dave Wardle,
dear to both. Widow Thrale, fond as she had been of the child, had not
Granny Marrable's bias towards monopolizing him. _That_ was the result
of a _grande passion_, generated perhaps by the encouragement the young
man had given to a second Granny, so very equivalent to his first.
Moreover, there was that obscure reference in his letters to an
accident--for _axdnt_ was a mere clerical error. She worded an inquiry
after Dave, tentatively.
"I have not seen the dear child for four weeks," said old Maisie. "Oh
dear me, yes--four weeks and more! Let me see, when was the accident?...
Oh dear!--how the time does slip away!..."
"Was that the accident Dave speaks of in his letter? We could not quite
make out Dave's letter. Sometimes 'tis a little to seek, what the child
means."
Old Maisie nodded assent. "But he'll soon be quite a scholar and write
his own letters all through. I think her ladyship took this one to send
it back. I can tell you about the accident. It was owing to the
repairs." The old lady pursued the subject in the true spirit of a
narrator, beginning at a wrong end, by preference one unintelligible to
her hearer. In consequence, the actual fall of the house-wall was
postponed, in favour of a description of its cause, which dealt
specially with the blamelessness of Mr. Bartlett, and incidentally with
the dishonesty of some colleagues of his, of whom he had spoken as
"they," without particulars. Her leniency to Mr. Bartlett was entirely
founded on the fact that she had conversed with him once on the subject,
and had been mysteriously impressed with his simplicity and manliness.
How did Mr. Bartlett manage it? A faint percentage of beer, like foreign
matter in analyses, is not alone enough to establish integrity. Nor a
flavour of clothes.
The wall fell in the end, and Widow Thrale saw a light on the story,
after expressing more admiration and sympathy for Mr. Bartlett than was
human, under the circumstances. She was much impressed. "And by the
mercy of God you were all saved, ma'am," said she. "Her young ladyship
and little Dave, and his sister, and yourself!" It really seemed quite a
stroke of business, this, on the part of a Superior Power, which had
left building materials and gravitation, after creating them, to their
own wayward impulses.
Old Maisie admitted the beneficence of Providence, but rather as an act
of courtesy. "For," said she, "we were never in any real danger, owing
to the piece of timber Mr. Bartlett had thrown across to catch the
floor-joists." She was of course repeating Mr. Bartlett's own words,
without close analysis of their actual meaning. Her mind only just
avoided associations of cricket. But poor Susan Burr--oh dear!--that was
much worse. "She has done wonderfully well, though," continued the old
lady, "and her case gave the greatest satisfaction to the Doctors at the
Hospital. She has written to me herself since leaving. And she must be
really better, because she has gone to her married niece at Clapham." It
seemed a sort of destiny that this niece's wifehood should always be
emphasized. It was almost implied that a less complete recovery would
have resulted in a journey to a single niece, at Clapham; or possibly,
only at Battersea. Widow Thrale was interested in the accident, but she
wanted to get back to Dave Wardle. "Then no one could live in the house,
ma'am," she said, "after it had fallen down?"
"Not in my rooms upstairs, nor his Aunt M'riar's underneath. Only his
uncle stopped in, to keep the place. _His_ room was all safe. It was
like the front of two rooms, all down in the street as if it was an
earthquake. And no forewarning, above a crack or two! But the children
safe, God be thanked, and her young ladyship! Also her cousin, Miss
Grahame, down below with Aunt M'riar."
"That lady we call Sister Nora?"
"That lady. But I was so stunned and dazed with the start it gave me,
and the noise, that I had no measure of anything. They took me home with
them. I can just call to mind moving in the carriage, and the
lamplighter." Old Maisie recollected seeing the lamplighter, but she had
forgotten how she was got into that carriage.
"Then you hardly saw the children?"
"I was all mazed. I heard my Dolly cry, poor little soul! Her ladyship
says Dave took Dolly up very short for being such a coward. But he
kissed her, for comfort, and to keep her in heart."
"_He_ didn't cry!"
"Davy?--not he. Davy makes it a point to be afraid of nothing. His uncle
has taught him so. He was"--here some hesitation--"he belonged to what
they called the Prize Ring. A professional boxer." It sounded better
than "prizefighter"--more restrained.
"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale. "Yes. I had heard that."
"But he is a good man," said old Maisie, warming to the defence of Uncle
Mo. "He is indeed! He won't let Dave fight, only a little now and then.
But Dave says he told him, Uncle Mo did, that if ever he saw a boy hit a
little girl, he was to hit that boy at once, without stopping to think
how big he was. And he told him where! Is not that a good man?"
"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale again, uneasily. "Won't Dave hit some boy
that's too strong for him, and get hurt?"
"I think he may, ma'am. But then ... someone _may_ take his part! I
should pray." She went on to repeat an adventure of Dave's, when he
behaved as directed to a young monster who was stuffing some abomination
into a little girl's mouth. But it ended with the words:--"The boy ran
away." Perhaps Uncle Mo had judged rightly of the class of boy that he
had in mind, as almost sure to run away.
The Pomona in Widow Thrale had gone behind a cloud during her misgivings
about Uncle Mo. The cloud passed, as the image of this boy fled from
Nemesis. He was a London boy, evidently, and up to date. The Feudal
System, as surviving at Chorlton, countenanced no such boys. The voice
of Pomona was cheerful again as she resumed Dave:--"Where, then, is the
boy, till he goes back home?"
"His aunt has got him at her mother's, at Ealing. His real
grandmother's." Pomona had a subconsciousness that this made three; an
outrageous allowance of grandmothers for any boy! But she would not say
so, as this old lady might be sensitive about her own claims, which
might be called in question if Dave's list was revised.
Ealing recalled an obscure passage in his letter, which was really an
insertion, in the text, of the address of his haven of refuge. It read,
transcribed literally:--"My grandMother is hEALing," and the
recollection of it reinforced the laugh with which Pomona pleaded to
misinterpretation. "Mother and I both thought she had cut herself," said
she.
Old Maisie, amused at Dave, made answer:--"No!--it's where he is. Number
Two, Penkover Terrace, Ealing. Penkover is very hard to recollect. So do
write it down. Write it now. I shall very likely forget it directly;
because when I get tired with talking, I swim, and the room goes
round.... Oh no--I'm not tired yet, and you do me good to talk to."
But the old lady had talked to the full extent of her tether. But even
in this short conversation the impression made upon her by this new
acquaintance was so favourable that she felt loth to let her depart; to
leave her, perhaps, to some memory of the past as painful as the one she
had interrupted. If she had spoken her exact mind she would have
said:--"No, don't go yet. I can't talk much, but it makes me happy to
sit here in the growing dusk and hear about Dave. It brings the child
back to me, and does my heart good." That was the upshot of her thought,
but she felt that their acquaintance was too short to warrant it. She
was bound to make an effort, if not to entertain, at least to bear her
share of the conversation.
"Tell me more about Davy, when you had him at the Cottage. Did he talk
about me?" This followed her declaration that she was "not tired yet" in
a voice that lost force audibly. Her visitor chose a wiser course than
to make a parade of her readiness to take a hint and begone. She chatted
on about Dave's stay with her a year since, about little things the
story knows already, while the old lady vouched at intervals--quite
truly--that she heard every word, and that her closed eyes did not mean
sleep. The incident of Dave's having persisted--when he awaked and found
"mother" looking at him, the day after his first arrival--that it was
old Mrs. Picture upstairs, and how they thought the child was still
dreaming, was really worth the telling. Old Maisie showed her amusement,
and felt bound to rouse herself to say:--"The name is not really
Picture, but it doesn't matter. I like Dave's name--Mrs. Picture!" It
was an effort, and when she added:--"The name is really Prichard," her
voice lost strength, and her hearer lost the name. Fate seemed against
Dave's pronunciation being corrected.
You know the game we used to call Magic Music--we oldsters, when we were
children? You know how, from your seat at the piano, you watched your
listener striving to take the hints you strove to give, and wandering
aimlessly away from the fire-irons he should have shouldered--the book
he should have read upside down--the little sister he should have kissed
or tickled--what not? You remember the obdurate pertinacity with which
he missed fire, and balked the triumphant outburst that should have
greeted his success? Surely, if some well-wisher among the choir of
Angels, harping with their harps, had been at Chorlton then and there,
under contract to guide Destiny, by playing loud and soft--not giving
unfair hints--to the reuniting of the long-lost sisters, that Angel
would have been hard tried to see how near the spark went to fire the
train, yet flickered down and died; how many a false scent crossed the
true one, and threw the tracker out!
Old Maisie's powers of sustained attention were, of course, much less
than she supposed, and her visitor's pleasant voice, rippling on in the
growing dusk, was more an anodyne than a stimulant. She did not go to
sleep--people don't! But something that very nearly resembled sleep must
have come to her. Whatever it was, she got clear of it to find, with
surprise, that Mrs. Thrale, with her bonnet off, was making toast at
the glowing wood-embers; and that candles were burning and that, somehow
tea had germinated.
"I thought I would make you some toast, more our sort.... Oh yes! What
the young lady has brought is very nice, but this will be hotter." The
real Pomona never looked about fifty--she was a goddess, you see!--but
if she had, and had made toast, she must have resembled Ruth Thrale.
Then old Maisie became more vividly alive to her visitor, helped by the
fact that she had been unconscious in her presence. That was human
nature. The establishment of a common sympathy about Lupin, the
tea-purveyor, was social nature. Pomona had called Miss Lupin "the young
lady." This had placed Miss Lupin; she belonged to a superior class, and
her ministrations were a condescension. It was strange indeed that such
trivialities should have a force to span the huge gulf years had dug
between these two, and yet never show a rift in the black cloud of their
fraud-begotten ignorance. They _did_ draw them nearer together, beyond a
doubt; especially that recognition of Miss Lupin's position. Old Maisie
had never felt comfortable with the household, while always oppressed
with gratitude for its benevolences. She had felt that she had expressed
it very imperfectly to her young ladyship, to cause her to say:--"They
will get all you want, I dare say. But how _do_ they behave? That's the
point! Are they giving themselves airs, or being pretty to you?" For
this downright young beauty never minced matters. But naturally old
Maisie had felt that she could do nothing but show gratitude for the
attention of the household, especially as she could not for the life of
her define the sources of her discomfort in her relations with it.
This saddler's widow from Chorlton, with all her village life upon her,
and her utter ignorance of the monstrous world of Maisie's own past
experience, came like a breath of fresh air. Was it Pomona though?--or
was it the tea? Reserve gave way to an impulse of informal speech:--"My
dear, you have had babies of your own?"
Pomona's open-eyed smile seemed to spread to her very finger-tips.
"Babies? _Me?_" she exclaimed. "Yes, indeed! But not so very many, if
you count them. Five, all told! Two of my little girls I lost--'tis a
many years agone now. My two boys are aboard ship, one in the Black Sea,
one in the Baltic. My eldest on the _Agamemnon_. My second--he's but
sixteen--on the _Tithonus_. But he's seen service--he was at Bomarsund
in August. Please God, when the war is over, they'll come back with a
many tales for their mother and their granny! I lie awake and pray for
them, nights."
The old lady kept her thoughts to herself--even spoke with unwarranted
confidence of these boys' return. She shied off the subject,
nevertheless. How about the other little girl, the one that still
remained undescribed?
"My married daughter? She is my youngest. She's married to John
Costrell's son at Denby's farm. Maisie. Her first little boy is just
over a year old."
Old Maisie brightened, interested, at the name. A young Maisie, so near
at hand! "My own name!" she said. "To think of that!" Yet, after all,
the name was a common one.
"Called after her grandmother," said Ruth Thrale, equably--chattily.
"Mother has gone over to-day to make up for not going on his birthday."
Of course the "grandmother" alluded to was her own proper mother, the
young mother on whose head that old silver hair she was watching so
unconsciously had been golden brown, fifty years ago. For all that, Ruth
spoke of her aunt as "mother," automatically. What wonder that old
Maisie accepted Granny Marrable's Christian name as the same as her own.
"My name is the same as your mother's, then!" seemed worth saying, on
the whole, though it put nothing very uncommon on record.
How near the spark was to the tinder!--how loud that Angel would have
had to play! For Ruth Thrale might easily have chanced to say:--"Yes,
the same that my mother's was." And that past tense might have spoken a
volume.
But Destiny was at fault, and the Angel would have had to play
_pianissimo_. Miss Lupin came in, bearing a log that had taken twenty
years to grow and one to dry. The glowing embers were getting spent, and
the open hearth called for reimbursement. It seemed a shame those sweet
fresh lichens should burn; but then, it would never do to let the fire
out! Miss Lupin contrived to indicate condescension in her attitude,
while dealing with its reconstruction. No conversation could have
survived such an inroad, and by the time Miss Lupin had asked if she
should remove the tea etceteras, the review of Pomona's family was
forgotten, and Destiny was baffled.
Another floating spark went even nearer to the tinder, when, going back
to Dave and Dolly, old Maisie talked of the pleasure of having the
little girl at home, now that Dave was so much away at school. She was
getting dim in thought and irresponsible when she gave Widow Thrale this
chance insight into her early days. It was a sort of slip of the mind
that betrayed her into saying:--"Ah, my dear, the little one makes me
think of my own little child I left behind me, that died--oh, such a
many years ago!..." Her voice broke into such audible distress that her
hearer could not pry behind her meaning; could only murmur a sympathetic
nothing. The old lady's words that followed seemed to revoke her
lapse:--"Long and long ago, before ever you were born, I should say. But
she was my only little girl, and I keep her in mind, even now." Had not
Widow Thrale hesitated, it might have come out that _her_ mother had
fled from her at the very time, and that her own name was Ruth. How
could suspicion have passed tiptoe over such a running stream of
possible surmise, and landed dryfoot?
But nothing came of it. There was nothing in a child that died before
she was born, to provoke comparison of her own dim impressions of her
mother's departure--for old Phoebe had kept much of the tale in
abeyance--and her comments hung fire in a sympathetic murmur. She felt,
though, that the way she had appeased her thirst for infancy might be
told, appropriately; dwelling particularly on the pleasures of
nourishing convalescents up to kissing-point, as the ogress we have
compared her to might have done up to readiness for the table. Old
Maisie was quite ready to endorse all her views and experiences,
enjoying especially the account of Dave's rapid recovery, and his
neglected Ariadne.
A conclusive sound crept into the conversation of Mrs. Solmes and the
housekeeper, always audible without. "I think I hear my Cousin Keziah
going," said Mrs. Thrale. "I must not keep her."
"Thank you, my dear! I mean--thank you for coming to see me!" It was the
second time old Maisie had said "my dear" to this acquaintance of an
hour. But then, her face, that youth's comeliness still clung to,
invited it.
"'Tis I should be the one to thank, ma'am, both for the pleasure, and
for the hearing tell of little Davy. Mother will be very content to get
a little news of the child. Oh, I can tell you she grudges her share of
Dave to anyone! If mother should take it into her head to come over and
hear some more, for herself, you will not take it amiss? It will be for
love of the child." Then, as a correction to what might have seemed a
stint of courtesy:--"And for the pleasure of a visit to you, ma'am."
Said old Maisie absently:--"I hope she will." And then Widow Thrale saw
that all this talking had been quite enough, and took her leave.
This was the second time these two had parted, in half a century. They
shook hands, this time, and there was no glimmer in the mind of either,
of who or what the other was. Each remained as unconscious of the
other's identity as that sleeping child in her crib had been, fifty
years ago, of her mother's heart-broken beauty as she tore herself away,
with the kiss on her lips that dwelt there still.
They shook hands, with affectionate cordiality, and the old lady, hoping
again that the visitor's "mother" would pay her a visit, settled back to
watching the fire creep along the lichens, one by one, on that beechen
log the squirrels had to themselves a year ago.
Unconscious Widow Thrale had much to say of the pretty old lady as she
and Mrs. Solmes walked back to the Ranger's Cottage through the
nightfall. Fancy mother taking it into her head that Dave would be the
worse by such a nice old extra Granny as that! She must be very much
alone in the world though, to judge by what little she had told of her
life in Sapps Court. No single hint of kith and kin! Had Keziah not
heard a word about her antecedents? Well--nothing to ma'ak a stowery
on't! Housekeeper Masham had expressed herself ambiguously, saying that
her yoong la'adyship had lighted down upon the old lady in stra'ange
coompany; concerning which she, Masham, not being called upon to deliver
judgment, preferred to keep her mowuth shoot. Keziah contrived to convey
that this shutting of Mrs. Masham's mouth had carried all the weight of
speech, all tending to throw doubt on Mrs. Picture, without any clue to
the special causes of offence against her.
Whatever misgivings about the old lady Widow Thrale allowed to re-enter
her mind were dispersed on arriving at the Cottage. For Toby and Seth,
being sought for to wash themselves and have their suppers, were not
forthcoming. They had vanished. They were found in the Verderer's Hall,
where they had concealed themselves with ingenuity, unnoticed by old
Stephen, whom they had followed in and allowed to depart, locking the
door after him and so locking them in. It was sheer original sin on
their part--the corruption of Man's heart. The joy of occasioning so
much anxiety more than compensated for delayed supper; and penalties
lapsed, owing to the satisfaction of finding that they had not both
tumbled into a well two hundred feet deep. Old Stephen's remark that,
had he been guilty of such conduct in his early youth, he would have
been all over wales, had an historical interest, but nothing further.
They seemed flattered by his opinion that they were a promussin' yoong
couple. However, the turmoil they created drove the previous events of
the day out of Widow Thrale's head. She slept very sound and--forgot all
about her interview with the old visitor at the Towers!
* * * * *
Old Maisie, alone in Francis Quarles as she had been so often in the
garret at Sapps Court, became again the mere silver-headed relic of the
past, waiting patiently, one would have said, for Death; content to
live, content to die; ready to love still; not strong enough to hate,
and ill-provided with an object now. Not for the former--no, indeed!
Were there not her Dave and her Dolly to go back to? She had not lost
them much, for they, too, were away from poor, half-ruined Sapps Court.
She would go back soon. But then, how about her Guardian Angel? She
would lose her--_must_ lose her, some time! Why not now?
What had she, old Maisie, done to deserve such a
guardianship?--_friendship_ was hardly the word to use. An
overpresumption in one so humble! Who could have foreseen all this
bewilderment of Chance six weeks ago, when her great event of the day
was a visit of the two children. She resented a half-thought she could
not help, that called her gain in question. Was not Sapps Court her
proper place? Was she not too much out of keeping with her surroundings?
Could she even find comfort, when she returned to her old quarters, in
wearing these clothes her young ladyship had had made for her; so unlike
her own old wardrobe, scarcely a rag of it newer than Skillicks? She
fought against the ungenerous thought--the malice of some passing imp,
surely!--and welcomed another that had strength to banish it, the image
of her visitor of to-day.
There she was again--at least, all that memory supplied! What was her
dress? Old Maisie could not recall this. The image supplied a
greeny-blue sort of plaid, but memory wavered over that. Her testimony
was clear about the hair; plenty of it, packed close with a ripple on
the suspicion of grey over the forehead, that seemed to have halted
there, unconfirmed. At any rate, there would be no more inside those
knot-twists behind, that still showed an autumnal golden brown,
Pomona-like. Yes, she had had abundance in the summer of her life, and
that was not so long ago. How old was she?--old Maisie asked herself.
Scarcely fifty yet, seemed a reasonable answer. She had forgotten to ask
her christened name, but she could make a guess at it--could fit her
with one to her liking. Margaret--Mary?--No, not exactly. Try Bertha....
Yes--Bertha might do.... But she could think about her so much better in
the half-dark. She rose and blew the candles out, then went back to her
chair and the line of thought that had pleased her.
How fortunate this good woman had been to hit upon the convalescent
idea! She, herself, when her worst loneliness clouded her horizon, might
have devised some such _modus vivendi_--as between herself and her
enemy, Solitude; not as mere means to live. But, indeed, Solitude had
intruded upon her first, disguised as a friend. The irksomeness of life
had come upon her later, when the sting of her son's wickedness began to
die away. Moreover, her delicacy of health had disqualified her for
active responsibilities. This Mrs. Marrable's antecedents had made no
inroads on _her_ constitution, evidently.
See where the fire had crept over these lichens and devoured them! The
log would soon be black, when once the heat got a fair hold of it. Now,
the pent-up steam from some secret core, that had kept its moisture
through the warmth of a summer, hissed out in an angry jet, stung by the
conquering flame. There, see!--from some concealment in the bark,
mysteriously safe till now, a six-legged beetle, panic-struck and
doomed. Cosmic fires were at work upon his world--that world he thought
so safe! It was the end of the Universe for him--_his_ Universe! Old
Maisie would gladly have played the part of a merciful Divinity, and
worked a miraculous salvation. But alas!--the poor little fugitive was
too swift to his own combustion in the deadly fires below. Would it be
like that for us, when our world comes to an end? Old Maisie was sorry
for that little beetle, and would have liked to save him.
She sat on, watching the tongues of flame creep up and up on the log
that seemed to defy ignition. The little beetle's fate had taken her
mind off her retrospect; off Dave and Dolly, and the pleasant image of
Pomona. She was glad of any sign of life, and the voices that reached
her from the kitchen or the servants' hall were welcome; and perhaps ...
_perhaps_ they were not quarrelling. But appearances were against them.
Nevertheless, the lull that followed made her sorry for the silence. A
wrangle toned down by distance and intervening doors is soothingly
suggestive of company--soothingly, because it fosters the distant
hearer's satisfaction at not being concerned in it. Old Maisie hoped
they would go on again soon, because she had blown those lights out
rashly, without being sure she could relight them. She could tear a
piece off the newspaper and light it at the fire of course. But--the
idea of tearing a newspaper! This, you see, was in fifty-four, and
tearing a number of the _Times_ was like tearing a book. No spills
offered themselves. She made an excursion into her bedroom for the
matchbox and felt her way to it. But it was empty! The futility of an
empty matchbox is as the effrontery of the celebrated misplaced
milestone. Expeditions for scraps of waste-paper in the dark, with her
eyesight, might end in burning somebody's will, or a cheque for pounds.
That was her feeling, at least. Never mind!--she could wait. She had
been told always to ring the bell when she wanted anything, but she had
never presumed on the permission. A lordly act, not for a denizen of
Sapps Court! Roxalana or Dejanira might pull bells. Very likely the log
would blaze directly, and she would come on a scrap of real waste-paper.
Stop!... Was not that someone coming along the passage, from the
kitchen. Perhaps someone she could ask? She would not go back to her
chair till she heard who it was. She set the door "on the jar" timidly,
and listened. Yes--she knew the voices. It was Miss Lutwyche and one of
the housemaids. Not Lupin--the other one, Mary Anne, who seldom came
this way, and whom she hardly knew by sight. But what was it that they
were saying?
Said Miss Lutwyche:--"Well, _I_ call her a plaguy old cat.... No, I
don't care if she _does_ hear me." However, she lowered her voice to
finish her speech, and much that followed was inaudible to old Maisie.
Who of course supposed _she_ was the plaguy old cat!
Then Mary Anne became audible again, confirming this view:--"Is that her
room?" For the subject of the conversation had changed in that inaudible
phase--changed from Mrs. Masham to the queer old soul her young ladyship
had pitchforked down in the middle of the household.
"That's her room now. Old Mashey has been turned out. She's next door.
She's supposed to look after her and see she wants for nothing.... _I_
don't know. Perhaps she does. _I_ wash my hands." At this point the poor
old listener heard no more. What she _had_ heard was a great shock to
her; really almost as great a shock as the crash at Sapps Court. She
found her way back to her chair and sat and cried, in the darkened room.
She was a plaguy old cat, and Miss Lutwyche, with whom she had been on
very good terms in Cavendish Square, had washed her hands of her! Then,
when the servants here were attentive to her--and they were all right,
as far as that went--it was mere deceptiousness, and they were wishing
her at Jericho.
She was conscious that the lady's-maid and Mary Anne came back, still
talking. But she had closed the door, and was glad she could not hear
what they were saying. A few minutes after, Mrs. Masham appeared from
her own room close by, having apparently recovered her temper. But, said
old Maisie to herself, all this was sheer hypocrisy; a mere timeserver's
assumption of civility towards a plaguy old cat!
"You'll be feeling ready for your bit of supper, Mrs. Pilcher," said the
housekeeper; who, having been snubbed by Miss Lutwyche for saying
"Pilchard," had made compromise. She could not be expected to accept
"Picture." The bit of supper was behind her on a tray, borne by Lupin.
"Why--you're all in the dark!" She rebuked the servant-girl because
there were no matches, and on production of a box from the latter's
pocket, magnanimously lit the candles with her own hands, continuing the
while to reproach her subordinate for neglect of the guest entrusted to
her charge. That guest's thought being, meanwhile, what a shocking
hypocrite this woman was. Probably Mrs. Masham was no more a hypocrite
than old Maisie was an old cat. That is to say, if the latter
designation meant a termagant or scold. There must be now and again, in
Nature, a person without a hall-mark of either Heaven or Hell, and Mrs.
Masham may have had none. In that recent encounter in the kitchen which
old Maisie had been conscious of, she had lost her temper with Miss
Lutwyche; but so might anyone, if you came to that. Cook had come to
that, after Miss Lutwyche left the room, and her designation of that
young lady as a provocation, and a hussy, had done much to pacify Mrs.
Masham.
Anyhow, Mrs. Masham was on even terms with herself, if not in a
treacle-jar, when she sat down by the fire to do--as she thought--her
duty by her young ladyship's _protégée_. She was that taken up, she
said, every minute of the day, that she did not get the opportunities
her heart longed for of cultivating the acquaintance of her guest. But
she was thankful to hear that Mrs. Pilcher had not been any the worse
for her talk with her visitor an hour since. Widow Thrale, living like
she did over at Chorlton, was a sort of stranger at the Towers. But only
a subacute stranger, as her husband, when living, was frequently in
evidence there, in connection with the stables.
Old Maisie was interested to hear anything about her pleasant visitor.
What sort of aged woman did Mrs. Masham take her to be? Her voice, said
the old lady, was that of a much younger person than she seemed, to look
at.
"How old would she be?" said the housekeeper. "Well--she might be a
child of twelve or thirteen when her mother came to Strides Cottage, and
married Farmer Marrable there...."
"Then her name was never Marrable at all," said old Maisie.
"No. Granny Marrable, she'd been married before, in Sussex. Now what
_was_ her first husband's name?... Well--I ought to be able to recollect
_that_! Ruth--Ruth--Ruth what?" She was trying to remember the name by
which she had known Widow Thrale in her childhood. Her effort to do so,
had it succeeded, would have made a complete disclosure almost
inevitable, owing to the peculiarity of Granny Marrable's first
husband's name. "I _ought_ to be able to recollect, but there!--I can't.
I suppose it would be because we always heard her spoken of as Mrs.
Marrable's Ruth. I saw but very little of her; only when I was a
child...." She paused a moment, arrested by old Maisie's expression, and
then said:--"Yes ... why?" ... and stopped.
"Because if I had known she was Ruth I would have told her that my
little girl that died was Ruth. Just a fanciful idea!" But the speaker's
supper was getting cold. The housekeeper departed, telling Lupin to get
some scrapwood to make a blaze under that log, and make it show what a
real capacity it had as fuel, if only justice was done to its
combustibility.
This chance passage of conversation between old Maisie and the
housekeeper ran near to sounding the one note needed to force the truth
of an incredible tale on the blank unsuspicion of its actors. A many
other little things may have gone as near. If so, none left any one of
its audience, or witnesses, more absolutely in the dark about it than
the solitary old woman who that evening watched that log, stimulated by
the scrapwood during her very perfunctory supper; first till it became a
roaring flame that laughed at those two candles, then till the flame
died down and left it all aglow; then till the fire reached its heart
and broke it, and it fell, and flickered up again and died, and slowly
resolved itself into a hillock of red ember and creeping incandescence,
a treasury still of memories of the woodlands and the coming of the
spring, and the growth of the leaves that perished.
At about nine o'clock, Lupin, acting officially, came to offer her
services to see the old lady to bed. No!--if she might do so she would
rather sit up till her ladyship came in. She could shift for herself; in
fact, like most old people who have never been waited on, she greatly
preferred it. Only, of course, she did not say so. But Lupin _was_
sitting up for her ladyship, with Miss Lutwyche, and would purvey hot
water then, in place of this, which would be cold. She brought a couple
of young loglets to keep a little life in the fire, and went away to
contribute to an everlasting wrangle in the servants' hall.
The wind roared in the chimney and made old Maisie's thoughts go back to
the awful sea. Think of the wrecks this wind would cause! Of course she
was all wrong; one always is, indoors, with a huge chimney which is a
treasure-house of sound. Gwen was just saying at that moment, to Adrian
and his sister, what a delicious night it was to be out of doors! And
the grey mare, in a hurry to go, was undertaking through an interpreter
to be back in an hour and three-quarters easy. And then they were off,
Gwen laughing to scorn Irene's reproaches to her for not staying the
night. All that was part of Gwen's minimisation of her guilt in this
postponement of the separation test. The stars seemed to flash the
clearer in the heavens for such laughter as hers, in such a voice. But
all the while old Maisie was haunted with images of a chaise blown into
ditches and over bridges, and colliding with blown-down elms, in league
for mischief with blown-out lamps. Be advised, and _never_ fidget about
the absent!
She would rather have gone on doing so than that the recollection should
come back to her of Lutwyche's odious designation that she had taken to
herself, so warrantably to all appearance. A _plaguy old cat_! What had
she ever done or said to Miss Lutwyche, or any of them, to deserve such
a name? And then that girl who was with her had seemed to accept it so
easily--certainly without any protest. She was ready to admit, though,
that her vituperators had concealed their animus well, the hypocrites
that they were! Look how amiable Mrs. Masham had made believe
to be, an hour ago! A shade of graciousness--an infinitesimal
condescension--certainly nothing worse than that! But the hypocrisy of
it! She had never been quite comfortable in her ill-assigned position of
guest undefined--dear, beautiful Gwen's fault! Never, since the
housekeeper on first introduction had jumped at her reluctance to taint
the servants' hall with Sapps Court, interpreting it as a personal
desire to be alone. But she had never suspected that she was a plaguy
old cat, and did not feel like her idea of one.
Conceive the position of a lonely octogenarian, injudiciously thrust
into a community where she was not welcome--by a Guardian Angel surely,
but one who had never known the meaning of the word "obstacle." Conceive
that her poverty had never meant pauperisation, and that graciousness
and condescension are always tainted with benevolence, to the indigent.
She had done nothing to deserve having anything bestowed on her, and the
wing of a chicken she had supped upon would have stuck in her throat
with that qualification. Understand, too, that when this thought crossed
her mind, she recoiled from it and cried out upon her petty pride that
would call anything in question that had been _visé_ and endorsed by
that dear Guardian Angel. Use these helps towards a glimpse into her
heart as she watched the new wood go the way of the old, and say if you
wonder that she cried silently over it. Now if only that nice person
that came to-day could have stayed on, to pass the time with her until
the welcome sound should come of the chaise's homeward wheels and the
grey mare's splendid pace, bringing her what she knew would come if Gwen
was in it, a happy farewell interview with her idol before she went to
bed. Yes--how nice it would have been to have her here! Ruth
Thrale--yes, Ruth--her own little daughter's name of long ago!
This Ruth _was_ her own daughter. But how to know it!
CHAPTER VII
HOW GWEN CAME BACK, AND FOUND THE "OLD CAT" ASLEEP. AND TOOK OFF
HER SABLES. A CANDLE-LIGHT JOURNEY THROUGH AN ANCIENT HOUSE, AND A
TELEGRAPHIC SUMMONS. HOW GWEN RUSHED AWAY BY A NIGHT-TRAIN, BECAUSE
HER COUSIN CLOTILDA SAID DON'T COME. HOW SHE LEFT A LETTER FOR
WIDOW THRALE AT THE RANGER'S LODGE
Just as the watched pot never boils, so the thing one waits for never
comes, so long as one waits _hard_. The harder one waits the longer it
is postponed. When one sits up to open the door to the latchkeyless,
there is only one sure way of bringing about his return, and that is to
drop asleep _à contre coeur_, and sleep too sound for furious knocks and
rings, gravel thrown at windows, and intemperate language, to arouse
you. Then he will come back, and be obliged to say he has only knocked
once, and you will say you had only just closed your eyes.
Old Maisie was quite sure she had just closed hers, when of a sudden the
voice she longed for filled Heaven and Earth, and said:--"Oh, what a
shame to come and wake you out of such a beautiful sleep! But you
mustn't sleep all night in the arm-chair. Poor dear old Mrs. Picture!
What would Dave say! What would Mrs. Burr say!" And then old Maisie
waked from a dream about unmanageable shrimps, to utter the correct
formula with a conviction of its truth, this time. She _had_ only just
closed her eyes. Only just!
Miss Lutwyche, in attendance, ventured on sympathetic familiarity. Mrs.
Picture would not get any beauty-sleep to-night, that was certain. For
it is well known that only sleep in bed deserves the name, and a clock
was putting its convictions about midnight on record, dogmatically.
Gwen's laugh rang out soon enough to quash its last _ipse dixits_. "Then
the mischief's done, Lutwyche, and another five minutes doesn't matter.
Mrs. Picture's going to tell me all her news. Here--get this thing off!
Then you can go till I ring." The thing, or most of it, was an
unanswerable challenge to the coldest wind of night--the cast-off
raiment of full fifty little sables, that scoured the Russian woods in
times gone by. Surely the breezes had drenched it with the very soul of
the night air in that ride beneath the stars, and the foam of them was
shaken out of it as it released its owner.
Then old Maisie was fully aware of her Guardian Angel, back again--no
dream, like those shrimps! And her voice was saying:--"So you had
company, Mrs. Picture dear. Lutwyche told me. The widow-woman from
Chorlton, wasn't it? How did you find her? Nice?"
Yes, the widow-woman was very nice. She had stayed quite a long time,
and had tea. "I liked her very much," said old Maisie. "She was easy."
Then--said inference--somebody is difficult. Maisie did not catch this
remark, made by one of the most inaudible of speakers. "Yes," she said,
"she stayed quite a long time, and had tea. She is a very good young
woman"--for, naturally, eighty sees fifty-odd as youth, especially when
fifty-odd seems ten years less--"and we could talk about Dave. It was
like being home again." She used, without a trace of _arrière pensée_, a
phrase she could not have bettered had she tried to convey to Gwen her
distress at hearing she was a plaguy old cat. Then she suddenly saw its
possible import, and would have liked to withdraw it. "Only I would not
seek to be home again, my dear, when I am near you." She trembled in her
eagerness to get this said, and not to say it wrong.
Gwen saw in an instant all she had overlooked, and indeed she _had_
overlooked many things. It was, however, much too late at night to go
into the subject. She could only soothe it away now, but with intention
to amend matters next day; or, rather, next daylight. So she said:--"The
plaster will very soon be dry now in Sapps Court, dear Mrs. Picture, and
then you shall go back to Dave and Dolly, and I will come and see you
there. You must go to bed now. So must I--I suppose? I will come to you
to-morrow morning, and you will tell me a great deal more. Now
good-night!" That was what she said aloud. To herself she thought a
thought without words, that could only have been rendered, to do it
justice:--"The Devil fly away with Mrs. Masham, that she couldn't
contrive to make this dear old soul comfortable for a few weeks, just
long enough for some plaster to dry." She went near adding:--"And
myself, too, not to have foreseen what would happen!" But she bit this
into her underlip, and cancelled it.
She rang the bell for Lutwyche, now the sole survivor in the kitchen
region. Who appeared, bearing hot water--some for the plaguy old cat.
Gwen said good-night again, kissing the old lady affectionately when
Lutwyche was not looking. Mistress and maid then, when the cat at her
own request was left to get herself into sleeping trim, started on the
long journey through corridors and state-rooms through which her young
ladyship's own quarters had to be reached. Corridors on whose floors one
walked up and down hill; great chambers full of memories, and here and
there indulging in a ghost. Tudor rooms with Holbeins between the
windows, invisible to man; Jacobean rooms with Van Dycks, nearly as
regrettably invisible; Lelys and Knellers, much more regrettably
visible. Across the landing the great staircase, where the Reynolds
hangs, which your _cicerone_ of this twentieth century will tell you was
the famous beauty of her time, and the grandmother of another famous
Victorian beauty, dead not a decade since. And on this staircase Gwen,
half pausing to glance at her departed prototype, started suddenly, and
exclaimed:--"What's that?"
For a bell had broken the silence of the night--a bell that had enjoyed
doing so, and was slow to stop. Now a bell after midnight in a house
that stands alone in a great Park, two miles from the nearest village,
has to be accounted for, somehow. Not by Miss Lutwyche, who merely noted
that the household would hear and answer the summons.
Her young ladyship was not so indifferent to human affairs as her
attendant. She said:--"I must know what that is. They won't send to tell
me. Come back!" She had said it, and started, before that bell gave in
and retired from public life.
Past the Knellers and Lelys, among the Van Dycks, a scared figure,
bearing a missive. Miss Lupin, and no ghost--as she might have been--in
the farther door as her ladyship passes into the room. She has run
quickly with it, and is out of breath. "A telegraph for your ladyship!"
is all she can manage. She would have said "telegram" a few years later.
A rapid vision, in Gwen's mind, of her father's remains, crushed by a
locomotive, itself pulverised by another--for these days were rich in
railway accidents--then a hope! It may be the fall of Sebastopol; a
military cousin had promised she should know it as soon as the Queen.
Give her the paper and end the doubt!... It is neither.
It is serious, for all that. Who brought this?--that's the first
question, from Gwen. Lupin gives a hurried account. It is Mr. Sandys,
the station-master at Grantley Thorpe, who has galloped over himself to
make sure of delivery. Is he gone? No--he has taken his horse round to
Archibald at the Stables to refit for a quieter ride back. Very well.
Gwen must see him, and Tom Kettering must be stopped going to bed, and
must be ready to drive her over to Grantley, if there is still a chance
to catch the up-train for Euston. Lutwyche may get things ready at once,
on the chance, and not lose a minute. Lupin is off, hotfoot, to the
Stables, to catch Mr. Sandys, and bring him round.
White and determined, after reading the message, Gwen retraces her
steps. Outside old Mrs. Picture's door comes a moment of irresolution,
but she quashes it and goes on. Old Maisie is not in bed yet--has not
really left that tempting fireside. She becomes conscious of a stir in
the house, following on a bell that she had supposed to be only a
belated absentee. She opens her door furtively and listens.
That is Gwen's voice surely, beyond the servants' quarter, speaking with
a respectful man. The scraps of speech that reach the listener's ear go
to show that he assents to do something out of the common, to oblige her
ladyship. Something is to happen at three-fifteen, which he will abet,
and be responsible for. Only it must be three-fifteen sharp, because
something--probably a train--is liable to punctuality.
Then a sound of an interview wound up, a completed compact. And that is
Gwen, returning. Old Maisie will not intrude on the event, whatever it
be. She must wait to hear to-morrow. So she closes her door, furtively,
as she opened it; and listens still, for the silences of the night to
reassert themselves. No more words are audible, but she is conscious
that voices continue, and that her Guardian Angel's is one. Then
footsteps, and a hand on the door. Then Gwen, white and determined
still, but speaking gently, to forestall alarm, and reassure misgiving.
"Dear Mrs. Picture, it's nothing--nothing to be alarmed about. But I
have to go up to London by the night train. See!--I will tell you what
it is. I have had this telegraphic message. Is it not wonderful that
this should be sent from London, a hundred miles off, two hours ago, and
that I should have it here to read now? It is from my cousin, Miss
Grahame. I am afraid she is dangerously ill, and I must go to her
because she is alone.... Yes--Maggie is very good, and so is Dr.
Dalrymple. But some friend should be with her or near her. So I must
go." She did not read the message, or show it.
"But my dear--my dear--is it right for you to go alone, in the dark....
Oh, if I were only young!..."
"I shall be all right. I shall have Lutwyche, you know. Don't trouble
about me. It is you I am thinking of--leaving you here. I am afraid I
may be away some days, and you may not be comfortable.... No--I can't
possibly take you with me. I have to get ready to go at once. The trap
will only just take me and Lutwyche, and our boxes. It must be Tom
Kettering and the trap. The carriage could not do it in the time. The
Scotch express passes Grantley Thorpe at three-fifteen--the
station-master can stop it for me.... What!--go beside the driver! Dear
old Mrs. Picture, the boxes have to go beside the driver, and Lutwyche
and I have to hold tight behind.... No, no!--you must stay here a day or
two--at least till we know the plaster's dry in Sapps Court. As soon as
I have been to see myself, one of the maids shall bring you back, and
you shall have Dave and Dolly--there! Now go to bed, that's an old dear,
and don't fret about me. I shall be all right. Now, go I must!
Good-bye!" She was hurrying from the room, leaving the old lady in a
great bewilderment, when she paused a moment to say:--"Stop a
minute!--I've an idea.... No, I haven't.... Yes, I have.... All
right!--nothing--never mind!" Then she was gone, and old Maisie felt
dreadfully alone.
Arrived in her own room, where Lutwyche, rather gratified with her own
importance in this new freak of Circumstance, was endeavouring to make a
portmanteau hold double its contents, Gwen immediately sat down to write
a letter. It required five minutes for thought and eight minutes to
write; so that in thirteen minutes it was ready for its envelope. Gwen
re-read it, considered it, crossed a _t_ and dotted an _i_, folded it,
directed it, took it out to re-re-read, said thoughtfully:--"Can't do
any possible harm," concluded it past recall, and added "By bearer" on
the outside. It ran thus:
"WIDOW THRALE,
"I want you to do something for me, and I know you will do it.
To-morrow morning go to my old Mrs. Picture whom you saw to-day,
and make her go back with you and your boy to Strides Cottage, and
keep her there and take great care of her, till you hear from me.
She is a dear old thing and will give no trouble at all. Ask anyone
for anything you want for her--money or things--and I will settle
all the bills. Show this letter. She knows my address in London. I
am going there by the night express.
"GWENDOLEN RIVERS."
She slipped this letter into her pocket, and made a descent on Miss
Lutwyche for her packing, which she criticized severely. But packing,
unlike controversy, always ends; and in less than half an hour, both
were in their places behind Tom Kettering and the grey mare, who had
accepted the prospect of another fifteen miles without emotion; and Mrs.
Masham and Lupin were watching them off, and thinking how nice it would
be when they could get to bed.
"Now you think the mare can do it, Tom Kettering?"
"Twice and again, my lady, and a little over. And never be any the worse
to-morrow!" Thus Tom Kettering, with immovable confidence. The mare as
good as endorsed his words, swinging her head round to see, and striking
the crust of the earth a heavy blow with her off hind-hoof.
"And we shall have time for you to get down at your Aunt Solmes's to
leave my letter?"
"I count upon it, my lady, quite easy. We'll be at the Thorpe by three,
all told, without stepping out." And then the mare is on the road again,
doing her forty-first mile, quite happily.
They stopped at the bridle-path to the Ranger's Cottage, and Tom walked
across with the letter--an unearthly hour for a visit!--and came back
within ten minutes. All right! Her ladyship's wishes should be attended
to! Then on through the starlight night, with the cold crisp air growing
colder and crisper towards morning. Then the railway-station where
Feudal tradition could still stop a train by signal, but only one or two
in the day ever stopped of their own accord, in the fifties. _Now_, as
you know, every train stops, and Spiers and Pond are there, and you can
lunch and have Bovril and Oxo. Then, the shoddy-mills were undreamed of,
where your old clothes are carefully sterilised before they are turned
into new wool; and the small-arms factory, where Cain buys an outfit
cheap; and the colour-works, that makes aniline dyes that last, if you
settle monthly, until you pay for them. Nothing was there then, and the
train that stopped by signal came through a smokeless night, with red
eyes and green that gazed up or down the line to please the Company; and
started surlily, in protest at the stoppage, but picked its spirits
slowly up, and got quite exhilarated before it was out of hearing,
perhaps because it was carrying Gwen to London.
The dejection of its first start might have persevered and made its
full-fledged rapidity joyless, had it known the errand of its beautiful
first-class passenger. For the telegram Gwen had received, that had sent
her off on this wild journey to London in the small hours of the
morning, was this that follows, neither more nor less:
"On no account come. Why run risks? You will not be admitted. Never
mind what Dr. Dalrymple says.--CLOTILDA."
Just conceive this young lady off in such a mad way when it was
perfectly clear what had happened! She might at least have waited until
she received the letter this message had so manifestly outraced; Dr.
Dalrymple's letter, certain to come by the first post in the morning.
And she would have waited, no doubt, if she had not been Gwen. Being
Gwen, her first instinct was to get away before that letter came,
enjoining caution, and deprecating panic, and laying stress on this,
that, and the other--a parcel of nonsense all with one object, to
counsel pusillanimousness, to inspire trepidation. She knew that would
be the upshot. She knew also that Dr. Dalrymple would play double,
frightening her from coming, while assuring the patient that he had
vouched for the entire absence of danger and the mildness of the type of
the disorder, whatever it was. It would never do for Clotilda to know
that she--Gwen--was being kept away, for safety's sake. That was the sum
and substance of her reflections. And the inference was clear:--Push her
way on to Cavendish Square, and push her way in, if necessary!
A thought crossed her mind as the train whirled away from Grantley
Station. Suppose it was smallpox, and she should catch it and have her
beauty spoiled! Well--in that case an ill wind would blow _somebody_
good! Her darling blind man would never see it. Let us be grateful for
middle-sized mercies!
CHAPTER VIII
HOW THAT WIDOW GOT THE "OLD CAT" AWAY TO STRIDES COTTAGE. MR.
BRANTOCK'S HORSE. ELIZABETH-NEXT-DOOR, AND THE BIT OF FIRE SHE
MADE. HOW TOFT THE GIPSY SPOTTED A LIKENESS, AND REPAIRED THE GLASS
TOBY HAD AIMED AT. HOW OLD MAISIE'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH HER DAUGHTER
GREW TO FRIENDSHIP. AND HER DAUGHTER SHOWED HER GRANDFATHER'S MILL.
HOW COULD THIS MILL BE YOUR GRANDFATHER'S, WHEN IT WAS MY FATHER'S?
BUT SEE HOW SMALL IT WAS! TWO ARMS LONG, FIFTY YEARS AGO! AND
NOW!... A RESTLESS WAKING AND A DARING EXCURSION. ONLY THE
HOUSE-DOG ABOUT! ON THE FENDER! SEE THERE--AN ARM AND A HALF LONG
ONLY--IN FACT, LESS!
Old Maisie waked late, and no wonder! Or, more properly, she slept late,
and had to be waked. Mrs. Masham did it, saying at the same time to a
person in her company:--"Oh no, Mrs. Thrale--_she's_ all right!--we've
no call to be frightened yet a while." She added, as signs of life began
to return:--"She'll be talking directly, you'll see."
Then the sleeper became conscious, and roused herself, to the point of
exclaiming:--"Oh dear, what is it?" A second effort made her aware that
her agreeable visitor of yesterday was at her bed's foot, and that her
awakener was saying at her side:--"Now you tell her. She'll hear you
now." Mrs. Masham seemed to assume official rights as a go-between, with
special powers of interpretation.
Widow Thrale looked more Pomona-like than ever in the bright sunshine
that was just getting the better of the hoar-frost. She held in her hand
a letter, to which she seemed to cling as a credential--a sort of letter
of marque, so to speak. "'Tis a bidding from her young ladyship," said
the interpreter collaterally. She herself said, in the soothing voice of
yesterday:--"From her young ladyship, who has gone to away London
unforetold, last night. She will have me get you to my mother's, to make
a stay with us for a while. And my mother will make you kindly welcome,
for the little boy Dave's sake, and for her ladyship's satisfaction."
She read the letter of marque, as far as "take great care of her, till
you hear from me."
"I will get up and go," said the old lady. Then she appeared
disconcerted at her own alacrity, saying to the housekeeper:--"But you
have been so kind to me!"
"What her young ladyship decides," said Mrs. Masham, "it is for us to
abide by." She referred to this as a sort of superseding truth, to which
all personal feelings--gratitude, ingratitude, resentment,
forgiveness--should be subordinated. It left open a claim to
magnanimity, on her part, somehow. Further, she said she would tell
Lupin to bring some breakfast for Mrs. Pilcher.
The task of getting the old lady up to take it seemed to devolve
naturally on Widow Thrale, who accepted it discreetly and skilfully,
explaining that Mr. Brantock's cart would wait an hour to oblige, and
would go very easy along the road, not to shake. Old Maisie did not seem
alarmed, on that score.
She had lain awake in the night in some terror of the day to come, alone
with a household which appeared to have decided, though without open
declaration, that she was a plaguy old cat. She had been roused from a
final deep sleep to find that her Guardian Angel's last benediction to
her had been to make the very arrangement she would have chosen for
herself had she been put to it to make choice. That her mind had never
mooted the point was a detail, which retrospect corrected. She was
ashamed to find she was so glad to fly from Mrs. Masham and Company, and
already began to be uneasy lest she had misjudged them. But then--a
plaguy old cat!
However, the decision of this at present did not arise from the
circumstances. What did was that, in less than the hour Mr. Brantock's
cart could concede, she was seated therein, comfortably wrapped up,
beside this really very nice and congenial saddler's relict, having been
somehow dressed, breakfasted, and generally adjusted by hands which no
doubt had acquired the sort of skill a hospital nurse gets--without the
trenchant official demeanour which makes the patient shake in his shoes,
if any--by her considerable experience of convalescents of all sorts and
the smaller sizes.
Mr. Brantock's cart jogged steadily on by cross-cuts and by-roads at the
dictation of parcels whose destinations Mr. Brantock's horse bore in
mind, and chose the nearest way to, allowing his so-called driver to
deliver them on condition that the consignees paid cash. His harness
stood in the way of his doing so himself. Think what it was that was
concealed from old Maisie and Widow Thrale respectively, as they
travelled in Mr. Brantock's cart. The intensity of this mother's and
daughter's ignorance of one another outwent the powers of mere language
to tell.
To the mother the daughter was the very nice young--relatively
young--woman who had taken such good care of Dave last year, who was now
so very kind and civil as to take charge of an old encumbrance at the
bidding of a glorious Guardian Angel, who had dawned on these last days
suddenly, inexplicably! An encumbrance at least, and no doubt plaguy, or
she never would have been called an old cat.
To the daughter the mother was a good old soul, to be made much of and
fostered; nursed if ill, entertained if well; borne with if, as might
be, she developed into a trial--turned peevish, irritable, what not! Had
not Gwen o' the Towers spoken, and was not the taint of Feudalism still
strong in Rocestershire half a century back? Gwen o' the Towers had
spoken, and that ended the matter.
Otherwise they were no more conscious of each other's blood in their own
veins than was the convalescent Toby, who enlivened the dulness of the
journey by dwelling on the _menus_ he preferred for breakfast, dinner,
and supper respectively. He elicited information about Dave, and was
anxious to be informed which would lick. He put the question in this
ungarnished form, not supplying detailed conditions. When told that Dave
would, certainly, being nearly two years older, he threw doubt on the
good faith of his informant.
But the journey came to an end, and though Widow Thrale had locked up
the Cottage when she came away yesterday, she had left the key with
Elizabeth-next-door--whoever she was; it does not matter--asking her to
look in about eleven and light a bit of fire against her, Widow
Thrale's, return. So next-door was applied to for the key, and the bit
of fire--a very large bit of a small fire, or a small bit of a very
large one--was found blazing on the hearth, and the cloth laid for
dinner and everything.
According to Elizabeth-next-door, absolutely nothing had happened since
Mrs. Marrable went away yesterday. Routine does not happen; it flows in
a steady current which Event, the fidget, may interrupt for a while, but
seldom dams outright. Elizabeth's memory, however, admitted on
reconsideration that Toft the glazier had come to see for a job, and
that she had sought for broken windows in Strides Cottage and found
none. Toft was quite willing to mend any pane on his own responsibility,
neither appealing to the County Court to obtain payment, nor smashing
the pane in default of a cash settlement; a practice congenial to his
gipsy blood, although he was the loser by the price of the glass. Toft
had greatly desired to repair the glass front of the little case or
cabinet on the mantelshelf, but Elizabeth had not dared to sanction
interference with an heirloom. That was quite right, said Widow Thrale.
What would mother have said if any harm had been done to her model?
Besides, it did not matter! Because Toft would look in again to-day or
to-morrow, when he had finished on the conservatories at the Vicarage.
None of this conversation reached old Maisie's ears at the time; only as
facts referred to afterwards. As soon as the key was produced by
Elizabeth-next-door, the old lady, treated as an invalid in the face of
her own remonstrance, was inducted through the big kitchen or
sitting-room, which she was sorry not to stop in, to a bedroom beyond,
and made to lie down and rest and drink fresh milk. When she got up to
join Widow Thrale's and Toby's midday meal, all reference to
glass-mending was at an end, and Toby was making such a noise about the
relative merits of brown potatoes in their skins, and potatoes _per se_
potatoes, that you could not hear yourself speak.
In spite of her separation from her beautiful new Guardian Angel, and
her uneasiness about the nature of that dangerous illness--for were not
people dying of cholera every day?--she felt happier at Strides Cottage
than in the ancient quarters Francis Quarles had occupied, where her
position had been too anomalous to be endurable. Gwen's scheme had been
that Mrs. Masham should play the part Widow Thrale seemed to fill so
easily. It had failed. The fact is that nothing but sympathy with
vulgarity gives what is called tact, and in this case the Guardian
Angel's scorn of the stupid reservations and distinctions of the
servantry at the Towers had quite prevented her stocking the article.
Perhaps Mrs. Thrale fell so easily into the task of making old
Maisie happy and at ease because she was furnished with a means of
explaining her and accounting for her, by the popularity Dave Wardle
had achieved with the neighbours a year ago. Thus she had said to
Elizabeth-next-door:--"You'll call to mind our little Davy Wardle, a
twelvemonth back?--he that was nigh to being killed by the fire-engine?
Well--there then!--this old soul belongs with him. 'Tis she he called
his London Granny, and old Mrs. Picture. I would not speak to her exact
name, never having been told it--'tis something like Picture. Her young
ladyship at the Towers has given me the charge of her. She's a gentle
old soul, and sweet-spoken, to my thinking." So that when
Elizabeth-next-door came to converse with old Maisie, they had a topic
in common. Dave's blue eyes and courteous demeanour having left a strong
impression on next-door, and on all who came within his radius. Perhaps
if such a lubricant had existed at the Towers, the social machinery
would have worked easier, and heated bearings would have been avoided.
It was the same with one or two others of the neighbours, who really
came in to learn something of the aged person with such silvery-white
hair, whom Widow Thrale had brought to the Cottage. Little memories of
Dave were a passport to her heart. What strikes us, who know the facts,
as strange, is that no one of these good women--all familiar with the
face of Granny Marrable--were alive to the resemblance between the two
sisters. And the more strange, that this likeness was actually detected
even in the half-dark, by an incomer much less habituated to her face
than many of them.
This casual incomer was Toft, the vagrant glazier, and--so said chance
report, lacking confirmation--larcenous vagrant. His Assyrian appearance
may have been responsible for this. It gave rise to the belief that he
was either Hebrew or Egyptian. And, of course, no Jew or gipsy could be
an honest man. That saw itself, in a primitive English village.
Toft had made his appearance at Strides Cottage just after dusk,
earnestly entreating to be allowed to replace the glass Toby's
chestnut-shot had broken, for nothing--yes, for nothing!--if Widow
Thrale was not inclined to go to fourpence for it. The reply was:--"'Tis
not the matter of the money, Master Toft. 'Tis because I grudge the
touching of a thing my mother sets store by, when she is not here
herself to overlook it." Now this was just after old Maisie had quitted
the room, to lie down and rest again before supper, having been led into
much talk about Dave. Toft had seen her. His answer to Widow Thrale
was:--"Will not the old wife come back, if I bide a bit for her coming?"
His mistake being explained to him, his comment was:--"Zookers! I'm all
in the wrong. But I tell ye true, mistress, I did think her hair was
gone white, against what I see on her head three months agone. And I was
of the mind she'd fell away a bit." Widow Thrale in the end consented to
allow the damage to be made good, she herself carefully removing the
precious treasure from its case, and locking it into a cupboard while
Toft replaced the broken glass. This done, under her unflagging
supervision, the model was replaced; fourpence changed hands, and the
glazier went his way, saying, as he made his exit:--"That _was_ a
chouse, mistress."
But Toft was the only person who saw the likeness; or, at any rate, who
confessed to seeing it. It is, of course, not at loggerheads with human
nature, that others saw it too, but kept the discovery to themselves. It
was so out of the question that the resemblance _should_ exist, that the
fact that it _did_ stood condemned on its merits. Therefore, silence!
Another possibility is that the intensely white hair, and the seeming
greater age, of old Maisie, had more than their due weight in heading
off speculation. Old Phoebe's teeth, too, made a much better show than
her sister's.
One thing is certain, that the person most concerned, Ruth Thrale
herself, remained absolutely blind to a fact which might have struck her
had she not been intensely familiar with her reputed mother's face. The
features of every day were things _per se_, not capable of comparison
with casual extramural samples. They never are, within family walls.
That this was no mere inertness of observation, but a good strong
opacity of vision, was clear when, after leaving the convalescent Toby
to dreams of indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and victorious
encounters, she roused her old visitor to bring her into supper.
"There now!--it _is_ strange that I should have company tonight. I never
thought to have the luck, yesterday, when you were giving me _my_ tea,
Mrs...." She stopped on the name, and supplied a cup thereof--supper was
a mixed meal at Strides Cottage--then continued:--"That brings to mind
to ask you, whether little Davy is in the right of it when he writes
your name 'Picture'?... Is he not, mayhap, calling you out of your name,
childlike?"
"But of course he is, bless his little heart! My name is Prichard.
P-r-i-c-h--Prich." She spelt the first syllable, to make sure no _t_ got
in. "The Lady, Gwen, has taken it of him, to humour him and Dolly, just
as their young mouths speak it--Picture! But it isn't Picture; it's
Prichard." Old Maisie felt quite mendacious. She seldom had to state so
roundly that her assumed name was authentic. Widow Thrale made no
comment, only saying:--"I thought the child had made 'Picture' out of
his own head." The talk scarcely turned on the name for more than a
minute, as she went on to say:--"Now you must eat some supper, Mrs.
Prichard, because you hardly took anything for dinner. And see what a
ride you had!" She went on to make appeals on behalf of bacon, eggs,
bloaters, cold mutton and so on, with only a very small response from
the old lady, who seemed to live on nothing. A compromise was effected,
the latter promising to take some gruel just before going to bed.
Two influences were at work to keep the antecedents of either out of
the conversation. Old Maisie fought shy of inquiries, which might have
produced counter-inquiry she could scarcely have met by silence; and
Mrs. Thrale shrank, with a true instinctive delicacy, from prying into a
record which had the word _poverty_ so legible on its title-page, and
signs of a former well-being so visible on its subject. Besides, how
about Sapps Court and Dave's uncle, the prizefighter?
She felt curiosity, all the same. However, information might come,
unsought, as the ground thawed. A springlike mildness was in the
atmosphere of their acquaintance, and it began to tell on the ice, very
markedly, as they sat enjoying the firelight; candles blown out, and the
flicker of the wood-blaze making sport with visibility on the walls and
dresser--on the dominant willow-pattern of the latter, with its
occurrences of polished metal, and precious incidents of Worcester or
Bristol porcelain; or the pictorial wealth of the former, the portrait
of Lord Nelson, and the British Lion, and all the flags of all the world
in one frame; to say nothing of some rather woebegone Bible prints,
doing full justice to the beards of Susannah's elders, and the biceps of
Samson. On all these, and prominently on the sampler worked by Hephzibah
Marrable, 1672, a ship-of-war in full sail, with cannons firing off wool
in the same direction, and defeating the Dutch Fleet, presumably.
Perhaps the Duke of York's flagship.
The two had talked of many things. Of the great bull-dog who was such a
safeguard against thieves that they never felt insecure at night, and
were very careless in consequence about bolts and bars; and who had
investigated the visitor very carefully on her first arrival,
suspiciously, but seemed now to have given her his complete sanction. Of
the cat on the hearth and the Family at the Towers--small things and
large; but with a great satisfaction for old Maisie, when the statement
was made with absolute confidence that Mr. Torrens, who was said to be
the man of her young ladyship's choice, would recover his eyesight. Mrs.
Lamprey's version of Dr. Nash's pronouncement was conclusive, and was
conscientiously repeated, without exaggeration; causing heartfelt joy to
old Maisie, with a tendency to consider how far Mr. Torrens deserved his
good fortune, the moment his image was endowed with eyesight. That, you
remember, was the effect of Mrs. Lamprey's first communication
yesterday. Then Widow Thrale had read a letter from her son on the
_Agamemnon_, in the Black Sea, cheerfully forecasting an early collapse
of Russia before the prowess of the Allies, and an early triumphant
return of the Fleet with unlimited prize-money. Old Maisie had to envy
perforce this mother's pride in this son, his daring and his chivalry,
his invincibility by foes, his generosity to the poor and weak. Her envy
was forced from her--how could it have been otherwise?--but her love
came with it. All her heart went out to the sweet, proud, contented face
as the firelight played on it, and made the treasured letter visible to
its reader. Then she had listened to particulars of the other son, in
the Baltic, of whom his mother was temperately proud, not rising to her
previous enthusiasm. He had, however, been in action; that was his
strong point, at present. By that time Mrs. Thrale's domestic record
only needed a word or two about her daughter, Mrs. Costrell, to be
complete for its purpose, a tentative enlightenment of its hearer, which
might induce counter-revelation. But the old lady did not respond,
clinging rather to inquiry about her informant's affairs. For which the
latter did not blame her, for who could say what reasons she might have
for her reticence. At any rate, _she_ would not try to break through it.
All this talk, by the comfortable fireside, was nourishment to the
growing germ of old Maisie's affection for this chance acquaintance of a
day. Her faith in all her surroundings--her Guardian Angel apart--had
been sadly shaken by the expression "plaguy old cat." This woman could
be relied upon, she was sure. She could not be disappointed in her--how
could she doubt it? Whether their unknown kinship was a mysterious help
to this confidence is a question easy to ask. The story makes no attempt
to answer it.
A bad disappointment was pending, however. After some chance references
to "mother," her great vigour in spite of her eighty years, the
distances she could walk, and so on--and some notes about
neighbours--Farmer Jones's Bull, mentioned as a local celebrity,
naturally led back to Dave.
"The dear boy was never tired of telling about that Bull," said old
Maisie. "I thought perhaps he made up a little as he went, for children
will. Was it all true he told me about how he wasn't afraid to go up
close, and the Bull was good and quiet?"
"Quite true," answered Mrs. Thrale. "Only we would never have given
permission, me and mother, only we knew the animal by his character. He
cannot abide grown men, and he's not to be trusted with women and little
girls. But little boys may pat him, and no offence given. It was all
quite true."
"Well, now!--that is very nice to know. Was it true, too, all about the
horses and the wheelsacks, and the water-cart?"
"Of course!--oh yes, of course it was! That was our model. Only it
should not have been wheelsacks. _Wheat_ sacks! And water-cart!--he
meant _water-wheel_. Bless the child!--he'd got it all topsy-turned.
There's the model on the mantel-shelf, with the cloth over it. I'll take
it off to show you. That won't do any harm. I only covered it so that no
one should touch the glass. Because Ben Toft said the putty would be
soft for a few days." A small bead-worked tablecloth, thick and
protective, had been wrapped round the model.
Widow Thrale relighted the candles, which had been out of employment.
They did not give a very good light. The old lady was just beginning to
feel exhausted with so much talk. But she was bound to see this--Dave's
model, his presentment of which had been a source of speculation in
Sapps Court! Just fancy! Widow Thrale lifted it bodily from the
chimney-shelf, and placed it on the table.
"Mother ought to tell you about it," said she, disengaging the covering,
"because she knows so much more about it than I do. You see, when the
water is poured in at the top and the clockwork is wound up, the mill
works and the sacks go up and down, and one has to pretend they are
taking grist up into the loft. It was working quite beautiful when
mother put the water in for Dave to see. And it doesn't go out of order
by standing; for, the last time before that, when mother set it going,
was for the sake of little Robert that we lost when he was little older
than Dave. Such a many years it seems since then!... What?"
For as she chatted on about what she conceived would be her visitor's
interest in the model--Dave's interest, to wit--she had failed to hear
her question, asked in a tremulous and almost inaudible voice:--"Where
was it, the mill?... Whose mill?" A repetition of it, made with an
effort, caused her to look round.
And then she saw that old Maisie's breath was coming fast, and that her
words caught in it and became gasps. Her conclusion was immediate,
disconnecting this agitation entirely from the subject of her speech.
The old lady had got upset with so much excitement, that was all. Just
think of all that perturbation last night, and the journey to-day! At
her time of life! Besides, she had eaten nothing.
Evidently the proper course now was to induce her to go to bed, and get
her that gruel, which she had promised to take. "I am sure you would be
better in bed, Mrs. Prichard," said Mrs. Thrale. "Suppose you was to go
now, and I'll get you your gruel."
Old Maisie gave way at once to the guidance of a persuasive hand, but
held to her question. "Whose mill was it?"
"My grandfather's. Take care of the little step ... you shall see it
again to-morrow by daylight. Bed's the place for you, dear Mrs.
Prichard. Why--see!--you are shaking all over."
So she was, but not to such an extent as to retard operations. The
old white head was soon on its pillow, but the old white face was
unusually flushed. And the voice was quite tremulous that said,
inexplicably:--"How came _your_ grandfather to be the owner of that
mill?"
Even a younger and stronger person than old Maisie might have lost head
to the extent of not seeing that the best thing to say was:--"I have
seen this model before. I knew it in my childhood." But so dumfoundered
was she by what had been so suddenly sprung upon her that she could not
have thought of any right thing to say, to save her life.
And how could Widow Thrale discern anything in what she _did_ say but
the effect of fatigue, excitement, and underfeeding on an octogenarian;
probably older, and certainly weaker, than her mother? How came _her_
grandfather to be the owner of Darenth Mill, indeed! Well!--she could
get Dr. Nash round at half an hour's notice; that was one consolation.
Meanwhile, could she seriously answer such an inquiry? Indeed she
scarcely recognised that it _was_ an inquiry. It was a symptom.
She spoke to the old head on the pillow, with eyes closed now. "Would
you dislike it very much, ma'am, if I was to put one spoonful of brandy
in the gruel? There is brandy without sending for it, because of
invalids."
"Thank you, I think no brandy. It isn't good for me.... But I like to
have the gruel, you know." She would not unsay the gruel, because she
was sure this kind-hearted woman would take pleasure in getting it for
her. Not that she wanted it.
Widow Thrale went back to the kitchen to see to the gruel. She was
absolutely free from any thought of the model, in relation to the old
lady's indisposition, or collapse, whichever it was. Lord Nelson
himself, on the wall, was not more completely detached from it. While
the gruel was arriving at maturity, she wrapped the covering again
carefully over the mill and the wheelsacks and the water-cart, and
Muggeridge, and replaced it on the chimney-shelf.
Left alone, old Maisie, no longer seeing the model before her, began to
waver about the reality of the whole occurrence. Might it not have been
a dream, a delusion; at least, an exaggeration? There was a model, with
horses, and a waggon--yes! But was she quite sure it was _her_ old
mill--her father's? How could she be sure of anything, when it was all
so long ago? Especially when her pulse was thumping, like this. Besides,
there was a distinct fact that told against the identity of this model
and the one it was so bewilderingly like; to wit--the size of it. That
old model of sixty years ago was twice the size of this. She knew that,
because she could remember her own hand on it, flat at the top. Her hand
and Phoebe's together!--she remembered the incident plainly.
Here was Mrs. Thrale back with the gruel. How dear and kind she was! But
a horrible thought kept creeping into old Maisie's mind. Was she--a
liar? Had she not said that it was her grandfather's mill? Now that
could _not_ be true. If she had said great-uncle.... Well!--would that
have made it any better? On reflection, certainly not! For _her_ father
had had neither brother nor sister. It was a relief to put speculation
aside and accept the gruel.
She made one or two slight attempts to recur to the mill. But her
hostess made no response; merely discouraged conversation on every
topic. Mrs. Prichard had better not talk any more. The thing for her to
do was to take her gruel and go to sleep. Perhaps it was. A reaction of
fatigue added powerful arguments on the same side, and she was fain to
surrender at discretion.
She must have slept for over six hours, for when the sudden sound of an
early bird awakened her the dawn was creeping into the house. The window
of her own room was shuttered and curtained, but she saw a line of
daylight under the door. No one was moving yet. She instantly remembered
all the events she had gone to sleep upon; the recollection of the
mill-model in particular rushing at her aggressively, almost producing
physical pain, like a blow. She knew there was another pain to come
behind it, as soon as her ideas became collected. Yes--there it was!
This dear lovable woman whom she had been so glad of, after the
duplicity of those servants at the Towers, was as untrustworthy as they,
and the whole world was a cheat! How else could it be, when she had
heard her with her own ears say that that mill had belonged to her
grandfather?
She lay and chafed, a helpless nervous system dominated by a cruel idea.
Was there no way out? Only one--that she herself had been duped by her
own imagination. But then, how was that possible? Unless, indeed, she
was taking leave of her senses. Because, even supposing that she could
fancy that another model of another mill could deceive her by a chance
likeness; how about those two tiny figures of little girls in white
bonnets and lilac frocks? Oh, that she could but prove them phantoms of
an imagination stimulated by the first seeming identity of the building
and the water-wheel! After all, all water-mills were much alike. Yes,
the chances were large that she had cheated herself. But
certainty--certainty--_that_ was what she wanted. She felt sick with the
intensity of her longing for firm ground.
Was it absolutely impossible that she should see for herself now--_now_?
She sat up in bed, looking longingly at the growing light of the
doorslip. After all, the model was but six paces beyond it, at the very
most. She would be back in bed in three minutes, and no harm done. No
need for a candle, with the light.
The bird outside said again the thing he had said before, and it seemed
to her like: "Yes--do it." She got out of bed and found her slippers
easily; then a warm overall of Gwen's providing. Never since her
impoverishment had she worn such good clothes.
Her feet might fail her--they had done so before now. But she would soon
find out, and would keep near the bed till she felt confidence.... Oh
yes--_they_ would be all right!
The door-hasp shrieked like a mandrake--as door-hasps do, in
silence--but waked no one, apparently. There was the kitchen-door at the
end of the brick-paved lobby, letting through dawn's first decision
about the beginning of the day. Old Maisie went cautiously over the
herring-boned pavement, with a hand against the wall for steadiness.
This door before her had an old-fashioned latch. It would not shriek,
but it might clicket.
Only a very little more, and then she was in the kitchen!
There was more light than she had expected, for one of the windows was
not only shutterless, but without either blind or curtain. She was not
surprised, for she remembered what her hostess had said about the
housedog, and security from thieves. That was a source of alarm, for one
short moment. Might he not hear her, and bark? Then a touch of a cold
nose, exploring her feet, answered the question. He _had_ heard her, and
he would not bark. He seemed to decide that there was no cause for
active intervention, and returned to his quarters, wherever they were.
But where was the sought-for model? Not on the table where she saw it
yesterday; the table was blank, but for the chrysanthemums in a pot of
water in the middle. On the chimney-piece then, back in its place,
rather high up--there it was, to be sure! But such a disappointment! She
could have _seen_ it there, though it was rather out of reach for her
eyesight. But alas!--it was wrapped up again in that cloth. It was a
grievous disappointment.
Perhaps she might contrive to see a little behind it, by pulling it
aside. Yes--there!--she could _reach_ it, at any rate. But to pull it
aside was quite another matter. Its texture was prohibitive. Fancy a
strip of cocoanut matting, with an uncompromising selvage, wrapped round
a box of its own width, with its free end under the box! Then compare
the rigidity of beadwork and cocoanut matting. The position was
hopeless. It was quite beyond her strength to reach it down, and she
would have been afraid to do so in the most favourable circumstances
imaginable.
Quite hopeless! But there was one thing she might satisfy herself
of--the relative sizes of her own hand and the case. Yes--by just
standing on the secure steel fender to gain the requisite four inches,
she could lay her two hands over the top, length for length, and the
finger-tips would not meet, any more than hers met Phoebe's when their
frock-cuffs were flush with the edge of her father's old model, all
those years and years ago. Because her mind was striving to discredit
the authenticity of this one.
Slowly and cautiously, for rheumatism had its say in the matter, she got
a safe foothold on the fender and her hands up to the top, measuring.
See there! Exactly as she had foretold--half the size! She knew she
could not be mistaken about the frock-cuffs, and so far from the
finger-tips meeting, with the two middle fingers bickering a little
about their rights, there was an overlap as far as the second joint. The
hands had grown a little since those days, no doubt, but not to that
extent. She tried them both ways to make sure, left on right, and right
on left, lest she should be deceiving herself. She was quite unnerved
with self-mistrust, but so taken up with avoiding a mismeasurement now,
that she could not sift that question of the hands' growth.
Probably everyone has detected outrageous errors in his own answers to
his own question:--How old was I when this, that, or the other
happened?--errors always in the direction of exaggeration of age. The
idea in old Maisie's mind, that she and Phoebe were at least grown
girls, was an utter delusion. Mere six-year-olds at the best! The two
hands, that she remembered, were the hands of babies, and the incident
had happened over seventy years ago.
CHAPTER IX
A QUIET RAILWAY-STATION. ONE PASSENGER, AND A SHAKEDOWN AT MOORE'S.
THE CONVICT DAVERILL'S SEARCH FOR HIS MOTHER. GRANNY MARRABLE'S
READING OF "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS." A MAN ON A STILE. SOME MEMORIES OF
NORFOLK ISLAND. A FINGER-JOINT. AN OATH ADMINISTERED BY AN AMATEUR,
WITHOUT A TESTAMENT. HOW DAVERILL SPOKE HIS NAME TWICE, AND THE
FIRST TIME UNDID THE SECOND. OFF THROUGH A HEDGE, FOLLOWED BY A
RESPECTABLE MAN. HOW OLD PHOEBE FOUND AN ENIGMA IN HER POCKET
In those days the great main lines of railway were liable to long
silences in the night. At the smaller stations particularly, after the
last train up and the last train down had passed without killing
somebody at a level crossing, or leaving you behind because you thought
it was sure to be late, and presumed upon that certainty, an almost holy
calm would reign for hours, and those really ill-used things, the
sleepers, seemed to have a chance at last. For after being baffled all
day by intermittent rushing fiends, and unwarrantable shuntings to and
fro, and droppings of sudden red-hot clinkers on their counterpanes, an
inexplicable click or two--apparently due to fidgety bull's-eyes
desirous of change--could scarcely be accounted a disturbance.
No station in the world was more primevally still than Grantley Thorpe,
after the down three-thirty express--the train that crossed the
three-fifteen that carried Gwen to London--had stopped, that the word of
Bradshaw should be fulfilled; had deposited the smallest conceivable
number of passengers, and wondered, perhaps, why remaindermen in the
carriages always put their heads out to ask what station this was. On
this particular occasion, Bradshaw scored, for the down train entered
the station three minutes after the up train departed, twelve minutes
behind. Then the little station turned off lights, locked up doors of
offices and lids of boxes, and went to bed. All but a signalman, in a
box on a pole.
There was one passenger, not a prepossessing one, who seemed morose. His
only luggage was a small handbag, and that was against him. It is not an
indictable offence to have no luggage, but if a referendum were taken
from railway-porters, it _would_ be. However, this man was, after all,
a third-class passenger, so perhaps he was excusable for carrying that
bag.
"I suppose," said he, surrendering his ticket, "it's no part of your
duty to tell a cove where he can get a sleep for half a night. You ain't
paid for it." Whether this was churlishness, or a sort of humour, was
not clear, from the tone.
Sandys, the station-master, one of the most good-humoured of mortals,
preferred the latter interpretation. "It don't add to our salary, but it
ought to. Very obliging we are, in these parts! How much do you look to
pay?"
The man drew from his pocket, presumably, the fund he had to rely upon,
and appeared to count it, with dissatisfaction. "Two and a kick!" said
he. "I'll go to the tizzy, for sheets." This meant he would lay out the
tizzy, or kick, provided that his bed was furnished with sheets. He
added, with a growl, that he was not going to be put off with a
horserug, this time. The adjective he used to qualify the previous rug
showed that his experiences had been peculiar, and disagreeable.
"You might ask at Moore's, along on your left where you see yonder
light. Show your money first, and offer to pay in advance. Cash first,
sleep afterwards. There's someone sitting up, or they wouldn't show a
light.... Here, Tommy, you're going that way. You p'int him out
Moore's." Thus the station-master, who then departed along a gravel
path, through a wicket-gate. It led to his private residence, which was
keeping up its spirits behind a small grove of sunflowers which were not
keeping up theirs. They had been once the admiration of passing trains,
with a bank of greensward below them with "Grantley Thorpe" on it in
flints, in very large caps. and now they were on the brink of their
graves in the earth so chilly, and didn't seem resigned.
Tommy the porter did not relish his companion, evidently, as he walked
on, a pace ahead, along the road that led to the village. He never said
a word, and seemed justified in outstripping that slow, lurching,
indescribable pace, which was not lameness, in order to stimulate it by
example.
"Yarnder's Mower's," said Tommy, nodding towards a small pothouse down a
blind alley. "You wo'ant find nowat to steal there, at Mower's."
"What the Hell do you mean by that?"
"What do I me'an--is that what you're asking?" Raised voice.
"Ah--what do you mean by 'steal'?"
"Just what a sa'ay! What do they me'an in London?"
"London's a large place--too large for this time o' night. You come
along there one o' these days, and you'll find out what they mean." He
sketched the behaviour of Londoners towards rustic visitors
untruthfully--if our experience can be relied on--and in terms open to
censure; ending up:--"You'll find what they'll do, fast enough! Just you
show up there, one o' these fine days." He had only warped the subject
thus in order to introduce the idea of a humiliating and degrading
chastisement, as an insult to his hearer.
He vanishes from the story at this point, in a discharge of Parthian
shafts by Tommy the young railwayman, not very energetically returned,
as if he thought the contest not worth prolonging. Vanishes, that is to
say, unless he was the same man who spoke with Mrs. Keziah Solmes at
about eleven o'clock the next morning, in the road close by the Ranger's
Cottage, close to where the grey mare started on her forty-first mile,
yesterday. If this person spoke truth when he said he had come from a
station much farther off than Grantley Thorpe, he was _not_ the same
man. Otherwise, the witnesses agreed in their description of him.
Mrs. Solmes's testimony was that a man in rough grey suit--frieze or
homespun--addressed her while she was looking out for the mail-cart,
with possible letters, and asked to be directed to Ancester Towers;
which is, at this point, invisible from the road. She suspected him at
first of being a vagrant of some new sort--then of mere eccentricity.
For plenty of eccentrics came to get a sight of the Towers. She had
surmised that his object was to do so, and had told him, that as the
family were away, strangers could be admitted by orders obtainable of
Kiffin and Clewby, his lordship the Earl's agents at Grantley. He then
told her that he had walked over from Bridgport, where the Earl had no
agent. He did not wish to go over the Towers, but to inquire for a party
he was anxious to see; an old party by the name of Prichard. That was,
he said, his own name, and she was a relation of his--in fact, his
mother. He had not seen her for many a long year, and his coming would
be a bit of a surprise. He had been away in the Colonies, and had not
been able to play the part of a dutiful son, but by no choice of his
own. Coming back to England, his first thought had been to seek out the
old lady, "at the old address." But there he found the house had fallen
down, and she was gone away temporary, only she could be heard of at
Ancester Towers in Rocestershire.
Mrs. Keziah was so touched by this tale of filial affection, that she
nipped in the bud a sprouting conviction that the man was no better than
he--and others--should be. She interested herself at once. "You wo'ant
need to ask at the Towers, master," said she. "I can tell you all they
can, up there. And very like a bit more. The old dame she's gone away
with my cousin, maybe an hour ago--may be more. She'll ta'ak she to her
mother's at Chorlton, and if ye keep along the straight road for
Grantley till ye come to sign-po'ast, sayun' 'To Dessington and
Chorlton,' then another three-qua'arters of an 'oor 'll ta'ak ye there,
easy."
The dutiful son looked disappointed, but did not lose his equable and
not unpleasant manner. "I thought I was nigher my journey's end than
that, marm," said he. "I _was_ looking forward to the old lady giving me
a snack of breakfast.... But don't you mind me! I'll do all right. I got
a bit of bread coming along from Gridgport.... Ah!--Bridgport I should
have said." For he had begun to say Grantley.
Even if Mrs. Solmes had not been on the point of offering rest and
refreshment, this disclaimer of the need of it would have suggested that
she should do so. After all, was he not the son of that nice old soul
her cousin Ruth Thrale had taken such a fancy to? If she came across the
old lady herself, how should she look her in the face, after letting her
toil-worn son add five miles to seven, on an all but empty stomach. Of
course, she immediately asked him in, going on ahead of him to explain
him to her husband, who looked rather narrowly at the newcomer, but
could not interpose upon a slice of cold beef and a glass of ale,
especially as it seemed to be unasked for, however welcome.
"'Tis a tidy step afoot from Bridgport Ra'aby, afower breakfast," said
old Stephen, keeping his eye, nevertheless, on the man's face, with only
a half-welcome on his own. "But come ye in, and the missus 'll cast an
eye round the larder for ye. You be a stra-anger in these parts, I take
it."
The beef and ale seemed very welcome, and the man was talkative. Did his
hosts know Mrs. Prichard personally? Only just seen her--was that it?
She must be gone very grey by now; why--she was going that way when he
saw her last, years ago. He never said how many years. He couldn't say
her age to a nicety, but she must be well on towards eighty. However did
she come to be at the country seat of the great Earl of Ancester?--that
was what puzzled him.
Mrs. Solmes could not tell him everything, but she had a good deal to
tell. The old lady she had seen was very grey certainly, but had seemed
to her cousin Ruth Thrale, who had tea with her yesterday, quite in
possession of her faculties, and--oh dear yes!--able to get about, but
suffering from rheumatism. But then just think--nearly eighty! As for
how she came to be at the Towers, all that Mrs. Solmes knew was that it
was through a sort of fancy of her young ladyship, Lady Gwen Rivers,
reputed one of the most beautiful young ladies in England, who had
brought her from London after the accident already referred to, and who
had gone away by the night-train, leaving a request to her cousin Ruth
to take charge of her till her return. She could have repeated all she
had heard from Mrs. Thrale, but scarcely felt authorised to do so.
One untoward incident happened. The infant Seth, summoned to show
himself, stood in a corner and pouted, turned red, and became
_intransigeant_; finally, when peremptorily told to go and speak to the
gentleman, shrank from and glared at him; only allowed his hand to be
taken under compulsion, and rushed away when released, roaring with
anger or terror, or both, and wiping the touch of the stranger off his
offended hand. This was entirely unlike Seth, whose defects of
character, disobedience to Law and Order, and love of destruction for
its own sake, were qualified by an impassioned affection for the human
race, causing him to attach himself to that race, as a sort of
rock-limpet, and even to supersede kisses by licks. His aversion to this
man was a new departure.
He, for his part, expressed his surprise at Seth's attitude. He was
noted in his part of the world for his tenderness towards young
children. His circle of acquaintances suffered the little ones to come
unto him contrary to what you might have thought, he being but an ugly
customer to look at. But his heart was good--a rough diamond! When he
had expressed his gratitude and tramped away down the road, after
carefully writing down the address "Strides Cottage, Chorlton" and the
names of its occupants, old Stephen and Keziah looked each at the other,
as though seeking help towards a good opinion of this man, and seemed to
get none.
* * * * *
Old Granny Marrable always found a difficulty in getting away from her
granddaughter Maisie's, because her presence there was so very much
appreciated. Her great-grandson also, whose charms were developing more
rapidly than is ever the case in after-life, was becoming a strong
attraction to her. Moreover, a very old friend of hers, Mrs. Naunton,
residing a short mile away, at Dessington, had just pulled through
rheumatic fever, and was getting well enough to be read to out of
"Pilgrim's Progress."
This afternoon, however, Mrs. Naunton did not prove well enough to keep
awake when read to, even for Mr. Greatheart to slay Giant Despair. In
fact, Mrs. Marrable caught her snoring, and read the rest to herself. It
was too good to lose. When the Giant was disposed of past all
recrudescence, she departed for her return journey instead of waiting
for her granddaughter's brother-in-law, a schoolboy with a holiday, to
come and see her home. She knew he would come by the short cut, across
the fields, so she took that way to intercept him, in spite of the
stiles. As a rule she preferred the highroad.
The fields were very lonely, but what did that matter? How little one
feels the loneliness of an old familiar pathway! No one ever _had_ been
murdered in these fields, and no one ever would be. Granny Marrable
walked on with confidence. Nevertheless, had she had her choice, she
would have preferred the loneliness unalloyed by the presence of the man
on the stile, at the end of Farmer Naunton's twelve-acre pasture, if
only because she anticipated having to ask him to let her pass. For he
seemed to have made up his mind to wait to be asked; if approached from
behind, at any rate. She could not see his face or hands, only his
outline against the cold, purple distance, with a red ball that had been
the sun all day. "Might I trouble you, master?" she said.
The man turned his head just as far as was necessary for his eyes, under
tension, to see the speaker; then got down, more deliberately than
courteously, on his own side of the stile. "Come along, missus," he
said. "Never mind legs. Yours ain't my sort. Over you go!"
Safe in the next field, Granny Marrable turned to thank him. But not
before she had put three or four yards between them. Not that she
anticipated violence, but from mere dislike of what she would have
called sauciness in a boy, but which was, in a man of his time of life,
sheer brutal rudeness. "Thank you very kindly, master!" said she. "Sorry
to disturb you!"
He ought to have said that she was kindly welcome, or that he was very
happy, but he said neither, only looking steadily at her. So she simply
turned to go away.
She walked as far as the middle of the next field, not sorry to be out
of this man's reach; and rather glad that, when she was within it, she
was not a young girl, unprotected. That shows the impression he had
given her. Also that his steady look was concentrating to a glare as she
lost sight of his face, and that she would be glad when she was sure she
had seen the last of it. She walked a little quicker as soon as she
thought her doing so would attract no notice.
"Hi--missus!" She quickened her pace as the words--a hoarse call--caught
her up. She even hoped she might be mistaken--had made a false
interpretation of some entirely different sound; not the cawing of one
of those rooks--that was against reason. But it might have been a dog's
bark at a distance, warped by imagination. She had known that to happen.
If so, it would come again. She stood and waited quietly.
It came again, distinctly. "Hi--missus!" No dog's bark that, but that
man's voice, to a certainty, nearer. Then again "Hi--missus!" nearer
still--almost close--and the sound of his feet. A halting,
dot-and-go-one pace; not lame, but irregular.
She was a courageous old woman, was old Granny Marrable. But the place
was a very lonely one, and.... Well--she did not mind about her money!
It was her treasured old gold watch, that her first husband gave her,
that she was thinking of....
There!--what a fool she was, to get into such a taking when, ten to one,
she had only dropped something, and he was running after her to restore
it. She faced about, and looked full at him.
"Ah!" said he. "Take a good look! You've seen _me_ afore. No hurry--easy
does it!" His voice showed such entire conviction, and at the same time
such a complete freedom from anything threatening or aggressive, that
all her fear left her at once. It was a mistake--nothing worse!
But was she absolutely sure, without her glasses? All she could see was
that the face was that of a hard man, close-cropped and close-shaved,
square and firm in the jaw. Not an ugly face, but certainly not an
attractive one. "I think, sir," she said conciliatorily, "you have
mistook me for someone else. I am sure."
"Maybe, mother," said he, "you'll know me through your glasses. Got 'em
on you?... Ah--that's right! Fish 'em out of your pocket! Now!" As the
old lady fitted on her spectacles, which she only used for near objects
and reading, the man removed his hat and stood facing her, and repeated
the word "Now!"
So absolutely convinced was she that he was merely under a
misconception, that she was really only putting on her glasses to humour
him, and give him time to find out his mistake. The fact that he had
addressed her as "mother" counted for absolutely nothing. Any man in the
village would address her as "mother," as often as not. It was
affectionate, respectful, conciliatory, but by no means a claim of
kinship. The word, moreover, had a distinct tendency to remove her
dislike of the speaker, which had not vanished with her fear of him, now
quite in abeyance.
"Indeed, sir," said she, after looking carefully at his face, "I cannot
call you to mind. I cannot doubt but you have taken me for some other
person." Then she fancied that something the man said, half to himself,
was:--"That cock won't fight."
But he seemed, she thought, to waver a little, too. And his voice had
not its first confidence, as it said:--"Do you mean to say, mother, that
you've forgotten my face? _My face!_"
The familiar word "mother" still meant nothing to her--a mere epithet!
Just consider the discrepancies whose reconciliation alone would have
made it applicable! When she answered, some renewal of trepidation in
her voice was due to the man's earnestness, not to any apprehension of
his claim. "I am telling God's own truth, master," she said. "I have
never set eyes upon ye in my life, and if I had, I would have known it.
There be some mistake, indeed." Then timorously:--"Whom--whom--might ye
take me for?"
The man raised his voice, more excitably than angrily. "What did I say
just now?--_mother!_--that's English, ain't it?" But his words had no
meaning to her; there was nothing in their structure to change her
acceptation of the word "mother," as an apostrophe. Then, in response to
the blank unrecognition of her face, he continued:--"What--still? I'm
not kidding myself, by God, am I?... No--don't you try it on! I ain't
going to have you running away. Not yet a while.... Ah--would you!"
He caught her by the wrist to check her half-shown tendency to turn and
run; not, as she thought, from a malefactor, but a madman. A cry for
help was stopped by a change in his tone--possibly even by the way his
hand caught her wrist; for, though strong, it was not rough or ungentle.
Little enough force was needed to detain her, and no more was used. He
was mad, clearly, but not ferocious. "I'm not going to hurt ye, mother,"
said he. "But you leave your eyes on me a minute, and see if I'm a
liar." He remained with his own fixed on hers, as one who waits
impatiently for what he knows must come.
But no recognition followed. In vain did the old lady attempt--and
perfectly honestly--to detect some reminder of some face seen and
hitherto forgotten, in the hard cold eyes and thick-set jaw, the
mouth-disfiguring twist which flawed features, which, handsome enough in
themselves, would have otherwise gone near to compensate a repellent
countenance. The effort was the more hopeless from the fact that it was
a face that, once seen, might have been hard to forget. After complying
to the full with his suggestion of a thorough examination, she was
forced to acknowledge failure. "Indeed and indeed, sir," she said, "my
memory is all at fault. If ever I saw ye in my life, 'tis so long ago
I've forgotten it."
"Ah--you may say long ago!" The madman--for to her he was one; some
lunatic at large--seemed to choke a moment over what he had to say, and
then it came. "Twenty years and more--ay!--twenty years, and five
over--and most of the time in Hell! Ah--run away, if you like--run away
from your own son!" He released her arm; but though the terror had come
back twofold, she would not run; for the most terrible maniac is pitiful
as well as terrible, and her pity for him put her thoughts on calming
and conciliating him. He went on, his speech breaking through something
that choked it back and made it half a cry in the end. "Fourteen years
of quod--fourteen years of prison-food--fourteen years of such a life
that * * * prayers, Sundays, and the * * * parson that read 'em was as
good as a holiday! Why--I tell you! It was so bad the lifers would try
it on again and again, to kill themselves, and were only kept off of
doing it by the cat, if they missed their tip." This was all the jargon
of delirium to the terror-stricken old woman; it may be clear enough to
the ordinary reader, with what followed. "I tell you I saw the man that
got away over the cliff, and shattered every bone in his body. I saw him
carried out o' hospital and tied up and flogged, for a caution, till the
blood run down and the doctor gave the word stop." He went on in a
voluble and disjointed way to tell how this man was "still there! There
where your son, mother, spent fourteen out of these twenty-five long
years past!"
But the more he said, the more clear was it to Granny Marrable that he
was an escaped lunatic. There was, however, in all this sheer raving--as
she counted it--an entire absence of any note of personal danger to
herself. Her horror of him, and the condition of mind that his words
made plain, remained; her apprehension of violence, or intimidation to
make her surrender valuables, had given place to pity for his miserable
condition. His repeated use of the word "mother" had a reassuring effect
almost, while she accounted that of the word "son" as sheer
distemperature of the brain. But why should she not make use of it to
divert his mind from the terrible current of thought, whether delusion
or memory, into which he had fallen? "I never had but one son, sir," she
said, "and he has been dead twenty-three years this Christmas, and lies
buried beside his father in Chorlton church."
The fugitive convict--for the story need not see him any longer from old
Phoebe's point of view only--face to face with such a quiet and
forcible disclaimer of identity, could not but be staggered, for all
that this old woman's face was his mother's; or rather, was the face he
had imaged to himself as hers, all due allowance being made--so he
thought--for change from sixty-five to eighty. Probably, had he seen the
two old sisters side by side, he would have chosen this one as his
mother. Her eighty was much nearer to her sixty than old Maisie's. She
was no beautiful old shadow, with that strange plenty of perfectly white
hair. Time's hand had left hers merely grey, as a set off against the
lesser quantity he had spared her. As Dave Wardle had noticed, her teeth
had suffered much less than his London Granny's. Altogether, she was
marvellously close to what the convict's preconception of "Mrs.
Prichard" had been.
It is easy to see how this meeting came about. After he left the
hospitable cottage of the Solmes's, he had walked on in a leisurely way,
stopping at "The Old Truepenny, J. Hancock," to add another half-pint to
the rather short allowance he had consumed at the cottage. This was a
long half-pint, and took an hour; so that it was well on towards the
early November sunset before he started again for Chorlton. J. Hancock
had warned him not to go rowund by t' roo'ad, but to avail himself of
the cross-cut over the fields to Dessington. When old Phoebe overtook
him, he was beginning to wonder, as he sat on the stile, how he should
introduce himself at Strides Cottage. There might be men there. Then, of
a sudden, he had seen that the old woman who had disturbed his
cogitations, must be his mother! How could there be another old woman so
like her, so close at hand?
Her placid, resolute, convincing denial checkmated his powers of
thought. As is often the case, details achieved what mere bald
asseveration of fact would have failed in. The circumstantial statement
that her son lay buried beside his father in Chorlton Churchyard
corroborated the denial past reasonable dispute. But nothing could
convince his eyesight, while his reason stood aghast at the way it was
deceiving him.
"Give me hold of your fin, missus," he said. "I won't call you 'mother.'
Left-hand.... No--I'm not going for to hurt you. Don't you be
frightened!" He took the hand that, not without renewed trepidation and
misgiving, was stretched out to him, and did _not_ do with it what its
owner expected. For her mind, following his action, was assigning it to
some craze of Cheiromancy--what she would have called Fortune-telling.
It was no such thing.
He did not take his eyes from her face, but holding her hand in his,
without roughness, felt over the fingers one by one, resting chiefly on
the middle finger. He took his time, saying nothing. At last he
relinquished the hand abruptly, and spoke. "No--missus--you're about
right. You're _not_ my mother." Then he said:--"You'll excuse me--half a
minute more! Same hand, please!" Then went again through the same
operation of feeling, and dropped it. He seemed bewildered, and saner in
bewilderment than in assurance.
Old Phoebe was greatly relieved at his recognition of his mistake. "Was
it something in the hand ye knew by, master?" she said timidly. For she
did not feel quite safe yet. She began walking on, tentatively.
He followed, but a pace behind--not close at her side. "Something in the
hand," said he. "That was it. Belike you may have seen, one time or
other, a finger cut through to the bone?"
"Yes, indeed," said she, "and the more's the pity for it! My young
grandson shut his finger into his new knife. But he's in the Crimea
now."
"Did the finger heal up linable, or a crotch in it?"
"It's a bit crooked still. Only they say it won't last on to old age,
being so young a boy at the time."
"Ah!--that's where it was. My mother was well on to fifty when I gave
her that chop, and _she_ got her hooky finger for life. All the ten
years I knew it, it never gave out." Old Phoebe said nothing. Why the
man should be so satisfied with this finger evidence she did not see.
But she was not going to revive his doubts. She kept moving on,
gradually to reach the road, but not to run from him. He kept near her,
but always hanging in the rear; so that she could not go quick without
seeming to do so.
If she showed willingness to talk with him, he might follow quicker, and
they would reach the road sooner. "I'm rarely puzzled, master," she
said, "to think how you should take me for another person. But I would
not be prying to know...."
"You would like to know who I mistook ye for, mayhap? Well--I'll tell
you as soon as not. I took you for my mother--just what I told you!
She's somewhere down in these parts--goes by the name of Prichard." Old
Phoebe wanted to know why she "went by" the name--was it not hers?--but
she checked a mere curiosity. "Maybe you can tell me where 'Strides
Cottage' is? That's where she got took in. So I understand."
"Oh no!--you have the name wrong, for certain. My house where I live is
called Strides Cottage. There be no Mrs. Prichard there, to my
knowledge."
"That's the name told to me, anyhow. Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps Court,
London."
"Now who ever told ye such a tale as that? I know now who ye mean,
master. But she's not at Strides Cottage. She's up at the
Towers"--rather a hushed voice here--"by the wish and permission of her
young ladyship, Lady Gwendolen, and well cared for. Ye will only be
losing your time, master, to be looking for her at Strides."
The convict looked at her fixedly. "Now which on ye is telling the
truth?--you or t'other old goody? That's the point." He spoke half to
himself, but then raised his voice, speaking direct to her. "I was there
a few hours back, nigh midday, afore I come on here. She ain't there--so
they told me."
"At the Towers--the Castle?"
"I saw no Castle. My sort ain't welcome in Castles. The party at the
house off the road--name of Keziah--she said Mrs. Prichard had been took
off to Chorlton by her cousin, Widow--Widow Thrale."
"Yes, that is my daughter. Then Keziah Solmes knew?"
"She talked like it. She said her cousin and Mrs. Prichard had gone away
better than two hours, in the carrier's cart. So it was no use me
inquiring for her at the Towers." He then produced the scrap of paper on
which he had scribbled the address. A little more talk showed Granny
Marrable all the story knows--that this sudden translation of her old
rival in the affections of Dave Wardle, from the Towers to her own home,
had been prompted by the sudden departure of her young ladyship for
London. The fact that the whole thing had come about at the bidding of
"Gwen o' the Towers" was absolute, final, decisive as to its entire
rectitude and expediency. But she could see that this strange son who
had not seen his mother for so long had identified her in the first
plausible octogenarian whom he chanced upon as soon as he was sure he
was getting close to the object of his search, and that he was not known
to her ladyship at all, while his proximity was probably unsuspected by
"old Mrs. Picture" herself. Besides, her faith in her daughter's
judgment was all-sufficient. She was quite satisfied about what she
would find on her return home. Nevertheless, this man was of unsound
mind. But he might be harmless. They often were, in spite of a
terrifying manner.
His manner, however, had ceased to be terrifying by the time a short
interchange of explanations and inquiries had made Granny Marrable
cognisant of the facts. She was not the least alarmed that she should
have that curious rolling gait alongside of her. She was uneasy, for all
that, as to how a sudden visit of this man to Strides Cottage would
work, and cast about in her mind how she should best dissuade him from
making his presence known to his mother before she herself had had an
opportunity of sounding a note of preparation. She had not intended to
go home for a day or two, but she could get her son-in-law to drive her
over, and return the same day. His insanity, or what she had taken for
insanity, had given her such a shock that she was anxious to spare her
daughter a like experience.
"I think, sir," she began diffidently, "that if I might make so bold as
to say so...."
"Cut along, missis! If you was to make so bold as to say what?"
"It did come across my mind that your good mother--not being hearty like
myself, but a bit frail and delicate--might easy feel your coming as an
upset. Now a word beforehand...."
"What sort of a word?" said he, taking her meaning at once. "What'll you
say? No palavering won't make it any better. She'll do best to see me
first, and square me up after. What'll you make of the job?"
Now the fact was that the offer to prepare the way for his proposed
visit which she had been on the point of making had been quite as much
in her daughter's interest as in his mother's. She found his question
difficult. All she could answer was:--"I could try."
He shook his head doubtfully, walking beside her in silence. Then an
idea seemed to occur to him, and he said:--"Hold hard a minute!" causing
her to stop, as she took him literally. He also paused. "Strike a
bargain!" said he. "You do me a good turn, and I'll say yes. You give me
your word--your word afore God and the Bible--not to split upon me to
one other soul but the old woman herself, and I'll give you a free
ticket to say whatever you please to her when no one else is
eavesdropping. Afore God and the Bible!"
Granny Marrable's fear of him began to revive. He might be mad after
all, with that manner on him, although his tale about Mrs. Prichard
might be correct. But there could be no reason for withholding a promise
to keep silence about things said to her under a false impression that
she was his mother. Her doubt would rather have been as to whether she
had any right to repeat them under any circumstances. "I will promise
you, sir, as you wish it, to say nothing of this only to Mrs. Prichard
herself. I promise."
"Afore God and the Bible? The same as if there was a Bible handy?"
"Surely, indeed! I would not tell a falsehood."
"Atop of a Testament, like enough! But how when there's none, and no
Parson?" He looked at her with ugly suspicion on his face. And then an
idea seemed to strike him. "Look ye here, missus!" said he. "You say
Jesus Christ!"
"Say what?--Oh why?" For blind obedience seemed to her irreverent.
"No--you don't get out that way, by God! I hold you to that. You say
Jesus Christ!" He seemed to congratulate himself on his idea.
Old Phoebe could not refuse. "Before Jesus Christ," she said reverently,
at the same time bending slightly, as she would have done in Chorlton
Church.
The convict seemed gratified. He had got his security. "That warn't
bad!" said he. "The bob in partic'lar. Now I reckon you're made safe."
"Indeed, you may rely on me. But would you kindly do one thing--just
this one! Give me your name and address, and wait to hear from me before
you come to the Cottage. 'Tis only for a short time--a day or two at
most."
"Supposin' you don't write--how then?... Ah, well!--you look sharp about
it, and I'll be good for a day or two. Give you three days, if you want
'em."
"I want your mother's leave...."
"Leave for me to come? If she don't send it, it'll be took. Just you
tell her that! Now here's my name di-rected on this envelope. You can
tell me of a quiet pub where I can find a gaff, and you send me word
there. See? Quiet pub, a bit outside the village! Or stop a bit!--I'll
go to J. Hancock--the Old Truepenny, on the road I come here by. Rather
better than a mile along." Of course the old lady knew the Old
Truepenny. Everyone did, in those parts. She took the envelope with the
name, and as the twilight was now closing in to darkness, made no
attempt to read it, but slipped it carefully in her pocket. Then a
thought occurred to her, and she hesitated visibly on an inquiry. He
anticipated it, saying:--"Hay?--what's that?"
"If Mrs. Prichard should seem not to know--not to recognise...." She
meant, suppose that Mrs. Prichard denies your claim to be her son, what
proof shall I produce? For any man could assume any name.
The convict probably saw the need for some clear token of his identity.
"If the old woman kicks," said he, "just you remember this one or two
little things from me to tell her, to fetch her round. Tell her, I'm her
son Ralph, got away from Australia, where he's been on a visit these
twenty-five years past. Tell her.... Yes, you may tell her the girl's
name was Drax--Emma Drax. Got it?"
"I can remember Emma Drax."
"She'll remember Emma Drax, and something to spare. She was a little
devil we had some words about. _She'll_ remember her, and she'll know me
by her. Then you can tell her, just to top up--only she won't want any
more--that her name ain't Prichard at all, but Daverill.... What!--Well,
of course I meant making allowance for marrying again. Right you are,
missus! How the Hell should I have known, out there?" For he had
mistaken Granny Marrable's natural start at the too well-remembered name
she had scarcely heard for fifty years, for a prompt recognition of his
own rashness in assuming it had been intentionally discarded.
She, for her part, although her hearing was good considering her age,
could not have been sure she had heard the name right, and was on the
edge of asking him to repeat it when his unfortunate allusion to
Hell--the merest colloquialism with him--struck her recovered equanimity
amidships, and made her hesitate. Only, however, for a moment, for her
curiosity about that name was uncontrollable. She found voice against a
beating heart to say:--"Would you, sir, say the name again for me? My
hearing is a bit old."
"Her name, same as mine, Daver-hill." He made the mistake, fatal to
clear speech, of overdoing articulation. All the more that it caused a
false aspirate; not a frequent error with him, in spite of his long
association with defective speakers. It relieved her mind. Clearly a
surname and a prefix. She had not got it right yet, though. She forgot
she had it written down, already.
"I did not hear the first name clear, sir. Would you mind saying it
again?"
He did not answer at once. He was looking fixedly ahead, as though
something had caught his attention in the coppice they were approaching.
A moment later, without looking round, he answered rapidly:--"Same name
as mine--you've got it written down, on the paper I gave you." And then,
without another word, he turned and ran. He was so quick afoot, in spite
of the halting gait he had shown in walking, that he was through the
hedge he made for, across the grassland, and half-way over the
stubble-field that lay between it and a plantation, before she knew the
cause of his sudden scare. Then voices came from the coppice ahead--a
godsend to the poor old lady, whose courage had been sorely tried by the
interview--and she quickened her pace to meet them. She did not see the
fugitive vanish, but pressed on.
Yes--just as she thought! One of the voices was that of Harry Costrell,
her grandson-in-law; another that of a stranger to her, a
respectable-looking man she was too upset to receive any other
impression of, at the moment; and the third that of her granddaughter.
Such a relief it was, to hear the cheerful ring of her greeting.
"Why, Granny, we thought you strayed and we would have to look for ye in
Chorlton Pound.... Why, Granny darling, whatever is the matter? There--I
declare you're shaking all over!"
Old Phoebe showed splendid discipline. It was impossible to conceal her
agitation, but she could make light of it. She had a motive. Remember
that that great grandchild of hers had been born over a twelvemonth ago!
"My dear," she said, "I've been just fritted out of my five wits by a
man with a limp, that took me for his mother and I never saw him in my
life." It did not seem to her that this was "splitting upon" the man.
After all, she would have to account for him somehow, and it was safest
to ascribe insanity to him.
But the respectable-looking man had suddenly become an energy with a
purpose. "Which way's the man with the limp gone?" said he; adding to
himself, in the moment required for indicating accurately the fugitive's
vanishing-point in the plantation:--"He's my man!" Granny Marrable's
pointing finger sent him off in pursuit before either of the others
could ask a question or say a word. Harry, the grandson, wavered a
moment between grandfilial duty and the pleasures of the chase, and
chose the latter, utilising public spirit as an excuse for doing so.
Maisie junior was not going to allow her grandmother to stay to see the
matter out, nor indeed did the old lady feel that her own strength could
bear any further trial. On the way home to the cottage at Dessington she
gave a reserved version of her strange interview, always laying stress
on the insanity she confidently ascribed to her terrifying companion. As
soon as he had died out of the immediate present, she began to find
commiseration for him.
But then, how about the mission of the respectable man, who had, it
appeared, represented himself as a police-officer on the track of an
atrocious criminal, about the charges against whom he had almost kept
silence, merely saying that he was a returned convict, and liable to
arrest on that ground alone, but that he was "wanted" on several
accounts? He had followed his quarry to Grantley Thorpe, arriving by an
early train, to find that a man answering to his description had started
on foot a couple of hours previously, having asked his way to Ancester
Towers. He had followed him there in a hired gig; and, of course, found
the connecting clue at Solmes's cottage, and followed him on to
Dessington, calling at "T. Hancock's Old Truepenny" by the way, and
being guided by T. Hancock's information to run the gig round by the
road and intercept his man at the end of the short cut. The younger
Maisie and her young brother-in-law, coming by in search of her overdue
grandmother, had entered into conversation with him; and he had
accompanied them as far as the other side of the coppice wood, and given
them the particulars of his errand above stated.
It was all very exciting, and rather horrible. But old Phoebe kept back
all her horrors, and even the man's claim to be the son of an old person
who had gone to Strides Cottage. Mrs. Prichard she said never a word of,
much as she longed to tell the whole story. But she was greatly consoled
for this by the succulence of her year-old great-grandson, whose grip,
even during sleep, was so powerful as to elicit a forecast of a
distinguished future for him, as a thieftaker.
She never got that envelope out of her pocket, conceiving it to be
included in her pledge of secrecy. She would look at it before she went
to bed. But was it any wonder that she did not, and that her
granddaughter had to undress her and put her to bed like a tired child?
The last sound of which she was conscious was the voice of Harry
Costrell, returning after a long and futile chase, immensely excited and
pleased, and quite ready to submit to any sort of fragmentary supper.
Then deep, deep sleep. Then an awakening to daylight, and all the
memories of yestereven crowding in upon her--among them an address and a
name in the pocket of the gown by the bedside. She could reach it
easily.
There it was. She lay back in bed uncrumpling it, expecting nothing....
This was the fag-end of a dream, surely! But no--there the words were,
staring her in the face:--"Ralph Thornton Daverill!" And her mind
staggered back fifty years.
CHAPTER X
A WORD FOR TYPHUS. DR. DALRYMPLE'S PECULIAR INTEREST IN THE CASE.
THE NURSE'S FRONT TOOTH. AN INVALID WHO MEANT BUSINESS. SAPPS COURT
AGAIN. HOW DAVE AND DOLLY LEFT THINGS BE IN MRS. PRICHARD'S ROOM.
DOLLY JUNIOR'S LEGS. QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT. MRS. BURR'S
RETURN. BUT SHE COULD GIVE AUNT M'RIAR A LIFT, IN SPITE OF HER
INSTEP. HOW THE WRITING-TABLE HAD LOST A LEG. WHAT IT WOULD COME TO
TO MAKE A SOUND JOB OF IT. BUT ONLY BY EMPTYING OUT THE THINGS
INSIDE OF THE DRAWER. WHO WOULD ACT AS BAILEE? HOW A VISION
VOLUNTEERED. HOW THE LOCK CAME OPEN QUITE EASY, AND MRS. BURR MADE
A NEAT PACKET OF WHAT IT RELEASED, TO BE TOOK CHARGE OF BY THE
VISION
It had got wind in Cavendish Square that Typhus had broken out at Number
One-hundred-and-two. That was the first form rumour gave to the result
of a challenge to gaol-fever, recklessly delivered by Miss Grahame in a
top-attic in Drury Lane. It was unfair to Typhus, who, if not
disqualified from saying a word on his own behalf, might have
replied:--"I am within my rights. I know my place, I hope. I never break
out in the homes of the Well-to-do. But if the Well-to-do come fussing
round in the homes of the Ill-to-be, they must just take their chance of
catching me. I wash my hands of all responsibility."
And no doubt the excuse would have been allowed by all fair-minded
Nosologists. For although Typhus--many years before this--had laid
sacrilegious hands on a High Court of Justice, giving rise to what came
to be known as the "Black Assizes," all that had happened on that
occasion was in a fair way of business; good, straightforward,
old-fashioned contagion. If prison-warders did not sterilise
persons who had been awaiting their trial for weeks in Houses of
Detention--Pest-houses of Detention--you could not expect a putrid fever
to adopt new rules merely to accommodate legal prejudice. And in the
same way if Cavendish Square came sniffing up pestilential effluvia in
Drury Lane, it was The Square's look out, not Typhus's.
Nevertheless, the Lares and Penates of The Square, who varied as
individuals but remained the same as inherent principles--its Policeman,
its Milk, its Wash, its Crossing-Sweeper--even after the germ of
contagion had been identified beyond a doubt as a resident in Drury
Lane, held fast to a belief that Typhus had been dormant at the corner
house since the days of the Regency, and had seized an opportunity when
nothing antiseptic was looking, to break out and send temperatures up to
106° F. For, said they, when was the windows of that house opened last?
Just you keep your house shut up--said they--the best part of a century,
and see if something don't happen! But the person addressed always
admitted everything, and never entered on the suggested experiment.
Persons of Condition--all the real Residents, that is--did not allow
themselves to be needlessly alarmed, and refused to rush away into the
country. There was no occasion for panic, but they would take every
reasonable precaution, and give the children a little citrate of
magnesia, as it was just as well to be on the safe side. And they had
the drains properly seen to. Also they would be very careful not to let
themselves down. That was most important. They felt quite reassured when
Sir Polgey Bobson, for instance, told them that there was no risk
whatever three feet from the bedside of the patient. "And upwards, I
presume?" said a Wag. But Sir Polgey did not see the Wag's point. He was
one of your--and other people's--solemn men.
Said Dr. Dalrymple--he whose name Dave Wardle had misremembered as
Damned Tinker--to Lady Gwen, arriving at Cavendish Square in the early
hours of the morning--still early, though she had been nearly four hours
on the road:--"I wish now I had told you positively _not_ to come....
But stop a minute!--you can't have got my letter?"
"Never mind that now. How is she?"
"Impossible to say anything yet, except that it is unmistakable typhus,
and that there is nothing specially unfavourable. The fever won't be at
its height for the best part of a week. We can say nothing about a case
of this sort till the fever subsides. But you _can't_ have got my
letter--there has been no time."
"Exactly. It may have arrived by now. Sometimes the post comes at eight.
I came because she telegraphed. Here's the paper."
The doctor read it. "I see," said he. "She said don't come, so you came.
Creditable to your ladyship, but--excuse me!--quite mad. You are better
out of the way."
"She has no friend with her."
"Well--no--she hasn't! At least--yes--she has! I shall not leave her
except for special cases. They can do very well without me at the
Hospital. There are plenty of young fellows at the Hospital."
Gwen appeared to apprehend something suddenly. "I see," she said. "I
quite understand. I had never guessed."
He replied:--"How did you guess? I _said_ nothing. However, I won't
contradict you. Only understand right. This is all on my side. Miss
Grahame knows nothing about it--isn't in it."
"Oh!" said Gwen incredulously. "Now suppose you tell me what your letter
said!"
"You are _sure_ you understand?"
"Oh dear, yes! It doesn't want much understanding. What did your letter
say?"
Dr. Dalrymple's reply was substantially that it said what Gwen had
anticipated. The patient was in no danger whatever, at present, and with
reasonable precautions would infect nobody. He knew that her ladyship's
impulse to come to her friend would be very strong, but she could do no
good by coming. The wisest course would be for her to keep away, and
rely on his seeing to it that the patient received the utmost care that
skill and experience could provide. "I knew that if I said I should not
allow you to see her, you would come by the next train. Excuse my having
taken the liberty to interpret your character on a very slight
acquaintance."
"Quite correct. Your interpretation did you credit. I should have come
immediately. The letter you did write _might_ have made me hesitate.
_Now_ I want to see her."
The doctor acquiesced in the inevitable. "It's rash," he said, "and
unnecessary. But I suppose it's no use remonstrating?"
"Not the slightest!" said Gwen. And, indeed, the supposition was a
forlorn hope, and a very spiritless one. Also, other agencies were at
work. A tap at the door, that was told to come in, revealed itself as an
obliging nurse whose upper front tooth was lifting her lip to look out
under it at the public. Her mission was to say that Miss Grahame had
heard the visitor's voice and she might speak to her through the door,
but on no account come into the room. A little more nonsense of this
sort, and Gwen was talking with her cousin at a respectful distance, to
comply with existing prejudices; but without the slightest belief that
her doing so would make any difference, one way or the other. The
dreadful flavour of fever was in everything, and lemons and hothouse
grapes were making believe they were cooling, and bottles that they
contained sedatives, and disinfectants that they were purifying the
atmosphere. It was all their gammon, and the fiend Typhus, invisible,
was chuckling over their preposterous claims, and looking forward to a
happy fortnight, with a favourable outcome from his point of view; or,
at least, the consolation of _sequelae_, and a retarded convalescence.
There is a stage of fever when lassitude and uncertainty of movement and
eyesight have prostrated the patient and compelled him to surrender at
discretion to his nurses and medical advisers, but before the Valkyrie
of Delirium are scouring the fields of his understanding, to pounce on
the corpses of ideas their Odin had slain. That time was not due for
many hours yet, when Gwen got speech of her cousin. She immediately
appreciated that the patient was anxious to impress bystanders that this
illness was all in the way of business. Also, that she was watching the
development of her own symptoms as from a height apart, in the interest
of Science.
"I knew I should catch it. But somebody had to, and I thought it might
as well be me. I caught it from a child. A mild case. That would not
make much difference. Being a woman is good. More men die than women.
It's only within the last few years that typhus has been distinguished
from typhoid...." After a few more useful particulars, she said:--"It
was very bad of you to come. I telegraphed to you not to come, last
week.... Wasn't it last week?... Well then--yesterday.... They ought
never to have let you in.... There!--I get muddled when I talk...." She
did, but it did not amount to wandering.
Gwen made very fair essays towards the correct thing to say; the usual
exhortations to the patient to rely upon everything; acquiesce in
periodical doses; absorb nourishment, however distasteful it might be on
the palate, and place blind faith in everyone else, especially nurses.
It was very good for a beginner; indeed, her experience of this sort of
thing was almost _nil_. But all she got for it was:--"Don't be
irritating, Gwen dear! Sit down there, where you are. Yes, that far off,
because I've something to say I want to say.... No--more in front, so
that I needn't move my head to see you.... Oh no--my _head's_ all right
in itself; only, when I move it, the pain won't move with it, and it
drags.... Suppose I shuffle off this mortal coil?"
Gwen immediately felt it her duty to point out the improbability of
anyone dying, but was a little handicapped by the circumstances
attendant on Typhus Fever. She had to be concise in unreason. "Don't
talk nonsense, Clo dear." The patient ignored the interruption. "Oh
dear!--give me another grape to suck without having to open my eyes....
Ta!--now I can talk a little more." The obliging nurse headed Gwen off
to a proper distance, and herself supplied the grape. In doing this she
smiled so hard that the tooth got a good long look at Gwen, who looked
another way. The patient resumed, speaking very much from her lofty
position of lecturer by her own bedside.
"You see, a percentage of cases recovers, but this one may not be in it.
However, the constitution is good.... No, Gwen dear, you know perfectly
well I may die, so where _is_ the use of pretending?" Whereupon Gwen
conceded the possibility of Death, and the patient seemed to be easier
in her mind; saying, as one who leaves trivialities, to settle down to
matters of business:--"I want to talk to you about my small boy, Dave
Wardle."
"Shall I go and see him at Sapps Court?"
"Yes--that's what I want. And then come back here and tell me ...
promise!" She was getting very indeterminate in speech, and the nurse
was signalling for the interview to close. So Gwen cut it short. But she
felt she had made a binding promise. She must go to Sapps Court.
Said Gwen to Dr. Dalrymple, a few minutes later, in the
sitting-room:--"I hope she hasn't talked too much." The doctor appeared
to have taken temporary possession, and to have several letters to
write.
"It makes very little difference," he said. "At present the decks are
only being cleared for action. In a few days we shall be in the thick of
it--pulse over a hundred--temperature a hundred and four--then a crisis.
When it's all over, we shall be able to see how many ships are sunk."
* * * * *
Sapps Court had resumed its tranquil routine of everyday life, and the
accident had nearly become a thing of the past. Not entirely, for Mrs.
Prichard's portion of No. 7 still remained unoccupied, even Susan Burr
remaining absent at her married niece's at Clapham. Aunt M'riar had
charge, and kept a bit of fire going in the front-room, so the plaster
should get a chance to dry out. Also she stood the front and back
windows wide to let through a good draught of air, except, of course, it
was pouring rain, and then it was no good. The front-room was a great
convenience to Aunt M'riar, who now and then was embarrassed with linen
to dry, relieving her from the necessity of rendering the kitchen
impassable with it in the morning till she came down and took it off of
the lines ready for ironing, and removed the cords on which she had hung
it overnight.
Dave and Dolly were allowed upstairs during operations, on stringent
conditions; or, rather, it should be said, on a stringent condition.
They were to leave things be. This was honourably observed, especially
by Dave, who was the soul of honour when once he gave his word. As for
Dolly, she was still young, and if she did claw hold of a chemise and
bring down the whole line, why, it was only that once, and we was
children once ourselves. This was Uncle Mo, of course; he was that
easy-going.
But whenever Aunt M'riar was not handicapping the desiccation of the
walls by overcharging the atmosphere with moisture of the very wettest
possible sort, Dolly and Dave could have the room to themselves, so long
as they kep' their hands off the clean wallpaper; which was included in
leaving be, obviously--not an intrusion of a new stipulation. They would
then, being alone, go great lengths in picturing to themselves and each
other the pending reappearance of Mrs. Picture and Mrs. Burr, and the
delights of resuming halcyon days of old. For this strangely compounded
clay, Man, scarcely waits to be quite sure he is landed in existence,
before he inaugurates a glorious fiction, the golden Past, which never
has been; between which and its resurrection into an equally golden
Future--which never will be--he sandwiches the pewter Present, which
always is, and which it is idle to pretend is worth twopence, by
comparison.
"When old Mrs. Spicture comes back"--thus Dolly--"she shall set in her
own chair wiv scushions, and she shall set in her own chair wiv a 'igh
hup bact, and she shall set in her own chair wiv...." Here came a pause,
due to inanition of distinctive features. Dolly's style was disfigured
by vain repetitions, beyond a doubt.
"When old Mrs. Spicture comes back"--thus Dave, accepting the offered
formula, somewhat in the spirit of the true ballad writer--"she's
a-going to set in her own chair with cushions, just _here_!" He sat down
with violence on a spot immediately below the proposed centre of gravity
of the chair. "And then oy shall bring her her tea."
"No, you _s'arn't_! Mrs. Spicture shall set in her chair wiv scushions,
and me and dolly shall tite her her tea."
Dave sat on the floor fixing two intelligent blue eyes on dolly junior's
unintelligent violet ones, and holding his toes. "Dorly carn't!" said he
contemptuously. "Her legs gives. Besides, she's no inside, only brand."
This was a new dolly, who had replaced Struvvel Peter, who perished in
the accident. His legs had been wooden, and swung several ways. This
one's calves were wax, and one had come off, like a shoe. But the legs
only bent one way.
Dolly the mother did not reply to Dave's insinuations against his niece,
preferring the refrain of her thesis:--"When Mrs. Spicture comes back
and sets in her chair wiv scushions and an Aunt-Emma-Care-Saw, Mrs. Burr
she'll paw out the tea with only one lump of shoogy, and me and dolly
shall cally it acrost wivout a jop spilt, and me and dolly shall stand
it down on the little mognytoyble, and Mrs. Spicture she'll set in her
chair wiv scushions, and dolly hand her up the stoast."
"Let me kitch her at it!" said Dave, with offensive male assumption. "Oy
shall see to Mrs. Spicture's toast, and see she gets it hot. And Mrs.
Burr she'll give leave to butter it, and say how much, and the soyde
edge trimmed round toydy with a knoyf." All these details, safely based
on items of past experience, were practically historical.
Dolly always accepted Dave's masculine airisomeness with meek
equanimity, but invariably took no notice of it. This is nearly common
form in well-organized households. She went on to refer to other
gratifying revivals that would come about on Mrs. Picture's return. The
sofy should be stood back against the wall, for dolly to be put to sleep
on. And Queen Victoria she should go up on one nail, and Prince Halbert
on the other. These were beautiful coloured prints, smiling fixedly
across a full complement of stars and garters. The red piece of carpet
would go down against the fender, and the blue piece near the window, as
of yore. Dave looked forward with interest to the resurrection of Mrs.
Picture's wroyting toyble with a ployce for her Boyble to lie on, and to
the letters to his Granny Marrowbone in the country which would
certainly be wrote at it, directly or by dictation, in the blessed
revival of the past which was to come. Mrs. Burr's cat, who had
travelled by request in a hamper to her married niece's at Clapham, in
charge of Michael Ragstroar, would return and would then promptly have
kittens in spite of doubtful sex-qualifications suggested by the name of
Tommy; which kittens would belong to Dave and Dolly respectively, choice
being made as soon as ever it was seen what colour they meant to be.
These speculations, which had made pleasant material for
castles-in-the-air in the undisturbed hours when the children were in
sole possession of the apartment, seemed to be within a measurable
distance of realisation when Aunt M'riar, acting on a communication from
Mrs. Burr at Clapham, proceeded to unearth the hidden furniture from the
bedroom where Mr. Bartlett's careful men had interred it, and where it
hadn't been getting any good, you might be sure. At least, so said Mrs.
Ragstroar, who was so obliging as to lend a hand getting the things
back in their places, and giving them a dust over to get the worst of
the mess off. And Uncle Mo he was able to make himself useful, with a
screw here and a tack there, and a glue-pot with quite a professional
smell to it, so that you might easy have took him for a carpenter and
joiner. For Mr. Bartlett's men, while doubtless justifying their
reputation for handling everything with care due to casualties with
compound fractures, had stultified their own efforts by shoving the
heavy goods right atop of the light ones, and lying things down on their
sides that should have been stood upright, and committing other errors
of judgment. It was a singular and unaccountable thing that these men
seemed to share the mantle of their employer and somehow to claim
forgiveness, and get it, on the score of the inner excellence of their
hearts and purity of their motives.
So that within a day or two after her young ladyship's sudden appearance
at the fever-stricken mansion in Cavendish Square, Mrs. Burr put in her
first appearance at Sapps Court since she went away to the Hospital. She
was able to walk upon her foot, while convinced that a more rapid
recovery would have taken place but for the backward state of surgical
knowledge. She was confident they might have given her something at the
Hospital to bring it forward, and make some local application--"put
something on" was the expression. She seemed to have based an
unreasonable faith in bread poultices on their successful employment in
entirely different cases.
"Now what, you, got, to, lay out for, the way I look at it,
ma'am,"--thus Mrs. Ragstroar, departing and bearing away the hand she
had lent, to get supper ready for her own inmates--"is to do no more
than you can 'elp, and eat as much as you can get." The good woman then
vanished, leaving the united company's chorus to her remarks still
unfinished when she reached her own door at the top of the Court. For
Uncle Mo, Mr. Alibone, Aunt M'riar, and Dolly and Dave as _claqueurs_,
were unanimous that Mrs. Burr should lie still for six months or so,
relying on her capital, if any; if none, on manna from Heaven.
However, there was little likelihood of Mrs. Burr being in want of a
crust, which is the theoretical minimum needed to sustain life, so long
as Sapps Court recognised its liabilities when any component portion of
it, considered as a residential district, fell on and crushed one of its
residents' insteps. If Mr. Bartlett's repairs had come down on Mrs. Burr
in the fullest sense of the expression, she would certainly--unless she
outlived the impact of two hundred new stocks and three thousand old
bats and closures, deceptively arranged to seem like a wall--have had
the advantage, whatever it is, of decent burial, even if she had not had
a married niece at Clapham, or any other relative elsewhere. So she was
able to abstain without imprudence from immediate efforts to reinstate
her dressmaking connection; and was able, without overtaxing her instep,
to give substantial assistance to Aunt M'riar, who would have had to
refuse a good deal of work just at that time except for her opportune
assistance.
It was a natural corollary of this that Mrs. Prichard's tenancy should
be utilised as a workshop, as Mrs. Burr was now its only occupant; and
that she herself should take her meals below, with Aunt M'riar and the
family. So the red and the blue carpet were not put down just yet a
while, and Uncle Mo he did what he could with the screw here and the
tack there, while Aunt M'riar and Mrs. Burr exercised mysterious
functions, with tucks and frills and gimpings and pinkings and
gaufferings, which it is beyond the powers of this story to describe
accurately.
One mishap had occurred with the furniture which did not come within the
scope of Uncle Mo's skill to remedy. The treasured mahogany
writing-table that had so faithfully accompanied old Mrs. Picture
through all her misfortunes had lost a leg. A leg, but not a foot. For
the brass foot, which belonged, was found shoved away in the chest of
drawers, which was enough, and more than enough, to contain the whole of
the owner's scanty wardrobe. It was a cabinet-maker's job, and rather a
nice one at that, to provide a new and suitable leg and attach it
securely in the place of the old one. And it would come to
nineteen-and-sixpence to make a job of it. The exactness of this sum
will suggest the facts, that a young man in the trade, an acquaintance
of Uncle Mo at The Sun, he come round to oblige, and undertook to give
in a price as soon as he had the opportunity to mention it to his
governor. The opportunity occurred immediately he went back to the shop.
The sum was for a new leg, involving superhuman ingenuity in connecting
it firmly with the pelvis; but a reg'lar sound job. Of course, there was
another way of doing it, by tonguing on a new limb below the knee, and
inserting a dowell for to stiffen it up. But that would come to every
penny of fifteen shillings, and would be a reg'lar poor job, and would
show. Nothing like doing a thing while you were about it! It saved
expense in the end, and it was a fine old bit of furniture. Bit of old
Gillow's!
But there was a point to be considered. The things must be took out of
the drawers and the attached desk, or the governor he'd never have it at
the shop. He was a person of the most delicate sensibility, who shrank
from making himself responsible for anything whatever. Them drawers must
be emptied out, or nothing could be done. Why--you'd only got to shake
the table to hear there was papers inside!
This was a serious difficulty. It would, of course, be easy enough to
write to Mrs. Prichard for the key; which, said testimony, was very
small and always lived in her purse. But then all the milk would be out
of the cocoanut; that metaphorical fruit being, in this case, the
pleasure of surprising Mrs. Prichard with a writing-table as good as
new. Open it, of course, you could! It was a locksmith's job, but the
governor would send the shop's locksmith, who would do that for you
while you counted half-a-dozen. The counting was optional, and in no
sense necessary, nor even contributory, to the operation.
The real crux of the difficulty was not one of mechanism, but of
responsibility. Who was qualified to decide on opening the desk and
drawers? Who would be answerable for the safety of those papers? The
only person who volunteered was Dolly, and Dolly's idea of taking care
of things was to carry them about with her everywhere, and if they were
in a parcel, to unpack it frequently at short intervals to make sure the
contents were still in evidence. Her offer was declined.
The young man in the trade had numerous and absorbing engagements to
plead as a reason for his inability to 'ang about all day for parties to
make up their minds--the usurper's plea, by-the-by, for a _coup
d'état_--so perhaps some emissary might be found, to drop round to the
shop to leave word. This young man was anxious to oblige, but altruism
had its limits. Just then a knock at the door below led to Dave
receiving instructions to sift it and make sure it wasn't a mistake,
before a senior should descend to take it up seriously. It was not a
mistake, but a lady, reported by Dave, returning out of breath, to be
"one of Our Ladies,"--making the Church of Rome seem ill-off by
comparison. He was seeking for an intelligent distinction between Sister
Nora and Gwen, in reply to the question "Which?", when the dazzling
appearance of the latter answered it for him.
"I thought I might come up without waiting to ask," said the
vision--which is what she seemed, for a moment, to Sapps Court. "So I
didn't ask. Is that Mrs. Picture's writing-table where Dave gets his
letters written?"
Never was a more unhesitating plunge made _in medias res_. It had a
magical effect in setting Sapps Court at its ease, and everyone saw a
way to contribute to an answer, the substance of which was that the
table was Mrs. Prichard's, _but_ had lost its leg. The exact force of
the _but_ was not so clear as it might have been; this, however, was
unimportant. Gwen was immediately interested in the repair of the table.
Why shouldn't it be done while Mrs. Picture was away, before she came
back?
A momentary frenzy of irrelevance seized Sapps Court, and a feverish
desire to fix the exact date when the table-leg was disintegrated. "It
wasn't broke, when it came from Skillicks," said Mrs. Burr. "That's all
I know! And if you was to promise me a guinea I could say no more." Said
Aunt M'riar:--"It's been stood up against the wall ever since I
remembered it, and Mr. Bartlett's men assured me every care was took in
moving." A murmur of testimony to Mr. Bartlett's unvarying sobriety and
that of his men threatened to undermine the coherency of the
conversation, but the position was saved by Uncle Mo, who seemed less
infatuated than others about them. "Bartlett's ain't neither here or
there," said he. "What I look at's like this,--the leg's off, and we've
got to clap on a new un. Here's a young man'll see to that, and it'll
come to nineteen-and-sixpence. Only who's going to take care of the
letters and odd belongings of the old lady the whilst? That's a point to
consider. I'd rather not, myself, if you ask me. Not without she sends
the key, and that won't work, as I see it."
"I see," said Gwen. "You want to make Mrs. Picture a new table-leg, and
you can't do it without opening her desk. And you can't get the key from
her without saying why you want it. Isn't that it?" Universal assent.
"Very well, then! You get the lock opened, and I'll take everything out
with my own hands, and keep it safe for Mrs. Picture when she comes
back."
This proposal was welcomed with only one reservation. None but a real
live locksmith could open a lock, any more than one who is not born a
turncock can release the waters that are under the earth through an
unexplained hole in the road. It was, however, all within the province
of the young man in the trade, who had not vanished when the vision
appeared, in spite of those pressing appointments. He would go back to
the shop, and send, or bring, a properly qualified operative.
Pending which, an adjournment to the little parlour below, out of all
this mess, seemed desirable. Dave and Dolly were, of course, part of
this, but Mrs. Burr remained upstairs after answering inquiries about
her own health, and Mr. Alibone went away with the young man in search
of the locksmith.
Gwen had to account for her sudden appearance. "I'm sorry to have bad
news to tell you about my cousin, Miss Grahame," said she, so seriously
that both her grown-up hearers spoke under their breaths to begin
asking:--"She's not...?"--the rest being easily understood. Gwen
replied:--"Oh no, she's not _dead_. But she's in the doctor's hands."
Uncle Mo looked as though he thought this was nearly as bad, and Aunt
M'riar was so expressive in sympathy without words that both the
children became appalled, and Dolly looked inclined to cry. Gwen
continued:--"She has caught a horrible fever in a dreadful place where
she went to see poor people, and nobody can say yet a while what will
happen. It _is_ Typhus Fever, I'm afraid."
As Gwen uttered the deadly syllables, Uncle Mo turned away to the
window, leaving some exclamation truncated. Aunt M'riar's voice became
tremulous on the beginning of an unfinished sentence, and Dolly
concealed a disposition to weep, because she was afraid of what Dave
would say after. That young man remained stoical, but did not speak.
Presently Uncle Mo turned from the window, and said, somewhat
huskily:--"I wish some of these here _poor people_, as they call
themselves, would either go away to Aymericay, or keep their premises a
bit cleaner; nobody wants 'em here that ever I've heard tell of, only
Phlarnthropists."
Aunt M'riar's unfinished sentence had begun with "Gracious mercy!..."
Its sequel:--"Well now--to think of a lady like that! My word! And
Typhus Fever, too!"--was dependent on it, and contained an element of
resignation to Destiny.
Dave struck in with irrelevant matter; as he frequently did, to throw
side-lights on obscurities. "The boy at the School had fever, and came
out sported all over with sports he was. You couldn't have told him from
any other boy." That the other boy would be similarly spotted was, of
course, understood.
Having broken the news, Gwen went on to minimise its seriousness; a
time-honoured method, perhaps the best one. "Dr. Dalrymple is cheerful
enough about her at present, so we mustn't be frightened. He says only
very old persons never recover, and that a young woman like my cousin is
quite as likely to live as to die...."
Uncle Mo caught her up with sudden shrewdness. "Then she's quite as
likely to die as to live?" said he.
"Oh, Mo--Mo--don't ye say the word! Please God, Sister Nora may live
for many a long day yet!" Thus Aunt M'riar, true to the traditional
attitude of Life towards Death--denial of the Arch-fear to the very
threshold of the tomb.
"So she may, M'riar, and many another on to that. But there's a good
plenty o' things would please us that don't please God, and He's got it
all His own way."
Uncle Mo, after moving about the room in an unsettled fashion, as though
weighed upon by the news he had just heard, had come to an anchor at the
table opposite Gwen--obsessed by Dolly, but acquiescent. As he sat
there, she saw in his grizzled head against the light; in the strong
hand resting on the table, moving now and then as though keeping time to
some slow tune; in the other, motionless upon his knee, an image that
made her ask herself the question:--"What would Samuel Johnson have been
as a prizefighter?" She was not properly shocked, but perhaps that was
because she was quick-witted enough to perceive that Uncle Mo had only
said, in the blunt tongue of the secular world, what would have sounded
an impressive utterance, in another form, from the lips of the sage of
whom he had reminded her. She felt she _ought_ to say that the Lord
would assuredly--a solemn word that!--do what He liked with His own,
supplying capitals. She gave it up as out of her line, and went on to
business.
"Any of us may die, at any minute, Mr. Wardle," said she. "But my cousin
is twenty times as likely to die as you or I, because she's got Typhus
Fever, and half the cases are fatal, more or less.... They told me how
many; I've forgotten.... What's that?--is it the locksmith man?" For a
knock had come at the street-door, and the sound was as the sound of an
operative who had to be back in half an hour or his Governor would cut
up rough. He was therefore directed to go upstairs and cast his eye on
the job, and the lady would come up in five minutes to see the things
took out of the drawer.
"Stop a minute, Aunt M'riar," said the lady. "He mustn't make a mistake
and open it, till I come. Please tell him, to make sure!" And Aunt
M'riar would have started on her errand if she had not been stopped by
what followed. "Or--look here! Let Dave go. You go up, Dave, and say he
mustn't touch the lock till I come. Run along, and stop there to see
that he does as you tell him." Whereupon, off went Dave, shouting his
instructions as soon as he got to the second landing. He felt like a
Police-Inspector, or a Warden of the Marches.
As soon as Dave had left tranquillity behind, Gwen set herself to
anticipate an anxiety she saw Aunt M'riar wanted to express, but was
hanging fire over. "You needn't be afraid about this chick, Aunt
M'riar," she said. "It isn't really infectious, only contagious. You can
only get it from the patient. Dr. Dalrymple says so. Like the thing you
can only buy of the maker. Besides, I've hardly been in the room; they
make such a fuss, and won't allow me. And I'm not living in the house at
all, but at my father's in Park Lane. And I've been there to-day since
Cavendish Square, so anyhow, if I give it to Dolly, my father and mother
will have it too.... Oh no--she's not rumpling me at all! I like it." It
was satisfactory to know that an Earl and Countess were pledged to have
Typhus if Dolly caught it. Dolly evidently thought the combination of
circumstances as good as a play, and a sprightly one.
Gwen was not sorry when the young ambassador came rushing back,
shouting:--"The Man says--the Man says--the Man says it wouldn't take
above half a minute to do, and is the loydy a-coming up?
Because--because--because if the loydy _oyn't_ a-coming up
_he_--_has_--_to_--get back to the shop." This last was so draconically
delivered that Gwen exclaimed:--"Come along, Dolly, we've got our
orders!" And she actually carried that great child up all those stairs,
and she going to be four next birthday!
Upstairs, the lock-expert was apologetic. "Ye see, miss," he explained,
"our governor he's the sort of man it don't do to disappynt him, not
however small the job may be. I don't reckon he can wait above a half an
hour for anything, 'cos it gets on his narves. So we studies not puttin'
of him out, at our shop." At which Gwen interrupted him, sacrificing her
own interest in the well-marked character of this governor, to the
business in hand; and the prospect, for him, of an early release from
his anxiety.
As for the achievement which had been postponed, it really seemed a'most
ridiculous when you come to think of it. Such a fuss, and those two men
standing about the best part of an hour! At least, so Mrs. Burr said
afterwards.
For the operation, all told, was merely this--that the young man
inserted a bent wire into the lock, thereby becoming aware of its
vitals. Withdrawing it, he slightly modified the prejudices of its tip;
after which its reinsertion caused the lock to spring open as by magic.
He wished to know, on receipt of a consideration from Gwen, whether she
hadn't anything smaller, because it only came to eighteenpence for his
time and his mate's, and he had no change in his pocket. Gwen explained
that none was needed owing to the proximity of Christmas, and obtained
thereby the good opinion of both. They expressed their feelings and
departed.
And then--there was old Mrs. Picture's writing-table drawer, stood open!
But only a little way, to show. For the lady's hands alone were to open
it clear out, to remove the contents. Gwen felt that perhaps she had
undertaken this responsibility rashly. It is rather a ticklish matter to
tamper unbidden with locks.
So confident was she that old Mrs. Picture would forgive her anything,
that she made no scruple of examining and reading whatever was visible.
There was little beyond pens and writing-paper in the drawer, but in a
desk which formed part of the table were some warrants held by the old
lady as a life-annuitant, and two or three packets of letters, one
carefully tied and apparently of considerable age. There was also a
packet marked "Hair," and a small cardboard box. Little enough to take
charge of, and soon made into a neat parcel by Mrs. Burr for Gwen to
carry away in her reticule, a receptacle which in those days was almost
invariably a portion of every lady's paraphernalia, high and low, rich
and poor.
The desk opened with the drawer--or rather unrolled itself--a flexible
wood-flap running back when it was opened, and releasing a lid that made
one-half of the writing-pad when turned back. The letters were under the
other half, the old packet being in a small drawer with the parcel
marked "Hair." These were evidently precious. Never mind! Gwen would
keep them safe.
Dave and Dolly were so delighted with the performance of opening and
shutting the drawer, and seeing the cylindrical sheath slip backwards
and forwards in its grooves, that they could scarcely drag themselves
away to accompany their Lady to the carriage that, it appeared, was
waiting for her in the beyond, outside Sapps Court.
CHAPTER XI
AN INTERVIEW AT THE TOP OF A HOUSE IN PARK LANE. THE COLOSSEUM.
PACTOLUS. KENSINGTON, AS NINEVEH. DERRY'S. TOMS'S. HELEN OF TROY.
THE PELLEWS. RECONSIDERATION, AND JILTING. GWEN'S LOVE OF METHOD,
AND HOW SHE WOULD GO TO VIENNA. A STARTLING LETTER. HOW HER FATHER
READ IT ALOUD. MRS. THRALE'S REPORT OF A BRAIN CASE. HER DOG. HOW
REASON REELED BEFORE THE OLD LADY'S ACCURACIES. GWEN'S GREAT-AUNT
EILEEN AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR. HOW THE EARL STRUCK THE SCENT. HIS
BIG EBONY CABINET. MR. NORBURY'S STORY. HOW AN EARL CAN DO A MEAN
ACTION, WITH A GOOD MOTIVE. THE FORGED LETTER SEES THE LIGHT. HOW
THE COUNTESS WOKE UP, AND THE EARL GOT TO BED AT LAST
When the Earl and Countess came to Park Lane, especially if their visit
was a short one, and unless it was supposed to be known to themselves
and their Maker only, they were on their _P_'s and _Q_'s. Why the new
identity that came over them on those occasions was so described by her
ladyship remained a secret; and, so far as we know, remains a secret
still. But that was the expression she made use of more than once in
conversation with her daughter.
If her statements about herself were worthy of credence, her tastes were
Arcadian, and the satisfactions incidental to her position as a
Countess--wealth and position, with all the world at her feet, and a
most docile husband, ready to make any reasonable, and many
unreasonable, sacrifices to idols of her selection--were the merest
drops on the surface of Life's crucible. What her soul really longed for
was a modest competence of two or three thousand a year, with a not too
ostentatious house in town, say in Portland Place; or even in one of
those terraces near the Colosseum in Regent's Park, with a sweet little
place in Devonshire to go to and get away from the noise, concocted from
specifications from the poets, with a special clause about clotted cream
and new-laid eggs. Something of that sort! Then she would be able to
turn her mind to some elevating employment which it would be premature
to dwell on in detail to furnish a mere castle-in-the-air, but of which
particulars would be forthcoming in due course. Or rather, would have
been forthcoming. For now the die was cast, and a soul that could have
been pastorally satisfied with a lot of the humble type indicated, had
been caught in a whirl, or entangled in a mesh, or involved in a
complication--whichever you like--of Extravagance, or Worldliness, or
Society, or Mammon-worship, or Plutocracy, or Pactolus--or all the
lot--and there was an end of the matter!
"All I can say is that I wonder you do it. I do indeed, mamma!" Thus
Gwen, a week later in the story, in her bedroom at the very top of the
house, which had once been a smoking-room and which it was her young
ladyship's caprice to inhabit, because it looked straight over the Park
towards the Palace, which still in those days was close to Kensington,
its godmother. The Palace is there still, but Kensington is gone. Look
about for it in the neighbourhood, if you have the heart to do so, and
see if this is a lie. You will find residential flats, and you will find
Barker's, and you will find Derry's, and you will find Toms's. But you
will _not_ find Kensington.
"You may wonder, Gwen! But if ever you are a married woman with an
unmarried grown-up daughter in England and a married one at Vienna, and
a position to keep up--I suppose that is the right expression--you will
find how impossible everything is, and you will find something else to
wonder about. Why--only look at that dress you are trying on!" The
grown-up daughter was Gwen's elder sister, Lady Philippa, the wife of
Sir Theseus Brandon, the English Ambassador at the Court of Austria.
Otherwise, her ladyship was rather enigmatical.
Gwen seemed to attach a meaning to her words. "I don't think we shall
ever have a daughter married to an Ambassador at Vienna. It would be too
odd a coincidence for anything." This was said in the most unconcerned
way, as a natural chat-sequel. What a mirror was saying about the dress,
a wonderful Oriental fabric that gleamed like green diamonds, was
absorbing the speaker's attention. The _modiste_ who was fitting it had
left the room to seek for pins, of which she had run dry. A low-class
dressmaker would have been able to produce them from her mouth.
The Countess assumed a freezing import. It appeared to await explanation
of something that had shocked and surprised her. "_We!_" said her
ladyship, picking out the gravamen of this something. "Who are 'We' in
this case?... Perhaps I did not understand what you said?..." And went
on awaiting explanation, which any correct-minded British Matron will
see was imperatively called for. Young ladies are expected not to refer
too freely to Human Nature at any time, and to talk of "having a
daughter" was sailing near the wind.
"Who are the 'We'? Why--me and Adrian, of course! At least, Adrian and
I!--because of grammar. Whom did you suppose?"
The Countess underwent a sort of well-bred collapse. Her daughter did
not observe it, as she was glancing at what she mentioned to herself as
"The usual tight armhole, I suppose!" beneath an outstretched arm Helen
might have stabbed her for in Troy. Neither did she notice the
shoulder-shrug that came with the rally from this collapse, conveying an
intimation to Space that one could be surprised at nothing nowadays. But
the thing she ought not to have been surprised at was past discussion.
Decent interment was the only course. "Who? I? _I_ supposed nothing. No
doubt it's all right!"
Gwen turned a puzzled face to her mother; then, after a moment came
illumination. "Oh--I see-ee!" said she. "It's the children--_our_
children! Dear me--one has such innocent parents, it's really quite
embarrassing! Of course I shouldn't talk about them to papa, because
he's supposed to know nothing about such things. But really--one's own
mother!"
"Well--at least don't talk so before the person.... She's coming
back--_sh!_"
"My dear mamma, she's got six children of her own, so how could it
matter? Besides, she's French." That is to say, an Anglo-Grundy would
have no jurisdiction.
The dazzling ball-dress, which the Countess had professedly climbed all
those stairs to see tried on, having been disposed of satisfactorily,
and carried away for finishing touches, her ladyship showed a
disposition to remain and talk to her daughter. These two were on very
good terms, in spite of the occasional strain which was put upon their
relations by the audacity of the daughter's flights in the face of her
old-fashioned mother's code of proprieties.
As soon as normal conditions had been re-established, and Miss Lutwyche,
an essential to the trying on, had died respectfully away, her ladyship
settled down to a chat.
"I've really hardly seen you, child, since you came tearing up from
Rocester in that frantic way in the middle of the night. It's always the
same in town, an absolute rush. And the way one has to mind one's _P_'s
and _Q_'s is trying to the last degree. If it was only Society, one
could see one's way. One can deal with Society, because there are rules.
But People are quite another thing.... Well, my dear, you may say they
are not, but look at Clotilda--there's a case in point! I assure you,
hardly a minute of the day passes but I feel I ought to do something.
But what? One may say it's her own fault, and so it no doubt is, in a
sense. No one is under any sort of obligation to go into these horrible
places, which the Authorities ought not to allow to exist. There ought
to be proper people to do this kind of thing, inoculated or something,
to be safe from infection.... But she _is_ going on all right?"
"They wouldn't let me see her this morning. But Dr. Dalrymple said there
was no complication, so far...."
"Oh, well, so long as there's no complication, that's all we can
expect." The Countess jumped at an excuse to breathe freely. But there
were other formidable contingencies. How about Constance and Cousin
Percy? "Yes--they've got to be got married, somehow," said her ladyship.
"It's impossible to shut one's eyes to it. I've been talking to
Constance about it, and what she says is certainly true. When one's
father has chronic gout, and one's stepmother severe nervous depression,
one knows without further particulars how difficult it would be to be
married from home. She says she simply won't be married from her
Porchhammer sister's, because she gushes, and it isn't fair to Percy.
Her other sister--the one with a name like Rattrap--doesn't gush, but
her husband's going to stand for Stockport."
"I suppose," said Gwen, "those are both good reasons. Anyhow, you'll
have to accommodate the happy couple. I see that. I suppose papa will
have to give her away. If she allows Madame Pontet to groom her, she'll
look eighteen. I wonder whether they couldn't manage to...."
"Couldn't manage to...?"
"Oh no, I see it would be out of the question, because of the time. I
was going to say--wait for _us_. And then we could all have been married
together." Gwen had remembered the Self-denying Ordinance, which was to
last six months, and was not even inaugurated. She looked up at her
mother. "Come, dear mother of mine, there's nothing to be shocked at in
that!"
The Countess had risen from her seat, as though to depart. She stood
looking across the wintry expanse of Hyde Park, seen through a
bow-window across a balcony, with shrubs in boxes getting the full
benefit of a seasonable nor'easter; and when at length she spoke, gave
no direct reply. "I came up here to talk to you about it," she said.
"But I see it would not be of any use. I may as well go. Did Dr.
Dalrymple say when Clotilda would be out of danger? Supposing that all
goes well, I mean."
"How can he tell? I'm glad I'm not a doctor with a critical case, and
everyone trying to make me prophesy favourable results. It's worse for
him than it is for us, anyhow, poor man!"
"Why? He's not a relation, is he?"
"No. Oh no! Perhaps if he were one.... Well--perhaps if he were, he
wouldn't look so miserable.... No--they are only very old friends." The
Countess had not asked; this was all brain-wave, helped by shades of
expression. "I'm not supposed to _know_ anything, you know," added Gwen,
to adjust matters.
"Well--I suppose we must hope for the best," said her mother, with an
implied recognition of Providence in the background; a mere civility!
"Now I'm going."
"Very well then--go!" was what Gwen did _not_ say in reply. She only
thought that, if she _had_ said it, it would have served mamma right.
What she did say was:--"I know what you meant to say when you came
upstairs, and you had better say it. Only I shall do nothing of the
sort."
"I wish, my dear, you would be less positive. How can you know what I
meant to say? Of _what_ sort?"
"Reconsidering Adrian. Jilting him, in fact!"
"How can you know that?"
"Because you said it would not be any use talking to me about it. Just
before you stopped looking out of the window, and said you might as well
go."
Driven to bay, the Countess had a sudden _accès_ of argumentative power.
"Is there nothing it would be no use to talk to you about except this
mad love-affair of yours?"
"Nothing so big. This is the big one. Besides, you know you did mean
Adrian." As her ladyship did, she held her tongue.
Presently, having in the meantime resumed her seat, thereby admitting
that her daughter was substantially right, she went on to what might be
considered official publication.
"Your father and I, my dear, have had a good deal of talk about this
unfortunate affair...."
"What unfortunate affair?"
"This unfortunate ... love-affair."
"Cousin Percy and Aunt Constance?"
"My dear! How can you be so ridiculous? Of course I am referring to you
and Mr. Torrens."
"To me and Adrian. Precisely what I said, mamma dear! So now we can go
on." The young lady managed somehow to express, by seating herself
negligently on a chair with its back to her mother, that she meant to
pay no attention whatever to any maternal precept. She could look at her
over it, to comply with her duties as a respectful listener. But not to
overdo them, she could play the treble of Haydn's Gipsy Rondo on the
chair back with fingers that would have put a finishing touch on the
exasperation of Helen of Troy.
Her ladyship continued:--"We are speaking of the same thing. Your father
and I have had several conversations about it. As I was saying when you
interrupted me--pray do not do so again!--he agrees with me _entirely_.
In fact, he told me of his own accord that he wished you to come away
with me for six months.... Yes--six! Three's ridiculous.... And that it
should be quite distinctly understood that no binding engagement exists
between Mr. Torrens and yourself."
"All right. I've no objection to anything being distinctly understood,
so long as it is also distinctly understood that it doesn't make a
particle of difference to either of us.... Yes--come in! Put them on the
writing-table." This was to Miss Lutwyche, who came in, bearing letters.
"To either of you! You answer for Mr. Torrens, my dear, with a good deal
of confidence. Now, do consider that the circumstances are peculiar.
Suppose he were to recover his eyesight!"
"You mean he wouldn't be able to bear the shock of finding out what he'd
got to marry...." She was interrupted by her mother exhibiting
consciousness of the presence of Lutwyche, whose exit was overdue. A
very trustworthy young woman, no doubt; but a line had to be drawn.
"What are you fiddling with my letters for, Lutwyche?" said Gwen. "Do
please get done and go!"
"Yes, my lady." Discreet retirement of Miss Lutwyche.
"She didn't hear, mamma. You needn't fuss."
"I was not fussing, my dear, but it's as well to.... Yes, go on with
what you were saying." Because Lutwyche, being extinct, might be
forgotten.
Gwen was looking round at the mirror. If Helen of Troy had seen herself
in a mirror, all else being alike, what would her verdict have been?
Gwen seemed fairly satisfied. "You meant Adrian might be disgusted?"
said she.
The mother could not resist the pleasure of a satisfied glance at her
daughter's reflection, which was not looking at _her_. "I meant nothing
of the sort," she said. "But your father agreed with me--indeed, I am
repeating his own words--that Mr. Torrens may have a false impression,
having only really seen you once, under very peculiar circumstances. It
is only human nature, and one has to make allowance for human nature.
Now all that I am saying, and all that your father is saying, is that
the circumstances _are_ peculiar. Without some sort of reasonable
guarantee that Mr. Torrens cannot recover his eyesight, I do contend
that it would be in the highest degree rash to take an irrevocable step,
and to condemn one--perhaps both, for I assure you I am thinking of Mr.
Torrens's welfare as well as your own--to a lifetime of repentance."
"Mamma dear, don't be a humbug! You are only putting in Adrian's welfare
for the sake of appearances. Much better let it alone!"
"My dear, it is not the point. If you choose to think me inhumane, you
must do so. Only I must say this, that apart from the fact that I have
nothing whatever against Mr. Torrens personally--except his religious
views, which are lamentable--that his parents...."
"I thought you said you never knew his mother."
"No--perhaps not his mother." Her ladyship intensified the parenthetical
character of this lady by putting her into smaller type and omitting
punctuation:--"I can't say I ever really knew his mother and indeed
hardly anything about her except that she was a Miss Abercrombie and
goes plaguing on about negroes. But"--here she became normal again--"as
for his father...."
"As for his father?"
"He was a constant visitor at my mother's, and I remember him very well.
So there is no feeling on my part against him or his family." Her
ladyship felt she had come very cleverly out of a bramble-bush she had
got entangled in unawares, but she wanted to leave it behind on the
road, and pushed on, speaking more earnestly:--"Indeed, my dearest
child, it is of you and your happiness that I am thinking--although I
know you won't believe me, and it's no use my saying anything...." At
this point feelings were threatened; and Gwen, between whom and her
mother there was plenty of affection, of a sort, hastened to allay--or
perhaps avert--them. She shifted her seat to the sofa beside her mother,
which made daughterliness more possible. A short episode of mutual
extenuations followed; for had not a flavour of battle--not tigerish,
but contentious--pervaded the interview?
"Very well, then, dear mother of mine," said Gwen, when this episode
had come to an end. "Suppose we consider it settled that way! I'm to be
tractability itself, on the distinct understanding that it commits me to
nothing whatever. As for the six months' penal servitude, you and papa
shall have it your own way. Only play fair--make a fair start, I mean! I
like method. You have only to say when--any time after Christmas--and
Adrian and I will tear ourselves asunder for six months. And then I'll
accompany my mamma to Vienna, because I know that's what she wants. Only
mind--honour bright!--as soon as I have dutifully forgotten Adrian for
six whole months, there's to be an end of the nonsense, and I'm to marry
Adrian ... and _vice versa_, of course! Oh no--he shan't be a cipher--I
won't allow it...."
"My dear Gwendolen, I wish I could persuade you to be more serious." But
her ladyship, as she rose to depart, was congratulating herself on
having scored. The idea of any young lady's love-fancies surviving six
months of Viennese life! She knew that fascinating capital well, and she
knew also what a powerful ally she would find in her elder daughter, the
Ambassadress, who was glittering there all this while as a distinct
constellation.
She might just as well have retired satisfied with this brilliant
prospect; only that she had, like so many of us, the postscript vice.
This is the one that never will allow a conversation to be at an end.
She turned to Gwen, who was already opening a letter to read, to
say:--"You used the expressions 'reconsidering' and 'jilting' just now,
my dear, as if they were synonymous. I think you were forgetting that it
is impossible to 'jilt'--if I understand that term rightly--any man
until after you have become formally engaged to him, and therefore....
However, if your letter is so very important, I can go. We can talk
another time." This rather stiffly, Gwen having opened the letter, and
been caught and held, apparently, by something in a legible handwriting.
Whatever it was, Gwen put it down with reluctance, that she might show
her sense of the importance of her mother's departure, whom she kissed
and olive-branched, beyond what she accounted her lawful claims, in
order to wind her up. She went with her as far as the landing, where
cramped stairs ended and gradients became indulgent, and then got back
as fast as she could to the reading of that letter.
It _was_ an important letter, there could be no doubt of that, as a
thick one from Irene--practically from Adrian--lay unopened on the table
while she read through something on many pages that made her face go
paler at each new paragraph. On its late envelope, lying opened by
Irene's, was the postmark "Chorlton-under-Bradbury." But it was in a
handwriting Gwen was unfamiliar with. It was _not_ old Mrs. Picture's,
which she knew quite well. For which reasons the thought had crossed her
mind, when she first saw the envelope, that the old lady was seriously
ill--perhaps suddenly dead. It was so very possible. Think of those
delicate transparent hands, that frame whose old tenant had outstayed so
many a notice to quit. Gwen's cousin, Percy Pellew, had said to her when
he carried it upstairs in Cavendish Square, that it weighed absolutely
nothing.
But this letter said nothing of death, nor of illness with danger of
death. And yet Gwen was so disturbed by it that there was scarcely a
brilliant visitor to her mother's that afternoon but said to some other
brilliant visitor:--"What can be the matter with Gwen? She's not
herself!" And then each corrected the other's false impression that it
was the dangerous condition of her most intimate cousin and friend, Miss
Clotilda Grahame; or screws loose and jammed bearings in the machinery
of her love-affair, already the property of Rumour. And as each
brilliant visitor was fain to seem better informed than his or her
neighbour, a very large allowance of inaccuracy and misapprehension was
added to the usual stock-in-trade of tittle-tattle on both these points.
There was only a short interregnum between the last departures of this
brilliant throng, and the arrival of a quiet half-dozen to dinner; not a
party, only a soothing half-dozen after all that noise and turmoil. So
that Gwen got no chance of a talk with her father, which was what she
felt very much in need of. That interregnum was only just enough to
allow of a few minutes' rest before dressing for dinner. But the quiet
half-dozen came, dined, and went away early; perhaps the earlier that
their hostess's confessions of fatigue amounted to an appeal _ad
misericordiam_; and Gwen was reserved and silent. When the last of the
half-dozen had departed, Gwen got her opportunity. "Don't keep your
father up too long, child," said the Countess, over the stair-rail. "It
makes him sleep in the day, and it's bad for him." And vanished, with a
well-bred yawn-noise, a trochee, the short syllable being the apology
for the long one.
The Earl had allowed the quiet three, who remained with him at the
dinner-table after their three quiet better-halves had retired with his
wife and daughter, to do all the smoking, and had saved up for his own
cigar by himself. It was his way. So Gwen knew she need not hurry
through preliminaries. Of course he wanted to know about the Typhus
patient, and she gave a good report, without stint. "_That's_ all
right," said he, in the tone of rejoicing which implies a double
satisfaction, one for the patient's sake, one for one's own, as it is no
longer a duty to be anxious.
"Why are you glaring at me so, papa darling?" said his daughter. It was
a most placid glare. She should have said "looking."
"Your mamma tells me," said he, without modifying the glare, "that she
has persuaded you to go with her to Vienna for six months."
"She said you wished me to go."
"She wishes you to go herself, and I wish what she wishes." This was not
mere submissiveness. It was just as much loyalty and chivalry. "Is it a
very terrible trial, the Self-denying Ordinance?"
Gwen answered rather stonily. "It isn't pleasant, but if you and my
mother think it necessary--why, what must be, must! I'm ready to go any
time. Only I must go and wind up with Adrian first ... just to console
him a little! It's worse for him than for me! Just fancy him left alone
for six months and never seeing me!... Oh dear!--you know what I mean."
For she had made the slip that was so usual. She brushed it aside as a
thing that could not be helped, and would even be sure to happen again,
and continued:--"Irene has just written to me. I got her letter to-day."
"Well?"
"She makes what I think a very good suggestion--for me to go to Pensham
to stay a week after Christmas, and then go in for.... What do you call
it?... the Self-denying Ordinance in earnest afterwards. You don't
mind?"
"Not in the least, as long as your mother agrees. Is that Miss
Torrens's--Irene's--letter?"
"No. It's another one I want to speak to you about. Wait with
patience!... I was going to say what exasperating parents I have
inherited ... from somewhere!"
"From your grandparents, I suppose! But why?"
"Because when I say, may I do this or may I say that, you always say,
'Yes if your mother,' etcetera, and then mamma quotes you to squash me.
I don't think it's playing the game."
"I think I gather from your statement, which is a little obscure, that
your mamma and I are like the two proctors in Dickens's novel.
Well!--it's a time-honoured arrangement as between parents, though I
admit it may be exasperating to their young. What's the other letter?"
"I want to tell you about it first," said Gwen. She then told, without
obscurity this time, the events which had followed the Earl's departure
from the Towers a week since. "And then comes this letter," she
concluded. "Isn't it terrible?"
"Let's see the letter," said the Earl. She handed it to him; and then,
going behind his high chair, looked over him as he read. No one ever
waits really patiently for another to read what he or she has already
read. So Gwen did not. She changed the elbow she leaned on, restlessly;
bit her lips, turn and turn about; pulled her bracelets round and round,
and watched keenly for any chance of interposing an abbreviated _précis_
of the text, to expedite the reading. Her father preferred to understand
the letter, rather than to get through it in a hurry and try back; so he
went deliberately on with it, reading it half aloud, with comments:
"AT STRIDES COTTAGE,
"CHORLTON-UNDER-BRADBURY,
"_November 22, 1854_.
"MY LADY,
"I have followed your instructions, and brought the old Mrs.
Prichard here to stay until you may please to make another
arrangement. My mother will gladly remain at my daughter's at her
husband's farm, near Dessington, till such time as may be suitable
for Mrs. Prichard to return. This I do not wish to say because I
want to lose this old lady, for if your ladyship will pardon the
liberty I take in saying so, she is a dear old person, and I do in
truth love her, and am glad to have charge of her."
"She seems always to make conquests," said the Earl. "I acknowledge to
having been _épris_ myself."
"Yes, she really is an old darling. But go on and don't talk. It's what
comes next." She pointed out the place over his shoulder, and he took
the opportunity to rub his cheek against her arm, which she requited by
kissing the top of his head. He read on:
"Nor yet would my mother's return make any difference, for we could
accommodate, and I would take no other children just yet a while.
Toby goes home to-morrow. But I will tell you there is something,
and it is this, only your ladyship may be aware of it, that the old
lady has delusions and a strange turn to them, in which Dr. Nash
agrees with me it is more than old age, and recommends my mother,
being old too, not to come back till she goes, for it would not be
good for her, for anything of this sort is most trying to the
nerves, and my mother is eighty-one this Christmas, just old Mrs.
Prichard's own age."
"I think that's the end of the sentence," said the Earl. "I take it that
Nash, who's a very sharp fellow in his own line, is quite alive to the
influence of insanity on some temperaments, and knows old Mrs. Marrable
well enough to say she ought not to be in the way of a lunatic....
What's that?"
"A lunatic!" For Gwen had started and shuddered at the word.
"I see no use in mincing matters. That's what the good woman is driving
at. What comes next?" He read on:
"I will tell all what happened, my lady, from when she first
entered the house, asking pardon for my length. It began when I was
showing the toy water-mill on our mantel-shelf, which your ladyship
saw with Miss Grahame. I noticed she was very agitated, but did not
put it down to the sight of this toy till she said how ever could
it have been _my_ grandfather's mill, and then I only took it for
so many words, and got her away to bed, and would have thought it
only an upset, but for next morning, when I found her out of bed
before six, no one else being up but me, measuring over the toy
with her hands where it stood on the shelf, and I should not have
seen her only for our dog calling attention, though a dumb animal,
being as I was in the yard outside."
"I think I follow that," said the Earl. "The dog pulled her skirts, and
had a lot to say and couldn't say it."
"That was it," said Gwen. "Just like Adrian's Achilles. I don't mean
he's like Achilles personally. The most awful bulldog, to look at, with
turn-up tusks and a nose like a cup. But go on and you'll see. 'Yard
outside.'"
"I would have thought her sleep-walking, but she saw me and spoke
clear, saying she could not sleep for thinking of a model of her
father's mill in Essex as like this as two peas, and thought it
must be the same model, only now she had laid her hands on it again
she could see how small it was. She seemed so reasonable that I was
in a fright directly, particularly it frightened me she should say
Essex, because my grandfather's mill was in Essex, showing it was
all an idea of her own...."
"I can't exactly follow that," said the Earl, and re-read the words
deliberately.
"Oh, can't you see?" said Gwen. "_I_ see. If she had said the other mill
was in Lancashire, it would have seemed _possible_. But--both in
Essex!"
"I suppose that's it. Two models of mills exactly alike, and both in
Essex, is too great a tax on human credulity. On we go again! Where are
we? Oh--'idea of her own.'"
"But I got her back to bed, and got her some breakfast an hour
later, begging she would not talk, and she was very good and said
no more. After this I moved the model out of the way, that nothing
might remind her, and she was quiet and happy. So I did not send
for Dr. Nash then. But when it came to afternoon, I saw it coming
back. She got restless to see the model I had put by out of sight,
saying she could not make out this and that, particular the two
little girls. And then it was she gave me a great fright, for when
I told her the two little girls was my mother and my aunt, being
children under ten, over seventy years ago, and twins, she had
quite a bad attack, such as I have never seen, shaking all over,
and crying out, 'What is it?--What is it?' So then I sent Elizabeth
next door for Dr. Nash, who came and was most kind, and Mrs. Nash
after. He gave her a sedative, and said not to let her talk. He
said, too, not to write to you just yet, for she might get quite
right in a little while, and then he would tell you himself."
"Poor darling old Mrs. Picture!" said Gwen. "Fancy her going off like
this! But I think I can see what has done it. You know, she has told me
how she was one of twins, and how her father had a flour-mill in Essex."
"Did she say the name?"
"No--she's very odd about that. She never tells any names, except that
her sister was Phoebe. She told me _that_.... Oh yes--she told me her
little girl's name was Ruth." Gwen did not know the christened name of
either Granny Marrable or Widow Thrale, when she said this.
"Phoebe and Ruth," said the Earl. "Pretty names! But _what_ has done it?
What can you see?... You said just now?..."
"Oh, I understand. Of course, it's the twins and the flour-mill in
Essex. Such a coincidence! Enough to upset anybody's reason, let alone
an old woman of eighty! Poor dear old Mrs. Picture!--she's as sane as
you or I."
"Suppose we finish the letter. Where were we? 'Tell you himself'--is
that it? All right!"
"Then she was quiet again, quite a long time. But when we was
sitting together in the firelight after supper, she had it come on
again, and I fear by my own fault, for Dr. Nash says I was in the
wrong to say a word to her of any bygones. And yet it was but to
clear her mind of the mixing together of Darenth Mill and this
mill she remembers. For I had but just said the name of ours, and
that my grandfather's name was Isaac Runciman when I saw it was
coming on, she shaking and trembling and crying out like before,
'Oh, what is it? Only tell me what it _is_!' And then 'Our mill was
Darenth Mill,' and 'Isaac Runciman was my father.' And other things
she could not have known that had been no word of mine, only Dr.
Nash found out why, all these things having been told to little
Dave Wardle last year, and doubtless repeated childlike. And yet,
my lady, though I know well where the dear old soul has gotten all
these histories, seeing there is no other way possible, it is I do
assure you enough to turn my own reason to hear her go on telling
and telling of one thing and another all what our little boy we had
here has made into tales for his amusement, such-like as Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Fox our horses, and she had just remembered the foreman's
name Muggeridge when she saw the model; it makes my head fairly
spin to hear. Only I take this for my comfort, that I can see
behind her words to know the tale is not of her making, but only
Dave, like when she said Dave must have meant Muggeridge in his
last letter, and would I find it to show her, only I could not. And
like when she talked of her old piano at her father's, there I
could see was our old piano my mother bought at a sale, now stood
in a corner here where I had talked of it the evening I had the old
lady here first. I am naming all these things that your ladyship
may see I do right to keep my mother away from Strides till Mrs.
Prichard goes. But I do wish to say again that that day when it
comes will be a sad one for me, for I do love her dearly and that
is the truth, though it is but a week and a day, and Dr. Nash does
not wonder at this."
"If I remember right," said the Earl, stopping, "Nash has made some
study of Insanity--written about it. He knows how very charming lunatics
can be. You know your Great-Aunt Eileen fairly bewitched the Lord
Chancellor when he interviewed her...."
"Did he see the lunatics himself?..."
"When they were fascinating and female--yes!... Well, what happened was
that she waited to be sure he had refused to issue the Commission, and
then went straight for Lady Lostwithiel's throat--her sister-in-law, you
know...."
"Did that show she was mad?"
"Let us keep to the point. What does 'Muggeridge' mean?"
"I was thinking. 'Muggeridge'! But _I've_ got Dave's last letter. I'll
get it." And she was off before the Earl could say that to-morrow would
do as well.
He went on smoking the bitter--and bitten--end of his cigar, which had
gone slowly, owing to the reading. Instead of finishing up the letter,
he went back, carefully re-reading the whole with absorbed attention. So
absorbed, that Gwen, coming in quietly with a fresh handful of letters,
was behind his chair unobserved, and had said:--"Well, and what do you
make of it?" before he looked up at her.
"Verdict in accordance with the medical opinion, I _think_. But let's
see Dave's letter." He took and read to himself. "_I_ see," said he.
"The cross stood for Dolly's love. A mere proxy. But _he_ sends the real
article. I like the 'homliburst,' too. Why did Dolly's lady want to
_towel_ Mrs. Spicture?... Oh, I see, it's the name of our house ...
h'm--h'm--h'm!... Now where do we come to Muggeridge?... Oh, here we
are! I've got it. Well--that's plain enough. Muggeridge. M, U, one G, E,
R, I, J for D, G, E. That's quite plain. Can't see what you want more."
"Oh yes, it's all very easy for you, now you've been told. _I_ couldn't
make head or tail of it. And I don't wonder dear old Mrs. Picture
couldn't...."
The Earl looked up suddenly. "Stop a bit!" said he. "Now where was it in
Mrs. Thrale's letter. I had it just now ... here it is! 'The old lady
had just remembered the foreman's name when she saw the model.' Got
_that_?"
"Yes--but I don't see...."
"No--but listen! Dr. Nash found out that all these particulars were of
Dave's communicating. Got that?"
"Yes--but still I don't see...."
"Don't chatterbox! Listen to your father. Keep those two points in mind,
and then consider that when you read her Dave's letter she could not
identify his misspelt name, which seems perfectly obvious and easy to
me, now I know it. How _could_ she forget it so as not to be reminded of
it by a misspelt version? Can you conceive that she should fail, if she
had heard the name from the child so clearly as to have it on the tip of
her tongue the moment she saw the mill she only knew from Dave's
description?"
"No--it certainly does seem very funny!"
"Very funny. Now let's see what the rest of the letter says." He went on
reading:
"I know your ladyship will pardon the liberty I take to write at
such length, seeing the cause of it, and also if I may suggest that
your ladyship might send for Mrs. Bird, who lives with Mrs.
Prichard, or for the parents of the little Dave Wardle, to inquire
of them has she been subject to attacks or is this new. I should
tell you that she has now been free from any aberration of mind, so
Dr. Nash says, for nearly two days, mostly knitting quietly to
herself, without talk, and sometimes laying down the needles like
to think. Dr. Nash says to talk to her when she talks, but to keep
her off of bygones, and the like. She has asked for things to write
you a letter herself, and I have promised as soon as this is done.
But I will not wait for hers to post this, as Dr. Nash says the
sooner you know the better. I will now stop, again asking pardon
for so long a letter, and remain, my lady, your obedient and
faithful servant.
"R. THRALE"
"How very like what everyone else does!" said the Earl. "This good woman
writes so close to economize paper that she leaves no room for her
signature and goes in for her initial. I was wanting to know her
Christian name. Do you know it? And see--she has to take more paper
after all! Here's a postscript."
"P.S.--There is another reason why it is better not to have my
mother back till Mrs. Prichard goes, she herself having been much
upset by a man who said he was Mrs. Prichard's son, and was looking
for his mother. My son-in-law, John Costrell, came over to tell me.
This man had startled and alarmed my mother _very much_. I should
be sorry he should come here to make Mrs. Prichard worse, but my
mother is no doubt best away. I am not afraid of him myself,
because of our dog."
"That dog is a treasure," said the Earl, re-enveloping the letter. "What
are those other letters? Irene's?... And what?"
"I was trying to think of Mrs. Thrale's Christian name. I don't think I
know it.... Yes--Irene's, and some papers I want you to lock up, for
me." Gwen went on to tell of the inroad on Mrs. Prichard's _secrétaire_,
and explained that she was absolutely certain of forgiveness. "Only you
will keep them safer than I shall, in your big ebony cabinet. I think I
can trust you to give them back." She laid them on the table, gave her
father an affectionate double-barrelled kiss, and went away to bed. It
was very late indeed.
Mr. Norbury, in London, always outlived everyone else at night. The Earl
rather found a satisfaction, at the Towers, in being the last to leave
port, on a voyage over the Ocean of Sleep. In London it was otherwise,
but not explicably. The genesis of usage in households is a very
interesting subject, but the mere chronicler can only accept facts, not
inquire into causes. Mr. Norbury always _did_ give the Earl a send-off
towards Dreamland, and saw the house deserted, before he vanished to a
secret den in the basement.
"Norbury," said the Earl, sending the pilot off, metaphorically. "You
know the two widows, mother and daughter, at Chorlton-under-Bradbury?
Strides Cottage."
"Yes, indeed, my lord! All my life. I knew the old lady when she came
from Darenth, in Essex, to marry her second husband, Marrable." Norbury
gave other particulars which the story knows.
"Then Widow Thrale is not Granny Marrable's daughter, though she calls
her mother?"
"That is the case, my lord. She was a pretty little girl--maybe eleven
years old--and was her mother's bridesmaid.... I should say her aunt's."
"Who was her mother?"
"I have understood it was a twin sister."
"Who was her father?"
Mr. Norbury hesitated. "If your lordship would excuse, I would prefer
not to say. The story came to me through two persons. My own informant
had it from Thrale. But it's near twenty years ago, and I could not
charge my memory, to a certainty."
"Something you don't like to tell?"
"Not except I could speak to a certainty." Mr. Norbury, evidently
embarrassed, wavered respectfully.
"Was there a convict in it, certain or uncertain?"
"There was, my lord. Certain, I fear. But I am uncertain about his name.
Peverell, or Deverell."
"What was he convicted of? What offence?"
"I rather think it was forgery, my lord, but I may be wrong about that.
The story said his wife followed him to Van Diemen's Land, and died
there?"
"That was Thrale's story?"
"Thrale's story."
"He must have known."
"Oh, he knew!"
"What is old Mrs. Marrable's Christian name?"
"I believe she was always called Phoebe. Her first married name was a
very unusual one, Cropredy."
"And Widow Thrale's?"
"Ruth--Keziah Solmes calls her, I think."
His lordship made no reply; and, indeed, said never a word until he
released Mr. Norbury in his dressing-room ten minutes later, being then
as it were wound up for a good night's rest, and safe to go till
morning. Even then the current of serious thought into which he seemed
to have plunged seemed too engrossing to allow of his making a start. He
remained sitting in the easy-chair before the fire, with intently
knitted brows and a gaze divided between the vigorous flare to which Mr.
Norbury's final benediction had incited it, and the packet of letters
Gwen had given him, which he had placed on the table beside him. Behind
him was what Gwen had spoken of as his big ebony cabinet. If a ghost
that could not speak was then and there haunting that chamber, its
tongue must have itched to remind his lordship what a satisfaction it
would be to a disembodied bystander to get a peep into the cinquecento
recesses of that complicated storehouse of ancient documents, which was
never opened in the presence of anyone but its owner.
Gradually Gwen's packet absorbed more than its fair share of the Earl's
attention; finally, seemed to engross it completely. He ended by cutting
the outer string, taking the contents out, and placing them before him
on the table, assorting them in groups, like with like.
There were the printed formal warrants, variously signed and attested,
of some assignments or transfers--things of no interest or moment. Put
them by! There were one or two new sheets covered with a child's printed
efforts towards a handwriting manifestly the same as the one recently
under discussion, even without the signature, "dAve wARdLe." There was a
substantial accumulation of folded missives in an educated man's hand,
and another in a woman's; of which last the outermost--being a folded
sheet that made its own envelope--showed a receipt postmark "Macquarie.
June 24, 1807," and a less visible despatch-stamp "Darenth. Nov. 30,
1806," telling its tale of over six months on the road. Then one,
directed in another hand, a man's, but with the same postmarks, both of
1808, with the months undecipherable. This last seemed the most
important, being tied with tape. It was the elder Daverill's successful
forgery, treasured by old Maisie as the last letter from her family in
England, telling of her sister Phoebe's death. All the letters were
addressed to "Mrs. Thornton Daverill," the directions being only partly
visible, owing to the folding.
Lest the reader should be inclined to blame the accidental possessor of
these letters for doing what this story must perforce put on record, and
to say that his action disgraced the Earldom of Ancester, let it remind
him what the facts were that were already in his lordship's possession,
and ask him whether he himself, so circumstanced, might not have felt
as the Earl did--that the case was one for a sacrifice of punctilios in
the face of the issues that turned upon their maintenance. Had he any
right to connive at the procrastination of some wicked secret--for he
had the clue--when a trivial sacrifice of self-respect might bring it to
light? He could see that Mrs. Prichard _must_ be the twin sister,
somehow. But he did not see how, as yet; and he wanted confirmation and
elucidation. These letters would contain both, or correction and
guidance. Was he to bewilder Gwen with his own partial insights, or take
on himself to sift the grist clean before he milled it for her
consumption? He was not long in deciding.
Two or three slippered turns up and down the room, very cautious lest
they should wake her ladyship in the adjoining one, were all the case
required. Then he resumed his seat, and, deliberately taking up the
taped letter, opened it and read:
"MY DEAR DAUGHTER MAISIE,
"It is with great pain that I take up my pen to acquaint you of the
fatal calamity which has befallen your sister Phoebe and her
husband, as well as I grieve to say of your own child Ruth, my
granddaughter, all three of whom there is every reason to fear have
lost their lives at sea on the sailing-packet _Scheldt_, from
Antwerp to London, which is believed to have gone down with every
soul on board in the great gale of September 30, now nearly two
months since.
"You will be surprised that your sister and little girl should be
on the seas, but that this should be so was doubtless the Will of
God, and in compliance with His ordinances, though directly
contrary to my own advice. Had due attention been paid to my wishes
this might have been avoided. Here is the account of how it
happened, from which you may judge for yourself:
"Your brother-in-law Cropredy's imprudence is no doubt to answer
for it, he having run the risk of travelling abroad to put himself
in personal communication with a house of business at Malines, a
most unwholesome place for an Englishman, though no doubt healthy
for foreigners. As I had forewarned him, he contracted fever in the
heat of August, when ill-fed on a foreign diet, which, however
suitable to them, is fatal to an English stomach, and little better
than in France. The news of this illness coming to your sister, she
would not be resigned to the Will of Providence, to which we should
all bow rather than rashly endanger our lives, but took upon
herself to decide, contrary to my remonstrance, to cross the
Channel with the little girl, of whom I could have taken charge
here at my own home. Merciful to say, the fever left him, having a
good constitution from English living, and all was promise of a
safe return, seeing the weather was favourable when the ship left
the quay, and a fair wind. But of that ship no further is known,
only she has not been heard of since, and doubtless is gone to the
bottom in the great gale which sprung up in mid-channel, for so
many have done the like. Even as the ships of Jehosaphat were
broken that they were not able to go to Tarshish (Chron. II. xx.
37).
"There is, I fear, no room for hope that, short of a miracle, for
the sea will not give up its dead (Rev. xx. 13), any remains should
be recovered, but you may rest assured that if any come to the
surface and are identified they shall be interred in the family
grave where your sainted mother was laid, and reposes in the Lord,
in a sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection (Acts xxiii.
6).
"Believe me, my dear daughter, to remain your affectionate father
"ISAAC RUNCIMAN.
"I have no message for my son-in-law, nor do I retain any
resentment towards him, forgiving him as I wish to be forgiven
(Luke vi. 37).
"DARENTH MILL,
_Oct. 16, 1807_."
The Earl read this letter through twice--three times--and apparently his
bewilderment only increased as he re-read it. At last he refolded it, as
though no more light could come from more reading, and sat a moment
still, thinking intently. Then he suddenly exclaimed aloud:--"Amazing,"
adding under his voice:--"But perfectly inexplicable!" Then, going on
even less audibly:--"I must see what Hawtrey can make of this...." At
which point he was taken aback by a voice through the door from the next
room:--"What _are_ you talking to yourself so for? Can't you get to
bed?" Palpably the voice of an awakened Countess! He replied in a
conciliatory spirit, and accepted the suggestion, first putting the
letters safely away in the ebony cabinet.
* * * * *
Anyone who reads this forged letter with a full knowledge of all the
circumstances will see that it was at best, from the literary and
dramatic point of view, a bungling composition. But style was not called
for so long as the statements were coherent. For what did the forger's
wife know of what her father's style would be under these or any
abnormal circumstances? Had she ever had a letter at all from him
before? Even that is doubtful. The shock, moreover, was enough to
unbalance the most critical judgment.
Two things are very noticeable in the letter. One that it fights shy of
strong expressions of feeling, as though its fabricator had felt that
danger lay that way; the other that he manifestly enjoyed his Scripture
references, familiar to him by his long experience of gaol-chaplains,
and warranted by his knowledge of his father-in-law. We--who write
this--have referred to the passages indicated, and found the connection
of ideas to be about an average sample, as coherency goes when quotation
from Scripture is afoot. No doubt Maisie's husband found their selection
entertaining.
CHAPTER XII
THE LEGAL ACUMEN OF THOTHMES. OF COURSE IT WAS ISAAC RUNCIMAN'S
SIGNATURE. THE ANTIPODEAN INK. HOW LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS WAS MADE OF
WOOD. HOW GWEN AND HER FATHER CAME OFF THEIR P'S AND Q'S. THE
RIDDLE AS GOOD AS SOLVED. HOW GWEN GOT A LIFT TO CAVENDISH SQUARE
AND HER MOTHER WENT ON TO HELP TO ABOLISH SOUTH CAROLINA. ANOTHER
LIFT, IN A PILL-BOX. SAPPS COURT'S VIEWS OF THE WAR. MICHAEL
RAGSTROAR'S HALF-SISTER'S BROTHER-IN-LAW. LIVE EELS. BALL'S POND.
MRS. RILEY'S ELEVEN RELATIVES. MRS. TAPPING'S NAVAL CONNECTIONS.
OLD BILLY. RUM SHRUB. LOUIS NAPOLEON AND KING SOLOMON. A PARTY IN
THE BAR. WHICH WAY DID HE GO?
Said his lordship next morning to Mr. Norbury, bringing him preliminary
tea at eight o'clock:--"I want to catch Mr. Hawtrey before he goes to
Lincoln's Inn. Send round to say.... No--give me one of my cards and a
pencil.... There!--send that round at once, because he goes early."
The result was that Mr. Hawtrey was announced while the Earl was having
real breakfast with Gwen and her mother at ten, and was shown into the
library. Also that the real breakfast was hurried and frustrated, that
Mr. Hawtrey should not be kept waiting. For the Earl counter-ordered his
last cup of tea, and went away with his fast half broken. So her
ladyship sent the cup after him to the library. He sent a message back
to Gwen. Would her ladyship be sure not to go out without seeing him?
She would.
Mr. Hawtrey was known to Gwen as the Earl's solicitor, a man of
perfectly incredible weight and importance. He was deep in the Lord
Chancellor's confidence, and had boxes in tiers in his office, to read
the names on which was a Whig and Tory education. If all the acres of
land that had made Mr. Hawtrey's acquaintance, somehow or other, had
been totalled on condition that it was fair to count twice over, the
total total would have been as large as Asia, at a rough guess. His
clerks--or his firm's, Humphrey and Hawtrey's--had witnessed leases,
wills, transfers, and powers of attorney, numerous enough to fill the
Rolls Office, but so far as was known none of them had ever been called
on to attest his own signature. Personally, Mr. Hawtrey had always
seemed to Gwen very like an Egyptian God or King, and she would speak of
him as Thothmes and Rameses freely. Her father admitted the likeness,
but protested against her levity, as this gentleman was his most trusted
adviser, inherited with his title and estates. The Earldom of Ancester
had always been in the habit of consulting Mr. Hawtrey about all sorts
of things, not necessarily legal.
So when Gwen was sent for to her father's sanctum, and went, she was not
surprised to hear that he had given Mr. Hawtrey all the particulars she
had told him of Mrs. Prichard's history, and a clear outline of the
incidents up to that date, ending with the seeming insanity of the old
lady. "But," said the Earl, who appeared very serious, "I have given no
names. I have sent for you now, Gwen, to get your consent to my making
no reserves with Mr. Hawtrey, in whose advice I have great confidence."
Mr. Hawtrey acknowledged this testimony, and Gwen acknowledged that
gentleman's desert; each by a bow, but Gwen's was the more flexible
performance.
She just hung back perceptibly over giving the _carte blanche_ asked
for. "I suppose no harm can come of it--to anybody?" said she. None
whatever, apparently; so she assented.
"Very good," said the Earl. "And now, my dear, I want you, before I show
it to Mr. Hawtrey, to read this letter, which I have opened on my own
responsibility--nobody to blame but me! I found it among your old lady's
letters you gave me to take care of."
"Oh dear!" said Gwen.
"I shall not show it to Mr. Hawtrey, unless you like. Take it and read
it. No hurry." Gwen was conscious that the solicitor sat as still as his
prototype Thothmes at the British Museum, and with as immovable a
countenance.
She took the letter, glancing at the cover. "Who is Mrs. Thornton
Daverill?" said she, quite in the dark.
"Go on and read," said the Earl.
Gwen read half to herself:--"'My dear daughter Maisie,'" and then said
aloud:--"But that is Mrs. Prichard's name!"
"Read through to the end," said the Earl. And Gwen, with a painful
feeling of bewilderment, obeyed orders, puzzling over phrases and
sentences to find the thing she was to read for, and staggered a moment
by the name "Cropredy," which she thought she must have misread. There
was no clue in the letter itself, as she did not know who "Phoebe" and
"Ruth" were.
Her father's observation of her face quickened as she visibly neared the
end. She was quite taken aback by the signature, the moment it caught
her eye. "Isaac Runciman!" she exclaimed. "Why--that's--that's ..."
"That's the name of Mrs. Marrable's father that old Mrs. Prichard lays
claim to for hers," said the Earl quietly. "And this letter is written
to his daughter, Mrs. Thornton Daverill, whose name is Maisie.... And
old Mrs. Prichard's name is Maisie.... And this letter is in the keeping
of old Mrs. Prichard." He left gaps, for his hearer to understand.
"Good God!" exclaimed Gwen. "Then old Mrs. Prichard is _not_ mad." She
could only see that much for the moment--no details. "Oh, be quiet a
moment and let me think." She dropped the letter, and sat with her face
in her hands, as though to shut thought in and work the puzzle out. Her
father remained silent, watching her.
Presently he said, quietly still, as though to help her:--"Norbury told
me last night what we did not know, that old Mrs. Marrable's name is
Phoebe, and that Widow Thrale's is Ruth...."
"That old Mrs. Marrable is Phoebe and her daughter is Ruth." Gwen
repeated his words, as though learning a lesson, still with her fingers
crushing her eyes.
"And that Ruth is not really Phoebe's daughter but her niece. And,
according to Norbury, she is the daughter of a twin sister, whose
husband was transported for forgery, and who followed him to Van
Diemen's Land, and died there." He raised his voice slightly to say
this.
A more amazed face than Gwen's when she withdrew her fingers to fix her
startled eyes upon her father, would have been almost as hard to find as
a more beautiful one.
"But that _is_ Mrs. Prichard, papa dear," she gasped. "Don't you _know_?
The story I told you!"
"Exactly!" said the Earl.
"But the letter--the letter! Phoebe and Ruth in the letter _cannot_ be
drowned, if they are Granny Marrable and Widow Thrale." A rapid
phantasmagoria of possibilities and impossibilities shot through her
mind. How could order come of such a chaos?
"Excuse me," said Thothmes, speaking for the first time. "Do I
understand--I assume I am admitted to confidence--do I understand that
the letter states that these two women were drowned?"
"Crossing from Antwerp. Yes!"
"Then the letter is a falsehood, probably written with a bad motive."
"But by their father--their father! Impossible!"
"How does your ladyship know it was written by their father?"
"It is signed by their father--at Darenth Mill in Essex. Both say Isaac
Runciman was their father."
"It is signed with Isaac Runciman's name--so I understand. Is it certain
that it was signed by Isaac Runciman? May I now see the letter? _And_
the envelope, please!--oh, the direction is on the back, of course." He
held the letter in front of him, but apparently took very little notice
of it. "As if," thought Gwen to herself, "he was thinking about his
Dynasty."
"What do you make of it, Hawtrey?" said the Earl, but, getting no
answer, waited. Silence ensued.
"_Yes_," said the lawyer, breaking it suddenly. He seemed to have seen
his way. "Now may I ask whether we have any means of knowing what the
forgery was for which this man was transported?"
"Oh yes!" said Gwen. "Old Mrs. Prichard told me what he was accused of,
at least. Forging an acceptance--if that's right? I think that was it."
"But whose signature? Did she say?"
"Oh yes--I made her tell me, her father's." Then Gwen fitted the name,
just heard, into its place in old Mrs. Prichard's tale, and was
illuminated. "I see what you think, Mr. Hawtrey," said she, interrupting
herself. The lawyer was examining the direction on the letter-sheet.
"I think I did right to pry into the letter, Gwennie," said her father;
seeking, nevertheless, a salve for conscience.
"Of course you did, you darling old thing!... What, Mr. Hawtrey? You
were going to say?..."
"I was going to say had you seen an odd thing in the direction. Have you
noticed that the word _Hobart_ has kept black, and all the rest has
faded to the colour of the writing inside?" So it had, without a doubt,
inexplicably. Mr. Hawtrey's impression was that the word was written in
a different hand, perhaps filled in by someone who had been able to
supply the name correctly, having been entrusted the letter to forward.
"But," said he, "the person who wrote Hobart must have been in England,
and the forger of the letter was certainly in Van Diemen's Land."
"Why 'must have been in England'?"
"Bless the girl!" said the girl's father. "Why--_I_ can see that! Of
course, an Australian convict, who could do such a fine piece of
forgery, would never ask another person to spell the name of an
Australian town. Do you suppose he sent it to England to get an
accomplice to spell 'Hobart' right for him? No--no, Hawtrey, your theory
won't hold water."
"That is the case," said Thothmes, more immovably than ever. "I see I
was mistaken. That point must wait. Or ... stop one minute!... may we
examine the other letters?"
"I had thought," said the Earl, "of leaving them unopened. We have got
what we want."
"Very proper. But I only wish to read the directions." No harm in this,
anyhow. A second packet was opened. It was the one in the woman's hand,
all postmarked "Darenth Mill" and "Macquarie." Then it was that
Thothmes, with impassive shrewdness, made up for his blunder, with
interest. He saw why the ink of one word of the forged direction was
black. It was the same ink as the English directions, and, on close
examination, the same hand. This had not been clear at first, as the
word was mixed with the English postmark, "Darenth Mill"--so much so as
not to clash with the pale hand of the forgery. "That word," said
Thothmes, "was never written in Van Diemen's Land. The English stamp is
on the top of it."
Gwen took it from him, and saw that this was true. "But then the rest of
the direction was written in Australia," said she, "if this man wrote it
at all! Oh dear, I am so puzzled." And indeed she was at her wit's end.
"I won't say another word," said Mr. Hawtrey. "I have made one blunder,
and won't run any further risks. I must think about this. If you will
trust me with the letter, you shall have it back to-morrow morning. I
dare say your lordship will now excuse me. I have an appointment at the
High Court at eleven, and it's now a quarter past.... Oh no--it's not a
hanging matter.... I shall make my man drive fast.... So I will wish
your ladyship a very good morning. I wish those two old ladies could
have known this earlier. But better late than never!"
The Earl accompanied his legal adviser to the head of the stairs to give
him a civil send off, while his daughter, white with tension of
excitement and impatience, awaited his return. Coming back, he was not
the least surprised that she should fall into his arms with a tempest of
tears, crying out:--"Oh, papa dearest--fifty years!--think of it! All
their lives! Oh, my darling old Mrs. Prichard! and Granny Marrable
too--it's the same for both! Oh, think, that they were girls--yes,
nearly girls, only a few years older than me, when they parted! And the
_horrible_ wickedness of the trick--the horrible, horrible wickedness!
And then the dear old darling's own daughter, who has almost never seen
her, thinks her _mad_!... No, papa dear, don't shish me down, because
cry I _must_! Let me have a good cry over it, and I shall be better. Sit
down by me, and don't let go--there!--here on the sofa, like that.... Oh
dear, I wish I was made of wood, like some people, and could say better
late than never!" This was the wind-up of a good deal more, and similar,
expression of feeling. For tears and speech come easily to a generous
impulsive nature like Gwen's, when strong sympathy and sorrow for others
bid them come, though its own affliction might have made it stupefied
and dumb.
Her father soothed and calmed her as he would a child; for was she not a
child to him--in the nursery only the other day? "I'm not made of wood,
darling, am I?" said he. And Gwen replied, refitting spars in calmer
water:--"No, dear, that you are not, but Lincoln's Inn Fields is.
Sitting there like an Egyptian God, with his hands on his knees!" She
repacked a stray flood of gold that had escaped from its restraints--the
most conspicuous record of the recent gale--and reassured her father
with a liberal kiss. Then she thawed towards the legal mind. "I'm sure
he's very good and kind and all that--Lincoln's Inn Fields, I mean,
is--because people _are_. Only it's at heart they are, and I want it to
come out like a rash." No doubt an interview with Dr. Dalrymple
yesterday was answerable for this, having reference to the Typhus Fever
patient. The eruption, he said, was subsiding favourably, and he was
hourly expecting a fall in the temperature. But he had made a stand
against her seeing the patient.
"If Hawtrey came out in a rash over all his clients' botherations," said
the Earl, "he would very soon be in a state of confluent smallpox. What
he's wanted for now is his brains. You'll see we shall have a letter
from him, clearing it all up...."
"And you know what he'll say, I suppose? That is, if he's as clever as
you think him!"
"I can't say that I feel absolutely certain. What do you suppose?"
Then Gwen gave a very fair conjectural review of the facts as this story
knows them; saying, whenever she felt the ground insecure beneath her
feet, that of course it was this way and not the other. A blessed
expression that, to reinforce one's convictions!
However, she was not far wrong on any point, if the letter her father
received next day from "Lincoln's Inn Fields" was right. It came by
messenger, just as the family were sitting down to lunch with two or
three friends, and his lordship said, "Will you excuse me?" without
waiting for an answer, though one of his guests was a Rajah. Then he
read the letter through, intently, while his Countess looked
thunderclouds at him. "'Fore God, they are both of a tale!" said he,
quoting. Then he sent it to Gwen by Norbury, who was embarrassed by her
ladyship the Countess saying stiffly:--"Surely afterwards would do." But
Gwen cut in with:--"No--I can't wait. Give it to me, Norbury!" And took
it and read it as intently as her father had done. Having finished, she
telegraphed to him, all the length of the table:--"Isn't that just what
I said?" And then things went on as before. Only the Earl and his
daughter had come off their _P_'s and _Q_'s, most lawlessly.
Here is the letter each had read, when off them:
"My dear Lord Ancester,
"I have thoroughly considered the letter, and return it herewith. I am
satisfied that it is a forgery by the hand of the convict Daverill, but
it is difficult to see what his object can have been, malice apart. It
is clear, however, that it was to influence his wife, to what end it is
impossible to say.
"The only theory I can have about the black ink is far-fetched. It is
that a letter from England of that date was erased to make way for the
forgery, these few black letters having been allowed to remain, not to
disturb the English postmark, which partly-obscures them. You may notice
some compromise or accommodation in the handwriting of the direction,
evidently to slur over the difference. I suggest that the letter should
be referred to some specialist in palimpsests, who may be able to detect
some of the underlying original, which is absolutely invisible to me.
"If you meet with any other letter written by this ingenious penman, I
suspect it will be in the pale ink of the forgery, which no doubt was as
black as the English ink, when new.
"Believe me, my lord, your very faithful and obedient servant,
"JAMES HAWTREY."
"There can't be another letter of the ingenious penman's in the lot we
left tied up, because he and his wife were living together, and not
writing each other letters." So said Gwen afterwards, deprecating a
suggestion of her father's that the packet should be opened and
examined. But he replied:--"It is only to look at the colour of the ink.
We won't read old Mrs. Prichard's love-letters." However, nothing was
found, all these letters having been written in England except the one
from Sydney inviting her to come out, which was referred to early in
this story. The Sydney ink had been different--that was all.
So all the letters were tied up again and placed _pro tem_. in the
cinquecento cabinet, to be quite safe. They had been just about to
vanish therein when the Earl made his suggestion. Nothing having come of
it, the documents were put away, honourably unread, and Gwen hurried off
to be given a lift to Cavendish Square by her mother. Her father exacted
a promise from her that she would not force her way past Dr. Dalrymple
into the patient's presence, come what might! She accompanied her mother
in the carriage as far as her own destination. The Countess was on a
card-leaving mission in Harley Street, and devoutly hoped that Lady
Blank would not be at home. In that case she might take advantage of her
liberty to go to a meeting at the Duchess of Sutherland's to abolish
this horrible negro slavery in America, so as not to be exceptional,
which was odious; and your father--Gwen's to wit--never would exert
himself about anything, and was simply wrapped up in old violins and
majolica. Of course it was right to put an end to slavery, and people
_ought_ to exert themselves. Her ladyship waited in the carriage at the
door till Gwen could supply an intensely authentic report--not what the
servants were told to say to everybody; that was no use--of the precise
condition of the patient, including the figures of the pulse and
temperature, and whether she had had a good night. Gwen came back with a
report from the nurse, to find Dr. Dalrymple conversing with her mother
at the carriage door, and to be exhorted by him to follow her maternal
example in matters of prudence. For the good lady had furnished herself
with a smelling-bottle and was inhaling it religiously, as a
prophylactic.
When she had departed, leaving Gwen wondering why on earth she was
seized with such a desire just now to abolish negro slavery, Gwen
returned into the house to await the doctor's last word about her
friend. Waiting for him in the sitting-room, she read the _Times_, and
naturally turned to the news from the Seat of War--it was then at its
height--and became engrossed in the details of the Balaklava charge, a
month since. The tragedy of the Crimea--every war is a tragedy--was at
this time the all-engrossing topic in London and Paris, and men hung
eagerly on every word that passed current as news. The reason it has so
little place in this story is obvious--none of the essential events
intersect. All our narrative has to tell relates to occurrences
predetermined by a past that was forgotten long before Sebastopol was
anticipated.
Gwen read the story of the great historical charge with a breathless
interest certainly, but only as part of the playbill of a terrible
drama, where the curtain was to fall on fireworks and a triumph for her
own nationality; and, of course, its ally--_ça se vit_. Dr. Dalrymple
reappeared, looking hopeful, with a good report, but too engrossed in
his ease to be moved even by the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the
state of the hospitals at Scutari. Where was Gwen going? To Sapps
Court--where was that? Oh yes, just beyond his own destination, so he
could give her a lift. And the carriage could take her on to hers and
wait for her, just as easily as go home and come back for him. He might
be detained a long time at the Hospital. Gwen accepted his offer
gratefully, as a private brougham and a coachman made a sort of convoy.
In those days young ladies were not so much at their ease without an
escort, as they have been of late years. According to some authorities,
the new régime is entirely due to the bicycle.
* * * * *
Sapps Court had not been itself since the exciting event of the
accident; at least, so said Aunt M'riar, referring to the disappearance
of Mrs. Prichard chiefly. For the identity of Sapps depended a good deal
on the identity of its inhabitants, and its interests penetrated very
little into the great world without. It was very little affected even by
the news of the War, favourable or the reverse: its patriotism was too
great for that. This must be taken to mean that its confidence in its
country's power of routing its foes was so deep-seated that an equally
firm belief that its armies were starving and stricken with epidemics,
and armed with guns that would not go off, and commanded by the lame,
halt, and blind in their second childhood, did not in the least
interfere with its stability. Whatever happened, the indomitable courage
of Tommy Atkins and Jack would triumph over foes, who, when all was said
and done, were only foreigners. Sapps Court's faith in Jack was so great
that his position was even above Tommy's. When Jack was reported to have
gone ashore at Balaklava to help Tommy to get his effete and useless
artillery to bear on the walls of Sebastopol, Sapps Court drew a long
breath of relief. Misgivings were germinating in its bosom as to whether
cholera patients _could_ take fortresses on an empty stomach. But it
would be all right now!
No doubt the Court's philosophical endurance of its share of the anxiety
about the War was partly due to the fact that it hadn't got no relations
there; or, at least, none to speak of. Michael Ragstroar's 'arf-sister's
brother-in-law had certainly took the shilling, but Michael's father had
expressed the opinion that this young man wouldn't do no good
soldiering, and would only be in the way. Which had led Michael to say
that this connection of his by marriage would ultimately get himself
cashiered by Court Martial, for 'inderin'. Much better have stuck to
chopping up live heels and makin' of 'em into pies at Ball's Pond, than
go seeking glory at the cannon's mouth! Michael had not reflected on the
comparative freedom of his own life, contrasted with the monotonous lot
of this ill-starred young man; if, indeed, we may safely accept Micky's
description of it as accurate. Sapps Court did so, and went on in the
belief that the Ball's Pond recruit would prove a _gêne_ upon the
movements of the allied troops in the Crimea.
The interest of the Court, therefore, in the contemporary events which
were thrilling the remainder of Europe, was ethical or strategical, and
one had to go outside its limits to be brought into touch with personal
connecting links. But they were to be met with near at hand, for Mrs.
Riley had ilivin relatives at the Sate of War, sivin of her own name,
thray Donnigans, and one O'Rourke, a swate boy, though indade only a
fosther-brother of her nayce Kathleen McDermott. Mrs. Tapping was unable
to enumerate any near relations serving Her Majesty, but laid claim to
consanguinity with distinguished officers, Generals of Division and
Captains of three-deckers, all of whom had an exalted opinion of her own
branch of the Family.
In the main, Sapps regarded the War as a mere Thing in the Newspapers,
of which Uncle Mo heard more accurate details, at The Sun. There is
nothing more unaccountable than the alacrity with which the human mind
receives any statement in print, unless it is its readiness to surrender
its belief on hearing a positive contradiction from a person who cannot
possibly know anything about the matter. One sometimes feels forced to
the conclusion that an absolute disqualification to speak on any subject
is a condition precedent of procuring belief. Certainly a claim to
inspiration enlists disciples quicker than the most subtle argument;
acts, so to speak, as an aperient to the mind--a sort of intellectual
Epsom Salts. Uncle Mo, in the simplicity of his heart, went every day
for an hour to The Sun parlour, taking with him a profound belief in the
latest news from the Seat of War, to have it shattered for him by the
positive statements of persons who had probably not read the papers at
all, and sometimes couldn't. For in those happy days there were still
people who were unable to read or write.
Perhaps the only other customer in the parlour at The Sun, when Uncle Mo
was smoking his pipe there, on the afternoon which saw the Countess
interest herself in negro slavery, _was_ able to read and write, unknown
to his friends, who had never seen him do either. They, however, knew,
or professed to feel assured, that old Billy--for that was his only
ascertainable name--knew everything. This may have been their vulgar
fun; but if it was, old Billy's own convictions of his omniscience were
not shaken by it, any more than a creed he professed, that small doses
of rum shrub, took reg'lar, kept off old age. In a certain sense he took
them regularly, counting the same number in every bar, with nearly the
same pauses between each dose. Whether they were really helping him
against Time and Decay or not, they were making him pink and dropsical,
and had not prevented, if they had not helped to produce, a baldness as
of an eggshell. This he would cover in, to counteract the draughty
character which he ascribed to all bar parlours alike, with a cloth cap
having ear-flaps, as soon as ever he had hung up a beaver hat which he
might have inherited from a coaching ancestor.
This afternoon he was eloquent on foreign policy. Closing one eye to
accentuate the shrewd vision of the other, and shaking his head
continuously to express the steadiness and persistency of his
convictions, he indicted Louis Napoleon as the _bête noire_ of European
politics. "Don't you let yourself be took in, Mr. Moses," he said, "by
any of these here noospapers. They're a bad lot. This here Nicholas,
he's a Rooshian--so him I say nothin' about. Nor yet these here
Turkeys--them and their Constant Eye No Pulls!"--this with great scorn.
"None of 'em no better, I lay, than Goard A'mighty see fit to make 'em,
so it ain't, so as you might say, their own fault, not in a manner of
speaking. But this Louis Sneapoleum, _he's_ your sly customer. He's as
bad as the whole lot, all boiled up together in a stoo! Don't you be
took in by him, Mr. Moses. Calls hisself a Coodytar! _I_ call him ..."
etcetera _de rigueur_, as some of old Billy's comparisons were
unsavoury.
"Can't foller you all the way down the lane, Willy-um," said Uncle Mo,
who could hardly be expected to identify Billy's variant of _Coup
d'Etat_. "Ain't he our ally?"
"That's the p'int, Mr. Moses, the very p'int to not lose sight on, or
where are we? He's got hisself made our ally for to get between him and
the Rooshians. What he's a-drivin' at is to get us to fight his battles
for him, and him to sit snug and accoomulate cucumbers like King
Solomons."
Uncle Moses felt he ought to interpose on this revision of the
Authorised Version of Scripture. "You haven't hit the word in the
middle, mate," said he, and supplied it, correctly enough. "You can keep
it in mind by thinking of them spiky beggars at the So-logical
Gardens--porky pines--them as get their backs up when wexed and
bristle."
"Well--corkupines, then! Have it your own way, old Mo! My back'd get up
and bristle, if I was some of them! Only when it's womankind, the likes
of us can't jedge, especially when French. All I can say is, him and
them's got to settle it between 'em, and if _they_ can stand his
blooming moostarsh, why, it's no affair of mine." Which was so obviously
true that old Billy need not have gone on muttering to himself to the
same effect. One would have thought that the Tuileries had applied to
him to accept an appointment as _Censor Morum_.
"What's old Billy grizzlin' on about?" said Mr. Jeffcoat, the host of
The Sun, bringing in another go of the shrub, and a modest small pewter
of mild for Uncle Mo, who was welcome at this hostelry even when, as
sometimes happened, he drank nothing; so powerful was his moral
influence on its status. In fact, the Sporting World, which drank
freely, frequented its parlour merely to touch the hand of the great
heavyweight of other days, however much he was faded and all his glories
past. Then would Uncle Mo give a sketch of his celebrated scrap with Bob
Brettle, which ended in neither coming to Time, simultaneously. Mo would
complain of an absurd newspaper report of the fight, which said the
Umpires stopped the fight. "No such a thing!" said Uncle Mo. "I stopped
Bob and he stopped me, fair and square. And there we was, come to grass,
and stopping there." Perhaps the old boy was dreaming back on something
of this sort, rather than listening to boozy old Billy's reflections on
Imperial Morality, that Mr. Jeffcoat should have repeated
again:--"What's old Billy grizzling about? You pay for both, Mr. Moses?
Fourpence halfpenny, thank you!"
"He's letting out at the Emperor of the French, is Billy. He'd do his
dags for him, Billy would, if he could get at him. Wouldn't you, Billy?
I say, Tim, whose voice was that I heard in the Bar just now, naming me
by name?"
"Ah, I was just on telling you. He walks in and he says to me, when does
Moses Wardle come in here, he says, and how long does he stop, mostly?
And I says to him ..."
"What sort of a feller to look at?" said Uncle Mo, interrupting. "Old or
young? Long? Short? Anything about him to go by?"
This called for consideration. "Not what you would call an average
party. His gills was too much slewed to one side." This was illustrated
by a finger hooking down the corner of the mouth. "Looked as if his best
clothes was being took care of for him."
"What did he want o' me?" Uncle Mo's interest seemed roused.
"I was telling of you. When did you come and how long did you stop? Best
part of an hour, I says, and you was here now. You'll find him in the
parlour, I says. Go in and see, I says. And I thought to find him in
here, having took my eyes off him for the moment."
"He's not been in here," said Uncle Mo, emptying his pipe prematurely,
and apparently hurrying off without taking his half of mild. "Which way
did he go?"
"Which way did the party go, Soozann?" said the host to his wife in the
bar. Who replied:--"Couldn't say. Said he'd be back in half an hour, and
went. Fancy he went to the right, but couldn't say."
"_He_ won't be back in half an hour," said Uncle Mo. "Not if he's the
man I take him for. You see, he's one of these here chaps that tells
lies. You've heard o' them; seen one, p'r'aps?" Mr. Jeffcoat testified
that he had, in his youth, and that rumours of their existence still
reached him at odd times. Those who listen about in the byways of London
will hear endless conversation on this model, always conducted with the
most solemn gravity, with a perfect understanding of its inversions and
perversions.
Uncle Mo hurried away, leaving instructions that his half-pint should be
bestowed on any person whose tastes lay in that direction. Mr. Jeffcoat
might meet with such a one. You never could tell. He hastened home as
fast as his enemy Gout permitted, and saw when he turned into the short
street at the end of which Sapps lay hidden, that something abnormal was
afoot. There stood Dr. Dalrymple's pill-box, wondering, no doubt, why it
had carried a segment of an upper circle to such a Court as this. If it
had been the Doctor himself, it would not have given a thought to the
matter, for it used to bear its owner to all sorts of places, from St.
James's Palace to Seven Dials.
CHAPTER XIII
HOW UNCLE MO WAS JUST TOO LATE. THE SHINY LADY. THE TURN THE MAN
HAD GIVEN AUNT M'RIAR, AND HER APOLOGIES. DOLLY'S INTENDED
HOSPITALITY TO MRS. PRICHARD ON HER RETURN. DOLLY'S DOLLY'S NEW
NAME. AN ARRANGEMENT, COMMITTING NEITHER PARTY. GUINEVERE,
LANCELOT, AND THE CAKE. MRS. PRICHARD INSANE?--THE IDEA! HOW GWEN
READ THE LETTER ALL BUT THE POSTSCRIPT. NOTHING FOR IT BUT TO TELL!
BUT HOW? FUN, TELLING THE CHILDREN. ANOTHER RECHRISTENING OF DOLLY.
GWEN'S LAST EXIT FROM MRS. PRICHARD'S APARTMENTS. JOAN OF ARC'S
SWORD'S SOUL. THE POSTSCRIPT. WIDOW THRALE'S DOG. WHAT THE CONVICT
HAD SAID. HOW LONG DOES BONA-FIDE OMNIPOTENCE TAKE OVER A JOB?
Gwen, leaving her convoy to wait for her in the antechamber of Sapps
Court, and approach No. 7 alone, heard as she knocked at the door an
altercation within; Aunt M'riar's voice and a strange one, with terror
in the former and threat in the latter. Had all sounded peaceful, she
might have held back, to allow the interview to terminate. But catching
the sound of fear in the woman's voice, and having none in her own
composition, she immediately delivered a double-knock of the most
unflinching sort, and followed it by pushing open the door.
She could hear Dave above, at the top window, recognising her as "The
Lady." As she entered, a man who was coming out flinched before her
meanly for a moment, then brushed past brutally. Aunt M'riar's face was
visible where she stood back near the staircase; it was white with
terror. She gasped out:--"Let him go; I'll come directly!" and ran
upstairs. Gwen heard her call to the children, more collectedly, to come
down, as the lady was there, and then apparently retreat into her room,
shutting the door. Thereon the children came rushing down, and before
she could get attention to her inquiry as to who that hideous man was,
Uncle Mo had pushed the door open. He had not asked that pill-box to
explain itself, but had gone straight on to No. 7. Dave met him on the
threshold, in a tempest of excitement, exclaiming: --"Oy say, Uncle
Mo!--the lady's here. The shoyny one. And oy say, Uncle Mo, the Man's
been." The last words were in a tone to themselves, quite unlike what
came before. It was as though Dave had said:--"The millennium has come,
but the crops are spoiled." He added:--"Oy saw the Man, out of the top
window, going away."
Uncle Mo let the millennium stand over. "Which man, old Peppermint
Drops?" said he, improvising a name to express an aroma he had detected
in his nephew, when he stooped to make sure he was getting his last
words right.
"Whoy, the Man," Dave continued, in an undertone that might have related
to the Man with the Iron Mask, "the Man me and Micky we sore in Hoyde
Park, and said he was a-going to rip Micky up, and Micky he said he
should call the Police-Orficers, and the gentleman said...."
"That'll do prime!" said Uncle Mo. For Dave's torrent of identification
was superfluous. "I would have laid a guinea I knew his game," added he
to himself. Then to Gwen, inside the house with Dolly on her
knee:--"You'll excuse me, miss, my lady, these young customers they do
insert theirselves--it's none so easy to find a way round 'em, as I say
to M'riar.... M'riar gone out?" For it was a surprise to find the
children alone entertaining company--and such company!
"There, Dolly, you hear?" said Gwen. "You're not to insert yourself
between me and your uncle. Suppose we sit quiet for five minutes!" Dolly
subsided. "How do you do, Mr. Wardle!... No, Aunt Maria isn't here, and
I'm afraid that man coming worried her. Dave's man.... Oh yes--I saw
him. He came out as I came in, three minutes ago. What _is_ the man?
Didn't I hear Dave telling how Micky said he should give him to the
Police? I wish Micky had, and the Police had found out who he's
murdered. Because he's murdered somebody, that man! I saw it in his
eyes."
"He's a bad character," said Mo. "If he don't get locked up, it won't be
any fault of mine. On'y that'll be after I've squared a little account I
have against him--private affair of my own. If you'll excuse me half a
minute, I'll go up and see what's got M'riar." But Uncle Mo was stopped
at the stair-foot by the reappearance of Aunt M'riar at the stair-top.
As they met halfway up, both paused, and Gwen heard what it was easy to
guess was Aunt M'riar's tale of "the Man's" visit, and Uncle Mo's
indignation. They must have conversed thus in earnest undertones for
full five minutes, before Aunt M'riar said audibly:--"Now we mustn't
keep the lady waiting no longer, Mo"; and both returned, making profuse
apologies. The interval of their absence had been successfully and
profitably filled in by an account of how Mrs. Picture had been taken to
see Jones's Bull, with a rough sketch of the Bull's demeanour in her
company.
Aunt M'riar made amends to the best of her abilities for her desertion.
Perhaps the young lady knew what she meant when she said she had been
giv' rather a turn? The young lady did indeed. Aunt M'riar hoped she had
not been alarmed by her exit. Nor by the person who had gone out?
No--Gwen's nerves had survived both, though certainly the person wasn't
a beauty. She went on to hope that the effects of the turn he had given
Aunt M'riar would not be permanent. These being pooh-poohed by both
Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar, became negligible and lapsed.
"The children came running down directly after you went, Aunt Maria,"
said Gwen. "So I can assure you I didn't lose my temper at being left
alone. I wasn't alone two minutes!" Then she gave, in reply to a general
inquiry after the fever patient, inaugurated by Dave with:--"Oy say,
how's Sister Nora?"--the very favourable report she had just received
from Dr. Dalrymple.
Then Mrs. Prichard was rushed into the conversation by a sudden
inexplicable statement of Dolly's. "When Mrs. Spicture comes back," said
she, "Granny Marrowbone is to pour out Mrs. Spicture's tea. And real
Cake. And stoast cut in sloyces wiv real butter."
"Don't get excited, Dolly dear," said Gwen, protesting against the
amount of leg-action that accompanied this ukase. "Tell us again! _Why_
is Granny Marrable to make tea? Granny Marrable's at her house in the
country. She's not coming here with Mrs. Spicture."
"There, now, Dolly!" said Aunt M'riar. "Why don't you tell clear, a bit
at a time, and get yourself understood? Granny Marrowbone's the new
name, my lady, she's christened her doll, Dolly. So she should be known
apart, Dolly being, as you might say, Dolly herself. Because her uncle
he pointed out to her, 'Dolly,' he said, 'you're in for thinkin' out
some new name for this here baby of yours, to say which is which. Or 'us
you'll get that mixed up, nobody'll know!'"
"I put my oar in," said Uncle Mo, "for to avoid what they call
coarmplications nowadays." He never lost an opportunity of hinting at
the fallings off of the Age. "So she and Dave they turns to and thinks
one out. I should have felt more like Sally or Sooky or Martilda myself.
Or Queen Wictoria." The last was a gracious concession to Her Majesty;
who, in the eyes of Uncle Mo, had recently come to the throne.
"No!" said Dolly firmly. "Gwanny Mawwowbone!" This was very articulately
delivered, the previous, or slipshod, pronunciation having been more
nearly Granny Mallowbone.
"Certainly!" said Gwen, assenting. "Dolly's dolly Dolly shall be Granny
Marrowbone. Only it makes Dolly out rather old."
Dolly seemed to take exception to this. "I _was_ four on my birfday,"
said she. "I shan't be five not till my _next_ birfday, such a long,
long, long, long time."
"And you'll stop four till you're five," said Gwen. "Won't you, Dolly
dear? What very blue eyes the little person has!" They were fixed on the
speaker with all the solemnity the contemplation of a geological period
of Time inspires. The little person nodded gravely--about the Time, not
about her eyes--and said:--"Ass!"
Dave thrust himself forward as an interpreter of Dolly's secret wishes,
saying, to the astonishment of his aunt and uncle:--"Dorly wants to take
_her_ upstairs to show _her_ where the tea's to be set out when Mrs.
Spicture comes back."
Remonstrance was absolutely necessary, but what form could it take? Aunt
M'riar was forced back on her usual resource, her lack of previous
experience of a similar enormity:--"Well, I'm sure, a big boy like you
to call a lady _her_! I never did, in all my born days!" Uncle Mo meanly
threw the responsibility of the terms of an absolutely necessary
amendment on the culprit himself, saying:--"You're a nice young monkey!
Where's your manners? Is that what they larn you to say at school?
What's a lady's name when you speak to her?" He had no one but himself
to thank for the consequences. Dave, who, jointly with Dolly, was just
then on the most intimate footing with the young lady, responded
point-blank:--"Well--_Gwen_, then! _She_ said so. Sister Gwen."
Her young ladyship's laugh rang out with such musical cordiality that
the two horror-stricken faces relaxed, and Uncle Mo's got so far as the
beginning of a smile. "It's all quite right," said Gwen. "I told Dave I
was Gwen just this minute when you were upstairs. He's made it
'sister'--so we shan't be compromised, either of us." Whereupon Dave,
quite in the dark, assented from sheer courtesy.
Aunt M'riar seemed to think it a reasonable arrangement, and Uncle Mo,
with a twinkle in his eye, said:--"It's better than hollerin' out 'she'
and 'her,' like a porter at a railway-station."
But her ladyship had not come solely to have a symposium with Dave and
Dolly. So she suggested that both should go upstairs and rehearse the
slaughter of the fatted calf; that is to say, distribute the apparatus
of the banquet that was to welcome Mrs. Picture back. Dave demurred at
first, on the score of his maturity, but gave way when an appeal was
made to some equivalent of patriotism whose existence was taken for
granted; and consented, as it were, to act on the Committee.
"Now, don't you come running down to say it's ready, not till I give
leave," said Aunt M'riar, having misgivings that the apparatus might not
be sufficiently--suppose we affect a knowledge of Horace, and say
"Persian"--to keep the Committee employed.
"They'll be quiet enough for a bit," said Uncle Mo. Who showed insight
by adding:--"They won't agree about where the things are to be put, nor
what's to be the cake." For a proxy had to be found, to represent the
cake. Even so Lancelot stood at the altar with Guinevere, as Arthur's
understudy for the part of bridegroom.
"Do please now all sit down and be comfortable," said Gwen, as soon as
tranquillity reigned. "Because I want to talk a great deal....
Yes--about Mrs. Prichard. I really should be comfortabler if you sat
down.... Well--Mr. Wardle can sit on the table if he likes." So that
compromise was made, and Gwen got to business. "I really hardly know how
to begin telling you," she said. "What has happened is so very _odd_....
Oh no--I have seen to _that_. The woman she is with will take every care
of her.... You know--Widow Thrale, Dave's Granny's daughter, who had
charge of Dave--Strides Cottage, of course! I'm sure she'll be all right
as far as that goes. But the whole thing is so _odd_.... Stop a
minute!--perhaps the best way would be for me to read you Mrs. Thrale's
letter that she has written me. She must be very nice." This throwing of
the burden of disclosure on her correspondent seemed to Gwen to be on
the line of least resistance. She was feeling bewildered already as to
how on earth the two old sisters could be revealed to one another, and
her mind was casting about for any and every guidance from any quarter
that could lead her to the revelation naturally. There _was_ no quarter
but Sapps Court. So try it, at least!
She read straight on without interruption, except for expressions of
approval or concurrence from her hearers when they heard the writer's
declaration of how _impressionnée_ she had been by the old lady, until
she came to the first reference to the gist of the letter, her mental
soundness. Then both broke into protest. "Delusions!" they exclaimed at
once. Old Mrs. Prichard subject to delusions? Not she! Never was a saner
woman, of her years, than old Mrs. Prichard!
"I only wish," said Uncle Mo, "that I may never be no madder than Goody
Prichard. Why, it's enough to convince you she's in her senses only to
hear her say good-arternoon!" This meant that Uncle Mo's visits upstairs
had always been late in the day, and that her greeting to him would have
impressed him with her sanity, had it ever been called in question.
"On'y fancy!" said Aunt M'riar indignantly. "To say Mrs. Prichard's
deluded, and her living upstairs with Mrs. Burr this three years past,
and Skillicks for more than that, afore ever she come here!" This only
wanted the addition that Mrs. Burr had seen no sign of insanity in all
these years, to be logical and intelligible.
Gwen found no fault, because she saw what was meant. But there was need
for a caution. "You won't say anything of this till I tell you," said
she. "Not even to Mrs. Burr. It would only make her uncomfortable." For
why should all the old lady's belongings be put on the alert to discover
flaws in her understanding? Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar gave the pledge
asked for, and Gwen went on reading. They just recognised the water-mill
as an acquaintance of last year--not as a subject of frequent
conversation with Dave. Aunt M'riar seemed greatly impressed with the
old lady's excursion out of bed to get at the mill-model, especially at
its having occurred before six in the morning. Also by the dog.
Uncle Mo was more practically observant. When the reading came to the
two mills in Essex, he turned to Aunt M'riar, saying:--"She said summat
about Essex--you told me." Aunt M'riar said:--"Well, now, I couldn't
say!" in the true manner of a disappointing witness. But when, some
sentences later, the reference came to the two little girl twins, Uncle
Mo suddenly broke in with:--"Hullo!... Never mind!--go on"; as
apologizing for his interruption. Later still, unable to constrain
himself any longer:--"Didn't--you--tell--me, M'riar, that Mrs. P. she
told you her father lived at Darenth in Essex?"
"No, Mo, that's not the name. _Durrant_ was the name she said." Aunt
M'riar was straining at a gnat. However, solemn bigwigs have done that
before now.
"Nigh enough for most folks," said Uncle Mo. "Just you think a bit and
see what she said her father's name was."
"She never said his name, Mo. She never said a single name to me, not
that I can call to mind, not except it was Durrant."
"Very well, then, M'riar! Now I come to my point.
Didn't--you--tell--me--a'most the very first time you did
anything--didn't you tell me Mrs. P. she said she was a _twin_. And Dave
he made enquiries."
"She _was_ a twin."
"I'm stumped," said Uncle Mo. "I was always groggy over the guessing of
co-nundrums. Now, miss--my lady--what does your ladyship make of it?"
"Let me read to the end," said Gwen. "It's not very long now. Then I'll
tell you." She read on and finished the letter, all but the postscript.
She was saying to herself:--"If I stick so over telling these good
people now, what will it be when the crisis comes?" It would be good
practice, anyhow, to drive it home to Aunt M'riar. When she had quite
finished what she meant to read, she went straight on, as she had
promised, ignoring obstacles:--"The explanation is that Mrs. Marrable
and Mrs. Prichard are twin sisters, who parted fifty years ago. About
five years later Mrs. Prichard was deceived by a forged letter, telling
her that her sister was drowned. My father and I found it among her
papers, and read it. This Mrs. Thrale who writes to me is her own
daughter, whom she left in England nearly fifty years since--a baby!...
And now she thinks her mother mad--her own mother!... Oh dear!--how will
they ever know? Who will tell them?"
A low whistle and a gasp respectively were all that Uncle Mo and Aunt
M'riar were good for. A reissue of the gasp might have become "Merciful
Gracious!" or some equivalent, if Uncle Mo had not nipped it in the bud,
thereby to provide a fulcrum for his own speech. "'Arf a minute, M'riar!
Your turn next. I want to be clear, miss--my lady--that I've got the
record ack-rate. These here two ladies have been twins all their lives,
unbeknown...." Uncle Mo was so bewildered that this amount of confusion
was excusable.
Gwen took his meaning, instead of criticizing his form. "Not _all_ their
lives," she said. "Fifty years ago they were thirty, and it's all
happened since then." She went over the ground again, not letting her
hearers off even the most incredible of the facts. She was surprised and
relieved to find that they seemed able to receive them, only noticing
that they appeared to lean on her superior judgment. They were
dumfoundered, of course; but they _could_ believe, with such a helper
for their unbelief. Were not the deep-rooted faiths of maturity, once,
the child's readiness to believe its parents infallible, and would not
any other indoctrination have held as firmly? Even so the rather
childish minds of Dave's guardians made no question of the credibility
of the tale, coming as it did from such an informant--one without a
shadow of interest in the fabrication of it.
Aunt M'riar made no attempt at anything beyond mere exclamation; until,
after the second detailed review of the facts, Gwen was taken aback by
her saying suddenly:--"Won't it be a'most cruel, when you come to think
of it?..."
"Won't what be cruel, Aunt M'riar?"
"For to tell 'em. Two such very elderly parties, and all the time gone
by! _I_ say, let the rest go! I should think twice about it. But it
ain't for me to say." She seemed to have a sudden inspiration towards
decision of opinion, a thing rare with her. It was due, no doubt, to her
own recent experience of an unwelcome resurrection from the Past.
"'Tain't any consarn of ours to choose, M'riar. Just you go over to
their side o' the hedge for a minute. Suppose you was Goody Prichard,
and Goody Prichard was you!"
"Well! Suppose!"
"Which would you like? Her to bottle up, or tell?" Aunt M'riar wavered.
A momentary hope of Gwen's, that perhaps Aunt M'riar's way out of the
difficulty might hold good, died at its birth, killed by Uncle Mo's
question.
Which _would_ Gwen have liked, herself, in Mrs. Prichard's place? Aunt
M'riar was evidently looking to her for an answer.
"I'm afraid there's no help for it, Aunt Maria," said she. "She _must_
be told. But don't be afraid I shall leave the telling to you. I shall
go back and tell her myself in a day or two."
"Will she come back here?" This question raised a new doubt. Would
either of the two old twins care to leave the other, after that
formidable disclosure had been achieved? It was looking too far ahead.
Gwen felt that the evil of the hour was sufficient for the day, or
indeed the next three weeks for that matter, and evaded the question
with an answer to that effect.
Then, as no more was to be gained by talking, seeing that she could not
give all her proofs in detail, she suggested that she should go up to
Mrs. Prichard's room to say good-bye to Dave and Dolly. Promises could
not be ignored between honourable people. Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar
quite concurred. "But," said they, almost in the same breath, "are the
children to know?"
Gwen had not considered the point. "No--yes--_no!_" she said, and then
revoked. "Really, though, I don't know, after all, why they shouldn't!
What harm _can_ it do?"
What harm indeed? Mo and M'riar looked the question at each other, and
neither looked a negative reply. Very good, then! Dave and Dolly were to
know, but who was to tell?
Gwen considered again. Then it flashed across her mind that the
disclosure of the relationship of his two Grannies could have no
distressing effect on Dave. Time and Change and Death are only names, to
a chick not eight years old, and nothing need be told of the means by
which the sisters' lives had been cut apart. As for Dolly, she would
either weep or laugh at a piece of news, according to the suggestions of
her informant. Passionless narrative would leave her unaffected either
way. Told as good news, this would be accepted as good, and it would be
a pleasure to tell it to those babies.
"I'll tell them myself," said she. "Don't you come up. Is Mrs. Burr
there?" No--Mrs. Burr was at Mrs. Ragstroar's, attending to a little job
for her. Gwen vanished up the stairs, and her welcome was audible below.
She did not mince matters, and the two young folks were soon crowing
with delight at her statement, made with equanimity, that she knew that
Granny Marrowbone was really old Mrs. Picture's sister. She saw no
reason for making the announcement thrilling. It was enough to say that
each of them had been told wicked lies about the other, and been
deceived by bad people, such as there was every reason to hope were not
to be found in Sapps Court, or the neighbourhood. "And each of them,"
she added, "thought the other was dead and buried, a long time ago!"
Inexplicably, she felt it easier to say dead and buried, than merely
dead.
Dolly, having been recently in collision with Time, saw her way to
profitable comparison. "A long, long, long time, like my birfday!" she
said, suggestively but unstructurally.
"Heaps longer," said Gwen. "Heaps and heaps!" Dolly was impressed,
almost cowed. She could not be even with these aeons and eras and epochs,
at her time of life.
Dave burst into a shout of unrestrained glee at the discovery that his
London and country Grannies were sisters. "Oy shall wroyte to say me and
Dolly are glad. Ever such long letters to bofe." A moment later his
face had clouded over. "Oy say!" said he, "will they be glad or sorry?"
"Glad," said Gwen venturesomely. "Why should they be sorry? You must
write them very, very long letters." The mine would be sprung, she
thought, before even a short letter was finished. But it was as well to
be on the safe side.
Dave was feeling the germination in his mind of hitherto unexperienced
thoughts about Death and Time, and he remained speechless. He shook his
head with closed lips and puzzled blue eyes fixed on his questioner. She
saw a little way into his mind as he looked up at her, and pinched his
cheek slightly, for sympathy, with the hand that was round his neck, but
said nothing. Children are so funny!
"I fink," said Dolly, "old Mrs. Spicture shall bring old Granny
Marrowbone back wiv her when she comes back and sets in her harm-chair
wiv scushions, and Mrs. Burr cuts the reel cake, wiv splums, in sloyces,
in big sloyces and little sloyces, and Mrs. Burr pawses milluck in my
little jug, and Mrs. Burr pawses tea in my little pot--ass, hot
tea!--and ven Doyvy shall cally round the scups and sources, but me to
paw it out"--this clause was merely to assert the supremacy of Woman in
household matters--"and ven all ve persons to help veirself to shoogy
..." etc., etc. Which might have run on musically for ever, but that a
difficulty arose about the names of the guests and their entertainer. It
was most unfortunate that the latter should have been rechristened
lately after one of the former. Her owner interpreted her to express
readiness to accept another name, and that of Gweng was selected, as a
compliment to the visitor.
Then it really became time for that young lady to depart. Think of that
doctor's pill-box waiting all this while round the corner! So she ended
what she did not suspect was her last look at old Mrs. Picture's
apartment, with the fire's last spasmodic flicker helping the gas-lamp
below in the Court to show Dolly, unable to tear herself away from the
glorious array of preparation on the floor. There it stood, just under
the empty chair with cushions, still waiting--waiting for its occupant
to come again; and meanwhile a Godsend to the cat, who resumed her place
the moment the intruder rose from it, with an implication that her
forbearance had been great indeed to endure exclusion for so long. There
was no more misgiving on the face of that little maid, putting the
fiftieth touch on the perfection of her tea-cup arrangements, that her
ideal entertainment would never compass realisation, than there was on
the faces of the Royal Pair in their robes and decorations, gazing
firmly across at Joan of Arc and St. George, in plaster, but done over
bronze so you couldn't tell; precious possessions of Mrs. Burr, who was
always inquiring what it would cost to repair Joan's sword--which had
disintegrated and laid bare the wire in its soul--and never getting an
estimate. Nor on the face of Mrs. Burr herself, coming upstairs from her
job out at Mrs. Ragstroar's, and beaming--prosaically, but still
beaming--on the young lady that had come to see her at the Hospital.
* * * * *
"Oh, I remember, by-the-by," said that young lady, three minutes later,
having really said adieu all round to the family; including Dolly, who
had suddenly awakened to the position, and overtaken her at the foot of
the stairs. "I remember there _was_ something else I wanted to ask you,
Aunt Maria. Did Mrs. Prichard ever talk to you about her son?"
Was it wonderful that Aunt M'riar should start and flinch from speech,
and that Uncle Mo should look preoccupied about everything outside the
conversation? Can you imagine the sort of feeling an intensely truthful
person like Aunt M'riar would have under such circumstances? How could
she, without feeling like duplicity itself, talk about this son as
though he were unknown to her, when his foul presence still hung about
the room he had quitted less than an hour since? That fact, and that she
had seen him, then and there, face to face with her beautiful
questioner, weighed heavier on her at that moment than her own terrible
relation to him, a discarded wife oppressed by an uncancelled marriage.
She had got to answer that question. "Mrs. Prichard _has_ a son," she
said. "But _he's_ no good." This came with a jerk--perhaps with a weak
hope that it might eject him from the conversation.
"She hasn't set eyes on him, didn't she say, for years past?" said old
Mo, seeing that M'riar wanted help. Also with a hope of eliminating the
convict. "Didn't even know whether he was living or dead, did she?"
The reply, after consideration, was:--"No-o! She said that."
And then Gwen looked from one to the other. "Oh-h!" said she. "Then
probably the man _was_ her son.... Look here! I must read you the
postscript I left out." She reopened Mrs. Thrale's letter, and read that
the writer's mother had been much upset by a man who laid claim to being
Mrs. Prichard's son. As her eyes were on the letter, she did not see the
glance of reciprocal intelligence that passed between her two listeners.
But she looked up after the last word of the postscript in time to see
the effect of the dog at Strides Cottage. Even as her father had been
influenced, so was Uncle Mo. He appeared to breathe freer for that dog.
It struck Gwen that Aunt M'riar seemed a little unenquiring and
uncommunicative about this son of Mrs. Prichard's, considering all the
circumstances.
When Gwen had departed, Aunt M'riar, seeing perhaps interrogation in
Mo's eyes, stopped it by saying:--"Don't you ask me no more questions,
not till these children are clear off to bed. I'll tell after supper."
And then, just that moment, Mr. Alibone looked in, and was greatly
impressed by Dave and Dolly's dramatic account of their visitor. "I've
seen her, don't you know?" he said. "When you was put about to get that
lock open t'other day. She's one among a million. If I was a blooming
young Marquish, I should just knock at her door till she had me moved
on. That's what, Mo. So might you, old man." To which Uncle Mo
replied:--"They've stood us over too long, Jerry. If they don't look
alive, they won't get a chance to make either of us a Marquish. I expect
they're just marking time." Which Dave listened to with silent,
large-eyed gravity. Some time after he expressed curiosity about the
prospects of these Marquisates, and made inquiry touching the relation
"marking time" had to them. Uncle Mo responded that it wouldn't be so
very long now, and described the ceremonies that would accompany
it--something like Lord Mayor's Show, with a flavour of Guy Fawkes Day.
However, Dave and Dolly went to bed this evening without even that
inaccurate enlightenment. And presently Mr. Alibone, detecting his
friend's meaning when he said he was deadly sleepy somehow to-night,
took his leave and went away to finish his last pipe at The Sun.
And then Mo and M'riar were left to resume the day, and make out its
meaning. "How long had the feller been here?" he asked, in order to
begin somewhere.
Aunt M'riar took the question too much to heart, and embarked on an
intensely accurate answer. "I couldn't say not to a minute," she said.
"But if you was to put it at ten minutes, I'd have felt it safer at
seven. The nearer seven the better, _I_ should say."
"Anyhow--not a twelvemonth!" said Mo. "And there he was skearing you out
of your wits, when the lady came in and di-verted of him off. Where was
the two young scaramouches all the while?"
"Them I'd sent upstairs when I see who it was outside. Dave he never see
him, not to look at!"
"He see him out of the top window, and knew him again. What had the
beggar got to say for hisself?" This was the gist of the matter, and
Uncle Mo settled down to hear it.
"He'd been to look after his mother in the country, at the place I told
him--and the more fool me for telling--and he thought he spotted her,
but it was some other old woman, and while he was talking to her, there
to be sure and if he didn't see a police-officer after him!"
"What did he do on that?"
"Oh, he run for it, and was all but took. But he got away to the
railway, and the officer followed him. And when he saw him coming up, he
jumped in the wrong train, that was just starting, and got carried to
Manchester. And he got back to London by the night train."
"And then he come on here, and found I was in the parlour--round at Joe
Jeffcoat's. He thought he see his way to another half-a-sovereign out of
you, M'riar, and that's what he come for. He thought I was safe for just
the du-ration of a pipe or two."
"What brought you back, Mo?"
"Well, ye see, I heard his ugly voice out in the front bar, askin' for
me. And I only thought he was a sporting c'rackter come to see what the
old scrapper looked like in his old age. Then I couldn't think for a
minute or two because of old Billy's clapper going, but when I did, his
face came back to me atop of his voice. More by token when he never
showed up! Ye see?" Aunt M'riar nodded an exact understanding of what
had happened. "And then I take it he come sneaking down here to see for
some cash, if he could get it. He'll come again, old girl, he'll come
again! And Simeon Rowe shall put on a man in plain clothes, to watch for
him when I'm away."
"Oh, Mo, don'tee say that! It was only his make-believe to frighten me.
Anyone could tell that only to see him flourishin' out his knife."
"Hay--what's that?--his knife? You never told me o' that."
"Why, Mo, don't ye see, I only took it for bounce."
"What was it about his knife?"
"Just this, Mo dear! Now, don't you be excited. He says to me
again:--'What are you good for, Polly Daverill?' And then I see he was
handling a big knife with a buckhorn handle." M'riar was tremulous and
tearful. "Oh, Mo!" she said. "Do consider! He wasn't that earnest, to be
took at a chance word. He ain't so bad as you think of him. He was only
showin' off like, to get the most he could."
"That's a queer way of showin' off--with a knife! P'r'aps it warn't
open, though?" But it _was_, by M'riar's silence. "Anyways," Mo
continued, "he won't come back so long as he thinks I'm here. To-morrow
morning first thing I shall just drop round to the Station, and tip 'em
a wink. Can't have this sort o' thing goin' on!"
M'riar's lighting of a candle seemed to hang fire. Said she:--"You'd
think it a queer thing to say, if I was to say it, Mo!" And then, in
reply to the natural question:--"Think what?" she continued:--"A woman's
husband ain't like any other man. She's never quite done with him, as if
he was nobody. It don't make any odds how bad he's been, nor yet how
long ago it was.... It makes one creep to think...." She stopped
abruptly, and shuddered.
"What he'll catch if he gets his deserts." Mo supplied an end for the
sentence, gravely.
"Ah!--he might be.... What _would_ it be, Mo, if he was tried and found
guilty?"
"Without a recommendation to mercy? It was a capital offence. I never
told it ye. Shall I tell it?"
"No--for God's sake!" Aunt M'riar stopped her ears tight as she had done
before. "Don't you tell me nothing, Mo, more than I know already. That's
plenty." Uncle Mo nodded, pointed to tightly closed lips to express
assent, and she resumed speech with hearing. "Capital offence means ...
means?..."
"Means he would go to the scragging-post, arter breakfast one morning.
There's no steering out o' _that_ fix, M'riar. He's just got to, one
day, and there's an end of it!"
"And how ever could I be off knowing it at the time? Oh, but it makes me
sick to think of! The night before--the night before, Mo! Supposin' I
wake in the night, and think of him, and hear the clocks strike! He'll
hear them too, Mo."
"Can't be off it, M'riar! But what of that? _He_ won't be a penny the
worse, and he'll know what o'clock it is." Remember that Uncle Mo had
some particulars of Daverill's career that Aunt M'riar had not. For all
she knew, the criminal's capital offence might have been an innocent
murder--a miscarriage in the redistribution of some property--a too
zealous garrotting of some fat old stockjobber. "I'm thinkin' a bit of
the other party, M'riar," said Mo. He might have said more, but he was
brought up short by his pledge to say nothing of the convict's last
atrocity. How could he speak the thought in his mind, of the mother of
the victim in a madhouse? For that had made part of the tale, as it had
reached him through the police-sergeant. So he ended his speech by
saying:--"What I do lies at my own door, M'riar. You're out of it. So I
shan't say another word of what I will do or won't do. Only I tell you
this, that if I could get a quiet half an hour with the gentleman, I'd
... _What_ would I do?... Well!--I'd save him from the gallows--I
_would_! Ah!--and old as I am, I'd let him keep a hold on his knife....
There--there, old lass! I do wrong to frighten ye, givin' way to bad
temper. Easy does it!"
For a double terror of the woman's position was bred of that mysterious,
inextinguishable love that never turns to hate, however hateful its
object may become; and her dread that if this good, unwieldy giant--that
was what Mo seemed--crossed his path, that jack-knife might add another
to her husband's many crimes. This dread and counter-dread had sent all
Aunt M'riar's blood to her heart, and she might have fallen, but that
Mo's strong hand caught her in time, and landed her in a chair. "I was
wrong--I was wrong!" said he gently. All the fires had died down before
the pallor of her face, and his only thought was how could _she_ be
spared if the destroyer of her life was brought to justice.
They said no more; what more was there to be said? Aunt M'riar came
round, refusing restoratives. Oh no, she would be all right! It was only
a turn she got--that common event! They adjourned, respectively, to
where Dolly and Dave were sleeping balmily, profoundly.
But Uncle Mo was discontented with the handiwork of Creation. Why should
a cruel, two-edged torture be invented for, and inflicted on, an
inoffensive person like M'riar? There didn't seem any sense in it. "If
only," said he to his inner soul, "they'd a-let _me_ be God A'mighty for
five minutes at the first go-off, I'd a-seen to it no such a thing
shouldn't happen." Less than five minutes would have been necessary, if
a full and unreserved concession of omnipotence had been made.
* * * * *
Dave was a man of his word, though a very young one. He seized the
earliest opportunity to indite two letters of congratulation to his
honorary grandmothers, including Dolly in his rejoicing at the discovery
of their relationship. He wrote as though such discoveries were an
everyday occurrence.
His mistakes in spelling were few, the principal one arising from an old
habit of thought connecting the words sister and cistern, which had
survived Aunt M'riar's frequent attempts at correction. When he
exhibited his Identical Notes to the Powers for their sanction and
approval, this was pointed out to him, and an allegation that he was
acting up to previous instructions disallowed _nem. con._ He endeavoured
to lay to heart that for the future _cistern_ was to be spelt _sister_,
except out on the leads. A holographic adjustment of the _c_, and
erasure of the _n_, was scarcely a great success, but the Powers
supposed it would do. Uncle Mo opposed Aunt M'riar's suggestion that the
two letters should go in one cover to Strides Cottage, for economy, as
mean-spirited and parsimonious, although he had quite understood that
the two Grannies were under one roof; otherwise Dave would have directed
to Mrs. Picture at the Towers. So to Strides Cottage they went, some
three days later.
CHAPTER XIV
HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER DAUGHTER WENT BACK TO THE TOWERS, AND GWEN
READ HER LETTERS IN THE TRAIN. THE TORPEYS, THE RECTOR, AND THE
BISHOP. HOW THE COUNTESS SHUT HER EYES, AND GWEN HARANGUED. WHO WAS
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS? THE UP-EXPRESS, AND ITS VIRUS. HOW GWEN
RESOLVED TO RUSH THE POSITION. AT STRIDES COTTAGE. HOW GWEN BECAME
MORE AND MORE ALIVE TO HER DIFFICULTIES. HOW SHE WENT TO SEE DR.
NASH. HIS INCREDULITY. AND HIS CONVERSION. HOW HE WOULD SEE GRANNY
MARRABLE, BY ALL MEANS. BUT! HOWEVER, BY GOOD LUCK, MUGGERIDGE HAD
FORGOTTEN HIS MARRIAGE VOWS, HALF A CENTURY AGO AND MORE
It was written in the Book of Fate, and printed in the _Morning Post_,
that the Countess of Ancester was leaving for Rocestershire, and would
remain over Christmas. After which she would probably pay a visit to her
daughter, Lady Philippa Brandon, at Vienna. The Earl would join her at
the Towers after a short stay at Bath, according to his lordship's
annual custom. The _Post_ did not commit itself as to his lordship's
future movements, because Fate had not allowed the Editor to look in her
Book.
And the Countess herself seemed to know no more than the _Post_. For
when her daughter, in the railway-carriage on the way to the Towers,
looked up from a letter she was reading over and over again, to say:--"I
suppose it's no use trying to persuade papa to come to Vienna, after
all?" her mother's answer was:--"You can try, my dear. _You_ may have
some influence with him. _I_ have none. I suppose when we're gone,
he'll just get wrapped up in his fiddles and books and old gim-cracks,
as he always does the minute my eyes are off him." Gwen made no comment
upon inconsistencies, becoming reabsorbed in her letter. But surely a
Countess whose eyes prevent an Earl getting wrapped up in fiddles is not
absolutely without influence over him.
Gwen's absorbing letter was from Irene, incorporating dictation from
Adrian. The writer had found the accepted Official form:--"I am to say,"
convenient in practice. Thus, for instance, "I am to say that he is not
counting the hours till your return, as it seems to him that the total,
when reached, will be of no use to him or anyone else. He prefers to
accept our estimate of the interval as authentic, and to deduct each
hour as it passes. He is at eighty-six now, and expects to be at
sixty-two at this time to-morrow, assuming that he can trust the clock
while he's asleep." Gwen inferred that the amanuensis had protested, to
go on to a more interesting point, as the letter continued:--"Adrian and
I have been talking over what do you think, Gwen dear? Try and guess
before you turn over this page I'm just at the end of...." Dots ended
the page, and the next began:--"Give it up? Well--only, if I tell you,
you must throw this letter in the fire when you have read it--I'm more
than half convinced that there was once a _tendresse_, to put it mildly,
between our respective papa and mamma--that is, our respective papa and
your respective mamma--not the other way, that's ridiculous! And Adrian
is coming to my way of thinking, after what happened yesterday. It was
at dessert, and papa was quite loquacious, for him--in his best form,
saying:--'Niggers, niggers, niggers! What does that blessed Duchess of
Sutherland want to liberate niggers for? Much better wollop 'em!' The
Duchess was, he said, an hysterical female. Mamma was unmoved and
superior. Perhaps papa would call Lady Ancester hysterical, too. _She_
was at Stafford House, and was _most enthusiastic_. She had promised to
drive over as soon as she came back, to talk about Negro slavery, and
see if something could not be done in the neighbourhood. Mamma hoped she
would interest the Torpeys and the Rector and the Bishop. Only the point
was that the moment _our_ mamma mentioned _yours_, papa shut up with a
snap, and never said another word. It struck me exactly as it struck
Adrian. And when we came to talk it over we agreed that, if it were, it
would account for our having been such strangers till last year."
Gwen was roused from weighing the possibilities of the truth of this
surmise by the voice of one of its subjects. "How very engrossing our
letters seem to be this morning!" said the Countess, with a certain air
of courteous toleration, as of seniority on Olympus. "But perhaps I have
no right to inquire." This with _empressement_.
"Don't be so civil, mamma dear, please!" said Gwen. "I do hate
civility.... No, there's nothing of interest. Yes--there is. Lady
Torrens says she hopes you won't forget your promise to come and talk
about abolishing negroes. I didn't know you were going to."
The Countess skipped details. "Let me see the letter," said she,
forsaking her detached superiority. She began to polish a double
eyeglass prematurely.
"Can't show the letter," said Gwen equably, as one secure in her rights.
"That's all--what I've told you! Says you promised to drive over and
talk, and she hoped to interest you--oh no!--it's not you, it's the
Torpeys are to be interested."
"Oh--the Torpeys," said the Countess freezingly. Because it was
humiliating to have to put away those double eyeglasses. "Perhaps if
there is anything else of interest you will tell me. Do not trouble to
read the whole."
"But _did_ you promise to drive over to Pensham? Because, if you did, we
may just as well go together. With all those men at the Towers, I shall
have to bespeak Tom Kettering and the mare."
"I think something _was_ said about my going over. But I certainly made
no promise." Her ladyship reflected a moment, and then said:--"I think
we had better be free lances. I am most uncertain. It's a long drive. If
I do go, I shall lunch at the Parysforts, which is more than half-way,
and go on in the afternoon to your aunt at Poynders. Then I need not
come back till the day after. I could call at Pensham by the way."
"I won't go to old Goody Parysforts--so that settles the matter! When
shall I tell Adrian's mamma you are coming?"
"Are you going there at once?"
"Yes--to-morrow. I must see Adrian to talk to him about my old ladies,
before I talk to either of them." Thereupon the Countess became
prodigiously interested in the story of the twins, a subject about which
she had been languid hitherto, and her daughter was not sorry, because
she did not want to be asked again what Irene had said, which might have
involved her in reading that young lady's text aloud, with extemporised
emendations, possibly complex. She put that letter away, to re-read
another time, and took out another one. "I've had _this_," she said,
"from old Mrs. Prichard. But there's nothing in it!"
"Nothing in it?"
"Nothing about what Widow Thrale told us in hers. Nothing about Mrs.
Thrale thinking she had gone dotty."
The Countess, with a passing rebuke of her daughter's phraseology, asked
to be reminded of the story. Gwen, embarking on a _résumé_, was
interrupted by a tunnel, and then had hardly begun again when the train
rushed into a second section of it, which had slipped or been blown
further along the line. However, Peace ensued, in a land where, to all
appearance, notice-boards were dictating slow speeds from interested
motives, as there was no reason in life against quick ones. Gwen took
advantage of it to read Mrs. Prichard's letter aloud, with comments.
This was the letter:--
"'MY DEAR LADY,
"'I am looking forward to your return, and longing for it, for I
have much to tell you. I cannot tell of it all now, but I can tell
you what is such a happiness to tell, of the sweet kindness of this
dear young woman who takes such care of me. A many have been very
very kind to me, and what return have I to make, since my dear
husband died?'...
"Her dear husband, don't you see, mamma, was the infamous monster that
wrote the forged letter that did it all.... Papa read it to you, didn't
he?"
"My dear, it's no use asking me what your father read or did not read to
me, for really the last few days have been such a whirl. It always is,
in London. However, go on! I know the letter you mean--what you were
telling me about. Only I can't say I made head or tail of it at the
time. Go on!" Her ladyship composed herself to listen with her eyes
shut, and Gwen read on:--
"'But never, no never, was such patient kindness to a tiresome old
woman, because that is what I am, and I know, my dear. I know, my
dear, that I owe this to you, and it is for your sake, but it ought
to be, and that is right. I do not say things always like I want
to. She says her own mother is no use to her, because she is so
strong and never ill, and I am good to nurse. But she is coming
back very soon, and I shall see her. She is my Davy's other Granny,
you know, and I am sure she must be good. I cannot write more, but
oh, how good you have been to me!
"'Your loving and dutiful
"'MAISIE PRICHARD.
"'I must say this to you, that she lets me call her her name Ruth.
That was my child's I left at our Dolly's age, who was drowned.'
"Now are you sure, mamma," said Gwen, not without severity, "that you
quite understand that it's _the same Ruth_? That this Widow Thrale _is_
the little girl that old Mrs. Prichard has gone on believing drowned,
all these years? Are you quite clear that old Granny Marrable actually
_is_ the twin sister she has not seen for fifty years? Are you
certain...?"
"My dear Gwen, I beg you won't harangue. Besides, I can't hear you
because the train's going quick again. It always does, just here....
No--I understand perfectly. These two old persons have not seen each
other for fifty years, and it's very interesting. Only I don't see what
they have to complain of. They have only got to be told, and made to
understand how the mistake came about. I think they _ought_ to be told,
you know."
"Oh dear, what funny things maternal parents are! Mamma dear, you are
just like Thothmes, who said:--'Better late than never'!"
"Who is 'Thothmes'?" Her ladyship knew perfectly well.
"Well--Lincoln's Inn Fields--if you prefer it! Mr. Hawtrey. He's like a
cork that won't come out. I cannot understand people like you and Mr.
Hawtrey. I suppose you will say that you and he are not in it, and I
am?"
"I shall say _nothing_, my dear. I never do." The Countess retired to
the Zenith, meekly. The train was picking up its spirits, audibly, but
cautiously. The flank fire of hints about speed had subsided, and it had
all the world before it, subject to keeping on the line and screeching
when called on to do so by the Company.
"I wonder," said Gwen, "whether you have realised that that dear old
soul is calling her own daughter Ruth 'Ruth,' without knowing who she
is."
"Oh dear yes--perfectly! But suppose she is--what does it matter?" The
conversation was cut short by the more than hysterical violence of the
up-express, which was probably the thing that passed, invisible owing to
its speed, before its victims could do more than quail and shiver. When
it had shrieked and rattled itself out of hearing, it was evident that
it had bitten Gwen's engine and poisoned its disposition, for madness
set in, and it dragged her train over oily lines and clicketty lines
alike at a speed that made conversation impossible.
Gwen was panting to start upon the bewildering task she had before her,
but only to put it to the proof, and end the tension. It was
_impossible_ to keep the two old twins in the dark, and it seemed to her
that delay might make matters worse. As for ingenious schemes to reveal
the strange story gradually, some did occur to her, but none bore
reconsideration. Probably disaster lay in ambush behind over-ingenuity.
Go gently but firmly to the point--that seemed to her a safe rule for
guidance. If she could only anchor her dear old fairy godmother in a
haven of calm knowledge of the facts, she was less distressingly
concerned about the sister and daughter. The former of these was the
more prickly thorn of anxiety. Still, she was a wonderfully strong old
lady--not like old Mrs. Picture, a semi-invalid. As for the latter, she
scarcely deserved to be thought a thorn at all. She might even be relied
on to put her feelings in her pocket and help.
Yes--that was an idea! How would it be to make Widow Thrale know the
truth first, and then simply tell her that help she _must_, and there an
end! Gwen acted on the impulse produced in her mind during the last
twenty minutes of her journey, in which conversation with her mother
continued a discomfort, owing to the strong effect which the poisoned
tooth or bad example of the down-train express had produced on her own
hitherto temperate and reasonable engine. On arriving at Grantley Thorpe
she changed her mind about seeing Adrian before visiting Strides
Cottage, and petitioned Mr. Sandys, the Station-master, for writing
materials, and asked him to send the letter she then and there wrote, by
bearer, to Widow Thrale at Chorlton; not because the distance of Strides
Cottage from the main road was a serious obstacle to its personal
delivery on the way home, but because she wished to avoid seeing any of
its occupants until a full interview was possible. Also, she wanted
Widow Thrale to be prepared for something unusual. Her letter was:--"I
am coming to you to-morrow. I want to talk about dear old Mrs. Prichard,
but do not show her this or say anything till I see you. And do not be
uneasy or alarmed." She half fancied when she had written it that the
last words were too soothing. But this was a mistake. Nothing rouses
alarm alike reassurance.
It was a relief to her, between this and an early start for Chorlton
next day, to be dragged forcibly away from her dominant anxiety. The
Colonel's shooting-party was still in possession at the Towers, though
its numbers were dwindling daily. It had never had its full complement,
as so many who might have gone to swell it were fighting in the ranks
before Sebastopol, or in hospital at Balaklava, cholera-stricken
perhaps; or, nominally, waiting till resurrection-time in the cemetery
there, or by the Alma, for the grass of a new year to cover them in; but
maybe actually--and likelier too--in some strange inconceivable Hades;
poor cold ghosts in the dark, marvelling at the crass stupidity of Cain,
and even throwing doubts on "glory."
The Colonel's party, belonging to the class that is ready to send all
its sons that can bag game or ride to hounds, to be food for powder
themselves in any dispute made and provided, was sadly denuded of the
young man element, and he himself was fretting with impatience at the
medical verdict that had disqualified him for rejoining his regiment
with a half-healed lung. But the middle-aged majority, and the civilian
juniors--including a shooting parson--could talk of nothing but the War.
Some of us who are old enough will recall easily their own consciousness
of the universal war-cloud at this time, when reminded that the details
of Inkerman were only lately to hand, and that Florence Nightingale had
not long begun to work in the hospital at Scutari. But the immediate
excitement of the moment, when the two ladies joined the dinner-party
that evening at the Towers, was the frightful storm of which Gwen had
already had the first news, which had strewn the coast of the Chersonese
with over thirty English wrecks, and sent stores and war material
costing millions to the bottom of the Black Sea. She was glad, however,
to hear that it was certain that the Agamemnon had been got off the
rocks at Balaklava, as she had understood that Granny Marrable had a
grandson on the ship.
* * * * *
The time was close at hand, within an hour, when Gwen would have to find
words to tell her strange impossible story, if not to that dear old
silver hair--to those grave peaceful eyes,--at least to one whose
measure of her whole life must perforce be changed by it. What would it
mean, to Widow Thrale, to have such a subversive fact suddenly sprung
upon her?
More than once in her ride to Chorlton it needed all her courage to
crush the impulse to tell Tom Kettering to turn the mare round and drive
back to the Towers. It would have been so easy to forge some excuse to
save her face, and postpone the embarrassing hour till to-morrow. But to
what end? It would be absolutely out of the question to leave the
sisters in ignorance of each other, even supposing the circumstances
made continued ignorance possible. The risks to the health or
brain-power of either would surely be greater if the _éclaircissement_
were left to haphazard, than if she were controlling it with a previous
knowledge of all the facts. Perhaps Gwen was not aware how much her
inborn temperament had to do with her conclusions. Had she been a
soldier, she would have volunteered to go on every forlorn hope, on
principle. No doubt an "hysterical" temperament, as it is so common
among women! But it is a form of hysteria that exists also among men.
Whether or no, here she was at the gate of Strides Cottage, and it was
now too late to think of going back. Tom Kettering was requesting the
mare, in stable language, not to kick _terra firma_, or otherwise object
to standing, till he had assisted the lady down. She was down without
assistance before the mare was convinced of sin, so Tom touched his hat
vaguely, but committed himself to nothing. He appeared to understand--as
he didn't say he didn't, when instructed--that he was to wait five
minutes; and then, if nothing appeared to the contrary, employ himself
and the mare in any way they could agree upon, for an hour; and then
return to pick her up.
The cat, the only inmate visible at Strides, rose from the threshold to
welcome the visitor, with explanations perfectly clear to Gwen--who
understood cats--that if it had been within her power to reach the
door-latch, she would have opened the door, entirely to accommodate her
ladyship. She had no mixture of motives, arising from having been shut
out. Gwen threw doubt on this; as, having rung the bell, she waited. She
might have rung again but for Elizabeth-next-door; who, coming out with
advisory powers, said that Mrs. Thrale was probably engaged with the old
lady, but that she herself would go straight in if she was her ladyship.
Not being able to reach the latch herself over the privet-hedge between
them, the good woman was coming round to open the door, but went back
when Gwen anticipated her, and entering the empty front-room, heard the
voices in the bedroom behind. How strange it seemed to her, to wait
there, overhearing them, and knowing that the old voice was that of a
mother speaking to her unknown daughter, and that each was unsuspicious
of the other.
The dog who trotted in from the passage between the rooms or beyond it,
was no doubt the one Gwen had heard of. He examined her slightly, seemed
satisfied, and disappeared as he had come. The cat chose the most
comfortable corner by the fire, and went to sleep in it without
hesitation. The fire crackled with new dry wood, and exploded a chance
wet billet into jets of steam, under a kettle whose lid was tremulous
from intermittent stress below.
Otherwise, nothing interfered with the two voices in the room beyond;
the mother's, weak with age, but cheerful enough, no unhappy sound about
it; the daughter's, cheerful, robust, and musical, rallying and
encouraging her as a child, perhaps about some dress obstacle or
mystery. The effect on Gwen of listening to them was painful. To hear
them, knowing the truth, made that knowledge almost unendurable. Could
she possess her soul in peace until what she supposed to be the old
lady's toilette was complete?
The question was decided by the dog, who was applying for admission at
the door beyond the passage, somewhat diffidently and cautiously. Gwen
could just see him, exploring along the door-crack with his nose.
Presently, remaining unnoticed from within, he made his voice
audible--barely audible, not to create alarm needlessly. It was only to
oblige; he had no misgivings about the visitor.
Then Gwen, conceiving that a change in the voices implied that his
application had been heard, helped the applicant, by a word or two to
identify herself; adding that she was in no hurry, and would wait. Then
followed more change in the voices; the mother's exclamation of
pleasure; the daughter's recognition of her visitor's dues of courtesy
and deference, and their claim for a prompt discharge. Then an opened
door, and Widow Thrale herself, not too much overpowered by her
obligations to leave the dog's explanations and apologies
unacknowledged. The utter unconsciousness this showed of the thing that
was to come almost made Gwen feel that the strain on her powers of
self-control might become greater than she could bear, and that she
might break out with some premature disclosure which would only seem
sheer madness to her unprepared hearer.
She could hold out a little yet, though.... Well!--she had got to manage
it, by hook or by crook. So--courage! Five minutes of normal
_causeries_, mere currencies of speech, and then the match to the train!
She evolved, with some difficulty, the manner which would be correct in
their relative positions; accepted the curtsey before stretching out a
hand, guaranteed Olympian, to the plains below. "My dear Mrs. Thrale,"
said she, choking back excitement to chat-point, "I really am more
grateful to you than I can say for taking charge of this dear old lady.
I was quite at my wits' end what to do with her. You see, I had to go up
to London, because of my cousin's illness--Sister Nora, you know--and it
was in the middle of the night, and I was afraid the dear old soul
would be uncomfortable at the Towers." She made some pretence of languid
indifference to conventional precisions, and of complete superiority to
scruples about confessing an error, by adding:--"Most likely I was
wrong. One is, usually. But it never seems to matter.... Let's see--what
was I saying? Oh--how very kind it was of you to solve the difficulty
for me.... Well--to help me out of the scrape!" For Mrs. Thrale had
looked the doubt in her mind--_could_ Gurth the Swineherd "solve a
difficulty" for Coeur de Lion? She could only do Anglo-Saxon things,
legitimately. The point was, however, covered by Gwen's amendment.
Mrs. Thrale had begun a smile of approbation at the phrase "dear old
lady," and had felt bound to suspend it for Sister Nora's illness. That
was a parenthesis, soon disposed of. The revival of the smile was easy,
on the words "dear old soul." She was that, there was no doubt of it,
said Mrs. Thrale, adding:--"'Tis for me to be grateful to your ladyship
for allowing me the charge of her. I hope your ladyship may not be
thinking of taking her away, just yet-a-while?"
"I think not, just at present.... We shall be able to talk of that....
Tell me--how has she been? Because of your letter."
"There now!--when I got your ladyship's note last night I felt a'most
ashamed of writing that I had been uneasy or alarmed." Gwen saw that her
yesterday's attempt at premonition had missed fire, and Mrs. Thrale
added:--"Because--_not a word!_"
"How do you mean? I don't quite understand."
"She's never said a word since. Not that sort of word! She's just never
spoke of the mill, nor Muggeridge, nor my grandfather. And I have said
nothing to her, by reason of Dr. Nash's advice. 'Never you talk to a
mental patient about their delusions!'--that's what Dr. Nash says. So I
never said one word."
Gwen felt sorry she had not made her note of alarm more definite. For
the absolute faith of the speaker in her own belief and Dr. Nash's
professional infallibility, that a dropped voice and confidential manner
seemed to erect as a barrier to enlightenment, made her feel more at a
loss than ever how to act. Would it not, after all, be easiest to risk
the whole, and speak at once to the old lady herself? She prefigured in
her mind the greater ease of telling her story when she could make her
own love a palliative to the shock of the revelation, could take on her
bosom the old head, stunned and dumfoundered; could soothe the weakness
of the poor old hand with the strength and youth of her own. But into
that image came a disturbing whim--call it so!--a question from without,
not bred of her own mind:--"Is not this the daughter's right?--the
prerogative of the flesh and blood that stands before you?" Perhaps Gwen
_was_ whimsical sometimes.
If Widow Thrale had said one word to pave the way--had spoken, for
instance, of the unaccountableness of the old lady's memories--Gwen
might have seen daylight through the wood. But this placid immovable
ascription of the whole of them to brain-disorder was an Ituri forest of
preconceptions, shutting out every gleam of suggested truth.
A sudden idea occurred to her. Her father had spoken well of Dr.
Nash--of his abilities, at least--and he seemed very much in Mrs.
Thrale's good books. Could she not get _him_ to help, or at least to
take his measure as a confidant in her difficulty before condemning him
as impossible?
So quickly did all this pass through her mind that the words "I think I
should like to see Dr. Nash" seemed to follow naturally. Mrs. Thrale
welcomed the idea.
"But he'll be gone," said she. "He goes to see his patient at Dessington
Manor at eleven. And if he was sent for it is very like he could not
come, even for your ladyship. Because his sick folk he sees at the
surgery they will have their money's worth. Indeed, I think the poor
man's worked off his legs."
"I see," said Gwen. "I shall go and see him myself, at once." She
breathed freer for the respite, and the prospect of help. "But there's
plenty of time if I look sharp. Would you tell Tom outside that he's not
to run away. I shall want him? May I go through to see her? Is she
getting up?"
She was up, apparently, in the accepted sense of the word; though she
had collapsed with the effort of becoming so; and was now down, in the
literal sense, lying on the bed under contract not to move till Mrs.
Thrale returned with a cup of supplementary arrowroot. She had had a
very poor breakfast. Certainly, her ladyship might go in.
"Oh, my dear, my dear, I am so glad you are come!" It was the voice of a
great relief that came from the figure on the bed; the voice of one who
had waited long, of a traveller who sees his haven, a castaway adrift
who spies a sail.
"Now, dear Mrs. Picture, you are not to get up, but lie still till I
come back. I'm going to try to catch Dr. Nash, and must hurry off. But I
_am_ coming back."
"Oh--all right!" There was disappointment in her tone, but it was
docility itself. She added, however, with the barest trace of
remonstrance:--"I'm quite _well_, you know. I don't _want_ the doctor."
Gwen laughed. "Oh no--it's not for you! I've ... I've a message for him.
I shall soon be back." An excusable fiction, she thought, under the
circumstances.
She was only just in time to catch Dr. Nash, whose gig was already in
possession of him at his garden-gate with a palpably medical lamp over
it, and a "surgery bell" whose polish seemed to guarantee its owner's
prescriptions. "Get down and talk to me in the house," said her young
ladyship. "Who is it you were going to? Anyone serious?"
"Only Sir Cropton Fuller."
"He can wait.... Can't he?"
"He'll have to. No hurry!" The doctor found time to add, between the
gate and the house:--"I go to see him every day to prevent his taking
medicine. He's extremely well. I don't get many cases of illness, among
my patients." He turned round to look at Gwen, on the doorstep. "Your
ladyship doesn't look very bad," said he.
Gwen shook her head. "It's nothing to do with me," she said. "Nor with
illness! It's old Mrs. Prichard at Strides Cottage."
The doctor stood a moment, latchkey in hand. "The old lady whose mind is
giving way?" said he. He had knitted his brows a little; and, having
spoken, he knitted his lips a little.
"We are speaking of the same person," said Gwen. She followed the doctor
into his parlour, and accepted the seat he offered. He stood facing her,
not relaxing his expression, which worked out as a sort of mild
grimness, tempered by a tune which his thumbs in the armpits of his
waistcoat enabled him to play on its top-pockets. It was a slow tune.
Gwen continued:--"But her mind is _not_ giving way."
The doctor let that expression subside into mere seriousness. He took a
chair, to say:--"Your ladyship has, perhaps, not heard all particulars
of the case."
"Every word."
"You surprise me. Are you aware that this poor old person is under a
delusion about her own parentage? She fancies herself the daughter of
Isaac Runciman, the father of old Mrs. Marrable, the mother of Widow
Thrale."
"She _is_ his daughter."
The doctor nearly sprang out of his chair with surprise, but an insecure
foothold made the chair jump instead.
"But it's impossible--it's _impossible_!" he cried. "How could Mrs.
Marrable have a sister alive and not know it?"
"That is what I am going to explain to you, Dr. Nash. And Sir Cropton
Fuller will have to wait, as you said."
"But the thing's impossible in _itself_. Only look at this!..."
"Please consider Sir Cropton Fuller. You won't think it so impossible
when you know it has happened." The doctor listened for the symptoms
with perceptibly less than his normal appearance of knowing it all
beforehand. Gwen proceeded, and told with creditable brevity and
clearness, the succession of events the story has given, for its own
reasons, by fits and starts.
It could not be accepted as it stood, consistently with male dignity.
The superior judicial powers of that estimable sex called for assertion.
First, suspension of opinion--no hasty judgments! "A most extraordinary
story! A _most_ extra_or_dinary story! But scarcely to be accepted....
You'll excuse my plain speech?..."
"Please don't use any other! The matter's too serious."
"Scarcely to be accepted without a close examination of the evidence."
"Unquestionably. Does any point occur to you?"
Now Dr. Nash had nothing ready. "Well," he said, dubiously, "in such a
very difficult matter it might be rash...." Then he thought of something
to say, suddenly. "Well--_yes!_ It certainly does occur to me that ...
No--perhaps not--perhaps not!..."
"What were you going to say?"
"That there is no direct proof that the forged letter was ever sent to
Australia." This sounded well, and appeared like a tribute to
correctness and caution. It meant nothing whatever.
"Only the Australian postmark," said Gwen. "I have got it here, but it's
rather alarming--the responsibility."
"If it was written, as you say, over an effaced original, it might have
been done just as easily in England." The doctor was reading the
direction, not opening the letter.
"Not by a forger at the Antipodes!" said Gwen.
"I meant afterwards--when--when Mrs. Prichard was in England?"
"She brought the letter with her when she came. It couldn't have been
forged afterwards."
The doctor gave it up. Masculine superiority would have to stand over.
But he couldn't see his way, on human grounds, profundity apart. "What
is so horribly staggering," said he, "is that after fifty years these
two should actually see each other and still be in the dark. And the way
it came about! The amazing coincidences!" The doctor spoke as if such
unblushing coincidences ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Gwen took this to be his meaning, apparently. "_I_ can't help it, Dr.
Nash," she said. "If they had told me they were going to happen, I might
have been able to do something. Besides, there was only one, if you come
to think of it--the little boy being sent to Widow Thrale's to
convalesce. It was my cousin, Miss Grahame, who did it.... Yes, thank
you!--she is going on very well, and Dr. Dalrymple hopes she will make a
very good recovery. He fussed a good deal about her lungs, but they seem
all right...." The conversation fluctuated to Typhus Fever for a moment,
but was soon recalled by the young lady, whose visit had a definite
purpose. "Now, Dr. Nash, I have a favour to ask of you, which is what I
came for. It occurred to me when I heard that you would be going to
Dessington Manor this morning." The doctor professed his readiness, or
eagerness, to do anything in his power to oblige Lady Gwendolen Rivers,
but evidently had no idea what it could possibly be. "You will be close
to Costrell's farm, where the other old lady is staying with her
granddaughter?"
"I shall. But what can I do?"
"You can, perhaps, help me in the very difficult job of making the truth
known to her and her sister. I say perhaps, because you may find you can
do nothing. I shall not blame you if you fail. But you can at least
try."
It would have been difficult to refuse anything to the animated beauty
of his petitioner, even if she had been the humblest of his village
patients. The doctor pledged himself to make the attempt, without
hesitation, saying to himself as he did so that this would be a
wonderful woman some day, with a little more experience and maturity.
"But," said he, "I never promised to do anything with a vaguer idea of
what I was to do, nor how I was to set about it."
Gwen's earnestness had no pause for a smile. "It is easier than you
think," she said, "if you only make up your mind to it. It is easy for
you, because your medical interest in old Mrs. Prichard's case makes it
possible for you to _entamer_ the conversation. You see what I mean?"
"Perfectly--I _think_. But I don't see how that will _entamer___ old
Mrs. Marrable. Won't the conversation end where it began?"
"I think not--not necessarily. I will forgive you if it does. Consider
that the apparent proof of delusion in my old lady's mind is that she
has told things about her childhood which are either _bona-fide_
recollections, or have been derived from the little boy...."
"Dave Wardle. So I understood from Widow Thrale. She has told me all the
things as they happened. In fact, I have been able to call in every day.
The case seemed very interesting as a case of delusion, because some of
the common characteristics were wanting. It loses that interest now,
certainly, but.... However, you were saying, when I interrupted?..."
"I was saying that unless these ideas could be traced to Dave Wardle,
they must have come out of Mrs. Prichard's own head. Is it not natural
that you should want to hear from Granny Marrable what she recollects
having said to the child?"
The doctor cogitated a moment, then gave a short staccato nod. "I see,"
said he, in a short staccato manner. "_Yes._ That might do something for
us. At any rate, I can try it.... I beg your pardon."
Gwen had just begun again, but paused as the doctor looked at his watch.
She continued:--"I cannot find anything that she might not have easily
said to a small boy. I wish I could. Her recollection of _not_ having
said anything won't be certainty. But even inquiring about what she
_doesn't_ recollect would give an opening. Did Mrs. Prichard say nothing
to you about her early life at the mill?"
"She said a good deal, because I encouraged her to talk, to convince
myself of her delusion.... Could I recollect some of it? I think so. Or
stay--I have my notes of the case." He produced a book. "Here we are.
'Mrs. Maisie Prichard, eighty-one. Has delusions. Thinks mill was her
father's. It was Widow Thrale's grandfather's. Knows horses Pitt and
Fox. Knows Muggeridge waggoner. Has names correct. Qy.:--from child
Wardle last year? M. was dismissed soon after. Asked try recollect what
for.' I am giving your ladyship the abbreviations as written."
"Quite right. Is there more?" For evidently there was. Gwen could see
the page.
"She remembered that he was dismissed for ... irregularity."
Gwen suspected suppression. "What sort? Did he drink? Let me see the
book. I won't read the other cases." And so all-powerful was beauty, or
the traces of Feudalism, that this middle-aged M.R.C.S. actually
surrendered his private notes of cases into these most unprofessional
hands. Gwen pointed to the unread sequel, triumphantly. "There!" she
exclaimed. "The very thing we want! You may be sure that neither Granny
Marrable nor her daughter ever told a chick of seven years old of
_that_ defect in Mr. Muggeridge's character." For what Gwen had _not_
read aloud was:--"_Mug. broke 7th: Comm:_"
The doctor was perhaps feeling that masculine profundity had not shone,
and that he ought to do something to redeem its credit. For his comment,
rather judicial in tone, was:--"Yes--but Widow Thrale was not able to
confirm this ... blemish on Mr. Muggeridge's reputation."
"Now, my dear Dr. Nash, why _should_ she be able to confirm a thing that
happened when her mother was ten years old?"
The doctor surrendered at discretion--perhaps resolved not to repeat the
attempt to reinstate the male intellect. "Of course not!" said he.
"Perfectly correct. Very good! I'll try, then, to make use of that. I
understand your object to be that old Granny Marrable shall come to know
that she and Mrs. Prichard are sisters, as gradually as possible. I may
not succeed, but I'll do my best. Ticklish job, rather! Now I suppose I
ought to look after Sir Cropton Fuller."
Five minutes after saying which the doctor's gig was doing its best to
arrive in time to prevent that valetudinarian swallowing five grains of
calomel, or something of the sort, on his own responsibility.
* * * * *
Gwen had felt a misgiving that her expedition to Dr. Nash had really
been a cowardly undertaking, because she had flinched from her task at
the critical moment. Well--suppose she had! It might turn out a
fortunate piece of poltroonery, if Dr. Nash contrived to break the ice
for her with the other old sister. But the cowardice was beginning
again, now that every stride of the mare was taking her nearer to her
formidable task. Desperation was taking the place of mere Resolve,
thrusting her aside as too weak for service in the field, useless
outside the ramparts. Oh, but if only some happy accident would pave the
way for speech, would enable her to say to herself:--"I have said the
first word! I cannot go back now, if I would!"
On the way to Strides Cottage again! Nearer and nearer now, that moment
that must come, and put an end to all this puling hesitation. She could
not help the thought that rose in her mind:--"This that I do--this
reuniting of two souls long parted by a living death--may it not be what
Death does every day for many a world-worn survivor of a half-forgotten
parting in a remote past?" For, indeed, it seemed to her that these two
had risen from the dead, and that for all she knew each might say of
the other:--"It is not she." For what is Death but the withdrawal from
sight and touch and hearing of the evidence of Some One Else? What less
had come to pass for old Maisie and Phoebe, fifty years ago? How is it
with us all in that mysterious Beyond, that for the want of a better
name we call a Hereafter, when ghost meets ghost, and either lacks the
means of recognition?
She knew the trick of that latch now, and went in.
The room was empty of all but the cat, who seemed self-absorbed; silent
but for a singing kettle and a chirping cricket. Probably Widow Thrale
was in the bedroom. Gwen crossed the passage, and gently opening the
door, looked in. Only the old lady herself was there, upon the bed, so
still that Gwen half feared at first she had died in her sleep. No--all
was well! She wondered a moment at the silver hair, the motionless
hands, alabaster but for the blue veins, the frailty of the whole, and
its long past of eighty years, those years of strange vicissitude. And
through them all no one thing so strange as what she was to know on
waking!
CHAPTER XV
HOW GWEN HEARD WIDOW THRALE'S REPORT AND HOW SHE ROSE TO THE
OCCASION. HOW WIDOW THRALE WAS IN FAVOUR OF SILENCE. HOW GWEN HAD
TO SHOW THE FORGED LETTER. THE LINSTOCK AT THE BREECH. BUT MY NAME
WAS RUTH DAVERILL! THE GUN GOES OFF. GWEN'S COOLNESS IN ACTION. BUT
WHY IN MRS. PRICHARD'S LETTER? A CRISIS AND AN AWAKENING. WHO WILL
TELL MOTHER? HOW GWEN GOT FIRST SPEECH OF MRS. PRICHARD. THE
DELUSION CASE'S REPORT OF ITSELF. ANOTHER IMPENETRABLE FORTRESS.
THE STAGE METHOD, AS A LAST RESOURCE. AN _IMPASSE_. "BAS AN AIR
EACHIN." HOW MRS. PRICHARD WANTED TO TELL MRS. MARRABLE ABOUT HER
DEAD SISTER, STILL ALIVE. GWEN'S FORCES SCATTERED, AND A RALLY.
ANOTHER CRISIS, AND SUCCESS. WHO FORGED THAT LETTER?
That had been a quick interview with Dr. Nash in spite of its
importance. For the church clock had been striking eleven when the mare,
four minutes after leaving Dr. Nash, reached Strides Cottage. A great
deal of talk may be got through in a very little time, as the playwright
knows to his cost.
Widow Thrale had been talking with Elizabeth-next-door when the mare
stopped, disappointed at the short run. She heard the arrival, and came
out to find that her ladyship had preceded her into the house. Tom
Kettering, having communicated this, stooped down from his elevation to
add in confidence:--"Her ladyship's not looking her best, this short
while past. You have an eye to her, mistress. Asking pardon!" It was a
concession to speech, on Tom's part, and he seemed determined it should
go no farther, for he made a whip-flick tell the mare to walk up and
down, and forget the grass rim she had noticed on the footpath. Mrs.
Thrale hurried into the house. She, too, had seen how white Gwen was
looking, before she started to go to Dr. Nash.
She met her coming from the bedroom, whiter still this time. Her
exclamation:--"Dearie me, my lady, how!..." was stopped by:--"It is not
illness, Mrs. Thrale. I am perfectly well," said with self-command,
though with a visible effort to achieve it. But it was clear that the
thing that was not illness was a serious thing.
"I was afraid for your ladyship," said Mrs. Thrale. And she remained
uneasy visibly.
"I see she is very sound asleep. Will she remain so for awhile?... Has
not been sleeping at night, did you say? That explains it.... No, I
won't take anything, thank you!... Yes, I will. I'll have some water. I
see it on the dresser. That's plenty--thanks!" Thus Gwen's part of what
followed. She moistened her lips, and speech was easier to her. They had
been so dry and hot. She continued, feeling that the moment had
come:--"I want your help, Mrs. Thrale. I have something I must tell you
about Mrs. Prichard."
The convict, nearly forgotten since last year, and of course never
revived for Widow Thrale, suddenly leaped into her mind out of the past,
and menaced evil to her ideal of Mrs. Prichard. She was on her defence
directly. "Nay, then--if it is bad, 'tis no fault of the dear old
soul's. That I be mortal sure of!"
"Fault of _hers_. No, indeed! It is something I have to tell her. And to
tell you." This was the first real attempt to hint at her hearer's
personal concern in the something. Would it reach her mind?
Scarcely. To judge by her puzzled eyes fixed on Gwen, and the grave
concern of her face, her heart was rich with ready sympathy for whoever
should suffer by this unknown thing, but without a clue to its near
connection with herself. "Will it be a great sorrow to her to be told
it?" said she uneasily. But all on her old guest's account--none on her
own.
Gwen felt that her first attempt to breach the fortress of
unconsciousness, had failed. She must lay a new sap, at another angle;
a slower approach, but a surer.
"Not a great sorrow so much as a great shock. You can help me to tell it
her so as to spare her." Gwen felt at this point the advantages of the
Feudal System. This good woman would never presume to hurry disclosure.
"You can help me, Mrs. Thrale, and I will tell you the whole. But I want
to know one or two things about what she said." Gwen produced Mrs.
Thrale's own letter from a dainty gilded wallet, and opened it. "I
understand that the very first appearance of these delusions--or
whatever they were--was when she saw the mill-model. Quite the very
first?"
"That was, like, the beginning of it," said Mrs. Thrale, recollecting.
"She asks me, was little Dave in the right about the wheel-sacks and the
water-cart, and I say to her the child is right, but should have said
wheat-sacks and water-mill. And then I get it down.... Yes, I get it
down and show it to her"--this slowly and reminiscently. "And then, my
lady, I look round, and there's the poor old soul, all of a twitter!"
This was accelerated, for dramatic force.
"You did not put it down to her seeing the mill?"
"No, my lady; I took it she was upset and tired, at her age. I've seen
the like before. Not my mother, but old Mrs. Dunage at the Rectory.
'Twas when the news came her mother was killed on the railway. She went
quite unconscious, and I helped to nurse her round. She was gone of
seventy-seven at the time."
"_That_ was a shock, then?" Gwen felt, although Widow Thrale did not
seem to have connected the two things together, that the mill had been
the agency that upset Mrs. Prichard.
But she had underestimated the strength of the fortress again. Mrs.
Thrale took it as a discrimination between the two cases. "Yes, my
lady," said she quietly. "That was a _shock_. But so you might say, this
was a shock, too. By reason of an idea, got on the mind. Dr. Nash said,
next day, certainly!"
"Very likely," said Gwen. "But what came next?"
"Well, now--how was it? I was seeing her to bed, unconscious like, and
she says to me, on the sudden:--'_Whose_ mill was it?' And then, of
course, I say grandfather's. For indeed, my lady, that is so! Mother has
had this model all her life, from when grandfather died, and it could be
no one else's mill." The irresistible amusement at the absurdity that
spread over Ruth's face, and the undercurrent of laughter in her voice,
were secret miseries to Gwen, so explicit were they in their tale of the
unconsciousness that allowed them. She was relieved when the speaker's
voice went back to its tone of serious concern. "And there, now--if the
dear old soul didn't say to me, 'How came this mill to be your
grandfather's mill?'!"
"And after that?"
"Oh--then I saw plain! But I thought--best say nothing! So I got her off
to bed, and she went nicely to sleep, and no more trouble. But next
morning early there she was out of bed, hunting for the mill, and
feeling round it on the mantelshelf."
"And you still thought it was a delusion?" Gwen said this believing that
it _must_ excite suspicion of her object. But again unconsciousness,
perfectly placid and immovable, had the best of it, where scepticism
would have been alert in its defence.
"Well, I did hope next day, talking it over with Dr. Nash, that it was
just some confusion of hers with another's mill, a bit like ours; and at
her age, no wonder! Because of what she said herself."
"Said herself?"
"Yes--touching the size of her mill being double. That is, the model.
But ah--dear me! It was all gone next day, and she talking quite wild
like!" A note of fresh distress in her voice ended in a sigh. Then came
a resurrection of hopefulness. "But she has not gone back to it now for
some while, and Dr. Nash is hopeful it may pass off."
Gwen began to fear for her own sanity if this was to go on long. To sit
there, facing this calm, sweet assurance of that dear old woman's flesh
and blood, her own daughter, thick-panoplied in impenetrable ignorance;
to hear her unfaltering condemnation of what she must soon inevitably
know to be true; to note above all the tender solicitude and affection
her every word was showing for this unknown mother--all this made Gwen's
brain reel. Unless some natural resolution of the discord came, Heaven
help her, and keep her from some sudden cruel open operation on the
heart of Truth, some unconvincing vivisection of a soul! For belief in
the incredible, however true, flies from forced nurture in the hothouse
of impatience.
Gwen felt for a new opportunity. "When you say that next day she began
to talk wildly.... What sort of wildly? Are you sure it was so wild?"
Mrs. Thrale lowered her voice to an intense assurance, a heartfelt
certainty. "Oh yes, my lady--yes, _indeed_! There was no doubt
_possible_. When she was looking at the mill model she had got sight of
two little figures--just dollies--that were meant for mother, and her
sister who died in Australia--my real mother, you know, only I was but
four years old--and the dear old soul went quite mazed about it, saying
that was herself and _her_ sister that died in England, and they were
twins the same as mother and _her_ sister. And it was not till she said
names Dr. Nash found out how it was all made up of what we told little
Davy last year...."
"And you made sure," said Gwen, interrupting, "that you remembered
telling little Davy all these things last year?" It took all Gwen's
self-command to say this. She was glad to reach the last word.
Widow Thrale looked hurt, almost indignant. "Why, my lady," said she,
"we _must_ have! Else how could she have known them?" Do not censure her
line of argument. Probably at this very hour it is being uttered by a
hundred mouths, even as--so says a claimant to knowledge--thirteen
earthquakes are always busy, somewhere in the world, at every moment of
the day.
Gwen could never give up the attempt, having got thus far. But she could
see that hints were useless. "I think I can tell you," said she. And
then she pitied the dawn of bewilderment on the unconscious face before
her, even while she tried to fortify herself with the thought that what
she had to tell was not bad in itself--only a revelation of a lost
past.... Well--why not let it go? Dust and ashes, dead and done with!...
But this vacillation was short-lived.
Mrs. Thrale's bewilderment found words. "You can ... _tell_ me!" she
said, not much above a whisper. How could she hint at calling her
ladyship's words in question, above her breath?
Gwen, very pale but collected, rose to the occasion. "I can tell you
what has come to my knowledge about Mrs. Prichard's history. I cannot
doubt its correctness." It crossed her mind then that the telling of it
would come easier if she ignored what knowledge she had of the other
twin sister. So far as Widow Thrale knew, there was nothing outside what
had come to light through this incident. She went steadily on, not
daring to look at her hearer. "Mrs. Prichard was one of two sisters,
whose father owned a flour-mill near London. She married, and her
husband committed forgery and was transported. He was sent to Van
Diemen's Land--the penal settlement." Gwen looked up furtively. No sign
on the unconscious face yet of anything beyond mere perplexity! She
resumed after the slightest pause:--"His young wife followed him out
there"--she wanted to say that a child of four was left behind, but her
courage failed her--"and lived with him. He was out of prison on what
is called ticket-of-leave."
She looked up again. Still no sign! But then--consider! Ruth Thrale had
always been kept in the dark about the convict. Gwen could not know
this, and was puzzled. Was there, after all, some other solution to the
problem? Anyhow, there was nothing for it now but to get on. "She lived
with him many years, and then, for some reason or other, we can't tell
what, he forged a letter from her father in England, saying that her
sister and her husband and her own child that she had left behind were
all drowned at sea."
At this point Gwen was quite taken aback by Mrs. Thrale saying:--"But
they were _not_ drowned?" It stirred up a wasps' nest of perplexities. A
moment later, she saw that it was a question, not a statement. She
herself had only said the letter was forged, not that it contained a
lie. How could she vouch for the falsehood of the letter without
claiming knowledge prematurely, and rushing into her disclosure too
quickly? An additional embarrassment was that, when again she looked up
at her hearer, she saw no sign of a clue caught--not even additional
bewilderment; rather the reverse.
She could, however, reply to a question:--"Mrs. Prichard believed that
they were, and continued to believe it. My father, whom I have told all
about it--all that I know--is of opinion that her husband managed to
prevent her receiving letters from her sister, and destroyed those that
came, which would have shown that she was still alive."
"Oh, God be good to us!" cried Widow Thrale. "That such wickedness
should be!"
"He was a monster--a human devil! And _why_ he did it Heaven only knows.
My father can think of nothing but that his wife wanted to return to her
family, and he wanted her to stay. Now, Widow Thrale, you will see why I
want you to help me. I think you will agree with me that it would be
right that the dear old lady should be undeceived."
Mrs. Thrale fidgeted uneasily. "Your ladyship knows best," she said.
"You think, perhaps," said Gwen, "that it would only give her needless
pain to know it now, when she has nothing to gain by it?"
"Yes--that is right." That was said as though Gwen's question had worded
a thought the speaker herself had found hard to express.
"_Has_ she nothing to gain by it? I do so want you to think over this
quietly.... I wish you would sit down...." Mrs. Thrale did so. "Thank
you!--that _is_ comfortabler. Now, just consider this! There is no
evidence at all that the young daughter whom she left behind with her
sister is not still living, though of course the chances are that the
sister herself is dead. This daughter may be.... What's that?"
"I thought I heard her waking up. Will your ladyship excuse me one
moment?..." She rose and went to the bedroom. But the old lady was, it
seemed, still sleeping soundly, and she came back and resumed her seat.
Of all the clues Gwen had thrown out to arouse suspicion of the truth,
and make full announcement possible, not one had entered the unreceptive
mind. Was this to go on until the sleeper really waked? Gwen felt,
during that one moment alone, how painfully this would add to the
embarrassment, and resolved on an act of desperation.
"I think," said she, speaking very slowly, and fighting hard to hide the
effort speech cost her. "I think I should like you to see this horrible
forged letter. I brought it on purpose.... Oh--here it is!... By-the-by,
I ought to have told you. Prichard is not her real name." A look like
disappointment came on Widow Thrale's face. An _alias_ is always an
uncomfortable thing. Gwen interpreted this look rightly. "It's no blame
to her, you know," she said hastily. "Remember that her proper
name--that on the direction there--belonged to a convict! You or I might
have done the same."
And then, as the eyes of the daughter turned unsuspicious to her
mother's name--forged by her father, to imitate the handwriting of her
grandfather--Gwen sat and waited as he who has fired a train that leads
to a mine awaits the crash of the rifted rock and its pillar of dust and
smoke against the heavens.
"But _my_ name was Daverill--Ruth Daverill!" Was the train ill-laid
then, that this woman should be able to sit quite still, content to fix
a puzzled look upon the wicked penmanship of fifty years ago?
"And your mother's, Ruth Daverill? What was hers?"
"Maisie Daverill." She answered mechanically, with an implication
of "And why not?" unspoken. She was still dwelling on the
direction, the first name in which was not over-legible, no doubt
owing to the accommodation due to the non-erasure of the first
syllable by the falsifier. Gwen saw this, and said, quietly but
distinctly:--"Thornton."
The end was gained, for better, for worse. Ruth Thrale gave a sudden
start and cry, uttering almost her mother's words at first sight of the
mill:--"What can this be? What can this be? Tell me, oh, tell me!"
Gwen, hard put to it during suspense, now cool and self-possessed at the
first gunshot, rose and stood by the panic-stricken woman. Nothing could
soften the shock of her amazement now. Pull her through!--that was the
only chance. And the sooner she knew the whole now, the better!
It might have been cruelty to a bad end that made such beauty so pale
and resolute as Gwen's, as she said without faltering:--"The name is
your mother's name--Mrs. Thornton Daverill. Your father's name was
Thornton. Now open the letter and read!"
"Oh--my lady--it makes me afraid!... What can it be?"
"Open the letter and read!" But Ruth Thrale _could_ not; her hand was
too tremulous; her heart was beating too fast. Gwen took the letter from
her, quietly, firmly; opened it before her eyes; stood by her, pointing
to the words. "Now read!"--she said.
And then Ruth Thrale read as a child reads a lesson:--"My ... dear ...
daughter ... Maisie ..." and a few words more, her voice shaking badly,
then suddenly stopped. "But my mother's name was Maisie," she said. She
had wavered on some false scent caused by the married name.
"Read on!" said Gwen remorselessly. Social relation said that her
ladyship _must_ be obeyed first; madness fought against after. Ruth
Thrale read on, for the moment quite mechanically. The story of the
shipwreck did not seem to assume its meaning. She read on, trembling,
clinging to the hand that Gwen had given her to hold.
Suddenly came an exclamation--a cry. "But what is this about Mrs.
Prichard? This is _not_ Mrs. Prichard. Why is mother's old name in this
letter?" She was pointing to the word Cropredy, Phoebe's first married
name; a name staggering in the force of its identity. She had not yet
seen the signature.
Gwen turned the page and pointed to it:--"Isaac Runciman," clear and
unmistakable. Incisiveness was a duty now. Said she, deliberately:--"Why
is this forged letter signed with your grandfather's name?" A pause,
with only a sort of puzzled moan in answer. "I will tell you, and you
will have to hear it. Because it was forged by your father, fifty years
ago." Again a pause; not so much as a moan to break the silence! Gwen
made her voice even clearer, even more deliberate, to say:--"Because he
forged it to deceive your mother, and it deceived her, and she believed
you dead. For years she believed you and her sister dead. And when she
returned to England...."
She was interrupted by a poor dumfoundered effort at speech, more seen
in the face she was intently watching than heard. She waited for it, and
it came at last, in gasps:--"But it is to Mrs. Prichard--the
letter--Mrs. Prichard's letter--oh, why?--oh, why?..." And Ruth Thrale
caught at her head with her hands, as though she felt it near to
bursting.
The surgeon's knife is most merciful when most resolutely used.
"Because old Mrs. Prichard _is_ your mother," said Gwen, all her heart
so given to the task before her that she quite forgot, in a sense, her
own existence. "Because she _is_ your mother, whom you have always
thought dead, and who has always thought you dead. Because she _is_ your
mother, who has been living here in England--oh, for so many years
past!--and never found you out!"
Ruth Thrale's hands fell helpless in her lap, and she sat on, dumb,
looking straight in front of her. Gwen would have been frightened at her
look, but she caught sight of a tear running down her face, and felt
that this was, for the moment, the best that might be. That tear
reassured her. She might safely leave the convulsion that had caused it
to subside. If only the sleeper in the next room would remain asleep a
little longer!
She did right to be silent and wait. Presently the two motionless hands
began moving uneasily; and, surely, those were sighs, long drawn out?
That had the sound of tension relieved. Then Ruth Thrale turned her eyes
full on the beautiful face that was watching hers so anxiously, and
spoke suddenly.
"I must go to her at once."
"But think!--is it well to do so? She knows nothing."
"My lady--is there need she should? Nor I cannot tell her now, for I
barely know, myself. But I _want_ her--oh, I want her! Oh, all these
cruel years! Poor Mrs. Prichard! But who will tell mother?" She was
stopped by a new bewilderment, perhaps a worse one.
"_I_ will tell mother." Gwen took the task upon herself, recklessly.
Well!--it had to be gone through with, by someone. And she would do
anything to spare this poor mother and daughter. _She_ would tell Granny
Marrable! She did, however, hope that Dr. Nash had broken the ice for
her.
A sound came from the other room. The old lady had awaked and was
moving. Mrs. Thrale said in a frightened whisper:--"She will come in
here. She always does. She likes to move about a little by herself. But
she is soon tired."
Said Gwen:--"Will she come in here? Let me see her alone! Do! It will
only be for a few minutes. Run in next door, and leave me to talk to
her. I have a reason for asking you." She heard the bedroom door open,
beyond the passage.
"When shall I come back, my lady?" This reluctance to go seemed passing
strange to Gwen. But it yielded to persuasion, or to feudal inheritance.
Gwen watched her vanish slowly into Elizabeth-next-door's; and then,
perceiving that the mare had sighted the transaction, and was bearing
down towards her, she delayed a moment to say:--"Not yet, Tom!
Wait!"--and returned into the house.
* * * * *
"My dear, God has been good to let you come. Oh, how I have prayed to
see your face again, and hear your dear voice!" Thus old Mrs. Picture,
crying with joy. She could not cling close enough to that beautiful
hand, nor kiss it quite to her heart's content.
Gwen left her in possession of it. "But, dear Mrs. Picture," she said,
"I thought your letter said you were so comfortable, and that Mrs.
Thrale was so kind?"
"What, my Ruth!--that is how I've got to call her--my Ruth is more than
kind. No daughter could be kinder to a mother. You know--I told you--my
child was Ruth. Long ago--long, long ago! She was asleep when I kissed
her. I can feel it still." Gwen fancied her speech sounded wandering, as
she sat down in Granny Marrable's vacant chair.
This story often feels that the pen that writes it must resent the
improbabilities it is called on to chronicle. That old Maisie should
call her own child by the name she gave her, and think her someone else!
"Tell me, dear, what it was--all about it!" Thus Gwen, getting the old
lady comfortably settled, and finding a footstool for herself, as in
Francis Quarles at the Towers. She had made up her mind to tell all if
she possibly could. But it had to be all or nothing. It would be better
not to speak till she saw her way. Let Mrs. Picture tell her own tale
first!
"I want to tell you." She possessed herself again of the precious
hand, surrendered to assist in resettling a strayed head-cushion.
"Only, tell me first--did you know...?"--She paused and dropped her
voice--" ... Did you know that they thought me...?"
"Thought you what?"
"Did you know that they thought me _mad_?"
"They were wrong if they did. But Mrs. Thrale does not think you mad
now. I know she does not."
"Oh, I am glad." Gwen's white and strained look then caught her
attention, and she paused for reassurance. It was nothing, Gwen was
tired. It was the jolting of a quick drive, and so on. Mrs. Prichard got
back to her topic. "They _did_ think me mad, though. Do you know, my
dear"--she dropped her voice almost to a whisper--"I went near to
thinking myself mad. It was so strange! It was the mill-model. I wish
she had let me see it again. That might have set it all to rights. But
thinking like she did, maybe she was in the right. For see what it is
when the head goes wrong! I was calling to mind, all next day, when I
found out what they thought...."
"But they did not tell you they thought you mad. How did you know?"
"It came out by little things--odd talk at times.... It got in the air,
and then I saw the word on their lips.... I never _heard_ it, you
know.... What was I saying?"
"You were calling something to mind, all next day, you said. What was
that?"
"A man my husband would talk about, in Macquarie Gaol, whose head would
be all right so long as no cat came anigh him. So the others would find
a cat to start him off. Only my Ruth thought to take away what upset
_me_. 'Tis the same thing, turned about like."
Gwen allowed the illustration. "But why _did_ Mrs. Thrale think you mad,
over the mill-model?"
"My dear, because to her I must have _seemed_ mad, to say that was my
father's mill, and not her grandfather's."
Gwen kept a lock on her tongue. How easy to have said:--"Your father
_was_ her grandfather!" She said nothing.
"And yet, you know, how could I be off the thought it was so, with it
there before me, seeming like it did? I do assure you, there it seemed
to be--the very mill! There was my father, only small, and not much to
know him by, smoking. And there was our man, Muggeridge, that saw to the
waggon. And there was Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, our horses. And there was
the great wheel the water shot below, to turn it, and the still water
above where Phoebe saw the heron, and called me--but it was gone!"
Tears were filling the old eyes, as the old lips recalled that
long-forgotten past. Then, as she went on, her voice broke to a sob, and
failed of utterance. But it came. "And there--and there--were I and my
darling, my Phoebe, that died in the cruel sea! Oh, my dear--that I
might have seen her once again! But once again!..." She stopped to
recover calm speech; and did it, bravely. "It was all in the seeming of
it, my dear, but all the same hard for me to understand. Very like, my
dear Ruth here was right and wise to keep it away from me. It might have
set me off again. I'm not what I was, and things get on my mind....
There now--my dear. See how I've made you cry!"
Gwen felt that this could not go on much longer without producing some
premature outbreak of her overtaxed patience; but she could sit still
and say nothing; for a little time yet, certainly. "I'm not crying, dear
Mrs. Picture," said she. "It was riding against the cold wind. Go on and
tell me more." Then a thought occurred to her--a means to an end. "Tell
me about your father. You have never told me about him. When did he
die?"
"My father? That I could not tell you, my dear, for certain. For no
letter reached me when he died, nor yet any letter since his own, that
told me of Phoebe's death. Oh, but it is a place for letters to go
astray! Why, before they gave my husband charge over the posts, and made
him responsible, the carrier would leave letters for the farm on a
tree-stump two miles away, and we were bound to send for them there--no
other way! And there was none I knew to write to, for news, when Phoebe
was gone, and our little Ruth, and Uncle Nick. Such an odd name he had.
I never told it you. Nicholas Cropredy."
"I knew it," said Gwen heedlessly. Then, to recover her
foothold:--"Somehow or other! You _must_ have told it me. Else how could
I have known?"
"I _must_ have.... No, I never knew when my father died. But I should
have known. For I stood by his grave when I came back. Such a many years
ago now--even that! But I read it wrong. 'May, 1808....' How did I know
it was wrong, what I read? Because I looked at his own letter, telling
me of the wreck, and it was that very year--but June, not May. And my
son was with me then, and he looked at the letter, too, and said it must
have been 1818--eighteen, not eight."
Gwen saw the way of this. Phoebe's letter, effaced to make way for the
forgery, was to announce Isaac Runciman's death, and was probably
written during the first week of June, and posted even later. The
English postmark showed two figures for the date; indistinct, as a
postmark usually is. Could she utilise this date in any way to sow the
seeds of doubt of the authenticity of the letter? She saw no way open.
The letter was a thing familiar to Mrs. Prichard, but a sudden
thunderbolt to Ruth Thrale. Had Gwen been in possession of Daverill's
letter announcing Maisie's own death, she might have shown it to her.
But _could_ such old eyes have read it, or would she have understood it?
No--it was impossible to do anything but speak. The next opportunity
_must_ be seized, for talk seemed only to erect new obstacles to action.
The perplexities close at hand, there in Strides Cottage, were the
things to dwell on. Better go back to them! "But Mrs. Thrale did not
think you mad only because you thought that about the mill," Gwen said
this to coax the conversation back.
"No, my dear! I think, for all I found to say that night, she might have
thought it no more than a touch of fever. And little wonder, too, for
her to hear me doubt her grandfather's mill being his own. But what put
me past was to see how the bare truth I told of my father's name, and my
sister's, and the name of the mill my father would say was older than
the church-tower itself--just that and no more--to make her"--here the
old lady lowered her voice, and glanced round as though to be sure they
were alone--"to make her turn and run from me, quite in a maze, as
though I was a ghost to frighten her, that was what unsettled me!" She
fixed her eyes on Gwen, and her hands were restless with her distressing
eagerness to get some clue to a solution of her perplexity.
Gwen could say nothing, short of everything. She simply dared not try to
tell the whole truth, with a rush, to a hearer so frail and delicate. It
seemed that any shock must kill. The musical voice went on, its
appealing tone becoming harder and harder for her hearer to bear.
"Why--oh why--when I was telling just the truth, that my father's name
was Isaac Runciman, and my sister was Phoebe, and our mill was Darenth
Mill, why should she not have heard me through to the end, to make it
all clear? Indeed, my dear, she put me on thinking I was not saying the
words I thought, and I was all awake and clear the whole time. Was I
not?"
Gwen's response:--"I will ask her what it was," contained, as a
temporary palliative, as much falsehood as she dared to use; just to
soothe back the tears that were beginning to get the better of speech.
She felt vaguely about for a straw to catch at--something that might
soften the revelation that had to come. "Did you tell her your sister
was Phoebe?"
"I told her Phoebe--only Phoebe. I never said her married name."
"Did you tell her you and your sister were twins?"
"Oh yes--I told her that. And I think she understood. But she did not
say."
"I think, dear Mrs. Picture, I can tell you why she was astonished. It
was because _her_ mother had a twin sister."
The old lady's pathetic look of perplexity remained unchanged. "Was that
enough?" she said. The mere coincidence of the twinship did not seem to
her to have warranted the effect it produced.
"I am not sure that it was not. There are other things. Did she ever
tell you her mother's story? I suppose she told you she is only her
mother by adoption? You know what I mean?"
"Oh yes, perfectly! No--Ruth has not told me that. We have not talked
much of old Mrs. Marrable, but I shall see her before I go back to Sapps
Court. Shall I not? My Davy's other Granny in the country!" It did her
good to think and speak of Dave.
"You shall go back to Davy," said Gwen. "Or Davy shall come to you. You
may like to stay on longer with Mrs. Thrale."
"Oh, indeed I should ... if only ... if only ..."
"If only she hadn't thought you had delusions!--isn't that it?... Well,
let me go on and tell you some more about her mother--or aunt, really.
It is quite true that she was one of twin sisters, and the sister
married and went abroad."
Mrs. Prichard was immensely relieved--almost laughed. "There now!--if
she had told me _that_, instead of running away with ideas! We would
have found it all out, by now."
Gwen felt quite despairing. She had actually lost ground. Was it
conceivable that the whole tale should become known to Mrs. Prichard--or
to both sisters, for that matter--and be discredited on its merits, with
applause for its achievements in coincidence? It looked like it! Despair
bred an idea in her mind; a mad one, perhaps, a stagey one certainly.
How would it be to tell Maisie Phoebe's story, seen from Phoebe's point
of view?
Whenever an exciting time comes back to us in after-life, the incident
most vividly revived is usually one of its lesser ones. Years after,
when Gwen's thoughts went back to this trying hour at Strides Cottage,
this moment would outstep its importance by reminding her how, in spite
of the pressure and complexity of her embarrassment, an absurd memory
_would_ intrude itself of an operatic tenor singing to the soprano the
story of how she was changed at birth, and so forth, the _diva_
listening operatically the while. It went so far with her now, for all
this tension, as to make a comment waver about her innermost thought,
concerning the strange susceptibility of that soprano to conviction on
insufficient evidence. Then she felt a fear that her own power of
serious effort might be waning, and she concentrated again on her
problem. But no solution presented itself better than the stagey one. Is
the stage right, after all?
"The sister married and went abroad. Her husband was a bad man, whom she
had married against the consent of her family." Gwen looked to see if
these words had had any effect. But nothing came of them. She
continued:--"Poor girl! her head was turned, I suppose."
"My dear--'twas the like case with me! 'Tis not for me, at least, to sit
in judgment."
"No, dear Mrs. Picture, nor any of us. But if she had been as bad as the
worst, she could hardly have deserved what came about. I told you she
had married a bad man, and I am going to tell you how bad he was." It
was as well that Gwen should rouse her hearer's attention by a sure and
effective expedient, for it was flagging slightly. Dave's other Granny's
sister's misadventures seemed to have so little to do with the recent
mystery of the mill-model. But a genuine bad man enthrals us all.
"What did he do?" said his unconscious widow.
"He forged a letter to his own wife, saying that her sister was dead,
and she believed it."
"But did her sister never write, to say she was alive?"
"Old Mrs. Marrable? No--because she received a letter at the same time
saying that _her_ sister.... You see which I mean?..."
"Oh yes--the bad man's wife, who was abroad."
"... Was also dead. Do you think you see how it was? He told each sister
the other was dead."
"Oh, I see _that_! But did they both believe it?"
"Both believed it."
"Then did Mrs. Marrable's sister die without knowing?"
Gwen had it on her lips to say:--"She is not dead," before she had had
time to foresee the consequences. She had almost said it when an
apprehension struck across her speech and cut it short. How could she
account to Mrs. Prichard for this knowledge of Mrs. Marrable's sister
without narrowing the issue to the simple question:--"Who and where is
she?" And if those grave old eyes, at rest now that the topic had become
so impersonal to them, were fixed upon her waiting for the answer, how
could she find it in her heart to make the only answer possible, futile
fiction apart:--"It is _you_ I am speaking of--_you_ are Mrs. Marrable's
sister, and each has falsely thought the other dead for a lifetime"? All
her elaborate preparation had ended in an _impasse_, blocked by a dead
wall whose removal was only possible to the bluntest declaration of the
truth, almost more cruel now than it would have been before this
factitious abatement of the agitation in which Gwen had found her.
And then the long tension that had kept Gwen on the rack, more or less,
since the revelation of the letter, keenly in this last hour or so,
began to tell upon her, and her soul came through into her words. "Oh
no--oh no! Mrs. Marrable's sister did not die without knowing--at least,
I mean ... I mean she has not died.... She may ..." She was stopped by
the danger of inexplicable tears, in time as she thought.
But old Mrs. Prichard, always on the alert for her Guardian Angel,
caught the slight modulation of her voice, and was alive with ready
sympathy. "Why--oh why--why this?..." she began, wanting to say:--"Why
such concern on Mrs. Marrable's account?" and finding herself at fault
for words, came to a dead stop.
"You mean, why should _I_ fret because of Mrs. Marrable's sister? Is it
not that?"
"Ye-es. I think ... I think that is what I meant to say."
Gwen nerved herself for a great effort. She took both the old hands in
hers, and all her beauty was in the eyes that looked up at the old face,
as she said:--"I will tell you. It is because--_I_--have to tell _her_
to-day ... that she is ... that she is ... Mrs. Marrable's sister!" The
last words might have been a cry for pity.
Could old Maisie fail to catch a gleam of the truth? She did. She only
saw that her sweet Guardian Angel was in trouble, and thought to
herself:--"Can I not help her?" She immediately said, quite quietly and
clearly:--"My dear--my dear! But it will give you such pain. Why not let
_me_ tell her? I am old, and my time is at hand. It would be nothing to
me. For see what trouble I have had myself. And I could say to her ..."
"What could you say to her?" Desperation was in Gwen's voice. How could
this awful barrier be passed? Could it be past at all--ever?
"I could tell her of all the trouble of my own life, long ago. I do
think, if I told her and said, 'See--it might have been me,' that might
make it easy." The suggestion was based on a perfectly reasonable idea.
Gwen felt that her own task would have been more achievable had her own
record been one of sorrow and defeat. Old Maisie took her silence--which
was helplessness against new difficulties--for an encouragement to her
proposal, and continued:--"Why, my dear, look at it this way! If my dear
sister Phoebe had lived, anyone bad enough out there in the Colony,
might have written a lie that I was dead, and who would have known?...
But, my dear, you are ill? You are shaking."
It was a climax. The perfect serenity, the absolute unconsciousness, of
the speaker had told the tale of Gwen's failure more plainly than any
previous rebuff. And here was the old lady trying to get up from her
chair to summon Widow Thrale! Gwen detained her gently; as, having risen
from the stool at her feet, she kneeled beside her.
"No, no--I am not ill.... I will tell you directly."
Moments passed that, to Gwen's impatience for speech she could neither
frame nor utter, might have been hours. Old Maisie's growing wonderment
was bringing back the look she had had over that mill-model. But she
said nothing.
Gwen's voice came at last, audibly to herself, scarcely more. "I want
you--I want you to tell me something...."
"What, my dear?... Oh--to tell you something! Yes--what is it?"
Was the moment at hand, at last? Gwen managed to raise her voice. "I
want you to tell me this:--Has Mrs. Thrale ever told you her mother's
name--I mean her aunt's--Granny Marrable's?"
"Her christened name?--her own name?"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Shall I tell it you?"
"Why not?... Oh, I am frightened to see you so white. My dear!"
"Listen, dear Mrs. Picture, and try to understand. Mrs. Thrale's aunt's
name is Phoebe."
"_Is Phoebe!_"
"Is Phoebe." Gwen repeated it again, looking fixedly at the old face,
now rapidly resuming its former utter bewilderment.
"Is ... Phoebe!" Old Maisie sat on, after echoing back the word, and
Gwen left her to the mercy of its suggestion. She had done her best, and
could do no more.
She saw that some new thought was at work. But it had to plough its way
through stony ground. Give it time!
Watching her intently, she could see the critical moment when the new
light broke. A moment later the hand she held clutched at hers beyond
its strength, and its owner's voice was forcing its way through gasps.
"But ... but ... but ... Widow Thrale's name is _Ruth_!"
"Is Ruth." Yes--leave the fact there, and wait! That was Gwen's
decision.
A moment later what she waited for had come. Old Maisie started, crying
out aloud:--"Oh, what is this--what _is_ it?" as she had done when she
first saw the mill-model. Then on a sudden a paroxysm seized on the
frail body, so terrifying to Gwen that her heart fairly stood still to
see it.
It did not kill. It seemed to pass, and leave a chance for speech. But
not just yet. Only a long-drawn breath or two, ending always in a moan!
Then, with a sudden vehemence:--"Who was it--who was it--that forged the
letter that came--_that came to my husband and me_?" Her voice rose to a
shriek under the sting of that terrible new knowledge. But she had
missed a main point in Gwen's tale. Her mind had received the forgery,
but not its authorship.
Gwen saw nothing to wonder at in this. The thing was done, and that was
enough. "It was your husband himself," said she, and would have gone on
to ask forgiveness for her own half-distortion of the facts, and told
how she came to the knowledge. But the look on her hearer's face showed
her that this must be told later, if indeed it were ever told at all.
She was but just in time to prevent old Maisie falling forward from her
chair in a dead swoon. She could not leave her, and called aloud for
help.
She did not need to call twice. For Widow Thrale, unable to keep out of
hearing through an interview so much longer than her anticipation of it,
had come into the house from the back, and was already in the passage;
had, indeed, been waiting in feverish anxiety for leave to enter.
"Take her--take her!" cried Gwen. "No--never mind me!" And then she saw,
almost as in a dream, how the daughter's strong arms clasped her mother,
and raising the slight unconscious figure, that lay as if dead, bore it
away towards the door. "Yes," said she, "that is right! Lay her on the
bed!"
What followed she scarcely knew, except that she caught at a chair to
save herself from falling. For a reaction came upon her with the
knowledge that her task was done, and she felt dizzy and sick. Probably
she was, for a minute or more, practically unconscious; then recovered
herself; and, though feeling very insecure on her feet, followed those
two strange victims of a sin half a century old. Not quite without a
sense of self-reproach for weakness; for see how bravely the daughter
was bearing herself, and how immeasurably worse it was for her!
She could not but falter between the doors, still standing open. How
could she dare to enter the room where she might find the mother dead?
That was her fear. And a more skilful, a gentler revelation, might have
left her a few years with the other little twin of the mill-model, still
perhaps with a decade of life to come.
She heard the undertones of the daughter's voice, using the name of
mother. What was she saying?
"My mother--my mother--my mother!" And then, with a strange acceptance
of the name in another sense:--"But when will mother know?"
Gwen entered noiselessly, and stood by the bedside. She began to speak,
but shrank from her last word:--"She is not...?"
Widow Thrale looked up from the inanimate form she was clasping so
closely in her arms, to say, quite firmly:--"No, she is not dead." Then
back again, repeating the words:--"My mother!" as though they were to be
the first the unconscious ears should hear on their revival. Then once
more to Gwen, as in discharge of a duty omitted:--"God bless you, my
lady, for your goodness to us!"
Gwen's irresistible vice of anticlimax nearly made her say:--"Oh
bother!" It was stopped by a sound she thought she heard. "Is she not
speaking?" she said.
Both listened, and Widow Thrale heard, being the nearer, "Who called you
her mother?" she repeated. "_I_ did." And then Gwen said, clearly and
fearlessly:--"Your daughter Ruth!"
CHAPTER XVI
SIR CROPTON FULLER'S LUNCH. LAZARUS'S FAMILY. HOW HIS GREAT-GRANNY
CATECHIZED A TOOTHLESS HUMAN PUPPY THIRTEEN MONTHS OLD. HOW DR.
NASH DRAGGED MRS. PRICHARD IN. A VERY TAKING OLD PERSON, BUT QUITE
CRACKED. GOD'S MERCY IN LEAVING US OUR NATURAL FACULTIES. THAT WAS
A SEVERE CASE AMONG THE TOMBS. HOW DR. NASH HAD ALL THE MODEL STORY
OUT AGAIN, AND ABOUT MUGGERIDGE'S DON GIOVANITIES. MRS. PRICHARD
HAD KNOWN MAISIE, CLEARLY. EVERYTHING EXPLAINED. THE FUTILITY OF
HYPOTHESES. HOW A MEMORY OF HER MADMAN-CONVICT MADE OLD PHOEBE
FEEL BEWITCHED. OBSTINATE PATERNITY. THE MEASUREMENT OF THAT MODEL.
WHY ARM-MEASUREMENT? KID'S JARGON. MR. BARLOW. DAVE'S LETTER
DELIVERED. A SORT OF FAINT. VINEGAR. DR. NASH PURSUED AND BROUGHT
BACK. HOW OLD PHOEBE CAME TO KNOW THE TRUTH THROUGH A CHILD'S
DIRECT SPEECH. HER PRESENCE OF MIND. AND HOW SHE WENT STRAIGHT
HOME, TO LOOK BACK ON FIFTY LOST YEARS
The madman who had claimed as his mother the old woman at Strides
Cottage, whom Granny Marrable had not yet seen, had certainly no
statutory powers to impose an oath. But this did not stand in the way of
her keeping hers, religiously. That is to say, she kept her tongue
silent on every point that she could reasonably suppose to call for
secrecy, whether from his point of view or this old Mrs. Prichard's.
She felt at liberty to repeat what she remembered of his shocking
ravings about his prison life, and to dwell on the fact that he appeared
to have mistaken her for his mother. But this could be told without
connecting him with any person in or near the village. He was a returned
convict who had not seen his mother for twenty years, and meeting an old
woman who closely resembled her, or his idea of what she must have
become, had made a decisive mistake in identity.
As to the name he had written down for her, she simply shrank from it;
and destroyed it promptly, as soon as she collected her faculties after
the shock it gave her. She framed a satisfactory theory to account for
it, out of materials collected by foraging among her memories of fifty
years ago. It turned on these facts:--That the name Ralph Thornton
Daverill was the baptismal name of her sister's little boy that died in
England, and that Maisie had repeated to her what her husband had said
after the child's death, that the name would do over again if ever she
had another son; but had added that she herself would never consent to
its adoption. Granny Marrable was sure on both these points, but so
uncertain about what she had heard of the christenings of her nephews
born in Van Diemen's Land, that she had no scruple in deciding that her
sister had dissuaded her brother-in-law from his intention. For this
madman was clearly not Maisie's son, if Mrs. Prichard was his mother.
But what would be more natural and probable than that if Daverill
married again, he should make use of the name a second time? He might
have married again more than once, for anything Granny Marrable knew. So
might his widow--might have married a man named Prichard. Why not? Those
were considerations she need not weigh or speculate about.
Nevertheless, though she had destroyed the signed name, it was a cobweb
in her memory she would have gladly brushed away altogether. How she
would have liked to tell the whole to Ruth, when--as once or twice
happened--she walked over from Chorlton to get a report of progress,
leaving old Mrs. Prichard in charge of that loyal dog, supported by
Elizabeth-next-door, if need were. But she was sworn to silence on
matters she dared not provoke inquiry about. So her tale of her meeting
with the convict was minimised.
On the other hand, Ruth was scrupulously uncommunicative of everything
connected with Mrs. Prichard's supposed delusions. So was Dr. Nash, on
the one or two occasions when he looked in at Costrell's Farm,
prophylactically. Where was the use of upsetting Juno Lucina by telling
her that her daughter had taken a lunatic inmate? All the circumstances
considered, he would have much preferred that Mrs. Maisie's mother
should take charge of her. But this young woman liked to have her own
way.
The doctor was almost sorry, after Gwen drove away, that he had not
pointed out what an unpropitious moment it was for an upsetting
revelation, and suggested postponement. It was too late to do anything,
by the time he thought of it. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and
perceived that what was done couldn't be undone. Then he drove as fast
as he could to Sir Cropton Fuller, who asked him to stay to lunch. This
meant a long unemployed delay, but he compromised. He would see another
patient, and return to lunch, after which he would go to Costrell's
Farm. It was only a short drive from the Manor House, but if he had
gone there direct, he knew the mid-day meal at the Farm would cut across
what might prove a long conversation with Granny Marrable. Suppose
circumstances should favour a full communication of the extraordinary
disclosure he had it in his power to make to her, he would not feel any
hesitation about making it. In fact, he hoped that might prove the
natural order of events, although he was quite prepared to act on Lady
Gwendolen's suggestion that he should merely lay the train, not fire it,
if that should prove possible. But, said he to himself, that will be
neither fish nor flesh. Mysterious hints--so ran his reflections--will
only terrify the old body out of her seven senses and gain no end. Get
the job over!--that was the sacramental word. It took him all the period
of his drive to Sir Cropton's, and all the blank bars betwixt
prescription and prescription, to get--as it were--to this phrase in the
music.
But by the time Sir Cropton had given him lunch, it had become the
dominant theme of his reflections. Get the job done--if possible! More
especially because he did not want Juno Lucina's nerves to be upset at a
critical moment, and that was exactly what might happen if the
revelation were delayed too long. If she were told now, and disabled by
the shock, there would at least be time to make sure of a capable
substitute.
However, he must be guided by his prognosis on arriving at Costrell's.
It is just possible, too, that the doctor was alive to the interest of
the case on its own account, and not being himself personally involved,
felt a sort of scientific curiosity in the issue--What would the old
lady say or do, in face of such an extraordinary revelation? What were
the feelings of the family of Lazarus when he was raised from the tomb?
Or rather, what would they have been, had he been dead half a century?
The males at the farm would be away at this time of day; that was
satisfactory. He wanted to talk to Granny Marrable alone, if possible.
He could easily get his patient out of the way--that was a trifle. But
it would be a bore to have that young brother hanging round. In that
case he would have to negotiate a private conversation with Juno Lucina,
as such, and to use the opportunity professional mystery would give.
However, events smiled upon his purpose. Only Mrs. Maisie, a perfect
image of roseate health, was there alone with Granny; the two of them
appreciating last year's output, unconscious in his cradle, enjoying the
fourteenth month of his career in this world, having postponed teething
almost beyond precedent. His young mother derided her doctor's advice to
go and lie down and rest, but ultimately gave way to it, backed as it
was by public opinion.
"We seem to be going on very well, Mrs. Marrable," said the doctor, when
this end was achieved. The doctor shared a first person plural with each
of his patients. "_And_ yourself? You're not _looking_ amiss."
"No, thank God! And for all that I be eighty-one this Christmas, if I
live to see the New Year in, I might be twenty-eight." She then very
absurdly referred to the baby, who had waked up and made his presence
felt, as to whether this was, or was not, an exaggeration, suggesting
that he had roused himself to confirm it. Did he, she asked, want to say
his great-Granny was as young as the best, and was he a blessed little
cherub? She accommodated her pronunciation to the powers of
understanding she imputed to him, calling him, _e.g._, a bessed ickle
chezub. He seemed impatient of personalities; but accepted, as a pipe of
peace, an elastic tube that yielded milk. Whereupon Granny Marrable made
no more attempts to father opinions on him. "Indeed, doctor," said she,
speaking English again, "I wish every soul over fifty felt as young as I
do. We shouldn't hear such a many complaints."
"Very bad for the profession, Mrs. Marrable! This isn't a good part of
the world for my trade, as it is, and if everyone was like you, I should
have to put the shutters up. Well!--you see how it is? Look at Miss
Grahame--Sister Nora! Goes up to London the picture of health, and gets
fever! Old lady from some nasty unwholesome corner by Tottenham Court
Road comes down to Chorlton, and gets younger every day!"
"I was going to ask about Sister Nora, doctor--what the latest news was
saying."
"She'll make a good recovery, as things go. But that means she won't be
herself again for a twelvemonth, if then!" Granny Marrable looked so
unhappy over this, that the doctor took in a reef. "Less if we're
lucky--less if we're lucky!" said he. "She's being very well looked
after. Dalrymple's a good man."
"I'm glad you should know him to speak well of, for the lady's sake.
She's a good lady, and kind. It was through her the little boy Davy came
to the Cottage. My little Davy, I always call him."
"So does t'other old lady--she your daughter's got there now. You'll
scratch each other's eyes out over that young monkey when you come to
meet, Mrs. Marrable."
"There now, doctor, you will always have your joke. Ruth--my
daughter--is quite beside her judgment about the old soul. What like is
she, doctor, to your thinking?"
"Well--your daughter's right about her." He paused a moment, and then
added, meaningly:--"So far as being a very--very _taking_ sort of old
person goes."
Granny Marrable, rather absorbed in her descendant's relations with his
bottle, found in due course an opportunity to answer, looking up at the
doctor:--"A very taking old person? But what, then, is to seek in her?
Unless she be bad of heart or dishonest." Her old misgivings about
Dave's home influences, revived, had more share in the earnestness of
her tone than any misgivings about her daughter. And was not there the
awful background of the convict?
"Not a bit of it--not a bit of it! Right as a trivet, I should say, as
far as that goes! But ..." He stopped and touched his forehead,
portentously.
"Ah--the poor soul! Now is that true?"
"I think you may take it of me that is so." The doctor threw his
professional manner into this. After a moment he added, as a mere human
creature:--"Off her chump! Loose in the top story!" A moment after, for
professional reassurance:--"But quite harmless--quite harmless!"
Granny Marrable was grave and oppressed by this news. "The poor old
soul!--think of it!" said she. "Oh, but how many's the time I've thanked
God in His mercy for sparing me my senses! To think we might any of us
be no better off, but for Him, than the man our Lord found naked in the
tombs, in the country of the Gadarenes! But she is not bad like that,
this Mrs. Prichard?"
"Oh no!--that was a severe case, with complications. Not a legion of
devils, this time! One or two little ones. Just simple delusions. Might
have yielded to Treatment, taken younger. Too late, now, altogether.
Wastage of the brain, no doubt! She's quite happy, you know."
Although Dr. Nash had not shone as a reasoner forming square to resist
evidence, he had shrewd compartments in his mind, and in one of them a
clear idea that he would do ill to thrust forward the details of the
supposed simple delusions. This old lady must not be led to infer that
he was interested in _them_--mere scientific curiosities! She was sure
to ask for them in time; he knew that. And it was much better that he
should seem to attach no weight whatever to them.
Granny Marrable seemed to entertain doubts of the patient's happiness.
"I could never be happy," she said, "if I had been in a delusion."
"Not if you came to know it was a delusion. Very likely not!"
"But does not--does not--poor old Mrs. Prichard ever come to know she
has been in a delusion?"
"Not she! What she fancies she just goes on fancying. Sticks to it like
grim death."
"What sort of things now, doctor?"
This was a bite. But the doctor would play his fish. No hurry.
"_Perfectly_ crazy things! Oh--crack-brained! Has not your daughter told
you?... Oh, by-the-by!--yes!--I did tell her she had better not.... I
don't think it matters, though."
"But not if you would rather not, doctor!" This clearly meant the
reverse.
"Well now--there was the first thing that happened, about that little
model thing that stands on your mantelshelf at the cottage."
"What--my father's mill? Davy's mill, we call it now, because the child
took to it so, and would have me tell him again and again about
Muggeridge and the horses...."
"Ah--you told him about Muggeridge and the horses!"
"Yes, sure! And I lay, now, he'd told Mrs. Prichard all about _that_!"
"Trust him! Anyhow, he _did_. And she knew all about it before ever she
came to Chorlton. But her mind got a queer twist over it, and she forgot
it was all Master Dave's telling, and thought it had happened to
herself."
"Thought what had?"
"I mean, thought _she_ had been one of those two little kiddies in
violet frocks...."
"Ah, dear me--my dear sister that died out in Australia--my darling
Maisie!"
"Hay--what's that? Your darling what? What name did you say?"
"Maisie."
"There we have it--Maisie!" The doctor threw his forefinger to Granny
Marrable, in theory; it remained attached to his hand in practice.
"That's _her_ name. That's what it was all cooked up out of. Maisie!" He
was so satisfied with this little piece of shrewd detective insight that
he forgot for the moment how thoroughly he knew the contrary.
Granny Marrable seemed to demur a little, but was brought to order by
the drastic argument that it _must_ have been that, _because_ it could
not have been anything else. By this time the doctor had recollected
that he was not in a position to indulge in the luxury of incredulity.
"At least," said he, "I should have said so, only it doesn't do to be
rash. One has to look at a thing of this sort all round." He paused a
moment with his eyes on the ceiling, while his fingers played on the arm
of his chair the tune, possibly, of a Hymn to Circumspection. Then he
looked suddenly at the old lady. "You must have told the small boy a
great deal about the mill-model. _You_ told him about Muggeridge, didn't
you say, and the horses? Not your daughter, I mean?"
"Sure! Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox."
"Tell him anything else about Muggeridge?"
"Well, now--did I?... No--I should say not.... I was trying to think
what I would have remembered to tell. For you must bear in mind, doctor,
we were but young children when Muggeridge went away, and Axtell came,
after that.... No. I could _not_ speak to having said a word about
Muggeridge, beyond his bare name. That I could not."
The doctor did not interrupt his witness's browsings in the pastures of
memory; but when she deserted them, saying she had found nothing to
crop, said suddenly:--"Didn't tell him about Muggeridge and the other
lady, who wasn't Mrs. Muggeridge?"
"Now Lard a mercy, doctor, whatever do ye take me for? And all these
years you've known me! Only the _idea_ of it!--to tell a young child
that story! Why--what would the baby have thought I meant? Fie for shame
of yourself, that's what _I_ say!" A very small amount of indignation
leavened a good deal of hilarity in this. The old lady enjoyed the joke
immensely. That she, at eighty, should tell a child of seven a tale of
nuptial infidelity! She took her great-grandson into her confidence
about it, asking him:--"Did they say his great-grandmother told shocking
stories to innocent little boys?"--and so forth.
The doctor had to interpose upon this utter unconsciousness, and the
task was not altogether an easy one; indeed, its difficulties seemed to
him to grow. He let her have her laugh out, and then said quietly:--"But
where did Mrs. Prichard get the story?"
Granny Marrable had lost sight of this, and was disconcerted.
"What--why--yes--where _did_ she get it? Mrs. Prichard, of course! Now,
wherever could Mrs. Prichard have got it?..." It called for thought.
Dr. Nash's idea was to give facts gradually, and let them work their own
way. "Perhaps she knew Mr. Muggeridge herself," said he. "When did he
die?"
"Mercy me, doctor, where's the use of asking _me_? Before _you_ were
born, anyhow! That's him, a man of forty, with the horses and me a child
under ten! Seventy years ago, and a little to spare!"
"_That_ cock won't fight, then. As I make out, old Mrs. Prichard didn't
come from Van Diemen's Land above five-and-twenty years ago."
"_Where_ did Mrs. Prichard come from?"
"From Van Diemen's Land. In Australia. Where the convicts go."
"There now! Only to think of that! Why--I see it all!" Granny Marrable
seemed pleased.
"What do you see, Mrs. Marrable?" The doctor was puzzled. He had quite
expected that at this point suspicion of the facts _must_ dawn, however
dimly.
"Because that is where my dear sister was, that died. Oh, so many long
years ago!" Whenever old Phoebe mentioned Maisie, the same note of
pathos came in her voice. The doctor felt he was operating for the
patient's sake; but it would be the knife, without an anaesthetic. He had
not indefinite time to spare for this operation.
"I am going to ask what will seem a very absurd question," said he, in
the dry, professional manner in which he was wont to intrude upon his
patients' private internal affairs. "But you must remember I am an
outsider--quite in the dark."
A slight puzzled look on the strong old face before him, with--yes--a
faint suspicion of alarm! But oh, how faint! Perhaps he was mistaken,
though. For Granny Marrable let no sign of alarm come in her voice, if
she felt any. "What were ye wishing to be told, doctor?" she cheerfully
said. "If it's a secret, I won't tell it ye. You may take my word for
that."
He fixed his eyes attentively on her face. "You are absolutely certain,"
said he, "that the news of your sister's death was ..." He was going to
say "authentic," but was arrested by an ebullition of unparalleled fury
in the baby, who became fairly crumpled up with indignation, presumably
at being unable to hold more than a definite amount of milk. It was a
case that called for the promptest and humblest apologies from the human
race, represented by his great-grandmother. She had assuaged the natural
exasperation of two previous generations, and had the trick of it. He
subsided, accepting as his birthright a heavenly sleep, with dreams of
further milk.
Then Granny Marrable, released, looked the doctor in the face,
saying:--"'That the news of my sister's death was?...'" and stopped for
him to finish the sentence.
"Authentic," said he. He did not know whether her look meant that she
did not understand the word, and added:--"Trustworthy."
"I know what you mean," she said. "Go on and say why?"
The doctor was fairly frightened at his own temerity. Probably the
difficulties of his task had never fully dawned upon him. Would it not
be safer to back out of it now, leaving what he had suggested to
fructify? He would have fulfilled his promise to Lady Gwendolen, and
made it easier for her to word the actual disclosure of the facts. "I
was merely trying to think what anyone would say who wanted to make out
that this old Mrs. Prichard was not under a delusion."
"The poor old soul! What would they say, indeed?" This was no help.
Commiseration of Mrs. Prichard was not the doctor's object. But the
position was improved when she added:--"But there's ne'er a one _wants_
to make it out."
He thought of saying:--"But suppose there were!" and gave it up, knowing
that his hearer, though fairly educated, would regard hypotheses as
intense intellectual luxuries, prized academically, but without a place
in the sane world without. He decided on saying:--"Of course, you would
have documentary evidence." Then he felt that his tone had been
ill-chosen--a curfew of the day's discussions, a last will and testament
of the one in hand.
So it was, for the moment. Granny Marrable wanted the subject to drop.
On whatever pretext it was revived, the story of her sister's life and
death was still painful to her. But "documentary evidence" was too
sesquipedalian to submit to without a protest. "I should have her
husband's letter," said she, "telling of her death."
"Yes, you would have his letters."
"There was but two." Her intense truthfulness could not let that plural
pass. "He was a strange man--and a bad one, doctor, if ye want to
know--and he never wrote to me again, not after answering my letter I
wrote to tell him of my father's death. But I've a long letter from him,
saying how Maisie died, and her message to me, giving me--like you might
say--her girl for my own. That is my Ruth, you know, at Strides Cottage,
this little man's own granny. But I've never heard his name since ...
not till ... not till ..."
"What's the matter? Anything wrong?" For Granny Marrable had stopped
with a jerk, and her look was one of the greatest bewilderment. The
memory of the name the madman who said he was Mrs. Prichard's son had
given her as his own had come upon her with a sudden shock,
having--strangely enough--been dormant throughout this interview. She
was confronted with a host of perplexities, which--mark you!--had no
possible solution except the one her mind could not receive, and which
therefore never presented itself at all.
"Indeed, doctor, I think I be bewitched outright," said she. "I never
was so put to it, all the days of my life.... No, don't ye ask me no
questions! I haven't the liberty to tell above half of it, and maybe
better say nothing at all."
"I see--matter of confidence! Well--I mustn't ask questions." This was
really because he was certain the answer would come without asking.
Granny Marrable would never let the matter drop, with that look on her
face.
So it turned out. In a moment she looked up from the baby, whom she had
been redistributing, to his advantage. "I'll tell ye this much, doctor,"
she said. "There was a crazy man in yonder field near by, when I was
coming back from Jane Naunton's--just a few days since...."
"I've heard of him."
"What do they say of him?"
"I only heard the police were after him. Go on."
"Well--the name he called himself by was my sister's husband's, and he
said he came from Australia."
"That might be, and no witchcraft. When did your sister die?"
"Five-and-forty--six-and-forty--years ago!"
"Any children left? Boys?"
"Boys?--Lord, no! At least, yes--two boys! What I mean is, not by this
name."
"What were the boys' names?"
"One, I call to mind, was Isaac. For Maisie wrote me what work she had
to persuade her husband to the name...." She had meant to say more,
giving reasons why, but changed her speech abruptly. "The youngest boy's
name I let slip. But I know it was never this name that man gave me."
"You remember it near enough for that?"
Granny Marrable's intense truthfulness would not allow margins.
"No--it's clean slipped my memory, and I could not make oath I never
knew it. It was all out of reach, beyond the seas."
"That seems reasonable. Five-and-forty years! Now, can I remember
anything as long back as that?... However, I was two, so that doesn't
count."
"Maisie's son never bore this name. That's out of doubt!"
"Why?"
"Because her first was christened by it, and died at Darenth Mill, after
... after his father went away."
"Roger Trufitt's son is Roger. But both his brothers who died before he
was born were named Roger. There's no law against it. You know old
Trufitt, the landlord at the Five Bells? He says that if this son died,
he would marry again to have another and call him Roger. He's a very
obstinate man, old Trufitt."
Granny Marrable sat silent while the doctor chatted, watching her
changes of countenance. Her conscience was vacillating. Could she
interpret her oath of silence as leaving her free to speak of the
convict's claim to Mrs. Prichard as a parent? The extenuation of bad
faith would lie in the purely exceptional nature of the depository of
her secret. Could a disclosure to a professional ear, which secrets
entered every day, be accounted "splitting"? She thought she saw her way
to a limited revelation, which would meet the case without breach of
confidence.
"Maybe!" said she, putting old Trufitt out of court. "But I can tell ye
another reason why he's no son of my sister's. Though he might be, mind
you, a son of her husband. My brother-in-law, most like, married again.
How should I know?"
"What's the other reason?"
"He told me his mother's name. But I am not free to tell it, by reason I
promised not to."
This struck the doctor as odd. "How came you to be talking to a stray
tramp about his mother, Granny Marrable?" he asked shrewdly.
"Because he took me for his mother, and would have it I should know
him." This was no doubt included in what she had promised not to tell,
but the question had taken her by surprise.
A light broke on Dr. Nash. All through the interview he had been
wondering at himself for never having before observed the likeness
between the two old women, which he now saw plainly by the light of the
information Gwen had given him. He might have seen it before, had he
heard of the gipsy's mistake, but Ruth Thrale had never mentioned this.
He remembered, too, in Gwen's story, some slight reference to a son of
Mrs. Prichard who was a _mauvais sujet_. He determined on a daring
_coup_. "Are you sure Mrs. Prichard is not the mother he was looking
for?" said he.
Granny Marrable was struck with his cleverness. "Now, how _ever_ did you
come to find _that_ out, doctor?" said she.
"We're a clever lot, us doctors! We've got to be clever.... Let's see,
now--where are we? Mrs. Prichard has a son who is called by your
brother-in-law's name, but who is _not_ your sister's son. Because if he
were, Mrs. Prichard would be your sister. Which is impossible. But Mrs.
Prichard has got muddled about her own identity, and thinks she is. What
can we do to cure such a delusion? I've seen a great deal of this sort
of thing--I've had charge of lunatics--and the only thing I know of for
the case is to stimulate memory of the patient's actual past life. But
we know nothing about Mrs. Prichard. Who the dickens _is_ Mrs.
Prichard?"
Granny Marrable had looked really pleased at the _reductio ad
absurdum_--always exhilarating when one knows what's impossible--but
looked perplexed over Mrs. Prichard's real identity. "No, indeed, poor
dear soul!" she said. "'Tisn't as if there was any would tell us about
her."
"I have found, and so has your daughter, that she goes back and back in
these dreams of her own childhood, which no doubt are made up of ...
which no doubt may have been told her by ..." He stopped intentionally.
He wanted to stagger her immobility by making her recite the nonsense
about Mrs. Prichard's informants.
She was quite amenable. "By little Davy," said she contentedly.
"And what she had from your sister in Australia, years ago," said the
doctor, and saw her content waver. He had his clue, and resolved to act
on it. "For instance, Mr. Muggeridge's gallivantings. You're sure you
never told the child?"
"Sure?... Merciful gracious me! _That_ baby?"
"And how you and she measured the mill-model? That _must_ have come from
your sister."
She started. "What was that?" she said. "You never told me."
He did not look at her--only at his watch. He really had to be off, he
said, but would tell her about the measurements. Thought she knew it
before. He went on to narrate the incident referred to, which is already
familiar to the story. Then he got up from his chair as though to take
leave. If this did not land the suspicion of the truth in her
unreceptive mind, it could only be done by a sort of point-blank
directness that he shrank from employing, and that he had made it
difficult to adopt by his implied pretence of unconcern. He would
sooner, if that was to be the way of it, come to her at the outset as
the herald of something serious, and ask her to prepare herself for a
great shock. His manner had not pointed to an open operation, and such a
variation of it would be the sudden production of the knife. Perhaps the
dentist is sometimes right who brings his pliers from behind his back
when the patient fancies he is only scouting; but he runs a risk,
always. Dr. Nash was not at all confident in this case.
But he could venture a little farther with mere suggestion. "Certainly,"
said he, "it is a very curious phase of delusion, that this old lady
should go back on a statement of your sister's, made a lifetime ago, to
no apparent end. But the whole subject of the action of the brain is a
mystery." He looked up at his hearer's face.
She was sitting motionless, with a sort of fixed look. Had he injured
her--struck at the heart of her understanding? Well, it had got to come,
for better, for worse. Moreover, the look implied self-command. No, he
need not be frightened.
"What strikes me about this arm-measurement," said he, "is the strength
of her conviction. If she had only _spoken_ of it, well! But to get up,
at six in the morning, the day after she saw it!"
The old lady's eyes met his. "Why arm-measurement?" she asked, speaking
quite steadily and clearly.
"Because that was the way it was done. I don't know if I described it
right. Look here--it was like this...." He took her right wrist, as he
stood facing her, with his left hand. "You stretch out your fingers
straight," said he, and brought the tip of the middle finger of his own
right hand to meet hers. "Now, what Mrs. Prichard fancies she
remembers--what your sister told her in Australia, you know--is that you
and she, being girls, tried the length of your two arms together on the
top of the mill-case, from the elbow down. Just like ours now." He
determined to make the most of this incident, for his impression was
that her mind was already in revolt against the gross improbability of
her sister having dwelt on it to a new acquaintance in the Colony. He
had made Mrs. Prichard linger over the telling of it; it was such a
strange phase of delusion. In fact, he had said to himself that it must
be a genuine memory, ascribed to the wrong persons. He went on to a
cold-blooded use of her minutest details, still keeping the hand he held
in his. "You see, Mrs. Prichard's point was this--don't take your hand
away; I haven't quite done with it--her point was that your arm and your
sister's were exactly of a size...."
"We were twins."
"Precisely. And your two little paws, being young kids, or youngish...."
"We were just children. I mind it well. 'Twas a sort of game, to see how
our hands grew. But...."
"Let me finish. This old woman, when she went touring about to have a
look at the model that had given her such a turn overnight, found that
her own arm was well two-thirds the length of it, and something over.
She was cocksure the two small arms only just covered it, because unless
one cheated and pushed her elbow over the edge, your middle fingers
wouldn't jam and go cleck--like this.... That's why I wanted your hand
for--that'll do!... There was such a funny name she called it by--the
finger-tips jamming, I mean...."
Granny Marrable was pressing the released hand on her eyes and forehead.
"You fairly make my head spin, doctor, digging up of old-time memories.
But whatever was the funny name? Can't ye recollect?"
"It was sheer gibberish, you know...."
"Can't ye call the gibberish to mind?" This was asked earnestly, and
made Dr. Nash feel he was on the right tack.
"One can't speak positively to gibberish. The nearest I can go to the
word Mrs. Prichard used is"--the doctor paused under the weight of his
responsibility for accuracy--"the, nearest, I, can, go is ...
_spud-clicket_." He waited, really anxiously. If, rather than admit a
suspicion of the truth, she could believe that such a piece of infant
jargon could dwell correctly for decades in the mind of a chance hearer,
she could believe anything.
He was utterly taken aback when equable and easy speech, with a sound of
relief in every word, came from lips which he thought must at least be
tremulous. "Well--there now! Doesn't that show? Only Maisie _could_ have
told her that word. It's all right. But I'm none so sure, mind you, that
I could have remembered it right, myself."
It seemed perfectly hopeless. So said the doctor to himself. Surely, in
this long interview, he had tried all that suggestion could do to get a
fulcrum to raise the dead weight of conviction that years of an accepted
error had built up undisturbed. How easy it would have been had the tale
of Daverill's audacious fraud been a few months old; or a few years, for
that matter! It was that appalling lapse of time.
What could the doctor do to carry out his rash promise to Lady
Gwendolen, more than what he had done? He was already overdue at the
house of another patient, three miles off. The alternatives before him
were:--To rush the position, saying, "Look here, Granny Marrable,
neither you nor your sister are dead, but you were each told of the
other's death by the worst scoundrel God ever made." To do this or to
throw up the sponge and hurry off to his waiting patient! He chose the
latter. After all, he had striven hard to fulfil his promise to her
young ladyship, and only been repulsed from an impregnable fortress. But
he would have a parting shot.
"You must be very curious to see this queer old Mrs. Prichard, Mrs.
Marrable?" said he.
The old lady did not warm up to this at all. "Indeed, doctor, if I tell
the truth, I could not say I am. For to hear the poor old soul fancy
herself my sister, dead now five-and-forty years and more! Not for the
pain to myself, but for the great pity for a poor demented soul, and no
blessed Saviour near to bid the evil spirit begone. No, indeed--I will
hope she may be well on her way home before ever I return to Strides.
But my daughter says she'll be loath to part with her, so I'm not bound
to hurry back."
"Well--I rather hope she'll stop on long enough for you to get a sight
of her. You would be interested.... There's the postman." For they were
standing at the farm-gate by this time, leading into the lane.
"Yes, it be John Barlow on his new mail-cart. He's brought something for
the farm, or he wouldn't come this way.... Good-evening to you, John
Barlow!... What--three letters! And one of them for the old 'oman.... So
'tis!--'tis a letter from my little man Davy, bless his heart!"
"One fower th' ma'aster," said Mr. Barlow's strong rustic accent. "One
fower th' mistress. And one fower the granny. It be directed Strides,
but Widow Thrale she says, 'Ta'ak it along, to moother at Costrell's.'
And now ye've gotten it, Granny Marrable."
"There's no denying that, Master John. I'll say good-bye, doctor." But
what the letter-carrier was saying caught her ear, and she paused before
re-entering the house, holding the letters in her hand.
"There was anoother letter for th' Cottage, the vairy fetch of yowern,
Granny, all but th' neam. Th' neam on't was Mrs. Picture, and on yowern
Mrs. Marrowbone, and if th' neam had been sa'am on both, 'twould have
ta'aken Loondon Town to tell 'em apart."
"And you left one at the Cottage, and brought the other on here? Was
that it? Sharp man!" The doctor was pulling on his thick driving-gloves,
to depart. Granny Marrable was opening her letter already. "Bless the
boy," said she, "he's writing to both his Grannies with the same pen, so
they may not be jealous!"
"You may call me a sha'arp ma'an for soomat else, doctor," said Mr.
Barlow, locking his undelivered letters into the inner core of the new
mail-cart. "This time I be no cleverer than my letters. 'Twas Joe
Kerridge's wife, next dower the cottage, said, 'Ta'ak it on to the
Granny at Dessington.' And says I to her, 'They'm gotten the sa'am yoong
ma'an to write 'em love-letters,' I says. 'You couldn't tell they two
letters apart, but for the neams on 'em.' And then Mrs. Lisbeth she says
to me, 'Some do say they have to keep their eyes open to tell the old
la'adies apart,' she says. 'But I'm anoother way o' thinking mysen,' she
says, 'by reason of this Mrs. Prichard's white head o' hair.' And then I
handed all the letters to Lisbeth for Strides, as well as her own,
seeing ne'er one came out at door for knocking, and brought yowern on
with Farmer Costrell's." Mr. Barlow had been spoken of in the village
more than once as a woundy chatterbox.
The doctor glanced at Granny Marrable to see how she had taken the
reference to her resemblance to Mrs. Prichard, but was just too late to
see her face. She had turned to go into the house, and the only evidence
he had that it had perturbed her at all was that she said good-night to
no one. He felt that he had more than fulfilled his promise to Lady
Gwendolen, having done everything short of forcing the pace. His other
patient was no doubt already execrating him for not coming to time, so
he drove off briskly; at least, so his pony flattered himself. Ideas of
speed differ.
The horse whose quick step the doctor heard overhauling him, about a
mile on his road, had another ideal, evidently. It did not concern him;
so he ignored it until, as its nearer approach caused him to edge close
to the margin of the narrow road, the voice of its driver shouted to
him, and he pulled up to see why. Perhaps Mr. Barlow, the shouter, had
lighted on an overlooked letter for him, and had preferred this method
of delivery.
"They're asking for ye ba'ack at t' hoose--ba'ack to Costrell's Varm....
Noa, noa, doctor--'tis the old Granny, not the yoong wench. She's gone
off in a sowart of fayunt."
Dr. Nash turned his pony's head without a word, nodded and started. Mr.
Barlow called out, as Parthian information, as many particulars as he
thought would be audible, and sped on his course, to stand and deliver
at every cottage on the route susceptible to correspondence.
"She was looking queer," said the doctor to himself, stimulating his
pony's concept of a maximum velocity. "But I never thought of this. The
Devil fly away with the Australian twin! Why couldn't she wait six
weeks?"
He was immensely relieved to find the old lady sitting up, with her
granddaughter applying vinegar to her forehead. She was discountenancing
this remedy, or any remedy, as needless, in an unconvincingly weak
voice. She would come round if left to herself. She rallied her forces
at sight of the doctor, rather resenting him as superfluous. However,
his knowledge of the cause of her upset made him an ally, a fact she
probably became aware of. He suggested, after exhibiting two or three
drops of hartshorn in a wineglass of water, that she should be taken at
her word.
While she came round, left to herself in the big armchair, with her eyes
shut and a pillow to lean back on, Maisie the granddaughter told her
tale--the occurrence as she had seen it. Hearing the doctor's sounds of
departure, she had discontinued a fiction of repose--not admitted as
fiction, however--to come down and see what on earth Granny and he had
been talking their tongues off for. Granny was reading her letter from
Dave Wardle, and just the moment she saw her, gave a cry and fell back
in her chair; whereon Maisie, running out, told Mr. Barlow to catch the
doctor and send him back, then returned to her grandmother. She herself
did not seem seriously upset, though much puzzled and surprised.
The doctor saw something. "Where's the letter?" said he.
"Here on the baby," said Mrs. Maisie. And there on the baby, enjoying,
in a holy sleep, deep draughts of imaginary milk, was Dave's large
round-hand epistle.
The doctor glanced at it, and had the presence of mind to
say:--"Ho!--letter from a kid!" and suppress it. "Your Granny wants
something," said he, diverting Mrs. Costrell's attention from it. The
old lady was rallying visibly. She was, in fact, making an heroic
struggle against a sudden overwhelming shock.
* * * * *
Recent theories of a double consciousness--an inner self--that have been
worked hard of late years to account for everything Psychology is at a
loss about, might be appealed to to throw light on the changes in Granny
Marrable's state of mind in this past hour. Although to all appearance
the whole of Dr. Nash's efforts to put it on the track had been thrown
away, some of the forces his suggestions had set in motion had told
upon it; and, just as a swift, mysterious impatience in the few clouds
of a blue sky, and a muttered omen from Heaven-knows-what horizon,
precedes the thunder-clap that makes us run for shelter, so this
underself of hers may have vibrated in response to the strange hints he
had thrown out, and become susceptible to an impression from Mr.
Barlow's reference to her likeness to Mrs. Prichard, which otherwise
would have slipped off it like water off a duck's back. We have to
consider how in those happy years of her youth this almost
indistinguishable twinship of the sisters had been a daily topic with
all their near surroundings. To hear herself spoken of as a duplicate
again, after fifty years, carried with it an inexplicable thrill. Oh,
how the hours came trooping back from those long-forgotten days of old,
each with its appeal to that underself alone; which she, the old Phoebe
of this living world, suspected only to disallow! How she might have let
the memories of the old mill and the ever-running wheels; of the still
backwater where she failed to see the heron she could even now hear her
sister's sweet voice calling to her to come--come quickly to!--or she
would miss it; of that dear vanished sister's sweet beauty she could
dwell upon, forgetful that it also was her own,--how she might have let
these memories run riot in her heart, and break it, but that the very
thing that provoked them was also their profanation--Mrs. Prichard at
Strides Cottage! Who or what was Mrs. Prichard? A poor old crazypate, a
victim of delusions....
Yes, but _what_ delusions? That was the question her inner self could
not ignore, however much her living mind might cancel it. She could run
for shelter from it, but the storm would come. She flinched from hearing
another word of Mr. Barlow's woundy chatter, and fled into the house,
actually bearing in her hand the lightning-flash whose thunder-clap was
in a moment to shake the foundations of her soul.
It came with a terrible suddenness when she read Dave's large, roundhand
script. "MY DEAR GRANEY MAROBONE--Me and Dolly are so Glad because Gweng
has been here To say Mrs. Picture is reely Your Cistern." This is as
written first. Old Phoebe deciphered the corrections without
illumination; sheltered, perhaps, by some bias of her inner soul to an
idea that Mrs. Prichard was a second wife of her convict
brother-in-law--a sort of washed-out sister-in-law. The child might have
cooked it up out of that. It would explain many things.
Then came the thunderclap. "Gweng says Bad people told you bofe Lies
heaps longer ago than dolly's birfday, so you bofe thort you was dead
and buried." Straight to the heart of the subject, as perhaps none but a
child could have phrased it. Granny Marrable's sight grew dim as she
read:--"Gweng says you will be glad, not sory." Then she felt quite
sick, and heard her granddaughter coming downstairs. How to tell her
nothing of all this, how to pretend nothing was happening--that was what
had to be done! But the world vanished as she fell back in her chair
beside the cradle.
* * * * *
"Yes, Granny dear, what is it?... The letter?--oh, the doctor's got the
letter. Does it matter?... Never mind the letter! You sit still! I must
get you something. What shall I get for her, doctor?"
"Get me nothing, Maisie. I shall be all right directly...." And it
really seemed as if she would. Indeed, her revival was amazingly sudden.
"I tell you what I should _like_," said she, quite firmly. "I should
like a little air. Is not John come in?" John was Mr. Costrell, her
grandson-in-law--the farmer.
"I think I just heard him, outside." Maisie had heard him drive up to
the door, a familiar sound.
"Then let him drive me over to the Cottage."
"_Yes_," said the doctor, with emphasis. "Good idea!" And Maisie left
the room to speak to her husband.
Then old Phoebe, on her feet now, and speaking clearly, with a strange
ring of determination in her voice, said to him:--"Have you the young
child's letter?" He drew it from his pocket. "If what that letter says
is true, this is my sister Maisie, risen from the grave."
He marvelled at her strength. There was no need for reserve; he could
speak plainly now. "The letter is all true, Mrs. Marrable," said he.
"Mrs. Prichard is your sister Maisie, but she is not risen from the
grave. She is ill, and probably knows by now what you know, but for all
the shock she has had, she may have years of life before her. You cannot
do better than go to her at once. And remember that she will need all
your strength to help her. For she is not strong, like you."
The old face relaxed from its tension, and a gleam of happiness was in
the life of it. But she only said:--"Maisie": said it twice, as for the
pleasure in the name. Then she held out her hand, to take the letter
from the doctor.
He handed it to her. "I have been telling fibs, Mrs. Marrable," said he,
"or using them, which is the same thing, in trying to tell you this.
You will forgive that, I know?" She nodded assent. "Shall I tell you the
facts, as far as they are known to me?"
"Please!" She seemed well able to understand.
"Her husband was a damnable scoundrel...."
"He was."
"... And for some motive we can throw no light on, wrote two letters,
one a forgery with your father's signature--a letter to his wife--saying
that you, with your own husband and her child were drowned at sea. The
other to yourself, telling you that she was dead in Australia."
The blank horror on old Phoebe's face remained in the doctor's memory,
long after that. She just found voice to say:--"God help us all!" But
there was no sign of another collapse, though he was watching for it.
He continued:--"He must have had some means of suppressing your letters
to one another, to be safe in this deception...."
"He was the postmaster."
"Oh--was that it? Mrs. Costrell is coming back, and I shall have to
stop.... But I must just tell you this. The whole story has come out
through Lady Gwendolen Rivers, who is keenly interested in your sister."
Old Phoebe gave a visible start at this first mention of Mrs. Prichard's
relationship as a certainty. It was like the bather's gasp when the cold
water comes level with his heart. "Lady Gwendolen seems to have taken
charge of the old lady's writing-desk in London, and his lordship, her
father, it appears, opened and read them, having his suspicions...."
"Oh, but his lordship had the right...."
"Surely! No one would question his lordship's actions.... Here comes
your granddaughter back. I must stop. But that is really the whole."
Mrs. Costrell came back to say that John was mending a buckle in the
harness, but would be ready to drive Granny in a few minutes. How much
better Granny was looking! What was it, doctor? It wasn't like Granny.
"Stomach, probably," said the doctor, resorting to a time-honoured
subterfuge. "I'll send her something to take directly after meals."
"No, Maisie," said the old lady, somewhat to the doctor's surprise. "You
shall not be told any stories, with my consent. I've had a piece of
news--a blessed piece of news as ever came to an old woman!--and it gave
me a jump. But I shan't tell ye a word of it yet a while. Ye may just be
busy over guessing what it is till I come back." The doctor was obliged
to confess to himself that this was a wonderful stroke of policy on the
old lady's part, and resolved to back it up through thick and thin.
But although the young wife's good-humoured face showed every sign of
rebellion against her arbitrary exclusion from the enjoyment of this
mystery, her protest had to stand over. For baby waked up suddenly in a
storm of rage, and called Heaven and Earth to witness the grievous
injury and neglect of his family in not being ready with a prompt
bottle. The doctor hurried away to that patient, and what sort of
reception he got the story can only imagine. It hopes the case was not
urgent.
The last he saw that day of Granny Marrable was her back, almost as
upright at eighty as the young farmer's beside her at thirty, just
starting on the short journey that was to end in such an amazing
interview. His thought for a moment was how he would like to be there to
see it! Reconsideration made him say to himself:--"Well, now, should I?"
CHAPTER XVII
HOW LADY ANCESTER CALLED ON LADY TORRENS, WHO WAS KEEPING HER ROOM.
BUT SHE SAW THE BART. A QUEER AND TICKLISH INTERVIEW. MAURICE AND
KATHLEEN TYRAWLEY. NO NEED FOR HUMBUG BETWEEN _US_! THE COUNTESS'S
GROUNDS FOR OPPOSING THE MARRIAGE. HOW ADRIAN, WITH EYES IN HIS
HEAD, WOULD HAVE BEEN MOST ACCEPTABLE. BUT HOW ABOUT JEPHTHA'S
DAUGHTER? OUGHT WE, THOUGH, TO MEDDLE BETWEEN YOUNG LOVERS? AN
AWKWARD TOPIC. HOW ROMEO _DIDN'T_ FEEL, ABOUT _HIS_ EX-JULIET! HOW
COUNTY PARIS MIGHT HAVE WASHED, AND ROSALINE MIGHT HAVE MARRIED A
POPULAR PREACHER. THE SAME LIPS. THE COUNTESS'S COURAGE. A GOOD
SHAKE AND NO FLINCHING. CHRISTIAN-NAMING UNDER TUTELAGE. HOW SIR
HAMILTON INDULGED IN A FIRESIDE REVERIE OVER HIS PAST, AND HIS SON
AND DAUGHTER CAME BACK. HOW MISS SCATCHERD HAD BEEN SEEN BY BOTH. A
FLASH OF EYESIGHT, AND HOPE. HOW THE SQUIRE TOOK THE NEXT
OPPORTUNITY THAT EVENING. CUPID's NAME NOT DANIEL. WHAT AN IMAGE OF
THE COUNTESS SAID TO ADRIAN
Sir Hamilton Torrens is at home, because when a messenger rode from the
Towers in the morning with a note from the Countess to say that her
ladyship was driving over to Poynders in the afternoon, and could manage
a previous visit at Pensham by coming an hour earlier, his wife
instructed him that it would never do for him to be absent, seeing that
there was no knowing how indisposed she herself might be. There never
is, with nerve cases, and she was a nerve case. So Sir Hamilton really
must arrange to stay at home just this one afternoon, that Lady
Ancester's visit should not be absolutely sterile. If the nerve case's
plight and Sir Hamilton's isolation were communicated to her on her
arrival, she could choose for herself whether to come in or go on to
Poynders. She chose to come in and interview Sir Hamilton. So consider
that the lady of the house is indisposed, and is keeping her room, and
that the blind man and his sister, and Achilles, have gone to visit a
neighbour.
The Countess was acting on her resolution made in the train to be a free
lance. She had been scheming an interview with Adrian's father before
the next meeting of the lovers, if possible; and now she had caught at
the opportunity afforded by her daughter's absence at Chorlton. Hers was
a resolution that deserved the name, in view of its special object--the
organizing and conduct of what might be a most embarrassing negotiation,
or effort of diplomacy.
These two, three decades back, had behaved when they met like lovers on
the stage who are carried away by their parts and forget the audience.
Unless indeed _they_ had an audience, in which case they had to wait,
and did it with a parade of indifference which deceived no one.
And now! Here was the gentleman making believe that the lady was
bitterly disappointed at not seeing his amiable wife, who was, after
all, only the Miss Abercrombie he married at about the same time that
she herself became a Countess. And here was she adding to an insincere
acceptance of the position of chief mourner a groundless pretext that
the two or three decades were four or five--or anything you please
outside King Memory's Statutes of Limitations!--and those endearments
too long ago to count. And that the nerve case upstairs, if you please,
had no existence for her ladyship as the Miss Abercrombie she heard
Hamilton was engaged to marry, and felt rather curious about at the
time, but was a most interesting individuality, saturated with public
spirit, whose enthusiasm about the Abolition of Slavery had stirred her
sympathetic soul to the quick.
Endless speculation is possible over the feelings of a man and woman so
related, coming together under such changed circumstances, without the
lubricant to easy intercourse of the presence of others. The Countess
would not have faced the possible embarrassments, but would have driven
on to her cousin's house, Poynders, if she had not had a specific
purpose. As it was, it was the very thing she wanted, and she welcomed
it. She had the stronger position, and was prepared for all
contingencies.
Sir Hamilton had very few demeanours open to him. The most obvious one
was that of the courteous host, flattered to receive such a visitor on
any terms, especially proud and cordial in view of the prospect of a
connection between the families. He maintained a penitential attitude
under the depressing shadow of the absence of his better half, which
certainly was made the most of by both; somewhat artificially, a
perceptive visitor might have said, if one had been there to see. The
jeremiads over this unfortunate misadventure must have lasted fully ten
minutes before a lull came; for the gentleman could catch no other wind
in his sails, and had to let out every reef to move at all.
Lady Ancester was not inclined to lose time. "I am particularly sorry
not to see Lady Torrens," she said, "because I really wanted to have a
serious talk with her.... Yes, about the boy and girl--your boy and my
girl." A curious consciousness almost made her wince. Think how easily
either of the young lovers might have been a joint possession! If one,
then both, surely, minus their identities and the _status quo_? It was
like sudden unexpected lemon in a made dish.
The worst of it was--not that each thought the same thing at the same
moment; that was inevitable--but that each knew the other's thought. The
Baronet fell back on mere self-subordination. Automatically
non-existent, he would be safe. "Same thing--same thing--Lady Torrens
and myself! Comes to the same thing whether you say it to me or to her.
Repeat every word!... Of course--easier to talk to her! But comes to the
same thing." He abated himself to a go-between, and was entrenched.
The Countess affected an easy languor to say:--"I really don't feel able
to say what I want straight off. You know I never used to be able"--she
laughed a deprecatory laugh--"in the old Clarges Street days. Besides,
your man is coming in and out with tea and things. When he's done, I'll
go on."
The sudden reference to the time-when of that old passionate
relation contained an implication that it was not unspeakable _per
se_--although its threat had been that it would do its worst as a
cupboard-skeleton--but only owing to the childish silliness of a mere
calf-love, a reciprocal misapprehension soon forgotten. Treated with
contempt, its pretensions to skeletonhood fell through. Moreover, that
pending tea had helped to a pause; showing the speaker to be quite
collected, and mistress of the situation.
The little episode had put the Baronet more at his ease. He thought he
might endeavour to contribute to general lubrication on the same lines.
By-the-by, he had met Maurice Tyrawley last week in London--just back
from India--been away much longer than our men usually--Lady Ancester
would remember Maurice Tyrawley--man with a slight stammer--sister ran
away with her father's groom? Her ladyship remembered Maurice very well.
And was that really true about Kathleen Tyrawley? Well--that was
interesting! Was she alive? Oh dear yes--living in Tavistock
Square--fellah made money, somehow. That was _very_ interesting. If the
Countess had Kathleen's address, she would try to call on her, some
time. What was her name? Hopkins. Oh--Hopkins! She felt discouraged, and
not at all sure she should call on her, any time. But she did not say
so. An entry of Mrs. Hopkins's address and full name followed, on some
painfully minute ivory tablets. The Countess was sure to find the place,
owing to her coachman's phenomenal bump of locality. Was Colonel
Tyrawley married?... Oh--Major Tyrawley! Yes, he was married, and had
some rumpus with his wife. Etcetera, etcetera.
This sort of thing served its turn, as did the tea. But both became
things of the past, and left the course clear. Provided always that the
servant did not recrudesce! "Is he gone?" said the Countess. "If he
isn't, I can wait."
"He won't come back now."
"Very well. Then I can go on. I want to talk about our girl and boy....
I don't think there need be any nonsense between Us, Sir Hamilton?"
"About our boy and girl? Why should there?" Best not to add:--"Or
anything else," on the whole!
"I am speaking of his eyesight only. Please understand that I should not
oppose my daughter's wishes on any other ground."
"But I am to understand that you _do_ oppose them?"
The Countess held back her answer a few seconds, to take a last look at
it before sending it to press. Then she said decisively:--"Yes." She
made no softening reservation. She had already said why.
He considered it his duty to soften it for her. "On the ground of his
eyesight.... This is a sad business.... I gather that you empower me to
repeat to my wife that you are--quite naturally, I admit--are
unreconciled.... Or, at least, only partly reconciled to----"
"Unreconciled. I won't make any pretences, Sir Hamilton. I do _not_
think there need be any nonsense between us. I am the girl's mother, and
it is my duty to speak plain, for her sake."
"My wife will entirely agree with you."
"I hope so. But I am not sorry that I should have an opportunity of
speaking freely to you. This is the first I have had. I wish you to know
without disguise exactly how this marriage of Gwen and your Adrian--if
it ever comes off--will present itself to me, as the girl's mother."
Sir Hamilton inclined his head slightly, which may have meant:--"I am
prepared to listen to you as the boy's father, and his mother's proxy."
"As the girl's mother," repeated the lady. "I shall continue to think,
as I think now, that there is an _unreal_ element in my daughter's ... a
... regard for your son."
"An unreal element! Very often is, in young ladies' predilections for
young gentlemen."
The Countess rushed on to avoid a complex abstract subject, with
pitfalls galore. "Which may very well endanger her future.... Well!--may
endanger the happiness of both.... I don't mean that she isn't in love
with him--whatever the word means, and sometimes one hardly knows. I
mean now that she is under an influence which may last, or may not, but
which might never have existed but for ... but for the accident."
"My wife has said the same thing, more than once." Her ladyship could
have dispensed with this constant reference to the late Miss
Abercrombie. She felt that it put her at a disadvantage.
"And the Earl entirely agrees with me," said she. For why should her
ladyship not play a card of the same suit? "There is something I want to
say, and I don't know how to say it. But _he_ said it the other day, and
I felt exactly as he did. He said, as near as I recollect:--'If I had
twenty daughters to give away, I would not grudge one to poor Adrian, if
I thought it would do something to make up for the wrong I have done
him....'"
Sir Hamilton interrupted warmly. "No, Lady Ancester, no! I cannot allow
that to be said! We have never thought of it that way. We do not think
of it that way. We never shall think of it that way. It was an accident,
pure and simple. It might have happened to _his_ son, on my bit of
preserved land. All the owners about shoot stray dogs."
"But if it had, and you had had a mad daughter--because Gwen is a mad
girl, if ever there was one--who got a Quixotic idea like this in her
head, you would have felt exactly as my husband does."
"Should I? Well--I suppose I should. No, I don't think I should....
Well--at least...!"
"At least, what?"
"At least, if I had supposed that ... that Irene, for instance"--Sir
Hamilton's mind required a tangible reality to rest upon--"that Irene
was head over ears in love with some man...." He did not seem to have
his conclusion ready.
"And you _are_ convinced that my daughter is head over ears, in love
with your son? Is that it?" The Countess spoke rather coldly, and Sir
Hamilton felt uncomfortable. "It seems to me that the whole thing turns
on that. Are you certain that you have not _allowed_ yourself to be
convinced?"
"Allowed myself--I'm not sure I understand."
"With less proof, I mean, than her parents have a right to ask for--less
than you would have asked yourself in the reverse case?"
Sir Hamilton felt more uncomfortable. He ought to have answered that he
was very far from certain. But an Englishman is nothing if not a
prevaricator; he calls it being scrupulously truthful. "I have no right
to catechize Lady Gwendolen," said he.
"And her parents have, of course. I see. But if her parents, _are_
convinced--as I certainly am in this case, and I think my husband is,
almost--that there is an unreal element on Gwen's side, it ought to ...
to carry weight with you."
"It would carry weight. It does carry weight. But ... However, I must
talk to Lady Torrens about this." He appeared very uncomfortable indeed,
and was visibly flushed. But that may have been the red glow of a dying
fire in the half-light, or half-darkness, striking his face as he rested
his elbow on the chimney-piece, while its hand wandered from his brow to
his chin, expressing irresolute perplexity. Until, as she sat silent, as
though satisfied that he could have now no doubt about her wishes, he
spoke again, abruptly. "I wish you would tell me exactly what you
suppose to be the case."
She addressed herself to explicit statement. "I believe Gwen is acting
under an unselfish impulse, and I do not believe in unselfish impulses.
If a girl is to run counter to the wishes of her parents, and to obvious
common sense, at least let her impulse be a selfish one. Let her act
entirely for her own sake. Gwen made your son's acquaintance under
peculiar circumstances--romantic circumstances--and, as I know,
instantly saw that his eyesight might be destroyed and that the blame
would rest with her family...."
"No, L-Lady Ancester"--he stumbled somehow over the name, for no
apparent reason--"I deny that. I protest against it...."
"We need not settle that point. Your feeling is a generous one. But do
let us keep to Gwen and Adrian." Her ladyship went on to develop her
view of the case, not at all illogically. Her objection to the marriage
turned entirely on Adrian's blindness--had not a particle of personal
feeling in it. On the contrary, she and her husband saw every reason to
believe that the young man, with eyes in his head, would have met with a
most affectionate welcome as a son-in-law. This applied especially to
the Earl, who, of course, had seen more of Adrian than herself. He had,
in fact, conceived an extraordinary _entichement_ for him; so much so
that he would sooner, for his own sake purely, that the marriage should
come off, as the blindness would affect him very little. But his duty to
his daughter remained exactly the same. If there was the slightest
reason to suppose that Gwen was immolating herself as a
sacrifice--something was implied of an analogy in the case of Jephtha's
daughter, but not pressed home owing to obvious weak points--he had no
choice, and she had no choice, but to protect the victim from herself.
If they did not do so, what was there to prevent an irrevocable step
being taken which might easily lead to disastrous consequences for both?
"You must see," said Gwen's mother very earnestly, "that if my daughter
is acting, as my husband and I suppose, from a Quixotic desire to make
up to your son for the terrible injury we have done him ... No protests,
please!... it is our business to protect her from the consequences of
her own rashness--to stand between her and a possible lifelong
unhappiness!"
"But what," said the perplexed Baronet, "can _I_ do?" A reasonable
question!
"If you can do nothing, no one can. The Earl and myself are so
handicapped by our sense of the fearful injury that we have--however
unintentionally--inflicted on your son, that we are really tied hand and
foot. But you can at least place the case before Adrian as I have placed
it before you, and I appeal to you to do so. I am sure you will see that
it is impossible for my husband or myself to say the same thing to him."
"But to what end? What do you suppose will come of it? What ... a ...
what difference will it make?"
"It _will_ make a difference. It _must_ make a difference, if your son
is made fully aware--he is not, now--of the motives that may be
influencing Gwen." The Countess was not at all confident of her case, in
respect of any definite change it would produce in the bearing of Adrian
towards his _fiancée_, and still less of any effect such change would
produce upon that headstrong young lady, if once she suspected its
cause. But she had confidence in her memories of the rather stupid
middle-aged gentleman of whom, as a young dragoon, she had had such very
intimate experience. He was still sensitively honourable, as in those
old days--she was sure of that. Unless, indeed, he had changed very much
morally, as he had certainly done physically. He would shrink from the
idea of his son profiting by an heroic self-devotion of the daughter of
a man who was no more to blame for his son's mishap than he himself
would have been in the counter-case he had supposed. And he would
impress her view of the position on his son. It would have no visible
and immediate result now, but how about the six months at Vienna? Might
it not be utilised to undermine that position during those six months of
fascinating change? She pictured to herself an abatement of what her
mind thought of as "the heroics" in the first six weeks.
At least, she could see, at this moment, that she had gained her
immediate end. The uneasiness of the Baronet was visible in all that can
show uneasiness in a not very expressive exterior--restlessness of hand
and lips, and the fixed brow of perplexity. "Very good--very good!" he
was saying, "I will talk to my wife about it. You may depend on me to do
what I can. Only--if you are mistaken...."
"About Gwen? If I am, things must take their own course. But I think it
will turn out that I am right.... That is all, is it not? I am truly
sorry not to have seen Lady Torrens. I hope she will be better.... Oh
yes--it's all right about the time. They know I am coming, at Poynders.
And I should have time to dress for dinner, anyhow. Good-bye!" Her
ladyship held out a decisive hand, that said:--"Curtain."
But Sir Hamilton did not seem so sure the performance was over. "Half a
minute more, L-Lady Ancester," said he; and he again half-stumbled over
her name. "I am rather slow in expressing myself, but I have something I
want to say."
"I am not in a hurry."
"I can only do exactly what you have asked me to do--place the case
before my son as you have placed it before me."
"I have not asked for anything else."
"Well, then, I can do that, after I have talked over it with his mother.
But I can't ... I can't undertake to _influence_ him."
"Is he so intractable?... However, young men _are_."
"I did not mean that. I ... I don't exactly know how to say it...."
"Why should you hesitate to say what you were going to say?... Do you
suppose I don't know what it was?" For he had begun to anticipate it
with some weakening reservation. "I could tell you exactly. You were
going to say, was it right to influence young people's futures and so
on, and wasn't it taking a great responsibility, and so on? Now, were
you not?"
"I had some such thought."
"Exactly. You mean you thought what I said you thought."
"And you think me mistaken?"
"Not always. In the present case, yes--if you consider that it would be
influencing. I don't. It would only be refraining from keeping silence
about--about something it may never occur to your son to think
possible." It may have struck her hearer that to call shouting a fact on
the house-tops "refraining from keeping silence" about it was straining
phraseology; but it was not easy to formulate the idea, offhand. It was
easier to hold his tongue. The Countess might have done better to hold
hers, at this point. But she must needs be discriminating, to show how
clear-sighted she was. "Of course, it is quite a different thing to try
to bring about a marriage. That is certainly taking a grave
responsibility." She stopped with a jerk, for she caught herself
denouncing the very course of action which well-meaning friends had
adopted successfully in the case of herself and her husband. If it had
not been for the jerk, Sir Hamilton would not have known the comparison
that was passing in her mind. She recovered herself to continue:--"Of
course, trying to bring about a marriage is a grave responsibility, but
mere testing of the strength of links that bind may be no more than bare
prudence. A breaking strain on lovers' vows may be acknowledged by them
as an untold blessing in after-years." Here she began to feel she was
not improving matters, and continued, with misgivings:--"I am scarcely
asking you to do even that. I am only appealing to you to suggest to
your son a fact that is obvious to myself and my husband, because it is
almost impossible for us, under the circumstances, to make such an
appeal to him ourselves."
"Are you so confident of the grounds of your suspicions ... about ...
about the motives that are influencing your daughter?"
"They are not suspicions. They are certainties. At least, I am
convinced--and I am her mother--that her chief motive in accepting your
son was vitiated--yes, vitiated!--by a mistaken zeal for--suppose we
call it poetical justice. I am not going to say the girl does not fancy
herself in love." She laughed a maternal sort of laugh--the laugh that
seniority, undeceived by life's realities, laughs at the crazy dawn of
passion in infatuated children. "Of course she does. But knowing what I
do, am I not right to make an attempt at least to protect her from
herself?" She lowered her voice to an increase of earnestness, as though
she had found a way to go nearer to the heart of her subject. "Does any
woman know--_can_ any woman know--better than I do, the value of a
girl's first love?"
It was a daring recognition of their old relation, and the veil of the
thin pretence that it could be successfully ignored had fallen from
between them.
The Baronet was a Man of the World. "Women do not take these things to
heart as men do." And then, the moment after, was in a cold perspiration
to think in what a delicate position it would have landed him. Just
think!--with the Miss Abercrombie he had married cherishing her nervous
system upstairs, and the pending reappearance of a son and daughter who
were very liable to amusement with a parent whom they scarcely took
seriously--for _him_ to be hinting at the remains of an undying passion
for this lady! He could only accept her estimate of girls by
stammering:--"P-possibly! Young people--yes!"
But his embarrassment and hesitation were so visible that the Countess
had little choice between flinching or charging bravely up to the guns.
She chose the courageous course, influenced perhaps by the thought that
if the marriage came off, there would be a long perspective of
reciprocal consciousnesses in the future for herself and this man, who
had an unfortunate knack of transparency. Could not she nip the first in
the bud, and sterilise the rest? It was worth the attempt.
"Listen to me, Hamilton," said she; and she was perfectly cool and
collected. "Did I not say to you that there need be no nonsense between
_us_?... How funny men are! Why should you jump because I called you by
name? Do you know that twice since we have been talking here you have
all but called me the name you used to me as a girl?... Yes--you began
saying 'Lip,' and made it Lady Ancester. Please say it all another time.
I shall not bite you.... Look here!--I want you to help me to laugh at
the mistake we made when we were young folks; not to look solemn at it.
We were ridiculous.... You were going to say, 'Why?' Well--I don't
exactly know. Young folks always _are_." The fact is, the Countess was
beginning to feel comfortably detached, and could treat the subject in a
free and easy manner.
The Baronet could not bring himself to allow that he had ever been
ridiculous, without protest. The Man within him rose in rebellion
against such an admission. He felt a little indignant at her
unceremonious pooh-poohing of their early infatuation. He would have
accorded it respectful obsequies at least. But what protest could he
enter that would not lay him open to suspicions of that undying passion?
It appeared to him absolutely impossible to say anything, either way. So
he looked as dignified as he could, consistently with being glad the
room was half dark, because he knew he was red.
His uncomfortable silence, instead of the response in kind her ladyship
had hoped for, interfered a little with the development of her
detachment. She judged it better to wind up the interview, and did it
with spirit. "There, now, Hamilton, _don't talk_--because I know exactly
what you are going to say. Shake hands upon it--a good shake, you
know!--don't throw it away!"
How very different are those two ways of offering a hand, the tender one
and the graspy one. The Countess's stopped out of its glove to emphasize
the latter, and did it so frankly and effectually that it cleared the
air, in which the smell of fire had been perceptible, as in a room where
a match has gone out.
He had, as she said, twice very nearly called her by her old familiar
name of the Romeo and Juliet days. Nevertheless, when he gave her his
hand, saying:--"Perfectly right--perfectly right, Lip! That's the way to
look at it," he threw in the name stiffly. It was under tutelage, not
spontaneously uttered. Letting it come before would have given him a
better position. But then, how if she had disallowed it? There was no
end to the ticklishness of their relation.
A _modus vivendi_ was, however, established. She could recapitulate
without endangering it. "You _will_ try to make Adrian see Gwen's
motives as I see them. It is quite possible that it will make no
difference in the end. If so, we must bow to the decrees of Providence,
I suppose. But I am sure you agree with me that he ought not to remain
in the dark. As I dare say you know, I am taking Gwen to Vienna for a
time. If they are both of a mind at the end of that time--well, I
suppose it can't be helped! But you must not be--I see you are
not--surprised at my view of the case."
Sir Hamilton assented to everything, promised everything, saw the lady
into her carriage, and returned, uncomfortable, to review his position
before the drawing-room fire in solitude. He did not go upstairs to the
nerve case. He would let his visitor die down before he discharged that
liability. He broke a large coal, and made a flare, and rang the bell
for lights, to show how little the late interview had thrown him out of
gear. But it _had_ done so. In spite of the fact that Lady Ancester was
well over five-and-forty, and that he himself was four or five years
older, and that she had all but hinted that the sight of him would have
disillusioned her if the Earl had not--for that was what he read between
her lines--she had left something indefinable behind, which he was
pleased to condemn as sentimental nonsense. No doubt it was, but it was
_there_, for all that.
Just one little tender squeeze of that beautiful hand, instead of that
candid, overwhelming wrestler's grip and double-knock handshake, would
have been so delightful.
He caught himself thinking more of his handsome visitor and her easy
self-mastery, compared with his own awkwardness and embarrassment, than
of her errand and the troublesome task she had devolved on him of
illuminating his son's mind about the possible self-sacrificial motives
of her daughter. His thoughts _would_ wander back to their Romeo and
Juliet period, and make comparisons between this _now_ of worldly-wise
maturities and the days when he would have been the glove upon that
hand, that he might touch that cheek. He recalled his first meeting with
the fascinating young beauty in her first season, at a moonlight dance
on a lawn dangerously flanked with lonely sheltered avenues and
whispering trees; and the soft rose-laden air of a dawn that broke on
tired musicians and unexhausted dissipation, and his headlong reckless
surrender to her irresistible intoxication; and, to say the truth, the
Juliet-like acknowledgment it met with. He would have been better
pleased, with the world as it was now, if less of that Juliet had been
recognisable in this mature dame. The thought made him bite his lip. He
exclaimed against his recognition perforce, and compelled himself to
think of the question before the house.
Yes--he could quite understand why the girl's parents should find it
difficult to say to his son:--"We know that Gwen is giving her love to
make amends for a wrong, as she thinks, done by ourselves; and whatever
personal sacrifice we should be glad to make as compensation for it, we
have no right to allow our daughter to imperil her happiness." But he
had a hazy recollection of Adrian's telling him something of the Earl
himself having mooted this view of the subject at the outset of the
engagement; and, hearing no more of it, had supposed the point to be
disposed of. Why did Lady Ancester wish to impress it on him now?
Then it gradually became clearer, as he thought it out, that it would
have been impossible to form conclusions at once. The Earl had no doubt
expressed a suspicion at first. But his daughter would never have
confessed her motives to _him_. What more likely than that her mother
should gradually command her confidence, and see that Adrian could not
arrive at a full appreciation of them without an ungracious persistence
on the part of herself and her husband, unless it were impressed on him
by some member of the young man's family? His father, naturally.
He felt perceptibly gratified that Gwen's mother should take it for
granted that he would feel as she did about the injustice to her
daughter of allowing her to sacrifice herself to make amends for a fault
of her parents. It was a question of sensitive honour, and she had
credited him rightly with possessing it. At least, he hoped so. And
though he was certainly not a clever man, the Squire of Pensham was the
very soul of fair play. His division of the County knew both facts. Now,
it seemed to him that it would be fairer play on his part to throw his
influence into the scale on the side of the Countess, and protest
against the marriage unless some guarantee could be found that there was
no heroic taint in the bride's motives. In this he was consciously
influenced by the thought that _his_ side would suffer by his own
action, so his own motives were tainted. A chivalric instinct,
unbalanced by reasoning power, is so very apt to decide--on
principle--against its owner's interests. Behind this there may have
been a saving clause, to the effect that the young people might be
relied on to pay no attention to their seniors' wishes, or anything
else. Gwen was on her way to twenty-one, and then parental authority
would expire. Meanwhile a little delay would do no harm. For the
present, he could only rub the facts into his son, and leave them to do
their worst. He would speak to him at the next opportunity.
* * * * *
Home came Adrian and Irene, and filled the silence of the house with
voices. Something was afoot, clearly; something not unpleasant, to judge
by the laugh of the latter. The room-door, whose hasp never bit
properly--causing Adrian to perpetrate an atrocious joke about a
disappointed Cleopatra--swung wide with an unseen cause, which was
revealed by a soft nose, a dog's, in contact with Sir Hamilton's hand.
He acknowledged Achilles, who trotted away satisfied, to complete an
examination of all the other inmates of the house, his invariable custom
after an outing. He would ratify or sanction them, and drop asleep with
a clear conscience.
"Hay? What's all that? What's all the rumpus?" says the Baronet, outside
at the stair-top. The sounds of the voices are pleasant and welcome to
him, and he courts their banishment of the past his old _fiancée_ had
dragged from its sepulchre. Bury it again and forget it! "What's all the
noise about? What's all the chatterboxing?" For the good gentleman
always imputes to his offspring a volubility and a plethora of language
far in excess of any meaning it conveys. His own attitude, he implies,
is one of weighty consideration and temperate but forcible judgment.
"What's the chatterboxing?" says the beautiful daughter, who kisses him
on both sides--and she and her skirts and her voice fill the discreet
country-house to the brim, and make its owner insignificant. "What's the
chatterboxing, indeed? Why,--it's good news for a silly old daddy!
That's what it is. Now come in and I'll sit on his knee and tell him."
And by the time Adrian has felt his way to the drawing-room, the good
news has been sprung upon his father by a Moenad who has dragged off her
head-gear--so as not to scratch--and flung it on the sofa. And a tide of
released black hair has burst loose about him. And--oh dear!--_how_ that
garden of auld lang syne has vanished!
It behoves a Baronet and a J.P., however, to bring all this excitement
down to the level of mature consideration. "Well--well--well--well!"
says he. "Now let's have it all over again. Begin _at_ the beginning.
You and your brother were walking up Pratchet's Lane. What were you
doing in Pratchet's Lane?"
"Walking up it. You _can_ only walk up it or down it. Very well. We were
just by the big holly-tree ..."
"Which big holly-tree? One--thing--at--a time!"
"Don't interrupt! There is only one big holly-tree. Now you know! Well!
Ply ran on in front because he caught sight of Miss Scatcherd ..."
"Easy--easy--easy! Where was Miss Scatcherd?"
"In front, of course! Ply dotes on Miss Scatcherd, although she's
forty-seven."
"I don't know about the 'of course,'" says Adrian, leaning on his
father's arm-chair. "Because I _don't_ dote on Miss Scatcherd. Miss
Scatcherd might have been coming up behind. In which case, if I had been
Ply, I should have run on in front."
"Don't be spiteful! However, I know she's bony. Well--am I to get on
with my story, or not?... Very good! Where did I leave off? Oh--at Miss
Scatcherd! Now, papa dear, be good, and don't be solemn."
"Well--fire away!"
"Indeed, it really happened just as I told you: as we were going to the
Rectory, Ply ran on in front, and I went on to rescue Miss Scatcherd,
because she doesn't like being knocked down by a dog, however
affectionate. And it was just then that I heard Adrian speak...."
"Did I speak?"
"Perhaps I ought to say gasp. I heard Adrian gasp. And when I turned
round to see why, he was rubbing his eyes. Because he had _seen_ Miss
Scatcherd."
"How did you know?" The interest of this has made Sir Hamilton lapse his
disciplines for the moment. He takes advantage of a pause, due to his
son and daughter beginning to answer both at once, and each stopping for
the other, to say:--"This would be the second time--the second time!
Something might come of this."
"You go on!" says Irene, nodding to her brother. "Say what you said."
Adrian accepts the prolocutorship. "To the best of my recollection I
said:--'Stop Ply knocking Miss Scatcherd down again!' Because he did it
before, you know.... Oh yes, entirely from love, no doubt! Then I heard
you say:--'How do you know it's Miss Scatcherd?' And I told you."
"Yes--yes--yes--yes! But how _did_ you?... How much did you see?" The
Baronet is excited and roused.
"Quite as much as I wished. I think I mentioned that I did _not_ dote on
Miss Scatcherd." For, the moment a piece of perversity is possible, this
young man jumps at it.
"Oh, Adrian dear, don't be paradoxical and capricious when papa's so
anxious. Do say what you saw!" Thus urged by his sister, the blind man
describes the occurrence from his point of view, carefully and
conscientiously. The care and conscience are chiefly needed to limit and
circumscribe a sudden image of a lady of irreproachable demeanour
besieged by an unexpected dog. So sudden that it merely appeared as a
fact in space, without a background or a foothold. It came and went in a
flash, Adrian said, leaving him far more puzzled to account for its
disappearance than its sudden reasonless intrusion on his darkness.
As soon as the narrative ended, perversity set in. It was gratifying,
said Adrian, to listen while Hope told flattering tales, but was it not
as well to be on our guard against rash conclusions? Even a partial
restoration of eyesight was a thing to look forward to, but would not
the extent of the benefits it conferred vary according to the nature of
its own limitations? For instance, it might enable him to see everything
in a mist, without outlines; or, for that matter, upside down. That,
however, would not signify, so long as everything else was upside down.
Indeed, who could say for certain that anything ever was, or ever had
been, right side up? It all turned on which side "up" was, and on
whether there was a wrong side at all.
"All nonsense!" said Irene.
"Shut up, 'Re," said Adrian. "These things want thinking out. A limited
vision might be restricted in other ways than by mere stupid opaque fog,
and bald, insipid position in Space. Consider how much more aggravating
it would be--from the point of view of Providence--to limit the vision
to the selection of peculiar objects which would give offence to the
Taste or Religious Convictions of its owner! Suppose that Miss
Scatcherd's eyes, for instance, could only distinguish gentlemen of
Unsound opinions, and couldn't see a Curate if it was ever so! And, _per
contra_, suppose that it should only prove possible to me to receive an
image of Miss Scatcherd, or her congeners ..."
"Is that eels?" said Irene, who wasn't listening, but getting out
writing-materials. "You may go on talking, but don't expect me to
answer, because I shan't. I'm going to write to Gwen all about it."
Her brother started, and became suddenly serious. "No, 'Re!" he
exclaimed. "At least, not yet. I don't want Gwen to know anything about
it. Don't let's have any more false hopes than we can help. Ten to one
it's only a flash in the pan!... Don't cry about it, ducky darling! If
it was real, it won't stop there, and we shall have something worth
telling."
So Irene did not write her letter.
* * * * *
That evening the Squire was very silent, saying nothing about the long
conversation he had had with Gwen's mother. His good lady did not come
down to dinner, and if she asked him any questions about it, it was when
he went up to dress; not in the hearing of his son or daughter. They
only knew that their mother had not seen Lady Ancester when she called,
and curiosity about the visitor had merged in the absorbing interest of
Miss Scatcherd's sudden visibility.
But no sooner had Irene--who was the ladies, this time--departed to
alleviate the lot of her excellent mamma, who may have been very ill,
for anything the story knows, than Sir Hamilton told the pervading
attendant-in-chief to look alive with the coffee, and get that door
shut, and keep it shut, conveying his desire for undisturbed seclusion.
Then he was observed by his son to be humming and hawing, somewhat in
the manner of ourselves when asked to say a few words at a public
dinner. This was Adrian's report to Irene later.
"Had a visitor to-day--s'pose they told you--Lady Ancester. Sorry your
mother wasn't up to seeing her."
"I know. We passed her coming away. Said how-d'ye-do in a hurry. What
had her ladyship got to say for herself?" Thus far was mere recognition
of a self-assertion of the Baronet's, as against female triviality. He
always treated any topic mooted in the presence of womankind as mere
froth, and resumed it as a male interest, as though it had never been
mentioned, as soon as the opposite sex had died down.
"We had some talk. Did you know she was coming?"
"Well--yes--after a fashion. Gwen's last letter said we might expect a
descent from her mamma. But I had no idea she was going to be so
prompt."
"She sent over to tell us, this morning. They took the letter up to your
mother. I had gone over to the Hanger, to prevent Akers cutting down a
tree. Man's a fool! I rather got let in for seeing her ladyship. Your
mother arranged it."
"I didn't hear of it. I should have stopped. So would 'Re."
"Yes--it rather let me in for a ... _tête-à-tête_." Why did Sir Hamilton
feel that this expression was an edged tool, that might cut his fingers?
He did.
"I should have been in the way."
Another time this might have procured a rebuke for levity. Sir Hamilton
perceived in it a stepping-stone to his text. "Perhaps you might," he
said. But he wavered, lest that stone should not bear; adding,
indecisively:--"Well--we had some talk!"
"About?" said his son. But he knew perfectly well what about.
"About Gwen and yourself. That conversation of yours with the Earl. You
remember it? You told me."
"I remember it, certainly. He was perfectly right--the Earl. He's the
sort of man that is right. I was horribly ashamed of myself. But Gwen
set me up in my own conceit again."
His father persevered. "I understood his view to be that Gwen was under
the influence of ... was influenced by ... a distorted view ... a
mistaken imagination...."
"Not a doubt of it, I should think. My _amour propre_ keeps on
suggesting to me that Gwen may be of sound mind. My strong common sense
replies that my _amour propre_ may be blowed!"
"Adrian, I wish to talk to you seriously. What did you suppose I was
referring to?"
"To Gwen's distorted view of your humble servant--a clear case of
mistaken imagination. That, however, is a condition precedent of the
position. Dan Cupid would be hard up, otherwise."
"Dan Who?"
"The little God of Love ... not Daniel Anybody! Wasn't that what the
Earl meant?"
"Not at all! I was referring to his view of ... a ... his daughter's
view ... of the accident ... some idea of her making up to you for ..."
No wonder he hesitated. It _was_ difficult to talk to his son about it.
Adrian cleared the air with a ringing laugh. "I know! What Gwen calls
the Self-Denying Ordinance!--her daddy's expression, I believe." He
settled down to a more restrained and serious tone. "The subject has not
been mentioned, since Lord Ancester's first conversation with me--in the
consulship of Mrs. Bailey, at the Towers--not mentioned by anyone. And
though the thought of it won't accept any suggestions towards its
extinction, from myself, I don't see my way to ... to making it a
subject of general conversation. In fact, I cannot do anything but hold
my tongue. I am sure you would not wish me to say to Gwen:--'Hence!
Begone! I forbid you to sacrifice yourself at My Shrine.' Now, would
you?"
The Squire was at liberty to ignore poetry. He took no notice of the
question, but proceeded to his second head. "Lady Ancester has a strong
opinion on the subject." He never said much at a time, and this being
difficult conversation, his part of it came in short lengths.
"To the effect that her daughter is throwing herself away. Quite right!
It is so. She _is_ throwing herself away."
"Lady Ancester expressed no opinion to that effect. She considers that
Gwen is not acting under the influence of ... under the usual motives.
That's all she said. Spoke very well of you, my boy!--I must say that."
"But...?"
"But thought Gwen ought to act only for her own sake."
"Of course she ought. Of course she ought. I see the whole turn out. Her
mother considers, quite rightly, that Jephtha, Judge of Israel, ought to
have been jolly well ashamed of himself. Perhaps he was. But that's
neither here nor there. What does Gwen's mammy think I ought to
do--ought to say--ought to pretend? That's what it comes to. Am I to
refuse to accompany Gwen to the altar till she can give sureties that
she is really in love, and plead the highest Spartan principles to
justify my conduct? Am I to make believe that I cannot, cannot love a
woman unless she produces certificates of affection based solely on the
desirability of my inestimable self? I should never make anyone believe
_that_. Why--if I thought Gwen hated me worse than poison, but was
marrying me on high moral grounds to square accounts, I don't think I
could humbug successfully, to that extent."
"Well, my dear boy, I am bound to confess that I do not see what you can
_do_. I can only repeat to you her ladyship's conviction, and tell you
that I believe it to be--what she says it is. I mean that she speaks
because she is certain Gwen is under the influence of this--of this
Quixotic motive. I can only tell you so, at her wish, and--and leave it
to you. I tell you frankly that if I were in her place, I should oppose
the marriage, under the circumstances."
"Why doesn't she tackle me about it herself?"
"H'm--well--h'm! I think if you look at it from her point of view ...
from her point of view, you'll see there would be many difficulties ...
many difficulties. Done your cigar? I suppose we ought to go and pay
your mother a visit."
Yes--Adrian saw the difficulties! On his way upstairs a vivid scene
passed through his head, in which an image of the Countess addressed
him thus:--"My dear Mr. Torrens, Gwen does not really love you. She
is only pretending, because she considers her family are responsible
for your blindness. All her assurances of affection for you are
untrustworthy--just her fibs! She could not play her part without them.
I appeal to you as an honourable man to disbelieve every word she says,
and to respect the true instinct of a maternal parent. No one grieves
more sincerely than I do for your great misfortune, or is more contrite
than my husband and myself because it was our keeper that shot you, but
there are limits! We must draw the line at our daughter marrying a
scribbler with his eyes out, on high principles." At this point the
image may be said to have got the bit in its teeth, for it added:--"If
Gwen squinted and had a wooden leg, nothing would please us better.
But...!"
How did the growing hope of a revival of sight bear on the question?
Well--both ways! May not Gwen's pity for his calamity have had
_something_ to do with her feelings towards him, without any motive that
the most stodgy prose could call Quixotic?
CHAPTER XVIII
A DABBLER IN IMMORTALITY. _ALL_ THEIR LIVES! WILL PHOEBE KNOW ME?
STAY TO TELL HER THIS IS ME. THAT POOR OLD PERSON. HOW GWEN MET
GRANNY MARRABLE ON HER WAY HOME. HER DREAD OF MORE DISCLOSINGS, AND
A GREAT RELIEF. _MACTE VIRTUTE_, DR. NASH! GRANNY MARRABLE'S
FORTITUDE. HOW GWEN NOTICED THE LIKENESS TOO, FOR THE FIRST TIME! A
SHORT CHAT THE COUNTESS HAD HAD WITH SIR HAMILTON. HOW SHE WAS
UNFEELING ABOUT THE OLD TWINS. WHY NOT SETTLE DOWN AND TALK IT
OVER? NO AUTHENTICATED GHOST APPEARS TO A PERFECT STRANGER. A
DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT. SIR SPENCER DERRICK AND THE OPENSHAWS.
GWEN'S LETTER TO HER FATHER. HOW SHE DID NOT GO TO PENSHAM, BUT
BACK TO STRIDES COTTAGE
When Gwen's task came to an end, she had to think of herself. The day
had been more trying even than her worst anticipations of it. But now at
last she had stormed that citadel of Impossible Belief in the mind of
both mother and daughter, and nothing she could do could bring them,
strained and distracted by the incredible revelation, nearer to a haven
of repose. She had spoken the word: the rest lay with the powers of
Nature. Probably she felt what far different circumstances have caused
many of us to feel, on whom the unwelcome task has devolved of bringing
the news of a death. How consciously helpless we were--was it not
so?--when the tale was told, and we had to leave the heart of our hearer
to its lonely struggle in the dark!
This that Gwen had told was not news of death, but news of life;
nevertheless, it might kill. She had little fear for the daughter or the
sister; much for this new-found object of her affection who had survived
so many troubles. For Gwen had to acknowledge that "old Mrs. Picture"
had acquired a mysteriously strong hold upon her--its strangeness lying
in its sudden development. She could, however, do nothing now to help
the old tempest-tossed bark into smooth water, that would not be done as
well or better by her equally storm-beaten consort, whose rigging and
spars had been in such much better trim than hers when the gale struck
both alike. Gwen felt, too, a great faith that the daughter's love would
be, as it were, the beacon of the mother's salvation; the pilot to a
sheltered haven where the seas would be at rest. She herself could do no
more.
After the old lady's consciousness returned, it was long before she
spoke, and Gwen had felt half afraid her speech might be gone. But
then--could she herself speak? Scarcely! And Ruth Thrale, the daughter,
seemed in like plight, sitting beside her mother on the bed, her usually
rosy cheeks gone ashy white, her eyes fixed on the old face before her
with a look that seemed to Gwen one of wonder even more than love. The
stress of the hour, surely! For all the tenderness of her heart was in
the hand that wandered caressingly about the mass of silver hair on the
pillow, and smoothed it away from the eyes that turned from the one to
the other half questioningly, but content without reply. The mother
seemed physically overwhelmed by the shock, and ready to accept absolute
collapse, if not indeed incapable of movement. She made no attempt to
speak till later.
During the hour or half-hour that followed, Gwen and Ruth Thrale spoke
but once or twice, beneath their breath. Neither could have said why.
Who can say why the dwellers in a house where Death is pending speak in
undertones? Not from fear of disturbance to the dying man, whose sight
and hearing are waning fast. This was a silence of a like sort, though
it was rather resurrection than death that imposed it.
The great clock in the kitchen, which had struck twelve when Gwen was
showing the forged letter to Widow Thrale, had followed on to one and
two, unnoticed. And now, when it struck three, she doubted it, and
looked at her watch. "Yes," said she, bewildered. "It's right! It's
actually three o'clock. I must go. I wish I could stay." She stooped
over the old face on the pillow, and kissed it lovingly. "You know,
dear, what has happened. Phoebe is coming--your sister Phoebe." She had
a strange feeling, as she said this, of dabbling in immortality--of
tampering with the grave.
Then old Maisie spoke for the first time; slowly, but clearly enough,
though softly. "I think--I know--what has happened.... _All_ our
lives?... But Phoebe will come. My Ruth will fetch her. Will you not,
dear?"
"Mother will come, very soon."
"That is it. She is mother--my Ruth's mother!... But I am your mother,
too, dear!"
"Indeed yes--my mother--my mother--my mother!"
"I kissed you in your crib, asleep, and was not ashamed to go and leave
you. I went away in the moonlight, with the little red bag that was _my_
mother's--Phoebe's and mine! I was not ashamed to go, for the love of
your father, on the cruel sea! Fifty years agone, my darling!" Gwen saw
that she was speaking of her husband, and her heart stirred with anger
that such undying love should still be his, the miscreant's, the cause
of all. She afterwards thought that old Maisie's mind had somehow
refused to receive the story of the forgery. Could she, else, have
spoken thus, and gone on, as she did, to say to Gwen:--"Come here, my
dear! God bless you!"? She held her hand, pressing it close to her. "I
want to say to you what it is that is fretting me. Will Phoebe know me,
for the girl that went away? Oh, see how I am changed!"
The last thing Gwen had expected was that the old woman should master
the facts. It made her hesitate to accept this seeming ability to look
them in the face as genuine. It would break down, she was convinced, and
the coming of a working recognition of them would be a slow affair. But
she could not say so. She could only make believe. "Why should she not
know you?" she said. "She has changed, herself."
"When will she come?" said old Maisie restlessly. "She will come when
you are gone. Oh, how I wish you could stay, to tell her that this is
me!"
"Do you think she will doubt it? She will not, when she hears you talk
of the--of your old time. I am sorry I must go, but I must." And indeed
she thought so, for she did not know that her own mother had gone away
from the Towers, and fancied that that good lady would resent her
desertion. This affair had lasted longer than her anticipation of it.
Then old Maisie showed how partial the illumination of her mind had
been. "Oh yes, my dear," she said, "I know. You have to go, of course,
because of that poor old person. The old person you told me of--whom you
have to tell--to tell of her sister she thought dead--what was it?" She
had recovered consciousness so far as to know that Phoebe was somehow to
reappear risen from the dead; and that this Ruth whom she had taken so
much to heart was somehow entitled to call her mother; but what that
_how_ was, and why, was becoming a mystery as her vigour fell away and
an inevitable reaction began to tell upon her.
Gwen heard it in the dazed sound of her voice; and, to her thought,
assent was best to whatever the dumfoundered mind dwelt upon most
readily. "Yes," said she, "I must go and tell her. She must know." Then
she beckoned Widow Thrale away from the bedside. "It was her own sister
I told her of," said she in an undertone. "I thought she would see
quickest that way.... Do you quite understand?" A quick nod showed that
her hearer had quite understood. Gwen thanked Heaven that at least she
had no lack of faculties to deal with there. "Listen!" said she. "You
must get her food now. You must _make_ her eat, whether she likes it or
no." She saw that for Ruth herself the kindest thing was the immediate
imposition of duties, and was glad to find her so alive to the needs of
the case.
Two voices of women in the kitchen without. One, Elizabeth-next-door;
the other, surely, Keziah Solmes from the Towers. So much the better! "I
may tell it them, my lady?" said Widow Thrale. Gwen had to think a
moment, before saying:--"_Yes_--but they must not talk of it in the
village--not yet! Go out and tell them. I will remain with your mother."
It was the first time Ruth Thrale had had the fact she had succeeded in
knowing in theory forced roughly upon her in practice. She started, but
recovered herself to do her ladyship's bidding.
The utter amazement of Keziah and Elizabeth-next-door, as Gwen heard it,
was a thing to be remembered. But she paid little attention to it. She
was bidding farewell to old Mrs. Picture. The last speech she heard from
her seemed to be:--"Tell my little boy and Dolly. Say I will come back
to them." Then she appeared to fall asleep.
"You must get some food down her throat, somehow, Mrs. Thrale, or we
shall have her sinking from exhaustion. You will stop to help, Keziah?
Stop till to-morrow. I will look in at the Lodge to tell your husband. I
must go now. Is Tom Kettering there?" Gwen felt she would like an
affectionate farewell of Ruth Thrale, but a slight recrudescence of the
Norman Conquest came in the way, due to the presence of Keziah and
Elizabeth-next-door; so she had to give it up.
Tom Kettering was not there, but was reproducible at pleasure by
whistles, evolved from some agent close at hand and willing to assist.
Tom and the mare appeared unchanged by their long vigil, and showed
neither joy nor sorrow at its coming to an end. A violent shake the
latter indulged in was a mere report of progress, and Tom only touched
his hat as a convention from time immemorial. There was not a trace of
irony in his "Home, my lady?" though a sarcastic Jehu might have seemed
to be expressing a doubt whether her ladyship meant ever to go home at
all.
The road to Costrell's turned off Gwen's line of route, the main road to
the Towers. A cart was just coming in sight, at the corner. Farmer
Costrell's cart, driven by himself. An old woman, by his side--Granny
Marrable, surely?
Gwen was simply frightened. She felt absolutely unfit for another
high-tension interview. Her head might give way and she might do
something foolish. But it was impossible to turn and run. It was,
however, easy enough to go quickly by, with ordinary salutations. Still,
it was repugnant to her to do so. But, then, what else could she do? It
was settled for her.
Said Granny Marrable to her grandson-in-law:--"'Tis Gwen o' th' Towers,
John, in Tom Kettering's gig. Bide here till they come up, that I may
get speech of her ladyship."
"Will she stand still on th' high roo-ad, to talk to we?"
"She'll never pass me by if she sees me wishful to speak with her. Her
ladyship has too good a heart."
"Vairy well, Gra-anny." John Costrell reined in his horse, and the cart
and gig came abreast.
Granny Marrable spoke at once. Her voice was firm, but her face was pale
and hard set. "I have been told strange news, my lady, but it _must_ be
true. It cannot be else."
"It _is_ true. Dr. Nash told you."
"That is so. Our Dr. Nash."
"But how much? Has he told you all?"
"I will tell your ladyship." The old woman's firmness and strength were
marvellous to Gwen. "He has told me that my sister that was dead is
risen from the grave...."
"God's my life, Granny, what will ye be for saying next to her
ladyship?" John Costrell had heard none of the story.
"It's all quite right, Mr. Costrell," said Gwen. "Granny Marrable
doesn't mean really dead. She _thought_ her dead--her sister.... Go on,
Granny! That is quite right. And has Dr. Nash told you where your sister
is now?"
"At my own home at Chorlton, my lady. And I am on my way there now, and
will see her once more, God willing, before we die."
"Go to her--go to her! The sooner the better!... I must tell you one
thing, though. She is not strong--not like you and your daughter Ruth.
But you will see." The old lady began with something about her gratitude
to Gwen and to her father, but Gwen cut her short. What did that matter,
now? Then she assured her that old Maisie had been told everything, and
was only uneasy lest her sister should not know her again, and would
even doubt her identity. "But that is impossible," said Gwen. "Because
she _is_ your sister, and remembers all your childhood together."
After they had parted company, and Gwen was on her way again, relieved
beyond measure to find that Dr. Nash had contrived to carry out his
mission so well--though how he had done it was a mystery to her as
yet--she had a misgiving that she ought to have produced the forged
letter to show to Granny Marrable. Perhaps, however, she had done no
harm by keeping it; as if the conviction of the two sisters of each
other's identity was to turn on what is called "evidence," what would be
its value to either? They would either know each other, or not; and if
they did _not_, enough "evidence" to hang a dozen men would not stand
against the deep-rooted belief in each other's death through those long
years.
Besides, like Dr. Nash, she had just been quite taken aback to see--now
that she came to look for it, mind you!--the amazing likeness between
the old twin sisters. How came it that she had not seen it before?--for
instance, when they were face to face in her presence at the door of
Strides Cottage, but two or three weeks since. She dismissed the forged
letter, to dwell on the enormous relief of not having another disclosure
problem before her; and also on the satisfaction she would have in
telling her father what a successful outcome had followed his venial
transgression of opening and reading it. Altogether, her feelings were
those of triumph, trampling underfoot the recollection that she had had
nothing to eat since breakfast, and making a good stand against
brain-whirl caused by the almost unbearable strangeness of the story.
On arriving at the Towers, she was disconcerted to find that all her
solicitude about her mother's loneliness in her absence had been thrown
away. She whispered to herself that it served her right for fidgeting
about other people. Adrian had been perfectly justified when he said
that interest in one's relations was the worst investment possible for
opulent Altruism.
Well--she was better off now than she had been in the early morning,
when there was all that terrible disclosure ahead. It was _done_--ended;
for better, for worse! She might indulge now in a cowardice that shrank
from seeing the two old sisters again until they were familiarised with
the position. If only she might find them, on her next visit, habituated
to a new _modus vivendi_, with the possibility of peaceful years
together, to live down the long separation into nothingness! If only
that might be! But was it possible? Was it conceivable even?
Anyhow, she deserved a well-earned rest from tension. And presently she
would tell the whole strange story to Adrian, and show him that clever
forgery.... No!--thought stopped with a cruel jerk, and her heart
said:--"Shall I ever _show_ him anything! Never! Never!"
* * * * *
"You went to Pensham, mamma?" said Gwen to her mother, the next day, as
soon as an opportunity came for quiet talk.
"On my way to Poynders," said the Countess yawnfully. "But it was
unlucky. Lady Torrens was keeping her room. Some sort of nervous attack.
I didn't get any particulars."
Gwen suspected reticence. "You didn't see her, then?"
"Oh dear no! How should I? She was in bed, I believe."
"You saw _somebody_?"
"Only Sir Hamilton, for a few minutes. He doesn't seem uneasy. I don't
suppose it's anything serious."
"Did you see 'Re?"
"Miss Torrens and her brother were out. Didn't come back." Her ladyship
here perceived that reticence, overdone, would excite suspicion, and
provoke exhaustive inquiry. "I had a short chat with Sir Hamilton. Who
gave me a very good cup of tea." The excellence of the tea was, so to
speak, a red herring.
Gwen refused to be thrown off the scent. "He's an old friend of yours,
isn't he?" said she suggestively.
"Oh dear yes! Ages ago. He told me about some people I haven't heard of
for years. I must try and call on that Mrs. What's-her-name. Do you know
where Tavistock Square is?"
"Of course I do. Everybody does. Who is it lives there?"
The Countess had consulted the undersized tablets, and was repocketing
them. "Mrs. Enniscorthy Hopkins," said she, in the most collateral way
possible to humanity. "_You_ wouldn't know anything about her."
"This tea has been standing," said Gwen. She refused to rise to Mrs.
Enniscorthy Hopkins, whom she suspected of red-herringhood.
The Countess was compelled to be less collateral. "She was Kathleen
Tyrawley," said she. "But I quite lost sight of her. One does."
"Was she interesting?"
"Ye-es.... N-no ... not very. Pretty--of that sort!"
"What sort?"
"Well--very fond of horses."
"So am I--the darlings!"
"Yes--but a girl may be very fond of horses, and yet not marry a ...
Don't put milk in--only cream...."
"Marry a what?"
"Marry her riding-master." Her ladyship softened down Miss Tyrawley's
groom to presentability. "But it was before you were born, child.
However, no doubt it is the same, in principle."
"Hope so! Is that tea right?"
"The tea? Oh yes, the tea ... will do. No, I only saw Sir Hamilton. The
son and daughter were away."
"Now, mamma, that is being unkind, and you know it. 'The son and
daughter!' As if they were people!"
"Well--and what are they?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean."
As the Countess did, she averted discussion. "We won't rake the subject
up, my dear Gwendolen," she said, in a manner which embodied moderation,
while asserting dignity. "You know my feelings on the matter, which
would, I am sure, be those of any parent--of any _mother_, certainly.
And I may mention to you--only, _please_ no discussion!--that Sir
Hamilton _entirely shares_ my views. He expressed himself quite clearly
on the subject yesterday."
"You must have seen him for more than a few minutes to get as far as
_that_." This was a shell in the enemy's powder-magazine.
The Countess had to adopt retrocessive strategy. "I think, my dear," she
said, with dignity at a maximum, "that I have made it sufficiently clear
that I do not wish to rediscuss your engagement, as your father persists
in calling it. We must retain our opinions. If at the end of six
months--_if_--it turns out that I am entirely mistaken, why, then you
and your father must just settle it your own way. Now let us talk no
more about it."
This conversation took place in the late afternoon of the day following
Gwen's visit to Strides Cottage, and the Countess's to Pensham. All
through the morning of that day her young ladyship had been feeling the
effects of the strain of the previous one, followed by a night of
despairing sleeplessness due to excitement. An afternoon nap, a most
unusual thing with her, had rallied her to the point of sending a
special invitation to her mother to join her at tea in her own private
apartment; which was reasonable, as all the guests were away killing
innocent birds, or hares. The Countess was aware of her daughter's
fatigue and upset, but persisted in regarding its cause as
over-estimated--a great deal too much made of a very simple matter.
"Then that is satisfactorily settled, and there need be no further
fuss." These were her words of comment on her daughter's detailed
account of her day's adventures, which made themselves of use to keep
hostilities in abeyance.
"I think you are unfeeling, mamma; that's flat!" was Gwen's
unceremonious rejoinder.
The Countess repeated the last word impassively. It was rather as though
she said to Space:--"Here is an expression. If you are by way of
containing any Intelligences capable of supplying an explanation, I will
hear them impartially." Receiving no reply from any Point of the
Compass, she continued:--"I really cannot see what these two old ...
persons have to complain of. They have every reason to be thankful that
they have been spared so long. The death of either would have made all
your exertions on their behalf useless. Why they cannot settle down on
each side of that big fireplace at Strides Cottage, and talk it all
over, I cannot imagine. It has been engraved in the _Illustrated London
News_." This was marginal, not in the text. "They will have plenty to
tell each other after such a long time."
"Mamma dear, you are hopeless!"
"Well, my dear, ask any sensible person. They have had the narrowest
escape of finding it all out after each other's death, and then I
suppose we should never have heard the end of it.... Yes, perhaps the
way I put it _was_ a little confused. But really the subject is so
complex." Gwen complicated it still more by introducing its relations to
Immortality; to which her mother took exception:--"If they were both
ghosts, we should probably know nothing of them. No ghost appears to a
perfect stranger--no authenticated ghost! Besides, one hopes they would
be at peace in their graves."
"Oh, ah, yes, by-the-by!" said Gwen, "there wasn't to be anything till
the Day of Judgment."
"I wish you wouldn't drag in Religion," said her mother. "You pick up
these dreadful Freethinking ways of speech from ..."
"From Adrian? Of course I do. But _you_ began it, by talking about Death
and Ghosts."
"My dear, neither Death nor Ghosts are Religion, but the Day of Judgment
is. Ask anybody!"
"Very well, then! Cut the Day of Judgment out, and go on with Death and
Ghosts."
"We will talk," said the Countess coldly, "of something else. I do not
like the tone of the conversation. What are your plans for to-morrow?"
"I don't think I shall go to Chorlton to-morrow. I shall leave the old
ladies alone for a while. I think it's the best way. Don't you?"
"I don't think it can matter much, either way." The Countess was not
going to come down from Olympus, for trifles. "But what _are_ you going
to do to-morrow? Go to church, I _suppose_?"
"Is it necessary to settle?"
"By no means. Perhaps I was wrong in taking it for granted. No doubt I
should have done well--in your case--to ask for information. _Are_ you
going to church?"
"Possibly. I can settle when the time comes." Her mother made no reply,
but she made it so ostentatiously that to skip off to another subject
would have been to accept a wager of battle. Gwen was prepared to be
conciliatory. "Is anything coming off?" she asked irreverently. "Any
Bishop or anything?"
Her mother replied, with a Pacific Ocean of endurance in her
voice:--"Dr. Tuxford Somers is preaching at the Abbey. If you come, pray
do not be late. The carriage will be ready at a quarter to ten."
"Well--I shall have to go once or twice, so I suppose now will do for
once. There's Christmas Day, of course--I don't mind that. I shall go to
Chorlton, and look at the two old ladies in church. I hope Mrs. Picture
will be well enough by then."
"I am sure I hope so. A whole week!" The Countess's _parti pris_, that
the experience of the old twins was nothing to make such a fuss over,
showed itself plainly in this. She passed on to a more important
subject. "I understand," said she, "that you intend to go to Pensham on
Monday--and stay!"
"I do," said Gwen uncompromisingly. But her mother's expression became
so stony that Gwen anticipated her spoken protest, saying:--"Now, mamma
dear, you know I've agreed, and we are to go abroad for six whole
months. So don't look like a martyr!"
"When will you be back?" said the martyr. The fact is, she was well
aware that this was a case of _quid pro quo_; and that Gwen was
entitled, by treaty, to a perfect Saturnalia of sweet-hearting till
after Christmas, in exchange for the six months of penal servitude to
follow. But she preferred to indicate that the terms of the treaty had
disappointed her.
"Quite uncertain," said Gwen. "I shall stop till Thursday, anyhow. And
Adrian and Irene are to come here on Christmas Eve. I suppose they'll
have to share the paternal plum-pudding on Christmas Day. That can't be
helped. And I shall have to be here. _That_ can't be helped either. _I_
think it a pity the whole clan-jamfray shouldn't come here for
Christmas."
"That is out of the question. Sir Hamilton has his own social
obligations. Besides, it would look as if you and Mr. Torrens were
definitely engaged. Which you are not."
"Suppose we talk of something else."
"Suppose we do." Her ladyship could only assent; for had she not,
Shylockwise, taught her daughter that word?
The agreement that another topic should be resorted to was sufficiently
complied with by a short pause before resuming the antecedent one. Gwen
did this by saying:--"You will be all right without me for a few days,
because Sir Spencer Derrick and his wife are due to-night, and the
Openshaws, and the Pellews will be here on Monday."
"Gwendolen!" In a shocked tone of voice.
"Well--Aunt C. and Cousin Percy, then. If they are not the Pellews, they
very soon will be. They are coming on Monday, anyhow."
"But not by the same train!"
"_I_ should come by the same train, if I were they. And in the same
carriage. And tip the guard to keep everybody else out. Much better do
it candidly than pretend they've met by accident. _I_ should."
The Countess thought she really _had_ better change to another subject.
She dropped this one as far off as possible. "When do you expect to see
your two old interesting twins again?" said she conciliatorily. For she
felt that reasoning with her beautiful but irregular daughter was
hopeless. The young lady explained that her next visit to Chorlton would
be by way of an expedition from Pensham. Adrian and Irene would drive
her over. It was not morally much farther from Pensham than from the
Towers, although some arithmetical appearances were against it. And she
particularly wanted Adrian to see old Mrs. Picture. And then, like a
sudden sad cadence in music, came the thought:--"But he cannot see old
Mrs. Picture."
* * * * *
Keziah Solmes did not come back till quite late in the evening. Her
report of the state of things at Strides Cottage was manifestly vitiated
by an unrestrained optimism. If she was to be believed, the sudden
revelation to each other of the old twin sisters had had no specially
perturbing effect on either. Gwen spent much of the evening writing a
long letter to her father at Bath, giving a full account of her day's
work, and ending:--"I do hope the dear old soul will bear it. Mrs.
Solmes has just given me a most promising report of her. I cannot
suppose her constant references to the Benevolence of Providence to be
altogether euphemisms in the interest of the Almighty. I am borrowing
Adrian's language--you will see that. I think Keziah is convinced that
Mrs. Prichard will rally, and that the twins may live to be
nonagenarians together. I must confess to being very anxious about her
myself. She looked to me as if a breath of air might blow her away. I
shall not see her again for a day or two, but I know they will send for
me if I am wanted. Dr. Nash is to see to that. What a serviceable man he
is!" She went on to say, after a few more particulars of Keziah's
report, that she was going to Pensham on Monday, and should not come
back before the Earl's own return to the Towers. Mamma would do
perfectly well without her, and it was only fair, considering her own
concessions.
But Gwen did not go to church next day.
Dr. Nash had been sent for to Strides Cottage at a very early hour,
having been prevented from fulfilling a promise to go overnight. He must
have seen some new cause for uneasiness, although he disclaimed any
grounds of alarm. For he wrote off at once to her young ladyship, after
a careful examination of his patient:--"Mrs. Prichard certainly is very
feeble. I think it only right that you should know this at once. But you
need not be frightened. Probably it is no more than was to be expected."
That was the wording of his letter, received by Gwen as she sat at
breakfast with some new arrivals and the Colonel, and the dregs of the
shooting-party. She was not at all sorry to get a complete change of
ideas and associations, although the subjects of conversation were
painful enough, turning on the reports of mixed disaster and success in
the Crimea that were making the close of '54 lurid and memorable for
future history. Gwen glanced at Dr. Nash's letter, gave hurried
directions to the servant to tell Tom Kettering to be in readiness to
drive her at once to Chorlton, and made short work of breakfast and her
_adieux_ to the assembled company.
* * * * *
If events would only pay attention to the convenience of storytellers,
they would never happen at the same time. It would make consecutive
narrative much more practicable. It would have been better--some may
say--for this story to follow Granny Marrable to Strides Cottage, and to
leave Gwen to come to Dr. Nash's summons next day. It might then have
harked back to the foregoing chat between her and her mother, or omitted
it altogether. Its author prefers the course it has taken.
CHAPTER XIX
WHAT DID GRANNY MARRABLE THINK ON THE ROAD? HER ARRIVAL, AND HOW
KEZIAH TOLD JOHN COSTRELL, WHO WHISTLED. THE MEETING, WHICH NONE
SAW. HOW COULD THIS BE MAISIE? GRANNY MARRABLE'S SHAKEN FAITH,
RUTH'S MIXED FILIALITIES. HOW OLD MAISIE AWOKE AND FELT CHILLY. HOW
SHE SLEPT TEN SECONDS MORE AND DREAMED FOR HOURS. HOW OLD PHOEBE
HAD DRAWN A VERY SMALL TOOTH OF MAISIE'S, OVER SIXTY YEARS AGO
Keziah Solmes was literal, not imaginative. She was able to describe any
outward seeming of old Phoebe, or of Ruth. But what could she know, or
guess, of the stunned bewilderment of their minds? When asked by Gwen
what each of the old twins had said at sight of the other--for she had
been present, if not at their meeting, a few moments later--she seemed
at a loss for a report of definite speech. But, oh yes!--in reply to a
suggestion from Gwen--they had called each other by name, that for sure
they did! "But 'twas a wonderment to me, my lady, that neither one
should cry out loud, for the sorrow of all that long time ago." So said
old Keziah, sounding a true note in this reference to the sadness
inherent in mere lapse of years. Gwen could and did endorse Keziah, on
that score; but there was no wonderment in _her_ mind at their silence.
Rather, she was at a loss to conceive or invent a single phrase that
either could or would have spoken.
Least of all could independent thought imagine the anticipations of old
Phoebe during that strange ride through the falling twilight of the
short winter's day. Did she articulate to herself that each minute on
the road was bringing her nearer to a strange mystery that was in
truth--that _must_ be--the very selfsame sister that her eyes last saw
now fifty years ago, even the very same that had called her, a mere
baby, to see the heron that flew away? Yes--the same Maisie as much as
she herself was the same Phoebe! Did her brain reel to think of the days
when she took her own image in an unexpected mirror for her
sister--kissed the cold glass with a shudder of horror before she found
her mistake? Did she wonder now if this Mrs. Prichard could seem to her
another self, as Maisie had wondered would _she_ seem to _her_? Would
all be changed and chill, and the old music of their past be silence, or
at best the jangle of a broken chord? Would this latter end of Life, for
both, be nothing but a joint anticipation of the grave? Gwen tried to
sound the plummet of thought in an inconceivable surrounding, to guess
at something she herself might think were she impossibly conditioned
thus, and failed.
The story, too, must be content to fail. All it can guarantee is facts;
and speculation recoils from the attempt to see into old Phoebe's soul
as she dismounts from the farmer's cart, at the door beyond which was
the thing to baffle all belief; to stultify all those bygone years, and
stamp them as delusions.
Whatever she thought, her words were clear and free from trepidation,
and John Costrell repeated them after her, making them the equivalent of
printed instructions. "If yow are ba-adly wanted, Granny, I'm to coom
for ye with ne'er a minute's loss o' time. That wull I. And for what I
be to tell the missus, I bean't to say owt."
No--that would not do! The early return of the cart, without the Granny,
had to be somehow accounted for. Nothing had been said to Maisie junior,
by her, of not returning to supper. "Bide there a minute till I tell ye,
John," said she, and went towards the door.
Keziah Solmes was coming out, having heard the cart. She started, with
the exclamation:--"Why, God-a-mercy, 'tis the Granny herself!" and made
as though to beat a retreat into the house, no doubt thinking to warn
Widow Thrale within. Old Phoebe stopped her, saying, quite firmly:--"_I_
know, Cousin Keziah. Tell me, how is Mrs. Prichard?"
Keziah, taken aback, lost presence of mind. "What can ye know o' Mrs.
Prichard, Granny?" said she sillily. She said this because she could not
see how the information had travelled.
"How is she?" old Phoebe repeated. And something in her voice
said:--"Answer straight!" At least, so Keziah thought, and
replied:--"The worser by the bad shake she's had, I lay." Neither made
any reference to Mrs. Prichard's newly discovered identity. For though,
as we have seen, Keziah knew all about it, she felt that the time had
not yet come for free speech. Granny Marrable turned to John Costrell,
saying in the same clear, unhesitating way:--"You may say to Maisie that
her mother wants a helping hand with old Mrs. Prichard, but I'll come in
the morning. You'll say no further than that, John;"--and passed on into
the house.
John replied:--"I'll see to it, Granny," and grasped the situation,
evidently. Keziah remained, and as soon as the old lady was out of
hearing, said to him:--"This be a stra-ange stary coom to light, Master
Costrell. Only to think of it! The Gra-anny's twin, thought dead now,
fowerty years agone!"
"Thou'lt be knowing mower o' the stary than I, belike, Mrs. Solmes,"
said John. "I'm only the better by a bare word or so, so far, from
speech o' the Gra-anny with her yoong la-adyship o' the Towers, but now,
on the roo-ad. The Gra-anny she was main silent, coom'n' along."
"There's nowt to wonder at in that, Master Costrell. For there's th'
stary, as I tell it ye. Fowerty years agone and more, she was dead by
all accounts, out in the Colonies, and counted her sister dead as well.
And twenty years past she's been living in London town, and ne'er a one
known it. And now she's come by a chance to this very house!"
"She'd never coom anigh to this place?"
"Sakes alive, no! 'Twas all afower Gra-anny Marrable come here to marry
Farmer Marrable--he was her second, ye know. I was a bit of a chit then.
And Ruth Thrale was fower or five years yoonger. She was all one as if
she was the Gra-anny's own child. But she was noa such a thing."
Then it became clear that the word or so had been very bare indeed. "She
was an orphan, I ta-ak it," said John indifferently.
"There, now!" said Keziah. "I was ma-akin' a'most sure you didn't see
the right of it, Master Costrell. And I wasn't far wrong, that once!"
"Maybe I'm out, but I do-an't see rightly where. A girl's an orphan,
with ne'er a fa-ather nor a moother. Maybe one o' them was living? Will
that square it?"
"One o' them's living still. And none so vairy far from where we stand.
Can ye ma-ak nowt o' that, Master Costrell?"
John _was_ a little slow; it was his bucolic mind. "None so vairy far
from where we stand?" he repeated, in the dark.
"Hearken to me tell ye, man alive! She's in yander cottage, in the
bedroom out across th' pa-assage. And the two o' them they've met by
now. Are ye any nearer, Master Costrell?"
For a moment no idea fructified. Then astonishment caught and held him.
"Not unless," he exclaimed, "not unless you are meaning that this old
la-ady is Widow Thrale's mother!"
"You've gotten hold of it now, Master Costrell."
"But 'tis impossible--'tis _impossible_! If she were she would be my
wife's grandmother!--her grandmother that died in Australia.... Well,
Keziah Solmes, ye may nod and look wise--but ..."
"But that is th' vairy thing she is, safe and sure, John Costrell. I
told ye--Australia. Australia be the Colonies."
John gave the longest whistle a single breath would support. Why he was
ready to accept the relation of old Phoebe and Maisie, and revolt
against his wife's inevitable granddaughtership, Heaven only knows! "But
I'm not to say a word of it to the mistress," said he, meaning his wife.
"The Gra-anny said so, and she'll be right.... Was that her voice?..." A
sound had come from the cottage. Keziah might be wanted. She wished the
farmer good-night; and he drove off, no longer mystified, but
dumfoundered with what had removed his mystification.
* * * * *
Old Phoebe had passed on into the house. She was satisfied that her
message would account quite reasonably for the vacant seat in the
returning cart. Besides, medical sanction--Dr. Nash's--had been given
for her absence.
Now that the moment was close, a great terror came upon her, and she
trembled. She knew that Ruth, her daughter for so long, was beyond that
closed door across the passage, with ... With whom? With what?
Who can say except he be a twin that has lost a twin, what more of
soul-stress had to be borne by these two than would have been his lot,
or ours, in their place? And the severance of Death itself could not
have been more complete than theirs for forty-odd years past; nor the
reunion beyond the grave, that Gwen had likened theirs to, be stranger.
Indeed, one is tempted to imagine that inconceivable palliations may
attend conditions of which our ignorance can form no image. On this side
one only knows that such a meeting is all the sadder for the shadow of
Decay.
She could hardly believe herself the same as when, so few days since,
she quitted this old room, that still remained unchanged; so intensely
the same as when she, and her memories in it were left alone with a Past
that seemed unchangeable, but for the ever-growing cloud of Time. There
was the old clock, ticking by the dresser, not missing its record of the
short life of every second that would never come again. There on the
hearth was the log that might seem cold, but always treasured a spark to
be rekindled; and the indomitable bellows, time-defying, that never
failed to find it out and make it grow to flame. There was the old iron
kettle, all blackness without and crystal purity within, singing the
same song that it began a long lifetime since, and showing the same
impatience under neglect. There on the dresser was the same
dinner-service that had survived till breakage and neglect of its
brethren had made it a rarity; and on the wall that persevering naval
battle her husband's great-grandmother's needle had immortalised a
century and a half ago. The only change she saw was the beadwork
tablecloth wrapped over the mill-model, in its place above the hearth.
Otherwise there was no change.
And here was she, face to face with resurrection--that was how she
thought of it--all her brain in a whirl, unfit to allot its proper place
to the most insignificant fact; all her heart stunned by a cataclysm she
had no wits to give a name to. She had come with a rare courage and
endurance to be at close quarters with this mystery, whatever it was, at
once. On the very verge of full knowledge of it, this terror had come
upon her, and she stood trembling, sick with dread undefined, glad she
need not speak or call out. It would pass, and then she would call to
Ruth, whose voice she could hear in the room beyond. There was another
voice, too, a musical one, and low. Whose could it be? Not her lost
sister's--not Maisie's! Her voice was never like that.
The cat came purring round her to welcome her back. The great bulldog
trotted in from the yard behind, considered her a moment, and passed out
to the front, attracted by the voices of Keziah and John Costrell.
Having weighed them, duly and carefully, he trotted back past Granny
Marrable, to give one short bark at the bedroom door, and return to the
yard behind, his usual headquarters. Then Ruth came from the bedroom,
hearing the movement and speech without.
She was terribly taken aback. "Oh, mother dearest," she said, betrayed
into speaking her inner thought, "you have come too soon. You cannot
know."
"_I_ know," said Granny Marrable. "I will tell you presently. Now take
me to her."
Ruth saw she meant that she could not trust her feet. What wonder at
that? If she really knew the truth, what wonder at anything? She gave
the support of her arm to the door, across the passage. Then the need
for it seemed to cease, and the Granny, becoming her strong old self
again, said with her own voice:--"That will do, dear child! Leave me to
go on." She seemed to mean:--"Go on alone." That was what Ruth took her
speech for. She herself held back; so none saw the first meeting between
the twins.
Presently, as she stood there in suspense, she heard the words:--"Who is
it outside, Ruth?" in Mrs. Prichard's voice, weak but controlled. Then
the reply, through a breath that caught:--"Ruth is outside." Then the
weaker voice, questioning:--"Then who?... then who?..." But no answer
was given.
For, to Ruth's great wonderment, Granny Marrable came back in extreme
trepidation, crying out through sobs:--"Oh, how can this be Maisie? Oh,
how can this be Maisie?" To which Ruth's reply was:--"Oh, mother dear,
who can she be if she is not my mother?" And though the wording was at
fault, it is hard to see how she could have framed her question
otherwise.
But old Phoebe had cried out loud enough to be heard by Keziah, speaking
with John Costrell out in front, and it was quite audible in the room
she had just left. That was easy to understand. But it was less so that
old Maisie should have risen unassisted from the bed where she had lain
since morning, and followed her.
"Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe darling, do not say that! Do not look at me to deny
me, dearest. I know that this is you, and that we are here, together.
Wait--wait and _it will come_!" This was what Keziah remembered hearing
as she came back into the house. She crossed the kitchen, and saw,
beyond Widow Thrale in the passage, that the two old sisters were in
each other's arms.
Old Phoebe, strong in self-command and moral fortitude, and at the same
time unable to stand against the overwhelming evidence of an almost
incredible fact, had nevertheless been unprepared, by any distinct image
of what the beautiful young creature of fifty years ago had become, to
accept the reality that encountered her when at last she met it face to
face.
Old Maisie's position was different. She had already fought and won her
battle against the changes Time had brought about, and her mind no
longer recoiled from the ruinous discolorations of decay. She had been
helped in this battle by a strong ally, the love engendered for her own
daughter while she was still ignorant of her identity. She had found her
outward seeming a stepping-stone to a true conception of the
octogenarian, last seen in the early summer of a glorious womanhood.
Ruth Thrale's autumn, however much she still retained of a comely
maturity, had been in those days the budding springtime of a child of
four. Come what come might of the ravages of Time and Change, old Maisie
was prepared for it, after accepting such a change as that. Did she
know, and acknowledge to herself the advantage this had been to her,
that time when she had said to Gwen:--"How I wish you could stay, to
tell her that this is me!"
But the momentary unexpected strength that had enabled old Maisie to
rise from the bed could not last. She had only just power left to
say:--"I _am_ Maisie! I _am_ Maisie!" before speech failed; and her
daughter had to be prompt, close at hand though she was, to prevent her
falling. They got her back to the bed, frightened by what seemed
unconsciousness, but relieved a moment after by her saying:--"I was only
dizzy. Is this Phoebe's hand?" They were not seriously alarmed about her
then.
She remained very still, a hand of her sister and daughter in each of
hers, and the twilight grew, but none spoke a word. Keziah, at a hint
from Ruth, attended to the preparation of supper in the front-room. This
living unfed through hours of tension had to come to an end sometime.
They knew that _her_ silence was by choice, from a pressure of the hand
of either from time to time. It seemed to repeat her last words:--"I
_am_ Maisie. I _am_ Maisie."
That silence was welcome to them, for neither would have said a word by
choice. They could but sit speechless, stunned by the Past. Would they
ever be able to talk of it at all? A short parting gives those who
travel together on the road through Life a good spell of cheerful chat,
and each is overbrimming with the tale of adventure, grave or gay, of
the folk they have chanced upon, the inns they have slept at, a many
trifles with a leaven of seriousness not too weighty for speech. How is
it when the ways divided half a century ago, and no tidings came to hand
of either for the most part of a lifetime? How when either has believed
the other dead, through all those years? Neither old Phoebe nor Ruth
could possibly have felt the thing otherwise. But, that apart, silence
was easiest.
Presently, it was evident that she was sleeping, peacefully enough,
still holding her sister and daughter by the hand. As soon as Ruth felt
the fingers slacken, she spoke, under her breath:
"How came you to know of it?"
"Dr. Nash. I spoke with her ladyship on the way, and she said it was
true."
"What did she say was true?"
Granny Marrable had to think. What was it Gwen had said? She continued,
feeling for her memories:--"I said to Gwen o' the Towers 'twas my dead
sister come from the grave, and Dr. Nash had spoken to it. And John
Costrell would have me unsay my word, but her ladyship bore me out,
though 'twas but a way of speech." She paused a moment; then, before
Ruth could frame an inquiry as to how much she knew of the story from
either Dr. Nash or Gwen, went on, her eyes fixed, with a look that had
terror in it, on the figure on the bed:--"If this be Maisie, was she not
dead to me--my sister? Oh, how can this be Maisie?" Her mind was still
in a turmoil of bewilderment and doubt.
Then Ruth's speech was again at fault, and yet she saw nothing strange
in it. "Oh, mother dearest, this _must_ be my mother. How else could she
know? Had you but heard her talk as I did, of the old mill!--and there
she was a-knowing of it all, and I could think her mad! Oh, mother dear,
the fool that I was not to see she _must_ be my mother!"
"It comes and goes, child," said Granny Marrable tremulously, "that she
is your mother, not dead as I have known her. But it is all your life. I
mind how the letter came that told it. After your grandfather's death.
And all a lie!"
"Her ladyship will tell you that, mother, as she told it to me. I have
not the heart to think it, but it was my father's work. God have mercy
on him!"
"God have mercy on him, for his sin! But how had he the cruelty? What
wrong had I done him?"
"Mother, I pray that I may one day see the light upon it. God spare us a
while, just for to know the meaning of it all." It was a confession of
the hopelessness of any attempt to grapple with it then.
Keziah Solmes, while preparing some supper, looked in once, twice, at
the watchers beside the still sleeping figure on the bed. They were not
speaking, and never took their eyes from the placid, colourless face and
snow-white hair loose on the pillow; but they gave her the idea of dazed
bewilderment, waiting for the mists to clear and let them dare to move
again. The fog-bound steamer on the ocean stands still, or barely cuts
the water. It is known, on board, that the path will reopen--but when?
The third time Keziah looked in at them, the room being all dark but for
a wood-flicker from an unreplenished grate, she gathered courage to say
that supper was ready. Ruth Thrale started up from where she half sat,
half lay, beside the sleeper, exclaiming:--"She's eaten nothing since
the morning. Mother, she'll sink for want of food."
"Now, the Lord forgive me!" said Granny Marrable. "To think I've had my
dinner to-day, and she's been starving!" For, of course, the midday meal
was all over at Costrell's, in normal peace, when Dr. Nash came in laden
with the strange news, and at a loss to tell it.
The withdrawal of her daughter's hand waked the sleeper with a start. "I
was dreaming so nicely," said she. "But I'm cold. Oh dear--what is
it?... I thought I was in Sapps Court, with my little Dave and
Dolly...." She seemed slow to catch again the thread of the life she had
fallen asleep on. Vitality was very low, evidently, and she met an
admonition that she must eat something with:--"Nothing but milk,
please!" It refreshed her, for though she fell back on the pillow with
her eyes closed, she spoke again a moment after.
The thing happened thus. Keziah, authoritatively, insistent, would have
Ruth eat, or try to eat, some supper. Old Phoebe was in no need of it,
and sat on beside old Maisie, who must have dreamed again--one of those
sudden long experiences a few seconds will give to a momentary sleep.
For she opened her eyes to say, with a much greater strength in her
voice:--"I was dreaming of Dolly again, but Dolly wasn't Dolly this time
... only, she _was_ Dolly, somehow!..." Then it was clear that she was
quite in the dark, for the time being, about the events of the past few
hours. For she continued:--"She was Dolly and my sister Phoebe--both at
once--when Phoebe was a little girl--my Phoebe that was drowned. But
Phoebe was older than that when she drew my tooth, as Dolly did in my
dream."
Old Phoebe, it must be borne in mind, although intellectually convinced
that this could be none other than her sister, had never experienced the
conviction that only the revival of joint memories could bring. This
reference to an incident only known to themselves, long forgotten by her
and now flashed suddenly on her out of the past, made her faith that
this was Maisie, in very truth, a reality. But she could not speak.
The dream-gods kept their hold on the half-awakened mind, too old for
any alacrity in shaking them off. The old voice wandered on, every word
telling on its hearer and rousing a memory. "We must have been eight
then. Phoebe tied a thread of silk round the tooth, and the other end to
the drawer-knob ... it was such a little tooth ... long and long before
you were born, my dear...." Her knowledge of the present was on its way
back, and she thought the hand that held hers was her new-found
daughter's. "It was the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept."
If you who read this are old, can you not remember among the
surroundings of your childhood things too trivial for the maturities of
that date to give a passing thought to, that nevertheless bulked large
to you then, and have never quite lost their impressiveness since? Such
a one, to old Phoebe, was "the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept."
Some trifle of the sort was sure to strike home its proof of her
sister's identity. Chance lighted on this one, and it served its turn.
Ruth heard her cry out--a cry cut short by her mother's:--"Oh, Phoebe,
Phoebe, I know it all now, and you'll know me." She started up from a
hurried compliance with her Cousin Keziah's wish that she should eat,
and went back quickly to the bedroom, to see the two old sisters again
locked in each other's arms.
They may have been but dimly alive to how it all had come about, but
they knew themselves and each other--twins wrenched asunder half a
century since, each of whom had thought the other dead for over forty
years.
CHAPTER XX
HOW GRANNY MARRABLE THOUGHT SHE OUGHT NOT TO GO TO SLEEP, BUT DID.
HOW A CRICKET WAS STILL AT IT, WHEN SHE WAKED. HOW MAISIE WAKED
TOO. HOW THEY REMEMBERED THINGS TOGETHER, IN THE NIGHT. A SKULL
TWENTY-SEVEN INCHES ROUND. HOW PHOEBE COULD NOT FORGIVE HER
BROTHER-IN-LAW, GOD OR NO! HOW IT HAD ALL BEEN MAISIE'S FAULT. THE
OTHER LETTER, IN THE WORKBOX, BEHIND THE SCISSORS. THE STORY OF THE
SCORPION. ALL TRUE! ONLY IT WAS MRS. STENNIS, WHO DIED IN AGONY.
ELIZABETH-NEXT-DOOR'S IMMOVABLE HUSBAND. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE WAS
RELIEVED ABOUT THAT SCORPION. HOW MAISIE'S HUSBAND HAD REALLY HAD A
DEVIL--A BLACK MAN'S--WHICH MAISIE'S SON HAD INHERITED. A NEW
INFECTION IN THINE EYE. HOW RUTH WENT FOR THE DOCTOR. HOW HE
RECOMMENDED GWEN, AS WELL AS THE MIXTURE
The two old twins knew it all now, so far as it would ever be a matter
of knowledge. They had got at the heart of each other's identity, before
either really understood the cruel machination that had cancelled the
life of either for the other.
Ruth Thrale left them alone together, and went back to force herself to
eat. Keziah wanted to get back to her old man, and how could she go,
unless Ruth kept in trim to attend to her two charges? Who could say
that old Phoebe, at eighty, would not give in under the strain? Ruth had
always a happy faculty of self-forgetfulness; and now, badly as she had
felt the shock, she so completely lost sight of herself in the thought
of the greater trouble of the principal actors, as to be fully alive to
the one great need ahead, that of guarding and preserving what was left
of the old life, the tending of which had come so strangely upon her.
She refused Keziah's offer to remain on. Elizabeth-next-door, she said,
was always at hand for emergencies.
Keziah stayed late enough to see all arranged for the night, ending with
a more or less successful effort to get old Maisie to swallow arrowroot.
She helped Ruth to establish the Granny in her own high-backed chair
beside her sister--for neither would relinquish the other's hand--and
took advantage of a very late return of Brantock, the carrier, to convey
her home, where she arrived after midnight.
All know the feeling that surely must have been that of at least one of
the old sisters, that sleep ought to be for some mysterious reason
combated, or nonsuited rather, when the mind is at odds with grave
events. One rises rebellious against its power, when it steals a march
on wakefulness, catching the keenest vigilance unawares. There was no
reason why Granny Marrable should not sleep in her own arm-chair--which
she would say was every bit as good as bed, and used accordingly--except
that yielding meant surrender of the faculties to unconsciousness of a
problem not yet understood, with the sickening prospect of finding it
unanswered on awakening. That seemed to be reason enough for many
resentful recoils from the very portals of sleep; serving no end, as
Maisie had been overcome without a contest, and lay still as an effigy
on a tomb. A vague fear that she might die unwatched, looking so like
Death already, may have touched Phoebe's mind. But fears and unsolved
riddles alike melted away and vanished in the end; and when Ruth Thrale,
an hour later, starting restless from her own couch near by, looked in
to satisfy herself that all was well, both might have been leagues away
in a dream-world, for any consciousness they showed of her presence.
That was on the stroke of one; and for two full hours after all was
silence, but for the records of the clock at its intervals, and the
cricket dwelling on the same theme our forefathers heard and gave no
heed to, a thousand years ago. Then old Phoebe woke to wonder, for a
blank moment, what had happened that she should be sitting there alone,
with the lazy flicker of a charred faggot helping out a dim, industrious
rushlight in a shade. But only till she saw that she was _not_ alone. It
all came back then. The figure on the bed!--not _dead_, surely?
No--for the hand she held was warm enough to reassure her. It had been
the terror of a moment, that this changed creature, with memories that
none but Maisie could have known, had flashed into her life to vanish
from it, and leave her bewildered, almost without a word of that
inexplicable past. Only of a moment, for the hand she held tightened on
hers, and the still face that was, and was not, her dead sister's turned
to her, looked at her open-eyed, and spoke.
"I think I am not dreaming now, but I was.... I was dreaming of Phoebe,
years ago.... But _you_ are Phoebe. Say that I am Maisie, that I may
hear you. Say it!"
"Oh, my darling!--I know you are Maisie. But it is so hard to know."
"Yes--it is all so hard to know--so hard to think! But I know it is
true.... Oh, Phoebe, where do you think I was but now, in my dream?...
Yes, where?--What place?... Guess!"
"I cannot tell ... back in the old time?"
"Back in the old time--back in the old place. I was shelling peas to
help old Keturah--old Keturah that had had three husbands, and her old
husband then was the sexton, and he had buried them all three! We were
there, under her porch ... with the honeysuckle all in flower--and, oh,
the smell of it in the heat!--it was all there in my dream! And you were
there. Oh, Phoebe darling, how beautiful you were! We were seventeen."
"Ah, my dear, I know when that was. 'Twas the day _they_ came--came
first. Oh, God be good to us!"
"Oh, Phoebe dear, why be so heartbroken? It was a merry time. Thank God
for it with me, darling!... Ay, I know--all over now!..."
"I mind it well, dear. They came up on their horses."
"Thornton and Ralph. And made a pretext they would like to see inside
the Church. Because old Keturah had the key."
"But 'twas an untruth! Little care they had for inside the Church! 'Twas
ourselves, and they knew it."
"Oh, Phoebe!--but _we_ knew it too! I had no chance to dream how we
showed them the Church and the crypt, for I woke up. Ah, but 'tis long
ago now!--sixty-two--sixty-three years! I wonder, is the stack of bones
in the crypt now that was then? There was a big skull that measured
twenty-seven inches."
"That it was! Twenty-seven. Now, to think of us young creatures handling
those old bones!"
"Then it was not long but they came again on their horses, and this time
it was that their father the Squire would see father righted in his
lawsuit about the upper waters of the millstream. That was how Thornton
made a friend of father. And then it was we played them our trick, to
say which was which. We changed our frocks, and they were none the
wiser."
A recollection stirred in old Phoebe's mind, that could almost bring a
smile to her lips, even now. "Ralph never was any the wiser. He went
away to the Indies, and died there.... But not afore he told to my
husband how Thornton came to tell us apart.... How did he? Why, darling,
'twas the way you would give him all your hand, and I stinted him of
mine."
"You never loved him, Phoebe."
"Was I not in the right of it, Maisie?" She then felt the words were
hasty, and would have been glad to recall them. She waited for an
answer, but none came. The fire was all but out, and the morning chill
was in the air. She rose from the bedside and crossed the room to help
it from extinction. But she felt very shaky on her feet.
A little rearrangement convinced the fire that it had been premature;
and an outlying faggot, brought into hotchpot, decided as an
after-thought that it could flare. "I am coming back," said Granny
Marrable. She was afraid her sister would think she was going to be left
alone. But there was no need, for when she reached her chair again--and
she was glad to do so--old Maisie was just as she had left her, quite
tranquil and seeming collected, but with her eyes open, watching the
welcome light of the new flicker. One strange thing in this interview
was that her weakness seemed better able to endure the strain of the
position than her sister's strength.
She picked up the thread of the conversation where that interlude of the
fire had left it. "You never loved Thornton, Phoebe dearest. But he was
mine, for my love. He was kind and good to me, all those days out there
in the bush, till I lost him. He was a lawbreaker, I know, but he paid
his penalty. And was I not to forgive, when I loved him? God forgives,
Phoebe." Half of what she had come to know had slipped away from her
already; and, though she was accepting her sister as a living reality,
the forged letter, the cause of all, was forgotten.
Granny Marrable, on the contrary, kept in all her bewilderment a firm
hold on the wickedness of Daverill the father. It was he that had done
it all, and no other. Conceivably, her having set eyes on Daverill the
son had made this hold the firmer. To her the name meant treachery and
cruelty. Even in this worst plight of a mind in Chaos, she could not
bear to see the rugged edges of a truth trimmed off, to soften judgment
of a wicked deed. But had she been at her best, she might have borne it
this time to spare her sister the pain of sharing her knowledge, if such
ignorance was possible. As it was, she could not help saying:--"God
forgives, Maisie, and I would have forgiven, if I could have had you
back when he was past the need of you. Oh, to think of the long years we
might still have had, but for his deception!"
"My dear, it may be you are right. But all my head is gone for thinking.
You are there, and that is all I know. How could I?... What _is_ it
all?"
The despair in her voice did not unnerve her sister more. Rather, if
anything, it strengthened her, as did anything that drew her own mind
out of itself to think only of her fellow-sufferer. She could but
answer, hesitatingly:--"My dear, was I not here all the while you
thought me dead?... If you had known ... oh, if you had known!... you
might have come." She could not keep back the sound of her despair in
her own voice.
Maisie started spasmodically from her pillow.
"Oh, God have mercy on me! Save me, Phoebe, save me!" she cried. She
clung with both hands to her sister, and gasped for breath. Then the
paroxysm of her excitement passed, and she sank back, whispering aloud
in broken speech:--"I mean ... it came back to me ... the tale ... the
letter.... Oh, but it cannot be true!... Tell it me again--tell me what
you know."
Phoebe's response flagged. What could her old brain be said to _know_,
yet, in such a whirl? "I'll try, my dear, to say it out right, for you
to hear. But 'tis a hard thing to know, and 'tis hard to have to know
it. Dr. Nash said it to me, that it was Thornton, your husband. And our
young lady of the Towers--she, my dear, you know, that is Lady Gwendolen
Rivers--said it to me again." Old Maisie clung closer to the hand she
held, and trembled so that Phoebe stopped, saying:--"Ought I to tell?"
"Yes--go on! You know, dear, I know it all--half know it--but I cannot
hold it for long--it goes. Go on!"
"He wrote to me--he wrote to you--saying, we were dead. O God, forgive
him for his cruelty! Why, oh why?" She fixed her eyes on her sister, and
seemed to wait for an answer to the question.
And yet she wondered in her heart when the answer came. It came with a
light that broke through the speaker's face, a sound of relief in her
words:--"It was his love for me, Phoebe dearest--it was his love for me!
He would not have me go from him to my sister in England, even for the
time I would have wanted, to see her again. The fault was mine, dear,
the fault was mine! I was ever on at him--plaguing--plaguing him to
spare me for the time. Oh--'twas I that did it!"
Let her believe it! Let her see a merit in it for the man she loved!
That was Phoebe's thought.
"He was always good to me," Maisie continued. "He never thought of what
might come of it. All his desire was I should not leave him. Oh,
Phoebe, Phoebe, if only I might have died there and then, out in the
Colony!"
"To see me no more? Not this once? I thank God that has spared ye to me,
Maisie, just but to hear your voice and hold your hand and kiss your
face. If I be dreaming, I be dreaming. Only I would not wake, not I. But
I can scarce bear myself for the wonderment of it all. How could you
come back alone--my Maisie, alone and old!--back again to England--in a
ship--through the storms?" For all the mind that Granny Marrable had
left after the bewildering shock was aching to know more.
Old Maisie was almost too weak for anything like curiosity about the
past; she simply submitted--acquiesced. This was her sister, not dead by
some miracle. When in dreams we see again the departed, do we speak of
the interim? Surely never? Neither did Maisie. She could not even look
forward to knowing more. She could talk on, with no difficulty of
speech--indeed, seemed talkative. She could reply now to Phoebe's
question:--"But, my dear, I was not alone, nor old. I was not much older
than my Ruth that I have found.... Where is she?--she is not gone?" She
looked round, frightened, trying to raise herself.
"She is gone away to sleep. It is night, you know. There goes the clock.
Four. She will come again.... But, oh, Maisie, was it as long ago as
that? 'Tis but a very little while back Ruth turned fifty."
"Is my girl turned of fifty, then?--yes! it must be so. Fifty years past
I landed ashore in Hobart Town, and it was a babe of four I had to leave
behind. Well--I was a bit older. I was fifty-seven when I lost my son."
This seemed to mean the death of some son unknown to Granny Marrable.
The convict was never farther from her mind. "'Tis twenty-five years I
have been in England--all of twenty-five years, Phoebe."
"Oh, God have pity on us all! Twenty-five years!" It was a cry of pain
turned into words. Had she had to say what stung her most, she would
probably have said the thought that Maisie might have seen her
daughter's wedding, or at least the babyhood of her children. So much
there was to tell!--would she live to hear it? And so much to
hear!--would she live to tell it? She could not understand her sister's
words that followed:--"All of twenty years alone," referring to the
period since her son's transportation. It was really longer. But memory
of figures is insecure in hours of trial.
Maisie continued:--"When I came back, I went straight to our old home,
long ago--to Darenth Mill, to hear what I might, and old Keturah was
dead, and her husband was dead, and ne'er a soul knew aught to tell me.
And there was father's grave in the churchyard, and no other. So what
could I think but what the letter said, that all were drowned in the
cruel sea, your husband Nicholas, and my little one, all three?"
"And the letter said that--the letter he made up?"
"The letter said that, and I read it. It had black seals, and I broke
them and read it. And it was from father, and said you were drowned ...
drowned ... Yes!--Phoebe drowned ... and my little Ruth, and ... Oh,
Phoebe, how can this be you?" The panic came again in her voice, and
again she clutched spasmodically at the hand she held. But it passed,
leaving her only able to speak faintly. "I kept it in my
table-drawer.... It must be there still." She had only half got the
truth.
Granny Marrable tried to make it clear, so far as she could. "You
forget, dear. Her ladyship has the letter, and Dr. Nash knows. Lady
Gwendolen who brought you here...."
It was a happy reference. A light broke over the old face on the pillow,
and there was ease in the voice that said:--"She is one of God's Angels.
I knew it by her golden hair. When will she come?"
"Very soon. To-morrow, perhaps. 'Twas her ladyship told you--was it not?
Oh, you remember?"
"My dear, she told it me like a story, and her face was white. But it
was all clear to me then, for I could not know who the bad man was--the
bad man who made two sisters each think the other dead. And I was for
helping her to tell them. Oh, may God bless her for her beautiful
face--so pale it was! And then she told me 'twas written by my husband."
Some new puzzle confronted her, and she repeated, haltingly:--"By ... my
... husband!" Then quite suddenly, struck by a new idea:--"But was it?
How could she know?"
"My dear, she showed it to her father, the Earl, and they were of one
mind. His lordship read the letter. Dr. Nash told me. But it was
Thornton's own letter to me that said _you_ were dead. I have got it
still." She was stopped by the return of Ruth Thrale, who had been half
waked by her mother's raised voice five minutes since, and had struggled
to complete consciousness under the sense of some burden of duty
awaiting her outside the happy oblivion of her stinted sleep. "How has
she been?" was her question on entering.
Granny Marrable could not give any clear account of the past hour of
talk; it was growing hazy to her, as reaction after excitement told,
more and more. Ruth asked no further questions, and urged her to go and
lie down--was ready to force her to do it, but she conceded the point,
and was just going, when her sister stopped her, speaking clearly,
without moving on the pillow.
"What was the letter?"
"What letter is she speaking of?" said Ruth.
Granny Marrable said with an effort:--"The letter that said she was
dead."
"Show it to me--show it me now, with the light! You have got it."
"Yes. I said to her that I had got it. But it is put away." This was
under Granny Marrable's breath, that old Maisie should not hear.
But she heard, and turned her head. "Oh, Phoebe, let me see it! Can it
not be got? Cannot Ruth get it?" She seemed feverishly alive, for the
moment, to all that was passing.
Ruth, thinking it would be better to satisfy her if possible, said:--"Is
it hard to find? Could I not get it?" To which old Phoebe replied:--"I
know where it is to lay hands on at once. But I grudge setting eyes on
it now, and that's the truth." Ruth wondered at this--it made her
mother's eagerness to see it seem the stranger. The story is always on
the edge of calling old Maisie Ruth's "new mother." Her mind was reeling
under the consciousness of two mothers with a like claim--a bewildering
thought! She wavered between them, and was relieved when the speaker
continued:--"You may unlock my old workbox over yonder. The letter be
inside the lid, behind the scissors. I'll begone to lie down a bit on
your bed, child!" Was old Phoebe running away from that letter?
Ruth knew the trick of that workbox of old. It brought back her early
childhood to find the key concealed in a little slot beneath it; hidden
behind a corner of green cloth beyond suspicion; that opened, for all
that, when the edge was coaxed with a finger-nail. It had been her first
experience of a secret, and a fascination hung about it still. That
confused image of a second mother, growing dimmer year by year in spite
of a perfunctory system of messages maintained in the correspondence of
the parted twins, had never utterly vanished; and it had clung about
this workbox, a present from Maisie to Phoebe, even into these later
years. It crossed Ruth's mind as she found the key, how, a year ago,
when the interior of this box was shown to Dave Wardle by his country
Granny, his delight in it, and its smell of otto of roses that never
failed, had stirred forgotten memories; and this recollection, with the
mystery of that vanished mother still on earth--close at hand, there in
the room!--made her almost dread to raise the box-lid. But she dared it,
and found the letter, though her brain whirled at the entanglements of
life and time, and she winced at the past as though scorched by a
spiritual flame. It took her breath away to think what she had sought
and found; the hideous instrument of a wickedness almost
inconceivable--her own father's!
"Oh, how I hope it is that! Bring it--bring it, my dear, my Ruth--my
Ruth for me, now! Yes--show it me with the light, like that." Thus old
Maisie, struggling to raise herself on the bed, but with a dangerous
spot of colour on her cheek, lately so pale, that said fever. Ruth
trembled to admit the word to her mind; for, think of her mother's age,
and the strain upon her, worse than her own!
Nevertheless, it was best to indulge this strong wish; might, indeed, be
dangerous to oppose it. Ruth bolstered up the weak old frame with
pillows, and lit two candles to give the letter its best chance to be
read. She found her mother's spectacles, though in doubt whether they
could enable her to read the dim writing, written with a vanishing ink,
even paler than the forged letter Gwen and her father had unearthed.
Possibly the ink had run short, and was diluted.
Old Maisie strove to read the writing, gasping with an eagerness her
daughter found it hard to understand; but failed to decipher anything
beyond, "My dear Sister-in-law." She dropped the letter, saying
feebly:--"Read--you read!"
Then Ruth read:--
"'I take up my pen to write you fuller particulars of the great
calamity that has befallen me. For I am, as my previous letter will
have told you, if it has reached you ere this, a widower. I am
endeavouring to bear with resignation the lot it has pleased God to
visit upon me, but in the first agonies of my grief at the loss of
my beloved helpmeet I was so overwhelmed as to be scarce able to
put pen to paper. I am now more calm and resigned to His will, and
will endeavour to supply the omission.
"'My dear Maisie was in perfect health and spirits when she went to
visit a friend, Mary Ann Stennis, the wife of a sheep-farmer, less
than thirty miles from where I now write, on the Upper Derwent, one
of the few women in this wild country that was a fit associate for
her. She was to have started home in a few days' time, but the
horse that should have carried her, the only one she could ride,
being a timid horsewoman, went lame and made a delay, but for which
delay it may be God would have spared her to me. But His will be
done! It seems she was playing with the baby of a native black,
there being a camp or tribe of them near at hand, she being greatly
diverted with the little monster, when its sister, but little older
than itself, found a scorpion beneath a stone, and set it to bite
its little brother. Thereupon Maisie, always courageous and
kindhearted, must needs snatch at this most dangerous vermin, to
throw it at a distance from the children....'"
Old Maisie interrupted the reader. Her face was intent, and her eyes
gleamed with an unhealthy, feverish light. "Stop, my dear," said she.
"This is all true."
"All true!" Surely her mind was giving way. So thought Ruth, and
shuddered at the gruesome thought. "Mother--mother--how _can_ it be
true?"
"All quite true, my dear, but for one thing! All true but for who it
was! It was not I--it was Mary Ann was at play with little Saku. And the
scorpion bit _her_ hand, and she died of the bite.... Yes--go on! Read
it all!" For Ruth had begun:--"Shall I--_must I_?" as though the reading
it was unendurable.
She resumed, with an effort:--
"'But got bitten in the arm. At first she made light of the wound,
for the reptile was so small. But it became badly inflamed, and no
doctor was at hand. The black mother of Saku, the baby, prayed to
be allowed to summon the conjurer doctor of the tribe, who would
suck the wound. But Maisie would not have this, so only external
applications were made ...'"
Old Maisie interrupted:--"That is not so," she said. "Roomoro, the
doctor, sucked hard at the bite, and spat out the poison in a hole in
the ground, to bury the evil spirit. But it was no good. Poor Mary Ann
Stennis died a week after. I mind it well."
Ruth thought to herself:--"Is this a feverish dream?" and wavered on the
answer. The tale her mother told of the black medicine-man was
nightmare-like. All this, fifty years ago! Her head swam too much for
speech, reading apart. She could continue, mechanically:--
"' ... Only external applications were made, which proved useless,
as is almost invariably the case with poisonous bites. Next day it
became evident that the poison was spreading up the arm, and a
black runner was despatched to summon me, but he could not cover
the ground in less than three hours, and when he arrived I was on
my way to Bothwell, some twenty miles in another direction, so he
did not overtake me until the evening. I was then detained a day,
so that it was over forty-eight hours before I arrived at
Stennis's. It was then too late for effectual remedy, and my dear
wife died in my arms within a week of the scorpion bite....'"
"That is not true--it was over a week." Was Maisie really alive to the
facts, to be caught by so small a point? She had seen a simple thing
that could be said. That is all the story can think.
Ruth said:--"Here is more--only a little!" and continued:--
"'I am thankful to say that, considering the nature of the case,
her sufferings were slight, and she passed away peacefully,
desiring with her last breath that I should convey to you the
assurance of her unchanged affection.'
"It is untrue--it is untrue!" moaned Maisie. "Mary Ann died in great
pain, from the poison of the bite working in the blood." She seemed to
grasp very little of the facts, for she added:--"But was he not good, to
hide the pain for Phoebe's sake?" Her mind was catching at fragments, to
understand, and failed.
There was another letter, which Ruth opened, of an earlier date. It was
a merely formal announcement of the death. She put back the letters in
the workbox-lid, behind the scissors; replaced the workbox on its table
as before, and returned to her mother. She was glad to find her still,
with her eyes closed; but with that red spot on her cheek, unchanged. It
was best to favour every approach of sleep, and this might be one. Ruth
sat silent, all her faculties crippled, and every feeling stunned, by
what she had gone through since Gwen's first arrival yesterday.
This terrible night had worn itself out, and she knew that that
clock-warning meant six, when the stroke should come. But there
was no daylight yet. Those movements in the kitchen must be
Elizabeth-next-door, come according to promise. That was what the
guardian-dog from without meant, pushing his way through the
bedroom-door, reporting an incomer whom he knew, and had sanctioned. He
communicated the fact to his satisfaction, and returned to his post,
leaving his mistress the better for his human sympathy, which seemed to
claim knowledge of passing event. It comforted her to feel that the day
was in hand, and that its light would come. Who could say but its ending
might find her convinced that this was all true? Blank, sickening doubts
of the meaning of everything flitted across her mind, and she longed to
settle down to realities, to be able to love this new mother without
flinching. For that was what she felt, that the mystery of this
resurrection seared or burnt her. One thing only soothed her--that this
was dear old Mrs. Prichard whom she had learned to love before its
bewilderments were sprung upon her. That made it easier to bear.
Presently she roused herself, for, was not this morning? A grey
twilight, not over-misty for the time of year, was what a raised
window-curtain showed her, and she let it fall to deal with it in
earnest, and relieve the blind from duty. Then she made sure, by the new
light, that all was well with old Maisie--mere silence, no
insensibility--and went out to speak with Elizabeth-next-door, and get
more wood for the fire. But first she blew out the candles and the
rushlight, already dying spasmodically.
Elizabeth-next-door was a strengthening influence, able to look facts in
the face. She almost elided forewords and inquiries, to come to her
strong point, the way she had used the strange story to produce surprise
in her husband; a worthy man, but imperturbable by anything short of
earthquakes or thunderbolts. "Ye may sa-ay your vairy worst to Sam,"
said Elizabeth, "and he'll just sa-ay back, 'Think a doan't knaw that,'
he'll say, 'afower ever yow were born?' and just gwarn with his sooper.
And I give ye my word, Widow Thrale, I no swooner told it him than there
he sat! An' if he come down on our ta-able wi' th' fla-at of his ha-and
once, that he did thrice and mower, afower he could sa-ay one word. He
_did_, and went nigh to break it, but it be o-ak two-inch thick
a'mo-ast. Then a said, 'twas enough to wa-aken oop a ma-an all through
the night, he did!" He seemed, however, not to have suffered in this
way, for his wife added:--"Wa-aken him oop? Not Sam, I lay! Ta-akes a
souse o' cold pig to wa-aken up Sam afower t' marnin!" Ruth felt braced
by this bringing of the event within human possibilities. Improbable
possibilities surprise. Impossible events stun.
She co-operated in domesticities with her useful neighbour, glancing
once or twice at the figure on the bed, and reinforced in the belief
that all was safe there, for the time. For she saw what seemed slight
natural movement, for ease. Presently she went to hear how it fared with
her other mother, her normal one. The cross purposes of her relations to
the two old sisters were an entanglement of perplexities.
Granny Marrable, asleep when Ruth looked stealthily in at her, was waked
by a creak with which the door just contrived to disappoint hopes of a
noiseless escape. She called after her:--"Yes, who's that?" Whereupon
Ruth returned. It was their first real word alone since the disclosure.
"Oh, mother, have you slept?" She kissed the old worn-out face tenderly;
feeling somehow the reserve of strength behind the response she met.
"Oh, can you--_can_ you--make it out?... Yes, she is lying still. She
has seen that letter." She dropped her voice, and shuddered to name it.
"My dear," said Granny Marrable, answering her question, "I cannot say
truly yet that I can make it out. But I thank God for letting me be able
to know that this must be Maisie. For I know her for Maisie, when she
talks of the bygone time. And that letter--God is good, for that! For it
was that told of how she died--that wicked poison-bite! My child, it has
never gone quite out of my heart to think your mother died so far away
in such pain--never in all these years! And now I know it for an
untruth. I thank God for that, at least!"
"_She_ says," said Ruth, checkmated in an attempt to use any name she
could call her real mother by, without some self-blame for the
utterance, "_she_ says the story is one-half true, but 'twas her best
friend died of the bite--not she! But she died in great suffering."
"Ah--the poor thing! Mary Ann Stennis."
"That was the name."
"Will she be able to tell more? Will she tell us who her husband was?"
"Her husband!" Ruth thought this was new trouble--that the Granny's head
had given way under the strain. "Her husband was my father, mother,"
said she. "Think!"
But old Phoebe was quite clear. "I am all right, child," said she
reassuringly. "Her _second_ husband. Marrable was _my_ second, you know,
else I would still have been Cropredy. Why is she not Daverill?"
Ruth was really the less clear of the two. "Oh yes!" said she
wonderingly. "She is Mrs. Prichard, still."
"Please God we shall know all!... What was that?"
"I must go to her.... Come!" For old Maisie had called out. Her daughter
went back to her quickly, and Granny Marrable followed, not far behind.
"Come, dear, come.... I called for you to know.... Come, Phoebe, come
near, and let me tell you.... He was not so wicked.... Oh no, oh no--it
was none of his own doing--I shall be able ... directly...." Thus old
Maisie, gasping for breath, and falling back on the pillow from which
she had part risen. The hectic flush in her face was greater, and her
eyes were wild under her tangle of beautiful silver hair. Both were
afraid for her, for each knew what fever might, mean. They might lose
her, almost without a renewal of life together.
Still, it might be no more than the agitation of a moment, a passing
phase. They tried to pacify her. How _could_ the letter be none of
Daverill's own doing? But she would not be soothed--would say the thing
she had set her mind to say, but failed to find the words or breath for.
What was it she was trying to say? Was it about the letter?
Elizabeth-next-door came into the room, tentatively. Ostensible reason,
inquiry about breakfast; actual reason, curiosity. Sounds of speech
under stress had aroused, and a glance at old Maisie intensified it.
Widow Thrale would come directly, but for the moment was intent on
hearing what Mrs. Prichard was saying. To Elizabeth, Maisie continued
Mrs. Prichard.
She would not leave unsaid this thing she was bent on:--"No, dear! No,
dear! It does not hurt me to talk, but I want time.... I will tell you
... I must tell you.... I know it.... It was not his own doing.... He
was set on to do it by a devil that possessed him.... There are devils
loose among the blacks...."
The pulse in the hand Ruth held was easy to find. Yes, that _was_ fever!
Ruth left her to speak with Elizabeth, and the hand went over to its
fellow, in Granny Marrable's.
"Phoebe, dearest, that is so--and in those days there were a many
blacks. But they were fewer and fewer after that, and none in our part
when we came away, my son and I.... Phoebe!"
"What, dearest?"
"You must say nothing of _him_ to Ruth. He was her brother."
"Say nothing of him to Ruth--why not?" She had lost sight of her
adventure with the convict, and did not identify him. She may have
fancied some other son accompanied her sister home.
"Yes--yes--nothing to _her_! He is not fit to speak of--not fit to think
of.... Do not ask about him. Forget him! I do not know if he be alive or
dead."
Then an image of the convict, or madman, flashed across Phoebe's mind.
She dared not talk of him now, with that wild light and hectic flush in
her sister's face; it would only make bad worse. But a recollection of
her first association of him with the maniac in the Gadarene tombs was
quick on the heels of this image, and prompted her to say:--"Had no evil
spirit power over _him_, then, as well as his father?"
The wild expression on old Maisie's face died down, and gave place to
one that was peace itself by comparison. "I see it all now," said she.
"Yes--you are right! It was after his father's death he became so
wicked." It was the devil that possessed his father, driven out to seek
a home, and finding it in the son. That was apparently what her words
implied, but there was too much of delirium in her speech and seeming to
justify their being taken as expressing a serious thought.
Old Phoebe sat beside her, trying now and again with quiet voice and
manner to soothe and hush away the terrible memories of the audacious
deception to which each owed a lifelong loss of the other. But when
fever seizes on the blood, it will not relax its hold for words.
One effect of this was good, in a sense. It _is_ true, as the poet said,
that one fire burns out another's burning--or at any rate that one pain
is deadened by another anguish--and it was a Godsend to Granny Marrable
and Ruth Thrale that an acupression of immediate anxiety should come to
counteract their bewilderment, and to extinguish for the time the
conflagration of a thousand questions--whys, whens, and wherefores
innumerable--in their overburdened minds. Visible fever in the delicate
frame, to which it seemed the slightest shock might mean death, was a
summons to them to put aside every possible thought but that of
preserving what Time had spared so long, though Chance had been so cruel
an oppressor. It would be the cruellest stroke of all that she should be
thus strangely restored to them, only to be snatched away in an hour.
Presently she seemed quieter; the fever came in gusts, and rose and
fell. She had once or twice seemed almost incoherent, but it passed
away. Meanwhile Granny Marrable's memory of that madman or criminal, who
had at least known the woman he claimed as his mother well enough to be
mystified by her twin sister, rankled in her mind, and made it harder
and harder for her to postpone speech about him. She would not tell the
incident--she was clear of _that_--but would it harm Maisie to talk of
him? She asked herself the question the next time her sister referred to
him, and could not refrain from letting her speech about him finish.
It came of her mind drifting back to that crazy notion of an evil spirit
wandering to seek a home; as the hermit-crab, dispossessed of one shell,
goes in search of another. After a lull which had looked for a moment
like coming sleep, she said with an astonishing calmness:--"But do you
not see, Phoebe dear, do you not see how good his father must have been,
to do no worse than he did? See what the devil that possessed him could
do with Ralph--my youngest, he was; Isaac died--a good boy, quite a good
boy, till I lost his father! Oh--see what he came to do!"
"He ... he was sent to prison, was he not?" After saying it, old Phoebe
was afraid she might have to tell the whole tale of how she knew it.
But she need not have feared. Old Maisie was in a kind of dreamland,
only half-cognisant of what was going on about her.
Her faint voice wandered on. "I was not thinking of that. That was
nothing! He stole some money, and it cost him dear.... No!--it was worse
than that--a bad thing!... It was _not_ the girl's fault.... Emma was a
good girl...."
Granny Marrable was injudicious. But it was an automatic want of
judgment, bred of mind-strain. She could not help saying:--"Was that
Emma Drax?" For the name, which she had heard from the convict, had hung
on her mind, always setting her to work to fashion some horrible story
for its owner.
"Yes--Emma Drax.... They found her guilty.... I do not mean that....
What is it I mean?... I mean they laid it all at her door.... Men do!"
This seemed half wandering, and Granny Marrable hoped it meant a return
of sleep. She was disappointed. For old Maisie became more restless and
hot, starting convulsively, catching at her hand, and exclaiming:--"But
how came you to know?--how came you to know? You were not there then.
Oh, Phoebe dearest, you were not there _then_." She kept on saying this,
and Granny Marrable despaired of finding words to explain, under such
circumstances. The tale of her meeting with the convict was too complex.
She thought to herself that she might say that Maisie had spoken the
name as a dream-word, waking. But that would have been a fib, and fibs
were not her line.
* * * * *
"I went myself to get him," said Ruth, reappearing after a longer
absence than old Phoebe had anticipated. She was removing an out-of-door
cloak, and an extempore headwrap, when she entered the room. "How is
she?" she asked.
Old Phoebe shook her head doubtfully. "Whom did you go for, child? The
doctor? I'm glad."
"I thought it better.... Mother darling!--how are you?" She knelt by the
bed, held the burning hands, looked into the wild eyes. "Yes--I did
quite right," she said.
* * * * *
Dr. Nash came, not many minutes later. Whether the mixture to be taken
every two hours, fifty years ago, was the same as would have been given
now, does not concern the story. It, or the reassurance of the doctor's
visit, had a sedative effect; and old Maisie seemed to sleep, to the
great satisfaction of her nurses. What really did credit to his
professional skill was that he perceived that a visit from Lady
Gwendolen would be beneficial. A message was sent at once to John
Costrell, saying that an accompanying letter was to be taken promptly to
the Towers, to catch her ladyship before she went out. We have seen that
it reached her in time.
"You found that all I told you was true, Granny Marrable," said the
doctor, after promising to return in time to catch her ladyship.
"I shall live to believe it true, doctor, please God!"
"Tut tut! You see that it _is_ true."
"Yes, indeed, and I know that yonder is Maisie, come back to life. I
know it by thinking; but 'tis all I can do, not to think her still
dead."
"She can talk, I suppose--recollects things? Things when you were kids?"
"God 'a' mercy, yes, doctor! Why--hasn't she told me how she drew my
tooth, with a bit of silk and a candle, and knew which drawer-knob it
was, and the days she saw her husband first, a-horseback?... Oh,
merciful Heavens, how had he the heart?"
"Some chaps have the Devil in 'em, and that's the truth!"
"That's what she says. She just made my flesh creep, a-telling how the
devils come out of the black savages, to seize on Christians!"
But the doctor was not prepared to be taken at his word, in this way.
Devils are good toys for speech, but they are not to be real. "Lot of
rum superstitions in those parts!" said he. "Now look you here, ma'am!
When I come back, I shall expect to hear that you and your daughter....
Oh ah!--she's not your daughter! What the deuce is she?"
"Ruth has always been my niece, but we have gone near to forget it,
times and again. 'Tis so many a long year!"
"Well--I shall expect to hear that you and your niece have had a
substantial breakfast. You understand--_substantial!_ And you must make
_her_ take milk, or gruel. You'll find she won't eat."
"Beef-tea?"
"No--at least, have some ready, in case. But her temperature is too
high. Especially at her time of life!" The doctor walked briskly away.
He had not had the gig out, for such a short distance.
CHAPTER XXI
CHRISTMAS AND THE GREEK KALENDS. O NOBIS PRAETERITOS! THE
WRITING-TABLE BACK. AN INFLEXIBLE GOVERNOR. HOW MR. JERRY DID NOT
GO TO THE WORKHOUSE. BUT HOW CAME M'RIAR TO BE SO SHORT? THE
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. UNCLE MO'S COLDBATH FIELDS FRIEND, AND HIS
ALLOWANCE. UNCLE MO ON KEEPING ONE'S WORD. AND KEEPING ITS MEANING.
JERRY'S CONSCIENTIOUS TREACHERY, AND HIS INTERVIEW WITH MR. ROWE.
HOW M'RIAR HAD PROMISED LOVE, HONOUR, AND OBEDIENCE TO A THING A
DEVIL HAD TAKEN A LONG LEASE OF. HOW SHE SENT A NOTE TO IT, BY
MICHAEL RAGSTROAR. WHO REALISED THREE-HALFPENCE. HOW MISS HAWKINS,
JEALOUSY MAD, TINKERED AUNT M'RIAR'S NOTE. EVE'S CIVILITY TO THE
SERPENT. MUCH ABOUT NORFOLK ISLAND. DAVERILL'S SECOND VISIT TO
ENGLAND, AND ITS CAUSES
Sapps Court was looking forward to Christmas with mixed feelings,
considered as a Court. The feelings of each resident were in some cases
quite defined or definable; as for instance Dave's and Dolly's. The
children had required from their seniors a trustworthy assurance of the
date of Mrs. Prichard's return, and had only succeeded in obtaining from
Aunt M'riar a vague statement. Mrs. Prichard was a-coming some day, and
that was plenty for children to know at their time of life. They might
have remained humbly contented with their ignorance, if Uncle Mo had not
added:--"So's Christmas!" meaning thereby the metaphorical Christmas
used as an equivalent of the Greek Kalends. He overlooked, for
rhetorical purposes, the near approach of the actual festival; and Dave
and Dolly accepted this as fixing the date of Mrs. Prichard's return, to
a nicety. The event was looked forward to as millennial; as a
restoration of a golden age before her departure. For no child is so
young as not to _laudare_ a _tempus actum_; indeed, it is a fiction that
almost begins with speech, that the restoration of the Past is the first
duty of the Future.
Dolly never tired of recasting the arrangement of the tea-festivity that
was to celebrate the event, discovering in each new disposition of the
insufficient cups and unstable teapot a fresh satisfaction to gloat
over, and imputing feelings in sympathy with her own to her offspring
Gweng. It was fortunate for Gweng that her mamma understood her so
thoroughly, as otherwise her fixed expression of a maximum of joy at
all things in Heaven and Earth gave no clue to any emotions due to
events of the moment. Even when her eyes were closed by manipulation of
her spinal cord, and opened suddenly on a new and brilliant combination,
any candid spectator must have admitted her stoicism--rapturous perhaps,
but still stoicism. It was alleged--by her mamma--that she shed tears
when Dave selfishly obstructed her line of sight. This was disputed by
Dave, whom contact with an unfeeling World was hardening to a cruel
literalism.
Dave, when he was not scheming a display of recent Academical
acquirements to Mrs. Prichard, dwelt a good deal on the bad faith of the
postman, who had not brought him the two letters he certainly had a
right to expect, one from each of his Grannies. He had treasured the
anticipation of reading their respective expressions of joyful gratitude
at their discovery of their relationship, and no letter had come! Small
blame to Dave that he laid this at the door of the postman; others have
done the self-same thing, on the other side of their teens! The only
adverse possibility that crossed his infant mind was that his Grannies
were sorry, not glad; because really grown-up people were so queer, you
never could be even with them. The laceration of a lost half-century was
a thing that could not enter into the calculations of a septennarian. He
had not tried Time, and Time had not tried him. He had odd misgivings,
now and again, that there might be in this matter something outside his
experience. But he did not indulge in useless speculation. The proximity
of Christmas made it unnecessary.
Mrs. Burr and Aunt M'riar accepted the season as one beneficial to
trade; production taking the form of a profusion of little muslin
dresses for small girls at Christmas Trees and parties with a
Conjurer--dresses in which the fullest possibilities of the human
flounce became accomplished facts, and the last word was said about bows
of coloured ribbons. To look at them was to breathe an involuntary
prayer for eiderdown enclosures that would keep the poppet inside warm
without disparagement to her glorious finery. Sapps Court under their
influence became eloquent of quadrilles; "_Les Rats_" and the Lancers,
jangled by four hands eternally on pianos no powers of sleep could
outwit, and no execration do justice to. They murmured tales of crackers
with mottoes; also of too much rich cake and trifle and lemonade, and
consequences. So much space was needed to preserve them unsoiled and
uncrushed until consigned to their purchasers, that Mrs. Burr and Aunt
M'riar felt grateful for the unrestricted run of Mrs. Prichard's
apartment, although both also felt anxious to see her at home again.
Mrs. Prichard's writing-table came back, done beautiful. Only the young
man he refused to leave it without the money. He was compelled to this
course by the idiosyncrasies of his employer. "You see," said he to
Uncle Mo, with an appearance of concentrating accuracy by a shrewd
insight, "it's like this it is, just like I tell you. Our Governor he's
as good a feller--in _hisself_ mind you!--as you'll come across this
side o' Whitechapel. Only he's just got this one pecooliarity--like a
bee has in his bonnet, as the sayin' is--he won't give no credit, not so
much as to his own wife; or his medical adwiser, if you come to that.
'Cash across invoice'--that's his motter. And as for moving of him, you
might just as easy move Mongblong." It is not impossible that this young
man's familiarity with Mont Blanc was more apparent than real; perhaps
founded on Albert Smith's entertainment of that name, which was popular
at that time in London. The young man went on to say that he himself was
trustful to a fault, and that if it depended on him, a'most any
arrangement could be come to. But you had to take a party as you found
him, and there it was!
Uncle Mo said:--"If you'd said you was a-coming with it, mate, I'd have
made a p'int of having the cash ready. My salary's doo to-morrow." He
was looking rather ruefully at an insufficient sum in the palm of his
hand, the scrapings of more than one pocket.
The young man said:--"It's the Governor, Mr. Moses. But if you'll square
the 'ire of the trolley, I'll run it back to the shop, and you can say
when you're ready for it."
Uncle Mo seemed very reluctant to allow the bird to go back into the
bush. He went to the stairfoot, and called to Aunt M'riar, upstairs,
making ribbons into rosettes, and giving Dolly the snippings. He never
took his eye off the coins in his palm, as though to maintain them as
integral factors of the business in hand. "Got any small change,
M'riar?" said he.
"How much do you want, Mo?"
"Six. _And_ three. Can you do six-and three?"
"Stop till I see, Mo." Aunt M'riar descended from above, and went into
her bedroom. But she did not find six-and-three. For she came out
saying:--"I can't only do five-and-nine, Mo. Can't you make out with
that?"
Uncle Mo still looked at the twelve-and-nine he already had in hand, as
though it was a peculiar twelve-and-nine, that might consent for once
to make nineteen shillings, the sum required, when added to Aunt
M'riar's contribution; but he was obliged to yield to the inflexible
nature of Arithmetic. "Sixpence short, I make it," said he. Then to the
young man whose employer was like Mont Blanc:--"You'll have to fetch it
round again to-morrow, any time after two o'clock." This was, however,
rendered unnecessary by the appearance of Mr. Jerry, who was able to
contribute the six-and-three, without, as he said, going to the
workhouse. So Mrs. Prichard's old table, with a new leg so nobody could
ever have told, and a touch of fresh polish as good as new, was restored
to its old place, to join in the general anticipation of its owner's
return.
But however M'riar come to be so short of cash Uncle Mo, smoking an
afternoon pipe as of old with Mr. Jerry, could not say, not if the
Emperor of Roosher was to ask him. Not that shortness of cash was
unusual in Sapps Court, but that he had supposed that M'riar was rather
better off than usual, owing to recent liquidations by the firm for whom
she and Mrs. Burr were at work upstairs. Mr. Jerry urged him on no
account to fret his kidneys about mundane trifles of this sort.
Everything, without exception, came to the same thing in the end, and
weak concessions to monetary anxiety only provided food for Repentance.
Uncle Mo explained that his uneasiness was not due to ways and means, or
the want of them, but to a misgiving that Aunt M'riar's money was "got
from her."
Now in his frequent confabs with Mr. Jerry, Uncle Mo had let fall many
suggestions of the sinister influence at work on Aunt M'riar; and Mr.
Jerry, being a shrewd observer, and collating these suggestions with
what had come to him otherwise, had formed his own opinions about the
nature of this influence. So it was no wonder that in answer to Uncle Mo
he nodded his head very frequently, as one who not only assents to a
fact, but rather lays claim to having been its first discoverer. "What
did I tell you, Mo?" said he.
"Concernuating? Of? What?" said Uncle Mo in three separate sentences,
each one accompanied by a tap of his pipe-bowl on the wooden table at
The Sun parlour. The third qualified it for refilling. You will see, if
you are attentive and observant, that this was Mo's first pipe that
afternoon; as, if the ashes had been hot, he would not have emptied them
on that table, but rather on the hob, or in the brazen spittoon.
"Him," said Mr. Jerry, too briefly. For he felt bound to add:--"Coldbath
Fields. Anyone giving information that will lead to apprehension of,
will receive the above reward. Your friend, you know!"
"My friend's the man, Jerry. Supposin'--just for argewment--I fist that
friend o' mine Monday morning, I'll make him an allowance'll last him
over Sunday. You wouldn't think it of me, Jerry, but I'm a bad-tempered
man, underneath the skin. And when I see our old girl M'riar run away
with like by an infernal scoundrel.... Well, Jerry, I lose my temper!
That I do." And Uncle Mo seemed to need the pipe he was lighting, to
calm him.
"He's where her money goes, Mo--that's it, ain't it?"
"That's about it, sir. So p'hraps when I say I don't know how M'riar
come to be so short of cash, I ought to say I _do_ know. Because I _do_
know, as flat as ever so much Gospel." So the Emperor of Russia might
not have remained unenlightened.
Mr. Jerry reflected. "You say he hasn't been near the Court again, Mo?"
"Not since that last time I told you about. What M'riar told me of. When
he showed his knife to frighten her. I couldn't be off telling Sim Rowe,
at the Station, about it, because of the children; and he's keeping an
eye. But the beggar's not been anigh the Court since. Nor I don't
suppose he'll come."
"But when ever does he see M'riar, to get at her savings?--that's what
I'd like to know. Eh, Mo?"
"M'riar ain't tied to the house. She's free to come and go. I don't take
kindly to prying and spying on her."
A long chat which followed evolved a clear view of the position. After
Mo's interview with Aunt M'riar just before Gwen's visit, he had applied
to his friend the Police-Inspector, with the result that the Court had
been the subject of a continuous veiled vigilance. He had, however, been
so far swayed by the distress of Aunt M'riar at the possibility that she
might actually witness the capture of her criminal husband, that he
never revealed to Simeon Rowe that she had an interest in defeating his
enterprise. The consequence was that every plain-clothes emissary put
himself into direct personal communication with her, thereby ensuring
the absence of Daverill from Sapps Court. She was of course guilty of a
certain amount of duplicity in all this, and it weighed heavily on her
conscience. But there was something to be said by way of excuse. He
was--or had been--her husband, and she did _not_ know the worst of his
crimes. Had she done so, she might possibly have been ready to give him
up to justice. But as Mo had told her this much, that his last
achievement might lead him to the condemned cell, and its sequel, and
she nevertheless shrank from betraying him, probably nothing short of
the knowledge of the age and sex of his last victim would have caused
her to do so. She had in her mind an image of a good, honest,
old-fashioned murder; a strained episode in some burglary; perhaps not
premeditated, but brought about by an indiscreet interruption of a fussy
householder. There are felonies and felonies.
Mr. Jerry's conversation with Uncle Mo in the Sun parlour gave him an
insight into this. "Look'ee here, Mo," said he. "So long as the Court's
watched, so long this here gentleman won't come anigh it. He's dodged
the London police long enough to be too clever for that. But so long as
he keeps touch with M'riar, you've got touch of him."
Uncle Mo seemed to consider this profoundly. "Not if I keep square with
M'riar," said he at last.
"How do you make that out, Mo?"
"I've as good as promised the old girl that she shan't have any hand in
it. She's out of it."
"Then keep her out of it. But only you give the tip to Sim Rowe that
M'riar's in with him, and that he's putting the screw on her, and Sim
he'll do the rest. Twig?" Conscious casuistry always closes one eye, and
Mr. Jerry closed his.
"That's one idea of keeping square, Jerry, but it ain't mine."
"What's wrong with it, Mo?" Mr. Jerry's confidence in his suggestion had
flagged, and his eye had reopened slowly.
"M'riar's not to have _any_ hand in it--that's her stipulation.
According-ly to my ideas, Jerry, either you take advantage, or you
don't. _Don't's_ the word, this time. If I bring M'riar in _at all_,
it's all one which of two ways I do it. She's out of it."
Mr. Jerry began, feebly:--"You can't do more than keep your word,
Mo...."
"Yes, you can, Jerry. You can keep your meanin'. And you can do more
than that. You can keep to what the other party thought you meant, when
you know. _I_ know, this time. I ain't in a Court o' Justice, Jerry,
dodgin' about, and I know when I'm square, by the feel. M'riar's out of
it, and she shall stop out." Uncle Mo was not referring only to the
evasions of witnesses on oath, which he regarded as natural, but to a
general habit of untruth, and subtle perversion of obvious meanings,
which he ascribed not only to counsel learned in the Law, but to the
Bench itself.
"Don't you want this chap to dance the Newgate hornpipe, Mo?"
"Don't I, neither?" Uncle Mo smoked peacefully, gazing on the fire. The
silhouette of a hanged man, kicking, floated before his mind's eye, and
soothed him. But he made a reservation. "After him and me have had a
quiet half-an-hour together!"
Mr. Jerry was suddenly conscious of a new danger. "I say, Mo," said he.
"None of that, if _you_ please!"
"None o' what?"
"This customer's not your sort. He's a bad kind. Bad before he was first
lagged, and none the better for the company he's kept since! You're an
elderly man now, Mo, and I'll go bail you haven't so much as put on the
gloves for ten years past. And suppose you had, ever so! Who's to know
he hasn't got a Colt in his pocket, or a bowie-knife?" Those of us who
remember the fifties will recall how tightly revolvers clung to the name
of their patentee, and the sort of moral turpitude that attached to
their use. They were regarded as giving a mean advantage to murderers;
who otherwise, if they murdered fair, and were respectably hanged,
merely filled _rôles_ necessary to History and the Drama.
"Couldn't say about the barking-iron," said Uncle Mo. "He's got a nasty
sort of a knife, because he was flourishing of it out once to frighten
M'riar. I'll give him that." Meaning--the advantage of the weapon. A
trivial concession from a survivor of the best days of the Fancy! "Ye
see, Jerry," he continued, "he'll have to come within arm's length, to
use it. _I'll_ see to him! Him and his carving-knives!"
But Mr. Jerry was far from easy about his friend, who seemed to him
over-confident. He had passed his life in sporting circles, and though
he himself had seen more of jockeys than prizefighters, their respective
circumferences intersected; and more than one case had come to his
knowledge of a veteran of the Ring unconscious of his decadence, who had
boastfully defied a junior, and made the painful discovery of the degree
to which youth can outclass age. This was scarcely a case of youth or
extreme age, but the twenty years that parted them were all-sufficient.
He began to seek in his inner conscience excuses for a course of action
which would--he was quite candid with himself--have a close resemblance
to treachery. But would not a little straightforward treachery be not
only very expedient, but rather moral? Were high principles a _sine qua
non_ to such a humble individual as himself, a "bookmaker" on
race-courses, a billiard-marker elsewhere in their breathing-times?
Though indeed Mr. Jerry in his chequered life had seen many other phases
of employment--chiefly, whenever he had the choice, within the zone of
horsiness. For he had a mysterious sympathetic knowledge of the horse.
If pressed to give an account of himself, he was often compelled to
admit that he was doing nothing particular, but was on the lookout. He
might indicate that he was getting sick of this sort of thing, and would
take the next chance that turned up; would, as it were, close with Fate.
There had never been a moment in his sixty odd years of life--for he was
very little Uncle Mo's junior--when he had not been on the eve of a
lucrative permanency. It had never come; and never could, in the nature
of things. Nevertheless, the evanescencies that came and went and
chequered his career were not quite unremunerative, though they were
hardly lucrative. If he was ever hard up, he certainly never confessed
to it.
He, however, looking back on his own antecedents to determine from them
how straitlaced a morality conscience called for, decided, in view of
the possibility of a collision between his friend and this ex-convict,
that he would be quite justified in treating Aunt M'riar's feelings as
negligible, set against the risk incurred by deferring to them as his
friend had done. No doubt Mo's confidence had been reposed in him under
the seal of an honourable secrecy, but to honour it under the
circumstances seemed to him to be "cutting it rather fine." He resolved
to sacrifice his integrity on the altar of friendship, and sought out
Mr. Simeon Rowe, who will be remembered as the Thames Policeman who was
rowing stroke at Hammersmith that day when his chief, Ibbetson, lost his
life in the attempt to capture Daverill; and who had more recently been
identified by Mo as the son of an old friend. Jerry made a full
communication of the case as known to him; giving as his own motive for
doing so, the wish to shield Mo from the possible consequences of his
own rash over-confidence.
"I collect from what you tell me," said the Police-Inspector, "that my
men have been going on the wrong tack. That's about it, Mr. Alibone,
isn't it?"
"That's one way of putting it, Mr. Rowe. Anyhow, they were bound to be
let in. Why, who was to guess Aunt M'riar? _And_ the reason!"
"They'll have to look a little sharper, that's all." It suited the
Inspector to lay the blame of failure on his subordinates. This is a
prerogative of seniors in office. Successes are officially credited to
the foresight of headquarters--failures debited to the incompetence of
subordinates. Mr. Rowe's attitude was merely human. He expressed as much
acknowledgment of indebtedness to Mr. Jerry as was consistent with
official dignity, adding without emotion:--"I've been suspecting some
game of the kind." However, he unbent so far as to admit that this
culprit had given a sight of trouble; and, as Mr. Jerry was an old
acquaintance, resumed some incidents of the convict's career, not
without admiration. But it was admiration of a purely professional sort,
consistent with strong moral loathing of its object. "He's a born devil,
if ever there was one," said he. "I must say I like him. Why--look how
he slipped through their fingers at Clerkenwell! That was after we
caught him at Hammersmith. That was genius, sir, nothing short of
genius!"
"Dressed himself in his own warder's clothes, didn't he, and just walked
over the course? What's become of your man he knocked on the head with
his leg-iron?"
"Oh--him? He's got his pension, you know. But he's not good for any sort
of work. He's alive--that's all! Yes--when Mr. Wix pays his next visit
at the Old Bailey, there'll be several charges against him. He'll make a
good show. I'll give him three months." By which he meant that, with all
allowances made for detention and trial, Mr. Wix would end his career at
the time stated. He went on to refer to other incidents of which the
story has cognisance. He had been inclined to be down on his old chief
Ibbetson, who was drowned in his attempt to capture Wix, because he had
availed himself of a helping hand held out to him to drag its owner into
custody. Well--he would think so still if it had not been for some
delicate shades of character Mr. Wix had revealed since. How did he,
Simeon Rowe, know what Ibbetson knew against the ex-convict? Some
Walthamstow business, as like as not! It was wonderful what a faculty
this man had for slipping through your fingers. He had been all but
caught by one of our men, in the country, only the other day. He was at
the railway-station waiting for the up-train, due in a quarter of an
hour, and he saw our man driving up in a gig. At this point Mr. Rowe
stopped, looking amused.
"Did he run?" said Mr. Jerry.
"Not he! He made a mistake in his train. Jumped into the Manchester
express that was just leaving, and got carried off before our man
reached the station. At Manchester he explained his mistake, and used
his return ticket without extra charge to come back to London. Our man
knew he would do that, and waited for him at Euston. But _he_ knew one
better. Missed his train again at Harrow--just got out for a minute, you
know, when it stopped--and walked the rest of the way!"
Ralph Daverill must have had a curious insight into human nature, to
know by the amount of his inspection of that police-officer--the one who
had ridden after him from Grantley Thorpe--whether he would pursue him
to Manchester or try to capture him at Euston. How could he tell that
the officer was not clever enough to know exactly how clever his quarry
would decide he was?
* * * * *
Aunt M'riar, haunted always by a nightmare--by the terrible dream of a
scaffold, and on it the man who had been her husband, with all the
attendant horrors familiar to an age when public executions still
gratified its human, or inhuman interest--was unable to get relief by
confiding her trouble to others. She dared to say no more than what she
had already said to Uncle Mo, as she knew he was in communication with
his friend the police-officer and she wanted only just as much to be
disclosed about the convict as would safeguard Sapps Court from another
of his visits, but at the same time would not lead to his capture. If
she had thought his suggestions of intimidation serious, no doubt she
would have put aside her scruples, and made it her first object that he
should be brought to justice. But she regarded them as empty threats,
uttered solely to extort money.
She knew she could rely on Mo's kindness of heart to stretch many points
to meet her feelings, but she felt very uncertain whether even his
kind-heartedness would go the length of her demand for it. He might
consider that a wife's feelings for a husband--and _such_ a
husband!--might be carried too far, might even be classified as
superstition, that last infirmity of incorrect minds. If she could only
make sure that the convict should never show his face again in Sapps
Court, she would sacrifice her small remainders of money, earned in runs
of luck, to keep him at a distance. An attitude of compromise between
complete repudiation of him, and misleading his pursuers, was at least
possible. But it involved a slight amount of duplicity in dealing with
Mo, and this made Aunt M'riar supremely uncomfortable. She was perfectly
miserable about it. But there!--had she not committed herself to an
impracticable constancy, with a real altar and a real parson? That was
it. She had promised, five-and-twenty years ago, to love, honour, and
obey a self-engrossed pleasure-seeker, and time and crime and the canker
of a gaol had developed a devil in him, who was by now a fine
representative sample--a "record devil" our modern advanced speech might
have called him--who had fairly stamped out whatever uncongenial trace
of good may have existed originally in the premises he had secured on
an indefinite lease. It _was_ superstition on Aunt M'riar's part, but of
a sort that is aided and abetted by a system that has served the
purposes of the priesthoods all the world over since the world began,
and means to last your time and mine--the more's the pity!
It was the day after her conversation with Mo about the convict--the
day, that is, after Gwen's last visit to Sapps Court--that Aunt M'riar
said to Dave, just departing to absorb erudition at his School, that if
he should see Michael Ragstroar he might tell him she had a note for
his, Michael's, aunt at Hammersmith; and if he was a-going there Sunday,
he might just every bit as well make himself useful, and carry it and
save the postage. Dave said:--"Whoy shouldn't oy carry it?" An
aspiration crushed by Aunt M'riar with:--"Because you're seven!" So
Dave, whose nature was as docile as his eyes were blue, undertook to
deliver the message; and Michael presented himself in consequence, just
after Uncle Mo had took a turn out to see for a newspaper, for to know
some more of what was going on in the Crimaera. It was just as well
Uncle Mo had, because when it's two, you don't have to consider. If this
is obscure, Aunt M'riar, who used the phrase, is responsible, not the
story. Its opinion is, that she meant that the absence of a third person
left her freer to speak. Perhaps if Mo had been present she would merely
have handed Micky the letter directed to his aunt, which would have been
palpably no concern of Uncle Mo's, inquirin' and askin' questions.
As it was, she accompanied it with verbal instructions:--"Now you know
what you've got to do, young Micky. You've just got to give this letter
to your great-aunt Treadwell. And when she sees inside of it, she'll
find it ain't for her, but a party."
"What sort of a party, that's the p'int? Don't b'leeve my great-aunt
knows no parties. Them she knows is inside of her farmily. Nevoos,
sim'lar to myself as you might say. Or hequal value." An Academical
degree would have qualified Micky to say "or its equivalent." The
expression he used had its source in exchange transactions of turnips
and carrots and greens, anticipating varied calls for each in different
markets.
"She may know the address of the lady she'll find in this envelope. And
if she don't, all _you_ got to do is to bring the letter back."
"Suppose she don't know the address and I do, am I to tell her, or 'old
my tongue?"
"Now which do you think? I do declare you boys I never! Nor yet anyone
else! Why, if she don't know the address and you do, all you got to do
then is take the letter and leave it."
"Without any address wrote? Wery good! 'Ave it your own way, missis.
'And it over."
Aunt M'riar handed it over. But before Micky was half-way up the Court,
she called him back. "Maybe you know the party's name? Miss Julia
Hawkins--on the waterside, Hammersmith."
"Her! Not know her! Juliarawkins. Why, she's next door!"
"But do you know her--to speak to?"
"Rarther! We're on torkin terms, me and Juliar. Werry often stop I do,
to pass the time of day with Jooli_ar_." An intensification in the
accent on the name seemed to add to his claim to familiarity with its
owner. "Keeps the little tiddley-wink next door. Licensed 'ouse. That's
where they took Wix--him as got out of quod--him as come down the Court
to look up a widder."
Aunt M'riar considered a moment whether it would not be better to
instruct Micky to find out Daverill and deliver her letter to him in
person. She decided on adhering to the convict's instructions. If she
had understood his past relations with Miss Hawkins she might have
decided otherwise. She affected not to hear Micky's allusion to him,
merely enjoining the boy to hand her letter in over the bar to its
Egeria. "You won't have any call for to trouble your aunt," said she.
For she felt that the fewer the cooks, the better the broth. Questioned
as to when he would deliver the letter, Micky appeared to turn over in
his mind a voluminous register of appointments. But he could stand them
all over, to oblige, and would see if he couldn't make it convenient to
go over Sunday morning. Nothing was impossible to a good business head.
As the appointments had absolutely no existence except in his
imagination--though perhaps costermonging, at its lowest ebb, still
claimed his services--he was able to make it very convenient indeed to
visit his Aunt Elizabeth. History repeats itself, and the incident of
the half-and-half happened again, point for point, until settlement-time
came, and then a variation crept in.
"I got a letter for you, missis," said Micky.
"Sure it ain't for somebody else? Let's have a look at it."
"No 'urry! Tork it over first--that's my marxim! Look ye here. Miss
Juliar, this is my way of putting of it. Here's three-halfpence, over
the beer. Here's the corner of the letter, stickin' out of my porket.
Now which'll you have, the letter or the three-halfpence? Make your
ch'ice. All square and no deception!"
"Well--the impidence of the child! Who's to know the letter's for me
onlest I see the direction? Who gave it you to give me?"
"Miss Wardle down our Court. Same I told you of--where the old
widder-woman hangs out. Him the police are after's mother!" Micky was so
confident of the success of this communication that he began picking up
the three-halfpence to restore them to his pocket, and stood holding the
corner of the letter to draw it out as soon as his terms were accepted.
The acceptance came unconditionally, with a nod; and Micky departed with
his jug.
What were the contents of this letter to Mr. Wix, care of Miss Julia
Hawkins, at The Pigeons? That was all the direction on the envelope,
originally covered by another, addressed to Micky's great-aunt. It was
worded as Daverill had worded it in a hurried parting word to Aunt
M'riar, given when Gwen's knock had cut his visit short. This letter, in
an uneducated woman's hand, excited Miss Hawkins's curiosity. Of course
it might only be from the old woman he supposed to be his mother. If so,
there did not seem to be any reasonable objection to her reading it. If
otherwise, she felt that there were many reasonable objections to
leaving it unread. Anyhow there was a kettle steaming on the fire in the
bar, and if she held the letter over the spout to see if it would open
easy, she would be still in a position to shut it up again and deliver
it with a guiltless conscience. Eve, no doubt, felt that she could
handle the apple and go on resisting temptation, so as not to seem rude
to the Serpent. The steam was not wanted for long, the envelope flap
curling up in a most obliging manner, and leaving all clear for
investigation. Miss Hawkins laid the letter down to dry quite dry,
before fingering it. Remember to bear this in mind in opening other
people's letters this way. The slightest touch on paper moistened by
steam may remain as a tell-tale.
This woman was so cautious that she left the paper untouched where she
had laid it on the table while she conferred with a recently installed
potboy on points of commercial economy. When she returned it was dry
beyond suspicion, and she drew the letter out to see if it contained
anything she need hesitate to read. She felt that she was keeping in
view what is due to the sensitive conscience of an honourable person.
The note she read was short, written so that the lines fell thus:--
"RALPH DAVERILL--The police are
on the look out for you and it is now not
safe to come to the Court--This is written
by your wife to say you will run
great risk of being took if you come--
For you to know who I am I write my name--
POLLY DAVERILL.
Sapps Court Dec 9 1854."
The lines were ill-spaced, so that blanks were left as shown. At the end
of the second, a crowded line, the word _not_ was blurred on the
paper-edge, and looked like a repetition of the previous word.
One does not see without thought, why this letter sent its reader's
heart beating furiously. Why should she turn scarlet with anger and all
but draw blood from a bitten lip? She knew perfectly well that this
gutter Don Juan's depravity could boast as many victims as his enforced
prison life had left possible to him. But no particular one had ever
become concrete to her, and jealousy of a multitude, no one better off
than herself, had never rankled. Jealousy of Heaven-knows-who is a
wishy-washy passion. Supply a definite object, and it may become
vitriolic. Polly Daverill, whoever she was, was definite, and might be
the wife the convict had acknowledged--or rather claimed--when he first
made Miss Julia's acquaintance, over twenty years ago.
The lip was perhaps saved from bloodletting by an idea which crossed the
mind of the biter. A look of satisfaction grew and grew as she
contemplated the letter; not for its meaning--that was soon clear. It
was something in the handwriting; something that made her hide
half-words with a finger-point, and vary her angle of inspection. Then
she said, aloud to herself:--"Yes!" as though she had come to a
decision.
She examined an inkstand that the dried ink of ages had encrusted,
beyond redemption, in a sunken cavity of restraint in an inktray
overstocked with extinct and senile pens. Its residuum of black fluid
had been glutinous ever since Miss Julia had known it; ever since she
had written, as a student, that Bounty Commanded Esteem all down one
page of a copybook. The pens were quill pens past mending, or
overwhelmed by too heartfelt nibs; or magnum bonums whose upstrokes were
morally as wide as Portland Place, or parvum malums that perforated
syllables and spluttered. The penwiper was non-absorbent, and generally
contrived to return the drop it refused to partake of on the hands of
incautious scribes, who rarely obtained soap and hot water time enough
to do any good.
Miss Julia first remedied the ink. A memory of breakfast unremoved still
hung about the parlour table--a teapot and a slop basin. The former
supplied a diluent, the latter a haven for the indisputably used-up
quill whose feather served to incorporate it with the black coagulum.
With the resultant fluid you could make a mark about the same blackness
as what the letter was, using by preference the newest magnum bonum pen,
which was all right in itself, only stuck on an old wooden handle that
scribes of recent years had gnawed.
What this woman's jealous violence was prompting her to do was to alter
this letter so as to encourage its recipient to put himself in danger of
capture. It was an easy task, as the only words she had to insert could
be copies from what was already written. The first line required the
word _not_ at the end, the fourth the word _no_. The only other change
needed was the erasure of the word _not_, in the second line, which
already looked like an accidental repetition of _now_. Was an erasure
advisable? she decided against it, cleverly. She merely drew her pen
through the _not_, leaving the first two letters intentionally visible,
and blurring the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much pleased
with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to accompany it; then
hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed it to W.
at the Post Office, East Croydon. This was the last address the convict
had given. Where he was actually living she did not know.
Her own letter to him was:--"The enclosed has come for you. I write this
in pencil because I cannot find any ink." It was a little stroke of
genius worthy of her correspondent's father. Nothing but clairvoyance
could have bred suspicion in him. Micky reappeared that evening in Sapps
Court, and found an opportunity to convey to Aunt M'riar that he had
obeyed his instructions. He did so with an air of mystery and an
undertone of intelligence, saying briefly:--"That party, missis! She's
got the letter."
"Did you give it her?" said Aunt M'riar.
"I see to it that she got it," said Micky with reserve. "You'll find it
all correct, just as I say." This attitude was more important than the
bald, unqualified statement that he had left the letter when he fetched
the beer, and Micky enjoyed himself over it proportionately.
* * * * *
Aunt M'riar was easier in her mind, as she felt pretty confident that
the letter would reach its destination. She had killed two birds with
one stone--so she believed. She had saved Daverill from the police, so
far at least as their watchfulness of Sapps Court was concerned, and
had also saved Uncle Mo from possible collision with him, an event she
dreaded even more than a repetition of those hideous interviews with a
creature that neither was nor was not her husband; a thing with a
spurious identity; a horrible outgrowth from a stem on which her own
life had once been grafted. Could woman think a worse thought of man
than hers of him, when she thanked God that at least the only fruit of
that graft had been nipped in the bud? And yet no such thought had
crossed her mind in all these years in which he had been to her no more
than a memory. A memory of a dissolute, imperfect creature--yes! but
lovable enough for all that. Not indeed without a sort of charm for any
passing friend, quite short of any spell akin to love. How could this
monstrous personality have grown upon him, yet left him indisputably the
same man? The dreadful change in the identity of the maniac--the maniac
proper, the victim of brain-disease--is at least complete; so complete
often as to force the idea of possession on minds reluctant to receive
it. This man remained himself, but it was as though this identity had
been saturated with evil--had soaked it up as the sponge soaks water.
There was nothing in the old self M'riar remembered to make her glad his
child was not born alive. There was everything in his seeming of to-day
to make her shudder at the thought that it might have lived.
The cause of the change is not far to seek. He had lived for twenty
years in Norfolk Island as a convict; for fourteen years certainly as an
inmate of the prisons, even if a period of qualified liberty preceded
his discharge and return to Sydney. He was by that time practically
damned beyond redemption, and his brilliant career as a bushranger
followed as a matter of course.
Those who have read anything of the story of the penal settlements in
the early part of last century may--even _must_--remember the tale told
by the Catholic priest who went to give absolution to a whole gang of
convicts who were to be hanged for mutiny. He carried with him a boon--a
message of mercy--for half the number; for they had been _pardoned_;
that is to say, had permission now to live on as denizens of a hell on
earth. As it turned out, the only message of mercy he had to give was
the one contained or implied in an official absolution from sin, and it
is possible that belief in its validity occasioned the outburst of
rejoicing that greeted its announcement. For there was no rejoicing
among the recipients of His Majesty's clemency--heart-broken silence
alone, and chill despair! For they were to remain on the rack, while
their more fortunate fellows could look forward to a joyous gallows,
with possibilities beyond, from which Hell had been officially excluded.
It is but right to add that the Reverend Father did _not_ ascribe the
exultant satisfaction of his clients--if that is the word--to anything
but the anticipation of escape from torture. He was too truthful.
If the nearest dates the story has obtained are trustworthy, Daverill's
actual term in Norfolk Island may have been fourteen years; it certainly
came to an end in the early forties. But he must have been there at the
time of the above incident, as it happened _circa_ 1836-37. The powers
of the sea-girt tropical Paradise to sterilise every Divine impulse must
have been at their best in his time, and he seems to have been a
favourable subject for the _virus_ of diabolism, which was got by Good
Intentions out of Expediency. The latter must have been carrying on with
Cowardice, though, to account for Respectability's choice, for her
convicts, of an excruciating life rather than a painless death. Possibly
the Cowardice of the whole Christian world, which accounts Death the
greatest of possible evils.
The life of a bushranger in New South Wales, which fills in the end of
his Australian career, did not tend to the development of any stray germ
of a soul that the prison-fires had not scorched out of old Maisie's
son. Small wonder it was so! Conceive the glorious freedom of wickedness
unrestrained, after the stived-up atmosphere of the gaol, with its
maddening Sunday chapel and its hideous possibilities of public torture
for any revolt against the unendurable routine. We, nowadays, read with
a shudder of the enormities that were common in the prisons of past
times--we, who only know of their modern substitutes. For the last
traces of torture, such as was common long after the _moyen âge_, as
generally understood, have vanished from the administration of our gaols
before a vivified spirit of Christianity, and the enlightenment
consequent on the Advance of Science.[A] After fourteen years of such a
life, how glorious must have been the opportunities the freedom of the
Bush afforded to an instinctive miscreant, still in the prime of life,
and artificially debarred for so long from the indulgence of a natural
bent for wickedness; not yet _ennuyé_ by the monotony of crime in
practice, which often leads to a reaction, occasionally accompanied by
worldly success. There was, however, about Daverill a redeeming point.
He was incorrigibly bad. He never played false to his father the Devil,
and the lusts of his father he did do, to the very last, never
disgracing himself by the slightest wavering towards repentance.
[Footnote A: This appears to have been written about 1910.]
Probably his return from Sydney to England was as much an escape from
his own associates in crime, with whom some dishonourable transactions
had made him unpopular, as a flight from the officers of Justice. A
story is told, too intricate to follow out, of a close resemblance
between himself and a friend in his line of business. This was utilised
ingeniously for the establishment of alibi's, the name of Wix being
adopted by both. Daverill had, however, really behaved in a very shady
way, having achieved this man's execution for a capital crime of his
own. Ibbetson, the Thames police-sergeant whose death he occasioned
later, was no doubt in Sydney at this time, and may have identified him
from having been present at the hanging of his counterpart, whose
protestations that he was the wrong man of course received no attention,
and whose attempt to prove an alibi failed miserably. Daverill had
supplied the defence with a perfectly fictitious account of himself and
his whereabouts at the time of the commission of the crime, which of
course fell to pieces on the testimony of witnesses implicated, who knew
nothing whatever of the events described.
There is no reason whatever to suppose that a desire to see his mother
again had anything to do with his return. The probability is that he
never gave her a thought until the money he had brought with him ran
out--or, more accurately, the money he got by selling, at a great
sacrifice, the jewels he brought from Australia sewed into the belt he
wore in lieu of braces. The most valuable diamond ring should have
brought him thousands, but he had to be content with hundreds. He had
drawn it off an amputated finger, whose owner he left to bleed to death
in the bush. It had already been stolen twice, and in each case had
brought ill-luck to its new possessor.
All this of Daverill is irrelevant to the story, except in so far as it
absolves Aunt M'riar of the slightest selfish motive in her conduct
throughout. The man, as he stood, could only be an object of horror and
aversion to her. The memory of what he had once been remained; and
crystallized, as it were, into a fixed idea of a sacramental obligation
towards a man whose sole claim upon her was his gratification at her
expense. She had been instructed that marriage was God's ordinance, and
so forth; and was _per se_ reciprocal. She had sacrificed herself to
him; _therefore_ he had sacrificed himself to her. A halo of mysterious
sanctity hung about her obligations to him, and seemed to forbid too
close an analysis of their nature. An old conjugation of the indicative
mood, present tense, backed by the third person singular's capital,
floated justifications from Holy Writ of the worst stereotyped iniquity
of civilisation.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW GWEN STAYED AWAY FROM CHURCH, BUT SENT HER LOVE TO LADY
MILLICENT ANSTIE-DUNCOMBE. HOW TOM MIGHT COME AGAIN AT FIVE, AND
GAVE MRS. LAMPREY A LIFT. NOT EXACTLY DELIRIUM. THE BLACK
WITCH-DOCTOR. WERE DAVE AND DOLLY ALL TRUE? WHAT GWEN HAD TO
PRETEND. DAVE'S OTHER LETTER. STARING FACTS IN THE FACE. GWEN'S
COMPARISON OF THE TWINS. MIGHT GWEN SEE THE AUSTRALIAN LETTER? OLD
KETURAH'S HUSBAND THE SEXTON. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE AND RUTH WENT TO
CHURCH, BY REQUEST, AND HOW RUTH SAW THE LIKENESS. HOW OLD MAISIE
COULD NOT BE EVEN WITH UNCLE NICHOLAS. CHAOS. HOW OLD MRS. PICTURE
RECEIVED DAVE'S INVITATION TO TEA. JONES'S BULL
"You'll have to attend divine service without your daughter, mamma,"
said Gwen, speaking through the door of her mother's apartment, _en
passant_. It was a compliance with a rule of domestic courtesy which was
always observed by this singular couple. A sort of affection seemed to
maintain itself between them as a legitimate basis for dissension, a
luxury which they could not otherwise have enjoyed. "I'm called away to
my old lady."
"Is she ill?"
"Well--Dr. Nash has written to say that I need not be frightened."
"But then--why go? If he says you need not be frightened?"
"That's exactly why I'm going. As if I didn't understand doctors!"
"I knew you wouldn't come to Church. Am I to give your love to Lady
Millicent Anstie-Duncombe if I see her, or not? She's sure to ask after
you."
"Some of it. Not too much. Give the rest to Dr. Tuxford Somers." The
Countess's suggestion of entire despair at this daughter was almost
imperceptible, but entirely conclusive.
"Well--he's married! Why shouldn't I?"
"As you please, my dear!"
The Countess appeared to decline further discussion. She said:--"Don't
be very late--you are coming back to lunch, of course?"
"If I can. It depends."
"My dear! With Sir Spencer Derrick here, and the Openshaws!"
"I'll be back if I can. Can't say more than that! Good-bye!" And the
Countess had to be content. The story is rather sorry for her, for it
_is_ a bore to have a lot of guests on one's hands, without due family
support.
* * * * *
The grey mare's long stride left John Costrell's fat cob a mile behind,
in less than two. Her hoofs made music on the hard road for another two,
and then were _assourdi_ by a swansdown coverlid of large snowflakes
that disappointed the day's hopes of being fine, and made her sulky with
the sun, extinguishing his light. The gig drew up at Strides Cottage in
a whitening world, and Tom Kettering had to button up the seats under
their oilskin passenger-cases, in anticipation of a long wait.
But Tom had not a long wait, for in a quarter of an hour after her young
ladyship had vanished into Strides Cottage, she returned, telling him
she was going to be late, and should not want him. He might drive back
to the Towers, and--stop a minute!--might give this card to her mother.
She scribbled on one of her own cards that she would not be back to
lunch, and told Tom he might come again about five. Tom touched his hat
as a warrior might have touched his sword-hilt.
Widow Thrale, who had accompanied Gwen, and returned with her into the
house, was the very ghost of her past self of yesterday morning.
Twenty-four hours ago she looked less than her real age by ten years;
now she had overpassed it by half that time at least. So said to Tom
Kettering a young woman with a sharp manner, whom he picked up and gave
a lift to on his way back. Tom's taciturnity abated in conversation with
Mrs. Lamprey, and he really seemed to come out of his Trappist seclusion
to hear what she had to tell about this mystery at the Cottage. She had
plenty, founded on conversations between the doctor and his sister,
whose housekeeper you will remember she was.
"Why--I'd only just left Widow Thrale when you drove past. Your aunt she
stayed till ever so late last night,"--Tom was Mrs. Solmes's
nephew--"and went home with Carrier Brantock. Didn't you see her?"
"Just for a word, this morning. She hadn't so much to tell as you'd
think. But it come to this--that this old Goody Prichard's own sister to
Granny Marrable. Got lost in Australia somehow. Anyhow, she's there now,
at the Cottage. No getting out o' that! Only what bothers me is--how
ever she came to turn up in her sister's house, and ne'er a one of 'em
to know the other from Queen Anne!"
"We've got to take that in the lump, Thomas. I expect your Aunt Keziah
she'll say it was Providence. I say it was just a chance, and Dr. Nash
he says the same. You ask him!"
Tom considered thoughtfully, and decided. "I expect it was just a
chance," said he. "Things happen of theirselves, if you let 'em alone.
Anyhow, it hasn't happened above this once." That was a great relief,
and Tom seemed to breathe the freer for it.
"I haven't a word to say against Providence," said Mrs. Lamprey. "On the
contrary I go to Church every Sunday, and no one can find fault. So does
Dr. Nash, to please Miss Euphemia. But one has to consider what's
reasonable. What I say is:--if it was Providence, what was to prevent
its happening twenty years ago? Nothing stood in the way, that I see."
Tom shook his head, to show that neither did he see what stood in the
way of a more sensible and practical Divine ordination of events. "Might
have took place any time ago, in reason," said he. "Anyhow, it hasn't.
It's happened now." Tom seemed always to be seeking relief from
oppressive problems, and looking facts in the face. "I'm not so sure,"
he continued, abating the mare slightly to favour conversation, "that
I've got all the scoring right. This old lady she went out to
Australia?"
"Yes--fifty years ago." Mrs. Lamprey told what she knew, but not nearly
all the facts as the story knows them. She had not got the convict
incidents correctly from the conversation of Dr. Nash with his sister.
Remember that he had only known it since yesterday morning. Mrs.
Lamprey's version did not take long to tell.
"What I look at is this," said Tom, seeming to stroke with his whiplash
the thing he looked at, on the mare's back. "Won't it turn old Granny
Marrable wrong-side-up, seeing her time of life. Not the other old
Goody--she's been all the way to Australia and back!" This only meant
that nothing could surprise one who had such an experience. As to the
effect on Granny Marrable, Mrs. Lamprey said no--quite the reverse. Once
it was Providence, there you stuck, and there was no moving you! There
was some obscurity about this saying; but no doubt its esoteric meaning
was, that once you accounted for anything by direct Divine
interposition, you stood committed to a controversial attitude which
would render you an obstructive to liberal thought.
This little conversation was presently cut short by Mrs. Lamprey's
arrival at her destination, a roadside inn where she had an aunt by
marriage.
* * * * *
Ruth Thrale had a bad report to give as she and her young ladyship
recrossed the kitchen. It was summed up in the word Fever, restrained by
"Not exactly delirium." Granny Marrable came out to meet them, and threw
in a word or two of additional restraint. What they had at first thought
delirium had turned out quite temperate and sane on closer examination.
"A deal about Australia, and the black witch-doctor," said Granny
Marrable. "Now, if one could turn her mind off that, it might be best
for her, and she would drop off, quiet." Perhaps her ladyship coming
would do her good. The old lady ended with concession about the
fever--was not quite sure Maisie had known her just now when she spoke
to her.
"Poor old darling!" said Gwen. "You know, Granny, we must expect a
little of this sort of thing. We couldn't hope to get off scot-free.
Have you had some sleep, yourself? Has she slept, Ruth?"
"Oh yes. Mother got some sleep in the chair beside--beside _her_, till
four o'clock. Then she lay down, and had a good sleep, lying down.
Didn't you, mother?"
"You may be easy about me, child. I've done very well."
"And yourself, Ruth?" By now, Gwen always called Widow Thrale "Ruth."
"Who--I? I had quite a long sleep, while mother sat by--by _her_." This
dreadful difficulty of what to call old Maisie! Her daughter was always
at odds with it.
Gwen passed on into the bedroom. Just at the door she paused. "You wait
outside, and hear," said she. They held back, in the passage, silent.
Old Maisie's voice, on the pillow; audible, not articulate. Two frail
hands stretched out in welcome. Two grave eyes, made wild by the
surrounding tangle of loose white hair. Those were Gwen's impressions as
she approached the bed.
The voice grew articulate. "Oh, my darling, I knew you would come. I
want you close, to tell me...."
"Yes, dear!--to tell you what?"
"I want you to tell me whether one of the things is a dream."
"One of which things, dear?" One has to be a hard old stager not to feel
his flesh creep at delirium. Gwen had to fight against a shudder.
"There are so many, you know, now that they all come back at once. Tell
me, darling, were my little boy and girl real, who came up into my room
and played and gave me tea out of small cups? I called them Dave and
Dolly. Dolly was very small. Oh, Dolly!" Dolly's size, and her
tenderness on one's knee, were, so to speak, audible in the voice that
became tender to apostrophise her.
"Dave and Dolly Wardle? Of course they are real! As real as you or me!
There they are in Sapps Court, with Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar. And Susan
Burr," Then such a nice scheme crossed Gwen's mind.
But old Maisie seemed adrift, not able to be sure of any memory; past
and present at war in her mind, either intolerant of the other. "Then
tell me, dear," said she. "Is the other real too? Is it not a thing I
have dreamed, a thing I have dreamed in the night, here in Widow
Thrale's cottage ... where I came in the cart ... where I came from the
great house where the sweet old gentleman was, that was your father ...
where I could see out over the tree lands ... where my Ruth came to
me?..." The affection for her daughter, that had struck root firmly in
her heart, remained a solid fact, whether she was thinking of her as
before or after the revelation of her identity.
Gwen sat beside her on the bed-edge, her arm round her head on its
pillow, her free hand soothing the restless fingers that would not be
still. "What is it you think you have dreamed, Mrs. Picture dear?" said
she.
"It was all a dream, I think. Just a mad dream--but then--but then--did
not my Ruth think I was mad?..."
"But what was it? Tell it to me, now, quietly."
"It was that my Phoebe--my sister--oh, my dear sister!--dead so many
years ago--sat by me here, as you sit now--and we talked and talked of
the old time--and our young Squire, so beautiful, upon his horse.... Oh,
but then--but then!..." She checked herself suddenly, and a look of
horror came in her face; then went on:--"No, listen! There was an awful
thing in the dream--a bad thing--about a letter.... Oh, how can I tell
it?..."
Gwen caught at the pause to speak, saying gently but firmly:--"Dear Mrs.
Picture, it was no dream, but all true. Believe me, I know. When you are
quite well and strong, I will tell you all over again about the letter,
and how my dear old father found it all out for you. And I tell you
what! You shall come and live here with your sister and daughter,
instead of Sapps Court.... Oh no--you shall have Dave and Dolly. They
shall come too." This was Gwen's scheme, but it was no older than the
mention just made of it. "I can do these things," she added. "Papa lets
me do what I choose."
Old Maisie lay back, looking at the beautiful face in a kind of
wonderment. The feeling it gave her that she was in the hands of some
superior power was the most favourable one possible in a case where
fever was the result of mental disquiet. Presently the strain on the
face abated, and the wild look in the eyes. The lids drooped, then
closed over them. Something like sleep followed, leaving Gwen free to
rejoin old Phoebe and Ruth, outside. They were still close at hand.
"Did you hear all that?" said Gwen. It appeared that they had, or the
greater part. The account of how the night had passed was postponed,
owing to the arrival of Dr. Nash.
"I would sooner give her no drugs of any sort," said he, when he had
taken a good look at the patient. "I will leave something for her to
take if she doesn't get sleep naturally. Otherwise the choice is between
giving her something harmless to make her believe she is taking
medicine, and telling her she has nothing whatever the matter with her.
I incline to the last. Get her to take food whenever you can. Always
have something ready for her whenever's there a chance. I expect you to
see to that, Widow Thrale. And, Lady Gwendolen, _you_ are good for
her--remember that! You've got to pretend you're God Almighty--do you
understand?" It goes without saying that by this time no one else was
within hearing.
"I understand perfectly," said Gwen. "That little doze she had just now
was because I pledged myself and my father to the reality of the whole
thing. She had got to think it was all a dream."
She suppressed, as the sort of thing for London, a thought that came
into her head at this moment, that it was the first time the family
coronet had been of the slightest use to any living creature! Not here,
with the hush of the Feudal System still on the land, and the old church
at Chorlton's monotonous belfry calling its flock to celebrate the Third
Sunday in Advent. For next Sunday was Christmas Eve, and old Maisie's
eighty-first birthday. Next Monday was old Phoebe's, with just the
stroke of midnight between them.
Gwen seized the opportunity to get from Dr. Nash a fuller account of his
disclosure to old Phoebe. He told her what we know already.
"Only I'm due at the other end of the village," said he, ending up. He
looked at his watch. "I've got five minutes.... Yes--it was the small
boy's letter that did the job. I had been hammering away at the old lady
to get the thin of the wedge in, and I assure you it was useless. Worse
than useless! So I gave it up. But I suspect that some shot of mine hit
the mark, without my seeing it. Something had made her susceptible. And
when the kid's letter came, that did it. I wasn't there."
"Oh--then you only heard...."
"I was called back. I found the old body gone off in a faint, and the
letter on the floor--at least, on the baby. I've got it in my pocket, I
do believe.... No, I haven't!"
"What's this on the window-ledge? This is Dave's hand." But Gwen saw
that it was directed to "Old Mrs. Picture Strides Cotage Chorlton under
bradBury." She opened it without remorse, and the doctor said:--"Of
course! He wrote two. That one's to t'other old lady. Just the same, I
expect."
It was, word for word. But it had a short postscript:--"When you come
back me and Dolly shall give you tea it is stood ready and grany
maroBone too."
"Poor little people!" said Gwen. "How they will feel it! But I mustn't
keep you, doctor."
And then, after a word or two to Widow Thrale, Dr. Nash drove off
through the snow, now thickening.
Gwen, you see, was quite alive to the situation; perhaps indeed she was
ready to put a worse construction on it than the doctor. He had seen so
many a spark of life, far nearer extinction than old Maisie's, flicker
up and grow and grow, and end by steady burning through its appointed
time, that no amount of mere attenuation frightened him. Gwen, on the
other hand, could not bring herself to believe that any creature so
frail would stand the strain of such an earthquake of sensibilities.
Unless indeed some change for the better showed itself in a few hours,
she _must_ succumb. Probably she was only relieving the tension of her
own feelings by looking facts fiercely in the face. It is a common
attitude of inexperience, under like circumstances. Dr. Nash certainly
had said to her that "the strength was well maintained." But do we not
all of us accept that phrase as an ill-omen--a vulture in the desert?
No--no! Look the facts in the face! Glare at them!
Returning to the bedside, where Granny Marrable was sitting in her
arm-chair beside her sister, who was quiet--possibly sleeping--she took
the opportunity to note the changes that Time had wrought in each twin.
The moment she came to look for them, she began to marvel that she had
never seen the similarities; for instance, scarcely a month since, when
the two were face to face outside this house, and each looked at the
other, and neither said or thought:--"How like myself!" Was it possible
that they were really _more_ unlike then?--that the storm which had
passed over both had told more, relatively, on the healthy village dame,
kept blooming by a life whose cares were little more than healthy
excitements, than on the mere derelict of so many storms, any one enough
to send it to the bottom? There was little work left for Time or
Calamity to do on that old face on the pillow; while even this
four-and-twenty-hours of overwrought excitement had left its mark upon
old Phoebe. Gwen saw that the faces _were_ the same, past dispute, as
soon as she compared them point by point.
Once seen, the thing grew, and became strange and unearthly, almost a
discomfort. Gwen went back into the kitchen, where she found Ruth,
affecting some housework but without much heart in it. She too was
showing the effects of the night and day just passed, her heavy eyelids
fighting with their weight, not successfully; her restless hands
protesting against yawns; trying to curb rebellious lips, in vain.
"I can see the likeness now," said Gwen, thinking it best to talk.
"Between mother and--my mother?" was Ruth's reply. How else could she
have said it, without beginning to call old Phoebe her aunt?
Gwen saw the embarrassment, and skipped explanation. "Why not call her
Mrs. Picture--little Dave's name?" Then she felt this was a mistake, and
added:--"No, I suppose that wouldn't do!"
"Something will come, to say, in time. One's head goes, now." Ruth went
on to speak of her childish recollection of the news of her mother's
death--quite a vivid memory--when she was nearly nine years old. "I was
quite a big little maid when the letter came. We got it out, you know,
just now. And, oh, how sick it made me!"
"I should like so much to see it," said Gwen. Her young ladyship's
lightest wish was law, and Ruth nearly went to seek the letter. Gwen had
to be very emphatic that another time would do, to stop her.
"Then I will get it out presently, and give it to your ladyship to take
away and read," said Ruth, and went back to what she was saying. "That
is how I came to be able to call her my mother, at once. I mean the
moment I knew she was not Mrs. Prichard. Now that I know it, I keep
looking at her dear old face to make it out the same face that I kept on
thinking my mother in Australia had, all the time I thought she was
living there away from us. And if I had never known she died--I mean
had we never thought her dead--I would have gone on thinking the same
face. Oh, such a beautiful young face! Exactly like what mother's was
then!--the same face for her that it was when I last saw it...."
"I see. And when you look at your--your aunt's face, you naturally do
not look for what she was forty years ago."
"That is it, your ladyship. Because I have had mother to go by, all the
time. She has always been the same she was last week--last month--last
year--any time. What must it be to _her_, to see me what I am!"
"I don't believe it is harder for her to think about than it is for you.
She is feverish now, and that makes her wander. People are always worse
in the morning. Dr. Nash says so. I thought yesterday she seemed so
clear--almost understood it all." Thus Gwen, not over-sure of her facts.
"She was worse," said Ruth, thinking back into the recent events, "that
evening I showed her the mill. That was her bad time. Who knows but that
has made it easier for her now? I shouldn't wonder.... And to think that
I thought her mad, and never guessed who I was, myself, all that time."
"Was that the model?" said Gwen, thinking that anything the mind could
rest on might make the thing more real for Ruth. "Do you know I have
only half seen it? I should so like to see it again. Why have you
covered it up?" A few words explained this, and the mill was again put
on the table. If the little dolly figures had only possessed faculties,
they would have wondered why, after all these years, they were awakening
such an interest among the big movable creatures outside the glass. How
they would have wondered at Gwen's next words:--"And those two have
lived to be eighty years old and are in the next room!"
Then she was not sure she had not made matters worse. "Oh dear!" said
Widow Thrale, "it is all impossible--_impossible_! This was old when I
was a child."
Gwen was not prepared to submit to Time's tyranny. "What does it
matter?" said she intrepidly. "There is no need for _possibility_, that
I can see. She _is_ here, and the thing to think of now is--how can we
keep her? It will all seem natural in three weeks. See now, how they
know one another, and talk of old times already. She may live another
five--ten--fifteen years. Who can say?"
"She _is_ talking to mother now, I think," said Widow Thrale, listening.
For the voices of the twins came from the bedroom. "Suppose we go
back!"
"Yes--and you look at the two faces together, this time."
"I will look," was the reply, with a shade of doubt in it that
added:--"I may not see the resemblance."
Gwen went first. The two old faces were close together as they entered,
and she could see, more plainly than she had ever seen it yet, their
amazing similarity. She could see how much thinner old Maisie was of the
two. It was very visible in the hand that touched her sister's, which
was strong and substantial by comparison.
The monotonous bells at Chorlton Church had said all they could to
convince its congregation that the time had come for praise and prayer;
and had broken into impatient thrills and jerks that seemed to say:--"If
you don't come for this, nothing will fetch you!" The wicked man who had
been waiting to go for a brisk walk as soon as the others had turned
away from their wickedness, and were safe in their pews making the
responses, was getting on his thickest overcoat and choosing which stick
he would have, or had already decided that the coast was clear, and had
started. Old Maisie's face on the pillow was attentive to the bells. She
looked less feverish, and they were giving her pleasure.
What was that she was saying, about some bells? "Old Keturah's husband
the sexton used to ring them. You remember him, Phoebe darling?--him and
his wart. We thought it would slice off with a knife, like the topnoddy
on a new loaf if one was greedy.... And you remember how we went up his
ladder into the belfry, and I was frightened because it jumped?"
Old Phoebe remembered. "Yes, indeed! And old Jacob saying if he could
clamber up at ninety-four, we could at fourteen. Then we pulled the
bells. After that he would let us ring the curfew."
Just at that moment the last jerk cut off the last thrill of the chimes
at Chorlton, and the big bell started thoughtfully to say it was eleven
o'clock. Old Maisie seemed suddenly disquieted. "Phoebe darling!" she
said. And then, touching her sister's hand, with a frightened
voice:--"This _is_ Phoebe, is it not?... No, it is not my eyes--it is my
head goes!" For Gwen had said:--"Yes, this is your sister. Do you not
see her?" She then went on:--"My dear--my dear!--I am keeping you from
church. I want not to. I want _not_ to."
"Never mind church for one day, dear," said Granny Marrable. "Parson he
won't blame me, stopping away this once. More by token, if he does miss
seeing me, he'll just think I'm at Denby's."
"But, Phoebe--Phoebe!--think of long ago, how I would try to persuade
you to stop away just once, to please me--just only once! And now ..."
She seemed to have set her heart on her sister's going; a sort of not
very explicable tribute to "auld lang syne."
Gwen caught what seemed a clue to her meaning. "I see," said she. "You
want to make up for it now. Isn't that it?"
"Yes--yes--yes! And Ruth must go with her to take care of her.... Oh,
Phoebe, why should you be so much stronger than me?" She meant perhaps,
why should her sister's strength be taken for granted?
Gwen looked at Granny Marrable, who was hesitating. Her look
meant:--"Yes--go! Why not?" A nod thrown in meant:--"Better go!" She
looked round for Ruth, to get her sanction or support, but Ruth was no
longer in the room. "What has become of Mrs. Thrale?" said Gwen.
Ruth had vanished into the front-room, and there Gwen found her, looking
white. "I saw it," said she. "And it frightened me. I am a fool--why
have I not seen it before?"
Gwen said:--"Oh, I see! You mean the likeness? Yes--it's--it's
startling!" Then she told of old Maisie's sudden whim about the service
at Chorlton Church. "As your ladyship thinks best!" said Ruth. Her
ladyship did think it best, on the whole. It would be best to comply
with every whim--could only have a sedative effect. She herself would
remain beside "your mother" while the two were away. Would they not be
very late? Oh, that didn't matter! Besides, everyone was late. Granny
Marrable and Ruth were soon in trim for a hasty departure. But as they
went away Ruth slipped into Lady Gwen's hand the accursed letter, as
promised. She had brought it out into the daylight again, unwillingly
enough.
That was how it came about that Gwen found herself alone with old Maisie
that morning.
"My dear--my dear!" said the old lady, as soon as Gwen was settled down
beside her, "if it had not been for you, I should have died and never
seen them--my sister and my Ruth.... I think I am sure that it is they,
come back.... It is--oh, it is--my Phoebe and my little girl.... Oh,
_say_ it is. I like you to say it." She caught Gwen by the arm, speaking
low and quickly, almost whispering.
"Of course it is. And they have gone to church. They will be back to
dinner at one. Perhaps you will be strong enough to sit up at table....
Oh no!--that certainly is not them back again. I think it is
Elizabeth--from next door; I don't know her name--putting the meat down
to roast.... Yes--she has her own Sunday dinner to attend to, but she
says she can be in both houses at once. I heard her say so to your
sister." Gwen felt it desirable to dwell on the relationship, when
chances occurred.
"Elizabeth-next-door. I remember her when Ruth was Widow Thrale--it
seems so long ago now!... Yes--I wished Phoebe to go to church, because
she always wished to go. Besides, it made it like _then_."
"'Made it like then?'" Gwen was not sure she followed this.
"Yes--like then, when the mill was, and our father. Only before I
married and went away he made us go with him, always. He was very
strict. It was after that I would persuade Phoebe to leave me behind
when she went on Sunday. It was when she was married to Uncle Nicholas
who was drowned. We always called him Uncle Nicholas, because of my
little Ruth."
Gwen thought a moment whether anything would be gained by clearing up
this confusion. Old Maisie's belief in "Uncle Nicholas's" death by
drowning, fifty years ago, clung to her mind, as a portion of a chaotic
past no visible surrounding challenged. It was quite negligible--that
was Gwen's decision. She held her tongue.
But nothing of the Chaos was negligible. Every memory was entangled with
another. A sort of affright seemed to seize upon old Maisie, making her
hand tighten suddenly on Gwen's arm. "Oh, how was that--how was that?"
she cried. "They were together--all together!"
"It was only what the letter said," answered Gwen. "It was all a made-up
story. Uncle Nicholas was not drowned, any more than your sister, or
your child."
"Oh dear!" Old Maisie's hand went to her forehead, as though it stunned
her to think.
"They will tell you when he died, soon, when you have got more settled.
_I_ don't know."
"He must be dead, because Phoebe is a widow."
"She is the widow of the husband she married after his death. That is
why her name is Marrable, not ... Cropworthy--was it?"
"Not Cropworthy--Cropredy. Such a funny name we thought it.... But
then--Phoebe must think...."
"Think what?"
"Must think _I_ married again. Because I am Mrs. Prichard."
"Perhaps she does think so. Why are you Mrs. Prichard? Don't tell me now
if it tires you to talk."
"It does not tire me. It is easier to talk than to think. I took the
name of Prichard because I wanted it all forgotten."
"About your husband having been--in prison?"
"Oh no, no! I was not ashamed about that. He was wrong, but it was only
money. It was my son.... Oh yes--he was transported too--but that was
after.... It was only a theft. I cannot talk about my son." Gwen felt
that she shuddered, and that danger lay that way. The fever might
return. She cast about for anything that would divert the conversation
from that terrible son. Dave and Dolly, naturally.
"Stop a minute," said she. "You have never seen Dave's letter that he
wrote to say he knew all about it." And she went away to the front room
to get it.
A peaceful joint was turning both ways at the right speed by itself. The
cat, uninterested, was consulting her own comfort, and the cricket was
persevering for ever in his original statement. Saucepans were simmering
in conformity, with perfect faith in the reappearance of the human
disposer of their events, in due course. Dave's letter lay where Gwen
had left it, between the flower-pots on the window-shelf. She picked it
up and went back with it to the bedside.
"You must have your spectacles and read it yourself. Can you? Where
shall I find them?"
"I think my Ruth has put them in the watch-pocket with my watch, over my
head here." She could make no effort to reach them, but Gwen drew out
both watch and glasses. "What a pretty old watch!" said she.
It pleased the old lady to hear her watch admired. "I had it when I went
out to my husband." She added inexplicably:--"The man brought it back to
me for the reward. He had not sold it." Then she told, clearly enough,
the tale you may remember her telling to Aunt M'riar; about the convict
at Chatham, who brought her a letter from her husband on the river hulk.
"Over fifty years ago now, and it still goes. Only it loses--and
gains.... But show me my boy's letter." She got her glasses on, with
Gwen's help, and read. The word "cistern" was obscure. She quite
understood what followed, saying:--"Oh, yes--so much longer ago than
Dolly's birthday! And we did--we did--think we were dead and buried. The
darling boy!"
"He means each thought the other was. I told him." Gwen saw that the old
face looked happy, and was pleased. She began to think she would be easy
in her mind at Pensham, to-morrow, about old Mrs. Picture, and able to
tell the story to her blind lover with a light heart.
Old Maisie had come to the postscript. "What is this at the end?" said
she. "'The tea is stood ready' for me. And for Granny Marrowbone too."
Gwen saw the old face looking happier than she had seen it yet, and was
glad to answer:--"Yes--I saw the tea 'stood ready' by your chair. All
but the real sugar and milk. Dolly sits beside it on the floor--all her
leisure time I believe--and dreams of bliss to come. Dave sympathizes at
heart, but affects superiority. It's his manhood." Old Maisie said
again:--"The darling children!" and kept on looking at the letter.
Gwen's satisfaction at this was to be dashed slightly. For she found
herself asked, to her surprise, "Who is Granny Marrowbone?" She
replied:--"Of course Dave wants his other Granny, from the country." She
waited for an assent, but none came.
Instead, old Maisie said reflectively, as though recalling an incident
of some interest:--"Oh yes!--Granny Marrowbone was his other Granny in
the country, where he went to stay, and saw Jones's Bull. I think she
must be a nice old lady." Gwen said nothing. Better pass this by; it
would be forgotten.
But the strong individuality of that Bull came in the way. Had not they
visited him together only the other day? He struck confusion into memory
and oblivion alike. The face Gwen saw, when the letter that hid it fell
on the coverlid, was almost terrified. "Oh, see the things I say!" cried
old Maisie, in great distress of mind. "How am I ever to know it right?"
She clung to Gwen's hand in a sort of panic. In a few moments she said,
in an awed sort of voice:--"Was that Phoebe, then, that I saw when we
stopped at the Cottage, in the carriage, after the Bull?"
"Yes, dear! And you are in the Cottage now. And Phoebe is coming back
soon. And Ruth."
CHAPTER XXIII
CATHERINE WHEELS. CENTIPEDES. CENTENARIANS. BACKGAMMON. IT.
HEREAFTER CORNER. LADY KATHERINE STUARTLAVEROCK. BISHOP BERKELEY.
THE COUNTESS'S VISIT REVIEWED. A CODEX OF HUMAN WEAKNESS. AN
EXPOSITION OF SELFISHNESS. HOW ADRIAN WOULD HOLD ON LIKE GRIM
DEATH. A BELDAM, CRONE, HAG, OR DOWDY. SUICIDE. THE LITTLE BOTTLE
OF INDIAN POISON. MORE SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. GWEN'S DAILY BULLETINS.
ONESIMUS. TURTLE SOUP AND CHAMPAGNE. FOXBOURNE. HOW THEY WENT TO
CHORLTON, AND ANOTHER DOG SMELT ACHILLES
As he who has godfathered a Catherine Wheel stands at a respectful
distance while it spits and fizzes, so may the story that reunites
lovers who have been more than a week apart. The parallel, however, does
not hold good throughout, for the Catherine Wheel usually gets stuck
after ignition, and has to be stimulated judiciously, while lovers--if
worth the name--go off at sight. In many cases--oh, so many!--the
behaviour of the Catherine Wheel is painfully true to life. Its
fire-spin flags and dies and perishes, and nothing is left of it but a
pitiful black core that gives a last spasmodic jump and is for ever
still!
Fireworks are only referred to here in connection with the former
property. When Gwen reappeared at Pensham, Miss Torrens--this is her own
expression--"cleared out" until her brother and her visitor "came to
their senses." The Catherine Wheel, in their case, had by that time
settled down from a tempest of flame-spray to a steady lamplight,
endurable by bystanders. The story need not wait quite so long, but may
avail itself of the first return of sanity.
"Dearest--are you really going to stop till Saturday?"
"If you think we shan't quarrel. Four whole days and a bit at each end!
_I_ think it's tempting Providence."
"Why not stop over Sunday, and make an honourable week of it and no
stinting?"
"Because I have a papa coming back to his ancestral home, on Saturday
evening, and he will come back boiled and low from Bath waters, inside
and out, and he'll want a daughter to give him tone. He gets rid of the
gout, but ..."
"But. Exactly! It's the insoluble residuum that comes back. However, you
_will_ be here till Friday night."
"Can't even promise that! I may be sent for."
"Why?... Oh, I know--the old lady. How is she? Tell me more about her.
Tell me lots about her."
Whereupon Gwen, who had been looking forward to doing so, started on an
exhaustive narrative of her visit to Strides Cottage. She had not got
far when Irene thought it safe to return--hearing probably the narrative
tone of voice--and then she had to tell it all over again.
"When I left the Cottage yesterday at about three o'clock," said Gwen,
in conclusion, "she was so much better that I felt quite hopeful about
her."
"Quite hopeful about her?" Irene repeated. "But if she has nothing the
matter with her, except old age, why be anything but hopeful?"
"You would see if you saw her. She looks as if a puff of wind would blow
her away like thistledown."
"That," Adrian said, "is a good sign. There is no guarantee of a long
life like attenuation. Bloated people die shortly after you make their
acquaintance. No, no--for true vitality, give me your skeleton! A
healthy old age really sets in as soon as one is spoken of as still
living."
"Oh dear, yes!" said Irene. "I'm sure Gwen's description sounds exactly
like this old lady becoming a ... There!--I've forgotten the word!
Something between a centipede and a Unitarian...."
"Centenarian?"
"Exactly. See what a good thing it is to have a brother that knows
things. A person a hundred years old. I tell you, Gwen dear, my own
belief is these two old ladies mean to be centenarians, and if we live
long enough we shall read about them in the newspapers. And they will
have a letter from Royalty!"
In the evening Gwen got Adrian, whose sanguine expressions were not
serious, on a more sane and responsible line of thought. His
lady-mother, with whom this story is destined never to become
acquainted, retired early, after shedding a lurid radiance of symptoms
on the family circle; and it, as a dutiful circle, had given her its
blessing and dropped a tear by implication over her early departure from
it. Sir Hamilton had involved his daughter in a vortex of backgammon, a
game draught-players detest, and _vice versa_, because the two games are
even as Box and Cox, in homes possessing only one board. So Gwen and
Adrian had themselves to themselves, and wanted nothing more. Her eyes
rested now and then with a new curiosity on the Baronet, deep in his
game at the far end of the room. She was looking at him by the light of
his handsome daughter's saucy speculation about that romantic passage in
the lives of himself and her mamma. Suppose--she was saying to herself,
with monstrous logic--he had been _my_ papa, and _I_ had had to play
backgammon with him!
She was recalled from one such excursion of fancy by Adrian
saying:--"Are you sure it would not have been better for the old
twins--or one of them--to die and the other never be any the wiser?"
Said Gwen:--"I am not sure. How can I be? But it was absolutely
impossible to leave them there, knowing it, unconscious of each other's
existence."
Adrian replied:--"It _was_ impossible. I see that. But suppose they
_had_ remained in ignorance--in the natural order of events I mean--and
the London one had died unknown to her sister, would it not have been
better than this reunion, with all its tempest of pain and raking up of
old memories, and quite possibly an early separation by death?"
"I think not, on the whole. Because, suppose one had died, and the other
had come to know of her death afterwards!"
"I am supposing the contrary. Suppose both had continued in ignorance!
How then?"
It was not a question to answer off-hand. Gwen pondered; then said
abruptly:--"It depends on whether we go on or stop. Now doesn't it?"
"As bogys? That question always crops up. If we stop I don't see how
there can be any doubt on the matter. Much better they should have died
in ignorance. The old Australian goody was quite contented, as I
understand, at Scraps Court, with her little boy and girl to make tea
for her. And the old body at Chorlton and her daughter would have gone
on quite happily. They didn't want to be excoriated by a discovery."
"Yes--that is what it has been. Excoriation by a discovery. I'm not at
all sure you're right--but I'll make you a present of it. Let's consider
it settled that death in ignorance would have been the best thing for
them."
"Very well!--what next?"
"What next? Why, of course, suppose we don't stop, but go on! You often
say it is ten to one against it."
"So it is. I can't say I'm sorry, on the whole."
"That's neither here nor there. Ten to one against is one to ten for.
Any man on the turf will tell you that."
"And any Senior Wrangler will confirm it."
"Very well, then! There we are. Suppose my dear old Mrs. Picture and
Granny Marrable had turned up as ghosts, on the other side...."
"I see. You've got me in Hereafter Corner, and you don't intend to let
me out."
"Not till you tell me whether they would have been happy or miserable
about it, those two ghosts. In your opinion, of course! Don't run away
with the idea that I think you infallible."
"There are occasions on which I do not think myself infallible. For
instance, when I have to decide an apparently insoluble problem without
data of any sort. Your expression 'turned up as ghosts, on the other
side,' immediately suggests one."
"You can say whether you think they would have been happy or miserable
about having been in England together over twenty years, and never known
it. _That's_ simple enough!"
"Don't be in a hurry! There are complications. If they knew they were
ghosts, they might become interested in the novelty of their position,
and be inclined to accept accomplished facts. Recrimination would be
waste of time. If they didn't know ..."
"Goose!--they would be sure to know."
"The only information I have goes to prove the contrary. When Voltaire's
ghost came and spirit-rapped, or whatever you call it ..."
"I know. One turns tables, and it's very silly."
"... they said triumphantly that they supposed, now he was dead, he was
convinced of another existence. And he--or it--rapped out:--'There is
only one existence. I am not dead.' So he didn't know he was a ghost."
Gwen seemed tolerant of Voltaire, as a _pourparler_. "Perhaps," she said
thoughtfully, "he found he jammed up against the other ghosts instead of
coinciding with them.... You know Lady Katherine Stuartlaverock tried to
kiss her lover's ghost, and he gave, and she went through."
"A very interesting incident," said Adrian. "If she had been a ghost,
too, she would, as you say, have jammed. If Dr. Johnson had known that
story, he would have been more reasonable about Bishop Berkeley.... What
did he say about _him_? Why, he kicked a cask, and said if the Bishop
could do that, and not be convinced of the reality of matter, he would
be a fool, Sir. I wonder if one said 'Sir,' as often as Dr. Johnson, one
would be allowed to talk as much nonsense."
"Boswell must have made that story."
"Very likely. But Boswell made Sam Johnson. Just as we only know of the
existence of Matter through our senses, so we only know of Sam's
existence through Bozzy. I am conscious that I am becoming prosy. Let's
get back to the old ladies."
"Well--it was you that doddered away from them, to talk about Voltaire's
bogy. If they _didn't_ know they were ghosts, what then?"
"If they didn't know they were ghosts, the discovery would have been
just as excoriating as it has been here. Possibly worse, because--what
does one know? Now your full-blown disembodied spirit ... Mind you, this
is only my idea, and may be quite groundless!..."
"Now you've apologized, go on! 'Your full-blown disembodied spirit' ..."
"... may be so absorbed in the sudden and strange surprise of the
change--Browning--as to be quite unable to partake of excruciation, even
with a twin sister.... It is very disagreeable to think of, I admit.
But so is nearly every concrete form in which one clothes an imaginary
other-worldliness."
"Why is it disagreeable to think of being able to shake off one's
troubles, and forget all about them. _I_ like it."
"Well, I admit that I was beginning to say that I thought these two
venerable ladies, meeting as ghosts--not spectres you know, in which
case each would frighten t'other and both would run away--would probably
be as superior to painful memories on this side as the emancipated
butterfly is to its forgotten wiggles as a chrysalis. But it has dawned
upon me that Perfect Beings won't wash, and that the Blessed have
drawbacks, and that their Choir would pall. I am inclined to back out,
and decide that the two of them would have been more miserable if the
discovery had come upon them post mortem than they will be now--in a
little time at least. At first of course it must be maddening to think
of the twenty odd years they have been cheated out of. Really the Divine
Disposer of Events might have had a little consideration for the
Dramatis Personae." He jumped to another topic. "You know your mamma paid
our papa a visit last--last Thursday, wasn't it?--yes, Thursday!"
"Oh yes--I heard all about it. She had a short chat with him, and he
gave her a very good cup of tea. He told her about some very old
acquaintances whom she hadn't heard of for years who live in Tavistock
Square."
"Was _that_ all?"
"No. The lady very-old acquaintance had been a Miss Tyrawley, and had
married her riding-master."
"Was _that_ all?"
"No. She called you and 'Re 'the son and daughter.' Then she talked of
our 'engagement as your father persists in calling it.' My blood boiled
for quite five minutes."
"All that sounds--very usual! Was there nothing else? That was very
little for such a long visit."
"How long was the visit?"
"Much too long for what you've told me. Think of something else!"
Now Gwen had been keeping something back. Under pressure she let it out.
"Well--mamma thought fit to say that your father entirely shared her
views! Was that true?"
"Which of her views?... I suppose I know, though! I should say it was
half-true--truish, suppose we call it!" Then Adrian began to feel he had
been rash. How was he to explain to Gwen that his father thought she was
perhaps--to borrow his own phrase--"sacrificing herself on his shrine"?
It would be like calling on her to attest her passion for _him_. Now a
young lady is at liberty to make any quantity of ardent protestations
_off her own bat_, as the cricketers say; but a lover cannot solicit
testimonials, to be produced if called for by parents or guardians.
However, Gwen had no intention of leaving explanation to him. She
continued:--
"When my mother said that your father entirely shared her views, I know
which she meant, perfectly well. She has got a foolish idea into her
head--and so has my dear old papa, so she's not alone--that I am
marrying you to make up to you for ... for the accident." She found it
harder and harder to speak of the nature of the accident. This once, she
must do it, _coûte que coûte_. She went on, speaking low that nothing
should reach the backgammon-players. "They say it was _our_ fault that
old Stephen shot you.... Well!--it _was_...."
"My darling, I have frequently pointed out the large share the Primum
Mobile had in the matter, to say nothing of the undoubted influence of
Destiny...."
"Silly man--I am talking seriously. I don't know that it really matters
whether it was or wasn't--wasn't our fault, I mean--so long as they
think I think it was. That's the point. Now, the question is, did or did
not my superior mamma descend on your _comme-il-faut_ parent to drum
this idea into him, and get him on her side?"
"Am I supposed to know?"
"Yes."
"Then I will be frank with you. Always be frank with mad bulls who butt
you into corners and won't let you out. Your mamma's communications with
my papa had the effect you indicate, and he took me into his confidence
the same evening. He too questions the purity of your motives in
marrying me, alleging that they are vitiated by a spirit of
self-sacrifice, tainted by the baneful influence of unselfishness. He is
alive to the possibility that you hate me cordially, but are
pretending."
"Oh, my dearest, I wish I _did_ hate you.... Why?--why of course then it
would really _be_ a sacrifice, and something to boast of. As it is....
Well--I'm consulting my own convenience, and I ... I am the best judge
of my own affairs. It suits me to ... to lead you to the altar, and I
shall do it. As for what other people think, all I can say is, I will
thank Europe to mind its own business."
Then Adrian said:--"I am conscious of the purity of my own motives. I
believe it would be impossible to discover a case of a Selfishness more
unalloyed than mine, if all the records of Human Weakness were carefully
re-read by experts at the British Museum. I am assuming the existence of
some Digest or Codex of the rather extensive material...."
"Don't go off to that. I always have such difficulty in keeping you to
the point. How selfish are you, and why?"
"I doubt if I can succeed in telling you how selfish I am, but there's
no harm in trying." Speech hung fire for a moment, to seek for words;
then found them. "I am a thing in the dark, with an object, and I call
it Gwen. I am an atom adrift in a huge black silence, and it crushes my
soul, and I am misery itself. Then I hear the voice that I call Gwen's,
and forthwith I am happy beyond the wildest dreams of the Poets--though
really that isn't saying much, because their wildest dreams are usually
unintelligible, and frequently ungrammatical...."
"Never mind them! Go on with how selfish you are."
"Can't you let a poor beggar get to the end of his parenthesis? I was
endeavouring to sketch the situation, as a preliminary to going on with
how selfish I am. I was remarking that however dissatisfied I feel with
the Most High, however sulky I am with the want of foresight in the
Primum Mobile--or his indifference to my interests; it comes to the same
thing--however inclined to cry out against the darkness, the darkness
that once was light, I no sooner hear that voice that I call Gwen's than
I am at least in the seven-hundredth heaven of happiness. When I hear
that voice, I am all Christian forgiveness towards my Maker. When it
goes, my heart is dumb and the darkness gains upon me. That I beg to
state, is a simple prosaic statement of an everyday fact. When I have
added that the powers that I ascribe to the voice that I know to be
Gwen's are also inherent in the hand that I believe to be Gwen's....
Don't pull it away!"
"I only wanted to look at it. Just to see why you shouldn't know it was
mine, as well as the voice."
"I _know_ I couldn't be mistaken about the voice. I don't _think_ I
could be wrong about the hand, but I don't know that I couldn't."
"Well--now you've got it again! Now go on. Go on to how selfish you
are--that's what I want!"
"I will endeavour to do so. I hope my imperfect indication of my view of
my own position...."
"Don't be prosy. It is not fair to expect any girl to keep a popular
lecturer's head in her lap...."
"I agree--I agree. It was my desire to be strictly practical. I will
come to the point. I want to make it perfectly clear that you _are_ my
life...."
"Don't get too loud!"
"All right!... that you are my life--my life--my glorious life! I want
you to see and know that but for you I am nothing--a wisp of straw blown
about by all the winds of Heaven--a mere unit of consciousness in a
blank, black void. See what comes of it! Here was I, before this
unfortunate result of what is from my point of view a lamentable
miscarriage of Destiny, a tolerably well-informed ... English male!...
Well--what else am I?... Sonneteer, suppose we say...."
"Goose--suppose we say--or gander!"
"All right! Here was I, before this mishap, not a scrap more brutally
self-indulgent and inconsiderate of everybody else than the ruck of my
fellow-ganders, and now look at me!"
"Well--I'm looking at you!"
"Am I showing the slightest consideration for you? Am I not showing the
most cynical disregard of your welfare in life?"
"How?"
"By allowing you to throw yourself away upon me."
"It is no concern of yours what I do with myself. I do not intend you to
have any voice in the matter. Besides--just be good enough to tell me,
please!--suppose you made up your mind _not_ to allow me, how would you
set about it?"
This was a poser, and the gentleman was practically obliged to
acknowledge it. "I couldn't say off-hand," said he. "I should have to
consult materfamiliases in Good Society, and look up precedents. Several
will occur at once to the student of Lemprière, some of which might be
more to the point than anything Holy Writ offers in illustration. But
all the cases I can recall at a moment's notice are vitiated by the
motives of their male actors. These motives were pure--they were pure
self-indulgence. In fact, their attitude towards their would-be charmers
had the character of a _sauve-qui-peut_. It was founded on strong
personal dislike, and has lent itself to Composition in the hands of the
Old Masters...."
"Now I don't know what you are talking about. Answer my question and
don't prevaricate. How would you set about it?"
"How indeed?" There was a note of seriousness in Adrian's voice, and
Gwen welcomed it, saying:--"That's right!--stop talking nonsense and
tell me." It became more audible as he continued:--"You are only asking
me because you know I cannot answer. Was ever a case known of a man who
cried off because the lady's relatives thought she didn't care about
him? What did he do? Did he write her a letter, asking her to consider
everything at an end between them until she could produce satisfactory
evidence of an unequivocal _sehnsucht_ of the exactly right
quality--_premier crû_--when her restatement of the case would receive
careful consideration? Rubbish!"
"Not rubbish at all! He wrote her that letter and she wrote back
requesting him to look out for another young woman at his earliest
convenience, because she wasn't his sort. She did, indeed! But she
certainly was rather an unfortunate young woman, to be trothplight to
such a very good and conscientious young man."
"_Rem tetigisti acu_," said Adrian. "Never mind what that means. It's
Latin.... Well then!--it means you've hit it. The whole gist of the
matter lies in my being neither good nor conscientious. I am a mass of
double-dyed selfishness. I would not give you up--it's very sad, but
it's true!--even for your own sake. I would not lose a word from your
lips, a touch of your hand, an hour of your presence, to have back my
eyesight and with it all else the world has to give, all else than this
dear self that I may never see...."
"I'm glad you said _may_."
"Yes, of course it's _may_. We mustn't forget that. But, dearest, I tell
you this, that if I were to get my sight again, and your august mammy's
impression were to turn out true after all, and you come to be aware
that, pity apart, your humble servant was not such a very...."
"What should you do if I did?"
"Shall I tell you? I should show the cloven foot. I should betray the
unreasoning greed of my soul. I should never let you go, even if I had
to resort to the brutality of keeping you to your word. I should simply
hold on like grim death. Would you hate me for it?"
"N-no! I'm not sure that I should. We should see." Certainly the
beautiful face that looked down at the eyes that could not see it showed
no visible displeasure--quite the reverse. "But suppose I did! _Suppose_
is a game that two can play at."
"Very proper, and shows you understand the nature of an hypothesis. What
should I do?... What _should_ I do?"
Gwen offered help to his perplexity. "And suppose that when _you_ came
to see _your_ bargain you had found out your mistake! Suppose that
Arthur's Bridge turned out all an Arabian Night! Suppose that the ...
well--satisfactory _personnel_ your imagination has concocted turned
out to be that of a beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy! How then?"
Instead of replying, Adrian drew his hands gently over the face above
him, caressingly over the glorious mass of golden hair and round the
columnar throat Bronzino would have left reluctantly alone. Said Irene,
from the other end of the room:--"Are you trying Mesmeric experiments,
you two?"
"He's only doing it to make sure I'm not a beldam," said Gwen
innocently. But to Adrian she added under her breath:--"It's only Irene,
so it doesn't matter. Only it shows how cautious one has to be." The
Baronet, attracted for one moment from his fascinating dice, contributed
a fragment to the conversation, and died away into backgammon.
"Hey--eh!--what's that?" said he. "Mesmerism--Mesmerism--why, you don't
mean to say you believe in _that_ nonsense!" After which Gwen and Adrian
were free to go on wherever they left off, if they could find the place.
She found it first. "Yes--I know. 'Beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy!' Of
course. What I mean is--if it dawned on you that you were mistaken about
my identity ... I want you to be serious, because the thing is possible
... what would you do?"
"There are so many _supposes_. Suppose you hated me and I thought you a
beldam! Practice would seem to suggest fresh fields and pastures new....
But oh, the muddy, damp fields and the desolate, barren pastures.... I
know one thing I should do. I should wish myself back here in the dark,
with my feet spoiling the sofa cushion, and my head in the lap of my
dear delusion--my heavenly delusion. God avert my disillusionment! I
would not have my eyesight back at the price."
"Don't get excited! Remember we are only pretending."
"Not at all! I am being serious, because the thing is possible. Do you
know I can imagine nothing worse than waking from a dream such as I have
dreamt. It would be really _the worst_--worse than if _you_ were to die,
or change...."
"I can't see that."
"Clearly. I should not have the one great resource."
"What resource?... Oh, I see!--you are working round to suicide. I
thought we should come to that."
"Naturally, one who is not alive to the purely imaginary evil of
non-existence turns to his _felo de se_ as his sheet-anchor. Persons who
conceive that the large number of non-existent persons have a legitimate
grievance, on the score of never having been created at all, will think
otherwise. We must agree to differ."
"But how very unreasonable of you not to kill yourself!--I mean in the
case of my not--not visualising well...."
"Quite the reverse. Most reasonable. We are supposing three courses open
to Destiny. One, to kill you, lawlessly--Destiny being notoriously
lawless. Another to make you change your mind. A third to make me change
mine. The reasonableness of suicide in the first case is obvious, if
Death is not annihilation. I should catch you up. In the second, all the
Hereafters in the Universe would be no worse for me than Life in the
dark, without you, here and now. In the third case I should have no one
but myself to thank for a weak concession to Destiny, and it would be
most unfair to kill myself without your consent, freely given. And I am
by no means sure that by giving that consent you would not be legally an
accomplice in my _felo de se_. Themis is a colossal Meddlesome Matty
with her fingers in every pie."
"Bother Themis! What a lot of nonsense! However, there was one gleam of
reason. You are alive to the fact that I should not consent to your
suicide. Or anyone else's. _I_ think it's wrong to kill oneself."
"So do I. But it might be a luxury I should not deny myself under some
circumstances. I don't know that Hamlet would influence me. A certain
amount of nervousness about Eternity is inseparable from our want of
authentic information. I should hope for a healthy and effectual
extinction. Failing that, I should disclaim all responsibility. I should
point out that it lay, not with me, but my Maker. I should dwell on the
fact that Creators that make Hereafters are alone answerable for the
consequences; that I had never been consulted as to my own wishes about
birth and parentage; and that I should be equally contented to be
annulled, and, as Mrs. Bailey would have said, ill-convenience
nobody...."
"Do you know why I am letting you go on?"
"Because of my Religious Tone? Because of my Good Taste? Or why?"
"Because I sometimes suspect you of being in earnest about suicide."
"I am quite in earnest."
"Very well, then. Now attend to me. I'm going to insist on your making
me a promise."
"Then I shall have to make it. But I don't know till I hear it whether I
shall promise to keep it."
"That's included."
"But no promise to keep my promise to keep it's included."
"Yes it is. If you keep on, I shall keep on. So you had better stop.
What you've got to promise is not to commit suicide under any
circumstances whatever."
"Not under any circumstances whatever? That seems to me rather harsh and
arbitrary."
"Not at all. Give me your promise."
"H'm--well!--I'm an amiable, tractable sort of cove.... But I think I am
entitled to one little reservation."
"It must be a very little one."
"Anything one gives one's _fiancée_ is returned when she breaks one off.
When you break me off I shall consider the promise given
back--cancelled."
"Ye-es! Perhaps that _is_ fair, on the whole. Only I think I deserve a
small consideration for allowing it."
"I can't refuse to hear what it is."
"Give me that little bottle of Indian poison. To take care of for you,
you know. I'll give it back if I break you off. Honour bright!"
"I shouldn't want it till then, probably. And if I did, I could afford
sixpence for Prussic acid. Fancy being able to kill oneself, or one's
friends, for sixpence! It must have come to a lot more than that in the
Middle Ages. We have every reason to be thankful we are Modern...."
"Don't go from the point. Will you give up the little bottle of Indian
poison, or not?"
"Not. At least, not now! If I hand it to you at the altar, when you have
led me there won't that do?"
Gwen considered, judicially, and appeared to be in favour of accepting
the compromise. "Only remember!" said she, "if you don't produce that
bottle at the altar--with the poison in it still; no cheating!--I shall
cry off, in the very jaws of matrimony." She paused a moment, lest she
should have left a flaw in the contract, then added:--"Whether I have
led you there or not, you know! Very likely you will walk up the aisle
by yourself."
If Adrian had really determined to conceal the Miss Scatcherd incident
from Gwen, so as not to foster false hopes, he should have worded his
reply differently. For no sooner had he said:--"Well--we are all hoping
so," than Gwen exclaimed:--"_Then_ there has been more Septimius
Severus." Adrian accepted this without protest, as ordinary human
speech; and the story feels confident that if its reader will be on the
watch, he will very soon chance across something quite as unlike
book-talk in Nature. Adrian merely said:--"How on earth did you guess
that?" Gwen replied:--"Because you said, 'We are all hoping so'--not
'We hope so.' Can't you see the difference?"
Anyway, Gwen's guess was an accomplished fact, and it was no use
pretending it was wrong. Said Adrian therefore:--"Yes--there _was_ a
little more Septimius Severus. I had rather made up my mind not to talk
about it, in case you should think too much of it." He then narrated the
Miss Scatcherd incident, checked and corrected by Irene from afar. The
narrator minimised the points in favour of his flash of vision, while
his commentator's corrections showed an opposite bias.
Gwen was, strange to say, really uneasy about that little bottle of
Indian poison. Whether there was anything prophetic in this uneasiness,
it is difficult to determine. The decision of common sense will probably
be that she knew that Poets were not to be trusted, and she wished to be
on the safe side. By "common sense" we mean the faculty which
instinctively selects the common prejudices of its age as oriflammes to
follow on Life's battlefield. Hopkins the witch-finder's common sense
suggested pricking all over to find an insensible flesh-patch, in which
case the prickee was a witch. We prefer to keep an open mind about Lady
Gwendolen Rivers' foreboding anent that little bottle of Indian poison,
until vivisection has shown us, more plainly than at present, how brain
secretes Man's soul. We are aware that this language is Browning's.
* * * * *
Gwen remained at Pensham until the end of the week. Events occurred, no
doubt, but, with one exception, they are outside the story. That
exception was a visit to Chorlton, in order that Adrian should not
remain a stranger to the interesting old twins. His interest would have
been stronger no doubt could he have really seen them. Even as it was he
was keenly alive to the way in which old Mrs. Prichard seemed to have
fascinated Gwen, and was eager to make as much acquaintance with her as
his limitations left possible to him.
Gwen contrived to arrange that she should receive every day from
Chorlton not only a line from Ruth Thrale, but an official bulletin from
Dr. Nash.
The first of these despatches arrived on the Tuesday afternoon, she
having told her correspondents that that would be soon enough. It
disappointed her. She had left the old lady so much revived by the small
quantity of provisions that did duty for a Sunday dinner, that she had
jumped to the conclusion that another day would see her sitting up
before the fire as she had seen her in the celebrated chair with
cushions at Sapps Court. It was therefore rather a damper to be told by
Dr. Nash that he had felt that absolute rest continued necessary, and
that he had not been able to sanction any attempt to get Mrs. Prichard
up for any length of time.
Gwen turned for consolation to Widow Thrale's letter. It was a model of
reserve--would not say too much. "My mother" had talked a good deal with
herself and "mother" till late, but had slept fairly well, and if she
was tired this morning it was no more than Dr. Nash said we were to
expect. She had had a "peaceful day" yesterday, talking constantly with
"mother" of their childhood, but never referring to "my father" nor
Australia. Dr. Nash had said the improvement would be slow. No reference
was made to any possibility of getting her into her clothes and a return
to normal life.
Gwen recognised the bearer of the letters, a young native of Chorlton,
when she gave him the reply she had written, with a special letter she
had ready for "dear old Mrs. Picture." "I know you," said she. "How's
your Bull? I hope he won't kill Farmer Jones or anyone while you're not
there to whistle to him." To which the youth answered:--"Who-ap not!
Sarve they roi-ut, if they dwoan't let un bid in a's stall. A penned un
in afower a coomed away." Gwen thought to herself that life at Jones's
farm must be painfully volcanic, and despatched the Bull's guardian
genius on his cob with the largest sum of money in his pocket that he
had ever possessed in his life, after learning his name, which was
Onesimus.
When Onesimus reappeared with a second despatch on the afternoon of the
next day, Wednesday, Gwen opened it with a beating heart in a hurry for
its contents. She did as one does with letters containing news, reading
persistently through to the end and taking no notice at all of Irene's
interrogatory "Well?" which of course was uttered long before the
quickest reader could master the shortest letter's contents. When the
end came, she said with evident relief:--"Oh yes, _that's_ all _right_!
Now if we drive over to-morrow, she will probably be up."
"Is that what the letter says?" Adrian spoke, and Gwen, saying "He won't
believe my report, you see! You read it!"--threw the letter over to
Irene, who read it aloud to her brother, while Gwen looked at the other
letter, from Widow Thrale.
What Irene read did not seem so very conclusive. Mrs. Prichard had had a
better night, having slept six hours without a break. But the great
weakness continued. If she could take a very little stimulant it would
be an assistance, as it might enable her to eat more. But she had an
unconquerable aversion to wine and spirits in any form, and Dr. Nash was
very reluctant to force her against her will.
So said Adrian:--"What she wants is real turtle soup and champagne. _I_
know." Whereupon his father, who was behind the _Times_--meaning, not
the Age, but the "Jupiter" of our boyhood, looked over its title, and
said:--"Champagne--champagne? There's plenty in the bin--end of the
cellar--Tweedie knows. You'll find my keys on the desk there"--and went
back to an absorbing leader, denouncing the defective Commissariat in
the Crimea. A moment later, he remembered a thing he had forgotten--his
son's blindness. "Stop a minute," he said. "I have to go, myself, later,
and I may as well go now." And presently was heard discussing
cellar-economics, afar, with Tweedie the butler.
The lady of the house wanted the carriage and pair next day to drive
over to Foxbourne in the afternoon and wait to bring her back after the
meeting. The story merely gives the bold wording used to notify the
fact: it does not know what Foxbourne was, nor why there was a meeting.
Its only reason for referring to them is that the party for Chorlton had
to change its plans and go by the up-train from St. Everall's to
Grantley Thorpe, and make it stop there specially. St. Everall's, you
may remember, is the horrible new place about two miles from Pensham.
The carriage could take them there and be back in plenty of time, and
there was always a groggy old concern to be had at the Crown at Grantley
that would run them over to Strides Cottage in half an hour. If it had
been favourable weather, no doubt the long drive would have been much
pleasanter; but with the chance of a heavy downfall of snow making the
roads difficult, the short drives and short railway journey had
advantages.
Therefore when the groggy old concern, which had seen better days--early
Georgian days, probably--pulled up at Strides Cottage in the afternoon,
with a black pall of cloud, whose white heralds were already coming
thick and fast ahead of it, hanging over Chorlton Down, two at least of
the travellers who alighted from it had misgivings that if their visit
was a prolonged one, its grogginess and antiquity might stand in its way
on a thick-snowed track in the dark, and might end in their being late
for the down-train at six. The third of their number saw nothing, and
only said:--"Hullo--snowing!" when on getting free of the concern one of
the heralds aforesaid perished to convince him of its veracity; gave up
the ghost between his shirt-collar and his epidermis. "Yes," he
continued, addressing the first inhabitant of the cottage who greeted
him. "You are quite right. I am the owner of a dog, and you do perfectly
right to inquire about him. His nose is singularly unlike yours. He will
detect your flavour when I return, and I shall have to allay his
jealousy. It is his fault. We are none of us perfect." The dog gave a
short bark which might have meant that Adrian had better hold his
tongue, as anything he said might be used against him.
"Now you are in the kitchen and sitting-room I've told you of, because
it's both," said Gwen. "And here is Granny Marrable herself."
"Give me hold of your hand, Granny. Because I can't see you, more's the
pity! I shall hope to see you some day--like people when they want you
not to call. At present my looks don't flatter me. People think I'm
humbugging when I say I can't see them. I _can't_!"
"'Tis a small wonder, sir," said Granny Marrable, "people should be hard
of belief. I would not have thought you could not, myself. But being
your eyes are spared, by God's mercy, they be ready for the sight to
return, when His will is."
"That's all, Granny. It's only the sight that's wanting. The eyes are as
good as any in the kingdom, in themselves." This made Gwen feel
dreadfully afraid Granny Marrable would think the gentleman was laughing
at her. But Adrian had taken a better measure of the Granny's childlike
simplicity and directness than hers. He ran on, as though it was all
quite right. "Anyhow, don't run away from us to Kingdom Come just yet a
while, Granny, and see if I don't come to see you and your sister--real
eyesight, you know; not this make-believe! I hope she's picking up."
"She's better--because Dr. Nash says she's better. Only I wish it would
come out so we might see it. But it may be I'm a bit impatient. 'Tis the
time of life does it, no doubt."
Ruth Thrale returned from the inner room. "She would like her ladyship
to go to her," said she. Gwen could not help noticing that
somehow--Heaven knows how, but quite perceptibly--the next room seemed
to claim for itself the status of an invalid chamber. She accompanied
Widow Thrale, who closed the room-door behind her, apparently to secure
unheard speech in the passage. "She isn't any _worse_, you know," said
Ruth, in a reassuring manner, which made her hearer look scared, and
start. "Only when she gets away to thinking of beyond the seas--that
place where she was--that _is_ bad for her, say how we may! Not that
she minds talking of my father, nor my brother that died, nor any tale
of the land and the people; but 'tis the coming back to make it all
fit."
Gwen quite understood this, and re-worded it, for elucidation. "Of
course everything clashes, and the poor old dear can't make head or tail
of it! Has there been any particular thing, lately?" The reply
was:--"Yes--early this morning. She woke up talking about Mrs. Skillick,
the name sounded like, and how kind she was to bring her the fresh
lettuces. And then she found me by her and knew I was Ruth, but was all
in a maze why! Then it all seemed to come on her again, and she was in a
bad upset for a while. But I did not tell mother of that. I am glad you
have come, my lady. It will make her better."
"Skillick wasn't Australia," said Gwen. "It was some person she lived
with here in England--not so long ago. Somewhere near London. What did
you do to quiet her?"
"I talked to her about Dave and Dolly. That is always good for her--it
seems to steady her. Shall we go in, my lady? I think she heard you."
Again Gwen had an impression that concession had been made to the
inexorable, and that whereas four days ago it was taken for granted that
old Mrs. Picture's collapse was only to be temporary, a permanency of
invalidism was now accepted as a working hypothesis. Only a temporary
permanency, of course, to last till further notice!
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW GWEN INTRODUCED MR. TORRENS, AND MRS. PICTURE TOOK HOLD OF HIS
HAND. OF MR. TORREN'S FIRM FAITH IN DEVILS, AND OLD MAISIE'S
HAPPINESS THEREAT. THE DOCTOR'S MEMORY OF ADRIAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE
AS A CORPSE. THE LAXITY OF GENERAL PRACTIOTIONERS. HIS WISH TO
INTOXICATE MRS. PRICHARD. HOW GWEN SANG GLUCK TO ADRIAN, AND
ONESIMUS BROUGHT HER A LETTER. QUITE A GOOD REPORT. HOW GWEN WASN'T
ANXIOUS. OF ADRIAN'S INVISIBLE MOTHER. HER SELECTNESS, AND HIGH
BREEDING. ADRIAN'S VIEWS ABOUT SUICIDES. SURVIVORS' SELFISHNESS
TOWARDS THEM, HOW HE TALKED ABOUT THAT DEVIL, AND LET OUT THAT THE
OLD LADY HAD FLASHED ACROSS HIS RETINA. HOW HE HAD CLOTHED EACH
TWIN'S HEAD WITH THE OTHER'S HAIR
Has it not been the experience of all of us, many a time, that a few
days' clear absence from an invalid has been needed, to distinguish a
slow change, invisible to the watchers by the bedside? And all the
while, have not the daily bulletins made out a case for indefinable
slight improvements, negligible gains scarcely worth naming, whose total
some mysterious flaw of calculation persistently calls loss?
There may have been very little actual change; there was room for so
little. But Gwen had been building up hopes of an improvement. And now
she had to see her house of cards tremble and portend collapse. She
saved the structure--as one has done in real card-life--by gingerly
removing a top storey, in terror of a cataclysm. She would not hope so
much--indeed, indeed!--if Fate would only leave some of her structure
standing. But she was at fault for a greeting, all but a disjointed word
or two, when Ruth, falling back, left her to enter the bedroom alone.
It was a consolation to hear the old lady's voice. "My dear--my dear--I
knew you would come. I woke in the night, and thought to myself--she
will come, my lady. Then I rang, and my Ruth came. She comes so quick."
"And then that was just as good as me," said Gwen. "Wasn't it?"
"She is my child--my Ruth. And Phoebe is my Phoebe--years ago! But I
have to think so much, to make it all fit. You are not like that.'
"What am I like?"
"You are the same all through. You came upstairs to me in my room--did
you not?--where my little Dave and Dolly were...."
"Yes--I fetched Dolly."
"And then you put Dolly down? And I said for shame!--what a big girl to
be carried!"
"Yes--and Dolly was carrying little dolly, with her eyes wide open. And
when I put her down on the floor, she repeated what you said all over
again, to little dolly:--'For same, what a bid dirl to be tallied!'"
A gleam came on old Maisie's face as she lay there letting the idea of
Dolly soak into her heart. Presently she said, without opening her
eyes:--"I wonder, if Dolly lives to be eighty, will she remember old
Mrs. Picture. I should like her to. Only she is small."
"Dear Mrs. Picture, you are talking as if you were not to have Dolly
again. Don't you remember what I told you on Sunday? I'm going to get
both the children down here, and Aunt M'riar. Unless, when you are
better, you like to go back to Sapps Court. You shall, you know!"
Another memory attacked old Maisie. "Oh dear," said she, "I thought our
Court was all tumbled down. Was it not?"
"Yes--the day I came. And then I carried you off to Cavendish Square.
Don't you remember?--where Miss Grahame was--Sister Nora." She went on
to tell of the promptitude and efficiency with which the repairs had
been carried out. For, strange to say, the power Mr. Bartlett possessed
of impressing Europe with his integrity and professional ability had
extended itself to Gwen, a perfect stranger, during that short visit to
the Court, and she was mysteriously ready to vouch for his sobriety and
good faith. Presently old Maisie grew curious about the voices in the
next room.
"Is that a gentleman's voice, through the door, talking? It isn't Dr.
Nash. Dr. Nash doesn't laugh like that."
"No--that is my blind man I have brought to see you. I told you about
him, you know. But he must not tire you too much."
"But _can_ he see me?"
"I didn't mean _see_, that way. I meant see to talk to. Some day he will
_really_ see you--with his eyes. We are sure of it, now. He shall come
and sit by you, and talk."
"Yes--and I may hold his hand. And may I speak to him about ... about
..."
"About his blindness and the accident? Oh dear yes! _You_ won't _see_
that he's blind, you know."
"His eyes look like eyes?"
"Like beautiful eyes. I shall go and fetch him." She knew she was
straining facts in her prediction of their recovery of sight, but she
liked the sound of her own voice as she said it, though she knew she
would not have gone so far except to give her hearer pleasure.
* * * * *
Said old Maisie to Adrian, whom Gwen brought back to sit by her, giving
him the chair she had occupied beside the bed:--"You, sir, are very
happy! But oh, how I grieve for your eyes!"
"Is Lady Gwendolen here in the room still?" said Adrian.
"She has just gone away, to the other room," said old Maisie. For Gwen
had withdrawn. One at a time was the rule.
"Very well, dear Mrs. Picture. Then I'll tell you. There never was a
better bargain driven than mine. I would not have my eyesight back, to
lose what I have got. No--not for fifty pairs of eyes." And he evidently
meant it.
"May I hold your hand?"
"Do. Here it is. I am sure you are a dear old lady, and can see what she
is. When I had eyes, I never saw anything worth looking at, till I saw
Gwen."
"But is it a rule?"
Adrian was perplexed for a moment. "Oh, I see what you mean," said he.
"No--of course not! I may have my eyesight back." Then he seemed to
speak more to himself than to her. "Men _have_ been as fortunate, even
as that, before now."
"But tell me--is that what the doctor says? Or only guessing?"
"It's what the doctor says, and guessing too. Doctors only guess. He's
guessing."
"But don't they guess right, oftener than people?"
"A little oftener. If they didn't, what use would they be?"
"But you have seen _her_?"
"Yes--once! Only once. And now I know she is there, as I saw her.... But
I want to know about you, Mrs. Picture dear. Because I'm so sorry for
you."
"There is no need for sorrow for me, I am so happy to know my sister was
not drowned. And my little girl I left behind when I went away over the
great sea, and the wind blew, and I saw the stars change each night,
till they were all new. And then I found my dear husband, and lived with
him many, many happy years. God has been good to me, for I have had much
happiness." There was nothing but contentment and rest in her voice; but
then some of the tranquillity may have been due to exhaustion.
Adrian made the mistake of saying:--"And all the while you thought your
sister dead."
He felt a thrill in her hand as it tightened on his, and heard it in her
voice. "Oh, could it have been?" she said. "But I was told so--in a
letter."
It was useless for Adrian to affect ignorance of the story; and, indeed,
that would have made matters worse, for it would have put it on her to
attempt the retelling of it.
Perhaps he did his best to say:--"Lady Gwendolen has told me the whole
story. So I know. Don't think about it!... Well--that's nonsense! One
can't help thinking. I mean--think as little as possible!" It did not
mend matters much.
Her mind had got back to the letter, and could not leave it. "I have to
think of it," she said, "because it was my husband that wrote that
letter. I know why he wrote it. It was not himself. It was a devil. It
came out of Roomoro the black witch-doctor and got a place inside my
husband. _He_ did not write that letter to Phoebe. _It_ wrote it. For
see how it had learned all the story when Roomoro sucked the little
scorpion's poison out of Mary Ann Stennis's arm!"
To Adrian all this was half-feverish wandering; the limited delirium of
extreme weakness. No doubt these were real persons--Roomoro and Mary Ann
Stennis. It was their drama that was fictitious. He saw one thing
plainly. It was to be humoured, not reasoned with. So whatever was the
cause of a slight start and disconcertment of his manner when she
stopped to ask suddenly:--"But you do not believe in devils,
perhaps?"--it was not the one she had ascribed it to. In fact he was
quite ready with a semi-conscientious affirmative. "Indeed I do. Tell me
exactly how you suppose it happened, again. Roomoro was a native
conjurer or medicine-man, I suppose?"
Then old Maisie recapitulated the tale her imagination had constructed
to whitewash the husband who had ruined her whole life, adding some
details, not without an interest for students of folklore, about the
devil that had come from Roomoro. She connected it with the fact that
Roomoro had eaten the flesh of the little black Dasyurus, christened the
"Native Devil" by the first Tasmanian colonists, from the excessive
shortness of its temper. The soul of this devil had been driven from the
witch-doctor by the poison of the scorpion, and had made for the nearest
human organisation. Adrian listened with as courteous a gravity as
either of us would show to a Reincarnationist's extremest doctrines.
It was an immense consolation to old Maisie, evidently, to be taken in
such good faith. Having made up his mind that his conscience should not
stand between him and any fiction that would benefit this dear old lady,
Adrian was not going to do the thing by halves. He launched out into
reminiscences of his own experiences on the Essequibo and elsewhere, and
was able without straining points to dwell on the remarkable
similarities of the Magians of all primitive races. As he afterwards
told Gwen, he was surprised at the way in which the actual facts
smoothed the way for misrepresentation. He stuck at nothing in
professions of belief in unseen agencies, good and bad; apologizing
afterwards to Gwen for doing so by representing the ease of believing in
them just for a short time, to square matters. Optional belief was no
invention of his own, he said, but an ancient and honourable resource of
priesthoods all the world over.
It was the only little contribution he was able to make towards the
peace of mind without which it seemed almost impossible so old a
constitution could rally against such a shock. And it was of real
value, for old Maisie sorely needed help against her most awful
discovery of all, the hideous guilt of the man whom she had loved
ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it only this. It palliated her son's
crimes. But then there was a difference between the son and the father.
The latter had apparently done nothing to arouse his wife's detestation.
Forgery is a delinquency--not a diabolism!
They talked more--talked a good deal in fact--but only of what we know.
Then Gwen came back, bringing Irene to make acquaintance. This young
lady behaved very nicely, but admitted afterwards that she had once or
twice been a little at a loss what to say.
As when for instance the old lady, with her tender, sad, grey eyes fixed
on Miss Torrens, said:--"Come near, my dear, that I may see you close."
And drew her old hand, tremulously, over the mass of rich black hair
which the almost nominal bonnet of that day left uncovered, with the
reticular arrangement that confined it, and went on speaking,
dreamily:--"It is very beautiful, but _my_ lady's hair is golden, and
shines like the sun." Thereon Gwen to lubricate matters:--"Yes--look
here! But I know which I like best." She managed to collate a handful of
her own glory of gold and her friend's rich black, in one hand. "I know
which _I_ like best," said Irene. And Gwen laughed her musical laugh
that filled the place. "No head of hair is a prophet in its own
country," said she.
Old Maisie was trying to speak, but her voice had gone low with fatigue.
"Phoebe and I," she was saying, "long ago, when we were girls.... It was
a trick, you know, a game ... we would mix our hair like that, and make
little Jacky Wetherall guess whose hair he had hold of. When he guessed
right he had sugar. He was three. His mother used to lend him to us when
she went out to scrub, and he never cried...." She went on like this,
dwelling on scraps of her girlhood, for some time; then her voice went
very faint to say:--"Phoebe was there then. Phoebe is back
now--somehow--how is it?" Gwen saw she had talked enough, and took Irene
away; and then Ruth Thrale went to sit with her mother.
* * * * *
Dr. Nash, who arrived during their absence, had been greeted by Adrian
after his "first appearance as a corpse," last summer. He would have
known the doctor's voice anywhere. "You never _were_ a corpse," said
that gentleman. To which Mr. Torrens replied:--"You _thought_ I was a
corpse, doctor, you know you did!"
Dr. Nash, being unable to deny it, shifted the responsibility. "Well,"
said he, "Sir Coupland thought so too. The fact is, we had quite given
you up. When he came out and said to me:--'Come back. I want you to see
something,' I said to him:--'Is that why the dog barked?' Because your
dog had given a sudden queer sort of a bark. And he said to me:--'It
isn't only the dog. It's Lady Gwen Rivers.'"
"What did he mean by that?" said Gwen.
"He meant that your ladyship's strong impression that the body....
Excuse my referring to you, Mr. Torrens, as...."
"As 'the body'? Not at all! I mean, don't apologize."
"The--a--subject, say, still retained vitality. No doubt we _might_ have
found out--probably _should_...."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Gwen remorselessly. "You would have buried
him alive if it hadn't been for me. You doctors are the most careless,
casual creatures. It was me and the dog--so now Mr. Torrens knows what
he has to be thankful for!"
"Well--as a matter of fact, it was the strong impression of your
ladyship that did the job. We doctors are, as your ladyship says, an
incautious, irresponsible lot. I hope you found Mrs. Prichard going on
well."
Gwen hesitated. "I wish she looked a little--thicker," said she.
Dr. Nash looked serious. "We mustn't be in too great a hurry. Remember
her age, and the fact that she is eating almost nothing. She won't take
regular meals again--or what she calls regular meals--till the tension
of this excitement subsides...."
Said Adrian:--"It's perfectly extraordinary to me, not seeing her, to
hear her talk as she does. Because it doesn't give the impression of
such weakness as that. Her hands feel very thin, of course."
Said the doctor:--"I wish I could get her to take some stimulant; then
she would begin eating again. If she could only be slightly intoxicated!
But she's very obdurate on that point--I told you?--and refuses even Sir
Cropton Fuller's old tawny port. I talked about her to him, and he sent
me half a dozen the same evening. A good-natured old chap!--wants to
make everyone else as dyspeptic as himself...."
"That reminds me!" said Gwen. "We forgot the champagne."
"No, we didn't," said Irene. "It was put in the carriage, I know. In a
basket. Two bottles lying down. And it was taken out, because I saw it."
"But _was_ it put in the railway carriage?"
"I meant the railway carriage."
"I believe it's in the old Noah's Ark we came here in, all the while."
Granny Marrable said:--"I am sure there has nothing been brought into
the Cottage. Because we should have seen. There is only the door
through, to go in and out."
"You see, Dr. Nash," said Gwen, "when you said that in your letter,
about her wanting stimulant, champagne immediately occurred to Sir
Hamilton. So we brought a couple of bottles of the King of Prussia's
favourite Clicquot, and a little screwy thing to milk the bottles with,
like a cow, a glass at a time. Miss Torrens and I are quite agreed that
very often one can get quite pleasantly and healthily drunk on champagne
when other intoxicants only give one a headache and make one ill. Isn't
it so, 'Re?" Miss Torrens and her brother both testified that this was
their experience, and Dr. Nash assented, saying that there would at
least be no harm in trying the experiment.
As for dear old Granny Marrable, her opinion was simply that whatever
her ladyship from the Towers, and the young lady from Pensham and her
brother, were agreed upon, was beyond question right; and even if
medical sanction had not been forthcoming she would have supported them.
"I am sure," said she, "my dear sister will drink some when she knows
your ladyship brought it for her."
The reappearance of the Noah's Ark, when due, confirmed Gwen's view as
to the whereabouts of the basket, and was followed by a hasty departure
of the gentlefolks to catch the downtrain from London. As Granny
Marrable watched it lurching away into the fast-increasing snow, it
looked, she thought, as if it could not catch anything. But if old
Pirbright, who had been on the road since last century, did not know,
nobody did.
* * * * *
The day after this visit, when Gwen was singing to Adrian airs from
Gluck's "Alceste," Irene and her father being both absent on Christmas
business, social or charitable, the butler brought in a letter from Ruth
Thrale in the very middle of a _sostenuto_ note,--for when did any
servant, however intelligent, allow music to stop before proceeding to
extremities?--and said, respectfully but firmly, that it was the same
boy, and he would wait. He seemed to imply that the boy's quality of
identity was a sort of guarantee of his waiting--a good previous
character for permanency. Gwen left "Alceste" in C minor, and opened her
letter, thanking Mr. Tweedie cordially, but not able to say he might go,
because he was another family's butler. Adrian said:--"Is that from the
old lady?" And when Gwen said:--"Yes--it's Onesimus. I wonder he was
able to get there, over the snow,"--he dismissed Mr. Tweedie with the
instruction that he should see that Onesimus got plenty to eat. The
butler ignored this instruction as superfluous, and died away.
Then Gwen spun round on the music-stool to read aloud. "'Honoured
lady';--Oh dear, I wish she could say 'dear Gwen'; but I suppose it
wouldn't do.--'I am thankful to be able to write a really good report of
my mother'.... You'll see in a minute she'll have to speak of Granny
Marrable and she'll call her 'mother' without the 'my.' See if she
doesn't!... 'Dr. Nash said she might have some champagne, and we said
she really must when you so kindly brought it. So she said indeed yes,
and we gave it her up to the cuts.' That means," said Gwen, "the cuts of
the wineglass." She glanced on in the letter, and when Adrian
said:--"Well--that's not all!"--apologized with:--"I was looking on
ahead, to see that she got some more later. It's all right. '... up to
the cuts, and presently', as Dr. Nash said, was minded to eat something.
So I got her the sweetbread she would not have for dinner, which warmed
up well. Then we persuaded her to take a little more champagne, but Dr.
Nash said be careful for fear of reaction. Then she was very chatty and
cheerful, and would go back a great deal on old times with mother....' I
told you she would," said Gwen, breaking off abruptly.
"Of course she will always go back on old times," said Adrian.
"I didn't mean that. I meant call her aunt 'mother' without the 'my.'
Let me go on. Don't interrupt! '... old times with mother, and one thing
in particular, their hair. Mother pleased her, because she could
remember a little child Jacky they would puzzle to tell which hair was
which, saying if she held them like that Jacky could tell, and have
sugar. For their hair now is quite strong white and grey instead of both
the same....' She was telling us about Jacky--me and Irene--yesterday,
and I suppose that was what set her off.... 'She slept very sound and
talked, and then slept well at night. So we are in good spirits about
her, and thank God she may be better and get stronger. That is all I
have to tell now and remain dutifully yours....' Isn't that delightful?
Quite a good report!" Instructions followed to Onesimus not to bring any
further news to Pensham, but to take his next instalment to the Towers.
These things occurred on the Friday, the day after the visit to
Chorlton. Certainly that letter of Widow Thrale's justified Lady
Gwendolen in feeling at ease about Mrs. Picture during the remainder of
her visit to Pensham, and the blame she apportioned to herself for an
imagined neglect afterwards was quite undeserved.
Adrian Torrens ought to have been in the seventh heaven during the
remainder of an almost uninterrupted afternoon. Not that it was
absolutely uninterrupted, because evidences of a chaperon in abeyance
were not wanting. A mysterious voice, of unparalleled selectness, or
_bon-ton_, or gentility, emanated from a neighbouring retreat with an
accidentally open door, where the lady of the house was corresponding
with philanthropists in spite of interruptions. It said:--"What _is_
that? I know it _so_ well," or, "That air is very familiar to me," or,
"I cannot help thinking Catalani would have taken that slower." To all
of which Gwen returned suitable replies, tending to encourage a belief
in her questioner's mind that its early youth had been passed in a
German principality with Kapellmeisters and Conservatoriums and a Court
Opera Company. This excellent lady was in the habit of implying that she
had been fostered in various _anciens régimes_, and that the parentage
of anything so outlandish and radical as her son and daughter was quite
out of her line, and a freak of Fate at the suggestion of her husband.
Intermittent emanations from Superiority-in-the-Bush were small
drawbacks to what might perhaps prove the last unalloyed interview of
these two lovers before their six months' separation--that terrible
Self-Denying Ordinance--to which they had assented with a true prevision
of how very unwelcome it would be when the time came. It was impossible
to go back on their consent now. Gwen might have hoisted a standard of
revolt against her mother. But she could not look her father in the face
and cry off from the fulfilment of a condition-precedent of his consent
to the perfect freedom of association of which she and Adrian had
availed themselves to the uttermost, always under the plea that the
terms of the contract were going to be honourably observed. As for
Adrian, he was even more strongly bound. That appeal from the Countess
that his father had repeated and confirmed was made direct to his
honour; and while he could say unanswerably:--"What would you have me
do?" nothing in the world could justify his rebelling against so
reasonable a condition as that their sentiments should continue
reciprocal after six months of separation.
His own mind was made up. For his views about suicide, however much he
spoke of them with levity, were perfectly serious. If he lost Gwen, he
would be virtually non-existent already. The end would have come, and
the thing left to put an end to would no longer be a Life. It would
only be a sensibility to pain, with an ample supply of it. A bare bodkin
would do the business, but did not recommend itself. The right
proportion of Prussic Acid had much to say on its own behalf. It was
cheap, clean, certain, and the taste of ratafia was far from unpleasant.
But he had a lingering favourable impression of the Warroo medicine-man,
whose faith in the efficacy and painlessness of his nostrum was evident,
however much was uncertain in his version of its _provenance_.
As to any misgivings about awakening in another world, if any occurred
to Adrian he had but one answer--he had _been dead_, and had found death
unattended with any sort of inconvenience. Resuscitation had certainly
been painful, but he did not propose to leave any possibility of it,
this time. His death, _that_ time, had been a sudden shock, followed
instantly by the voice of Gwen herself, which he had recognised as the
last his ears had heard. If Death could be so easily negotiated, why
fuss? The only serious objection to suicide was its unpopularity with
survivors. But were they not sometimes a little selfish? Was this
selfishness not shown to demonstration by the gratitude--felt, beyond a
doubt--to the suicide who weights his pockets when he jumps into
mid-ocean, contrasted with the dissatisfaction, to say the least of it,
which the proprietor of a respectable first-class hotel feels when a
visitor poisons himself with the door locked, and engages the attention
of the Coroner. There was Irene certainly--and others--but after all it
would be a great gain to them, when the first grief was over, to have
got rid of a terrible encumbrance.
Therefore Adrian was quite at his ease about the Self-Denying Ordinance;
at least, if a clear resolve and a mind made up can give ease. He said
not a word of his views and intentions beyond what the story has already
recorded. What right had he to say anything to Gwen that would put
pressure on her inclinations? Had he not really said too much already?
At any rate, no more!
Nevertheless, the foregoing made up the background of his reflections as
he listened to more "Alceste," resumed after a short note had been
written for Onesimus to carry back over the frost-bound roads to
Chorlton. And he was able to trace the revival in his mind of suicide by
poison to Mrs. Picture's narration of the Dasyurus and the witch-doctor
who had cooked and eaten its body. This fiction of her fever-ridden
thoughts had set him a-thinking again of the Warroo conjurer. He had not
repeated any of it to Gwen, lest she should be alarmed on old Maisie's
behalf. For it had a very insane sound.
But after such a prosperous report of her condition, above all, of the
magical effect of that champagne, it seemed overnice to be making a
to-do about what was probably a mere effect of overheated fancy, such as
the circumstances might have produced in many a younger and stronger
person. So when Alceste had provided her last soprano song, and the
singer was looking for "Ifigenia in Aulide," Adrian felt at liberty to
say that old Mrs. Picture's ideas about possession were very funny and
interesting.
"Isn't it curious?" said Gwen. "She really believes it all, you know,
like Gospel. All that about the devil that had possession of her
husband! And how when he died, he passed his devil on to his son, who
was worse than himself."
"That's good, though," said Adrian. "Only she never told me about the
son. I had it all about the witch-doctor whose devil came out because he
couldn't fancy the little scorpion's flavour. And all about the original
devil--a sort of opossum they call a devil...."
"She didn't tell me about him."
"They've got one at the Zoological Gardens. He's an ugly customer. The
keeper said he was a limb, if ever there was one. The old lady evidently
thought her idea that the doctor's devil was this little beggar's soul,
eaten up with his flesh, was indisputable. I told her I thought it had
every intrinsic possibility, and I'm sure she was pleased. But the
horror of her face when she spoke of him was really...."
"Adrian!"
"What, dearest? Anything the matter?"
"Only the way you put it. It was so odd. 'The horror of her face'! Just
as if you had _seen_ it!" Indeed, Gwen was looking quite disconcerted
and taken aback.
"There now!" said Adrian. "See what a fool I am! I never meant to tell
of that. Because I thought it threw a doubt on Scatcherd. I've been
wanting to make the most of Scatcherd. I never thought much of Septimius
Severus. Anyone might have said in my hearing that the bust was moved,
and it was just as I was waking. But I'll swear no one said anything
about Scatcherd. Why--there _was_ only Irene!"
Gwen went and sat by him on the sofa. "Listen, darling!" said she. "I
want to know what you are talking about. What was it happened, and why
did it throw a doubt on Miss Scatcherd?"
"It wasn't anything, either way, you know."
"I know. But what was it, that wasn't anything, either way?"
"It was only an impression. You mustn't attach any weight to it."
"Are you going to tell what it was, or _not_?"
"Going to. Plenty of time! It was when the old lady began telling me
about the devil. Her tone of conviction gave me a strong impression what
she was looking like, and made an image of her flash across my retina.
By which I mean, flash across the hole I used to see through when I had
a retina. It was almost as strong and life-like as real seeing. But I
knew it _wasn't_."
"But how--how--how?" cried Gwen, excited. "_How_ did you know that it
wasn't?"
"Because of the very white hair. It was snow-white--the image's. I
suppose I had forgotten which was which, of the two old ladies--had put
the saddle on the wrong horse."
Gwen looked for a moment completely bewildered. "What on, earth, can,
he, mean?" said she, addressing Space very slowly. Then, speaking as one
who has to show patience with a stiff problem:--"Dearest man--dearest
incoherency!--do try and explain. Which of the old ladies do you suppose
has white hair, and which grey?"
"Old Granny Marrable, I thought."
"Yes--but _which hair_? Which? Which? Which?"
"White, I thought, not grey." Whereupon Gwen, seeing how much hung upon
the impression her lover had been under hitherto about these two tints
of hair, kept down a growing excitement to ask him quietly for an exact,
undisjointed statement, and got this for answer:--"I have always thought
of Granny Marrable's as snow-white, and the old Australian's as grey.
Was that wrong?"
"Quite wrong! It's the other way round. The Granny's is grey and old
Mrs. Picture's is silvery white."
Adrian gave a long whistle, for astonishment, and was silent. So was
Gwen. For this was the third incident of the sort, and what might not
happen? Presently he broke the silence, to say:--"At any rate, that
leaves Scatcherd a chance. I thought if this was a make-up of my own, it
smashed _her_."
"Foolish man! There is more in it than that. You _saw_ old Mrs. Picture.
It was no make-up.... Well?" She paused for his reply.
It came after a studied silence, a dumbness of set purpose. "Oh
why--why--is it always Mrs. Picture, or Scatcherd, or Septimius Severus?
Why can it never be Gwen--Gwen--Gwen?"
The attenuated _chaperonage_ of the lady of the house may have been
moved by a certain demonstrativeness of her son's at this point, to say
from afar:--"I _hope_ we are going to have some 'Ifigenia in Aulide.'
Because I _should_ have enjoyed _that_." Which carried an implication
that the musical world had been palming off an inferior article on a
public deeply impressible by the higher aspects of Opera.
CHAPTER XXV
HOW THE EARL ASKED AFTER THE OLD TWINS. MERENESS. RECUPERATIVE
POWER. HOW THE HOUSEHOLD HAD ITS ANNUAL DANCE. HOW THE COUNTESS HAD
A CRACKED LIP. HOW WAS DR. TUXFORD SOMERS? SIR SPENCER DERRICK.
GENERAL RAWNSLEY. HE AND GWEN'S INTENDED GREAT GRANDMOTHER-IN-LAW.
GWEN HAD NEVER HAD TWINS BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. THE
GENERAL'S BROTHER PHILIP. SUPERANNUATED COCKS AND HENS. HOW GWEN
HAD DREAMED SHE WAS TO MARRY A KETTLE-HOLDER. HOW MRS. LAMPREY HAD
A LETTER FOR GWEN, WHICH TOOK GWEN OFF TO CHORLTON AT MIDNIGHT
When the Earl of Ancester came back to the Towers next day he certainly
did look a little boiled down; otherwise, cheerful and collected. "I am
quite prepared to endure another Christmas," said he resignedly to Gwen.
"But a little seclusion and meditation is good to prepare one for the
ordeal, and Bath certainly deserves the character everybody gives it,
that you never meet anybody else there. I suppose Coventry and Jericho
have something in common with Bath. I wonder if outcasts can be
identified in either. Nothing distinguishes them in Bath from the
favourites of Fortune. How are the old ladies?"
This was in the study, where the Earl and his daughter got a quiet ten
minutes to recapitulate the story of each during the other's absence. It
was late in the afternoon, two hours after his arrival from London. He
had been there a day or two to make a show of fulfilling his obligations
towards politics; had sat through a debate or two, and had taken part in
a division or two, much to the satisfaction of his conscience. "But,"
said he to Gwen, "if you ask me which I have felt most interest in, your
old ladies or the Foreign Enlistment Act, I should certainly say the old
ladies." So it was no wonder his inquiry about them came early in this
recapitulation.
Gwen found herself, to her surprise, committed to an apologetic tone
about old Mrs. Picture's health, and maintaining that she was _really_
better intrinsically, although evidently some person or persons unnamed
must have said she was worse. She started on her report with every
good-will to make it a prosperous one, and got entangled in some
trivialities that told against her purpose. Perhaps her last letter to
her father, written from Pensham on the night of her arrival there, had
given too rose-coloured an account of her visit to Chorlton, and had
caused the rather serious headshake which greeted her admission that old
Maisie was still a quasi-invalid, on her back from the merest--quite the
merest--weakness. The Earl admitted that, as a general rule, weakness
might be mere enough to be negligible; but then it should be the
weakness of young and strong people, possessed of that delightful
property "recuperative power," which does such wonders when it comes to
the scratch. Never be without it, if you can help.
The episode of the champagne was reassuring, and gave Hope a helping
hand. Moreover, Gwen had just got another letter from Ruth Thrale,
brought by Onesimus the bull-cajoler, which gave a very good account on
the whole, though one phrase had a damping effect. We were not "to rely
on the champagne," as it was "not nourishment, but stimulus." She _must_
be got to take food regularly, said Dr. Nash, however small the
quantity. This seemed to suggest that she had fallen back on that
vicious practice of starvation. But "my mother" was constantly talking
with "mother" about old times, and it was giving "mother" pleasure.
"I wish," said Gwen, as her father went back to "Honoured Lady" for
second reading, and possibly second impressions, "I wish that Dr. Nash
had written separately. I want to know what he thinks, and I want to
know what Ruth thinks. I can mix them up for myself."
The Earl read to the end, and suspended judgment, visibly. "Eighty-one!"
said he. "And how did Granny Marrable take it? You never said in your
letters."
"Because I did not see her. Dr. Nash told--at least, he tried to. But I
told you about the little boy's letter. She knew it from that."
"I remember.... Well!--we must hope." And then they spoke of matters
nearer home; the impending journey to Vienna; a perplexity created by a
promise rashly given to Aunt Constance that she should be married from
the Ancester town-residence--two things which clashed, for how could
this wedding wait till the Countess's return?--and ultimately of Gwen's
own prospects. Then she told her father the incident of Adrian's
apparent vision of old Mrs. Picture, and both pretended that it was too
slight to build upon; but both used it for a superstructure of private
imaginings. Neither encouraged the other.
Adrian and his sister were to have returned with Gwen to the Towers to
stay till Monday, which was Christmas Day, when their own plum-pudding
and mistletoe would claim them at Pensham. This arrangement was not
carried out, possibly in deference to the Countess, who was anxious to
reduce to a minimum everything that tended to focus the public gaze on
the lovers. Gwen was under a social obligation, inherited perhaps from
Feudalism, to be present at the Servants' Ball, which would have been on
Christmas Eve had that day not fallen on a Sunday. Hence the necessity
for her return on the Saturday, and the interview with her father just
recorded. The quiet ten minutes filled the half-hour between tea and
dressing for a dinner which might prove a scratch meal in itself, but
was distinguished by its sequel. A general adjournment was to follow to
the great ball-room, which was given over without reserve on this
occasion to the revellers and their friends from the environs; for at
the Towers nothing was done by halves in those days. There the august
heads of the household were expected to walk solemnly through a
quadrille with the housekeeper and head butler. Mrs. Masham's and Mr.
Norbury's sense of responsibility on these occasions can neither be
imagined nor described. This great event made conscientious dressing for
dinner more than usually necessary, however defective the excitement of
the household might make the preparation and service thereof.
These exigencies were what limited Gwen's quiet ten minutes with her
father within the narrow bounds of half an hour, leaving no margin at
all for more than three words with her mother on her way to her own
interview with Miss Lutwyche. She exceeded her estimate almost before
her ladyship's dressing-room door had swung to behind her.
"Well, mamma dear, I hope you're satisfied."
"I am, my dear. At least, I am not dissatisfied.... Don't kiss me in
front, please, because I have a little crack on the corner of my lip."
The Countess accepted her daughter's _accolade_ on an unsympathetic
cheek-bone. "What are you referring to?"
"Why--Adrian not coming till to-morrow, of course. What did you suppose
I meant?"
"I did not suppose. Some day you will live to acknowledge--I am
convinced of it--that what your father and I thought best was dictated
by simple common sense and prudence. I am sure Sir Hamilton will not
misinterpret our motives. Nor Lady Torrens."
"He's a nice old Bart, the Bart. We are great friends. He likes it. He
gets all the kissing for nothing.... What?"
The Countess may have contemplated some protest against the pronounced
ratification implied of fatherdom-in-law. She gave it up, and said:--"I
was not going to say anything. Go on!"
The way in which these two guessed each other's thoughts was phenomenal.
Gwen knew all about it. "Come, mamma!" said she. "You know the Bart
would not have liked it half so much if I had been a dowdy."
"I cannot pretend to have thought upon the subject." If her ladyship
threw a greater severity into her manner than the occasion seemed to
call for, it was not merely because she disapproved of her beautiful
daughter's want of _retenue_, or questionable style, or doubtful taste,
or defective breeding. You must bear all the circumstances in mind as
they presented themselves to her. Conceive what the "nice old Bart" had
been to her over five-and-twenty years ago, when she herself was a
dazzling young beauty of another generation! Think how strange it must
have been, to hear the audacities of this new creature, undreamed of
then, spoken so placidly through an amused smile, as she watched the
firelight serenely from the arm-chair she had subsided on--an anchorage
"three words" would never have warranted, even the most unbridled
polysyllables. "Do you not think"--her dignified mamma continued--"you
had better be getting ready for dinner? You are always longer than me."
"I'm going directly. Lutwyche is never ready. I suppose I ought to go,
though.... You are not asking after my old lady, and I think you might."
"Oh yes," said her ladyship negligently. "I haven't seen you since you
didn't go to church with me. How _is_ your old lady?"
"You don't care, so it doesn't matter. How was Dr. Tuxford Somers?"
"My dear--don't be nonsensical! How can you expect me to gush over about
an old person I have not so much as seen?" She added as an
afterthought:--"However worthy she may be!"
"You could have seen her quite well, when she was here. Papa did.
Besides, one can show a human interest, without gushing over."
"My dear, I hope I am never wanting in human interest. How is Mrs....
Mrs....?"
"Mrs. Prichard?"
"Yes--how is she? Is she coming back here?"
"Is it likely? Besides, she can't be moved."
"Oh--it's as bad as that!"
"My dear mamma, haven't I told you fifty times?" This was not exactly
the case; but it passed, in conversation. "The darling old thing was all
but killed by being told...."
"By being told?... Oh yes, I remember! They were sisters, in Van
Diemen's Land.... But she's better again now?"
"Yes--better. Oh, here's Starfield, and there's papa in his room. I can
hear him. I must go."
At dinner that evening nobody was in any way new or remarkable, unless
indeed Sir Spencer and Lady Derrick, who had been in Canada, counted.
There was one guest, not new, but of interest to Gwen. Do you happen to
remember General Rawnsley, who was at the Towers in July, when Adrian
had his gunshot accident? It was he who was nearly killed by a Mahratta,
at Assaye, when he was a young lieutenant. Gwen had issued orders that
he should take her in to dinner, when she heard on her arrival that he
had accepted her mother's invitation for Christmas.
Consider dinner despatched--the word is suitable, for an approach to
haste was countenanced or tolerated, in consideration of the household's
festivity elsewhere--and so much talking going on that the old General
could say to Gwen without fear of being overheard:--"Now tell me some
more about your fellow.... Adrian, isn't he?... He _is_ your fellow,
isn't he?--no compliments necessary?"
"He's my fellow, General, to you and all my _dear_ friends. You saw him
in July, I think?"
"Just saw him--just saw him! Hardly spoke to him--only a word or two.
Your father took me in to see him, because I was in love with his
great-grandmother, once upon a time."
"His _great_-grandmother, General? You must mean his grandmother."
"Not a bit of it, my dear! It's all quite right. I was a boy of
eighteen. I'm eighty-four. Sixty-six years ago. If Mary Tracy was alive
now, she'd make up to eighty-six. Nothing out of the way in that. She
was a girl of twenty then."
"Was it serious, General?"
"God bless me, my dear, serious? I should rather think it was! Why--we
ran away together, and went capering over the country looking for a
parson to marry us! Serious? Rather! At least, it might have been."
"Oh, General, do tell me what came of it. Did you find the parson?"
"That was just it. We found the Rector of Threckingham--it was in
Lincolnshire--and he promised to marry us in a week if he could find
someone to give the bride away. He took possession of the young lady.
Then a day or two after down comes Sir Marmaduke and Lady Tracy, black
in the face with rage, and we were torn asunder, threatening suicide as
soon as there was a chance. I was such a jolly innocent boy that I never
suspected the Rector of treachery. Never guessed it at all! He told me
thirty years after--a little more. Saw him when the Allied Sovereigns
were in London--before Waterloo."
"And that young thing was Adrian's _great_-grandmother!" said Gwen. Then
she felt bound in honour to add:--"She was old enough to know better."
"She didn't," said the General. "What's so mighty funny to me now is to
think that all that happened about the time of the Revolution in Paris.
Rather before."
Gwen's imagination felt the vertigo of such a rough grapple with the
Past. These things make brains reel. "When my old twins were two little
girls in lilac frocks," said she.
"Your _what_?" Perhaps it was no wonder--so Gwen said afterwards--that
the General was a little taken aback. She would have been so very old to
have had twins before the French Revolution. She was able to assign a
reasonable meaning to her words, and the old boy became deeply
interested in the story of the sisters. So much so that when the ladies
rose to go, she said calmly to her mother:--"I'm not coming this time.
You can all go, and I'll come when we have to start the dancing. I want
to talk to General Rawnsley." And the Countess had to surrender, with an
implication that it was the only course open in dealing with a lunatic.
She could, however, palliate the position by a reference to the abnormal
circumstances. "We are quite in a state of chaos to-day," said she to
her chief lady-guest. And then to the Earl:--"Don't be more than five
minutes.... Well!--no longer than you can help."
The moment the last lady had been carefully shut out by the young
gentleman nearest the door, Gwen drove a nail in up to the head, _more
suo_. Suppose General Rawnsley had lost a twin brother fifty years ago,
and she, Gwen, had come to him and told him it had all been a mistake,
and the brother was still living! What would that feel like? What would
he have done?
"Asked for it all over again," said the General, after consideration.
"Should have liked being told, you see! Shouldn't have cared so very
much about the brother."
"No--do be serious! Try to think what it would have felt like. To oblige
me!"
The General tried. But without much success. For he only shook his head
over an undisclosed result. He could, however, be serious. "I suppose,"
said he, "the twinnery--twinship--whatever you call it...."
"Isn't _de rigueur_?" Gwen struck in. "Of course it isn't! Any real
fraternity would do as well. Now try!"
"That makes a difference. But I'm still in a fix. Your old ladies were
grown up when one went off--and then she wrote letters?..."
"Can't you manage a grown-up brother?"
"Nothing over fourteen. Poor Phil was fourteen when he was drowned.
Under the ice on the Serpentine. He had just been licking me for boning
a strap of his skate. I was doing the best way I could without it ... to
get mine on, you see ... when I heard a stop in the grinding noise--what
goes on all day, you know--and a sort of clicky slooshing, and I looked
up, and there were a hundred people under the ice, all at once. There
was a f'ler who couldn't stop or turn, and I saw him follow the rest of
'em under. Bad sort of job altogether!" The General seemed to be
enjoying his port, all the same.
Said Gwen:--"But he used to lick you, so you couldn't love him."
"Couldn't I? I was awfully fond of Phil. So was he of me. I expect Cain
was very fond of Abel. They loved each other like brothers. Not like
other people!"
"But Phil isn't a fair instance. Can't you do any better than Phil?
Never mind Cain and Abel."
"H'm--no, I can't! Phil's not a bad instance. It's longer ago--but the
same thing in principle. If I were to hear that Phil was really
resuscitated, and some other boy was buried by mistake for him, I should
... I should...." The General hung fire.
"What should you do? That's what I want to know.... Come now,
confess--it's not so easy to say, after all!"
"No--it's not easy. But it would depend on the way how. If it was like
the Day of Judgement, and he rose from the grave, as we are taught in
the Bible, just the same as he was buried.... Well--you know--it
wouldn't be fair play! _I_ should know _him_, though I expect I should
think him jolly small."
"But he wouldn't know you?"
"No. He would be saying to himself, who the dooce is this superannuated
old cock? And it would be no use my saying I was his little brother, or
he was my big one."
"But suppose it wasn't like the Day of Judgement at all, but real, like
my old ladies. Suppose he was another superannuated old cock! My old
ladies are superannuated old hens, I suppose."
"I suppose so. But I understand from what you tell me that they _have_
come to know one another again. They talk together and recall old times?
Isn't that so?"
"Oh dear yes, and each knows the other quite well by now. Only I believe
they are still quite bewildered about what has happened."
"Then I suppose it would be the same with me and my redivivus
brother--on the superannuated-old-cock theory, not the Day of Judgement
one."
"Yes--but I want you not to draw inferences from _them_, but to say what
you would feel ... of yourself ... out of your own head."
The General wanted time to think. The question required thought, and he
was taking it seriously. The Earl, seeing him thinking, and Gwen waiting
for the outcome, came round from his end of the table, and took the seat
the Countess had vacated. He ought to have been there before, but it
seemed as though Gwen's _escapade_ had thrown all formalities out of
gear. He was just in time for the General's conclusion:--"Give it up!
Heaven only knows what I should do! Or anyone else!"
Gwen restated the problem, for her father's benefit. "I am with you,
General," said he. "I cannot speculate on what I should do. I am
inclined to think that the twinship has had something to do with the
comparative rapidity of the ... recohesion...."
"Very good word, papa! Quite suits the case."
"... recohesion of these two old ladies. When we consider how very early
in life they took their meals together...." The General murmured _sotto
voce_:--"Before they were born." "... we must admit that their case is
absolutely exceptional--absolutely!"
"You mean," said Gwen, "that if they had not been twins they would not
have swallowed each other down, as they have done."
"Exactly," said the Earl.
"And yet," Gwen continued, "they never remember things as they happened.
In fact, they are still in a sort of fog about what _has_ happened. But
they are quite sure they are Maisie and Phoebe. I do think, though,
there is only one thing about Maisie's Australian life that Granny
Marrable believes, and that is the devil that got possession of the
convict husband.... _Why_ does she? Because devils are in the Bible, of
course." Here the devil story was retold for the benefit of the General,
who did not know it.
The Earl did, so he did not listen. He employed himself thinking over
practicable answers to the question before the house, and was just in
time to avert a polemic about the authenticity of the Bible, a subject
on which the General held strong views. "What helps me to an idea of a
possible attitude of mind before a resurrection of this sort," he said,
"is what sometimes happens when you wake up from a dream years long, a
dream as long as a lifetime. Just the first moment of all, you can
hardly believe yourself free of the horrid entanglement you had got
involved in...."
"I know," said Gwen. "The other night I dreamed I was going to be
married to a young gentleman I had known from childhood. Only he was a
kettle-holder with a parrot on it."
"Didn't I object?" said the Earl.
"You were upstairs. Don't ask explanations. That was all there was in
the dream. You were upstairs. And the dream had been all my life. Don't
fidget about particulars."
"I won't. That's the sort of dream I mean. It seems all perfectly right
and sound until your waking life comes back, and then vanishes. You only
regret your friends in the dream for a few seconds, and then--they are
nobody!"
"Don't quite see the parallel, yet. These old ladies haven't waked from
a dream, that I see." Thus the General, and Gwen told him he was a
military martinet, and lacking in insight.
Her father continued:--"Each of them has dreamed the other was dead, for
half a century. _Now_ they are awake. But I suspect, from what Gwen
says, that the discovery of the dream has thrown a doubt on all the rest
of the fifty years."
"That's it," said Gwen. "If the whole story of the two deaths is false,
why should Van Diemen's Land be true? Why should the convict and the
forgery be true?"
"Husbands and families are hard nuts to crack," said the General. "Can't
be forgotten or disbelieved in, try 'em any side up!"
At this point a remonstrance from the drawing-room at the delay of the
appearance of the males caused a stampede and ended the discussion. Gwen
rejoined her own sex unabashed, and the company adjourned to the scene
of the household festivity. It is not certain that the presence of his
lordship and his Countess, and the remainder of the party _in esse_ at
the Towers really added to the hilarity of the occasion. But it was an
ancient usage, and the sky might have fallen if it had been rashly
discontinued. The compromise in use at this date under which the
magnates, after walking through a quadrille, melted away imperceptibly
to their normal quarters, was no doubt the result of a belief on their
part that the household would begin to enjoy itself as soon as
formalities had been complied with, and it was left to do so at its own
free-will and pleasure. Nevertheless, a hint at abolition would have
been blasphemy, and however eager the rank and file of the establishment
may have been for the disappearance of the bigwigs, not one of them--and
still more not one of their many invited neighbours--ever breathed a
hint of it to another.
Shortly after ten Gwen and some of the younger members of the party
wound up a fairly successful attempt to make the materials at their
disposal dance the Lancers, and got away without advertising their
departure. It was a great satisfaction to overhear the outbreak of
unchecked roystering that followed. Said Gwen to Miss Dickenson and Mr.
Pellew, who had entered into the spirit of the thing and co-operated
with her efforts to the last:--"They will be at bear-garden point in
half an hour. Poor respectable Masham!" To which Aunt Constance
replied:--"I suppose they won't go on into Sunday?" The answer was:--"Oh
no--not till Sunday! But Sunday is a _day_, after all, not a night." Mr.
Pellew said:--"Sunrise at eight," and Gwen said:--"I think Masham will
make it Sunday about two o'clock. We shan't have breakfast till eleven.
You'll see!"
They were in the great gallery with the Van Dycks when Gwen stopped, as
one stops who thinks suddenly of an omission, and said, as to herself,
more than to her hearers:--"I wonder whether she meant me."
"Whether who meant you?" said both, sharing the question.
"Nothing.... Very likely I was mistaken.... No--it was this. You saw
that rather _piquante_, dry young woman? You know which I mean?"
"Danced with that good-looking young groom?..."
"Yes--my Tom--Tom Kettering. It was what I heard her say to Lutwyche ...
some time ago.... 'Remember she's not to have it till to-morrow
morning.' It just crossed my mind, did she mean me? I dare say it was
nothing."
"I heard that. It was a letter." Mr. Pellew said this.
"Had you any impression about it?"
"I thought it was some joke among the servants."
Gwen was disquieted, evidently. "I wish I hadn't heard it," said she,
"if it isn't to be delivered till to-morrow. That young woman is Dr.
Nash's housekeeper--Dr. Nash at Chorlton." She was speaking to ears that
had heard all about the twin sisters. She interrupted any answer that
meant to follow "Oh!" and "H'm!" by saying abruptly:--"I must see
Lutwyche and find out."
They turned with her, and retraced their steps, remarking that no doubt
it was nothing, but these things made one uncomfortable. Much better to
find out, and know!
A casual just entering to rejoin the revels stood aside to allow them to
pass, but was captured and utilised. "Go in and tell Miss Lutwyche I
want to speak to her out here." Gwen knew all about local class
distinctions, and was aware her maid would not be "Lutwyche" to a
village baker's daughter. The girl, awed into some qualification of mere
assent, which might have been presumptuous, said:--"Yes, my lady, if you
please."
Lutwyche was captured and came out. "What was it I was not to have till
to-morrow morning, Lutwyche? You know quite well what I mean. What was
the letter?"
The waiting-woman had a blank stare in preparation, to prevaricate with,
but had to give up using it. "Oh yes--there _was_ a _note_," she said.
"It was only a note. Mrs. Lamprey brought it from Dr. Nash. He wished
your ladyship to have it to-morrow."
"I will have it at once, thank you! Have you got it there? Just get it,
and bring it to me at once."
"I hope your ladyship does not blame me. I was only obeying orders."
"Get it, please, and don't talk." Her ladyship was rather incensed with
the young woman, but not for obeying orders. It was because of the
attempt to minimise the letter. It was just like Lutwyche. Nothing would
make that woman _really_ truthful!
Lutwyche caught up the party, which had not stopped for the finding of
the letter, at the drawing-room door. Gwen opened it as she entered the
room, saying, to anyone within hearing:--"Excuse my reading this." She
dropped on a sofa at hand, close to a chandelier rich with wax lights in
the lampless drawing-room. Percy Pellew and his _fiancée_ stood waiting
to share the letter's contents, if permitted.
The world, engaged with its own affairs, took no notice. The Earl and
the General were listening to tales of Canada from Sir Spencer Derrick.
The Countess was pretending to listen to other versions of the same
tales from that gentleman's wife. The others were talking about the war,
or Louis Napoleon, or Florence Nightingale, or hoping the frost would
continue, because nothing was more odious than a thaw in the country.
One guest became very unpopular by maintaining that a thaw had already
set in, alleging infallible instincts needing no confirmation from
thermometers.
The Countess had said, speaking at her daughter across the room:--"I
hope we are going to have some music;" and the Colonel had said:--"Ah,
give us a song, Gwen;" without eliciting any notice from their
beautiful hearer, before anyone but Miss Dickenson and Mr. Pellew
noticed the effect this letter was producing. Then the Earl, glancing at
the reader's face, saw, even from where he sat, how white it had become,
and how tense was its expression. He caught Mr. Pellew's attention. "Do
you know what it is, Percy?" said he. Mr. Pellew crossed the room
quickly, to reply under his breath:--"I am afraid it is some bad news of
her old lady at Chorlton.... Oh no--not _that_"--for the Earl had made
the syllable _dead_ with his lips, inaudibly--"but an alarm of some
sort. The doctor's housekeeper there brought the letter."
The Earl left Mr. Pellew, reiterating what he had said to the General,
and went over to his daughter. "Let me have it to see," said he, and
took the letter from her. He read little scraps, half-aloud, "'Was much
better all yesterday, but improvement has not continued.' ... 'Am taking
advantage of my housekeeper's visit to the Towers to send this.' ...
'Not to have it till to-morrow.' ... How was that?" Gwen explained
briefly, and he said:--"Looks as if the doctor took it for granted you
would come at once."
"Yes," said Gwen, "on receipt of the letter."
The Countess said, as one whose patience is sorely and undeservedly
tried:--"What _is_ it all about? I suppose we are to know." The war and
Louis Napoleon and Florence Nightingale lulled, and each asked his
neighbour what it was, and was answered:--"Don't know." The Colonel, a
man of the fewest possible words, said to the General:--"Rum! Not young
Torrens, I suppose?" And the General replied:--"No, no! Old lady of
eighty." Which the Colonel seemed to think was all right, and didn't
matter.
"I think, if I were you, I should see the woman who brought it," said
the Earl, after reading the letter twice; once quickly and once slowly.
Gwen answered:--"Yes, I think so,"--and left the room abruptly. Her
father took the letter, which he had retained, to show to her mother,
who read it once and handed it back to him. "I cannot advise," said she,
speaking a little from Olympus. She came down the mountain, however, to
say:--"See that she doesn't do anything mad. You have some influence
with her," and left the case--one of _dementia_--to her husband.
"I think," said he, "if you will excuse me, my dear, I will speak to
this woman myself."
Her ladyship demurred. "Isn't it almost making the matter of too much
importance?" said she, looking at her finger-diamonds as though to
protest against any idea that she was giving her mind to the case of
_dementia_.
"I think not, my dear," said the Earl, meekly but firmly, and followed
his daughter out of the room.
* * * * *
Very late that night, or rather very early next day, in the smoking-room
to which such males as it pleased to do so retired for a last cigar,
sundry of the younger members of the vanishing shooting-party, and one
or two unexplained nondescripts, came to the knowledge of a fact that
made one of them say--"Hookey!"; another--"Crikey!"; and a third and
fourth that they were blowed. All considered, more or less, that Mr.
Norbury, their informant, who had come to see the lights out, didn't
mean to say what he had said. He, however, adhered to his statement,
which was that Lady Gwendolen had had alarming news about an old lady
whom she was much interested in, and had been driven away in the closed
brougham by Tom Kettering to Chorlton, more than two hours ago. "I
thought it looked queer, when she didn't come back," said one of the
gentlemen who was blowed.
CHAPTER XXVI
HOW GWEN AND MRS. LAMPREY RODE TO STRIDES COTTAGE, AND FOUND DR.
NASH THERE. OF A LETTER FROM MAISIE'S SON, AND HOW IT HAD THROWN
HER BACK. AN ANXIOUS NIGHT WATCH. IMAGINATIONS OF SAPPS COURT.
PETER JACKSON'S NAMESAKE. HOW GWEN DREAMED OF DOLLY ON GENERAL
RAWNSLEY'S KNEE, AND WAS WAKED BY A SCREAM. READ ME ALOUD WHAT MY
SON SAYS! WHAT IS CALLED SNEERING. A MAG. A FLIMSY. HOW GWEN WAS
GOT TO BED, HALF ASLEEP. OLD MAISIE'S WILL. NOT UPSTAIRS OUT OF A
CARRIAGE, DOWNSTAIRS INTO A CARRIAGE. TWO STEPS BACK AND ONE
FORWARD. BEFORE THAT CLOCK STRIKES. _THEIR_ DAUGHTER
Whoever detected a thaw outside the house, by instinct at work within,
was an accurate weather-gauge. A wet, despairing moon was watching a
soaking world from a misty heaven; and chilly avalanches of undisguised
slush, that had been snow when the sun went down, were slipping on
acclivities and roofs, and clinging in vain to overhanging boughs, to
vanish utterly in pools and gutters and increasing rivulets. The
carriage-lamps of Gwen's conveyance, a closed brougham her father had
made a _sine qua non_ of her departure, shone on a highway that had seen
little traffic since the thaw set in, and that still had on it a memory
of fallen snow, and on either side of it the yielding shroud that had
made the land so white and would soon leave it so black. Never
mind!--the road was a better road, for all that it was heavier. No risk
now of a stumble on the ice, with the contingencies of a broken knee for
the horse, and an hour's tramp for its quorum!
The yew-tree in the little churchyard at Chorlton had still some
_coagulum_ of thaw-frost on it when the brougham plashed past the closed
lichgate, and left its ingrained melancholy to make the most of its
loneliness. Strides Cottage was just on ahead--five minutes at the most,
even on such a road. "They will be sure to be up, I suppose--one of them
at least," said Gwen to the woman in the carriage with her. It was Mrs.
Lamprey, whom Tom Kettering was to have driven back in any case, but not
in the brougham. Gwen had overruled her attempt to ride on the box, and
was sorry when she had done so. For she could not say afterwards:--"I'm
sure you would rather be up there, with Tom."
"I doubt they'll have gone to bed, my lady, either of them. Nor yet I
won't be quite sure we shan't find the doctor there." Thus Mrs. Lamprey,
making Gwen's heart sink. For what but very critical circumstances could
have kept Dr. Nash at the Cottage till past one in the morning? But
then, these circumstances must be recent. Else he could never have
wished the letter kept back till to-morrow. She said something to this
effect to her companion, who replied:--"No doubt your ladyship knows!"
There was a light in the front-room, and someone was moving about. The
arrival of the carriage caused the dog to bark, once but not more, as
though for recognition or warning; not as a dog who resented it--merely
as a janitor, officially. The doorbell, in response to a temperate pull,
grated on the silence of the night, overdoing its duty and suggesting
that the puller's want of restraint was to blame. Then came a footstep,
but no noise of bolt or bar withdrawn. Then Ruth Thrale's voice,
wondering who this could be. And then her surprise when she saw her
visitor, whose words to her were:--"I thought it best to come at once!"
"Oh, but she is better! Indeed we think she is better. Dr. Nash was to
write and tell you, so you should know--not to hurry to come too soon."
Thus Ruth, much distressed at this result of the doctor's despatch.
"Never mind me! You are sure she _is_ better? Is that Dr. Nash's voice?"
Yes--it was. He had been there since eleven, and was just going.
Ruth went in to tell Granny Marrable it was her ladyship, as Dr. Nash
came out. "I'm to blame, Lady Gwendolen," said he. "I'm to blame for
being in too great a hurry. It was a blunder. But I can't pretend to be
sorry I made it--that's the truth!"
"You mean that she isn't out of the wood?"
"That kind of thing. She _isn't_."
"Oh dear!" Gwen sank into a chair, looking white. Hope had flared up, to
be damped down. How often the stokers--nurses or doctors--have to pile
wet ashes on a too eager blaze! How seldom they dare to add fresh fuel!
"I will tell you," said the doctor. "She was very much better all
Friday, taking some nourishment. And there is no doubt the champagne did
her good--just a spoonful at a time, you know, not more. She isn't
halfway through the bottle yet. I thought she was on her way to pull
through, triumphantly. Then something upset her."
"Well, but--_what_?" For the doctor had paused at some obstacle,
unexplained.
"That I can't tell you. You must ask Granny Marrable about that. Not her
daughter--niece--whatever she is. Don't say anything to _her_. She is
not to know."
Granny Marrable was audible in the passage without. "Can't you tell me
what _sort_ of thing?" said Gwen, under her voice.
"It was in a letter that came to her from Snaps--Sapps Court. The Granny
wouldn't tell me what was in it, and begged I would say nothing of it to
Widow Thrale. But the old soul was badly upset by it, shaking all over
and asking for you...."
"Was she asking for me? Then I'm so glad you sent for me. I would not
have been away on any account."
"It had nothing to do with my writing. I should have written for you to
come to-morrow anyhow.... Here comes Granny Marrable." They had been
talking alone, as Mrs. Lamprey had gone outside to speak to Tom.
"Still asleep, Granny?" said the doctor. Yes--she was, said the old
lady; nicely asleep. "Then I'll be off, as it's late." Gwen suggested
that Tom might drive him home, with Mrs. Lamprey, and call back for
instructions.
Said Granny Marrable then, not as one under any new stress:--"My lady,
God bless you for coming, though I would have been glad it had been
daylight. To think of your ladyship out in the cold and damp, for our
sakes!"
"Never mind me, Granny! I'll go to bed to-morrow night. Now tell me
about this letter.... Is Ruth safe in there?" Yes, she was; and would
stay there by her dear mother. Gwen continued: --"Dr. Nash has just
told me there was some letter. But he did not know what was in it."
"He was not to know. But _you_ were, my lady. This is it. Can you see
with the candle?"
Gwen took the letter, and turned to the signature before reading it. It
was from "Ralph Thornton Daverill, _alias_ Rix," which she read quite
easily, for the handwriting was educated enough, and clear. "I see no
date," said she. "Why did Dr. Nash say it had come from Sapps Court?"
"Because, my lady, he saw the envelope. Perhaps your ladyship knows of
'Aunt Maria.' She is little Dave's aunt, in London."
"Oh yes--I know 'Aunt M'riar.' I know her, herself. Why does she write
her name on a letter from this man?"
"I do not know. There is all we know, in the letter, as you have it."
"Whom do you suppose Ralph Thornton Daverill to be, Granny?"
"I know, unhappily. He is her son."
"_The_ son.... Oh yes--I knew of him. She has told me of _him_. Besides,
I knew her name was Daverill, from the letters." Granny Marrable was
going on to say something, but Gwen stopped her, saying:--"First let me
read this." Then the Granny was silent, while the young lady read, half
aloud and half to herself, this following letter:--
"MOTHER--You will be surprised to get this letter from me. Are you
sorry I am not dead? Can't say I'm glad. I have been His Majesty's
guest for one long spell, and Her Majesty's for another, since you
saw the last of me. I'm none so sure I wasn't better off then, but
I couldn't trust H.M.'s hospitality again. It might run to a rope's
end. Dodging blood-hounds is my lay now, and I lead the life of a
cat in hell. But I'm proud--proud I am. You read the newspaper
scrap I send along with this, and you'll be proud of your son. I'm
a chip of the old block, and when my Newgate-frisk comes, I'll die
game. Do you long to see your loving son? If you don't, send him a
quid or two--or put it at a fiver. Just for to enable him to lead
an honest life, which is my ambition. You can come to a fiver. Or
would you rather have your loving son come and ask for it? How
would you like it, if you were an honest man without a mag in his
pocket, and screwpulls of conscience? You send on a flimsy to
M'riar. She'll see I get it. I'll come for more when I want it--you
be easy. So no more at present from your dutiful son:--
RALPH THORNTON DAVERILL, _alias_ RIX."
"P.S.--You can do it--or _ask a kind friend_ to help."
"What a perfectly intolerable letter!" said Gwen. "What does he mean by
a newspaper scrap?... Oh, is that it?" She took from the old lady a
printed cutting, and read it aloud. "Fancy his being _that_ man," said
she. "It made quite a talk last winter--was in all the papers." It was
the paragraph Uncle Mo had come upon in the _Star_.
"I have seen that man," said Granny Marrable. And so sharp was Gwen in
linking up clues, that she exclaimed at once:--"What--the madman? Dr.
Nash told me of _him_. Didn't he come to hunt her up?"
"That was it, my lady. And he was all but caught. But I have never
spoken of my meeting him, and she has barely spoken of him, till this
letter came yesterday. And then we could speak of him together. But not
Ruth. She was to know nothing. She was not here, by good luck, just the
moment that it came."
"And my dear old Mrs. Picture? Oh, Granny--what a letter for her to
get!"
"Indeed, my lady, she was very badly shaken by it. I would have been
glad if I might have read it myself first, to tell her of it gently."
Granny Marrable was entirely mistaken. "Break it gently," sounds so
well! What is it worth in practice?
"Could she understand the letter. _I_ couldn't, at first."
"She understood it better than I did. But it set her in a trembling, and
then she got lost-like, and we thought it best to go for Dr. Nash....
No--Ruth never knew anything of the letter, not a word. And her mother
said never a word to her. For he was her brother."
"I cannot understand some things in the letter now, but I see he is
thoroughly vile. One thing is good, though! What he wants is money."
"Will that...?"
"Keep him quiet and out of the way? Yes--of course it will. Let me take
the letter to show to my father. He will know what to do." She knew that
her father's first thought might be to use the clue to catch the man,
but she also knew he would not act upon it if his doing so was likely to
shorten the span of life still left to old Maisie. "What was he like?"
said she to Granny Marrable.
"Some might call him good-looking," was the cautious answer.
"You think _I_ shouldn't, evidently?" Evidently.
"It is not the face itself. It is in the shape of it. A twist. I took
him for mad, but he is not."
"How came you to know him for your sister's son?"
"Ah, my lady, how could I? For Maisie was still dead then, for me. I
could know he was Mrs. Prichard's son, for he said so."
"I see. It was before. But you talk about him to her now?"
"She cannot talk of much else, when Ruth is away. She will talk of him
to you, when she wakes.... Hush--I think Ruth is coming!" Gwen slipped
the letter in her pocket, to be out of the way.
No change in her mother--that was Ruth's report. She had not stirred in
her sleep. You could hardly hear her breathe. This was to show that you
_could_ hear her breathe, by listening. It covered any possible alarm
about the nature of so moveless a sleep, without granting discussion of
the point.
Gwen had told Tom Kettering to return shortly, but only for orders. Her
own mind was quite made up--not to leave the old lady until alarms had
died down. If the clouds cleared, she would think about it. Tom must
drive back at once to the Towers; and if anyone was still out of bed
whose concern it was to know, he might explain that she was not coming
back at present. Or stop a minute!--she would write a short line to her
father. Ruth and Granny Marrable lodged a formal protest. But how glad
they were to have her there, on any terms!
She had really come prepared to stay the night; but until she could hear
how the land lay had not disclosed her valise. Tom, returning for
orders, deposited it in the front-room, and departed, leaving it to be
carefully examined by the dog, who could not disguise his interest in
leather.
The only obstacle to an arrangement for one of the three to be always
close at hand when the sleeper waked was the usual one. In such cases
everyone wants to be the sentinel on the first watch, and not on any
account to sleep. A dictator is needed, and Gwen assumed the office. Her
will was not to be disputed. She told Granny Marrable and Ruth to go to
bed or at least to go and lie down, and she would call one of them if it
was necessary. They looked at each other and obeyed. She herself could
lie down and sleep, if she chose, on the big bed beside the old lady,
and she might choose. The end would be gained. There would then be no
fear of old Maisie awakening alone in the dark, a prey to horrible
memories and apprehensions, this last one worst of all--this nightmare
son with his hideous gaol-bird past and his veiled threats for the
future. That was more important than the meat-jelly, beef-tea,
stimulants, what not? They would probably be refused. Still they were to
be reckoned with, and Ruth was within call to supply them.
In the darkness and the silence of the night, a solitary, discouraged
candle in a shade protesting feebly against the one, and every chance
sound that day would have ignored emphasizing the other, the stillness
of the figure on the bed became a mystery and an oppression. How Gwen
would have welcomed a recurrence of the faintest breath, to keep alive
her confidence that this was only sleep--sleep to be welcomed as the
surest herald of life and strength! How she longed to touch the
blue-veined wrist upon the coverlid, but once, just for a certainty of a
beating pulse, however faint! She dared not, even when a heavy avalanche
of melted snow from the eaves without, that made her start, left the
sleeper undisturbed; even when a sudden faggot in the fireplace,
responsive to the snowfall, broke and fell into the smouldering red
below, and crackled into flame without awakening her. For Gwen knew the
shrewd powers of a finger-touch to rouse the deepest sleeper. But she
was grateful for that illumination, for it showed her a silver thread of
hair near enough to the nostril to be stirred to and fro by the breath
that went and came. And by its light the delicate transparency of the
wrist showed the regular pulsation of the heart. All was well.
She had plenty to occupy her thoughts. She could sit and think of the
strangeness of her own life, and its extraordinary inequalities. What
could clash more discordantly than this moment and a memory of a month
ago that rushed into her mind for no apparent reason but to make a
parade of its own incongruity. Do you remember that brilliant dress of
Madame Pontet that she tried on at Park Lane, with "the usual tight
armhole"? That dress had figured as a notable achievement of the
_modiste's_ art, worthy of its wearer's surpassing beauty, in a dazzling
crowd of Stars and Garters and flashing diamonds, and loveliness that
was old enough for Society, and valour that was too old for the field of
battle; and much of the wit of the time and a little of the learning,
trappings of well-mounted _dramatis personae_ on the World's stage. That
dress and its contents had made many a woman jealous, and been tenacious
of many a man's memory, young and old, for weeks after. Here was the
wearer, watching in the night beside a convict's relict, a worse
convict's mother, a waif and stray picked up in a London Court off
Tottenham Court Road! And the heart of the watcher was praying for only
one little act of grace in Destiny, to grant a short span yet of life,
were it no more than a year, to this frail survivor of a long and cruel
separation from one whose youth had been another self to her own.
And as for that other affair, what _did_ she really recollect of it?
Well--she could remember that tight armhole, certainly, and was far from
sure she should ever forget it.
The chance that had brought the sisters back to each other was so
strange that the story of their deception and the loss of every clue to
its remedy seemed credible by comparison--a negligible improbability.
Would they necessarily have recognised one another at all if that letter
had not come into the hands of her father? She herself would never have
dared to open it; or, if she had, would she have understood its
contents? Without that letter, what would the course of events have
been? Go back and think of it! Imagine old Mrs. Picture in charge of
Widow Thrale, groundedly suspected of lunacy, miserable under the fear
that the suspicion might be true--for who can gauge his own sanity?
Imagine Granny Marrable, kept away at Denby by her daughter, that her
old age should not be afflicted by a lunatic. Imagine the longing of
Sapps Court to have Mrs. Picture back, and the chair with cushions, in
the top garret, that yawned for her. Imagine these, and remember that
probably old Maisie, to seem sane at any cost, would have gone on
indefinitely keeping silence about her own past life, whatever
temptation she may have been under to speak again of the mill-model,
invisible in its carpet-roll above the fireplace. Remember that what Dr.
Nash elicited from her, as an interesting case of _dementia_, was not
necessarily repeated to Mrs. Thrale, and would have been a dead letter
in the columns of the _Lancet_ later on. Certainly the chances of an
_éclaircissement_ were at a minimum when Gwen returned from London, her
own newly acquired knowledge of its materials apart. But then, how about
the poor crazy old soul's daughter's new-born love for her unrecognised
mother, and her mysteriously heart-whole return for it?
That _might_ have brought the end about. But to Gwen it seemed
speculative and uncertain, and to point to no more than a possible
return to London of the mother, accompanied by her unknown and unknowing
daughter. A curious vision flashed across her mind of Ruth Thrale,
entertained at Sapps by old Mrs. Picture; and there, by the window, the
table with the new leg; and, in the drawer of it ... what? A letter
written five-and-forty years ago, that had changed the lives of both!
Gwen's imagination restored the unread letter to its place, with rigid
honesty. But--how strange!
Then her imagination came downstairs, and glanced in on the way at the
room where the mysterious fireman, who came from the sky, had deposited
the half-insensible old lady, after the cataclysm. It was Uncle Mo's
room, on the safe side of the house; and the walls were enriched with
prints of heroes of the Ring in old time; Figg and Broughton, Belcher
and Bendigo, sparring for ever in close-fitting pants by themselves on a
very fine day. She recalled how the unmoved fireman, departing, had
shown a human interest in one of these, remarking that it was a namesake
of his. Suppose that fireman had not been at hand, how would old Maisie
have been got downstairs? Suppose that she herself had been flattened
under the ruins, would all things now have been quite otherwise? See how
much had turned on that visit to Cavendish Square! No--a hundred things
had happened, the absence of any one of which might have changed the
current of events, and left old Maisie to end her days undeceived; and
perhaps the whole tale of her lonely life and poverty to come to light
afterwards, and cast a gloom without a chance of solace over the last
hours of her surviving twin....
Was that the movement of a long-drawn breath, the precursor of an
unspoken farewell to the land of dreams? Scarcely! Nothing but a fancy,
this time, bred of watching too closely in the silence! Wait for the
clear signs of awakening, sure to come, in time!
It was so still, Gwen could hear the swift tick-tick-tick in the
watch-pocket at the bed's head; and, when she listened to it, her
consciousness that the big clock in the kitchen was at odds with the
hearth-cricket, rebuking his speed solemnly, grew less and less. For the
sound we look to hear comes out of the silence, when no other sound has
in it the force to speak on its own behalf. Two closed doors made the
kitchen-chorus dim. The new faggot had said its say, and given in to
mere red heat, with a stray flicker at the end. Drip and trickle were
without, and now and then a plash that said:--"Keep in doors, because of
me!" Gwen closed her eyes, as, since she was so wakeful, she could do so
with perfect safety; and listened to that industrious little watch.
It had become Dolly reciting the days of the week, before she knew her
vigilance was in danger. Gwen was certainly not asleep long, because
Dolly had only got to the second Tundy, when a scream awoke her, close
at hand to where Dolly was seated on General Rawnsley's knee. But it was
quick work, to think out where she was, and to throw her arms round the
frail, trembling form that was starting up from some terror of dreamland
unexplained, on the bed beside her.
"What is it, dear, what is it? Don't be frightened. See, I'm Gwen! I
brought you here, you know. There--there! Now it's all right." She spoke
as one speaks to a frightened child.
Old Maisie was trembling all over, and did not know where she was, at
first. "Don't let him come--don't let him come!" was what she kept
saying, over and over again. This passed off, and she knew Gwen, but was
far from clear about time and place. Questioned as to who it was that
was not to come, she had forgotten, but was aware she had been asleep
and dreaming. "Did I make a great noise and shout out?" said she.
Ruth Thrale appeared, waked by the cry. It had not added to her
uneasiness. "She was like this, all yesterday," said she. "All on the
jar. Dr. Nash hopes it will pass off." Ruth, of course, knew nothing of
the coming of the son's letter, and regarded her mother's state as only
a fluctuation. She had a quiet self-command that refused to be
panic-struck. In fact, she had held back from coming, long enough to
make sure that Granny Marrable had slept through the scream. That was
all right. Gwen urged her to go back to bed, and prevailed over her by
adopting a positive tone. She agreed to go when she had made "her
mother" swallow something to sustain life. Gwen asked if the champagne
had continued in favour. "She doesn't fancy it alone," said Ruth. "But I
put it in milk, and she takes it down without knowing it." Probably
nurses are the most fraudulent people in the world.
Old Maisie kept silence resolutely about the letter until Ruth had gone
back; which she only did unwillingly, as concession to a _force
majeure_. Then the old lady said:--"Is she gone? I would not have her
see her brother's letter. But I would be glad you should see it, my
dear." She was exploring feebly under her pillow and bolster, to find
it. Gwen understood. "It's not there," said she. "I have it here. Granny
Marrable got at it to show to me." She hoped the old lady was not going
to insist on having that letter re-read. It made the foulness of the
criminal world, unknown to her except as material for the legitimate
drama, a horrible reality, and bred misgivings that the things in the
newspapers were really true.
Old Maisie disappointed her. "Read me aloud what my son says," said she.
Then Gwen understood what Granny Marrable had meant when she said that,
of the two, her sister had understood it the better. For as she uttered
the letter's repulsive expressions, reluctantly enough, a side-glance
showed her old Maisie's listening face and closed eyes, nowise disturbed
at her son's rather telling description of his hunted life. At the
reference to the "newspaper scrap" she said:--"Yes, Phoebe read me that
with her glasses. He got away." Gwen felt that that strange past life,
in a land where almost every settler had the prison taint on him, had
left old Maisie abler to endure the flavour of the gaol-bird's speech
about himself. It was as though an Angel who had been in Hell might know
all its ways, and yet remain unsullied by the knowledge.
But at the words:--"Do you long to see your loving son?" she moved and
spoke uneasily. "What does he mean? Oh, what does he mean? Was it all
his devil?" She seemed ill able to find words for her meaning, but Gwen
took it that she was trying to express some hint of a better self in
this son, perhaps latent behind the evil spirit that possessed him.
Her comment was:--"Oh dear no! What he means is that he will come and
frighten you to death if you don't send him money. It is only a threat
to get money. Dear Mrs. Picture, don't you fret about him. Leave him to
me and my father.... What does he mean by a quid? A hundred pounds, I
suppose? And a fiver, five hundred?... is that it?"
"Oh no--he would never ask me for all that money! A quid is a
guinea--only there are no guineas now. He means a five-pound-note by a
fiver." Her voice died from weakness. The "Please go on!" that followed,
was barely audible.
Gwen read on:--"'Just for to enable him to lead an honest life.' Dear
Mrs. Picture, I must tell you I think this is what is called _sneering_.
You know what that means? He is not in earnest."
"Oh yes--I know. I am afraid you are right. But is it _himself_?" That
idea of the devil again!
Gwen evaded the devil. "We must hope not," said she. She went on,
learning by the way what a "mag" was, and a "flimsy." She paused on Aunt
M'riar. Why was "M'riar" to act as this man's agent? She wished Thothmes
was there, with his legal acumen. But old Maisie might be able to tell
_something_. She questioned her gently. How did she suppose Aunt Maria
came to know anything of her son? She had to wait for the answer.
It came in time. "Not Aunt M'riar. Someone else."
"No--Aunt Maria. She wrote her name on the envelope; to show where it
came from, I suppose." The perplexity suggested silenced old Maisie.
Gwen compared the handwritings of the letter and direction. They were
the same--a man's hand, clearly. "From Aunt Maria" was in a woman's
hand. Gwen did not attempt to clear up the mystery. She was too anxious
about the old lady, and, indeed, was feeling the strain of this
irregular night. For, strong as she was, she was human.
Her anxiety kept the irresistible powers of Sleep at bay for a while;
and then, when it was clear that old Maisie was slumbering again, with
evil dreams in abeyance, she surrendered at discretion. All the world
became dim, and when the clock struck four, ten seconds later, she did
not hear the last stroke.
* * * * *
When Gwen awoke six hours after, she had the haziest recollections of
the night. How it had come about that she found herself in another room,
warmly covered up, and pillowed on luxury itself, with a smell of
lavender in it that alone was bliss, she could infer from Ruth Thrale's
report. This went to show that when Ruth and Granny Marrable came into
the room at about six, they found her ladyship undisguisedly asleep
beside old Maisie; and when she half woke, persuaded her away to more
comfortable quarters. She had no distinct memory of details, but found
them easy of belief, told by eyewitnesses.
How was the dear old soul herself? Had she slept sound, or been roused
again by nightmares? Well--she had certainly done better than on the
previous afternoon and evening, after the receipt of that letter. Thus
Granny Marrable, in conference with her ladyship at the isolated
breakfast of the latter. Ruth, to whom the contents of the letter were
still unknown, was keeping guard by her mother.
"We put it all down to your ladyship," said the Granny, with grave
truthfulness--not a trace of flattery. "She can never tire of telling
the good it does her to see you." This was the nearest she could go,
without personality, to a hint at the effect the sheer beauty of her
hearer had on the common object of their anxiety.
Gwen knew perfectly well what she meant. She was used to this sort of
thing. "She likes my hair," said she, to lubricate the talk; and gave
the mass of unparalleled gold an illustrative shake. Then, to steer the
ship into less perilous, more impersonal waters:--"I must have another
of those delightful little hot rolls, if I die for it. Mr. Torrens's
mother--him I brought here, you know; he's got a mother--says new bread
at breakfast is sudden death. _I_ don't care!"
The Granny was fain to soften any implied doubt of a County Magnate's
infallibility, even when uttered by one still greater. "A many," said
she, "do not find them unwholesome." This left the question pleasantly
open. But she was at a loss to express something she wanted to say. It
_is_ difficult to tell your guest, however surpassingly beautiful, that
she has been mistaken for an Angel, even when the mistake has been made
by failing powers or delirium, or both together. Yet that was what
Granny Marrable's perfect truthfulness and literal thought were hanging
fire over. Old Maisie had said to her, in speech as passionate as her
weakness allowed:--"Phoebe, dearest Phoebe, my lady is God's Angel, come
from Heaven to drive the fiend out of the heart of my poor son." And
Phoebe, to whom everything like concealment was hateful, wanted sorely
to repeat to her ladyship the conversation which ended in this climax.
Otherwise, how could the young lady come to know what was passing in
Maisie's mind?
She approached the subject with caution. "My dear sister's mind," said
she, "has been greatly tried. So we must think the less of exciting
fancies. But I would not say her nay in anything she would have me
think."
Gwen's attention was caught. "What sort of things?" said she. "Yes--some
more coffee, please, and a great deal of sugar!"
"Strange, odd things. Stories, about Van Diemen's Land."
Gwen had a clue, from her tone. "Has she been telling you about the
witch-doctor, and the devil, and the scorpion, and the little beast?"
"They were in her story. It made my flesh creep to hear so outlandish a
tale. And she told your ladyship?"
"Oh dear yes! She has told me all about it! And not only me, but Mr.
Torrens. The old darling! Did she tell you of the little polecat beast
the doctor ate, who was called a devil, and how he possessed the
doctor--no getting rid of him?"
"She told me something like that."
"And what did you say to her?"
"I said that Our Lord cast out devils that possessed the swine, and had
He cast them again out of the swine, they might have possessed
Christians. For I thought, to please Maisie, I might be forgiven such
speech."
"Why not? That was all right." Gwen could not understand why Scripture
should be inadmissible, or prohibited.
Granny Marrable seemed to think it might be the latter. "I would not be
thought," she said, "to compare what we are taught in the Bible with ...
with _things_. Our Lord was in Galilee, and we are taught what came to
pass. This was in The Colonies, where any one of us might be, to-day or
to-morrow."
Gwen appreciated the distinction. It would clearly be irreverent to
mention a nowadays-devil, close at hand, in the same breath as the
remoter Gadarenes. She said nothing about Galilee being there still,
with perhaps the identical breed of swine, and even madmen. The Granny's
inner vision of Scripture history was unsullied by realisms--a true
history, of course, but clear of vulgar actualities. Still, something
was on her mind that she was bound to speak about to her ladyship, and
she was forced to use the Gospel account of an incident "we were taught"
to believe no longer possible, as a means of communicating to Gwen what
she herself held to be no more than a feverish dream of her sister's
weakness. Gwen detected in her tone its protest against the confusion of
vulgar occurrences, in all their coarse authenticity, with the events of
Holy Writ, and forthwith launched out in an attempt to find the
underlying cause of it. "Did the old darling," said she, "tell you how
Rookaroo, or whatever his name was, passed his devil on to her husband
and son?"
"I think, my lady, she has that idea."
"It seems to me a very reasonable idea," said Gwen. "Once you have a
devil at all, why not? And it was to be like the madman in the tombs in
the land of the Gadarenes! Poor old darling Mrs. Picture!"
Old Phoebe felt very uncomfortable, for Gwen was not taking the devil
seriously. Although scarcely prepared to have Scripture used to
substantiate a vulgar Colonial sample, the old lady was even less ready
to have such a one doubted, if the doubt was to recoil on his prototype.
"Maisie is of the mind to fancy this evil spirit might even now be
driven from her son's heart, and bring him to repentance. But I told her
a many things might be, in the days of our blessed Lord, in the Holy
Land, that were forbidden now. It was just his own wickedness, I told
her, and no devil to be cast out. But she was so bent on the idea, that
I could not find it in me to say this man might not repent and turn to
Godliness yet, by your ladyship's influence, or Parson Dunage's." This
introduction of the incumbent of Chorlton was an afterthought. The fact
is, Granny Marrable was endeavouring to suggest a rationalistic
interpretation of her sister's undisguised mysticism; fever-bred, no
doubt, but scarcely to be condemned as delusion outright without
impugning devils, who are standard institutions. Good influences,
brought to bear on perverted human hearts, are quite correct and modern.
Granny Marrable's words left Gwen unsuspicious that powers of exorcism
had been imputed to her. The ascription of them might be--certainly
was--nothing but an outcome of the overstrain and tension of the last
few days, but the repetition of it in cold blood to its subject might
have been taken to mean that it was a symptom of insanity. Gwen did not
press her to tell more, as Dr. Nash made his appearance. The frequency
of his visits was a source of uneasiness to her. She would have liked to
hear him say there was now no need for him to come again till he was
sent for.
"Any fresh developments?" said he, as Granny Marrable left the room to
herald his arrival. He heard Gwen's account of her own experience in the
night, and seemed disquieted. "I wish," said he abruptly, "that people
would keep their letters to themselves. I am not to be told what was in
the letter, I understand?" For Gwen had skipped the contents of it,
merely saying that Mrs. Picture had asked to hear her letter read
through again.
Then Widow Thrale came in, saying her mother was ready to see the
doctor. Mother was with her mother, she said. The doctor departed into
the bedroom.
"How long has your mother been awake?" asked Gwen under no drawback
about the designation.
"Quite half an hour. I told her your ladyship was having a little
breakfast. She always asks for you."
"I heard that she was talking, through the door. What has she been
talking about?"
Ruth's memory went back conscientiously, for a starting-point. "About
her annuity," she said, "first. Then about the young children--little
Dave and Dolly. That's mother's little Dave, only it's all so strange to
think of. And then she talked about the accident."
"What about her annuity? I'm curious about that. I wonder who sends it
to her?"
"She says it comes from the Office, because they know her address. She
says Susan Burr took them the new address, when they left Skillick's.
She says she writes her name on the back...."
"It's a cheque, I suppose?"
"Your ladyship would know. Susan Burr takes it to the Bank and brings
back the money." Ruth hesitated over saying:--"I would be happier my
mother should not fret so about herself ... she was for making her will,
and I told her there would be time for that."
"Oh yes--plenty!" Gwen thought to herself that old Mrs. Picture's
testamentary arrangements were of less importance than tranquillity, as
matters stood at present. "What did she say of Dave and Dolly?"
"She was put about to think how they would be told, if she died."
"How would they be told?... I can't think." Gwen asked herself the
question, and parried it.
Ruth Thrale escaped in a commonplace. The dear children would have to
be told, but they would not grieve for long. Children didn't.
Gwen hoped she was right--always a good thing to do. But what had her
mother said about the accident? Oh--the accident! Well--she remembered
very little of it. She did not know why she should have become half
unconscious. The last thing she could be clear about was that Dave was
shouting for joy, and Dolly frightened and crying. Then a gentleman
carried her upstairs out of a carriage.
"No!" said Gwen. "Carried her downstairs into a carriage.... Oh no!--I
know what she meant. It was my cousin Percy, not the fireman."
At this point Dr. Nash returned from the bedroom. Gwen began hoping that
he had found his patient really better, but something stopped her
speech, and she said:--"Oh!" Ruth Thrale was outside the room by then,
far enough to miss the disappointment in her voice.
Dr. Nash glanced round to make sure she was out of hearing, and closed
the door. "I don't like to say much, either way," said he.
Gwen turned pale. "You need not be afraid to tell me," she said.
"I see you know what I mean," said he, reading into her thoughts.
"Miracle apart, one knows what to expect. I don't believe in any
miracle, though certainly she has everything in her favour for it, in
one sense."
"Meaning?" said Gwen interrogatively.
"Meaning that she has absolutely nothing the matter with her. If she has
any active disorder, all I can say is it has baffled me to find it out."
"But, then, why?..."
"Why be frightened? Listen, and I'll tell you.... We gain nothing, you
know, by not looking the facts in the face."
"I know. Go on." Gwen sat down, and waited. Some faces lose under stress
of emotion. It was a peculiarity of this young lady's that every fresh
tension added to the surpassing beauty of hers.
"I want you," said the doctor, speaking in a dry, businesslike way--"I
want you to go back to when you brought her down here from London. Think
of her then."
"I am thinking of her. I can remember her then, perfectly." And Gwen,
thinking of that journey, saw her old companion plainly enough. A very
old delicate woman, in need of consideration and care. No bedridden
invalid! "When did the change show itself?" The doctor took the image
in her mind for granted, successfully.
Then Gwen cast about to find an answer. "I think it must have been ..."
said she, and stopped.
"When did you _see_ it?"
"When I came back, first. After I told her, still more."
"After that?"
"I thought she was improving, every day."
"I thought you thought so."
"And you mean that it was a mistake. Oh dear!"
The doctor shook his head, slowly and sadly. "Yesterday, at this time,"
said he, "she could sit up in bed. With an exertion, you know! To-day
she can't do it at all." Both remained silent, and seemed to accept a
conclusion that did not need words. Then the doctor resumed, speaking
very quietly:--"It is always like this. Two steps back and one
forward--two steps back and one forward. We see the one step on because
we want to. We don't want to see what's unwelcome. So we don't discount
the losses."
Then Gwen, with that quiet resolution which he had known to be part of
her character, or he would scarcely have been so explicit, said:--"What
will she die of?"
"Old age, accelerated by mental perturbation."
"Can you at all guess when?"
"If she had any definite malady, I could guess better. She may linger on
for weeks. It won't go to months, in any case. Or she may pop off before
that clock strikes."
"Shall we tell them?"
"I say no. _No._ They will probably have her the longer for not knowing.
And, mind you, she is keeping her faculties. She's wonderfully bright,
and is suffering absolutely nothing."
"You are sure of that?"
"Absolutely sure. Go in and talk to her now. You'll find her quite
herself, but for a little fancifulness at times. It really is no more
than that.... By-the-by!..."
"What?"
"Do _you_ know what was in the letter that upset her so? The old Granny
did not say what was in it, and charged me to say nothing to her
daughter." The doctor had all but said:--"To _their_ daughter!"
"I know what was in the letter." Gwen paused a moment to consider how
much she should tell, and then took the doctor into her confidence; not
exhaustively, but sufficiently. "You are supposed to know nothing about
it," said she. "But I don't think it much matters, so long as
Ruth--Widow Thrale--does not know. That is her mother's wish. I don't
suppose she really minds, about you."
"All I can say is, I wish to God this infernal scoundrel's devil would
fly away with him. Good-morning. I shall be round again about six
o'clock."
CHAPTER XXVII
HOW SPARROWS GORMANDISE. DAVE'S CISTERN. DOLLY AND JONES'S BULL.
THE LETTER HAD DONE IT. HOW TOM KETTERING DROVE WIDOW THRALE TO
DENBY'S FARM, AND MAISIE WOKE UP. HOW DAVE ATE TOO MANY MULBERRIES.
OLD JASPER. OLD GOSSET AND CULLODEN. HIS TOES. HOW MAISIE ASKED TO
SEE THE OLD MODEL AGAIN, AND HAD IT OUT BESIDE THE BED. DID IT GO
ROUND, OR WAS DAVE MISTAKEN? THE GLASS WATER, AND HOW MAISIE HAD
BROKEN A PIECE OFF, SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW A RATCHET-SPRING STRUCK
WORK. WAS IT TOBY OR TOFT? BARNABY. BRAINTREE. ST. PAUL'S.
BARNABY'S CO-RESPONDENCE. OLD CHIPSTONE. HOW PHOEBE NEARLY LOST
HER EYE. OLD MARTHA PRICHARD. A REVERIE OF GWEN'S, ENDING IN
LAZARUS. MAISIE'S PURSE
Has it ever been your lot--you who read this--to be told that Life is
ebbing, slowly, slowly, every clock-tick telling on the hours that are
left before the end--the end of all that has made your fellow in the
flesh more than an image and a name? In so many hours, so many minutes,
that image as it was will be vanishing, that name will be a memory. All
that made either of them ours to love or hate, to be thought of as
friend or foe, will have ceased for all time--for all the time we
anticipate; more, or less as may be, than Oblivion's period, named in
her pact with Destiny. In so many hours, so many minutes, that unseen
mystery, the thing we call our friend's, our foe's, own _self_ will make
no sign to show that this is he. And we shall determine that he is no
more, or agree that he has departed, much as we have been taught to
think, but little as we have learned to know.
If you yourself have outlived other lives, and yet borne the
foreknowledge of Death unmoved, you will not understand why Gwen's heart
within her, when she heard Dr. Nash's words and took their meaning,
should be likened to a great stifled sob, nor why she had to summon all
her powers afield to bear arms against her tears. They came at her call,
and fought so well that the enemy had fled before she had to show dry
eyes, and speak with normal voice, to Ruth Thrale, who came in to say
that her mother was asking for her ladyship. Come what might, she must
keep her gloomy knowledge from Ruth.
"What a fuss about old me!" says the voice from the pillow, speaking
low, but with happy contentment. "Would not anyone think I was dying?"
Now, if only Dr. Nash would have kept those prophecies to himself, Gwen
would have thought her better. She could have discounted the weakness,
or laid it down to imperfect nourishment. She could not trust herself to
much speech, saying only:--"We shall have you walking about soon, and
what will the doctor say then?"
She looked across at the old sister, grave and silent, whom she had
supposed unoppressed, so far, by medical verdicts. But the invitation of
a smile she achieved, mechanically, to help towards incredulity of
Death, only met a half-response. "Indeed, my lady," said Granny
Marrable, "we shall have some time to wait for that, if she will still
eat nothing. A sparrow could not live upon the little food she takes."
What was old Maisie saying? She could live on less than a sparrow's
food--that was the upshot. The sparrow was a greedy little bird, and she
had seen him gormandise in Sapps Court. "My darling Dave and Dolly," she
said, "would feed them, on the leads at the back, out of my bedroom
window, where the cistern is." Gwen perceived the source of a
misapprehension of Dave's.
"He's to come here," said she. "Him and Dolly. And then they can feed
the cocks and hens."
"When I'm up," said old Maisie. She had no misgivings.
"When you're up."
"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull?"
"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull."
"But not Dolly, because she would be frightened."
"Not Dolly, then. Dolly is small, to see Bulls." Old Maisie closed her
eyes upon this, and enjoyed the thought of Dave's rapture at that
appalling Bull.
Granny Marrable indicated by two glances, one at Gwen, the other at the
white face on the pillow, that her sister might sleep, given silence.
Gwen watched for the slackening of the hand that held hers, to get
gently free. Old Phoebe did the same, and drew the bed-curtain
noiselessly, to hide the window-light. Both stole away, leaving what
might have been an alabaster image, scarcely breathing, on the bed.
"It is the letter that has done it. Oh, _how_ unfortunate!" So Gwen
spoke, to the Granny, in the kitchen: for Ruth, though attending to the
Sunday dinner, was for the moment absent. So the letter could be
referred to.
"I fear what your ladyship says is true."
"But at least we know what it is that has done it. That is _something_."
Granny Marrable seemed slow to understand. "I mean, if it had not been
for the letter, she certainly need not have been any worse than she was
last Sunday. She was getting on so well, Ruth said, on Friday, after the
champagne. Oh dear!"
"It will be as God wills, my lady. If my dear sister is again to be
taken from me...."
"Oh, Granny, do not let us talk like that!" But Gwen could put little
heart into her protest. The doctor had taken all the wind out of her
sails.
Old Phoebe let the interruption pass. "If Maisie dies ..." said she, and
stopped.
"If Maisie dies...?" said Gwen, and waited.
The answer came, but not at once. "It is the second time."
"I don't think I quite understand, Granny," said Gwen gently. Which was
meant, that this made it easier to bear, or harder?
"I am slow to speak what I think, my lady. I would like to find words to
say it.... I lost Maisie forty-five--yes!--forty-six years ago, and the
grief of her loss is with me still. Had she died here, near at hand, so
I might have known where they laid her, I would have kept fresh flowers
on her grave till now. But she was dead, far away across the sea. I am
too old now for what has come of it. But I can see what-like it all is.
Maisie is with me again, from the tomb--for a little while, and then to
go. She will go first, and I shall soon follow; it cannot be long.
No--it cannot be long! The light will come. And God be praised for His
goodness! We shall lie in one grave, Maisie and I. We shall not be
parted in Death." These last words Gwen accepted as conventional. She
listened, somewhat as in a dream, to Granny Marrable's voice, going
quietly on, with no very audible undertone of pain in it:--"It is not of
myself I am thinking, but my child. She has found her mother, and loved
her, before she knew it was herself, risen from the grave.... Oh
no--no--no, my lady, I know it all well. My head is right. Maisie has
been at hand these long years past, all unknown to me--oh, how cruelly
unknown!" Here her words broke a little, with audible pain. "Her coming
to us has been a resurrection from the tomb. It is little to me now, I
am so near the end. But my heart goes out to my child, who will lose
her mother.... Hush, she is coming back!"
The thought in Gwen's heart was:--"Pity me too, Granny, for I too--I,
with all the wealth of the world at my feet!--shall feel a heartstring
snap when this frail old waif and stray, so strangely found by me in a
London slum, so strangely brought back by me into your life again, has
passed away into the unknown." For she had scarcely been alive till now
to the whole of her mysterious affection for dear old Mrs. Picture.
Ruth Thrale came back, and the day went on. Old Maisie remained asleep,
sleeping as the effigy sleeps upon a tomb, but always with regular
breath, barely sensible, and the same slow pulse. Now and again it might
have seemed that breath had ceased. But it was not so. If the powers of
life were on the wane, it was very slowly.
* * * * *
Tom Kettering returned at the appointed time, to a minute, and took no
notice of his own arrival beyond socketing his whip in its stall, in
token of its abdication. He had been told to come and wait, and he
proceeded to wait, _sine die_. Gwen interrupted him in this employment,
by coming out to tell him that she was stopping on, and that he was to
go back to the Towers and say so. He looked so depressed at this that
she bethought her of a compensation. She knew that Ruth Thrale had cause
for anxiety about her own daughter; and, so far as could be seen, her
immediate presence was not necessary, for no change appeared imminent.
So she persuaded, or half-commanded, Ruth to be driven over to Denby's
Farm by Tom Kettering, to remain there two or three hours, and be
brought back by him or otherwise, as might be convenient. Her son-in-law
might drive her back, and Tom might return to the Towers. It would make
her mind easier to see Maisie junior, and get a forecast of
probabilities at the farm. Ruth was not hard to prevail upon to do this,
and was driven away by Tom over slushy roads, through the irresolute
Winter's unseasonable Christmas Eve, after delegating some of her
functions to Elizabeth-next-door.
Old Maisie still remained asleep, and almost motionless. With some help
from Elizabeth-next-door the perfunctory midday meal had been served,
very little more than looked at, and cleared away; then the motionless
figure on the bed stirred visibly, breathed almost audibly. At this time
of the day vitality is at its best, with most of us. Gwen, standing by
the bedside, saw the lips move, and, bending forward, heard speech.
When she said, a moment after:--"I think I must have been asleep. I'm
awake now,"--she uttered the words much as Gwen had always heard her
speak. Yet another moment, and she said:--"I was dreaming, Phoebe dear,
dreaming of our mill. And I was asking for you in my dream. Because Dave
was up in our mulberry-tree, and wouldn't come down." She showed how
perfectly clear her head was, by saying to Gwen:--"My dear, if I could
have kept asleep, I would have seen Phoebe young again. You would never
think how young she was then."
Gwen felt that she was nowise bound to dwell on the futility of dreams,
and said, as she caressed the old hand's weak hold on her own:--"Was
Dave eating too many mulberries in that tree?"
Old Maisie smiled happily at the thought of Dave. "His hands were quite
purple with the juice," she said. "But he wouldn't come down, and went
on eating the mulberries. It was the tree by itself behind the house,
near the big hole where the sunflowers grew."
Granny Marrable's memory spanned the chasm--seventy years or so! "The
biggest mulberry," she said, "was Old Jasper, in the front garden, near
the wall.... It was always called Old Jasper." This replied to a look of
Gwen's. Why _should_ a mulberry-tree be called Old Jasper? Well--why
should anything be called anything?
"I can smell the honeysuckle," said old Mrs. Picture. And her face
looked quite serene and happy. "But the pigeons used to get all the
mulberries on that tree, because they were close by."
"It stood by itself," said Granny Marrable. "And all the fruit-trees
were in the orchard. So old Gosset with the wooden leg was always on
that side with his clapper, never out in front."
"Old Gosset--who lost his leg at the battle of Culloden! I remember him
so well. He said he could feel his toes all the same as if they was ten.
He said it broke his heart to see the many cherries the birds got, for
all the noise he made. He said they got bold, when they found he had a
wooden leg...." She paused, hesitating, and then asked for Ruth.
Gwen told her how Ruth had gone to her own daughter, who was married,
and how a second grandchild was overdue. In telling this, she feared she
might not be understood. So she was pleased to hear old Mrs. Picture say
quite clearly:--"Oh, but I know. A long while ago--my child--my
Ruth--when she was Widow Thrale ... told me all that...."
"Yes, yes!" Gwen struck in. "_I_ know. When you were here at the
cottage, before ..." she hesitated.
"Yes, before," said old Mrs. Picture. "When she showed me our old
model, and did not know. That was the time she thought me mad. Phoebe--I
want you ... I want you...." Her voice was getting weaker; as it would
do, after much talking.
"What?--I wonder!" said Granny Marrable, and waited.
Gwen guessed. "You want to see the old model again? Is that it?" Yes,
she did. That was a good guess.
"Maisie dearest, I will fetch you the model to the bedside, and light
candles, so you shall see it. Only you will eat something first--to
please me--to please my lady--will you not? Then you may be able to sit
up, you know, and look at it." Granny Marrable jumped at the opportunity
to get some food--ever so little--down her sister's throat. _She_ had
not given up hope of her reviving, if only for a while. Bear in mind
that she was still in the dark about the doctor's real opinion.
The attempt at refection had a poor show of success, its only triumph
worth mentioning being the exhibition of a driblet of champagne in milk.
Almost before the patient had swallowed it, she had fallen back on her
pillow in a drowsy half-sleep, with what seemed an increased colour, to
eyes that were on the watch for it. She remained so until after the
doctor's visit at six o'clock.
The doctor admitted that she _had_ picked up a very little, and when she
awoke would probably have another spell of brightness. But.... Speaking
with Gwen alone on his way out, he ended on this monosyllable.
"What does that 'but' mean, doctor?"
"Means that you mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know that the
mildest stimulant means reaction."
"I don't know that I ever thought about it, but I'll take your word for
it."
"Well--you may. And you may take my word for this. When the vital powers
are near their end--without disease, you know, without disease...."
"I know. She has nothing the matter with her."
"You can intensify vitality for a moment. But the reaction will come,
and must hasten the end. You might halve the outstanding time of Life by
doubling the vitality. If you employ any artificial stimulant, you only
use up the heart-beats that are left. The upshot of it is--don't go
beyond a tablespoonful twice a day with that liquor."
"I don't suppose she has had so much."
"Well--don't go beyond it. There is always the possibility--the bare
possibility, even at eighty--of a definite revival. But...."
"_But_, again, doctor!"
"But again! Let it stop at that. I shall do no better by saying more. If
I foresaw ... anything--within the next twelve hours, I would stay on to
see your ladyship through. But there is nothing to go by. Quite
impossible to predict!"
"Why do you say 'to see me through'? Why not her sister and daughter?"
"Because they _are_ her sister and daughter. It's all in their day's
work. Good-night, Lady Gwendolen." Gwen watched the doctor's gig down
the road into the darkness, and saw that a man riding stopped him, as
though to give a message. After which she thought he whipped up his
pony, which also felt the influence of the rider's cob alongside, and
threw off its usual apathy.
* * * * *
Old Maisie must have waked up just as the doctor departed, for there
were voices in the bedroom, and Granny Marrable was coming out. The old
lady had an end in view. She was bent on getting down the mill-model
from over the fireplace. "My dear sister has a great fancy to see it
once more," she said. "And I would be loth to say nay to her." Gwen
said:--"Anything to keep her mind off that brute of a son!" And then
between them they got the model down, and unwrapped the cloth from it.
Elizabeth-next-door, coming in at this moment, left Gwen free to go back
to old Maisie in the bedroom, who seemed roused to expectation. The
doctor was clearly wrong, and all was going to be well. Mrs. Picture was
not quite herself again, perhaps; but was mending.
"My dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But Phoebe is so
kind, to take every little word I say."
"She likes doing it, Mrs. Picture dear. We've got down the mill to show
you, and she will get it in here by the bed, so that you shall see
without getting up. Elizabeth from next door is there to help her." So
the mill-model, that had so much to answer for, was got out from behind
its glass, and placed on the little table beside the bed.
Old Maisie's voice had rallied so much that surely her power of movement
should have done so too. But no!--she could not raise herself in bed. It
was an easy task to place her to the best advantage, but the sense of
her helplessness was painful to Gwen, who raised her like a child with
scarcely an effort, while Granny Marrable multiplied pillows to support
her. The slightest attempt on her part towards movement would have been
reassuring, but none came.
"I wonder now," she said vaguely. "Was it only Dave?"
"What about Dave, dear? What did Dave say?"
"Was it Dave who said it went round? I had the thought it went round.
Which was it?"
"I showed it to Dave," said Granny Marrable, "and then it went, the same
as new. I could try it again, only then I must take out the glass water,
and put in real. And wind it up."
Old Mrs. Picture almost laughed, and the pleasure in her voice was good
to hear. "Why, now I have it all back!" she said. "And there is father!
Oh, Phoebe, do you remember how angry father was with me for breaking a
piece off the glass water?"
Granny Marrable was looking for something, in the penetralia of the
model. "Oh, I know," said she. "It's in behind the glass water.... I was
looking for the piece.... I'll take the glass water out." She did so,
and its missing fraction was found, stowed away behind the main
cataract, a portion of which appeared to have stopped dead in mid-air.
"Oh, Phoebe darling," said old Maisie, "we can have it mended."
"Of course we can," said Gwen. "Do let us make it go round. I want to
make it go round, too." Her heart was rejoicing at what seemed so like
revival.
Granny Marrable poured water into what stood for "the sleepy pool above
the dam," and found the key to wind up the clockwork. "I remember," said
old Maisie, "the water first, and then the key!" Her face was as happy
as Dave's had been, watching it.
But alas for the uncertainty of all things human!--machinery
particularly. The key ran back as fast as it was wound up, and the water
slept on above the dam. What a disappointment! "Oh dear," said Gwen,
"it's gone wrong. Couldn't we find a man in the village who could set it
right, though it _is_ Sunday?" No--certainly not at eight o'clock in the
evening.
"I fear, my lady," said Granny Marrable, "that it was injured when the
little boy Toby aimed a chestnut at it. And had I known of the damage
done, I should have allowed him no sugar in his tea. But it may have
been Toft, when he repaired the glass, for indeed he is little better
than a heathen." She examined it and tried the key again. It was
hopeless.
"Never mind, Phoebe dearest! I would have loved to see the millwheel
turn again, as it did in the old days. Now we must wait for it to be put
to rights. I shall see it one day." If she felt that she was sinking,
she did not show it. She went on speaking at intervals. "Let me lie here
and look at it.... Yes, put the candle near.... That was the deep hole,
below the wheel, where the fish leapt.... Father would not allow us
near it, for the danger.... There were steps up, and so many nettles....
Then above we got to the big pool where the alders were ... where the
herons came...." A pause; then:--"Phoebe dearest!..."
"What, darling?"
"I was not mad.... You were not here, or you would have known me....
Would you not?"
"I would have known you, Maisie dearest--I would have known you, in
time. Not at the first. But when I came to think of it, would I have
dared to say the word?"
Gwen remembered this answer of old Phoebe's later, and saw its
reasonableness. She only saw the practical side at the moment. "Why,
Granny," she said--"if it hadn't been the mill, it would have been
something else."
"But I was not mad," Maisie continued. "Only I must have frightened my
Ruth.... I went up _there_ once, Phoebe. Barnaby took me up one day...."
"Up where, Mrs. Picture dear?" Gwen left the old right hand free to show
her meaning, but it fell back after a languid effort. The strength was
near zero, though no one would have guessed it from the voice.
"Up _there_--in the roof--where the trap comes out.... Phoebe would not
come, because of the dust.... It was so hot too.... Barnaby pulled up a
flour-sack, to show me, and would have let me out on the trap, only I
was frightened, it was so high! I could see all the way over to
Braintree.... And Barnaby said on a clear day you could see St.
Paul's.... I liked Barnaby--I disliked old Muggeridge.... Do you know,
Phoebe dear, I used to think Barnaby's wife was old Muggeridge's sister,
because her name had been Muggeridge?"
Old Phoebe threw light on the affair. Barnaby's wife was young Mrs.
Muggeridge, who had exchanged into another regiment--was not really
Barnaby's wife! that is to say, not his legal wife.
"But there now!" said old Phoebe, when she had ended this, "if that was
not the very first of it all with me, when Dr. Nash he set me
a-thinking, by telling of Muggeridge! For how would I ever have said a
word of that old sinner to our little Dave?"
Old Maisie's attention was still on the mill-model. "You would not come
up into the corn-loft, Phoebe," said she, "because of all the white
dust. It was on everything, up there. When I went up with Barnaby the
mill was not going, because the stones were out for old Chipstone to
dress their faces. His real name was not Chipstone, but Chepstow. He
could do two stones in one day, he worked so quick. So both were got
out when he came, and the mill was stopped. Oh, Phoebe, do you remember
when a chip flew in your eye, you were so bad?"
"Now, to think of that!" said Granny Marrable. "And me clean forgot it
all these years! Old Chipstone, with glasses to shelter his eyesight;
like blinkers on a horse. 'Tis all come back to me now, like last week.
And I might have been a one-eyed girl all my days, the doctor said, only
the chip just came a little out of true. To think that all these years I
have forgotten it, and never thanked God once!"
"'Tis the sight of the mill brings it all back," said old Maisie. "I
mind it so well, and the guy you looked, dear Phoebe, with a bandage to
keep out the light. It was wolfsbane did it good, beat up in water quite
fine."
"Be sure. Only 'twas none of Dr. Adlam's remedies, I lay.... Wasn't it
Martha's--our old Martha?... There, now!--I've let go her name.... 'Twas
on the tip of my tongue to say it...."
Old Maisie's voice was getting faint as she said:--"Old Martha Prichard
... the name I go by now, Phoebe darling.... I took it to ... to keep a
memory...."
She was speaking in such a dying voice that Gwen struck in to put an end
to her exerting it. "I see what you mean," she said. "You mean you took
the name to bring back old times. Now be quiet and rest, dear! You are
talking more than is good for you. Indeed you are!"
Thereon Granny Marrable, though she had never felt clear about the
reason of this change of name, and now thought she saw enlightenment
ahead, followed in compliance with what she conceived to be Lady
Gwendolen's wishes. "Now you rest quiet, Maisie dearest, as her ladyship
says. What would Dr. Nash think of such a talking?"
Ruth might not be back till very late, and as she had not reappeared it
might be taken for granted she had stayed to sup with her daughter. Gwen
suggested rather timidly--for it was going outside her beat--that the
grandchild might have chosen its birthday. The Granny said, with a
curious certainty, that there was no likelihood of that for a day or two
yet, and went to summon Elizabeth from next door, to help with their own
supper. She herself was rather old and slow, she said, in matters of
house-service.
* * * * *
Gwen was not sorry to be left for a while to her own reflections before
the smouldering red log on the kitchen fire.
The great bulldog from the lobby without, as though his courtesy could
not tolerate such a distinguished guest being left alone, paid her a
visit in her hostess's absence. He showed his consciousness of her
identity by licking her hand at once. He would have smelt a stranger
carefully all round before bestowing such an honour. Gwen addressed a
few words to him of appreciation, and expressed her confidence in his
integrity. He seemed pleased, and discovered a suitable attitude at her
feet, after consideration of several. He looked up from his forepaws, on
which his chin rested, with an expression that might have meant anything
respectful, from civility to adoration. The cat, with her usual
hypocrisy, came outside her fender to profess that she had been on
Gwen's side all along, whatever the issue. Her method of explaining this
was the sort that trips you up--that curls round your ankles and purrs.
The cricket was too preoccupied to enter into the affairs of fussy,
uncontinuous mortals, and the kettle was cool and detached, but ready to
act when called on. The steady purpose of the clock, from which nothing
but its own key could turn it, was to strike nine next, and the cloth
was laid for supper. Supper was ready for incarnation, somewhere, and
smelt of something that would have appealed to Dave, but had no charm
for Gwen.
For she was sick at heart, and the moment that a pause left her free to
admit it, heavy-eyed from an outcrop of head-oppression on the lids. It
might have come away in tears, but her tissues grudged an outlet. She
saw no balm in Gilead, but she could sit on a little in the silence, for
rest. She could hear the voices of the two old sisters through the
doors, and knew that Mrs. Picture was again awake, and talking. That was
well!--leave them to each other, for all the time that might still be
theirs, this side the grave.
What a whirl of strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since
... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the
beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the
end of that long rainy day in July, when the sunset flamed upon the
Towers, and she saw a trespasser in the Park, with a dog. She could feel
again the unscrupulous paws of Achilles on her bosom, could hear his
master's indignant voice calling him off, and then could see those
beautiful dark eyes fixed on what their owner could not dream was his
for ever, but which those eyes might never see again. She could watch
the retiring figure, striding away through the bracken, and wonder that
she should have stood there without a thought of the future. Why could
she not have seized him and held him in her arms, and baffled all the
cruelty of Fate? For was he not, even then, hers--hers--hers beyond a
doubt? Could she not see now that her heart had said "I love you" even
as he looked up from that peccant dog-collar, the source of all the
mischief?
That was what began it. It was that which led her to stay with her
cousin in Cavendish Square, and to a certain impatience with
conventional "social duties," making her welcome as a change in
excitements an excursion or two into unexplored regions, of which Sapps
Court was to be the introductory sample. It was that which had brought
into her life this sweet old woman with the glorious hair. No wonder she
loved her! She never thought of her engrossing affection as strange or
to be wondered at. That it should have been bestowed on the twin sister
of an old villager in her father's little kingdom in Rocestershire was
where the miracle came in.
And such a strange story as the one she had disinterred and brought to a
climax! And then, when all might have gone so well--when a very few
years of peace might have done so much to heal the lifelong wounds of
the two souls so cruelly wrenched apart half a century ago, that the
frail earthly tenement of the one should be too dilapidated to give its
tenant shelter! So small an extension of the lease of life would have
made such a difference.
But if it was hard for her to bear, what would it be to the survivor,
the old sister who had borne so bravely and well what seemed to Gwen
almost harder to endure than a loss; a resurrection from the tomb, or
its equivalent? She had often shuddered to think what the family of
Lazarus must have felt; and found no ease from the reflection that they
were in the Bible and it was quite a different thing. _They_ did not
know they were in the Bible.
She helped the parallel a little farther, while the cricket chirped
unmoved. Suppose that Lazarus had died again in earnest from the
shock--and suppose, too, please, that he was deeply beloved, which may
not have been the case! How would the wife, mother, sisters, who had
said one farewell to him, have borne to see him die a second time? Of
course, Gwen was alive to the fact that it would be bad religious form
to suggest that this contingency was not covered by some special
arrangement. But put it as an hypothesis, like the lady she had ascribed
Adrian's ring to!
She could hear Granny Marrable's voice and Elizabeth's afar, in
conference. That was satisfactory. It made her certain that the
slightest sound from old Maisie, so much nearer, would reach her. Her
door stood wide, and the other door was just ajar.
But she did not hear the slightest sound. The dog did, for he flashed
into sudden vitality and attention, and was out of the room in an
instant. He was unable to say to Granny Marrable:--"I heard your invalid
move in the bedroom, and I think you had better go and see if she wants
you," but he must have gone very near it. For Gwen heard the old lady's
step come quicker than her wont along the passage, and she reached the
kitchen-door just in time to see her pass into the room opposite. "Is
she all right?" she said.
"I hope she is still asleep, my lady," said old Phoebe.
But she was not asleep, and said so. Her voice was clear, and the hand
Gwen took--so she thought--closed on hers with a greater strength than
before. If only she had stirred in bed, it would have seemed a return of
living power. But this slight vitality in the hands alone seemed to
count for so little. She wanted something, evidently, and both her
nurses tried to get a clue to it. It was not food; though, to please
them, she promised to take some. Gwen's thought that possibly she had
something for her ear alone--which she had hesitated to communicate to
old Phoebe--was confirmed when the latter left the room to get the
beef-tea, and so forth, which was always within reach if needed. For old
Maisie said plainly:--"_Now_ I can tell you--my dear!"
"What about, dear Mrs. Picture?" said Gwen, caressing the hand she held,
and smoothing back the silver locks from the grave grey eyes so
earnestly fixed on hers. "Tell me what."
"My son," said old Maisie. "I have a son, have I not?"--this in a
frightened way, as though again in doubt of her own sanity--"and he is
bad, is he not, and has written me a letter?"
"That's all right. I've got the letter, to show to my father."
"Oh yes--do show it--to the old gentleman I saw. He is your father...."
"You would like to say something about your son, dear Mrs.
Picture--something we can do for you. Now try and tell me just what you
would like."
"I want you, my dear, to find me my purse out of the other watch-pocket.
I asked my Ruth to put it there.... She is Widow Thrale ... is she not?"
Every effort at thought of her surroundings was a strain to her mind,
plainly enough.
"There it is!" said Gwen. "Soon found!... Now, am I to see how much
money you've got in it?"
"Yes, please!" It was an old knitted silk purse with a slip-ring. In the
early fifties the leather purses with snaps, that leak at the seam and
let half-sovereigns through before you find it out, were rare in the
pockets of old people.
"Six new pounds, and one, two, three, four shillings in silver, and two
sixpences, and one fourpence, and a halfpenny! Shall I keep it for you,
to be safe?"
"No, dear! I want--I want ..."
"I hope," thought Gwen to herself, "she's not going to have it sent to
her execrable son. Yes, dear, what is it you want done with it?"
"I want three of the pounds to go to Susan Burr, for her to pay eight
weeks of the rent. It's seven-and-sixpence a week."
"And the rest--shall I keep it?"
"Tell me--my son Ralph's letter ... Did it not say that he wanted
money?"
"Yes, it did. But I'm going to see about that--I and my father."
Old Maisie's voice became beseeching, gaining strength from earnestness.
"Oh my dear--do let me! And, after all, is it not his money? For I had
nothing of my own when I came back. I might have gone to the workhouse,
but for him." What followed, disjointedly, was an attempt to tell the
portion of her story that related to the miscarriage of her husband's
will.
"Very well, dear! It shall all be done as you wish it. I'll see to that.
The money shall be sent to Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court, to give to him."
"Why is it Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court? I know Aunt M'riar." Do what she
would, she could not grapple with these relativities. And, indeed, this
one was a mystery she could not have solved in any case.
CHAPTER XXVIII
HOW A BOOMER GOT AWAY. GRANNY MARRABLE'S THEISM. COLD FEET. HOW
GRANNY MARRABLE LOST HER HEAD. ADRIAN ON RESIGNATION. THE SHOP
OPPOSITE. HOW MAISIE HEARD HER SON'S LETTER, AND WISHED HIM TO KNOW
HE WAS POSSESSED. LADY ANCESTER'S REMONSTRANCE. HOW EMILY AND FANNY
WOULDED THAT THEIR LOVE. HOW MAISIE WANTED PETER, AND DOLLY MIGHT
NOT BE FRIGHTENED OF LAMBS. HOW SUSAN BURR WAS TO HAVE THE
FURNITURE. LAST MESSAGE TO DAVE AND DOLLY. MAISIE'S DEATH. HOW
GRANNY MARRABLE WENT AWAY TO SEE TO A NEWCOMER. HOW GWEN SLEPT, AND
WAKED, AND HOW THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE EMPTY ROOM WHERE MRS.
PICTURE HAD BEEN, ON THE BED. HOW THE CONVICT CALLED TO INTRODUCE
HIMSELF. A DOG WHO HAD KILLED A MAN, WORTH FORTY POUNDS. HOW THE
CONVICT SAW WHAT WAS ON THE BED. THE CUT FINGER. INSPECTOR
THOMPSON. HOW RUTH HAD PASSED A TRAMP, ON THE ROAD
"Has she not talked at all about Australia, Granny?... No, thanks! I'm
sure it's a beautiful ham--but I shall do very nicely with this. One
very big lump of sugar, please, and plenty of milk, or I shall lie
awake." Thus Gwen, and the influence of Strides Cottage is visible in
her speech.
Old Maisie was again asleep, and they had left her and gone into the
front-room; as much to speak together without disturbing her as to get
their own suppers. They were doing this last, however, in a grudging
sort of fashion; for the pleasures of the table are no match for a
heartache. Gwen found it a solace to make her own toast with a long
toasting-fork, an experience which her career as an Earl's daughter had
denied to her.
"Maisie has talked many times of Australia, my lady. She talks on, so I
could not repeat much."
"You mean she jumps from one thing to another?"
"Yes, so I cannot always follow her. But she has told me a many things
of her life there. How at first she would never see a soul at the farm
from week's end to week's end, and her husband got to own all the land
about."
"Do you think she is really alive to her husband's villainy? _I_
sometimes think she forgets all about it."
"Please God she does so! 'Tis better for her she should. I would have
felt happier if she could have known me, and Ruth, and never had the
tale of his wickedness."
"But that was impossible, Granny. She _must_ have known, in the end."
"That is so, I know, my lady. But when I hear her forget it all, it
makes my heart glad. When she gets to telling of the old time, on the
farm, her mind is off it, and I thank God that it should be so, for her
sake! Friday last she was talking so happy, you could not have known her
for the same."
"About the farm and the convicts? Do recollect some of the things she
told you!"
"There was a creature they hunt with dogs, that leaps on its hind-legs
to any height."
"Oh yes--the Kangaroo."
"She called it something else--something like 'Boomer.'" This did not
matter. Granny Marrable went on to repeat how a "boomer," chased by the
dogs, had made straight for her sister's husband, whose gun, missing
fire, had killed his best dog; while the quarry, unterrified by the
report, sprang at a bound over his head and got away scathless. This,
and other incidents of the convict's after-life in Van Diemen's Land,
told without leading to the crime of the forged letter, had shown how
completely separate in Maisie's mind were the memories of her not
unhappy life with her husband in the past, and that of the recent
revelation of his iniquity. She somehow dissociated the two images of
him, and her mind could dwell easily on _his_ identity as it had
appeared to her during her thirty years of widowhood, without losing the
new-found consciousness of Phoebe's.
But Granny Marrable had taken special note of the fact that her sister
never referred to the son who had come with her from Australia, and had
herself been scrupulously careful not to do so. She did not really know
whether Maisie was alive to the possibility of his reappearance at any
moment; and, indeed, could not have said positively whether allusion had
or had not been made to her own alarming experience of him. Her own
shock and confusion had been too great for accurate recollection.
Silence about him was to her thought the wisest course, and she had
remained silent.
She seemed to Gwen a wonderful old woman, this Granny Marrable. Her
untiring patience and strength, at her great age; her simple theism,
constantly in evidence; her resolute calmness in facing a second time
the harrowing grief of a twin sister's death--for that she saw it at
hand, Gwen was convinced--were surely the material of which heroism is
made, when heroism is in the making. To Gwen's thought, the miraculous
news that had been broken to her so suddenly might easily have
prostrated many a younger person, even without that mysterious unknown
factor, the twinship, the force of which could only be estimated by the
two concerned. As the old lady sat there at the supper-table, breaking
her resumptions of her sister's Australian tales by gaps of listening to
catch any sound from the bedroom, she seemed to Gwen a duplicate of the
old Mrs. Prichard of Sapps Court, spared by time or with some reserve of
constitutional energy, grey rather than white, resolute rather than
resigned. The different inflexion of voice helped Gwen against that
perplexing sense of her likeness to her twin, which would assert itself
whenever she became silent.
It was to fend this off, in such a pause, that she said:--"You are both
just eighty this year, Granny, are you not?"
"Eighty-one, my lady. When our clock strikes midnight Maisie will have
been eighty-one years in the world, and myself with but a few minutes to
make up the tale. My mother told me so when I was still too young to
understand, but I bore her words in mind. She was dead a year when my
brother dressed those little dolly figures in the mill. I mind that he
put it off, so we should not be in black for our mother. He died
himself, none so long after that."
The foolish lines of keeping up hope mechanically to the last did not
recommend themselves to Gwen. But she could trust herself to say, seeing
the strength on the old face before her:--"Oh, Granny, do not let us
despair too soon!" The phrase acknowledged Death, and did not choke her
like the sham.
"My lady, have you felt her feet?"
"No--are they so cold?"
Instead of replying. Granny Marrable rose and, passed into the bedroom.
Gwen, whose own speech had stopped her from hearing old Maisie's
half-utterance on waking, followed, and stood beside the bed. Granny
Marrable said:--"She is not awake yet, but I heard her." As she said
this, Gwen slipped her warm hand between the sheets, and touched the
motionless extremities; cold marble now, rather than flesh. A stone
bottle of hot water, just in contact with the feet, had heated a spot on
each, making its cold surrounding colder to the touch, and laying stress
upon its iciness. "Oh, Granny," said Gwen, trying in vain to make the
living warmth of her own hand of service, "can nothing be done?
Surely--her feet in hot water?"
But old Phoebe only shook her head. _She_ knew. It would only be to no
purpose! Better let her rest! Moreover, Gwen could not fail to notice
that the feet remained passive to her touch, never shrinking. That is
not the way of feet. Was ever foot that did not shrink from mysterious
unexpected fingers, coming from the beyond in the purlieus of a private
couch?
And yet old Maisie was alive there still, and her speech was clear,
however low. If anything, its sound savoured of revival. But she was not
clear about her whereabouts and whom she was speaking to. She seemed to
think it was Susan Burr, who "would find her thimble if she looked
underneath." Thus much and no more had come articulate from the land of
dreams. The moment after she was quite collected. Was that Phoebe, and
her Lady? This was not the conventional phrase "My lady." She was
evidently in possession of a Lady she had been guided to find by some
Guardian Angel, if, indeed, the Lady were not a Guardian Angel herself.
She went on to ask:--Where was her Ruth? When would she come?
She was coming, Ruth was, very soon. Both vouched for it. Gwen
added:--"She's gone to see her daughter, who has a little boy."
Then Granny Marrable lost her head for the first time. "She's gone to my
granddaughter," said she. "And I'm looking to have another
great-grandchild there soon, before a many days are over."
For a moment Gwen was afraid the confusion of Ruth's daughtership might
make old Maisie's head whirl, and set her fretting. She began to
explain, but explanation was not necessary. The old hand she held was
withdrawn from hers, that it might make common cause with its fellow
that old Phoebe already held. "My darling," said she, "did I not give
her to you when I ran away to the great ship? Fifty years ago,
Phoebe--fifty years ago!" There was no trace of any tear in the eye that
Gwen could still see, though it looked no longer into her own. The voice
was not failing, and the words still came, clear as ever. "I kissed her
in her crib, and I would have kissed her yet once more, but I dared not.
So I said to myself:--'She will wake and never see me! But Phoebe will
be there, to kiss her when she wakes. She will kiss her for me, just on
the place we used to say was good to kiss.' Tell me, Phoebe, did my
child cry much?..."
Granny Marrable's words:--"I cannot--I cannot--my darling!" caught in
her voice, as she bent over the face that, but for its frail
attenuation, was her own face over again, touching it tenderly with her
own old lips--the same, thought Gwen, that had inherited that place it
was so good to kiss, on that baby face of half a century ago, now a
grandmother's. She rose noiselessly from where she half sat, half
leaned, beside the figure on the bed, and stole a little way apart; not
so far as to be unable to hear what that musical voice kept on saying,
though she could not catch the replies.
"I said to myself:--'Phoebe will be her mother when I am miles away
across the sea, and she will be as good a mother as I....' Was it not
best, dearest, I should go alone, rather than carry my child away and
leave all the loneliness for you?... Yes--but my heart ached for my
little one on the great ship.... I would watch the stars--the very stars
you saw too, Phoebe--and they were like friends for many a long week,
till they sank down in the sea behind us, and it was thirty years before
I saw them again.... Yes--then I knew it would be England soon and I
would know if Phoebe had any other grave than the cold sea.... Yes, my
darling, that was my first thought--to go to the little church by
Darenth Mill, and look in the south corner.... I did, and there was
mother's grave, and father's name cut on the stone, but none other. So I
thought:--They are all gone--all gone!... Oh, if I had known that you
were here!..."
The sound of lamentation barely grew in her voice, but it was there. To
turn her mind from the recollection that provoked it, Granny Marrable
thought it well to say that Nicholas Cropredy, her first husband, whom
the forged letter had drowned at sea, had not been buried at Darenth
Mill, but at Ingatestone, with his kindred and ancestors. "Did they find
his body?" said old Maisie. She knew that he was dead long years back,
but had not received any new impression of the cause of his death.
She did not even now seem to find its proper place in her mind for this
correction of its mistaken record. It could not deal with all the facts,
but held fast to the identities of her sister and child. Probably the
established memory of the false news of her brother-in-law's death
continued in possession. She only looked puzzled; then drifted on the
current of her thought. "If I had known that you were here!... Oh,
Phoebe!--such a many times my boy made me think of his sister he would
never see now.... That was before the coming of the news.... Oh yes, I
always had a thought till then the time might come before they would be
grown up, so they should be children together.... That was my elder boy
Isaac, after father--in those days little Ralph was in his cradle....
But the time never came--only the time to think it might have been....
And all those years I thought you dead, you were here!... Oh,
Phoebe--you were here!... Oh, why--why--why could I not be told that you
were here?"
"It was the Lord's will, darling. His ways are not for us to
understand." Gwen could not for the life of her help recalling some
irreverence of Adrian's about Resignation and Fatalism. But though she
almost smiled over his reprehensible impiety--"No connection with the
shop opposite"--she could and did pay a mental tribute to the Granny's
quiet earnestness. She would have done the same by "Kismet" to an old
Sheikh in the shadow of the Pyramids.
"Why--oh, why?--when my dear husband was gone could I not have found you
then, even if I had died of joy in the finding? Had I not known enough
pain? Oh, Phoebe--when I came back--when I came back ... it would have
been so much then!... I had some great new trouble after that.... Oh,
tell me--what was it?"
What could old Phoebe do but answer, seeing that she knew? "It was the
wickedness of your son, Maisie darling. We have talked of him, have we
not?" She feared to say much, as she shrank from reference to her own
knowledge of the convict. She tried to get away from him. "And it was
then you took old Martha's name, not to be known by your own, and went
to Sapps Court?" This succeeded.
"Not Sapps Court, not yet for a long time. But I did go, and I was happy
there.... I had my little Dave and Dolly, and when the window stood open
in the summer, I heard the piano outside, across the way ... and Aunt
M'riar came, and sometimes Mr. Wardle--he was so big he filled the
room.... But tell me--was it a horrible dream, or was it true, that a
letter came to me?..." Her powers of speech flagged.
Gwen took upon herself to answer, to spare Granny Marrable. "Yes, Mrs.
Picture dear, it came from your son, and I've got it here. You're not to
fret about him. I'm to show his letter to my father, don't you
know?--you've seen him--and you know what he does will be all right."
"What he does will be all right." Old Maisie repeated it mechanically,
and lay quiet, holding a hand on either side, as before; then after a
short time rallied, and turned to Gwen, saying--"My Lady--my dear--I
want you to promise me one thing.... I want you to promise me...."
"To promise you? Is it something I can do?"
The answer came with an extraordinary clearness. "That you will not let
them get him. Read his letter, that I may hear.... Yes--like that!" She
fixed her eyes eagerly on it, as Gwen drew it from her pocket. Granny
Marrable snuffed the candles, and moved them to give a better light.
Gwen read aloud as best she might, for the handwriting was none too
visible. When she came to the writer's picturesque suggestion of his
life of constant dodging and evasion of his pursuers, she softened
nothing of his brutal phraseology. Maisie only said:--"That is it. That
is what I want." Phoebe was restless under its utterance, and murmured
some protest. That such words should pass her ladyship's lips--such
lips! Gwen merely commented:--"Like a fox before the pack! That's what
he means. He's got to say it somehow, you know! Yes, tell me, what is it
about that?"
"I want you ... to save him from them. I want you to tell him ... to
tell him...."
"Something from you?--yes!"
"To tell him his mother forgave him. For I know now--I know it, my
dear--that his wicked work was none of his own doing, but the evil
spirit that had possession of him. Was it not?"
Why should Gwen stand between Mrs. Picture, dying, and something that
gave her happiness, just for the sake of a little pitiful veracity? She
was all the readier to endorse a draft on her credulity, from the
knowledge that Granny Marrable would, if applied to, be ready with a
covering security. She said quietly:--"I think it very far from
impossible."
"Then you will tell him for me, and save him--save him from the
officers?"
It seemed a large promise to make, but would its fulfilment ever be
called for? "I promise," said Gwen, "and I will tell him you forgave
him, if ever I see him.... There's Ruth back--I hear her. Now, dear, you
must lie quiet, and not talk any more. You know you don't want her to
know anything at all about her brother." Whereon Maisie lay silent with
closed eyes, her hand in Gwen's just acknowledging its chance pressures,
while Granny Marrable rose and went to the door; and then Gwen heard her
in an earnest undertone of conversation with Ruth, just alighted from a
vehicle whose horse, considered as a sound, she would have sworn to. It
was the grey mare.
Ruth's visit to her daughter was the first since the extraordinary
discovery of Mrs. Prichard's identity, and she had been very anxious
about her. Nevertheless, its object appeared equable, blooming, and
prosperous on her arrival; very curious to hear details of her
new-found grandmother, and indignant with Dr. Nash for telling her
husband that he was not, on peril of becoming a widower, to allow his
wife to travel over to Strides Cottage to see her. She mixed with this a
sort of resentment against the defection from her post of her real
grandmother--to wit, the one she had grown up under. For the young
woman's wish for her presence had been one of those strong
predispositions very common under her circumstances, and far less
unreasonable than many such. "Granny" had been all-wise and all-powerful
with her from her cradle!
But, in spite of young Maisie's confidence on the subject, her mother
could not resist the misgiving that her expected grandchild was girding
up its insignificant loins to make a dash for existence. Consider its
feelings if it had inherited its great-grandmother's scrupulous
punctuality! Widow Thrale was between two fires--duty to a mother and
duty to a daughter. An instinct led her to choose the former. Her
son-in-law affected to think her nervous; but, after whistling the
halves of several tunes to himself, put his horse in the gig and went
off to fetch the doctor. The story has seen how he caught him just
coming away from Strides.
Ruth had not yet done quite all she could. She could summon someone to
take her place beside her daughter in her absence. Preferably her cousin
Keziah from the Towers. But she must see her and know that she was
available. Tom Kettering, just departing for the Towers, was caught in
time for Ruth to accompany him. On her arrival, finding that Keziah
_was_ available, she arranged to walk with her to Denby's Farm, and then
on to the Cottage. Under six miles, all told!--that was nothing.
But there was no need for this. Tom Kettering, going up to the house to
report her young ladyship's decision to remain on another day, was told
he must wait for a letter her ladyship the Countess would write, to take
to Strides Cottage, and bring back an answer. He could easily go a few
inches out of his way to leave his Aunt Keziah at Denby's, and take Ruth
Thrale home to Strides. But he put up the closed brougham, and harnessed
the grey mare in the dogcart, as she wanted a run. He knew that Gwen
meant what she said, and would not come back.
It was about nine o'clock when they reached the Cottage, and Tom waited
for the answer to the Countess's letter. Ruth came in, to be told that
her mother had talked too much, and must lie quiet. But she _had_ been
talking--that was something! The comment was Ruth's, and the reply to it
was hopeful and consolatory. Oh yes--a great deal! And she must be
better, to be able to talk so much. However, Ruth saw no change in the
appearance of the still, white figure on the bed.
Gwen sat in the front-room and read her mother's remonstrance with her
for absenting herself in this way and leaving her ladyship alone to
contend with the arduous duty of entertaining her guests. "I think," it
ran, "that you might at least remember that you are your father's
daughter, even if you forget that Sir Spencer and Lady Derrick have come
all the way from Nettisham in Shropshire." What followed was a good deal
emphasized. "Understand, my dear, that what I say is _not intended to
hold good_ if this old lady is _actually dying_, but _for anything short
of that_ it does appear to me that your behaviour is _at least
inconsiderate_. Do let me entreat you to fix _a reasonable hour_ for
your return to-morrow, if you _adhere to your resolution_ not to come
to-night. Pray tell Kettering when he is to call for you _before twelve
to-morrow, so that you may be in time for lunch_." This last was a
three-lined whip.
In order that Gwen should not suppose that there had been too flattering
a _hiatus_ owing to her absence, the letter wound up:--"We have had some
_very nice music_. It turns out that Emily and Fanny sing '_I would that
my love_' quite charmingly." Gwen's remark to herself:--"Of course!" may
be intelligible to old stagers who remember the fifties, and the
popularity of this Mendelssohn duet at that time--notably the
intrepidity of the singers over the soft word the merry breezes wafted
away in sport. Emily and Fanny were two _ingénues_, come of a remote
poor relation, who were destined never to forget the week they were
spending at the Towers in Rocestershire. The letter was scribbled across
to the effect that General Rawnsley had said he should ride over to
Chorlton to-morrow to see if he could be of any use. "The dear old man,"
said Gwen to herself. "And eighty-four years old! Oh, why--why--could
not my old darling Mrs. Picture live only three years more?... Only
three years!"
* * * * *
Ten o'clock. The time was again at hand for those last arrangements we
all know so well, when one watcher is chosen to remain by the sick man's
couch, that others may sleep; each one to be roused from forgetfulness
and peace to the sickening foreknowledge of the hour of release for all,
when the life he has it at heart to prolong, if only for a day, shall
have become a memory to perish in its turn, as one by one its survivors
grow few and fewer and follow in its track.
A night comes always when Oblivion becomes a terror, and we dare not
sleep, from fear of what our ears may hear on waking. It had come at
Strides Cottage for Granny Marrable and Gwen, and even Ruth was
conscious of a creeping dread of Death at hand, waiting on the
threshold. But she imagined herself alone in her anticipations--fancied
that "mother" and her ladyship were cherishing false hopes. She would
not allow her own to die lest she should betray fears that might after
all be just as false. Why should her mother--her new-found real
mother--be sinking, because her limbs were cold, when her speech was
still articulate, and her soft grey eyes so full of tenderness and
light?
Gwen held a little aloof, not to take more than her fair share of what
she feared was an ebbing life, although it kept so strangely its powers
of communion with the world it was leaving behind. She could hear all
the old voice said, as she had heard it before. What was that she was
saying now?
"When the baby comes you will bring it here to show to me? I may not be
up by then, to go and see it."
"The minute my daughter is strong enough to bring it, mother dear."
"She must take her time.... Is there not a little boy already?"
"Yes. He's Peter. He's a year old. He's very strong and wilful, and gets
very angry when things are not given to him."
"Ruth darling--fetch him to me to-morrow. Is it far to bring him?" There
was hunger for the baby in her beseeching voice. She might enjoy him a
little before the end, surely! Just a brief extension of a year or so--a
month or so even.
"I will bring him to-morrow, mother. He's too heavy to carry, but John
will drive us."
Old Maisie seemed quite happy in this prospect of a great-grandson.
"They are so nice at that age," said she. Why was the child's name
Peter?--she asked, and was told that he was so called after his
grandfather, Ruth's husband. "He is dead now, is he not?" was her
puzzled inquiry, and Ruth replied:--"I buried his grandfather thirteen
years ago." To which her mother said:--"Tell me all his name, that I may
know," and was told "Peter Thrale." Whereupon she made an odd
comment:--"Oh yes--I was told. But that was when Ruth was Widow Thrale."
She never came to any real clearness about the lost history of her
sister and daughter. Having once grasped their identities, her mind
flinched from the effort to master the forty-odd blank years of
ignorance.
But out of the cloud there was to come a grandchild a year old, and in
time its mother with another smaller still, newer still. To overhear
this talk made Gwen discredit the doctor's unfavourable auguries. How
was it possible that old Mrs. Picture should be dying, when she could
look forward to a baby in the flesh with such a zest?
The prospect of this visitor had set the old mind thinking of her own
babies in the days gone by, apparently. There was her eldest, dead and
buried in England while Ruth was still too young to put by memories of
her elder brother. Then her second, who died in his boyhood in
Australia. No mother ever loses count of her children, even when her
mind fails at the last: and old Maisie's memory was still green over the
loss of these two. But the third--how about the one who survived his
childhood? When she spoke of him, his image was that of an innocent
mischievous youngster, full of mad pranks, his father's favourite, not a
trace in him of the vices that had made his manhood a curse to himself
and his mother. In some still feebler stage of her failing powers the
happier phase of his career might have remained isolated. Now, her mind
was still too active to avoid the recollection of its sequel.
"What is it, mother dearest?" So Gwen heard her daughter speaking to
her, trying for a clue to the cause of some symptom of a concealed
distress. Then Granny Marrable:--"Yes, Maisie darling, what is it. Tell
us." Some answer came, which caused Ruth to say:--"Shall I ask her
ladyship to come?"
Gwen immediately returned to the bedside. "Is she asking for me?" said
she. And Granny Marrable replied:--"I think she has it on her mind to
speak to you, my lady."
Not too many at once was the rule. Ruth made a pretence of something to
be done in another room, but the Granny kept near at hand.
"My dear--my Lady--I am so afraid...."
"Afraid of what, Mrs. Picture dear? Don't be frightened! We are all
here."
"Afraid about my son--afraid Ruth may know...."
"No one has told Ruth of him, dear. No one shall tell Ruth. I promise
you."
"It is not that. It is what I may say myself." Gwen had not heard her
speak so clearly for a long time. "It was on my lips to speak of
him--but just now. Because--is he not the same?"
"The same as what, dear? Try and tell me!"
"The same as the son that came with me in the ship. The same as the
baby I suckled the last of four, out there on the farm. It was he that I
was telling of before, and I was glad to tell my child--my Ruth--of the
brother she never set eyes on. And then it came upon me, the thought of
what he was, and what he had come to be.... Oh, my dear--my dear!..."
Gwen could not think of any stereotyped salve for a wounded heart. She
could only say:--"Don't think of it, dear. Don't think of it! Lie still
and get better now, and then I will make Aunt M'riar fetch Dave and
Dolly, and Dave shall see Jones's Bull, and Dolly shall see the new
baby."
"Suppose, my dear, I don't get better, will Dave and Dolly come all the
same; for Phoebe and my Ruth, the same as if I was here?"
It was a sore tax on the steadiness of Gwen's voice, but she managed her
assent. Yes--even in the improbable event of old Maisie's non-recovery,
Dave and Dolly should visit Granny Marrable. And so consolatory had the
assurance proved more than once before, that she repeated her
undertaking about the visit to Farmer Jones's; for Dave, not for Dolly.
"But there will be plenty for Dolly to see," Gwen said. "She won't be
frightened of lambs--at least, I think not. Because she has never been
in the country."
"No--but she has been in the Regent's Park, and is to go to Hampstead
Heath some day with Uncle Mo. She is not frightened of the sheep in the
Park, only in...."
"Only in where?" said Gwen. "Where is Dolly frightened of sheep?"
"In the street, because they run on the pavement, and the dog runs over
their backs.... There are very few sheep here, compared to what we had
in the colony.... Our shepherds were very good men, but all had their
numbers from the Governor ... they had all been convicted ... but not of
doing anything wrong...."
Oh dear!--what a mistake Gwen had made about those sheep! But how could
she have known? She knew so little about the colony--had even asked
General Rawnsley, when they were talking of Van Diemen's Land, if he
knew where "Tasmania" was! She tried to head off the pastoral
convicts--the cancelled men, who had become numbers. "When Dolly comes,
she will see the mill too. And it will go round and round by then." She
clung in a sort of desperation to Dolly and Dave, having tested their
power as talismans to drive away the black spectres that hung about.
But the mill was as Scylla to their Charybidis. "Phoebe dearest!" said
old Maisie suddenly, "when did father die?"
"When did our father die?" said Granny Marrable. "Nigh upon forty-six
years ago. Yes--forty-six."
"How can that be?--forty-six--forty-six!" The words were shadowily
spoken, as by a speaker too weary to question them, yet dissatisfied.
"How can my father have died then? That was when my sister died, and my
little girl I left behind."
"Oh, _how_ I wish she could sleep!" Gwen exclaimed under her breath.
Granny Marrable said:--"She will sleep, my lady, before very long." She
said it with such a quiet self-command, that Gwen accepted the obvious
meaning that the sleeper would sleep again, as before. Perhaps nothing
else was meant.
There had been a time, just after she first came to the strange truth of
her surroundings, when she could follow and connect the sequence of
events. Now the Past and the Present fell away by turns, either looming
large and excluding the view of the other alternately. But, that Phoebe
and Ruth were there, beside her, was the fact that kept the strongest
hold of her mind.
* * * * *
Eleven o'clock. Granny Marrable had been right, and old Maisie had slept
again, or seemed to sleep, after some dutiful useless attempts to head
off Death by trivialities of nourishment. The clock-hand, intent upon
its second, oblivious of its predecessors, incredulous of those to come,
was near halfway to midnight when Ruth Thrale, rising from beside her
mother, came to her fellow-watchers in the front-room and said:--"I
think she moved."
Both came to the bedside. Yes--she had moved a little, and was trying to
speak. Gwen, half seated, half leaning on the pillow as before, took a
hand that barely closed on hers, and spoke. "What is it, Mrs. Picture
dear? Say it again."
"Is it all true?"
What could Gwen have said but what she did say? "Yes, dear Mrs. Picture,
quite true. It is your own sister Phoebe beside you here, and your child
Ruth, grown up."
"Maisie darling, I am Phoebe--Phoebe herself." It was all Granny
Marrable could find voice for, and Ruth was hard put to it to say:--"You
are my mother." And as each of these women spoke she bent over the white
face of the dying woman, and kissed it through the speechlessness their
words had left upon their lips.
It was not quite old Mrs. Picture's last word of all. A few minutes
later she seemed to make weak efforts towards speech. If Gwen, listening
close, heard rightly, she was saying, or trying to say:--"You are my
Lady, that came with the accident, are you not?"
"Is there anything you want me to do for you?" For Gwen thought she was
trying to say more. "It is about someone. Who?"
"Susan Burr...."
"Yes--you want me to give her some message?"
"Susan ... to have my furniture ... for her own."
"Yes--I will see to that.... And--and what?"
"Kiss Dave and Dolly for me."
They watched the scarcely breathing, motionless figure on the bed for
the best part of an hour, and could mark no change that told of death,
nor any sign that told of life. Then Granny Marrable said:--"What was
that?" And Gwen answered, as she really thought:--"It was the clock."
For she took it for the warning on the stroke of midnight. But old
Phoebe said, with a strangely unfaltering voice:--"No--it is the
change!" and the sob that broke the silence was not hers, but Ruth's.
Old Mrs. Picture had just lived to complete her eighty-first year.
* * * * *
There came a sound of wheels in the road without. Not the doctor,
surely, at this time of night! No--for the wheels were not those of his
gig. Ruth, going out to the front-door, was met by a broad provincial
accent--her son-in-law's. Gwen heard it fall to a whisper before the
news of Death; then earnest conversation in an undertone. Gwen was aware
that old Phoebe rose from her knees at the bedside, and went to listen
through the door. Then she heard her say with a quiet self-restraint
that seemed marvellous:--"Tell him--tell John that I will come.... Come
back here and speak to me." She thought she caught the words as Ruth
returned:--"I must not leave her alone." And she knew they referred to
herself.
Then it came home to her that possibly her own youth and her difference
of antecedents might somehow encumber arrangements that she knew would
have to be carried out. They would be easiest in her absence. At her own
suggestion she went away to lie down in the bedroom she had occupied.
Granny Marrable followed her. She had something to say.
"Dear Lady, I have to go. God bless you for all your goodness to my
darling sister and to me! You gave her back to me...." That stopped her.
"Oh, Granny, Granny, we have lost her--we have lost her!" She could feel
that old Phoebe's tears were running down the hand she had taken to
kiss, and she drew it away to fold the old woman fairly in her arms, and
kiss the face whose likeness to old Mrs. Picture's she could almost
identify by touch. "We have lost her," she repeated, "and you might have
had her for so long!"
Said Granny Marrable:--"I shall follow Maisie soon, if the Lord's will
is. She might have died, my lady, but for you, unknown to me in London.
And who would have told me where they had laid her?"
"Where are you going?"
"I am going to my granddaughter--Ruth's daughter. It is her fancy to
have me rather than another. There might be harm to her did I stop away.
Why should I delay here, when all is over?"
Why indeed? Still, Gwen could not but reverence and love the old lady
for her unflinching fortitude and resolute sense of duty. She saw her
driven away through the cold night, and went back to her room, leaving
Ruth and Elizabeth the neighbour to make an end in the chamber of Death.
* * * * *
Sleep came, and waking came too soon, in a cold, dark Christmas morning.
Oppression and pain for something not known at once came first, like a
black cloud; then consciousness of what was in the heart of the cloud.
She wrapped herself in a warm dressing-gown, and went out through the
silent house. It was still early, and it might be Ruth was still
sleeping. Once asleep, why not remain so, when waking could only bring
cold and darkness, and the memory of yesterday? Besides, it was not
unlikely Ruth had watched half through the night. Gwen opened the door
of the death-chamber with noiseless caution, and felt as soon as she saw
that the daylight was still excluded, that it was empty of any living
occupant. Dread was in her curiosity to see the thing beneath the white
sheet on the bed--but see it she must!
The great bulldog, the only creature moving, came shambling along the
passage to greet her, and--so she rendered his subdued dog-sounds that
came short of speech--concerned that something was amiss he was excluded
from knowing. She said a word to comfort him, but kept him outside the
room, to wait for her return.
What had been till so lately old Mrs. Picture, whom she had chanced upon
in Sapps Court, and found so strange a truth about, lay under that
face-cloth on the bed. She moved the window-curtain for a stronger
light, and uncovered the marble stillness of the face. The kerchief tied
beneath the chin ran counter to her preconceptions, but no doubt it was
all right. Ruth would know.
She did not look long. An odd sense of something that was not sacrilege,
but akin to it, associated itself with this gazing on the empty
tenement. Even so one shrinks from the emptiness of what was his home
once, and will never know another dweller, but be carted off to the
nearest dry-rubbish shoot. She laid the sheet back in its place, and
went into the front-room.
Suddenly the dog growled and barked, then went smelling along the door
into the front-garden. There was someone outside. She was conscious of a
man on the gravel, through the window. A stranger, or he would enter
without leave, or at least find the bell to ring. She glanced at the
clock. It was half-past eight already, though it had seemed so early.
How about the dog, if she opened the door? His repute was great for
ferocity towards doubtful characters, but he was credited with
discrimination. Was this invariable? She preferred to take down his
chain from its hook by the window, and to use it to hold him by.
"What is it? Who are you?" She had opened the door without reserve,
feeling sure that the dog would be excited by a gap. As it was he
growled intolerantly, and had to be reproved.
"You'll excuse me--I was inquiring.... Is your dog safe? I ain't fond of
dogs, and they ain't fond of me." He was a man with a side-lurch, and an
ungracious manner.
"The dog is safe--unless I let him go." Gwen was not sorry to have a
strong ally in a leash, at will. "You were inquiring--you said?"
"Concerning of an old lady by the name of Prichard. The address given
was Strides Cottage, and I see this little domicile here goes by that
name. Next we come to the old lady of the name of Prichard. Can you do
her, or anything near about?"
"Yes--Mrs. Prichard is here, but you can't see her now. What do you want
with Mrs. Prichard? Who are you?"
The man kept looking uneasily up and down the road. "I'm a bad hand at
talking, mostly. Standing about don't suit me--not for conversation. If
you was to happen to have such a thing as a chair inside, and you was to
make the offer, I might see about telling you what I want of old Goody
Prichard."
Gwen looked at him and recognised him. She would have done so at once
had his clothes been the same as when she saw him before, in the doorway
at Sapps Court. He was that man, of course! Only with this difference,
that while on that occasion his get-up was nearest that of a
horse-keeper, his present one was a carter's. He might have been taken
for one, if you had not seen his face. Gwen said to him:--"You can pass
the dog. Don't do anything to irritate him." He entered and sat down.
"Where have you got the old woman?" said he.
"First tell me what you want with her."
"To introduce myself to her. I wrote her a letter nigh a fortnight
since. What did I say to her in that letter? Told her I was looking
forward to _re_-newing her acquaintance. You tell the old lady that,
from me. You might go so far as to say it's Ralph, back again." An idea
seemed to intensify his gaze of admiration, or rather avidity, narrowing
it to her face. "This ain't my first sight of _you_, allowance made for
toggery."
Gwen merely lifted her eyebrows. But seeing his offensive eyes waiting,
she conceded:--"Possibly not," and remained silent.
He chose to interpret this as invitation to continue, although it was
barely permission. "I set eyes on you first, as I was coming out of a
door. You were coming in at that door. You looked at me to recollect me,
for I saw you take notice. Ah!--you've no call to blaze at me on that
account. You may just as well come down off of the high ropes."
For Gwen's face had shown what she thought of him, as he sat there, half
wincing before her, half defiant. She was not in the habit of concealing
her thoughts. "I see you are a reptile," said she explicitly. And then,
not noticing his snigger of satisfaction at having, as it were, _drawn_
her:--"What were you doing at Mr. Wardle's?"
"Ah--what was I a-doing at Moses Wardle's? I suppose you know what _he_
was? Or maybe you don't?"
"What was he?"
The convict's ugly grin, going to the twisted side of his face, made it
monstrous. "Mayhap you don't know what they call a _scrapper_?" said he.
"I don't. What did he scrap?" She felt that Uncle Mo did it honourably,
whatever it was.
"He was one of the crack heavyweights, in my time."
"I know what that means. I should recommend you not to show yourself at
his house, unless...."
The man sniggered again. "Don't you lie awake about me," said he. "Old
Mo had seen his fighting-days when I had the honour of meeting him
five-and-twenty years ago at The Tun, which is out of your line, I take
it. Besides, my best friend's in my pocket, ready at a pinch. Shall I
show him to you?" He showed a knife with a black horn handle. "I don't
open him, not to alarm a lady. So you've no call for hysterics."
"I am not afraid of you or your knife, if that is what you mean."
Indeed, absolute fearlessness was one of Gwen's characteristics. "What
did you go to Mr. Wardle's for?"
"On a visit to my wife."
Gwen started. "Who is your wife?" said she. Susan Burr flashed into her
mind first. But then, how about "Aunt Maria" on the envelope, and her
readiness to act as this man's agent?
"Polly Daverill's my wife--my lawful wife! That's more than my father
could say of my mother."
"I know that you are lying, but I do not care why. Do you want to see
your mother?"
"If sootable and convenient. No great hurry!"
"She is in bed. I will get her ready for you to see her. Do not go near
the dog. They say he has killed a man."
"A man'll kill _him_ if he gives occasion. Make him fast, for his own
sake. There's money there--he's a tike o' some value. Maybe forty pound.
You tie him up!" Gwen hooked his chain round the table-leg, starting him
on a series of growls--low thunder in short lengths. He had been very
quiet.
She passed into the bedroom, and opening the shutters, threw light full
on the bed. Then she drew back the sheet she had replaced. Oh, the
beauty of that white marble face, and the stillness!
"You can come in, quietly."
"Is she having a snooze?"
"You will not wake her."
"This is one of your games." The sort was defined by an adjective,
omitted. "What's your game? What the Hell are you at?" He said this as
to himself.
"Go in. You will find your mother." Gwen took back the dog's chain from
the table-leg, and the low thunder died down.
She hardly analysed her own motives. One may have been to touch the
heart of the brute, if he had one; another to convince him, without a
long parley, of his mother's death. He might have disputed it, and in
any case she could not have refused him the sight of his own mother's
body.
She could not have restrained that dog had he acted on his obvious
impulse to strangle, rapidly and thoroughly, this vermin intruder. But
he was an orderly and law-abiding dog, who would not have strangled a
rat without permission.
Gwen did not catch the convict's exclamation at sight of his mother,
beyond the "What the...!" that began it. Then he was silent. She saw him
go nearer without fear of ill-demeanour on his part, and touch the cold
white hand, not roughly or without a sort of respect. As well, perhaps,
for him; for Gwen was quite capable of loosing that dog on him, under
sufficient provocation. She thought he seemed to examine the fingers of
the left hand. Then he came back, and they returned to the front-room.
She was the first to speak.
"Are you satisfied?"
"I couldn't have sworn to her myself, not from her face, but I made
sure." Probably he had looked for the cut finger, his own handiwork of
thirty-odd years ago. He said abruptly, after a moment's pause:--"I
don't see nothing to gain by hanging about here."
"Nothing whatever."
He said not a word more, his only sign of emotion or excitement having
been his exclamation at first sight of the corpse. He walked away
towards the village, and had just reached the point where the road turns
out of sight, when Gwen, watching his slow one-sided footsteps, saw him
turn and come quickly back. She went back into the Cottage and closed
the door, resolved not to admit him a second time.
But he passed by, going away by the road towards Denby's and the Towers,
never even glancing at the Cottage. He was scarcely out of sight when a
tax-cart with two men in it came quickly from the village and stopped.
"You will excuse me, madam. I am Police-Inspector Thompson, from
Grantley Thorpe. A man whom I am looking for has been traced here...."
The speaker had alighted.
"A man with a limp? He came here and went away. He has only just gone."
"Which way?"
"He went away in that direction...."
"What I said!" struck in the second man on the driver's seat. "He's for
getting back to the Railway. He'll cut across by Moreton Spinney. Jump
up, Joe!"
Gwen could easily have added that he had come back, and was going the
other way. But her promise to old Mrs. Picture, lying there dead, kept
her silent. If the officers chose to jump to a false conclusion, let
them! She had misled them by a literal truth. She would much rather have
told a lie, honourably. But she could not remedy that now, without risk.
Another trot sounded from the opposite direction. It was Farmer
Costrell's cart, and Ruth was in it, driven by her son-in-law. She was
bringing some evergreens to place upon the body. Too anxious to remain
in ignorance about her daughter, she had walked over to Denby's while it
was still almost dark, and had found a new granddaughter and its mother,
both doing well.
"And ne'er a soul would I have seen either way," said she, "if it had
not been for a tramp a few steps down the road, who set me thinking it
was as well I was not alone, by the looks of him. Yes--thank your
ladyship--I got some sleep, till after five o'clock. Then I could not be
easy till I knew about my child. But all has gone well, God be thanked!"
It was the only time she ever saw that brother, and she never knew it
was he.
CHAPTER XXIX
HOW MICKY BECAME A LINKBOY. HIS IDEAS ON INVESTMENTS. DOG FOUND. NO
SAFETY LIKE A THICK FOG. OLD MR. NIXON. HIS SELF-RESTRAINT, WIX'S
MESSAGE. JULIA'S DILEMMA. HER VIEWS ON MARRIAGE LINES. DAMN LAWFUL
POLLY! HOW MICKY'S MOTHER HELPED HIM TO DELIVER HIS MESSAGE. OUR
OLD LADY--GONE! WHO WILL TELL DAVE AND DOLLY? HOW PUSSY WAS THE
OTHERS. HOW MO DID NOT STOP AT THE SUN. A VISITOR IN HIS ABSENCE.
THE END
The irresolute winter only wavered some forty-eight hours, setting to
work in earnest on the second day after Christmas Day, following on
suggestions of seasonableness on Boxing Day. London awoke to a dense fog
and a hard frost, and its spirits went up. Its citizens became possessed
with an unnatural cheerfulness, as is their wont when they cannot
breathe without choking, when the gas has to be lighted at what should
be the hour of daybreak, when the vapour lies thick in places, and will
not move from contact; though now and again the darkness, where the sky
was once, seems at odds with a languid something, that may be light,
beyond. Then, fires within, heaped with fresh coal, regardless of
expense, to keep the fog at bay, contribute more and more through
chimney-pots without to the unspeakable opacities overhead, and each
seeming ultimatum of blackness is followed by another blacker still.
Then, while timid persons think the last day has come, the linkboys
don't care whether it has or not, and enjoy themselves intensely.
A good example of the former class was Mrs. Treadwell, Michael
Ragstroar's great-aunt at Hammersmith; of the latter, Michael himself.
On the afternoon of that Wednesday in Christmas week he had conducted an
old bloke of enormous wealth, on foot, from the said bloke's residence
in Russell Square to his son-in-law's less pretentious one at Chiswick,
and had earned liberal refreshments, golden opinions, and silver coin by
his intrepidity and perception of London localities in Egyptian
darkness. And he had never so much as once asked the name of a blooming
street! So ran his communication to his great-aunt, on whom he called
afterwards; being, as he said, handy.
"Now you do like I tell you, Micky, and bank it with the Savings Bank,
and you'll live to be thankful." This referred to Micky's harphacrownd,
just earned. That was his exact pronunciation, delivered _ore
rotundissimo_, to do full justice to so large an amount.
Micky's reply was:--"Ketch me at it! I don't put no faith in any of
these here Banks, like you see at street corners. _The_ Bank, where you
go on the green bus, is another pair o' stockin's.... No--I ain't going
to put it on a 'orse. You carn't never say they ain't doctored." He went
on to express an astute mistrust of investments, owing to the bad faith
of Man, and wound up:--"The money won't run away of itself, so long as
you don't let it out of your porket." Into which receptacle Micky
returned it, slapping the same in ratification of its security.
"Then you button it in, Micky, and see you don't talk about it to no
one. Only I should have said it would be safer put by, or giv' to some
responsible person to take charge of." But Michael shook his head,
assuming a farsighted expression. He was immovable. Mrs. Treadwell
continued:--"Bein' here, I do declare you might be a useful boy, and
write _Dog Found_ large on a sheet of paper, and ask Miss Hawkins to put
it up in her window for to find the owner."
"Wot's the dog?"
"Well now, he was here a minute back! Or he run out when you come in."
Fog-retarded search discovered a woebegone refugee under the stairs; who
had been fetched in, said Mrs. Treadwell, by her puppy in the early
morning, and whom she had not had the heart to drive away.
Michael was proud to show his skill as a penman, and with his aunt's
assistance composed an intelligible announcement that the owner of a
black-and-tan terrier with one eye might recover the same on production
of some proof of ownership. Michael devised one, suggesting that any
applicant might be told to say what name was wrote on the collar.
"But there now, Micky," said the old charwoman. "He hasn't _got_ no
collar!"
"Werry good, then," said her nephew. "When he tells you what's wrote on
the collar, you'll know he's a liar, and don't you give him up the dog."
"But shan't I be a story," said Mrs. Treadwell, "for to tell him the
collar's wrote upon, when it's no such a thing?"
"Not you, Arnty! Don't you say anything's wrote. Just you ask him what,
and cotch him out!"
The puppy wanted to help, and nearly blotted the composition. But this
was avoided, and Micky went out into the fog bearing the placard, of
which he was rather proud.
A typical sot was the only occupant of the bar, who was so far from
sober that he imagined he was addressing a public meeting. Micky
distinguished that he was referring to his second wife, and had some
fault to find with the chairman. Voices in the little parlour behind the
bar caught the boy's ear, and took his attention off. He was not bound
to stop his ears. If parties hollered, it was their own lookout. Parties
hollered, in this case, and Micky could hear, without listening. He was
not sure, though, when he heard one of the voices, that he would not
have listened, if he had any call to do so. For it was the voice of his
old acquaintance the convict.
"No safety like a thick fog, Juliar! I'll pay her a visit this very
afternoon, so soon as ever you've given me some belly-timber. Sapps
Court'll be as black as an inch-thick of ink for twelve hours yet. Don't
you let that steak burn!"
Michael heard the steak rescued--the hiss of its cookery intercepted.
Then he heard Miss Julia say with alarm in her voice:--"You're never
going there, Wix! Not to Sapps Court?"
"And why the Hell shouldn't I go to Sapps Court? One place is as safe as
another, a day like this." Insert if you will an adjective before
"place," here.
Michael, sharp as he was, could not tell why the woman's answer sounded
embarrassed, even through a half-closed door. The story knows. She had
betrayed the knowledge she had acquired from the letter she had tampered
with, that Sapps was being specially watched by the Police. How could
she account for this knowledge, without full confession? And would not
absolution be impossible? She could only fence with the cause of her
confusion. "I got the idea on my mind, I expect," said she uneasily.
"Didn't you say she had a man hanging round?"
"Old Mo, sure enough. Yes, there's old Mo. But _he_ won't be there.
He'll be swiping, round at The Sun. I can reckon _him_ up! He don't
train for fighting, like he did thirty years ago. One sight of him would
easy your mind--an old dot-and-go-one image!"
"I got the idea the officers would look to catch you there. I _did_,
Wix."
"And I got the idea no such a thing!" Omission again before this last
word. "Why in thunder do you suppose?... Shut to that door!"
"There's no one there--only old Nixon."
"Who's he talking to?"
"Nobody. Empty space!"
"Tell you he is! Look and see." Thereupon Miss Julia, looking through a
transparent square in a glass chessboard into the bar, saw that the
typical sot was certainly under the impression that he had an audience.
He was, in fact, addressing a homily to Michael on the advantages of
Temperance. See, he said--substantially--the reward of self-restraint!
He was no mere bigoted doctrinaire, wedded to the absurd and exaggerated
theories of the Teatolers. He had not a word to say in favour of
Toalabshnensh. It was against Human Naysh. But Manshknewwhairtshtop,
like himself, was always on the safe side. He charged Micky to be on his
guard against Temptation, who lay in wait for inexperience without his
first syllable, which had been absorbed in a hiccup. Micky was not
grateful to Mr. Nixon for this, as it interfered with his hearing of the
conversation within.
"Who are you, in behind that handle?" asked Miss Hawkins. "Come out and
show us your face.... What's this? 'Dog Found'? Yes--very happy to
oblige your aunt.... Stick it up against the front-glass yourself....
'Won't stick of itself,' won't it? Wait till I see for a wafer." She
returned into the small parlour, and foraged in the drawer of her
inkstand, which had probably done no service since her experiment in
_faussure_, till it supplied Mr. Wix with a simile for the fog, ten
minutes since.
"That's young Ikey," said the convict. "I can tell him by his lip. Fetch
him inside. I've a message for him to carry." Miss Julia had found red
wafers; and, after instructing Michael how to use them--to suck them in
earnest, as they had got dry awaiting their mission in life--induced
him into Mr. Wix's presence. Micky's instinctive hatred of this man was
subdued by the recollection of the _douceurs_ he had received from him.
But do what he would, he was only equal to a nod, as greeting. He hardly
received so much himself.
The convict eyed him sleepily from the window-seat, his usual anchorage
at The Pigeons, and said nothing for some seconds. Then he roused
himself to say:--"Well, young shaver, what the office for you?--that's
the point! Look you now--are you going home?"
"Quite as like as not. That don't commit me to nothing, neither way.
Spit it out, guv'nor!"
Mr. Wix was filling a pipe, and did it to his satisfaction before he
answered:--"You've to carry a message. A message to Aunt M'riar. Got
that? You know Aunt M'riar."
"Knew Aunt M'riar afore ever you did."
Mr. Wix looked through his first puff of smoke, amused. "About right you
are, that time!" said he. Not that this was untrue enough to be worth
telling as a falsehood. Polly the barmaid had no niece or nephew that he
knew of, in the early days. "But you could carry a message to her, if
you didn't. Just you tell her old Goody Prichard's gone off her hooks."
"The widder two pair up at Number Seven? What hooks?"
"She's slipped her wind, handed in her chips."
"Mean she's dead? Carn't you say so, mister?"
"Sharp boy! That's what _she_ is. Dead."
"That won't soote Aunt M'riar." Micky had only known old Maisie by
repute, but he knew the Court's love for her. A wish for some
confirmation of the convict's statement arose in his mind. "How's she to
know it's not a lie?" said he.
"_She'll_ know, fast enough! Say I told you. Say who I am. _She'll_
twig, when you tell her.... Stop a bit!" He was thinking how to
authenticate the death without telling the boy overmuch about himself.
"Look here--I'll tell you what you've got to say. Say her son--old
mother Prichard's son--was just up from Rocestershire, and he'd seen her
dead, with his own eyes. Dead as a boiled lobster. That's your message."
If Micky had known that this man was speaking of himself and his own
mother! Perhaps it was some instinctive inwardness that made him glad he
had got his message and could be gone. He made short work of his exit,
saying:--"All right, mister, I'm your man"--and departed after a word in
the bar to Miss Julia:--"Right you are, missis! Don't you let him have
another half-a-quartern." For Mr. Nixon being a penny short, her anxiety
that he should observe his own rules of life had been reinforced by
commercialism. She drew the line of encouraging drunkenness at
integers--halves not counting as fractions, by tacit consent. They are
not hard enough.
Miss Hawkins had placed herself in a difficulty by that indiscreet
tampering with Aunt M'riar's letter. She had done it in a fit of furious
exasperation with Daverill, immediately the result of an interview with
him on his reappearance at The Pigeons some weeks ago. Some whim had
inclined him towards the exhibition of a better selfhood than the one in
daily use; perhaps merely to assert the power he still possessed over
the woman; more probably to enable him to follow it up with renewed
suggestions that she should turn the freehold Pigeons into solid cash,
and begin with him a new life in America. She had kept her head in spite
of kisses and cajolery, which appealed with some success to her memories
of twenty years ago, and had refused to entertain any scheme in which
lawful marriage was postponed till after the sale of her property. The
parson was to precede the auctioneer.
But an escaped convict with the police inquiring for him cannot put up
the banns. Had Daverill seen his way to doing so he would have made
light of bigamy. Besides, _was_ it likely his first wife would claim
him? He preferred to suppress his real reason for refusing to "make an
honest woman" of Miss Julia, and to take advantage of the fact that his
"real wife" Polly was still living.
Then Miss Hawkins had made a proposal which showed a curious frame of
mind about marriage law. Her idea may be not unknown in the class she
belonged to, still. It certainly existed in the fifties of last century.
If Aunt M'riar could be deprived of her "marriage lines" her teeth would
be drawn, not merely practically by making proof of a marriage
difficult, but definitely by the removal of a mysterious influence--most
to be likened to the key of a driving-pulley, whose absence from its
slot would leave the machinery of Matrimony at a deadlock. Let Mr. Wix,
by force or fraud, get possession of this charter of respectability, and
he and his lawful wife would come apart, like a steamed postage-stamp
and its envelope. Nothing would be lacking then but a little fresh gum,
and reattachment. This expresses Miss Julia's idea, however faulty the
simile may be in itself.
"She's got her lines to show"--So the lady had been saying, shortly
before Michael came into the bar.--"But she won't have them long, if you
put your mind on making her give 'em up. _You_ can do it, Wix." She
seemed to have a strong faith in the convict's cunning.
He appeared to ponder over it, saying finally:--"Right you are, Juliar!
I see my way."
"What are you going to do?"
"That's tellings. I'll get the dockyment out of her. That's enough for
you, without your coming behind to see. I'll make you a New Year's
present of it, gratish. What'll you do with it?"
"Tear it up--burn it. That'll quiet _her_ off. Lawful Polly! Damn her!"
Really Miss Hawkins made a better figure in a rage, than when merely
vegetating. And yet her angry flush was inartistic, through so much
pearl powder. It made streaks.
It had its effect on Daverill, soothing his complaisant mood, making him
even more cunning than before. "I'll get it out of her, Juliar," said
he, "and you shall have it to tear up, to your heart's content. It don't
make one farthing's worth of difference, that I see. But have it your
own choice. A woman's a woman!" There seems no place in this for Mr.
Wix's favourite adjective; but it called for omission before "farthing's
worth," for all that!
"Not a penny of mine shall go your way, Wix, till I've put it on the
fire, and seen it burn." Miss Hawkins dropped her voice to say:--"Only
keep safe, just the little while left."
After Micky's exit one or two customers called for attention, and
subsided into conversation over one or two quarts. One had a grievance
that rumbled on continuously, barely pausing for intermittent sympathy
from the other or others. Their quarts having been conceded and paid
for, Miss Julia returned. That steak--which you may have felt anxious
about--was being kept hot, and Mr. Wix was tapping the ashes out of his
finished pipe. "There!" said he. "You run your eye through that, and
you'll see there's no more cause to shy off Sapps than any other place."
His exact words suggested recent carnage in Sapps Court, but only for
rhetoric's sake.
Miss Hawkins picked up the letter he threw across the table, and
recognised the one she had stealthily converted to an assurance of the
disappearance of extra police from Sapps Court. She felt very
uncomfortable indeed--but what could she do?
* * * * *
Ill news is said to travel fast, always. It had not done so in this
case, and Sapps Court was still in ignorance of old Maisie's death when
Michael passed under its archway, to experience for the first time the
feelings that beset the bearer of fatal tidings to those it will wound
to hear them far worse than himself. To a not inhuman creature, in such
a case, a title to sorrow, that will lessen the distance between his own
heart and the one he has to lacerate, is almost a relief.
He himself was not to blame for delay in delivering his message. On the
contrary, his sympathetic perception of its unwelcomeness to its
recipients took the strange form of a determination not to lose a second
in fulfilling his instructions. So deeply bent was he on doing this that
he never questioned the reasonableness of his own alacrity until he had
passed the iron post Dave fell off--you remember?--and was opposite to
his own family residence at the head of the Court. His intention had
been to pass it, and go straight on to No. 7. Something made him change
his mind; perhaps the painfulness of his task dawned on him. His mother
was surprised to see him. "There now," said she. "I thought you was
going to be out all day, and your father he'll want all the supper there
is for hisself."
"So I _was_ a-going to be out all day. I'm out now, in a manner o'
speaking. Going out again. Nobody's going to suffer from an empty
stummick along o' me." He had subsided on a rocking-chair, dropping his
old cloth cap between his feet.
"Whereabouts have you been to, Micky?" said his mother conciliatorily,
to soothe her son's proud independent spirit.
He recited his morning's work rapidly. "Linked an old cock down to
Chiswick Mawl what was frightened to ride in a hansom, till half-past
eleven, 'cos he could only go slow. Got an early dinner off of his cook
by reason of roomuneration. Cold beef and pickles as much as I choose.
Slice o' plum pudding hotted up a purpose, only no beer for to encourage
wice in youth. Bein' clost handy, dropped round on a wisit to Arnty
Lisbeth. Arnty Lisbeth she's makin' inquiry concerning a young tike's
owner. Wrote Arnty Lisbeth out a notice-card. Got Miss Horkings next
door to allow it up in her window on the street. That's how I came by
this here intelligence I got to pass on to Wardle's. Time I was going!"
Mrs. Ragstroar stopped scraping the brown outer skin off a very large
potato, and looked reproachfully at Micky. "You've never said nothing of
_that_," said she.
"Who ever went to say I said anything of it?" was the reply. In this
family all communications took the form of contradictions or
indictments, more or less defiant in character. "I never said not one
word. I'd no call to say anything, and I didn't."
"Then how can you ever expect anyone to know unless you say?" She went
on peeling.
"Who's ever said I expected anyone to know?" But in spite of his
controversial method, he did _not_ go away to give this message; and
evidently wanted a helping hand, or at least sympathy.
His mother perceived the fact, and said magnanimously:--"You might just
as well up and tell, Micky." Then she nearly undid the effect of her
concession by saying:--"Because you know you want to!"
What saved the situation was that Micky _did_ want to. He blurted out
the news that was oppressing him, to his own great relief. "Old Mother
Prichard, Wardleses Widder upstairs, she's dead."
"Sakes alive! They was expecting her back."
"Well--she's dead, like I tell you!"
"For sure?"
"That's what her son says. If _he_ don't know, nobody don't."
"Was it him told you? I never heard tell she had a son--not Mrs.
Prichard."
Micky's family pugnacity preferred to accept this as a censure, or at
least a challenge. He raised his voice, and fired off his speech in
platoons, to say:--"Never see her son! Shouldn't know him if I _was_ to
see him. Wot--I'm telling--you--that's--wot--her--son said to the party
what commoonicated it to me. Miss Wardle she'll reco'nise the party, by
particklars giv'." This embodied the impression received from the
convict's words, which had made no claim to old Maisie as his mother.
"Whatever shall you say to Mrs. Wardle?"
Micky picked up his cap from the ground, and used it as a
nose-polisher--after slapping it on his knee to sterilise it, a use
which seemed to act in relief of perplexity. "If I know, I'm blest,"
said he. "Couldn't tell you if you was to arsk me!"
It was impossible to resist the implied appeal for help. Mrs. Ragstroar
put a large fresh potato on the table to enjoy its skin yet a little
longer, and wiped the memory of its predecessors off on her apron. "Come
along, Micky," she said. "I got to see Aunt M'riar; you come along after
me. I'll just say a word aforehand." Micky welcomed this, and saying
merely:--"Ah!--like a tip!" followed his mother down the Court to No. 7.
Someone, somewhere, must have known, clocks apart, that a day was
drawing to a close; a short winter's day, and a dark and cold one at the
best. But the someone was not in the Thames Valley, and the somewhere
surely was not Sapps Court. There Day and Night alike had been robbed of
their birthright by sheer Opacity, and humankind had to choose between
submission to Egyptian darkness and an irksome leisure, or a crippled
activity by candlelight, on the one hand, and ruin, on the other. Not
that tallow candles were really much good--they got that yellow and
streaky. Why--the very gaslamps out of doors you couldn't hardly see
them, not unless you went quite up close! If it had not been that, as
Micky followed his mother down the Court, a ladder-bearer had dawned
suddenly, and died away after laying claim to lighting you up a bit down
here, no one would never have so much as guessed illumination was afoot.
But then the one gaslamp was on a bracket a great heicth up, on the wall
at the end of Druitt's garden, so called. And Mrs. Ragstroar and her son
had followed along the wood-palings in front of the houses, on the left.
Micky's flinching from his mission had grown on him so by the time they
reached the end house, that he hung back and allowed his mother to enter
first. He wanted the tip to exhaust the subject of Death, and to leave
him only the task of authentication. He did not hear what his mother
said in a quick undertone to Aunt M'riar, within, manifestly ironing.
But he heard its effect on her hearer--a cry of pain, kept under, and an
appeal to Uncle Mo, in some dark recess beyond. "Oh, Mo!--only hark at
that! Our old lady--gone!" Then Uncle Mo, emerging probably from pitch
darkness in the little parlour, and joining in the undertones on inquiry
and information mixed--mixed soon enough with sobs. Then the struggle
against them in Mo's own voice of would-be reassurance:--"Poor old
M'riar! Don't ye take on so! We'll all die one day." Then more
undertones. Then Aunt M'riar's broken voice:--"Yes--I _know_ she was
eighty"--and her complete collapse over:--"It's the children I'm
thinking of! Our children, Mo, our children!"
Old Mo saw that point. You could hear it in his voice. "Ah--the
children!" But he tried for a forlorn hope. Was it possibly a false
report? Make sure about that, anyhow, before giving way to grief! "Was
it only that young shaver of yours brought the news, Mrs. Ragstroar?
Maybe he's put the saddle on the wrong horse!"
"He's handy to tell his own tale, Mr. Wardle. Here, young Micky! Come
along in and speak for yourself." Whereupon the boy came in. He had been
secretly hoping he might escape being called into council altogether.
"You're sure you got the right of it, Michael," said Uncle Mo. "Tell it
us all over again from the beginning."
Whereupon Micky, braced by having a member of his own noble sex as
catechist, but sadly handicapped by inability to employ contentious
formulas, gave a detailed account of his visit to The Pigeons. He
identified the convict by short lengths of speech, addressed to Mr.
Wardle's ear alone, suggestive of higher understandings of the affairs
of men than aunts and mothers could expect to share. "Party that's
givin' trouble to the Police ... Party I mentioned seeing in Hy' Park
... Party that come down the Court inquirin' for widder lady ..." came
at intervals. Micky's respectful and subdued reference to Mrs. Prichard
was a tribute to Death.
"And did he say her son told him, to his own hearing?... All right,
M'riar, I know what I'm talking about." This was to stop Aunt M'riar's
interposing with a revelation of old Maisie's relation to the party. It
would have encumbered cross-examination; which, even if it served no
particular end, would seem profound and weighty.
"That's how I took it from him," said Micky.
"Didn't he say who her son was?" Aunt M'riar persisted, with unflinching
simplicity.
Micky, instantly illuminated, replied:--"Not he! He never so much as
said he wasn't her son, hisself." This did not mean that affirmation was
usually approached by denial of every possible negation. It was only the
involuntary echo of a notion Aunt M'riar's manner had clothed her words
with.
"That was tellings, M'riar," said Uncle Mo. "But it don't make any odds,
that I can see. Look ye here, young Micky! What was it this charackter
said about coming here this afternoon?"
"Werry first words I heard him say! 'No safety like a thick fog,' he
says. 'And I'll pay her a visit this very arternoon,' he says. Only he
won't! You may take that off me, like Gospel."
"How do you make sure of that, young master?"
"'Cos he's got nothing to come for, now I've took his message for him.
If he hadn't had reliance, he'd not have arxed me to carry it. He knows
me for safe, by now, Mr. Wardle."
"Don't you see, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "He'd no call to come here,
exceptin'. It was only to oblige-like, and let know. Once Micky gave his
word, what call had he to come four mile through such a fog?"
"That's the whole tale, then?" said Uncle Mo, after reflection. "Onlest
you can call to mind something you've forgot, Master Micky."
"Not a half a word, Mr. Moses. If there had a been, I'd have made you
acquainted, and no lies. And all I said's ackerate, and to rely on."
Which was perfectly true, so far as reporter's good faith went. Had
Micky overheard the conversation two minutes sooner, he would have
gathered that Mr. Wix had other reasons for coming to Sapps Court than
to give the news of Mrs. Prichard's death. Indeed, it is not clear why,
intending to go there for another purpose, Wix thought it necessary to
employ Michael at all as an ambassador. But a story has to be content
with facts.
Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar were alone with the shadow of their trouble,
and the knowledge that the children must be told.
The boy and his mother, their painful message delivered, had vanished
through the fog to their own home. The voices of Dave and Dolly came
from the room above through the silence that followed. Mo and M'riar
were at no loss to guess what was the burden of that earnest debate that
rose and fell, and paused and was renewed, but never died outright. It
was the endless arrangement and rearrangement of the preparations for
the great event to come, the feast that was to welcome old Mrs. Picture
back to her fireside, and its chair with cushions.
"Oh, Mo--Mo! I haven't the heart--I haven't the heart to do it."
"Poor old M'riar--poor old M'riar!" The old prizefighter's voice was
tender with its sorrow for his old comrade, who shrank from the task
that faced them, one or both; even sorrow--though less oppressive--for
the loss of the old lady who had become the children's idol.
"No, Mo, I haven't the heart. Only this very day ... if it hadn't been
for the fog ... Dave would have got the last halfpenny out of his rabbit
to buy a sugar-basin on the stall in the road ... and he's saving it for
a surprise for Dolly ... when the fog goes...."
"Is Susan Burr upstairs with them?"
"No--she's gone out to Yardley's for some thread. She's all right. She's
walking a lot better."
They sat silent for a while, the unconscious voices overhead reaching
their hearts, and rousing the question they would have been so glad to
ignore. How should they bring it to the children's knowledge that the
chair with cushions was waiting for its occupant in vain? Which of their
unwilling hands should be the first to draw aside the veil that still
sheltered those two babies' lives from the sight of the face of Death.
The man was the first to speak. "Young Mick, he saw his way pretty
sharp, M'riar--about who was ... her son." His voice dropped on the
reference to old Maisie herself, and he avoided her name.
"Did he understand?"
"Oh yes--he twigged, fast enough.... There's a p'int to consider,
M'riar. This man's her son--but it don't follow he knows whether she's
dead or living, any better than you or me. Who's to say he's not lying?
Besides, we should have had a letter to tell.... Who from?...
H'm--well--from ..." But Mo found the completion of this sentence
difficult.
No wonder! How could he reply:--"Her ladyship?" He may have been
convinced that Gwen would write, but how could he say so? The sister and
daughter, neither of whom were more than names to him, seemed out of the
question. Sister Nora would be sure to come with the news, some time.
But was she back from Scotland, where they knew she had gone to
convalesce?
Aunt M'riar looked the fact in the face. "No--we shouldn't have had no
letter, Mo. Not yet a while, at least. Daverill's a bad man, and lies.
But not when there's no advantage in it. He'd not go about to send me
word she was dead, except he knew."
"How should he know, more than we?"
"Don't you ask me about when I see him, not yet where, nor yet how, and
I'll tell you, Mo." She waited, as for a safe-conduct.
"Poor old M'riar!" said Mo pitifully. "I'll not witness-box you. Catch
me! No--no!--you shan't tell me nothing you don't like."
"He told me he should try to see his mother again. And I said to him if
he went there he would be taken, safe and certain. And he said not he,
because the Police were too sharp by half, and would take for granted he
would be afraid to go anigh the place again. He said he could always see
round them."
"I see what he was driving at. And you think he went."
"None so long ago, I should say. He never see her--not alive. I couldn't
say why, only I feel that was the way of it."
"When did you see him last?... No--old girl! I won't do that. It's
mean--after sayin' I wouldn't witness-box! Don't you tell me nothing."
"I won't grudge telling you that much, Mo. It's a tidy long time back
now. I couldn't say to a day. It was afore I wrote to him to keep away
from the Court for fear of the Police.... Yes--I did! Just after Mr.
Rowe came round that time, asking inquiries.... I _am_ his wife,
Mo--nothing can't alter it."
"I ain't blaming you, old girl."
"Well--it was then he said he'd go to Chorlton again. And he's been."
Silence again, and the sound of the children above. Then a footstep
without, recognised as Susan Burr's by its limp.
"She'll have to be told, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "We've never had a
thought for poor Susan."
A commonplace face came white as ashes from the fog without, and a
suffocating voice, gasping against sobs. "Oh, M'riar!--Oh, Mr.
Wardle!--_Is_ it true she's gone?"
Aunt M'riar could not tighten her lips against their instability and
speak, at the same time, so she nodded assent. Uncle Mo said, steadily
enough:--"I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Burr. We can't make it out no
otherwise." Then M'riar got self-command to say:--"Yes--she's taken from
us. It's the Lord's will." And then they could claim their birthright of
tears, the last privilege left to hearts encompassed with the darkness
of the grave.
The three were standing, some short while later, at the stairfoot, each
looking at the other. Which was to go first?
Aunt M'riar made a hesitating suggestion. "Supposin' you was to step up
first, and look back to say...!"
"That's one idear," said Uncle Mo. "Suppose you do!"
Susan Burr, referred to by both, accepted the commission, limping slowly
up the stairs while the others waited below, listening. They heard that
the door above was opened, when the children's voices came clearer,
suddenly. But Susan Burr had only cautiously pushed the door ajar,
making no noise, to listen herself before going in. There was a flare
from a gas-birth in the fire as she got a sight of the group within,
through the opening. It illuminated Dolly, Dave, and the newly
christened wax doll; the Persian apparatus on the floor--a mere
rehearsal, whose cake had to be pretence cake, and whose tea lacked its
vegetable constituent--and the portraits of robed and sceptred Royalty
on the wall. Some point in stage-management seemed to be under
discussion, and to threaten a dissolution of partnership. For Dave was
saying:--"Then oy shall go and play with The Boys, because the fog's
a-stopping. You look out at the winder!"
Dolly met this with a firm, though gentle, prohibition. "No, you
_s'arn't_. You _is_ to be Gwanny Mawwowbone vis time, and set on the
sofa. And me to be old Mrs. Spicture vis time, and set in the chair wiv
scushions. And Pussy to be ve uvvers. And Gweng to paw out all veir
teas. Only vey take veir sugar veirselves." Dolly may have had it in
view to reduce Dave to impotence by assigning to him the position of a
guest. His manhood revolted against a subordinate part. Superhuman tact
is needed--an old story!--in the casting of the parts of any new play,
and Dolly, although kissable to a degree, and with an iron will, was
absolutely lacking in tact.
"Then oy shall go and play with The Boys, because the forg's
a-stoarping." But this was an empty threat, as Dave knew perfectly well
that Uncle Mo would not allow him to go out of doors so late, even if
the fog melted, since its immediate cessation would have left London in
the dark, for it was past the Official hour of sunset.
Dolly said again:--"No, you sarn't!" and went on with the arrangements.
"You take _tite_ hold of Pussy, and stop her off doin' on ve scushions.
Gweng to paw out the tea, only to wait faw the hot water! Ven I shall go
in the chair with scushions, and be Mrs. Spicture. And ven you to leave
hold of Pussy, and be Gwanny Mawwowbone on the sofa." The
supernumeraries were _intransigeant_ and troublesome; that is to say,
their representative the Cat was.
Dave, whose enjoyment of these games was beginning to be marred by his
coming manhood--for see how old he was getting!--utilised magnanimity as
an excuse for concession. He kept the supers in check while Dolly
suggested an attitude to Gweng. Gweng had only to wait for hot water, so
it was easy to find one. Dolly then scrambled into the chair with
cushions, and the supernumeraries wedged themselves round her and
purred, in the person of the Cat. But having made this much concession,
Dave struck.
Instead of accepting his part, he went to the window. "Oy can see across
the way," said he. "Oy don't call it a forg when you can see the
gairslamp all the way across the Court. That hoyn't a forg! Oy say,
Dolly, oy'm a-going for to see Uncle Mo round to The Sun parlour, and
boy a hoypny sorcer coming back. Oy _am_!"
Dolly shook a mass of rough gold that cried aloud for a comb, and said
with sweet gravity:--"You tarn't!"
"Why not?" Dave's indignation at this statement made him shout. "Why
carn't oy, same as another boy?"
"Because you're Gwanny Mawwowbone, all ve time. You tarn't _help_ it."
Dolly's solemn nods, and a pathos that seemed to grieve over the
inevitable, left Dave speechless, struggling in vain against the
identity he had so rashly undertaken to assume.
Susan Burr missed a great deal of this, and marked what she heard but
little. She only knew that the children were happy, and that their
happiness must end. Even her own grief--for think what old Maisie's
death meant to her!--was hushed at the thought of how these babies could
be told, could have their first great grief burst upon them. She felt
sick, and only knew that she herself could not speak the word.
Aunt M'riar stole up after her stealthily--not Uncle Mo; his weight on
the old stairs would have made a noise. They stood side by side on the
landing, just catching sight of the little poppet in the armchair, all
unkempt gold and blue eyes, quite content with her personation of the
beloved old presence it would never know again. Aunt M'riar could just
follow Susan Burr's stifled whisper:--"She's being old Mrs. Picture, in
her chair."
It was confirmed by Dave's speech from the window, unseen. "You _ain't_
old Mrs. Picture. When Mrs. Picture comes, oy shall tell her you said
you was her, and then you'll see what Mrs. Picture'll say!" He spoke
with a deep earnestness--a champion of Truth against an insidious and
ungrounded fiction, that pretence was reality.
Then Dolly's voice, immovable in conviction, sweet and clear in
correction of mere error:--"I _is_ Mrs. Spicture, and when she comes
she'll _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture. She'll set in her chair wiv scushions,
and _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture."
The two listeners without did not wait to hear Dave's indignant
rejoinder. They could not bear the tranquil ignorance of the children,
and their unconsciousness of the black cloud closing in on them. They
turned and went noiselessly down the stairs, choking back the grief they
dared not grant indulgence to, by so much as a word or sound. The
chronic discussion that they had left behind went on--on--always the
same controversy, as it seemed; the same placid assurance of Dolly, the
same indignant protest of Dave.
At the stairfoot, Uncle Mo, silent, looking inquiry, mistrusting speech.
Aunt M'riar used a touch on his arm, and a nod towards the door of the
little parlour, to get safe out of the children's hearing before risking
speech, with that suffocation in her throat. Then when the door was
closed, it came.
"We c-c-couldn't do it, Mo, we c-couldn't do it." Her sobs became a
suppressed wail of despair, which seemed to give relief. Susan Burr had
no other tale to tell, and was inarticulate to the same effect. They
_could_ not break through the panoply of the children's ignorance of
Death, there in the very home of the departed, in the face of every
harbinger of her return.
"Poor old M'riar! You shan't have the telling of 'em." Uncle Mo's
pitying tones were husky in the darkened room; not quite dark, as the
fog was lifting, and the Court's one gas-lamp was perceptible again
through its remains. "Poor old M'riar! You shan't tell 'em--nor yet
Susan Burr. _I'll_ tell 'em, myself." But his heart sank at the prospect
of his task, and he was fain to get a little respite--of only a few
hours. "Look ye here, M'riar, I don't see no harm to come of standing of
'em over till we know. Maybe, as like as not, we'll have a letter in the
morning."
But Uncle Mo was not to have the telling of the children.
Once it was clearly understood that the news was to be kept back, it
became easier to exist, provisionally. Grief, demanding expression,
gnaws less when silence becomes a duty. It was almost a relief to Susan
Burr to have to be dry-eyed, on compulsion; far, far easier than to have
to explain her tears to the young people. She went upstairs to them,
mustering, as she went, a demeanour that would not be hypocritical, yet
would safeguard her from suspicion of a hidden secret. She had been a
long way, and was feeling her foot. That covered the position. Further,
the children might stop upstairs a bit longer, if good. Dave was not to
go out. Uncle Mo had said so. If Uncle Mo did go round to The Sun
to-day, it would be after little boys and girls were abed and asleep.
Mrs. Burr made her attitude easier to herself by affecting a Draconic
demeanour. It was due to her foot, Dave and Dolly decided.
The unconscious children accepted the fog as all-sufficient to account
for the household's gloom, and never knew how heavily the hours went by
for its older members. Bedtime came, and the fog did not go, or, at
least, went no further than to leave the gaslamp as Dave had seen it,
just visible across the Court, or discernible from the archway at a
favourable fluctuation. Susan Burr stepped round to Mrs. Ragstroar's,
alleging anxiety to hear Michael's story again, and some hopes of
further particulars. She may have felt indisposed for the loneliness of
her own room, with that empty chair; and yet that a company of three
would bear reduction, all that called for saying having been said twice
and again.
This was soon after supper; when little boys and girls are abed and
asleep. The little boy in this case was half asleep. He heard his Aunt's
and Uncle's voices get fainter as his own dream-voices came to take
their place, and then came suddenly awake with a start to find Uncle Mo
looming large beside him in the half-dark room. "Made you jump, did I,
old man?" said Uncle Mo, kissing him. "Go to sleep again." Dave did so,
but not before receiving a dim impression that his uncle went into the
neighbouring room to Dolly, and kissed the sleeping child, too; gently,
so as not to wake her. That was the impression, gleaned somehow, under
which he went to sleep. Uncle Mo often looked in at Dave and Dolly, so
this visit was no surprise to Dave.
Aunt M'riar awaited him at the stairfoot, on his return. "They'll be
happy for a bit yet," said she. "Now, if only Jerry would come and smoke
with you, Mo, I wouldn't be sorry to get to bed myself."
"May be he'll come!" said Mo. "Anyways, M'riar, don't you stop up on
account of me. I'll have my pipe and a quiet think, and turn in
presently.... Or look here!--tell you what! I'll just go round easy
towards Jeff's, and if I meet Jerry by the way, I meet him; and if I
don't, I don't. I shan't stop there above five minutes if he's not
there, and I shan't stop all night if he is. Good-bye, M'riar."
"Good-night's plenty, Mo; you're coming back."
"Ay, surely! What did I say? Good-bye? Good-night, I should have made
it." But he _had_ said "Good-bye!"
Has it ever occurred to you--you who read this--to feel it cross your
mind when walking that you have just passed a something of which you
took no notice? If you have, you will recognise this description. Did
Uncle Mo, when he wavered at the arch, fancy he had half-seen a figure
in the shadow, near the dustbin, and had automatically taken no notice
of it? If so, he decided that he was mistaken, for he passed on after
glancing back down the Court. But very likely his pause was only due to
the fact that he was pulling on his overcoat. It was one he had
purchased long ago, before the filling out had set in which awaits all
athletes when they relapse into a sedentary life. Mo hated the coat, and
the difficulties he met with when getting it on and off.
He was as good as his word about not stopping long at The Sun. Although
he found his friend awaiting him, he did not remain in his company above
half an hour, including his seven-minutes' walk back to the Court, to
which Jerry accompanied him, saying farewell at the archway. He didn't
go on to No. 7 at once, remembering that M'riar had said she wouldn't be
sorry to go to bed.
Seeing lights and hearing voices in at Ragstroar's, he turned in for a
chat, more particularly for a repetition of Micky's tale of his
Hammersmith visit. Finding the boy there, he accepted his mother's
suggestion that he should sit down and be comfortable. He did the
former, having first pulled off the obnoxious coat to favour the latter.
He may have spent twenty minutes there, chiefly cross-examining Micky on
particulars, before he got up to go. He forgot the odious coat, for
Susan Burr called him back, and tried to persuade him to put it on. He
resisted all entreaties. Such a little distance!--was it worth the
trouble? He threw it over his arm, and again departed. The two women saw
him from the door, and then, as they were exchanging a final word in the
passage, were startled by a loud screaming, and, running out, saw Mo
fling away the coat on his arm, and make such speed as he might towards
a struggling group not over visible in the shadow of the lamp
immediately above their heads.
This was within an hour of Mo's good-night, or good-bye, to M'riar at
his own doorway.
* * * * *
Aunt M'riar had wavered yet a little before the fire, and had then given
way to the thought of Dolly asleep. Dolly would be so unconscious of all
things that it would now be no pain to know that she knew nothing of
Death. Dolly asleep was always a solace to Aunt M'riar, even when she
kicked or made sudden incoherent dream-remarks in the dark.
So, after placing Mo's candlestick conspicuously, that Susan Burr, who
was pretty sure to come first, should see that he was still out, and not
put up the chain nor shoot to the bolt, M'riar made her way upstairs to
bed, very quietly, so as not to wake the children.
She was less than halfway to bed when she heard, as she thought, Susan
Burr's return. It could not be Mo, so soon. Besides, he would have
struck a match at once. He always did.
She listened for Susan's limping footstep on the stairs. Why did it not
come? Something wrong there, or at least unusual! Leaving her candle,
she wrapped herself hurriedly in a flannel garment she called her
dressing-gown, and went downstairs to the landing. All was dark below,
and the door was shut, to the street. She called in a loud whisper:--"Is
that Susan?" and no answer came:--"Who is that?" and still no answer.
She went back quickly for her candle, and descended the stairs, holding
it high up to see all round. No one in the kitchen itself, certainly.
The little parlour-door stood open. She thought she had shut it. Could
she be sure? She looked in, and could see no one--advanced into the
room, still seeing no one--and started suddenly forward as the door
swung to behind her.
She turned terrified, and found herself alone with the man she most
dreaded--her husband. He had waited behind the door till she entered,
and had then pushed it to, and was leaning against it.
"Didn't expect to see me, Polly Daverill, did you now? It's me." He
pulled a chair up, and, placing it against the door, sat back in it
slouchingly, with a kind of lazy enjoyment of her terror that was worse
than any form of intimidation. "What do you want to be scared for? I'm a
lamb. You might stroke me! This here's a civility call. For to thank you
for your letter, Polly Daverill."
She had edged away, so as to place the table between them. She could
only suppose his words sardonically spoken, seeing what she had said in
her letter. "I wrote it for your own sake, Daverill," said she
deprecatingly, timidly. "What I said about the Police was true."
"Can't foller that. Say it again!"
"They _had_ put on a couple of men, to keep an eye. They may be there
now. But I'd made my mind up you should not be taken along of me, so I
wrote the letter."
"Then what the Hell...!" His face set angrily, as he searched a pocket.
The sunken line that followed that twist in his jaw grew deeper, and the
scar on his knitted forehead told out smooth and white, against its
reddening furrows. He found what he sought--her letter, which she
recognised--and opened it before he finished his speech. "What the
Hell," he repeated, "is the meaning of _this_?" He read it in a vicious
undertone, biting off each word savagely and throwing it at her.
She had rallied a little, but again looked more frightened than ever. It
cost her a gasping effort to say:--"You are reading it wrong! Do give an
eye to the words, Daverill."
"Read it yourself," he retorted, and threw the letter across the table.
She read it through and remained gazing at it with a fixed stare, rigid
with astonishment. "I never wrote it so," said she at last.
"Then how to God Almighty did it come as it is? Answer me to that, Polly
Daverill."
Her bewilderment was absolute, and her distress proportionate. "I never
wrote it like that, Daverill. I declare it true and solemn I never did.
What I wrote was for you to keep away, and I made the words according.
I can't say no other, if I was to die for it."
"None of your snivelling! How came it like it is?--that's the point!
Nobody's touched the letter." He used his ill-chosen adjective for the
letter as he pointed at it, so that one might have thought he was
calling attention to a stain upon it. He dropped his finger slowly,
maintaining his reproachful glare. Then suddenly:--"Did you invellop the
damned thing yourself?"
She answered tremulously:--"I wrote it in this room at this table, where
you sit, and put it in its invellop, and stuck it to, firm. And I put
back the blotting-book where I took it from, not to tell-tale...."
He interrupted her roughly. "Got the cursed thing there? _Where_ did you
take it from?... Oh--_that's_ your blotting-book, is it? Hand it over!"
She had produced it from the table-drawer close at hand, and gave it to
him without knowing why he asked for it.
There is no need to connect his promptness to catch a clue to a forgery
with his parentage. The clue is too simple--the spelling-book lore of
the spy's infancy. The convict pulled out the top sheet of
blotting-paper, and reversed it against the light. The second line of
the letter was clear, and ended "now not." The "not" might, however,
have been erased independently--probably would have been. But how about
the end of the fourth line, also clear, with the word "run" on an oasis
of clean paper, and nothing after it. That "no" in the letter was not
the work of its writer.
"I put it in its invellop, Daverill, and not a soul see inside that
letter from me till you...."
"How do you know that?" He paused, reflecting. "It wasn't Juliar. She'd
got no ink." This man was clever enough to outwit Scotland Yard, with an
offer of fifty pounds for his capture, but fell easily to the cunning of
a woman, roused by jealousy. It wasn't Julia, clearly? "Who had hold of
the letter, between you and her?" said he, quite off the right scent.
"Only young Micky Ragstroar...."
"There we've got it!" The man pounced. "Only that young offender and the
Police. That was good for half a sov. for him.... Don't see what I mean?
I'll tell you. _He_ delivered your letter all right, after they'd run
their eyes over it. I'll remember _him_, one day!" A word in this is not
the one Daverill used, and his adjective is twice omitted. Aunt M'riar's
puzzled face produced a more temperate explanation, to the effect that
Micky had carried the letter to a "tec," or detective, who had "got at
him," and that the letter had been tampered with at the police-station.
"I wouldn't believe it of Micky, and I don't," said Aunt M'riar. "The
boy's a good boy at heart, and no tale-bearer." She ventured, as an
indirect appeal on Micky's behalf, to add:--"I'm shielding you,
Daverill, and a many wouldn't."
He affected to recognise his indebtedness, but only grudgingly. "You're
what they call a good wife, Polly Daverill. Partner of a cove's joys and
sorrows! Got your marriage lines to show! That's your style. You stick
to that!"
Something in his tone made M'riar say:--"Why do you speak like that? You
know that I have." Her speech did not seem to arise from his words. She
had detected a sneer in them.
"You've got 'em to show.... Ah! But I shouldn't show 'em, if I were
you."
"Am I likely?"
"That's not what I was driving at."
"What do you mean?"
"Shall I tell you, Polly, my angel? Shall I tell you, respectable
married woman?"
"Don't werrit me, Daverill. I don't deserve it of you!"
"Right you are, old Polly! And told you shall be!... Sure you want to
know?... There, there--easy does it! I'm a-telling of you." He suddenly
changed his manner, and spoke quickly, collectedly, drily. "The name on
your stifficate ain't the correct name. _I_ saw to that. Only you
needn't fret your kidneys about it, that I see. You're an immoral woman,
you are! Poor Polly! Feel any different?"
Anyone who knows the superstitious reverence for the "sacred" marriage
tie that obtains among women of M'riar's class and type will understand
her horror and indignation. And all the more if he knows the
extraordinary importance they attach to a certificate which is, after
all, only a guarantee that the marriage-bond is recorded elsewhere, not
the attested record itself. For a moment she was unable to speak, and
when words did come, they were neither protest nor contradiction,
but:--"Let me out! Let me out!"
The convict shifted his chair without rising, and held the door back for
her exit. "Ah," said he, "go and have a look at it!" He had taken her
measure exactly. She went straight upstairs, carrying her candle to the
wardrobe by Dolly's bed, where her few private possessions were hidden
away. Dolly would not wake. If she did, what did it matter? Aunt M'riar
heard a small melodious dream-voice in the pillow say tenderly:--"One
cup wiv soody." It was the rehearsal of that banquet that the great
Censorship had disallowed.
A lock in a drawer, refractory at first, brought to terms at last. A box
found far back, amenable to its key at sight. A still clean document,
found and read by the light of a hurriedly snuffed candle. Then an
exclamation of relief from the reader:--"There now! As if I could have
been mistook!" It was such a relief that she fairly gasped to feel it.
No doubt a prudent, judicious person, all self-control and guiding
maxims, would have refolded and replaced that document, locked the
drawer, hidden the key, and met the cunning expectancy of the evil face
that awaited her with:--"You are entirely mistaken, and I was absolutely
right."
But M'riar was another sort. Only one idea was present in the whirlwind
of her release from that hideous anxiety--the idea of striking home her
confutation of the lie that had caused it in the face of its originator.
She did the very thing his subtlety had anticipated. As he heard her
returning footsteps, and the rustle of the paper in her hand, he
chuckled with delight at his easy triumph, and perhaps his joy added a
nail in the coffin of his soul.
The snicker had gone from his face before she returned, marriage
certificate in hand, and held it before his eyes. "There now!" said she.
"What did I tell you?"
He looked at it apathetically, reading it, but not offering to take it
from her. "'Taint reg'lar!" said he. "Name spelt wrong, for one thing.
My name."
"Oh, Daverill, how can you say that? It's spelt right."
"Let's have a look!" He stretched out his hand for it in the same idle
way. Aunt M'riar's nature might have been far less simple than it was,
and yet she might have been deceived by his manner. That he was aiming
at possession of the paper was the last thing it seemed to imply. But he
knew his part well, and whom he had to deal with.
Absolutely unsuspicious, she let his fingers close upon it. Even then,
so sure did he feel of landing his fish, that he played it on the very
edge of the net. "Well," said he. "Just you look at it again," and
relinquished it to her. Then, instead of putting his hand back in his
pocket, he stretched it out again, saying:--"Stop a bit! Let's have
another look at it."
She instantly restored it, saying:--"Only look with your eyes, and
you'll see the name's all right." And then in a startled voice:--"But
what?--but why?" provoked by the unaccountable decision with which he
folded it, never looking at it.
He slipped it inside the breast-pocket of his coat, and buttoned it
over. "That was my game, you see!" said he, equably enjoying the dumb
panic of his victim.
As for her, she was literally speechless, for the moment. At last she
just found voice to gasp out:--"Oh, Daverill, you can't mean it! Give it
me back--oh, give it me back! Will you give it me back for money?... Oh,
how can you have the heart?..."
"Let's see the money. How much have you got? Put it down on this here
table." He seemed to imply that he was open to negotiation.
With a trembling hand M'riar got at her purse, and emptied it on the
table. "That is every penny," she said--"every penny I have in the
house. Now give it me!"
"Half a bean, six bob, and a mag." He picked up and pocketed the sixteen
shillings and a halfpenny, so described.
"Now you _will_ give it back to me?" cried poor Aunt M'riar, with a wail
in her voice that must have reached Dolly, for a pathetic cry answered
her from the room above.
"Some o' these days," was all his answer, imperturbably. "There's your
kid squealing. Time I was off.... What's that?"
Was it a new terror, or a thing to thank God for? Uncle Mo's big voice
at the end of the court.
The convict made for the street-door--peeped out furtively. "He's turned
in at young Ikey's," said he. Then to M'riar, using an epithet to her
that cannot be repeated:--"Down on your knees and pray that your bully
may stick there till I'm clear, or ... Ah!--smell that!" It was his
knife-point, open, close to her face. In a moment he was out in the
Court, now so far clear of fog that the arch was visible, beyond the
light that shone out of Ragstroar's open door.
Another moment, and M'riar knew what to do. Save Mo, or die attempting
it! If the chances seemed to point to the convict passing the house
unobserved she would do nothing.
That was not to be the way of it. He was still some twenty paces short
of Ragstroar's when old Mo was coming out at the door with the light in
it.
Aunt M'riar, quick on the heels of the convict, who was rather bent on
noiselessness than speed, had flung herself upon him--so little had he
foreseen such an attack--before he could turn to repel it. She clung to
him from behind with all her dead-weight, encumbering that hand with the
knife as best she might. She screamed loud with all the voice she
had:--"Mo--Mo--he has a knife--he has a knife!" Mo flung away the coat
on his arm, and ran shouting. "Leave hold of him, M'riar--keep _off_
him--leave _hold_!" His big voice echoed down the Court, resonant with
sudden terror on her behalf.
But her ears were deaf to any voice but that of her heart, crying almost
audibly:--"Save _him_! Never give that murderous right hand its freedom!
In spite of the brutal clutch that is dragging the hair it has captured
from the living scalp--in spite of the brutal foot below kicking hard to
reach and break a bone--cling hard to it! And if, power failing you
against its wicked strength, it should get free, be you the first to
meet its weapon, even though the penalty be death." That was her
thought, for what had Mo done that he should suffer by this man--this
nightmare for whose obsession of her own life she had herself alone to
blame?
The struggle was not a long one. Before Mo, whose weak point was his
speed, had covered half the intervening distance, a kick of the
convict's heavy boot-heel, steel-shod, had found its bone, and broken
it, just above the ankle. The shock was irresistible, and the check on
the knife-hand perforce flagged for an instant--long enough to leave it
free. Another blow followed, a strange one that M'riar could not
localise, and then all the Court swam about, and vanished.
What Mo saw by the light of the lamp above as he turned out of
Ragstroar's front-gate was M'riar, dressing-gowned and dishevelled,
clinging madly to the man he could recognise as her convict husband. He
heard her cry about the knife, saw that her hold relaxed, saw the blade
flash as it struck back at her. He saw her fall, and believed the blow a
mortal one. He heard the voice of Dolly wailing in the house beyond,
crying out for the missing bedfellow she would never dream beside again.
At least, that was his thought. And there before him was her slayer,
with his wife's blood fresh upon his hands.
All the anger man can feel against the crimes of man blazed in his
heart, all the resolution he can summon to avenge them knit the muscles
of his face and set closer the grip upon his lip. And yet, had he been
asked what was his strongest feeling at this moment, he would have
answered:--"Fear!"--fear, that is, that his man, more active than
himself and younger, should give him the slip, to right or to left, and
get away unharmed.
But that was not the convict's thought, with that knife open in his
hand. Indeed, the small space at command might have thwarted him. If,
for but two seconds, he could employ those powerful fists that were on
the watch for him on either side of the formidable bulk whose slow
movement was his only hope, then he might pass and be safe. It would
have to be quick work, with young Ikey despatched by the screaming women
at Ragstroar's to call in help; either his father's from the nearest
pot-house, or any police-officer, whichever came first.
Quick work it was! A gasp or two, and the man's natural flinching before
the great prizefighter and his terrible reputation had to yield to the
counsels of despair. It had to be done, somehow. He led with his
left--so an expert tells us we should phrase it--and hoped that his
greater alacrity would land a face-blow, and cause an involuntary
movement of the fists to lay the body open. Then his knife, and a rip,
and the thing would be done.
It might have been so, easily, had it been a turn-to with the gloves,
for diversion. Then, twenty years of disuse would have had their say,
and the slow paralysing powers of old age asserted themselves, quenching
the swift activity of hand and eye, and making their responsive energy,
that had given him victory in so many a hard-fought field, a memory of
the past. But it was not so now. The tremendous tension of his heartfelt
anger, when he found himself face to face with its dastardly object,
made him again, for one short moment, the man that he had been in the
plenitude of his early glory. Or, short of that, a near approach to it.
For never was a movement swifter than old Mo's duck to the left, which
allowed his opponent's "lead off" to pass harmless over his right
shoulder. Never was a cross-counter more deadly, more telling, than the
blow with his right, which had never moved till that moment, landing
full on the convict's jaw, and stretching him, insensible or dead, upon
the ground. The sound of it reached the men who came running in through
the arch, and made more than one regret he had not been there a moment
sooner, to see it.
Speechless and white with excitement, all crowded down to where Mo was
kneeling by the woman who lay stretched upon the ground beyond. Not
dead, for she was moving, and speaking. And he was answering, but not in
his old voice.
"I'm all as right as a trivet, M'riar. It's you I'm a-thinkin' of....
Some of you young men run for the doctor."
One appeared, out of space. Things happen so, in events of this sort,
in London. No--she is not to be lifted about, till he sees what harm's
done. Keep your hands off, all!
By some unaccountable common consent, the man on the ground, motionless,
may wait his turn. Two or three inspect him, and one tentatively prods
at the inanimate body to make it show signs of life, but is checked by
public opinion. Then comes a medical verdict, a provisional one, marred
by reservations, about the work that knife has done. A nasty cut, but no
danger. Probably stunned by the fall. Bring her indoors. Ragstroar's
house is chosen, because of the children.
Uncle Mo never took his eyes off M'riar till after a stretcher had come
suddenly from Heaven knows where, and borne his late opponent away, with
a crowd following, to some appointed place. He thought he heard an
inquiry answered in the words:--"Doctor says he can do nothing for
_him_," and may have drawn his inferences. Probably it was the
frightened voices and crying of the children that made him move away
slowly towards his own house. For he had asked the boy Micky "Had anyone
gone to see to them?" and been answered that Mrs. Burr was with them. It
was then that Micky noticed that his voice had fallen to little more
than a whisper, and that his face was grey. What Micky said was that his
chops looked awful blue, and you couldn't ketch not a word he said.
But he was able to walk slowly into the house, very slowly up the
stairs. Dave, in the room above, hearing the well-known stair-creak
under his heavy tread, rushed down to find him lying on the bed in his
clothes. Mo drew the child's face to his own as he lay, saying:--"Here's
a kiss for you, old man, and one to take to Dolly."
"Am oy to toyk it up to her now this very minute?" said Dave.
"Now this very minute!" said Uncle Mo. And Dave rushed off to fulfil his
mission.
When Susan Burr, a little later, tapped at his door, doubting if all was
well with him, no answer came. Looking in and seeing him motionless, she
advanced to the bed, and touched his hand. It never moved, and she
listened for a breath, but in vain. Heart-failure, after intense
excitement, had ended this life for Uncle Mo.
THE END
A BELATED PENDRIFT
"I can tell you exactly when it was, stupid!" said a middle-aged lady at
the Zoological Gardens to a contented elderly husband, some eighteen
years after the foregoing story ended. "It was before we were married."
"That does not convey the precise date, my dear, but no doubt it is
true," said the gentleman unpoetically. At least, we may suppose so, as
the lady said:--"Don't be prosy, Percy."
A little Macacao monkey in the cage they were inspecting withdrew his
left hand from a search for something on his person to accept a nut
sadly from the lady, but said nothing. The gentleman seemed unoffended,
and carefully stripped a brand-label from a new cigar. "I presume," said
he, "that 'before we were married' means 'immediately before?'"
"What would you have it mean?" said the lady.
The gentleman let the issue go, and made no reply. After he had used a
penknife on the cigar-end to his satisfaction, he said:--"Exactly when
was it?"
"Suppose we go outside and find my chair, if you are going to smoke,"
said the lady. "You mustn't smoke in here, and quite right, because
these little darlings hate it, and I want to see the Hippopotamus."
"Out we go!" said the gentleman. And out they went. It was not until
they had recovered the lady's wheeled chair, and were on their way
towards the Hippopotamus, that she resumed the lost thread of their
conversation, as though nothing had interrupted it.
"It was just about that time we came here, and Dr. Sir Thingummybob came
up when we were looking at the Kinkajou--over there!... No, I don't want
to go there now. Go on through the tunnel." This was to the chairman,
who had shown a tendency to go off down a side-track, like one of his
class at a public meeting. "I suppose you remember that?"
"Rather!" said the gentleman, enjoying his first whiff.
"Well--it was just about then. A little after the accident--don't you
remember?--the house that tumbled down?"
"I remember all about it. The old lady I carried upstairs. Well--didn't
you believe _then_ it was all up with Sir Adrian's eyesight? _I_ did."
"My dear!--how you do overstate things! Shall I ever persuade you to be
accurate? We were all much alarmed about him, and with reason. But I for
one always did believe, and always shall believe, that there was immense
exaggeration. People do get so excited over these things, and make
mountains out of molehills."
The gentleman said:--"H'm!"
"Well!" said the lady convincingly. "All I say is--see how well his eyes
are now!"
The gentleman seemed only half convinced, at best. "There was something
_rum_ about it," said he. "You'll admit that?"
"It depends entirely on what you mean by 'rum.' Of course, there was
something a little singular about so sudden a recovery, if that is what
you mean."
"Suppose we make it 'a little singular!' I've no objection."
The interest of the main topic must have superseded the purely
academical issue. For the lady appeared disposed towards a
recapitulation in detail of the incidents referred to. "Gwen went away
to Vienna with her mother in the middle of January," said she. "And ...
No--I'm not mistaken. I'm sure I'm right! Because when we came back from
Languedoc in June there was not a word of any such thing. And Lord
Ancester never breathed as much as a hint. And he certainly _would_
have, under the circumstances. Why don't you speak and agree with me, or
contradict me, instead of puffing?"
"Well, my love," said the gentleman apologetically, "you see, my
interpretation of your meaning has to be--as it were--constructive.
However, I believe it to be accurate this time. If I understand you
rightly ..."
"And you have no excuse for not doing so. For I am sure that what I did
say was as clear as daylight."
"Exactly. It is perfectly true that, when we went to Grosvenor Square in
June, Tim said nothing about recovery. In fact, as I remember it--only
eighteen years is a longish time, you know, to recollect things--he was
regularly down in the mouth about the whole concern. I always believed,
myself, that he would sooner have had Adrian for Gwen, on any terms, by
that time--sooner than she should marry the Hapsburg, certainly. Not
that he believed that Gwen was going to cave out!"
"You never said he said that!"
"Because he didn't. He only cautioned me particularly against believing
the rubbish that got into the newspapers. I am sure that if he had said
anything _then_ about recovery, I should remember it now."
"I suppose you would."
"And then six weeks after that Gwen came tearing home by herself from
Vienna. Then the next thing we heard was that he had recovered his
eyesight, and they were to be married in the autumn."
This was at the entrance to the tunnel, on the way to the Hippopotamus.
One's voice echoes in this tunnel, and that may have been the reason the
conversation paused. Or it may have been that resonance suggests
publicity, and this was a private story. Or possibly, no more than mere
cogitative silence of the parties. Anyhow, they had emerged into the
upper world before either spoke again.
Then said the lady:--"It seems that it comes to the same thing,
whichever way we put it. Something happened."
"My dear," replied the gentleman, "you ought to have been on the Bench.
You have the summing-up faculty in the highest degree. Something
happened that did not, as the phrase is, come out. But what was
it?--that's the point! I believe we shall die without knowing."
"We certainly shall," said Mrs. Percival Pellew--for why should the
story conceal her identity? "We certainly shall, if we go over and over
and over it, and never get an inch nearer. You know, my dear, if we have
talked it over once, we have talked it over five hundred times, and no
one is a penny the wiser. You are so vague. What was it I began by
saying?"
"That that sort of flash-in-the-pan he had ... when he saw the bust, you
know ..."
"I know. Septimius Severus."
"... Was just about the time Sir Coupland Merridew met us at the
Kinkajou, and asked for the address in Cavendish Square. That was the
end of September. Gwen told you all about it that same evening, and you
told me when I came next day."
"I know. The time you spilt the coffee over my poplinette."
"I don't deny it. Well--what was it you meant to say?"
"What about?... Oh, I know--the Septimius Severus business! Nothing came
of it. I mean it never happened again."
"I'm--not--so--sure! I fancy Tim thought something of the sort did. But
I couldn't say. It's too long ago now to remember anything fresh. That's
a Koodoo. If I had horns, I should like that sort."
"Never mind the Koodoo. Go on about Gwen and the blind story. You know
we both thought she _was_ going to marry the Hapsburg, and then she
turned up quite suddenly and unexpectedly in Cavendish Square, and told
Clo Dalrymple she had come back to order her _trousseau_. Then the Earl
said that to you about the six months' trial."
"Ye-es. He said she had come home in a fine state of mind, because her
mother hadn't played fair. He didn't give particulars, but I could see.
Of course, that story in the papers _may_ have been her mamma's doing.
Very bad policy if it was, with a daughter like that. However, he said
it was very near the end of the six months, and after all the whole
thing was rather a farce. Besides, Gwen _had_ played fair. So he had let
her off three weeks, and she was going down to the Towers at once--which
meant, of course, Pensham Steynes."
"And nothing else?"
"Only that he thought on the whole he had better go with her. Can't
recall another word, 'pon my honour!"
"I recollect. But he didn't go, because Gwen waited for her mother to
come with her. Undoubtedly that was the proper course." This was spoken
in a Grundy tone. "But she was very indignant with Philippa about
something."
"Philippa was backing the Hapsburg. All that is intelligible. What I
want to understand--only we never shall--is how Adrian's eyes came right
just at that very moment. Because, when we met him with his sister in
London, he was as blind as a bat. And that was at Whitsuntide. You
remember?--when his sister begged we wouldn't speak to him about Gwen.
_We_ thought it was the Hapsburg."
"Yes--they were just going back to Pensham after a month in London. She
just missed them by a few hours. There was not a word of his being any
better then."
"Not a word. Quite the other way. And then in a fortnight, or less, he
saw as well as he had ever seen in his life. I don't see any use in
putting it down to previous exaggeration, because a man can't see less
than nothing, and that's exactly what he did see. Nothing! He told me so
himself. Said he couldn't see me, and rather hoped he never should.
Because he had formed a satisfactory image of me in his mind, and didn't
want it disturbed by reality."
"He had that curious paradoxical way of talking. I always ascribed the
odd things he said to that, more than to any lack of good taste."
"To what?"
"My dear, my meaning is perfectly obvious, so you needn't pretend you
don't understand it. I am referring to his very marked individuality,
which shows itself in speech, and which no person with any discernment
could for one moment suppose to imply defective taste or feeling. He did
say odd things, and he does say odd things."
"I can't see anything particularly odd in what he said about me. If a
fillah forms a good opinion of another fillah whom he's never seen,
obviously the less he sees of him the better. Let well alone, don't you
know!"
"That is because you are as paradoxical as he is. All men are. But you
might be sensible for once, and talk reasonably."
"Well, then--suppose we do, my dear!" said the gentleman,
conciliatorily. "Let me see--what was I going to say just now--at the
Koodoo? Awfully sensible thing, only something put it out of my head."
"You must recollect it for yourself," said the lady, with some severity.
"_I_ certainly cannot help you."
The gentleman never seemed to resent what was apparently the habitual
manner of his lady wife. He walked on beside her, puffing contentedly,
and apparently recollecting abortively; until, to stimulate his memory,
she said rather crisply:--"Well?" He then resumed:--"Not so sensible as
I thought it was, but somethin' in it for all that! Don't you know,
sometimes, when you don't speak on the nail, sometimes, you lose your
chance, and then you can't get on the job again, sometimes? You get
struck. See what I mean?"
"Perhaps I shall, if you explain it more clearly," said his wife, with
civility and forbearance, both of the controversial variety.
"I mean that if I had told Adrian then and there that he was an
unreasonable chap to expect anyone to believe that his eyesight came
back with a jump, of itself--because that was the tale they told, you
know----"
"That was the tale."
"Then very likely he would have told me the whole story. But I was
rather an ass, and let the thing slip at the time--and then I couldn't
pick it up again. Never got a chance!"
"Precisely. Just like a man! Men are so absurdly secretive with one
another. They won't this and they won't that, until one is surprised at
nothing. I quite see that you couldn't rake it up now, seventeen years
afterwards."
"Seventeen years! Come--I say!"
"Cecily is sixteen in August."
"Well--yes--well!--I suppose she is. I say, Con, that's a queer thing to
think of!"
"What is?"
"That we should have a girl of sixteen!"
"What can you expect?"
"Oh--it's all right, you know, as far as that goes. But she'll be a
grown-up young woman before we know it."
"Well?"
"What the dooce shall we do with her, then?"
"All parents," said the lady, somewhat didactically, "are similarly
situated, and have identical responsibilities."
"Yes--but it's gettin' serious. I want her to stop a little girl."
"Fathers do. But we need not begin to fuss about her yet, thank Heaven!"
"'Spose not. I say, I wonder what's become of those two young monkeys?"
"Now, you needn't begin to fidget about _them_. They can't fall into the
canal."
"They might lose sight of each other, and go huntin' about."
"Well--suppose they do! It won't hurt you. But _they_ won't lose sight
of one another."
"How do you know that?"
"Dave is not a boy now. He is a responsible man of five-and-twenty. I
told him not to let her go out of his sight."
"Oh well--I suppose it's all right. You're responsible, you know. _You_
manage these things."
"My dear!--how can you be so ridiculous? See how young she is. Besides,
he's known her from childhood."
The story does not take upon itself to interpret any portion whatever of
this conversation. It merely records it.
The last speech has to continue on reminiscent lines, apparently
suggested by the reference to the childhood of the speaker's daughter;
one of the young monkeys, no doubt. "It does seem so strange to think
that he was that little boy with the black grubby face that Clo's
carriage stopped for in the street. Just eighteen years ago, dear!"
"The best years of my life, Constantia, the best years of my life!
Well--they think a good deal of that boy at the Foreign Office, and it
isn't only because he's a _protégé_ of Tim's. He'll make his mark in the
world. You'll see if he doesn't. Do you know?--that boy ..."
"Suppose you give these crumbs to the Hippopotamus! I've been saving
them for him."
The gentleman looked disparagingly in the bag the lady handed to him.
"Wouldn't he prefer something more tangible?" said he. "Less subdivided,
I should say."
"My dear, he's grateful for absolutely anything. Look at him standing
there with his mouth wide open. He's been there for hours, and I know he
expects something from me, and I've got nothing else. Throw them well
into his mouth, and don't waste any getting them through the railings."
"Easier said than done! However, there's nothing like trying." The
gentleman contrived a favourable arrangement of sundry scoriae of buns
and biscuits in his palms, arranged cupwise, and cautiously approaching
the most favourable interstice of the iron railings, took aim at the
powerful yawn beyond them.
"Good shot!" said he. "Only the best bit's hit his nose and fallen in
the mud!"
"There now, Percy, you've choked him, poor darling! How awkward you
are!" It was, alas, true! For the indiscriminate shower of crumbs made
straight, as is the instinct of crumbs, for the larynx as well as the
oesophagus of the hippo, and some of them probably reached his windpipe.
At any rate, he coughed violently, and when the larger mammals cough
it's a serious matter. The earth shook. He turned away, hurt, and went
deliberately into his puddle, reappearing a moment after as an island,
but evidently disgusted with Man, and over for the day. "You may as well
go on with what you were saying," said Mrs. Pellew.
"Wonder what it was! That fillah's mouth's put it all out of my head.
What _was_ I saying?"
"Something about David Wardle."
"Yes. Him and that old uncle of his--the fighting man. The boy can
hardly talk about him now, and he wasn't eight when the old chap died.
Touchin' story! He _has_ told me all he recollects--more than once--but
it only upsets the poor boy. I've never mentioned it, not for years now.
The old chap must have been a fine old chap. But I've told you all the
boy told me, at the time."
"Ye-es. I remember the particulars, generally. You said the row wasn't
his fault."
"His fault?--no, indeed! The fellow drew a knife upon him. You know he
was that awful miscreant, Daverill. There wasn't a crime he hadn't
committed. But old Moses killed him--splendidly! By Jove, I _should_
like to have seen that!"
"Really, Percy, if you talk in that dreadful way, I won't listen to
you."
"Can't help it, my dear, can't help it! Fancy being able to kill such a
damnable beast at a single blow!" The undertone in which Mr. Pellew went
on speaking to his wife may have contained some particulars of
Daverill's career, for she said:--"Well--I can understand your feeling.
But we won't talk about it any more, please!"
Whereto the reply was:--"All right, my dear. I'll bottle up. Suppose we
turn round. It's high time to be getting home." So the chairman put
energies into a return towards the tunnel. But for all that, the lady
went back to the subject, or its neighbourhood. "Wasn't he somehow mixed
up with that old Mrs. Alibone at Chorlton--Dave's aunt she is, I
believe. At least, he always calls her so."
"Aunt Maria? Of course. She _is_ his Aunt Maria. He was--or had
been--Aunt Maria's husband. But people said as little about that as they
could. He had been an absentee at Norfolk Island--a convict. That old
chap she married--old Alibone--- he's the great authority on horseflesh.
Tim found it out when they came to Chorlton to stay at the very old
lady's--what's her name?"
"Mrs. Marrable." Here Mrs. Pellew suddenly became luminous about the
facts, owing to a connecting link. "Of course! Mrs. Marrable was the
twin sister."
"A--oh yes!--the twin sister.... I remember ... at least, I don't. Not
sure that I do, anyhow!"
"Foolish man! Can't you remember the lovely old lady at Clo
Dalrymple's?..."
"She _was_ the one I carried upstairs. I should rather think I did
recollect her. She weighed nothing."
"Oh yes--_you_ remember all about it. Mrs. Marrable's twin sister from
Australia."
"Of course! Of course! Only I'd forgotten for the moment what it was I
didn't remember. Cut along!"
"I was not saying anything."
"No--but you were just going to."
"Well--I was. It was _her_ grave in Chorlton Churchyard."
"That what?"
"That Gwen and our girl went to put the flowers on, three weeks ago."
"By-the-by, when are the honeymooners coming back?"
"The Crespignys? Very soon now, I should think. They were still at Siena
when Gwen heard from Dorothy last, and it was unbearably hot, even
there."
"I thought Cis wrote to Dolly in Florence."
"Not the last letter. They were at the Montequattrinis' in May. That's
what you're thinking of. Cis wrote to her there, then. It was another
letter."
"'Spose I'm wrong! I meant the letter where she told how the very old
lady walked with them to the grave."
"Old Mrs. Marrable. Yes--and old Mrs. Alibone had to go in the carriage,
because of her foot, or something. She has a bad foot. That was in the
middle of June. _That_ letter _was_ to Fiesole. You do get so mixed up."
"Expect I do. Fancy that old lady, though, at ninety-eight!"
"Yes--fancy! Gwen said she was just as strong this year as last. She'll
live to be a hundred, I do believe. Why--the other old woman at Chorlton
is over seventy! Her daughter--or is it niece? I never know...."
"Didn't Cis say she spoke of her as 'my mother'?"
"No--that was the twin sister that died. But she always spoke _to_ her
as 'mother.'"
"Oh ah--that was what Cis couldn't make head or tail of. Rather a
puzzling turn out! But I say...."
"What?... Wait till we get out of the noise. What were you going to
say?"
"Isn't her head rather ... I mean, doesn't she show signs of...."
"Senile decay? No. What makes you think that?"
"Of course, _I_ don't know. I only go by what our girl said. Of course,
Gwen Torrens is still one of the most beautiful women in London--or
anywhere, for that matter! And it may have been, nothing but that."
"Oh, I know what you mean now. 'Glorious Angel.' I don't think anything
of that.... Isn't that the children there--by the Pelicans?"
It was, apparently. A very handsome young man and a very pretty girl,
who must have been only sixteen--as her parents could not be
mistaken--but she looked more. Both were evidently enjoying both,
extremely; and nothing seemed to be further from their thoughts than
losing sight of one another.
Says Mrs. Pellew from her chariot:--"My dear, what an endless time you
have been away! I wish you wouldn't. It makes your father so fidgety."
Whereupon each of these two young people says:--"It wasn't me." And
either glances furtively at the other. No doubt it was both.
"Never mind which it was now, but tell me about old Mrs. Marrable at
Chorlton. I want to know what it was she called your Aunt Gwen."
"Yes--tell about Granny Marrowbone," says the young man.
The girl testifies:--"Her Glorious Angel. When we first went into the
Cottage. What she said was:--'Here comes my Glorious Angel!' Well!--why
shouldn't she?"
"She _always_ calls her that," says the young man.
"You see, my dear! It has not struck anyone but yourself as anything the
least out of the way." Mrs. Pellew then explains to her daughter, not
without toleration for an erratic judgment--to wit, her husband's--that
that gentleman has got a nonsensical idea into his head that old Mrs.
Marrable is not quite.... Oh no--not that she is _failing_, you
know--not at all!... Only, perhaps, not so clear as.... Of course, very
old people sometimes do....
The girl looks at the young man for his opinion. He gives it with a
cheerful laugh. "What!--Granny Marrowbone off her chump? As sound as you
or I! She's called Lady Torrens her Glorious Angel ever since I can
recollect. Oh no--_she's_ all right." Whereupon Mr. Pellew says:--"I
see--sort of expression. Very applicable, as things go. Oh no--no reason
for alarm! Certainly not!"
"You know," says the girl, Cis--who is new, and naturally knows things,
and can tell her parents,--"you know there is never the slightest reason
for apprehension as long as there is no delusion. Even then we have to
discriminate carefully between fixed or permanent delusions and...."
"Shut up, mouse!" says her father. "What's that striking?"
The young man looks at his watch--is afraid it must be seven. The elder
supposes that some of the party don't want to be late for dinner. The
young lady says:--"Well--I got it all out of a book." And her mother
says:--"Now, please don't dawdle any more. Go the short way, and see for
the carriage." Whereupon the young people make off at speed up the steps
to the terrace, and a brown bear on the top of his pole thinks they are
hurrying to give him a bun, and is disillusioned. Mr. Pellew accompanies
his wife, but as they go quick they do not talk, and the story hears no
further disconnected chat. Nor does it hear any more when the turnstiles
are passed and the carriage is reached.
Soon out of sight--that carriage! And with it vanishes the last chance
of knowing any more of Dave and Dolly and their country Granny. And when
the present writer went to look for Sapps Court, he found--as he has
told you--only a tea-shop, and the tea was bad.
But if ever you go to Chorlton-under-Bradbury, go to the churchyard and
hunt up the graves of old Mrs. Picture and Granny Marrowbone.
WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S NOVELS
"WHY ALL THIS POPULARITY?" asks E. V. LUCAS, writing in the _Outlook_ of
De Morgan's Novels. He answers: De Morgan is "almost the perfect example
of the humorist; certainly the completest since Lamb.... Humor, however,
is not all.... In the De Morgan world it is hard to find an unattractive
figure.... The charm of the young women, all brave and humorous and gay,
and all trailing clouds of glory from the fairyland from which they have
just come."
=JOSEPH VANCE=
The story of a great sacrifice and a life-long love.
"The book of the last decade; the best thing in fiction since Mr.
Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must take its place as the first great
English novel that has appeared in the twentieth century."--LEWIS
MELVILLE in _New York Times Saturday Review_.
=ALICE-FOR-SHORT=
The romance of an unsuccessful man, in which the long buried past
reappears in London of to-day.
"If any writer of the present era is read a half century hence, a
quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William De
Morgan."--_Boston Transcript_.
=SOMEHOW GOOD=
How two brave women won their way to happiness.
"A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the
range of fiction."--_The Nation_.
=IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN=
A story of the great love of Blind Jim and his little daughter, and of
the affairs of a successful novelist.
"De Morgan at his very best, and how much better his best is than
the work of any novelist of the past thirty years."--_The
Independent_.
=AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR=
A very dramatic novel of Restoration days.
"A marvelous example of Mr. De Morgan's inexhaustible fecundity of
invention.... Shines as a romance quite as much as 'Joseph Vance'
does among realistic novels."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
=A LIKELY STORY=
"Begins comfortably enough with a little domestic quarrel in a
studio.... The story shifts suddenly, however, to a brilliantly told
tragedy of the Italian Renaissance embodied in a girl's portrait....
The many readers who like Mr. De Morgan will enjoy this charming
fancy greatly."--_New York Sun_.
_A Likely Story, $1.35 net; the others, $1.75 each._
=WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST=
The most "De Morganish" of all his stories. The scene is England in the
fifties. _820 pages_. _$1.50 net_.
* * * A thirty-two page illustrated leaflet about Mr. De Morgan, with
complete reviews of his first four books, sent on request.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE
_By ROMAIN ROLLAND_
Translated from the French by GILBERT CANNAN. In three volumes, each
$1.50 net
This great trilogy, the life story of a musician, at first the sensation
of musical circles in Paris, has come to be one of the most discussed
books among literary circles in France, England and America.
Each volume of the American edition has its own individual interest, can
be understood without the other, and comes to a definite conclusion.
_The three volumes with the titles of the French volumes included are:_
=JEAN-CHRISTOPHE=
DAWN--MORNING--YOUTH--REVOLT
=JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS=
THE MARKET PLACE--ANTOINETTE--THE HOUSE
=JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: JOURNEY'S END=
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP--THE BURNING BUSH--THE NEW
DAWN
_Some Noteworthy Comments_
"'Hats off, gentlemen--a genius.'. One may mention 'Jean-Christophe'
in the same breath with Balzac's 'Lost Illusions'; it is as big as
that. * It is moderate praise to call it with Edmund Gosse 'the
noblest work of fiction of the twentieth century.' * A book as big,
as elemental, as original as though the art of fiction began today.
* We have nothing comparable in English literature. *
"--_Springfield Republican._
"If a man wishes to understand those devious currents which make up
the great, changing sea of modern life, there is hardly a single
book more illustrative, more informing and more
inspiring."--_Current Opinion._
"Must rank as one of the very few important works of fiction of the
last decade. A vital compelling work. We who love it feel that it
will live."--_Independent._
"The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or from
any other European country, in a decade."--_Boston Transcript._
_A 32-page booklet about Romain Rolland and Jean-Christophe, with
portraits and complete reviews, on request._
Coningsby Dawson's
THE GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS
The triple romance of a Pagan-Puritan of to-day, with three heroines of
unusual charm. $1.35 net.
_Boston Transcript:_--"All vivid with the color of life; a novel to
compel not only absorbed attention, but long remembrance."
_Cosmo Hamilton in The New York Sun:_--"A new writer who is an old
master.... He lets all the poet in him loose.... He has set himself
in line with those great dead to whom the novel was a living,
throbbing thing, vibrant with the life blood of its creator,
pulsing with sensitiveness, laughter, idealism, tears, the fire of
youth, the joy of living, passion, and underlying it all that sense
of the goodness of God and His earth and His children without which
nothing is achieved, nothing lives."
_Life:_--"The first treat of the new season."
_Chicago Record-Herald:_--"His undercurrents always are those of
hope and sympathy and understanding. Moreover, the book is
singularly touched to beauty, alive with descriptive gems, and
gently bubbling humor and humanization of unusual order. Generous
and clever and genial."
Marjorie Patterson's
THE DUST OF THE ROAD
A vivid story of stage life by an actress. Her characters are
hard-working, but humorous and clean-living. With colored frontispiece,
$1.30 net.
_New York Tribune:_--"Her story would not be so vivid and
convincing if its professional part, at least, had not been lived.
The glamor of the stage is found here where it should be, in the
ambition of the young girl, in the fine enthusiasm of the manager.
There is humor here, and pathos, friendship, loyalty, the vanity of
which we hear so much."
_New York Sun:_--"In a particularly illuminating way, many points
are touched upon which will be read with interest in these days
when the young daughters of families are bound to go forth and
attack the world for themselves."
_Henry L. Mencken in Baltimore Evening Sun:_ "Lively and
interesting human beings ... dramatic situations ... a vivid
background ... she knows how to write ... amazing plausibility.
These stage folk are real ... depicted with humor, insight,
vivacity ... abounding geniality and good humor."
THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE
_American and English (1580-1912)_
Compiled by BURTON E. STEVENSON. Collects the best short poetry of
the English language--not only the poetry everybody says is good,
but also the verses that everybody reads. (3742 pages; India paper,
1 vol., 8vo, complete author, title and first line indices, $7.50
net; carriage 40 cents extra.)
The most comprehensive and representative collection of American and
English poetry ever published, including 3,120 unabridged poems from
some 1,100 authors.
It brings together in one volume the best short poetry of the English
language from the time of Spencer, with especial attention to American
verse.
The copyright deadline has been passed, and some three hundred recent
authors are included, very few of whom appear in any other general
anthology, such as Lionel Johnson, Noyes, Housman, Mrs. Meynell, Yeats,
Dobson, Lang, Watson, Wilde, Francis Thompson, Gilder, Le Gallienne, Van
Dyke, Woodberry, Riley, etc., etc.
The poems as arranged by subject, and the classification is unusually
close and searching. Some of the most comprehensive sections are:
Children's rhymes (300 pages); love poems (800 pages); nature poetry
(400 pages); humorous verse (500 pages); patriotic and historical poems
(600 pages); reflective and descriptive poetry (400 pages). No other
collection contains so many popular favorites and fugitive verses.
DELIGHTFUL POCKET ANTHOLOGIES
The following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible covers and
pictured cover linings. 16mo. Each, cloth, $1.50; leather, $2.50.
=THE GARLAND OF CHILDHOOD=
A little book for all lovers of children. Compiled by Percy Withers.
=THE VISTA Of ENGLISH VERSE=
Compiled by Henry S. Pancoast. From Spencer to Kipling.
=LETTERS THAT LIVE=
Compiled by Laura E. Lockwood and Amy R. Kelly. Some 150 letters.
=POEMS FOR TRAVELLERS=
(About "The Continent.") Compiled by Miss Mary R. J. DuBois.
=THE OPEN ROAD=
A little book for wayfarers. Compiled by E. V. Lucas.
=THE FRIENDLY TOWN=
A little book for the urbane, compiled by E. V. Lucas.
=THE POETIC OLD-WORLD=
Compiled by Miss L. H. Humphrey. Covers Europe, including Spain, Belgium
and the British Isles.
=THE POETIC NEW-WORLD=
Compiled by Miss Humphrey.
STANDARD CONTEMPORARY NOVELS
=WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE=
The story of a great sacrifice and a lifelong love. Over fourteen
printings. $1.75.
* * * List of Mr. De Morgan's other novels sent on application.
=PAUL LEICESTER FORD'S THE HON. PETER STIRLING=
This famous novel of New York political life has gone through over fifty
impressions. $1.50.
=ANTHONY HOPE'S PRISONER OF ZENDA=
This romance of adventure has passed through over sixty impressions.
With illustrations by C. D. Gibson. $1.50.
=ANTHONY HOPE'S RUPERT OF HENTZAU=
This story has been printed over a score of times. With illustrations by
C. D. Gibson. $1.50.
=ANTHONY HOPE'S DOLLY DIALOGUES=
Has passed through over eighteen printings. With illustrations by H. C.
Christy. $1.50.
=CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS'S CHEERFUL AMERICANS=
By the author of "Poe's Raven in an Elevator" and "A Holiday Touch."
With 24 illustrations. Tenth printing. $1.25.
=MAY SINCLAIR'S THE DIVINE FIRE=
By the author of "The Helpmate," etc. Fifteenth printing. $1.50.
=BURTON E. STEVENSON'S MARATHON MYSTERY=
This mystery story of a New York apartment house is now in its seventh
printing, has been republished in England and translated into German and
Italian. With illustrations in color. $1.50.
=E. L. VOYNICH'S THE GADFLY=
An intense romance of the Italian uprising against the Austrians.
Twenty-third edition. $1.25.
=DAVID DWIGHT WELLS'S HER LADYSHIP'S ELEPHANT=
With cover by Wm. Nicholson. Eighteenth printing. $1.25.
=C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR=
Over thirty printings. $1.50.
=C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S THE PRINCESS PASSES=
Illustrated by Edward Penfield. Eighth printing. $1.50.
BY INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE
=ANGEL ISLAND=
Illustrated by JOHN RAE. $1.35 net. Ready in January, 1914.
The story of five shipwrecked men of varied attainments and five equally
individual winged women. This picturesque romance, with stirring
episodes and high ideals, appears for the first time in complete form,
the serial version having been much shortened.
=PHOEBE AND ERNEST=
With 30 illustrations by R. F. SCHABELITZ. $1.35 net.
Parents will recognize themselves in the story, and laugh
understandingly with, and sometimes at, Mr. and Mrs. Martin and their
children, Phoebe and Ernest.
"We must go back to Louisa Olcott for their equals."--_Boston
Advertiser_.
"For young and old alike we know of no more refreshing
story."--_New York Evening Post._
=PHOEBE, ERNEST, AND CUPID=
Illustrated by R. F. SCHABELITZ. $1.35 net.
In this sequel to the popular "Phoebe and Ernest," each of these
delightful young folk goes to the altar.
"To all jaded readers of problem novels, to all weary wayfarers on
the rocky literary road of social pessimism and domestic woe, we
recommend 'Phoebe, Ernest, and Cupid' with all our hearts: it is
not only cheerful, it's true."--_N. Y. Times Review._
"Wholesome, merry, absolutely true to life."--_The Outlook._
=JANEY=
Illustrated by ADA C. WILLIAMSON. $1.25 net.
"Being the record of a short interval in the journey thru life and
the struggle with society of a little girl of nine."
"Depicts youthful human nature as one who knows and loves it. Her
'Phoebe and Ernest' studies are deservedly popular, and now, in
'Janey,' this clever writer has accomplished an equally charming
portrait."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
* * * * *
List of Corrections Made by the Transcriber:
(Words to be emphasized are enclosed by pound signs [#].)
Page 6: impident (square and compact, that chunky and yet that tender,
that no right-minded person could desire him to be changed to an
#impudent# young scaramouch like young Michael Ragstroar four doors)
Page 55: scarcly (letter remains, and has been seen by the present
writer and others. The dexterity of the thing almost passes belief, only
a few #scarcely# perceptible traces of the old writing being visible, the
length of)
Page 65: mankleshelf (directness. But he was destined to puzzle his
audience by his keen interest in something that was on the #mantleshelf#,
his description of which seemed to relate to nothing this lady's
recollection of)
Page 76: see to the sacks, ("He #sees# to the sacks," said Dave.)
Page 84: starn (in your antecedents, surely it would be these two
leisurely rowers and the superior person in the #stern#, with the oilskin
cape?)
Page 139: bliassed (want of shrewdness when he visited Sapps Court. She
had been #biased# towards this suspicion by the fact that the man, when he
first referred to Sapps Court, had spoken the name as though)
Page 277: backelors (it any hinterland of discussion of the ethics of
Love, provocative of practical application to the lives of old maids and
old #bachelors#--if the one, then the other, in this case--strolling in a
leisurely)
Page 320: [blank] (property did a man's heart good to see, nowadays. The
man was Uncle Mo, who got out of the house #i#n plenty of time to stop
Michael half-murdering the marauder, as soon as he considered the
latter)
Page 346: infaturated (If I had ever been engaged, or on the edge of
it--I never have, really and truly!--and the #infatuated# youth had ... had
complicated matters to that extent, I never should have been able to)
Page 360: up up (premises it was engendered in, was necessary to hold
the roof #up# tempory, for fear it should come with a run. It was
really a'most nothing in the manner of speaking. You just shoved a)
Page 374: frostis (through, and setting alight to a bit of fire now and
again, and the season keeping mild and favourable, with only light
#frosts# in the early morning--only what could you expect just on to
Christmas?--there)
Page 403: kncoked (The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then
#knocked# at the door, and waited. The woman inside had been listening to)
Page 413: financée (to his sister Irene one of the long missives he was
given to sending to his #fiancée# in London. It was just such a late
October day as the one indirectly referred to above; in fact, it)
Page 434: ather ("You mean, you can manage your Bull, and #father# can't.
Is that it?" Assent given. "And how can you manage your)
Page 580: [blank] (who had charge of Dave--Strides Cottage, of course!
I'm sure she'll #be# all right as far as that goes. But the whole thing is
so odd.... Stop a minute!--perhaps the best way would be for me)
Page 615: Egnland.... (you dead. For years she believed you and her
sister dead. And when she returned to #England#....")
Page 717: acompany (the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much
pleased with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to #accompany#
it; then hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed)
Page 732: Gwenn ("'Made it like then?'" #Gwen# was not sure she followed
this.)
Page 740: mmama (mean--so long as they think I think it was. That's the
point. Now, the question is, did or did not my superior #mamma# descend on
your comme-il-faut parent to drum this idea into him, and get)
Page 756: differnece (she had loved ungrudgingly throughout. Nor was it
only this. It palliated her son's crimes. But then there was a
#difference# between the son and the father. The latter had apparently
done nothing)
Page 799: Phooebe is so kind, to take every little word I say. ("My
dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But #Phoebe# is so kind,
to take every little word I say.")
Page 845: spech. "What the Hell," he repeated, (what he sought--her
letter, which she recognised--and opened it before he finished his
#speech#. "What the Hell," he repeated, "is the meaning of this?" He
read it in a vicious undertone, biting)
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