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 _protegee_. 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 _vise_ 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 _a 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 _arriere pensee_, 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 deg. 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.