And here was she, face to face with resurrection--that was how she

thought of it--all her brain in a whirl, unfit to allot its proper place

to the most insignificant fact; all her heart stunned by a cataclysm she

had no wits to give a name to. She had come with a rare courage and

endurance to be at close quarters with this mystery, whatever it was, at

once. On the very verge of full knowledge of it, this terror had come

upon her, and she stood trembling, sick with dread undefined, glad she

need not speak or call out. It would pass, and then she would call to

Ruth, whose voice she could hear in the room beyond. There was another

voice, too, a musical one, and low. Whose could it be? Not her lost

sister's--not Maisie's! Her voice was never like that.

The cat came purring round her to welcome her back. The great bulldog

trotted in from the yard behind, considered her a moment, and passed out

to the front, attracted by the voices of Keziah and John Costrell.

Having weighed them, duly and carefully, he trotted back past Granny

Marrable, to give one short bark at the bedroom door, and return to the

yard behind, his usual headquarters. Then Ruth came from the bedroom,

hearing the movement and speech without.

She was terribly taken aback. "Oh, mother dearest," she said, betrayed

into speaking her inner thought, "you have come too soon. You cannot

know."

"_I_ know," said Granny Marrable. "I will tell you presently. Now take

me to her."

Ruth saw she meant that she could not trust her feet. What wonder at

that? If she really knew the truth, what wonder at anything? She gave

the support of her arm to the door, across the passage. Then the need

for it seemed to cease, and the Granny, becoming her strong old self

again, said with her own voice:--"That will do, dear child! Leave me to

go on." She seemed to mean:--"Go on alone." That was what Ruth took her

speech for. She herself held back; so none saw the first meeting between

the twins.

Presently, as she stood there in suspense, she heard the words:--"Who is

it outside, Ruth?" in Mrs. Prichard's voice, weak but controlled. Then

the reply, through a breath that caught:--"Ruth is outside." Then the

weaker voice, questioning:--"Then who?... then who?..." But no answer

was given.

For, to Ruth's great wonderment, Granny Marrable came back in extreme

trepidation, crying out through sobs:--"Oh, how can this be Maisie? Oh,

how can this be Maisie?" To which Ruth's reply was:--"Oh, mother dear,

who can she be if she is not my mother?" And though the wording was at

fault, it is hard to see how she could have framed her question

otherwise.

But old Phoebe had cried out loud enough to be heard by Keziah, speaking

with John Costrell out in front, and it was quite audible in the room

she had just left. That was easy to understand. But it was less so that

old Maisie should have risen unassisted from the bed where she had lain

since morning, and followed her.

"Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe darling, do not say that! Do not look at me to deny

me, dearest. I know that this is you, and that we are here, together.

Wait--wait and _it will come_!" This was what Keziah remembered hearing

as she came back into the house. She crossed the kitchen, and saw,

beyond Widow Thrale in the passage, that the two old sisters were in

each other's arms.

Old Phoebe, strong in self-command and moral fortitude, and at the same

time unable to stand against the overwhelming evidence of an almost

incredible fact, had nevertheless been unprepared, by any distinct image

of what the beautiful young creature of fifty years ago had become, to

accept the reality that encountered her when at last she met it face to

face.

Old Maisie's position was different. She had already fought and won her

battle against the changes Time had brought about, and her mind no

longer recoiled from the ruinous discolorations of decay. She had been

helped in this battle by a strong ally, the love engendered for her own

daughter while she was still ignorant of her identity. She had found her

outward seeming a stepping-stone to a true conception of the

octogenarian, last seen in the early summer of a glorious womanhood.

Ruth Thrale's autumn, however much she still retained of a comely

maturity, had been in those days the budding springtime of a child of

four. Come what come might of the ravages of Time and Change, old Maisie

was prepared for it, after accepting such a change as that. Did she

know, and acknowledge to herself the advantage this had been to her,

that time when she had said to Gwen:--"How I wish you could stay, to

tell her that this is me!"

But the momentary unexpected strength that had enabled old Maisie to

rise from the bed could not last. She had only just power left to

say:--"I _am_ Maisie! I _am_ Maisie!" before speech failed; and her

daughter had to be prompt, close at hand though she was, to prevent her

falling. They got her back to the bed, frightened by what seemed

unconsciousness, but relieved a moment after by her saying:--"I was only

dizzy. Is this Phoebe's hand?" They were not seriously alarmed about her

then.

She remained very still, a hand of her sister and daughter in each of

hers, and the twilight grew, but none spoke a word. Keziah, at a hint

from Ruth, attended to the preparation of supper in the front-room. This

living unfed through hours of tension had to come to an end sometime.

They knew that _her_ silence was by choice, from a pressure of the hand

of either from time to time. It seemed to repeat her last words:--"I

_am_ Maisie. I _am_ Maisie."

That silence was welcome to them, for neither would have said a word by

choice. They could but sit speechless, stunned by the Past. Would they

ever be able to talk of it at all? A short parting gives those who

travel together on the road through Life a good spell of cheerful chat,

and each is overbrimming with the tale of adventure, grave or gay, of

the folk they have chanced upon, the inns they have slept at, a many

trifles with a leaven of seriousness not too weighty for speech. How is

it when the ways divided half a century ago, and no tidings came to hand

of either for the most part of a lifetime? How when either has believed

the other dead, through all those years? Neither old Phoebe nor Ruth

could possibly have felt the thing otherwise. But, that apart, silence

was easiest.

Presently, it was evident that she was sleeping, peacefully enough,

still holding her sister and daughter by the hand. As soon as Ruth felt

the fingers slacken, she spoke, under her breath:

"How came you to know of it?"

"Dr. Nash. I spoke with her ladyship on the way, and she said it was

true."

"What did she say was true?"

Granny Marrable had to think. What was it Gwen had said? She continued,

feeling for her memories:--"I said to Gwen o' the Towers 'twas my dead

sister come from the grave, and Dr. Nash had spoken to it. And John

Costrell would have me unsay my word, but her ladyship bore me out,

though 'twas but a way of speech." She paused a moment; then, before

Ruth could frame an inquiry as to how much she knew of the story from

either Dr. Nash or Gwen, went on, her eyes fixed, with a look that had

terror in it, on the figure on the bed:--"If this be Maisie, was she not

dead to me--my sister? Oh, how can this be Maisie?" Her mind was still

in a turmoil of bewilderment and doubt.

Then Ruth's speech was again at fault, and yet she saw nothing strange

in it. "Oh, mother dearest, this _must_ be my mother. How else could she

know? Had you but heard her talk as I did, of the old mill!--and there

she was a-knowing of it all, and I could think her mad! Oh, mother dear,

the fool that I was not to see she _must_ be my mother!"

"It comes and goes, child," said Granny Marrable tremulously, "that she

is your mother, not dead as I have known her. But it is all your life. I

mind how the letter came that told it. After your grandfather's death.

And all a lie!"

"Her ladyship will tell you that, mother, as she told it to me. I have

not the heart to think it, but it was my father's work. God have mercy

on him!"

"God have mercy on him, for his sin! But how had he the cruelty? What

wrong had I done him?"

"Mother, I pray that I may one day see the light upon it. God spare us a

while, just for to know the meaning of it all." It was a confession of

the hopelessness of any attempt to grapple with it then.

Keziah Solmes, while preparing some supper, looked in once, twice, at

the watchers beside the still sleeping figure on the bed. They were not

speaking, and never took their eyes from the placid, colourless face and

snow-white hair loose on the pillow; but they gave her the idea of dazed

bewilderment, waiting for the mists to clear and let them dare to move

again. The fog-bound steamer on the ocean stands still, or barely cuts

the water. It is known, on board, that the path will reopen--but when?

The third time Keziah looked in at them, the room being all dark but for

a wood-flicker from an unreplenished grate, she gathered courage to say

that supper was ready. Ruth Thrale started up from where she half sat,

half lay, beside the sleeper, exclaiming:--"She's eaten nothing since

the morning. Mother, she'll sink for want of food."

"Now, the Lord forgive me!" said Granny Marrable. "To think I've had my

dinner to-day, and she's been starving!" For, of course, the midday meal

was all over at Costrell's, in normal peace, when Dr. Nash came in laden

with the strange news, and at a loss to tell it.

The withdrawal of her daughter's hand waked the sleeper with a start. "I

was dreaming so nicely," said she. "But I'm cold. Oh dear--what is

it?... I thought I was in Sapps Court, with my little Dave and

Dolly...." She seemed slow to catch again the thread of the life she had

fallen asleep on. Vitality was very low, evidently, and she met an

admonition that she must eat something with:--"Nothing but milk,

please!" It refreshed her, for though she fell back on the pillow with

her eyes closed, she spoke again a moment after.

The thing happened thus. Keziah, authoritatively, insistent, would have

Ruth eat, or try to eat, some supper. Old Phoebe was in no need of it,

and sat on beside old Maisie, who must have dreamed again--one of those

sudden long experiences a few seconds will give to a momentary sleep.

For she opened her eyes to say, with a much greater strength in her

voice:--"I was dreaming of Dolly again, but Dolly wasn't Dolly this time

... only, she _was_ Dolly, somehow!..." Then it was clear that she was

quite in the dark, for the time being, about the events of the past few

hours. For she continued:--"She was Dolly and my sister Phoebe--both at

once--when Phoebe was a little girl--my Phoebe that was drowned. But

Phoebe was older than that when she drew my tooth, as Dolly did in my

dream."

Old Phoebe, it must be borne in mind, although intellectually convinced

that this could be none other than her sister, had never experienced the

conviction that only the revival of joint memories could bring. This

reference to an incident only known to themselves, long forgotten by her

and now flashed suddenly on her out of the past, made her faith that

this was Maisie, in very truth, a reality. But she could not speak.

The dream-gods kept their hold on the half-awakened mind, too old for

any alacrity in shaking them off. The old voice wandered on, every word

telling on its hearer and rousing a memory. "We must have been eight

then. Phoebe tied a thread of silk round the tooth, and the other end to

the drawer-knob ... it was such a little tooth ... long and long before

you were born, my dear...." Her knowledge of the present was on its way

back, and she thought the hand that held hers was her new-found

daughter's. "It was the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept."

If you who read this are old, can you not remember among the

surroundings of your childhood things too trivial for the maturities of

that date to give a passing thought to, that nevertheless bulked large

to you then, and have never quite lost their impressiveness since? Such

a one, to old Phoebe, was "the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept."

Some trifle of the sort was sure to strike home its proof of her

sister's identity. Chance lighted on this one, and it served its turn.

Ruth heard her cry out--a cry cut short by her mother's:--"Oh, Phoebe,

Phoebe, I know it all now, and you'll know me." She started up from a

hurried compliance with her Cousin Keziah's wish that she should eat,

and went back quickly to the bedroom, to see the two old sisters again

locked in each other's arms.

They may have been but dimly alive to how it all had come about, but

they knew themselves and each other--twins wrenched asunder half a

century since, each of whom had thought the other dead for over forty

years.

CHAPTER XX

HOW GRANNY MARRABLE THOUGHT SHE OUGHT NOT TO GO TO SLEEP, BUT DID.

HOW A CRICKET WAS STILL AT IT, WHEN SHE WAKED. HOW MAISIE WAKED

TOO. HOW THEY REMEMBERED THINGS TOGETHER, IN THE NIGHT. A SKULL

TWENTY-SEVEN INCHES ROUND. HOW PHOEBE COULD NOT FORGIVE HER

BROTHER-IN-LAW, GOD OR NO! HOW IT HAD ALL BEEN MAISIE'S FAULT. THE

OTHER LETTER, IN THE WORKBOX, BEHIND THE SCISSORS. THE STORY OF THE

SCORPION. ALL TRUE! ONLY IT WAS MRS. STENNIS, WHO DIED IN AGONY.

ELIZABETH-NEXT-DOOR'S IMMOVABLE HUSBAND. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE WAS

RELIEVED ABOUT THAT SCORPION. HOW MAISIE'S HUSBAND HAD REALLY HAD A

DEVIL--A BLACK MAN'S--WHICH MAISIE'S SON HAD INHERITED. A NEW

INFECTION IN THINE EYE. HOW RUTH WENT FOR THE DOCTOR. HOW HE

RECOMMENDED GWEN, AS WELL AS THE MIXTURE

The two old twins knew it all now, so far as it would ever be a matter

of knowledge. They had got at the heart of each other's identity, before

either really understood the cruel machination that had cancelled the

life of either for the other.

Ruth Thrale left them alone together, and went back to force herself to

eat. Keziah wanted to get back to her old man, and how could she go,

unless Ruth kept in trim to attend to her two charges? Who could say

that old Phoebe, at eighty, would not give in under the strain? Ruth had

always a happy faculty of self-forgetfulness; and now, badly as she had

felt the shock, she so completely lost sight of herself in the thought

of the greater trouble of the principal actors, as to be fully alive to

the one great need ahead, that of guarding and preserving what was left

of the old life, the tending of which had come so strangely upon her.

She refused Keziah's offer to remain on. Elizabeth-next-door, she said,

was always at hand for emergencies.

Keziah stayed late enough to see all arranged for the night, ending with

a more or less successful effort to get old Maisie to swallow arrowroot.

She helped Ruth to establish the Granny in her own high-backed chair

beside her sister--for neither would relinquish the other's hand--and

took advantage of a very late return of Brantock, the carrier, to convey

her home, where she arrived after midnight.

All know the feeling that surely must have been that of at least one of

the old sisters, that sleep ought to be for some mysterious reason

combated, or nonsuited rather, when the mind is at odds with grave

events. One rises rebellious against its power, when it steals a march

on wakefulness, catching the keenest vigilance unawares. There was no

reason why Granny Marrable should not sleep in her own arm-chair--which

she would say was every bit as good as bed, and used accordingly--except

that yielding meant surrender of the faculties to unconsciousness of a

problem not yet understood, with the sickening prospect of finding it

unanswered on awakening. That seemed to be reason enough for many

resentful recoils from the very portals of sleep; serving no end, as

Maisie had been overcome without a contest, and lay still as an effigy

on a tomb. A vague fear that she might die unwatched, looking so like

Death already, may have touched Phoebe's mind. But fears and unsolved

riddles alike melted away and vanished in the end; and when Ruth Thrale,

an hour later, starting restless from her own couch near by, looked in

to satisfy herself that all was well, both might have been leagues away

in a dream-world, for any consciousness they showed of her presence.

That was on the stroke of one; and for two full hours after all was

silence, but for the records of the clock at its intervals, and the

cricket dwelling on the same theme our forefathers heard and gave no

heed to, a thousand years ago. Then old Phoebe woke to wonder, for a

blank moment, what had happened that she should be sitting there alone,

with the lazy flicker of a charred faggot helping out a dim, industrious

rushlight in a shade. But only till she saw that she was _not_ alone. It

all came back then. The figure on the bed!--not _dead_, surely?

No--for the hand she held was warm enough to reassure her. It had been

the terror of a moment, that this changed creature, with memories that

none but Maisie could have known, had flashed into her life to vanish

from it, and leave her bewildered, almost without a word of that

inexplicable past. Only of a moment, for the hand she held tightened on

hers, and the still face that was, and was not, her dead sister's turned

to her, looked at her open-eyed, and spoke.

"I think I am not dreaming now, but I was.... I was dreaming of Phoebe,

years ago.... But _you_ are Phoebe. Say that I am Maisie, that I may

hear you. Say it!"

"Oh, my darling!--I know you are Maisie. But it is so hard to know."

"Yes--it is all so hard to know--so hard to think! But I know it is

true.... Oh, Phoebe, where do you think I was but now, in my dream?...

Yes, where?--What place?... Guess!"

"I cannot tell ... back in the old time?"

"Back in the old time--back in the old place. I was shelling peas to

help old Keturah--old Keturah that had had three husbands, and her old

husband then was the sexton, and he had buried them all three! We were

there, under her porch ... with the honeysuckle all in flower--and, oh,

the smell of it in the heat!--it was all there in my dream! And you were

there. Oh, Phoebe darling, how beautiful you were! We were seventeen."

"Ah, my dear, I know when that was. 'Twas the day _they_ came--came

first. Oh, God be good to us!"

"Oh, Phoebe dear, why be so heartbroken? It was a merry time. Thank God

for it with me, darling!... Ay, I know--all over now!..."

"I mind it well, dear. They came up on their horses."

"Thornton and Ralph. And made a pretext they would like to see inside

the Church. Because old Keturah had the key."

"But 'twas an untruth! Little care they had for inside the Church! 'Twas

ourselves, and they knew it."

"Oh, Phoebe!--but _we_ knew it too! I had no chance to dream how we

showed them the Church and the crypt, for I woke up. Ah, but 'tis long

ago now!--sixty-two--sixty-three years! I wonder, is the stack of bones

in the crypt now that was then? There was a big skull that measured

twenty-seven inches."

"That it was! Twenty-seven. Now, to think of us young creatures handling

those old bones!"

"Then it was not long but they came again on their horses, and this time

it was that their father the Squire would see father righted in his

lawsuit about the upper waters of the millstream. That was how Thornton

made a friend of father. And then it was we played them our trick, to

say which was which. We changed our frocks, and they were none the

wiser."

A recollection stirred in old Phoebe's mind, that could almost bring a

smile to her lips, even now. "Ralph never was any the wiser. He went

away to the Indies, and died there.... But not afore he told to my

husband how Thornton came to tell us apart.... How did he? Why, darling,

'twas the way you would give him all your hand, and I stinted him of

mine."

"You never loved him, Phoebe."

"Was I not in the right of it, Maisie?" She then felt the words were

hasty, and would have been glad to recall them. She waited for an

answer, but none came. The fire was all but out, and the morning chill

was in the air. She rose from the bedside and crossed the room to help

it from extinction. But she felt very shaky on her feet.

A little rearrangement convinced the fire that it had been premature;

and an outlying faggot, brought into hotchpot, decided as an

after-thought that it could flare. "I am coming back," said Granny

Marrable. She was afraid her sister would think she was going to be left

alone. But there was no need, for when she reached her chair again--and

she was glad to do so--old Maisie was just as she had left her, quite

tranquil and seeming collected, but with her eyes open, watching the

welcome light of the new flicker. One strange thing in this interview

was that her weakness seemed better able to endure the strain of the

position than her sister's strength.

She picked up the thread of the conversation where that interlude of the

fire had left it. "You never loved Thornton, Phoebe dearest. But he was

mine, for my love. He was kind and good to me, all those days out there

in the bush, till I lost him. He was a lawbreaker, I know, but he paid

his penalty. And was I not to forgive, when I loved him? God forgives,

Phoebe." Half of what she had come to know had slipped away from her

already; and, though she was accepting her sister as a living reality,

the forged letter, the cause of all, was forgotten.

Granny Marrable, on the contrary, kept in all her bewilderment a firm

hold on the wickedness of Daverill the father. It was he that had done

it all, and no other. Conceivably, her having set eyes on Daverill the

son had made this hold the firmer. To her the name meant treachery and

cruelty. Even in this worst plight of a mind in Chaos, she could not

bear to see the rugged edges of a truth trimmed off, to soften judgment

of a wicked deed. But had she been at her best, she might have borne it

this time to spare her sister the pain of sharing her knowledge, if such

ignorance was possible. As it was, she could not help saying:--"God

forgives, Maisie, and I would have forgiven, if I could have had you

back when he was past the need of you. Oh, to think of the long years we

might still have had, but for his deception!"

"My dear, it may be you are right. But all my head is gone for thinking.

You are there, and that is all I know. How could I?... What _is_ it

all?"

The despair in her voice did not unnerve her sister more. Rather, if

anything, it strengthened her, as did anything that drew her own mind

out of itself to think only of her fellow-sufferer. She could but

answer, hesitatingly:--"My dear, was I not here all the while you

thought me dead?... If you had known ... oh, if you had known!... you

might have come." She could not keep back the sound of her despair in

her own voice.

Maisie started spasmodically from her pillow.

"Oh, God have mercy on me! Save me, Phoebe, save me!" she cried. She

clung with both hands to her sister, and gasped for breath. Then the

paroxysm of her excitement passed, and she sank back, whispering aloud

in broken speech:--"I mean ... it came back to me ... the tale ... the

letter.... Oh, but it cannot be true!... Tell it me again--tell me what

you know."

Phoebe's response flagged. What could her old brain be said to _know_,

yet, in such a whirl? "I'll try, my dear, to say it out right, for you

to hear. But 'tis a hard thing to know, and 'tis hard to have to know

it. Dr. Nash said it to me, that it was Thornton, your husband. And our

young lady of the Towers--she, my dear, you know, that is Lady Gwendolen

Rivers--said it to me again." Old Maisie clung closer to the hand she

held, and trembled so that Phoebe stopped, saying:--"Ought I to tell?"

"Yes--go on! You know, dear, I know it all--half know it--but I cannot

hold it for long--it goes. Go on!"

"He wrote to me--he wrote to you--saying, we were dead. O God, forgive

him for his cruelty! Why, oh why?" She fixed her eyes on her sister, and

seemed to wait for an answer to the question.

And yet she wondered in her heart when the answer came. It came with a

light that broke through the speaker's face, a sound of relief in her

words:--"It was his love for me, Phoebe dearest--it was his love for me!

He would not have me go from him to my sister in England, even for the

time I would have wanted, to see her again. The fault was mine, dear,

the fault was mine! I was ever on at him--plaguing--plaguing him to

spare me for the time. Oh--'twas I that did it!"

Let her believe it! Let her see a merit in it for the man she loved!

That was Phoebe's thought.

"He was always good to me," Maisie continued. "He never thought of what

might come of it. All his desire was I should not leave him. Oh,

Phoebe, Phoebe, if only I might have died there and then, out in the

Colony!"

"To see me no more? Not this once? I thank God that has spared ye to me,

Maisie, just but to hear your voice and hold your hand and kiss your

face. If I be dreaming, I be dreaming. Only I would not wake, not I. But

I can scarce bear myself for the wonderment of it all. How could you

come back alone--my Maisie, alone and old!--back again to England--in a

ship--through the storms?" For all the mind that Granny Marrable had

left after the bewildering shock was aching to know more.

Old Maisie was almost too weak for anything like curiosity about the

past; she simply submitted--acquiesced. This was her sister, not dead by

some miracle. When in dreams we see again the departed, do we speak of

the interim? Surely never? Neither did Maisie. She could not even look

forward to knowing more. She could talk on, with no difficulty of

speech--indeed, seemed talkative. She could reply now to Phoebe's

question:--"But, my dear, I was not alone, nor old. I was not much older

than my Ruth that I have found.... Where is she?--she is not gone?" She

looked round, frightened, trying to raise herself.

"She is gone away to sleep. It is night, you know. There goes the clock.

Four. She will come again.... But, oh, Maisie, was it as long ago as

that? 'Tis but a very little while back Ruth turned fifty."

"Is my girl turned of fifty, then?--yes! it must be so. Fifty years past

I landed ashore in Hobart Town, and it was a babe of four I had to leave

behind. Well--I was a bit older. I was fifty-seven when I lost my son."

This seemed to mean the death of some son unknown to Granny Marrable.

The convict was never farther from her mind. "'Tis twenty-five years I

have been in England--all of twenty-five years, Phoebe."

"Oh, God have pity on us all! Twenty-five years!" It was a cry of pain

turned into words. Had she had to say what stung her most, she would

probably have said the thought that Maisie might have seen her

daughter's wedding, or at least the babyhood of her children. So much

there was to tell!--would she live to hear it? And so much to

hear!--would she live to tell it? She could not understand her sister's

words that followed:--"All of twenty years alone," referring to the

period since her son's transportation. It was really longer. But memory

of figures is insecure in hours of trial.

Maisie continued:--"When I came back, I went straight to our old home,

long ago--to Darenth Mill, to hear what I might, and old Keturah was

dead, and her husband was dead, and ne'er a soul knew aught to tell me.

And there was father's grave in the churchyard, and no other. So what

could I think but what the letter said, that all were drowned in the

cruel sea, your husband Nicholas, and my little one, all three?"

"And the letter said that--the letter he made up?"

"The letter said that, and I read it. It had black seals, and I broke

them and read it. And it was from father, and said you were drowned ...

drowned ... Yes!--Phoebe drowned ... and my little Ruth, and ... Oh,

Phoebe, how can this be you?" The panic came again in her voice, and

again she clutched spasmodically at the hand she held. But it passed,

leaving her only able to speak faintly. "I kept it in my

table-drawer.... It must be there still." She had only half got the

truth.

Granny Marrable tried to make it clear, so far as she could. "You

forget, dear. Her ladyship has the letter, and Dr. Nash knows. Lady

Gwendolen who brought you here...."

It was a happy reference. A light broke over the old face on the pillow,

and there was ease in the voice that said:--"She is one of God's Angels.

I knew it by her golden hair. When will she come?"

"Very soon. To-morrow, perhaps. 'Twas her ladyship told you--was it not?

Oh, you remember?"

"My dear, she told it me like a story, and her face was white. But it

was all clear to me then, for I could not know who the bad man was--the

bad man who made two sisters each think the other dead. And I was for

helping her to tell them. Oh, may God bless her for her beautiful

face--so pale it was! And then she told me 'twas written by my husband."

Some new puzzle confronted her, and she repeated, haltingly:--"By ... my

... husband!" Then quite suddenly, struck by a new idea:--"But was it?

How could she know?"

"My dear, she showed it to her father, the Earl, and they were of one

mind. His lordship read the letter. Dr. Nash told me. But it was

Thornton's own letter to me that said _you_ were dead. I have got it

still." She was stopped by the return of Ruth Thrale, who had been half

waked by her mother's raised voice five minutes since, and had struggled

to complete consciousness under the sense of some burden of duty

awaiting her outside the happy oblivion of her stinted sleep. "How has

she been?" was her question on entering.

Granny Marrable could not give any clear account of the past hour of

talk; it was growing hazy to her, as reaction after excitement told,

more and more. Ruth asked no further questions, and urged her to go and

lie down--was ready to force her to do it, but she conceded the point,

and was just going, when her sister stopped her, speaking clearly,

without moving on the pillow.

"What was the letter?"

"What letter is she speaking of?" said Ruth.

Granny Marrable said with an effort:--"The letter that said she was

dead."

"Show it to me--show it me now, with the light! You have got it."

"Yes. I said to her that I had got it. But it is put away." This was

under Granny Marrable's breath, that old Maisie should not hear.

But she heard, and turned her head. "Oh, Phoebe, let me see it! Can it

not be got? Cannot Ruth get it?" She seemed feverishly alive, for the

moment, to all that was passing.

Ruth, thinking it would be better to satisfy her if possible, said:--"Is

it hard to find? Could I not get it?" To which old Phoebe replied:--"I

know where it is to lay hands on at once. But I grudge setting eyes on

it now, and that's the truth." Ruth wondered at this--it made her

mother's eagerness to see it seem the stranger. The story is always on

the edge of calling old Maisie Ruth's "new mother." Her mind was reeling

under the consciousness of two mothers with a like claim--a bewildering

thought! She wavered between them, and was relieved when the speaker

continued:--"You may unlock my old workbox over yonder. The letter be

inside the lid, behind the scissors. I'll begone to lie down a bit on

your bed, child!" Was old Phoebe running away from that letter?

Ruth knew the trick of that workbox of old. It brought back her early

childhood to find the key concealed in a little slot beneath it; hidden

behind a corner of green cloth beyond suspicion; that opened, for all

that, when the edge was coaxed with a finger-nail. It had been her first

experience of a secret, and a fascination hung about it still. That

confused image of a second mother, growing dimmer year by year in spite

of a perfunctory system of messages maintained in the correspondence of

the parted twins, had never utterly vanished; and it had clung about

this workbox, a present from Maisie to Phoebe, even into these later

years. It crossed Ruth's mind as she found the key, how, a year ago,

when the interior of this box was shown to Dave Wardle by his country

Granny, his delight in it, and its smell of otto of roses that never

failed, had stirred forgotten memories; and this recollection, with the

mystery of that vanished mother still on earth--close at hand, there in

the room!--made her almost dread to raise the box-lid. But she dared it,

and found the letter, though her brain whirled at the entanglements of

life and time, and she winced at the past as though scorched by a

spiritual flame. It took her breath away to think what she had sought

and found; the hideous instrument of a wickedness almost

inconceivable--her own father's!

"Oh, how I hope it is that! Bring it--bring it, my dear, my Ruth--my

Ruth for me, now! Yes--show it me with the light, like that." Thus old

Maisie, struggling to raise herself on the bed, but with a dangerous

spot of colour on her cheek, lately so pale, that said fever. Ruth

trembled to admit the word to her mind; for, think of her mother's age,

and the strain upon her, worse than her own!

Nevertheless, it was best to indulge this strong wish; might, indeed, be

dangerous to oppose it. Ruth bolstered up the weak old frame with

pillows, and lit two candles to give the letter its best chance to be

read. She found her mother's spectacles, though in doubt whether they

could enable her to read the dim writing, written with a vanishing ink,

even paler than the forged letter Gwen and her father had unearthed.

Possibly the ink had run short, and was diluted.

Old Maisie strove to read the writing, gasping with an eagerness her

daughter found it hard to understand; but failed to decipher anything

beyond, "My dear Sister-in-law." She dropped the letter, saying

feebly:--"Read--you read!"

Then Ruth read:--

"'I take up my pen to write you fuller particulars of the great

calamity that has befallen me. For I am, as my previous letter will

have told you, if it has reached you ere this, a widower. I am

endeavouring to bear with resignation the lot it has pleased God to

visit upon me, but in the first agonies of my grief at the loss of

my beloved helpmeet I was so overwhelmed as to be scarce able to

put pen to paper. I am now more calm and resigned to His will, and

will endeavour to supply the omission.

"'My dear Maisie was in perfect health and spirits when she went to

visit a friend, Mary Ann Stennis, the wife of a sheep-farmer, less

than thirty miles from where I now write, on the Upper Derwent, one

of the few women in this wild country that was a fit associate for

her. She was to have started home in a few days' time, but the

horse that should have carried her, the only one she could ride,

being a timid horsewoman, went lame and made a delay, but for which

delay it may be God would have spared her to me. But His will be

done! It seems she was playing with the baby of a native black,

there being a camp or tribe of them near at hand, she being greatly

diverted with the little monster, when its sister, but little older

than itself, found a scorpion beneath a stone, and set it to bite

its little brother. Thereupon Maisie, always courageous and

kindhearted, must needs snatch at this most dangerous vermin, to

throw it at a distance from the children....'"

Old Maisie interrupted the reader. Her face was intent, and her eyes

gleamed with an unhealthy, feverish light. "Stop, my dear," said she.

"This is all true."

"All true!" Surely her mind was giving way. So thought Ruth, and

shuddered at the gruesome thought. "Mother--mother--how _can_ it be

true?"

"All quite true, my dear, but for one thing! All true but for who it

was! It was not I--it was Mary Ann was at play with little Saku. And the

scorpion bit _her_ hand, and she died of the bite.... Yes--go on! Read

it all!" For Ruth had begun:--"Shall I--_must I_?" as though the reading

it was unendurable.

She resumed, with an effort:--

"'But got bitten in the arm. At first she made light of the wound,

for the reptile was so small. But it became badly inflamed, and no

doctor was at hand. The black mother of Saku, the baby, prayed to

be allowed to summon the conjurer doctor of the tribe, who would

suck the wound. But Maisie would not have this, so only external

applications were made ...'"

Old Maisie interrupted:--"That is not so," she said. "Roomoro, the

doctor, sucked hard at the bite, and spat out the poison in a hole in

the ground, to bury the evil spirit. But it was no good. Poor Mary Ann

Stennis died a week after. I mind it well."

Ruth thought to herself:--"Is this a feverish dream?" and wavered on the

answer. The tale her mother told of the black medicine-man was

nightmare-like. All this, fifty years ago! Her head swam too much for

speech, reading apart. She could continue, mechanically:--

"' ... Only external applications were made, which proved useless,

as is almost invariably the case with poisonous bites. Next day it

became evident that the poison was spreading up the arm, and a

black runner was despatched to summon me, but he could not cover

the ground in less than three hours, and when he arrived I was on

my way to Bothwell, some twenty miles in another direction, so he

did not overtake me until the evening. I was then detained a day,

so that it was over forty-eight hours before I arrived at

Stennis's. It was then too late for effectual remedy, and my dear

wife died in my arms within a week of the scorpion bite....'"

"That is not true--it was over a week." Was Maisie really alive to the

facts, to be caught by so small a point? She had seen a simple thing

that could be said. That is all the story can think.

Ruth said:--"Here is more--only a little!" and continued:--

"'I am thankful to say that, considering the nature of the case,

her sufferings were slight, and she passed away peacefully,

desiring with her last breath that I should convey to you the

assurance of her unchanged affection.'

"It is untrue--it is untrue!" moaned Maisie. "Mary Ann died in great

pain, from the poison of the bite working in the blood." She seemed to

grasp very little of the facts, for she added:--"But was he not good, to

hide the pain for Phoebe's sake?" Her mind was catching at fragments, to

understand, and failed.

There was another letter, which Ruth opened, of an earlier date. It was

a merely formal announcement of the death. She put back the letters in

the workbox-lid, behind the scissors; replaced the workbox on its table

as before, and returned to her mother. She was glad to find her still,

with her eyes closed; but with that red spot on her cheek, unchanged. It

was best to favour every approach of sleep, and this might be one. Ruth

sat silent, all her faculties crippled, and every feeling stunned, by

what she had gone through since Gwen's first arrival yesterday.

This terrible night had worn itself out, and she knew that that

clock-warning meant six, when the stroke should come. But there

was no daylight yet. Those movements in the kitchen must be

Elizabeth-next-door, come according to promise. That was what the

guardian-dog from without meant, pushing his way through the

bedroom-door, reporting an incomer whom he knew, and had sanctioned. He

communicated the fact to his satisfaction, and returned to his post,

leaving his mistress the better for his human sympathy, which seemed to

claim knowledge of passing event. It comforted her to feel that the day

was in hand, and that its light would come. Who could say but its ending

might find her convinced that this was all true? Blank, sickening doubts

of the meaning of everything flitted across her mind, and she longed to

settle down to realities, to be able to love this new mother without

flinching. For that was what she felt, that the mystery of this

resurrection seared or burnt her. One thing only soothed her--that this

was dear old Mrs. Prichard whom she had learned to love before its

bewilderments were sprung upon her. That made it easier to bear.

Presently she roused herself, for, was not this morning? A grey

twilight, not over-misty for the time of year, was what a raised

window-curtain showed her, and she let it fall to deal with it in

earnest, and relieve the blind from duty. Then she made sure, by the new

light, that all was well with old Maisie--mere silence, no

insensibility--and went out to speak with Elizabeth-next-door, and get

more wood for the fire. But first she blew out the candles and the

rushlight, already dying spasmodically.

Elizabeth-next-door was a strengthening influence, able to look facts in

the face. She almost elided forewords and inquiries, to come to her

strong point, the way she had used the strange story to produce surprise

in her husband; a worthy man, but imperturbable by anything short of

earthquakes or thunderbolts. "Ye may sa-ay your vairy worst to Sam,"

said Elizabeth, "and he'll just sa-ay back, 'Think a doan't knaw that,'

he'll say, 'afower ever yow were born?' and just gwarn with his sooper.

And I give ye my word, Widow Thrale, I no swooner told it him than there

he sat! An' if he come down on our ta-able wi' th' fla-at of his ha-and

once, that he did thrice and mower, afower he could sa-ay one word. He

_did_, and went nigh to break it, but it be o-ak two-inch thick

a'mo-ast. Then a said, 'twas enough to wa-aken oop a ma-an all through

the night, he did!" He seemed, however, not to have suffered in this

way, for his wife added:--"Wa-aken him oop? Not Sam, I lay! Ta-akes a

souse o' cold pig to wa-aken up Sam afower t' marnin!" Ruth felt braced

by this bringing of the event within human possibilities. Improbable

possibilities surprise. Impossible events stun.

She co-operated in domesticities with her useful neighbour, glancing

once or twice at the figure on the bed, and reinforced in the belief

that all was safe there, for the time. For she saw what seemed slight

natural movement, for ease. Presently she went to hear how it fared with

her other mother, her normal one. The cross purposes of her relations to

the two old sisters were an entanglement of perplexities.

Granny Marrable, asleep when Ruth looked stealthily in at her, was waked

by a creak with which the door just contrived to disappoint hopes of a

noiseless escape. She called after her:--"Yes, who's that?" Whereupon

Ruth returned. It was their first real word alone since the disclosure.

"Oh, mother, have you slept?" She kissed the old worn-out face tenderly;

feeling somehow the reserve of strength behind the response she met.

"Oh, can you--_can_ you--make it out?... Yes, she is lying still. She

has seen that letter." She dropped her voice, and shuddered to name it.

"My dear," said Granny Marrable, answering her question, "I cannot say

truly yet that I can make it out. But I thank God for letting me be able

to know that this must be Maisie. For I know her for Maisie, when she

talks of the bygone time. And that letter--God is good, for that! For it

was that told of how she died--that wicked poison-bite! My child, it has

never gone quite out of my heart to think your mother died so far away

in such pain--never in all these years! And now I know it for an

untruth. I thank God for that, at least!"

"_She_ says," said Ruth, checkmated in an attempt to use any name she

could call her real mother by, without some self-blame for the

utterance, "_she_ says the story is one-half true, but 'twas her best

friend died of the bite--not she! But she died in great suffering."

"Ah--the poor thing! Mary Ann Stennis."

"That was the name."

"Will she be able to tell more? Will she tell us who her husband was?"

"Her husband!" Ruth thought this was new trouble--that the Granny's head

had given way under the strain. "Her husband was my father, mother,"

said she. "Think!"

But old Phoebe was quite clear. "I am all right, child," said she

reassuringly. "Her _second_ husband. Marrable was _my_ second, you know,

else I would still have been Cropredy. Why is she not Daverill?"

Ruth was really the less clear of the two. "Oh yes!" said she

wonderingly. "She is Mrs. Prichard, still."

"Please God we shall know all!... What was that?"

"I must go to her.... Come!" For old Maisie had called out. Her daughter

went back to her quickly, and Granny Marrable followed, not far behind.

"Come, dear, come.... I called for you to know.... Come, Phoebe, come

near, and let me tell you.... He was not so wicked.... Oh no, oh no--it

was none of his own doing--I shall be able ... directly...." Thus old

Maisie, gasping for breath, and falling back on the pillow from which

she had part risen. The hectic flush in her face was greater, and her

eyes were wild under her tangle of beautiful silver hair. Both were

afraid for her, for each knew what fever might, mean. They might lose

her, almost without a renewal of life together.

Still, it might be no more than the agitation of a moment, a passing

phase. They tried to pacify her. How _could_ the letter be none of

Daverill's own doing? But she would not be soothed--would say the thing

she had set her mind to say, but failed to find the words or breath for.

What was it she was trying to say? Was it about the letter?

Elizabeth-next-door came into the room, tentatively. Ostensible reason,

inquiry about breakfast; actual reason, curiosity. Sounds of speech

under stress had aroused, and a glance at old Maisie intensified it.

Widow Thrale would come directly, but for the moment was intent on

hearing what Mrs. Prichard was saying. To Elizabeth, Maisie continued

Mrs. Prichard.

She would not leave unsaid this thing she was bent on:--"No, dear! No,

dear! It does not hurt me to talk, but I want time.... I will tell you

... I must tell you.... I know it.... It was not his own doing.... He

was set on to do it by a devil that possessed him.... There are devils

loose among the blacks...."

The pulse in the hand Ruth held was easy to find. Yes, that _was_ fever!

Ruth left her to speak with Elizabeth, and the hand went over to its

fellow, in Granny Marrable's.

"Phoebe, dearest, that is so--and in those days there were a many

blacks. But they were fewer and fewer after that, and none in our part

when we came away, my son and I.... Phoebe!"

"What, dearest?"

"You must say nothing of _him_ to Ruth. He was her brother."

"Say nothing of him to Ruth--why not?" She had lost sight of her

adventure with the convict, and did not identify him. She may have

fancied some other son accompanied her sister home.

"Yes--yes--nothing to _her_! He is not fit to speak of--not fit to think

of.... Do not ask about him. Forget him! I do not know if he be alive or

dead."

Then an image of the convict, or madman, flashed across Phoebe's mind.

She dared not talk of him now, with that wild light and hectic flush in

her sister's face; it would only make bad worse. But a recollection of

her first association of him with the maniac in the Gadarene tombs was

quick on the heels of this image, and prompted her to say:--"Had no evil

spirit power over _him_, then, as well as his father?"

The wild expression on old Maisie's face died down, and gave place to

one that was peace itself by comparison. "I see it all now," said she.

"Yes--you are right! It was after his father's death he became so

wicked." It was the devil that possessed his father, driven out to seek

a home, and finding it in the son. That was apparently what her words

implied, but there was too much of delirium in her speech and seeming to

justify their being taken as expressing a serious thought.

Old Phoebe sat beside her, trying now and again with quiet voice and

manner to soothe and hush away the terrible memories of the audacious

deception to which each owed a lifelong loss of the other. But when

fever seizes on the blood, it will not relax its hold for words.

One effect of this was good, in a sense. It _is_ true, as the poet said,

that one fire burns out another's burning--or at any rate that one pain

is deadened by another anguish--and it was a Godsend to Granny Marrable

and Ruth Thrale that an acupression of immediate anxiety should come to

counteract their bewilderment, and to extinguish for the time the

conflagration of a thousand questions--whys, whens, and wherefores

innumerable--in their overburdened minds. Visible fever in the delicate

frame, to which it seemed the slightest shock might mean death, was a

summons to them to put aside every possible thought but that of

preserving what Time had spared so long, though Chance had been so cruel

an oppressor. It would be the cruellest stroke of all that she should be

thus strangely restored to them, only to be snatched away in an hour.

Presently she seemed quieter; the fever came in gusts, and rose and

fell. She had once or twice seemed almost incoherent, but it passed

away. Meanwhile Granny Marrable's memory of that madman or criminal, who

had at least known the woman he claimed as his mother well enough to be

mystified by her twin sister, rankled in her mind, and made it harder

and harder for her to postpone speech about him. She would not tell the

incident--she was clear of _that_--but would it harm Maisie to talk of

him? She asked herself the question the next time her sister referred to

him, and could not refrain from letting her speech about him finish.

It came of her mind drifting back to that crazy notion of an evil spirit

wandering to seek a home; as the hermit-crab, dispossessed of one shell,

goes in search of another. After a lull which had looked for a moment

like coming sleep, she said with an astonishing calmness:--"But do you

not see, Phoebe dear, do you not see how good his father must have been,

to do no worse than he did? See what the devil that possessed him could

do with Ralph--my youngest, he was; Isaac died--a good boy, quite a good

boy, till I lost his father! Oh--see what he came to do!"

"He ... he was sent to prison, was he not?" After saying it, old Phoebe

was afraid she might have to tell the whole tale of how she knew it.

But she need not have feared. Old Maisie was in a kind of dreamland,

only half-cognisant of what was going on about her.

Her faint voice wandered on. "I was not thinking of that. That was

nothing! He stole some money, and it cost him dear.... No!--it was worse

than that--a bad thing!... It was _not_ the girl's fault.... Emma was a

good girl...."

Granny Marrable was injudicious. But it was an automatic want of

judgment, bred of mind-strain. She could not help saying:--"Was that

Emma Drax?" For the name, which she had heard from the convict, had hung

on her mind, always setting her to work to fashion some horrible story

for its owner.

"Yes--Emma Drax.... They found her guilty.... I do not mean that....

What is it I mean?... I mean they laid it all at her door.... Men do!"

This seemed half wandering, and Granny Marrable hoped it meant a return

of sleep. She was disappointed. For old Maisie became more restless and

hot, starting convulsively, catching at her hand, and exclaiming:--"But

how came you to know?--how came you to know? You were not there then.

Oh, Phoebe dearest, you were not there _then_." She kept on saying this,

and Granny Marrable despaired of finding words to explain, under such

circumstances. The tale of her meeting with the convict was too complex.

She thought to herself that she might say that Maisie had spoken the

name as a dream-word, waking. But that would have been a fib, and fibs

were not her line.

* * * * *

"I went myself to get him," said Ruth, reappearing after a longer

absence than old Phoebe had anticipated. She was removing an out-of-door

cloak, and an extempore headwrap, when she entered the room. "How is

she?" she asked.

Old Phoebe shook her head doubtfully. "Whom did you go for, child? The

doctor? I'm glad."

"I thought it better.... Mother darling!--how are you?" She knelt by the

bed, held the burning hands, looked into the wild eyes. "Yes--I did

quite right," she said.

* * * * *

Dr. Nash came, not many minutes later. Whether the mixture to be taken

every two hours, fifty years ago, was the same as would have been given

now, does not concern the story. It, or the reassurance of the doctor's

visit, had a sedative effect; and old Maisie seemed to sleep, to the

great satisfaction of her nurses. What really did credit to his

professional skill was that he perceived that a visit from Lady

Gwendolen would be beneficial. A message was sent at once to John

Costrell, saying that an accompanying letter was to be taken promptly to

the Towers, to catch her ladyship before she went out. We have seen that

it reached her in time.

"You found that all I told you was true, Granny Marrable," said the

doctor, after promising to return in time to catch her ladyship.

"I shall live to believe it true, doctor, please God!"

"Tut tut! You see that it _is_ true."

"Yes, indeed, and I know that yonder is Maisie, come back to life. I

know it by thinking; but 'tis all I can do, not to think her still

dead."

"She can talk, I suppose--recollects things? Things when you were kids?"

"God 'a' mercy, yes, doctor! Why--hasn't she told me how she drew my

tooth, with a bit of silk and a candle, and knew which drawer-knob it

was, and the days she saw her husband first, a-horseback?... Oh,

merciful Heavens, how had he the heart?"

"Some chaps have the Devil in 'em, and that's the truth!"

"That's what she says. She just made my flesh creep, a-telling how the

devils come out of the black savages, to seize on Christians!"

But the doctor was not prepared to be taken at his word, in this way.

Devils are good toys for speech, but they are not to be real. "Lot of

rum superstitions in those parts!" said he. "Now look you here, ma'am!

When I come back, I shall expect to hear that you and your daughter....

Oh ah!--she's not your daughter! What the deuce is she?"

"Ruth has always been my niece, but we have gone near to forget it,

times and again. 'Tis so many a long year!"

"Well--I shall expect to hear that you and your niece have had a

substantial breakfast. You understand--_substantial!_ And you must make

_her_ take milk, or gruel. You'll find she won't eat."

"Beef-tea?"

"No--at least, have some ready, in case. But her temperature is too

high. Especially at her time of life!" The doctor walked briskly away.

He had not had the gig out, for such a short distance.

CHAPTER XXI

CHRISTMAS AND THE GREEK KALENDS. O NOBIS PRAETERITOS! THE

WRITING-TABLE BACK. AN INFLEXIBLE GOVERNOR. HOW MR. JERRY DID NOT

GO TO THE WORKHOUSE. BUT HOW CAME M'RIAR TO BE SO SHORT? THE

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. UNCLE MO'S COLDBATH FIELDS FRIEND, AND HIS

ALLOWANCE. UNCLE MO ON KEEPING ONE'S WORD. AND KEEPING ITS MEANING.

JERRY'S CONSCIENTIOUS TREACHERY, AND HIS INTERVIEW WITH MR. ROWE.

HOW M'RIAR HAD PROMISED LOVE, HONOUR, AND OBEDIENCE TO A THING A

DEVIL HAD TAKEN A LONG LEASE OF. HOW SHE SENT A NOTE TO IT, BY

MICHAEL RAGSTROAR. WHO REALISED THREE-HALFPENCE. HOW MISS HAWKINS,

JEALOUSY MAD, TINKERED AUNT M'RIAR'S NOTE. EVE'S CIVILITY TO THE

SERPENT. MUCH ABOUT NORFOLK ISLAND. DAVERILL'S SECOND VISIT TO

ENGLAND, AND ITS CAUSES

Sapps Court was looking forward to Christmas with mixed feelings,

considered as a Court. The feelings of each resident were in some cases

quite defined or definable; as for instance Dave's and Dolly's. The

children had required from their seniors a trustworthy assurance of the

date of Mrs. Prichard's return, and had only succeeded in obtaining from

Aunt M'riar a vague statement. Mrs. Prichard was a-coming some day, and

that was plenty for children to know at their time of life. They might

have remained humbly contented with their ignorance, if Uncle Mo had not

added:--"So's Christmas!" meaning thereby the metaphorical Christmas

used as an equivalent of the Greek Kalends. He overlooked, for

rhetorical purposes, the near approach of the actual festival; and Dave

and Dolly accepted this as fixing the date of Mrs. Prichard's return, to

a nicety. The event was looked forward to as millennial; as a

restoration of a golden age before her departure. For no child is so

young as not to _laudare_ a _tempus actum_; indeed, it is a fiction that

almost begins with speech, that the restoration of the Past is the first

duty of the Future.

Dolly never tired of recasting the arrangement of the tea-festivity that

was to celebrate the event, discovering in each new disposition of the

insufficient cups and unstable teapot a fresh satisfaction to gloat

over, and imputing feelings in sympathy with her own to her offspring

Gweng. It was fortunate for Gweng that her mamma understood her so

thoroughly, as otherwise her fixed expression of a maximum of joy at

all things in Heaven and Earth gave no clue to any emotions due to

events of the moment. Even when her eyes were closed by manipulation of

her spinal cord, and opened suddenly on a new and brilliant combination,

any candid spectator must have admitted her stoicism--rapturous perhaps,

but still stoicism. It was alleged--by her mamma--that she shed tears

when Dave selfishly obstructed her line of sight. This was disputed by

Dave, whom contact with an unfeeling World was hardening to a cruel

literalism.

Dave, when he was not scheming a display of recent Academical

acquirements to Mrs. Prichard, dwelt a good deal on the bad faith of the

postman, who had not brought him the two letters he certainly had a

right to expect, one from each of his Grannies. He had treasured the

anticipation of reading their respective expressions of joyful gratitude

at their discovery of their relationship, and no letter had come! Small

blame to Dave that he laid this at the door of the postman; others have

done the self-same thing, on the other side of their teens! The only

adverse possibility that crossed his infant mind was that his Grannies

were sorry, not glad; because really grown-up people were so queer, you

never could be even with them. The laceration of a lost half-century was

a thing that could not enter into the calculations of a septennarian. He

had not tried Time, and Time had not tried him. He had odd misgivings,

now and again, that there might be in this matter something outside his

experience. But he did not indulge in useless speculation. The proximity

of Christmas made it unnecessary.

Mrs. Burr and Aunt M'riar accepted the season as one beneficial to

trade; production taking the form of a profusion of little muslin

dresses for small girls at Christmas Trees and parties with a

Conjurer--dresses in which the fullest possibilities of the human

flounce became accomplished facts, and the last word was said about bows

of coloured ribbons. To look at them was to breathe an involuntary

prayer for eiderdown enclosures that would keep the poppet inside warm

without disparagement to her glorious finery. Sapps Court under their

influence became eloquent of quadrilles; "_Les Rats_" and the Lancers,

jangled by four hands eternally on pianos no powers of sleep could

outwit, and no execration do justice to. They murmured tales of crackers

with mottoes; also of too much rich cake and trifle and lemonade, and

consequences. So much space was needed to preserve them unsoiled and

uncrushed until consigned to their purchasers, that Mrs. Burr and Aunt

M'riar felt grateful for the unrestricted run of Mrs. Prichard's

apartment, although both also felt anxious to see her at home again.

Mrs. Prichard's writing-table came back, done beautiful. Only the young

man he refused to leave it without the money. He was compelled to this

course by the idiosyncrasies of his employer. "You see," said he to

Uncle Mo, with an appearance of concentrating accuracy by a shrewd

insight, "it's like this it is, just like I tell you. Our Governor he's

as good a feller--in _hisself_ mind you!--as you'll come across this

side o' Whitechapel. Only he's just got this one pecooliarity--like a

bee has in his bonnet, as the sayin' is--he won't give no credit, not so

much as to his own wife; or his medical adwiser, if you come to that.

'Cash across invoice'--that's his motter. And as for moving of him, you

might just as easy move Mongblong." It is not impossible that this young

man's familiarity with Mont Blanc was more apparent than real; perhaps

founded on Albert Smith's entertainment of that name, which was popular

at that time in London. The young man went on to say that he himself was

trustful to a fault, and that if it depended on him, a'most any

arrangement could be come to. But you had to take a party as you found

him, and there it was!

Uncle Mo said:--"If you'd said you was a-coming with it, mate, I'd have

made a p'int of having the cash ready. My salary's doo to-morrow." He

was looking rather ruefully at an insufficient sum in the palm of his

hand, the scrapings of more than one pocket.

The young man said:--"It's the Governor, Mr. Moses. But if you'll square

the 'ire of the trolley, I'll run it back to the shop, and you can say

when you're ready for it."

Uncle Mo seemed very reluctant to allow the bird to go back into the

bush. He went to the stairfoot, and called to Aunt M'riar, upstairs,

making ribbons into rosettes, and giving Dolly the snippings. He never

took his eye off the coins in his palm, as though to maintain them as

integral factors of the business in hand. "Got any small change,

M'riar?" said he.

"How much do you want, Mo?"

"Six. _And_ three. Can you do six-and three?"

"Stop till I see, Mo." Aunt M'riar descended from above, and went into

her bedroom. But she did not find six-and-three. For she came out

saying:--"I can't only do five-and-nine, Mo. Can't you make out with

that?"

Uncle Mo still looked at the twelve-and-nine he already had in hand, as

though it was a peculiar twelve-and-nine, that might consent for once

to make nineteen shillings, the sum required, when added to Aunt

M'riar's contribution; but he was obliged to yield to the inflexible

nature of Arithmetic. "Sixpence short, I make it," said he. Then to the

young man whose employer was like Mont Blanc:--"You'll have to fetch it

round again to-morrow, any time after two o'clock." This was, however,

rendered unnecessary by the appearance of Mr. Jerry, who was able to

contribute the six-and-three, without, as he said, going to the

workhouse. So Mrs. Prichard's old table, with a new leg so nobody could

ever have told, and a touch of fresh polish as good as new, was restored

to its old place, to join in the general anticipation of its owner's

return.

But however M'riar come to be so short of cash Uncle Mo, smoking an

afternoon pipe as of old with Mr. Jerry, could not say, not if the

Emperor of Roosher was to ask him. Not that shortness of cash was

unusual in Sapps Court, but that he had supposed that M'riar was rather

better off than usual, owing to recent liquidations by the firm for whom

she and Mrs. Burr were at work upstairs. Mr. Jerry urged him on no

account to fret his kidneys about mundane trifles of this sort.

Everything, without exception, came to the same thing in the end, and

weak concessions to monetary anxiety only provided food for Repentance.

Uncle Mo explained that his uneasiness was not due to ways and means, or

the want of them, but to a misgiving that Aunt M'riar's money was "got

from her."

Now in his frequent confabs with Mr. Jerry, Uncle Mo had let fall many

suggestions of the sinister influence at work on Aunt M'riar; and Mr.

Jerry, being a shrewd observer, and collating these suggestions with

what had come to him otherwise, had formed his own opinions about the

nature of this influence. So it was no wonder that in answer to Uncle Mo

he nodded his head very frequently, as one who not only assents to a

fact, but rather lays claim to having been its first discoverer. "What

did I tell you, Mo?" said he.

"Concernuating? Of? What?" said Uncle Mo in three separate sentences,

each one accompanied by a tap of his pipe-bowl on the wooden table at

The Sun parlour. The third qualified it for refilling. You will see, if

you are attentive and observant, that this was Mo's first pipe that

afternoon; as, if the ashes had been hot, he would not have emptied them

on that table, but rather on the hob, or in the brazen spittoon.

"Him," said Mr. Jerry, too briefly. For he felt bound to add:--"Coldbath

Fields. Anyone giving information that will lead to apprehension of,

will receive the above reward. Your friend, you know!"

"My friend's the man, Jerry. Supposin'--just for argewment--I fist that

friend o' mine Monday morning, I'll make him an allowance'll last him

over Sunday. You wouldn't think it of me, Jerry, but I'm a bad-tempered

man, underneath the skin. And when I see our old girl M'riar run away

with like by an infernal scoundrel.... Well, Jerry, I lose my temper!

That I do." And Uncle Mo seemed to need the pipe he was lighting, to

calm him.

"He's where her money goes, Mo--that's it, ain't it?"

"That's about it, sir. So p'hraps when I say I don't know how M'riar

come to be so short of cash, I ought to say I _do_ know. Because I _do_

know, as flat as ever so much Gospel." So the Emperor of Russia might

not have remained unenlightened.

Mr. Jerry reflected. "You say he hasn't been near the Court again, Mo?"

"Not since that last time I told you about. What M'riar told me of. When

he showed his knife to frighten her. I couldn't be off telling Sim Rowe,

at the Station, about it, because of the children; and he's keeping an

eye. But the beggar's not been anigh the Court since. Nor I don't

suppose he'll come."

"But when ever does he see M'riar, to get at her savings?--that's what

I'd like to know. Eh, Mo?"

"M'riar ain't tied to the house. She's free to come and go. I don't take

kindly to prying and spying on her."

A long chat which followed evolved a clear view of the position. After

Mo's interview with Aunt M'riar just before Gwen's visit, he had applied

to his friend the Police-Inspector, with the result that the Court had

been the subject of a continuous veiled vigilance. He had, however, been

so far swayed by the distress of Aunt M'riar at the possibility that she

might actually witness the capture of her criminal husband, that he

never revealed to Simeon Rowe that she had an interest in defeating his

enterprise. The consequence was that every plain-clothes emissary put

himself into direct personal communication with her, thereby ensuring

the absence of Daverill from Sapps Court. She was of course guilty of a

certain amount of duplicity in all this, and it weighed heavily on her

conscience. But there was something to be said by way of excuse. He

was--or had been--her husband, and she did _not_ know the worst of his

crimes. Had she done so, she might possibly have been ready to give him

up to justice. But as Mo had told her this much, that his last

achievement might lead him to the condemned cell, and its sequel, and

she nevertheless shrank from betraying him, probably nothing short of

the knowledge of the age and sex of his last victim would have caused

her to do so. She had in her mind an image of a good, honest,

old-fashioned murder; a strained episode in some burglary; perhaps not

premeditated, but brought about by an indiscreet interruption of a fussy

householder. There are felonies and felonies.

Mr. Jerry's conversation with Uncle Mo in the Sun parlour gave him an

insight into this. "Look'ee here, Mo," said he. "So long as the Court's

watched, so long this here gentleman won't come anigh it. He's dodged

the London police long enough to be too clever for that. But so long as

he keeps touch with M'riar, you've got touch of him."

Uncle Mo seemed to consider this profoundly. "Not if I keep square with

M'riar," said he at last.

"How do you make that out, Mo?"

"I've as good as promised the old girl that she shan't have any hand in

it. She's out of it."

"Then keep her out of it. But only you give the tip to Sim Rowe that

M'riar's in with him, and that he's putting the screw on her, and Sim

he'll do the rest. Twig?" Conscious casuistry always closes one eye, and

Mr. Jerry closed his.

"That's one idea of keeping square, Jerry, but it ain't mine."

"What's wrong with it, Mo?" Mr. Jerry's confidence in his suggestion had

flagged, and his eye had reopened slowly.

"M'riar's not to have _any_ hand in it--that's her stipulation.

According-ly to my ideas, Jerry, either you take advantage, or you

don't. _Don't's_ the word, this time. If I bring M'riar in _at all_,

it's all one which of two ways I do it. She's out of it."

Mr. Jerry began, feebly:--"You can't do more than keep your word,

Mo...."

"Yes, you can, Jerry. You can keep your meanin'. And you can do more

than that. You can keep to what the other party thought you meant, when

you know. _I_ know, this time. I ain't in a Court o' Justice, Jerry,

dodgin' about, and I know when I'm square, by the feel. M'riar's out of

it, and she shall stop out." Uncle Mo was not referring only to the

evasions of witnesses on oath, which he regarded as natural, but to a

general habit of untruth, and subtle perversion of obvious meanings,

which he ascribed not only to counsel learned in the Law, but to the

Bench itself.

"Don't you want this chap to dance the Newgate hornpipe, Mo?"

"Don't I, neither?" Uncle Mo smoked peacefully, gazing on the fire. The

silhouette of a hanged man, kicking, floated before his mind's eye, and

soothed him. But he made a reservation. "After him and me have had a

quiet half-an-hour together!"

Mr. Jerry was suddenly conscious of a new danger. "I say, Mo," said he.

"None of that, if _you_ please!"

"None o' what?"

"This customer's not your sort. He's a bad kind. Bad before he was first

lagged, and none the better for the company he's kept since! You're an

elderly man now, Mo, and I'll go bail you haven't so much as put on the

gloves for ten years past. And suppose you had, ever so! Who's to know

he hasn't got a Colt in his pocket, or a bowie-knife?" Those of us who

remember the fifties will recall how tightly revolvers clung to the name

of their patentee, and the sort of moral turpitude that attached to

their use. They were regarded as giving a mean advantage to murderers;

who otherwise, if they murdered fair, and were respectably hanged,

merely filled _roles_ necessary to History and the Drama.

"Couldn't say about the barking-iron," said Uncle Mo. "He's got a nasty

sort of a knife, because he was flourishing of it out once to frighten

M'riar. I'll give him that." Meaning--the advantage of the weapon. A

trivial concession from a survivor of the best days of the Fancy! "Ye

see, Jerry," he continued, "he'll have to come within arm's length, to

use it. _I'll_ see to him! Him and his carving-knives!"

But Mr. Jerry was far from easy about his friend, who seemed to him

over-confident. He had passed his life in sporting circles, and though

he himself had seen more of jockeys than prizefighters, their respective

circumferences intersected; and more than one case had come to his

knowledge of a veteran of the Ring unconscious of his decadence, who had

boastfully defied a junior, and made the painful discovery of the degree

to which youth can outclass age. This was scarcely a case of youth or

extreme age, but the twenty years that parted them were all-sufficient.

He began to seek in his inner conscience excuses for a course of action

which would--he was quite candid with himself--have a close resemblance

to treachery. But would not a little straightforward treachery be not

only very expedient, but rather moral? Were high principles a _sine qua

non_ to such a humble individual as himself, a "bookmaker" on

race-courses, a billiard-marker elsewhere in their breathing-times?

Though indeed Mr. Jerry in his chequered life had seen many other phases

of employment--chiefly, whenever he had the choice, within the zone of

horsiness. For he had a mysterious sympathetic knowledge of the horse.

If pressed to give an account of himself, he was often compelled to

admit that he was doing nothing particular, but was on the lookout. He

might indicate that he was getting sick of this sort of thing, and would

take the next chance that turned up; would, as it were, close with Fate.

There had never been a moment in his sixty odd years of life--for he was

very little Uncle Mo's junior--when he had not been on the eve of a

lucrative permanency. It had never come; and never could, in the nature

of things. Nevertheless, the evanescencies that came and went and

chequered his career were not quite unremunerative, though they were

hardly lucrative. If he was ever hard up, he certainly never confessed

to it.

He, however, looking back on his own antecedents to determine from them

how straitlaced a morality conscience called for, decided, in view of

the possibility of a collision between his friend and this ex-convict,

that he would be quite justified in treating Aunt M'riar's feelings as

negligible, set against the risk incurred by deferring to them as his

friend had done. No doubt Mo's confidence had been reposed in him under

the seal of an honourable secrecy, but to honour it under the

circumstances seemed to him to be "cutting it rather fine." He resolved

to sacrifice his integrity on the altar of friendship, and sought out

Mr. Simeon Rowe, who will be remembered as the Thames Policeman who was

rowing stroke at Hammersmith that day when his chief, Ibbetson, lost his

life in the attempt to capture Daverill; and who had more recently been

identified by Mo as the son of an old friend. Jerry made a full

communication of the case as known to him; giving as his own motive for

doing so, the wish to shield Mo from the possible consequences of his

own rash over-confidence.

"I collect from what you tell me," said the Police-Inspector, "that my

men have been going on the wrong tack. That's about it, Mr. Alibone,

isn't it?"

"That's one way of putting it, Mr. Rowe. Anyhow, they were bound to be

let in. Why, who was to guess Aunt M'riar? _And_ the reason!"

"They'll have to look a little sharper, that's all." It suited the

Inspector to lay the blame of failure on his subordinates. This is a

prerogative of seniors in office. Successes are officially credited to

the foresight of headquarters--failures debited to the incompetence of

subordinates. Mr. Rowe's attitude was merely human. He expressed as much

acknowledgment of indebtedness to Mr. Jerry as was consistent with

official dignity, adding without emotion:--"I've been suspecting some

game of the kind." However, he unbent so far as to admit that this

culprit had given a sight of trouble; and, as Mr. Jerry was an old

acquaintance, resumed some incidents of the convict's career, not

without admiration. But it was admiration of a purely professional sort,

consistent with strong moral loathing of its object. "He's a born devil,

if ever there was one," said he. "I must say I like him. Why--look how

he slipped through their fingers at Clerkenwell! That was after we

caught him at Hammersmith. That was genius, sir, nothing short of

genius!"

"Dressed himself in his own warder's clothes, didn't he, and just walked

over the course? What's become of your man he knocked on the head with

his leg-iron?"

"Oh--him? He's got his pension, you know. But he's not good for any sort

of work. He's alive--that's all! Yes--when Mr. Wix pays his next visit

at the Old Bailey, there'll be several charges against him. He'll make a

good show. I'll give him three months." By which he meant that, with all

allowances made for detention and trial, Mr. Wix would end his career at

the time stated. He went on to refer to other incidents of which the

story has cognisance. He had been inclined to be down on his old chief

Ibbetson, who was drowned in his attempt to capture Wix, because he had

availed himself of a helping hand held out to him to drag its owner into

custody. Well--he would think so still if it had not been for some

delicate shades of character Mr. Wix had revealed since. How did he,

Simeon Rowe, know what Ibbetson knew against the ex-convict? Some

Walthamstow business, as like as not! It was wonderful what a faculty

this man had for slipping through your fingers. He had been all but

caught by one of our men, in the country, only the other day. He was at

the railway-station waiting for the up-train, due in a quarter of an

hour, and he saw our man driving up in a gig. At this point Mr. Rowe

stopped, looking amused.

"Did he run?" said Mr. Jerry.

"Not he! He made a mistake in his train. Jumped into the Manchester

express that was just leaving, and got carried off before our man

reached the station. At Manchester he explained his mistake, and used

his return ticket without extra charge to come back to London. Our man

knew he would do that, and waited for him at Euston. But _he_ knew one

better. Missed his train again at Harrow--just got out for a minute, you

know, when it stopped--and walked the rest of the way!"

Ralph Daverill must have had a curious insight into human nature, to

know by the amount of his inspection of that police-officer--the one who

had ridden after him from Grantley Thorpe--whether he would pursue him

to Manchester or try to capture him at Euston. How could he tell that

the officer was not clever enough to know exactly how clever his quarry

would decide he was?

* * * * *

Aunt M'riar, haunted always by a nightmare--by the terrible dream of a

scaffold, and on it the man who had been her husband, with all the

attendant horrors familiar to an age when public executions still

gratified its human, or inhuman interest--was unable to get relief by

confiding her trouble to others. She dared to say no more than what she

had already said to Uncle Mo, as she knew he was in communication with

his friend the police-officer and she wanted only just as much to be

disclosed about the convict as would safeguard Sapps Court from another

of his visits, but at the same time would not lead to his capture. If

she had thought his suggestions of intimidation serious, no doubt she

would have put aside her scruples, and made it her first object that he

should be brought to justice. But she regarded them as empty threats,

uttered solely to extort money.

She knew she could rely on Mo's kindness of heart to stretch many points

to meet her feelings, but she felt very uncertain whether even his

kind-heartedness would go the length of her demand for it. He might

consider that a wife's feelings for a husband--and _such_ a

husband!--might be carried too far, might even be classified as

superstition, that last infirmity of incorrect minds. If she could only

make sure that the convict should never show his face again in Sapps

Court, she would sacrifice her small remainders of money, earned in runs

of luck, to keep him at a distance. An attitude of compromise between

complete repudiation of him, and misleading his pursuers, was at least

possible. But it involved a slight amount of duplicity in dealing with

Mo, and this made Aunt M'riar supremely uncomfortable. She was perfectly

miserable about it. But there!--had she not committed herself to an

impracticable constancy, with a real altar and a real parson? That was

it. She had promised, five-and-twenty years ago, to love, honour, and

obey a self-engrossed pleasure-seeker, and time and crime and the canker

of a gaol had developed a devil in him, who was by now a fine

representative sample--a "record devil" our modern advanced speech might

have called him--who had fairly stamped out whatever uncongenial trace

of good may have existed originally in the premises he had secured on

an indefinite lease. It _was_ superstition on Aunt M'riar's part, but of

a sort that is aided and abetted by a system that has served the

purposes of the priesthoods all the world over since the world began,

and means to last your time and mine--the more's the pity!

It was the day after her conversation with Mo about the convict--the

day, that is, after Gwen's last visit to Sapps Court--that Aunt M'riar

said to Dave, just departing to absorb erudition at his School, that if

he should see Michael Ragstroar he might tell him she had a note for

his, Michael's, aunt at Hammersmith; and if he was a-going there Sunday,

he might just every bit as well make himself useful, and carry it and

save the postage. Dave said:--"Whoy shouldn't oy carry it?" An

aspiration crushed by Aunt M'riar with:--"Because you're seven!" So

Dave, whose nature was as docile as his eyes were blue, undertook to

deliver the message; and Michael presented himself in consequence, just

after Uncle Mo had took a turn out to see for a newspaper, for to know

some more of what was going on in the Crimaera. It was just as well

Uncle Mo had, because when it's two, you don't have to consider. If this

is obscure, Aunt M'riar, who used the phrase, is responsible, not the

story. Its opinion is, that she meant that the absence of a third person

left her freer to speak. Perhaps if Mo had been present she would merely

have handed Micky the letter directed to his aunt, which would have been

palpably no concern of Uncle Mo's, inquirin' and askin' questions.

As it was, she accompanied it with verbal instructions:--"Now you know

what you've got to do, young Micky. You've just got to give this letter

to your great-aunt Treadwell. And when she sees inside of it, she'll

find it ain't for her, but a party."

"What sort of a party, that's the p'int? Don't b'leeve my great-aunt

knows no parties. Them she knows is inside of her farmily. Nevoos,

sim'lar to myself as you might say. Or hequal value." An Academical

degree would have qualified Micky to say "or its equivalent." The

expression he used had its source in exchange transactions of turnips

and carrots and greens, anticipating varied calls for each in different

markets.

"She may know the address of the lady she'll find in this envelope. And

if she don't, all _you_ got to do is to bring the letter back."

"Suppose she don't know the address and I do, am I to tell her, or 'old

my tongue?"

"Now which do you think? I do declare you boys I never! Nor yet anyone

else! Why, if she don't know the address and you do, all you got to do

then is take the letter and leave it."

"Without any address wrote? Wery good! 'Ave it your own way, missis.

'And it over."

Aunt M'riar handed it over. But before Micky was half-way up the Court,

she called him back. "Maybe you know the party's name? Miss Julia

Hawkins--on the waterside, Hammersmith."

"Her! Not know her! Juliarawkins. Why, she's next door!"

"But do you know her--to speak to?"

"Rarther! We're on torkin terms, me and Juliar. Werry often stop I do,

to pass the time of day with Jooli_ar_." An intensification in the

accent on the name seemed to add to his claim to familiarity with its

owner. "Keeps the little tiddley-wink next door. Licensed 'ouse. That's

where they took Wix--him as got out of quod--him as come down the Court

to look up a widder."

Aunt M'riar considered a moment whether it would not be better to

instruct Micky to find out Daverill and deliver her letter to him in

person. She decided on adhering to the convict's instructions. If she

had understood his past relations with Miss Hawkins she might have

decided otherwise. She affected not to hear Micky's allusion to him,

merely enjoining the boy to hand her letter in over the bar to its

Egeria. "You won't have any call for to trouble your aunt," said she.

For she felt that the fewer the cooks, the better the broth. Questioned

as to when he would deliver the letter, Micky appeared to turn over in

his mind a voluminous register of appointments. But he could stand them

all over, to oblige, and would see if he couldn't make it convenient to

go over Sunday morning. Nothing was impossible to a good business head.

As the appointments had absolutely no existence except in his

imagination--though perhaps costermonging, at its lowest ebb, still

claimed his services--he was able to make it very convenient indeed to

visit his Aunt Elizabeth. History repeats itself, and the incident of

the half-and-half happened again, point for point, until settlement-time

came, and then a variation crept in.

"I got a letter for you, missis," said Micky.

"Sure it ain't for somebody else? Let's have a look at it."

"No 'urry! Tork it over first--that's my marxim! Look ye here. Miss

Juliar, this is my way of putting of it. Here's three-halfpence, over

the beer. Here's the corner of the letter, stickin' out of my porket.

Now which'll you have, the letter or the three-halfpence? Make your

ch'ice. All square and no deception!"

"Well--the impidence of the child! Who's to know the letter's for me

onlest I see the direction? Who gave it you to give me?"

"Miss Wardle down our Court. Same I told you of--where the old

widder-woman hangs out. Him the police are after's mother!" Micky was so

confident of the success of this communication that he began picking up

the three-halfpence to restore them to his pocket, and stood holding the

corner of the letter to draw it out as soon as his terms were accepted.

The acceptance came unconditionally, with a nod; and Micky departed with

his jug.

What were the contents of this letter to Mr. Wix, care of Miss Julia

Hawkins, at The Pigeons? That was all the direction on the envelope,

originally covered by another, addressed to Micky's great-aunt. It was

worded as Daverill had worded it in a hurried parting word to Aunt

M'riar, given when Gwen's knock had cut his visit short. This letter, in

an uneducated woman's hand, excited Miss Hawkins's curiosity. Of course

it might only be from the old woman he supposed to be his mother. If so,

there did not seem to be any reasonable objection to her reading it. If

otherwise, she felt that there were many reasonable objections to

leaving it unread. Anyhow there was a kettle steaming on the fire in the

bar, and if she held the letter over the spout to see if it would open

easy, she would be still in a position to shut it up again and deliver

it with a guiltless conscience. Eve, no doubt, felt that she could

handle the apple and go on resisting temptation, so as not to seem rude

to the Serpent. The steam was not wanted for long, the envelope flap

curling up in a most obliging manner, and leaving all clear for

investigation. Miss Hawkins laid the letter down to dry quite dry,

before fingering it. Remember to bear this in mind in opening other

people's letters this way. The slightest touch on paper moistened by

steam may remain as a tell-tale.

This woman was so cautious that she left the paper untouched where she

had laid it on the table while she conferred with a recently installed

potboy on points of commercial economy. When she returned it was dry

beyond suspicion, and she drew the letter out to see if it contained

anything she need hesitate to read. She felt that she was keeping in

view what is due to the sensitive conscience of an honourable person.

The note she read was short, written so that the lines fell thus:--

"RALPH DAVERILL--The police are

on the look out for you and it is now not

safe to come to the Court--This is written

by your wife to say you will run

great risk of being took if you come--

For you to know who I am I write my name--

POLLY DAVERILL.

Sapps Court Dec 9 1854."

The lines were ill-spaced, so that blanks were left as shown. At the end

of the second, a crowded line, the word _not_ was blurred on the

paper-edge, and looked like a repetition of the previous word.

One does not see without thought, why this letter sent its reader's

heart beating furiously. Why should she turn scarlet with anger and all

but draw blood from a bitten lip? She knew perfectly well that this

gutter Don Juan's depravity could boast as many victims as his enforced

prison life had left possible to him. But no particular one had ever

become concrete to her, and jealousy of a multitude, no one better off

than herself, had never rankled. Jealousy of Heaven-knows-who is a

wishy-washy passion. Supply a definite object, and it may become

vitriolic. Polly Daverill, whoever she was, was definite, and might be

the wife the convict had acknowledged--or rather claimed--when he first

made Miss Julia's acquaintance, over twenty years ago.

The lip was perhaps saved from bloodletting by an idea which crossed the

mind of the biter. A look of satisfaction grew and grew as she

contemplated the letter; not for its meaning--that was soon clear. It

was something in the handwriting; something that made her hide

half-words with a finger-point, and vary her angle of inspection. Then

she said, aloud to herself:--"Yes!" as though she had come to a

decision.

She examined an inkstand that the dried ink of ages had encrusted,

beyond redemption, in a sunken cavity of restraint in an inktray

overstocked with extinct and senile pens. Its residuum of black fluid

had been glutinous ever since Miss Julia had known it; ever since she

had written, as a student, that Bounty Commanded Esteem all down one

page of a copybook. The pens were quill pens past mending, or

overwhelmed by too heartfelt nibs; or magnum bonums whose upstrokes were

morally as wide as Portland Place, or parvum malums that perforated

syllables and spluttered. The penwiper was non-absorbent, and generally

contrived to return the drop it refused to partake of on the hands of

incautious scribes, who rarely obtained soap and hot water time enough

to do any good.

Miss Julia first remedied the ink. A memory of breakfast unremoved still

hung about the parlour table--a teapot and a slop basin. The former

supplied a diluent, the latter a haven for the indisputably used-up

quill whose feather served to incorporate it with the black coagulum.

With the resultant fluid you could make a mark about the same blackness

as what the letter was, using by preference the newest magnum bonum pen,

which was all right in itself, only stuck on an old wooden handle that

scribes of recent years had gnawed.

What this woman's jealous violence was prompting her to do was to alter

this letter so as to encourage its recipient to put himself in danger of

capture. It was an easy task, as the only words she had to insert could

be copies from what was already written. The first line required the

word _not_ at the end, the fourth the word _no_. The only other change

needed was the erasure of the word _not_, in the second line, which

already looked like an accidental repetition of _now_. Was an erasure

advisable? she decided against it, cleverly. She merely drew her pen

through the _not_, leaving the first two letters intentionally visible,

and blurring the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much pleased

with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to accompany it; then

hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed it to W.

at the Post Office, East Croydon. This was the last address the convict

had given. Where he was actually living she did not know.

Her own letter to him was:--"The enclosed has come for you. I write this

in pencil because I cannot find any ink." It was a little stroke of

genius worthy of her correspondent's father. Nothing but clairvoyance

could have bred suspicion in him. Micky reappeared that evening in Sapps

Court, and found an opportunity to convey to Aunt M'riar that he had

obeyed his instructions. He did so with an air of mystery and an

undertone of intelligence, saying briefly:--"That party, missis! She's

got the letter."

"Did you give it her?" said Aunt M'riar.

"I see to it that she got it," said Micky with reserve. "You'll find it

all correct, just as I say." This attitude was more important than the

bald, unqualified statement that he had left the letter when he fetched

the beer, and Micky enjoyed himself over it proportionately.

* * * * *

Aunt M'riar was easier in her mind, as she felt pretty confident that

the letter would reach its destination. She had killed two birds with

one stone--so she believed. She had saved Daverill from the police, so

far at least as their watchfulness of Sapps Court was concerned, and

had also saved Uncle Mo from possible collision with him, an event she

dreaded even more than a repetition of those hideous interviews with a

creature that neither was nor was not her husband; a thing with a

spurious identity; a horrible outgrowth from a stem on which her own

life had once been grafted. Could woman think a worse thought of man

than hers of him, when she thanked God that at least the only fruit of

that graft had been nipped in the bud? And yet no such thought had

crossed her mind in all these years in which he had been to her no more

than a memory. A memory of a dissolute, imperfect creature--yes! but

lovable enough for all that. Not indeed without a sort of charm for any

passing friend, quite short of any spell akin to love. How could this

monstrous personality have grown upon him, yet left him indisputably the

same man? The dreadful change in the identity of the maniac--the maniac

proper, the victim of brain-disease--is at least complete; so complete

often as to force the idea of possession on minds reluctant to receive

it. This man remained himself, but it was as though this identity had

been saturated with evil--had soaked it up as the sponge soaks water.

There was nothing in the old self M'riar remembered to make her glad his

child was not born alive. There was everything in his seeming of to-day

to make her shudder at the thought that it might have lived.

The cause of the change is not far to seek. He had lived for twenty

years in Norfolk Island as a convict; for fourteen years certainly as an

inmate of the prisons, even if a period of qualified liberty preceded

his discharge and return to Sydney. He was by that time practically

damned beyond redemption, and his brilliant career as a bushranger

followed as a matter of course.

Those who have read anything of the story of the penal settlements in

the early part of last century may--even _must_--remember the tale told

by the Catholic priest who went to give absolution to a whole gang of

convicts who were to be hanged for mutiny. He carried with him a boon--a

message of mercy--for half the number; for they had been _pardoned_;

that is to say, had permission now to live on as denizens of a hell on

earth. As it turned out, the only message of mercy he had to give was

the one contained or implied in an official absolution from sin, and it

is possible that belief in its validity occasioned the outburst of

rejoicing that greeted its announcement. For there was no rejoicing

among the recipients of His Majesty's clemency--heart-broken silence

alone, and chill despair! For they were to remain on the rack, while

their more fortunate fellows could look forward to a joyous gallows,

with possibilities beyond, from which Hell had been officially excluded.

It is but right to add that the Reverend Father did _not_ ascribe the

exultant satisfaction of his clients--if that is the word--to anything

but the anticipation of escape from torture. He was too truthful.

If the nearest dates the story has obtained are trustworthy, Daverill's

actual term in Norfolk Island may have been fourteen years; it certainly

came to an end in the early forties. But he must have been there at the

time of the above incident, as it happened _circa_ 1836-37. The powers

of the sea-girt tropical Paradise to sterilise every Divine impulse must

have been at their best in his time, and he seems to have been a

favourable subject for the _virus_ of diabolism, which was got by Good

Intentions out of Expediency. The latter must have been carrying on with

Cowardice, though, to account for Respectability's choice, for her

convicts, of an excruciating life rather than a painless death. Possibly

the Cowardice of the whole Christian world, which accounts Death the

greatest of possible evils.

The life of a bushranger in New South Wales, which fills in the end of

his Australian career, did not tend to the development of any stray germ

of a soul that the prison-fires had not scorched out of old Maisie's

son. Small wonder it was so! Conceive the glorious freedom of wickedness

unrestrained, after the stived-up atmosphere of the gaol, with its

maddening Sunday chapel and its hideous possibilities of public torture

for any revolt against the unendurable routine. We, nowadays, read with

a shudder of the enormities that were common in the prisons of past

times--we, who only know of their modern substitutes. For the last

traces of torture, such as was common long after the _moyen age_, as

generally understood, have vanished from the administration of our gaols

before a vivified spirit of Christianity, and the enlightenment

consequent on the Advance of Science.[A] After fourteen years of such a

life, how glorious must have been the opportunities the freedom of the

Bush afforded to an instinctive miscreant, still in the prime of life,

and artificially debarred for so long from the indulgence of a natural

bent for wickedness; not yet _ennuye_ by the monotony of crime in

practice, which often leads to a reaction, occasionally accompanied by

worldly success. There was, however, about Daverill a redeeming point.

He was incorrigibly bad. He never played false to his father the Devil,

and the lusts of his father he did do, to the very last, never

disgracing himself by the slightest wavering towards repentance.

[Footnote A: This appears to have been written about 1910.]

Probably his return from Sydney to England was as much an escape from

his own associates in crime, with whom some dishonourable transactions

had made him unpopular, as a flight from the officers of Justice. A

story is told, too intricate to follow out, of a close resemblance

between himself and a friend in his line of business. This was utilised

ingeniously for the establishment of alibi's, the name of Wix being

adopted by both. Daverill had, however, really behaved in a very shady

way, having achieved this man's execution for a capital crime of his

own. Ibbetson, the Thames police-sergeant whose death he occasioned

later, was no doubt in Sydney at this time, and may have identified him

from having been present at the hanging of his counterpart, whose

protestations that he was the wrong man of course received no attention,

and whose attempt to prove an alibi failed miserably. Daverill had

supplied the defence with a perfectly fictitious account of himself and

his whereabouts at the time of the commission of the crime, which of

course fell to pieces on the testimony of witnesses implicated, who knew

nothing whatever of the events described.

There is no reason whatever to suppose that a desire to see his mother

again had anything to do with his return. The probability is that he

never gave her a thought until the money he had brought with him ran

out--or, more accurately, the money he got by selling, at a great

sacrifice, the jewels he brought from Australia sewed into the belt he

wore in lieu of braces. The most valuable diamond ring should have

brought him thousands, but he had to be content with hundreds. He had

drawn it off an amputated finger, whose owner he left to bleed to death

in the bush. It had already been stolen twice, and in each case had

brought ill-luck to its new possessor.

All this of Daverill is irrelevant to the story, except in so far as it

absolves Aunt M'riar of the slightest selfish motive in her conduct

throughout. The man, as he stood, could only be an object of horror and

aversion to her. The memory of what he had once been remained; and

crystallized, as it were, into a fixed idea of a sacramental obligation

towards a man whose sole claim upon her was his gratification at her

expense. She had been instructed that marriage was God's ordinance, and

so forth; and was _per se_ reciprocal. She had sacrificed herself to

him; _therefore_ he had sacrificed himself to her. A halo of mysterious

sanctity hung about her obligations to him, and seemed to forbid too

close an analysis of their nature. An old conjugation of the indicative

mood, present tense, backed by the third person singular's capital,

floated justifications from Holy Writ of the worst stereotyped iniquity

of civilisation.

CHAPTER XXII

HOW GWEN STAYED AWAY FROM CHURCH, BUT SENT HER LOVE TO LADY

MILLICENT ANSTIE-DUNCOMBE. HOW TOM MIGHT COME AGAIN AT FIVE, AND

GAVE MRS. LAMPREY A LIFT. NOT EXACTLY DELIRIUM. THE BLACK

WITCH-DOCTOR. WERE DAVE AND DOLLY ALL TRUE? WHAT GWEN HAD TO

PRETEND. DAVE'S OTHER LETTER. STARING FACTS IN THE FACE. GWEN'S

COMPARISON OF THE TWINS. MIGHT GWEN SEE THE AUSTRALIAN LETTER? OLD

KETURAH'S HUSBAND THE SEXTON. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE AND RUTH WENT TO

CHURCH, BY REQUEST, AND HOW RUTH SAW THE LIKENESS. HOW OLD MAISIE

COULD NOT BE EVEN WITH UNCLE NICHOLAS. CHAOS. HOW OLD MRS. PICTURE

RECEIVED DAVE'S INVITATION TO TEA. JONES'S BULL

"You'll have to attend divine service without your daughter, mamma,"

said Gwen, speaking through the door of her mother's apartment, _en

passant_. It was a compliance with a rule of domestic courtesy which was

always observed by this singular couple. A sort of affection seemed to

maintain itself between them as a legitimate basis for dissension, a

luxury which they could not otherwise have enjoyed. "I'm called away to

my old lady."

"Is she ill?"

"Well--Dr. Nash has written to say that I need not be frightened."

"But then--why go? If he says you need not be frightened?"

"That's exactly why I'm going. As if I didn't understand doctors!"

"I knew you wouldn't come to Church. Am I to give your love to Lady

Millicent Anstie-Duncombe if I see her, or not? She's sure to ask after

you."

"Some of it. Not too much. Give the rest to Dr. Tuxford Somers." The

Countess's suggestion of entire despair at this daughter was almost

imperceptible, but entirely conclusive.

"Well--he's married! Why shouldn't I?"

"As you please, my dear!"

The Countess appeared to decline further discussion. She said:--"Don't

be very late--you are coming back to lunch, of course?"

"If I can. It depends."

"My dear! With Sir Spencer Derrick here, and the Openshaws!"

"I'll be back if I can. Can't say more than that! Good-bye!" And the

Countess had to be content. The story is rather sorry for her, for it

_is_ a bore to have a lot of guests on one's hands, without due family

support.

* * * * *

The grey mare's long stride left John Costrell's fat cob a mile behind,

in less than two. Her hoofs made music on the hard road for another two,

and then were _assourdi_ by a swansdown coverlid of large snowflakes

that disappointed the day's hopes of being fine, and made her sulky with

the sun, extinguishing his light. The gig drew up at Strides Cottage in

a whitening world, and Tom Kettering had to button up the seats under

their oilskin passenger-cases, in anticipation of a long wait.

But Tom had not a long wait, for in a quarter of an hour after her young

ladyship had vanished into Strides Cottage, she returned, telling him

she was going to be late, and should not want him. He might drive back

to the Towers, and--stop a minute!--might give this card to her mother.

She scribbled on one of her own cards that she would not be back to

lunch, and told Tom he might come again about five. Tom touched his hat

as a warrior might have touched his sword-hilt.

Widow Thrale, who had accompanied Gwen, and returned with her into the

house, was the very ghost of her past self of yesterday morning.

Twenty-four hours ago she looked less than her real age by ten years;

now she had overpassed it by half that time at least. So said to Tom

Kettering a young woman with a sharp manner, whom he picked up and gave

a lift to on his way back. Tom's taciturnity abated in conversation with

Mrs. Lamprey, and he really seemed to come out of his Trappist seclusion

to hear what she had to tell about this mystery at the Cottage. She had

plenty, founded on conversations between the doctor and his sister,

whose housekeeper you will remember she was.

"Why--I'd only just left Widow Thrale when you drove past. Your aunt she

stayed till ever so late last night,"--Tom was Mrs. Solmes's

nephew--"and went home with Carrier Brantock. Didn't you see her?"

"Just for a word, this morning. She hadn't so much to tell as you'd

think. But it come to this--that this old Goody Prichard's own sister to

Granny Marrable. Got lost in Australia somehow. Anyhow, she's there now,

at the Cottage. No getting out o' that! Only what bothers me is--how

ever she came to turn up in her sister's house, and ne'er a one of 'em

to know the other from Queen Anne!"

"We've got to take that in the lump, Thomas. I expect your Aunt Keziah

she'll say it was Providence. I say it was just a chance, and Dr. Nash

he says the same. You ask him!"

Tom considered thoughtfully, and decided. "I expect it was just a

chance," said he. "Things happen of theirselves, if you let 'em alone.

Anyhow, it hasn't happened above this once." That was a great relief,

and Tom seemed to breathe the freer for it.

"I haven't a word to say against Providence," said Mrs. Lamprey. "On the

contrary I go to Church every Sunday, and no one can find fault. So does

Dr. Nash, to please Miss Euphemia. But one has to consider what's

reasonable. What I say is:--if it was Providence, what was to prevent

its happening twenty years ago? Nothing stood in the way, that I see."

Tom shook his head, to show that neither did he see what stood in the

way of a more sensible and practical Divine ordination of events. "Might

have took place any time ago, in reason," said he. "Anyhow, it hasn't.

It's happened now." Tom seemed always to be seeking relief from

oppressive problems, and looking facts in the face. "I'm not so sure,"

he continued, abating the mare slightly to favour conversation, "that

I've got all the scoring right. This old lady she went out to

Australia?"

"Yes--fifty years ago." Mrs. Lamprey told what she knew, but not nearly

all the facts as the story knows them. She had not got the convict

incidents correctly from the conversation of Dr. Nash with his sister.

Remember that he had only known it since yesterday morning. Mrs.

Lamprey's version did not take long to tell.

"What I look at is this," said Tom, seeming to stroke with his whiplash

the thing he looked at, on the mare's back. "Won't it turn old Granny

Marrable wrong-side-up, seeing her time of life. Not the other old

Goody--she's been all the way to Australia and back!" This only meant

that nothing could surprise one who had such an experience. As to the

effect on Granny Marrable, Mrs. Lamprey said no--quite the reverse. Once

it was Providence, there you stuck, and there was no moving you! There

was some obscurity about this saying; but no doubt its esoteric meaning

was, that once you accounted for anything by direct Divine

interposition, you stood committed to a controversial attitude which

would render you an obstructive to liberal thought.

This little conversation was presently cut short by Mrs. Lamprey's

arrival at her destination, a roadside inn where she had an aunt by

marriage.

* * * * *

Ruth Thrale had a bad report to give as she and her young ladyship

recrossed the kitchen. It was summed up in the word Fever, restrained by

"Not exactly delirium." Granny Marrable came out to meet them, and threw

in a word or two of additional restraint. What they had at first thought

delirium had turned out quite temperate and sane on closer examination.

"A deal about Australia, and the black witch-doctor," said Granny

Marrable. "Now, if one could turn her mind off that, it might be best

for her, and she would drop off, quiet." Perhaps her ladyship coming

would do her good. The old lady ended with concession about the

fever--was not quite sure Maisie had known her just now when she spoke

to her.

"Poor old darling!" said Gwen. "You know, Granny, we must expect a

little of this sort of thing. We couldn't hope to get off scot-free.

Have you had some sleep, yourself? Has she slept, Ruth?"

"Oh yes. Mother got some sleep in the chair beside--beside _her_, till

four o'clock. Then she lay down, and had a good sleep, lying down.

Didn't you, mother?"

"You may be easy about me, child. I've done very well."

"And yourself, Ruth?" By now, Gwen always called Widow Thrale "Ruth."

"Who--I? I had quite a long sleep, while mother sat by--by _her_." This

dreadful difficulty of what to call old Maisie! Her daughter was always

at odds with it.

Gwen passed on into the bedroom. Just at the door she paused. "You wait

outside, and hear," said she. They held back, in the passage, silent.

Old Maisie's voice, on the pillow; audible, not articulate. Two frail

hands stretched out in welcome. Two grave eyes, made wild by the

surrounding tangle of loose white hair. Those were Gwen's impressions as

she approached the bed.

The voice grew articulate. "Oh, my darling, I knew you would come. I

want you close, to tell me...."

"Yes, dear!--to tell you what?"

"I want you to tell me whether one of the things is a dream."

"One of which things, dear?" One has to be a hard old stager not to feel

his flesh creep at delirium. Gwen had to fight against a shudder.

"There are so many, you know, now that they all come back at once. Tell

me, darling, were my little boy and girl real, who came up into my room

and played and gave me tea out of small cups? I called them Dave and

Dolly. Dolly was very small. Oh, Dolly!" Dolly's size, and her

tenderness on one's knee, were, so to speak, audible in the voice that

became tender to apostrophise her.

"Dave and Dolly Wardle? Of course they are real! As real as you or me!

There they are in Sapps Court, with Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar. And Susan

Burr," Then such a nice scheme crossed Gwen's mind.

But old Maisie seemed adrift, not able to be sure of any memory; past

and present at war in her mind, either intolerant of the other. "Then

tell me, dear," said she. "Is the other real too? Is it not a thing I

have dreamed, a thing I have dreamed in the night, here in Widow

Thrale's cottage ... where I came in the cart ... where I came from the

great house where the sweet old gentleman was, that was your father ...

where I could see out over the tree lands ... where my Ruth came to

me?..." The affection for her daughter, that had struck root firmly in

her heart, remained a solid fact, whether she was thinking of her as

before or after the revelation of her identity.

Gwen sat beside her on the bed-edge, her arm round her head on its

pillow, her free hand soothing the restless fingers that would not be

still. "What is it you think you have dreamed, Mrs. Picture dear?" said

she.

"It was all a dream, I think. Just a mad dream--but then--but then--did

not my Ruth think I was mad?..."

"But what was it? Tell it to me, now, quietly."

"It was that my Phoebe--my sister--oh, my dear sister!--dead so many

years ago--sat by me here, as you sit now--and we talked and talked of

the old time--and our young Squire, so beautiful, upon his horse.... Oh,

but then--but then!..." She checked herself suddenly, and a look of

horror came in her face; then went on:--"No, listen! There was an awful

thing in the dream--a bad thing--about a letter.... Oh, how can I tell

it?..."

Gwen caught at the pause to speak, saying gently but firmly:--"Dear Mrs.

Picture, it was no dream, but all true. Believe me, I know. When you are

quite well and strong, I will tell you all over again about the letter,

and how my dear old father found it all out for you. And I tell you

what! You shall come and live here with your sister and daughter,

instead of Sapps Court.... Oh no--you shall have Dave and Dolly. They

shall come too." This was Gwen's scheme, but it was no older than the

mention just made of it. "I can do these things," she added. "Papa lets

me do what I choose."

Old Maisie lay back, looking at the beautiful face in a kind of

wonderment. The feeling it gave her that she was in the hands of some

superior power was the most favourable one possible in a case where

fever was the result of mental disquiet. Presently the strain on the

face abated, and the wild look in the eyes. The lids drooped, then

closed over them. Something like sleep followed, leaving Gwen free to

rejoin old Phoebe and Ruth, outside. They were still close at hand.

"Did you hear all that?" said Gwen. It appeared that they had, or the

greater part. The account of how the night had passed was postponed,

owing to the arrival of Dr. Nash.

"I would sooner give her no drugs of any sort," said he, when he had

taken a good look at the patient. "I will leave something for her to

take if she doesn't get sleep naturally. Otherwise the choice is between

giving her something harmless to make her believe she is taking

medicine, and telling her she has nothing whatever the matter with her.

I incline to the last. Get her to take food whenever you can. Always

have something ready for her whenever's there a chance. I expect you to

see to that, Widow Thrale. And, Lady Gwendolen, _you_ are good for

her--remember that! You've got to pretend you're God Almighty--do you

understand?" It goes without saying that by this time no one else was

within hearing.

"I understand perfectly," said Gwen. "That little doze she had just now

was because I pledged myself and my father to the reality of the whole

thing. She had got to think it was all a dream."

She suppressed, as the sort of thing for London, a thought that came

into her head at this moment, that it was the first time the family

coronet had been of the slightest use to any living creature! Not here,

with the hush of the Feudal System still on the land, and the old church

at Chorlton's monotonous belfry calling its flock to celebrate the Third

Sunday in Advent. For next Sunday was Christmas Eve, and old Maisie's

eighty-first birthday. Next Monday was old Phoebe's, with just the

stroke of midnight between them.

Gwen seized the opportunity to get from Dr. Nash a fuller account of his

disclosure to old Phoebe. He told her what we know already.

"Only I'm due at the other end of the village," said he, ending up. He

looked at his watch. "I've got five minutes.... Yes--it was the small

boy's letter that did the job. I had been hammering away at the old lady

to get the thin of the wedge in, and I assure you it was useless. Worse

than useless! So I gave it up. But I suspect that some shot of mine hit

the mark, without my seeing it. Something had made her susceptible. And

when the kid's letter came, that did it. I wasn't there."

"Oh--then you only heard...."

"I was called back. I found the old body gone off in a faint, and the

letter on the floor--at least, on the baby. I've got it in my pocket, I

do believe.... No, I haven't!"

"What's this on the window-ledge? This is Dave's hand." But Gwen saw

that it was directed to "Old Mrs. Picture Strides Cotage Chorlton under

bradBury." She opened it without remorse, and the doctor said:--"Of

course! He wrote two. That one's to t'other old lady. Just the same, I

expect."

It was, word for word. But it had a short postscript:--"When you come

back me and Dolly shall give you tea it is stood ready and grany

maroBone too."

"Poor little people!" said Gwen. "How they will feel it! But I mustn't

keep you, doctor."

And then, after a word or two to Widow Thrale, Dr. Nash drove off

through the snow, now thickening.

Gwen, you see, was quite alive to the situation; perhaps indeed she was

ready to put a worse construction on it than the doctor. He had seen so

many a spark of life, far nearer extinction than old Maisie's, flicker

up and grow and grow, and end by steady burning through its appointed

time, that no amount of mere attenuation frightened him. Gwen, on the

other hand, could not bring herself to believe that any creature so

frail would stand the strain of such an earthquake of sensibilities.

Unless indeed some change for the better showed itself in a few hours,

she _must_ succumb. Probably she was only relieving the tension of her

own feelings by looking facts fiercely in the face. It is a common

attitude of inexperience, under like circumstances. Dr. Nash certainly

had said to her that "the strength was well maintained." But do we not

all of us accept that phrase as an ill-omen--a vulture in the desert?

No--no! Look the facts in the face! Glare at them!

Returning to the bedside, where Granny Marrable was sitting in her

arm-chair beside her sister, who was quiet--possibly sleeping--she took

the opportunity to note the changes that Time had wrought in each twin.

The moment she came to look for them, she began to marvel that she had

never seen the similarities; for instance, scarcely a month since, when

the two were face to face outside this house, and each looked at the

other, and neither said or thought:--"How like myself!" Was it possible

that they were really _more_ unlike then?--that the storm which had

passed over both had told more, relatively, on the healthy village dame,

kept blooming by a life whose cares were little more than healthy

excitements, than on the mere derelict of so many storms, any one enough

to send it to the bottom? There was little work left for Time or

Calamity to do on that old face on the pillow; while even this

four-and-twenty-hours of overwrought excitement had left its mark upon

old Phoebe. Gwen saw that the faces _were_ the same, past dispute, as

soon as she compared them point by point.

Once seen, the thing grew, and became strange and unearthly, almost a

discomfort. Gwen went back into the kitchen, where she found Ruth,

affecting some housework but without much heart in it. She too was

showing the effects of the night and day just passed, her heavy eyelids

fighting with their weight, not successfully; her restless hands

protesting against yawns; trying to curb rebellious lips, in vain.

"I can see the likeness now," said Gwen, thinking it best to talk.

"Between mother and--my mother?" was Ruth's reply. How else could she

have said it, without beginning to call old Phoebe her aunt?

Gwen saw the embarrassment, and skipped explanation. "Why not call her

Mrs. Picture--little Dave's name?" Then she felt this was a mistake, and

added:--"No, I suppose that wouldn't do!"

"Something will come, to say, in time. One's head goes, now." Ruth went

on to speak of her childish recollection of the news of her mother's

death--quite a vivid memory--when she was nearly nine years old. "I was

quite a big little maid when the letter came. We got it out, you know,

just now. And, oh, how sick it made me!"

"I should like so much to see it," said Gwen. Her young ladyship's

lightest wish was law, and Ruth nearly went to seek the letter. Gwen had

to be very emphatic that another time would do, to stop her.

"Then I will get it out presently, and give it to your ladyship to take

away and read," said Ruth, and went back to what she was saying. "That

is how I came to be able to call her my mother, at once. I mean the

moment I knew she was not Mrs. Prichard. Now that I know it, I keep

looking at her dear old face to make it out the same face that I kept on

thinking my mother in Australia had, all the time I thought she was

living there away from us. And if I had never known she died--I mean

had we never thought her dead--I would have gone on thinking the same

face. Oh, such a beautiful young face! Exactly like what mother's was

then!--the same face for her that it was when I last saw it...."

"I see. And when you look at your--your aunt's face, you naturally do

not look for what she was forty years ago."

"That is it, your ladyship. Because I have had mother to go by, all the

time. She has always been the same she was last week--last month--last

year--any time. What must it be to _her_, to see me what I am!"

"I don't believe it is harder for her to think about than it is for you.

She is feverish now, and that makes her wander. People are always worse

in the morning. Dr. Nash says so. I thought yesterday she seemed so

clear--almost understood it all." Thus Gwen, not over-sure of her facts.

"She was worse," said Ruth, thinking back into the recent events, "that

evening I showed her the mill. That was her bad time. Who knows but that

has made it easier for her now? I shouldn't wonder.... And to think that

I thought her mad, and never guessed who I was, myself, all that time."

"Was that the model?" said Gwen, thinking that anything the mind could

rest on might make the thing more real for Ruth. "Do you know I have

only half seen it? I should so like to see it again. Why have you

covered it up?" A few words explained this, and the mill was again put

on the table. If the little dolly figures had only possessed faculties,

they would have wondered why, after all these years, they were awakening

such an interest among the big movable creatures outside the glass. How

they would have wondered at Gwen's next words:--"And those two have

lived to be eighty years old and are in the next room!"

Then she was not sure she had not made matters worse. "Oh dear!" said

Widow Thrale, "it is all impossible--_impossible_! This was old when I

was a child."

Gwen was not prepared to submit to Time's tyranny. "What does it

matter?" said she intrepidly. "There is no need for _possibility_, that

I can see. She _is_ here, and the thing to think of now is--how can we

keep her? It will all seem natural in three weeks. See now, how they

know one another, and talk of old times already. She may live another

five--ten--fifteen years. Who can say?"

"She _is_ talking to mother now, I think," said Widow Thrale, listening.

For the voices of the twins came from the bedroom. "Suppose we go

back!"

"Yes--and you look at the two faces together, this time."

"I will look," was the reply, with a shade of doubt in it that

added:--"I may not see the resemblance."

Gwen went first. The two old faces were close together as they entered,

and she could see, more plainly than she had ever seen it yet, their

amazing similarity. She could see how much thinner old Maisie was of the

two. It was very visible in the hand that touched her sister's, which

was strong and substantial by comparison.

The monotonous bells at Chorlton Church had said all they could to

convince its congregation that the time had come for praise and prayer;

and had broken into impatient thrills and jerks that seemed to say:--"If

you don't come for this, nothing will fetch you!" The wicked man who had

been waiting to go for a brisk walk as soon as the others had turned

away from their wickedness, and were safe in their pews making the

responses, was getting on his thickest overcoat and choosing which stick

he would have, or had already decided that the coast was clear, and had

started. Old Maisie's face on the pillow was attentive to the bells. She

looked less feverish, and they were giving her pleasure.

What was that she was saying, about some bells? "Old Keturah's husband

the sexton used to ring them. You remember him, Phoebe darling?--him and

his wart. We thought it would slice off with a knife, like the topnoddy

on a new loaf if one was greedy.... And you remember how we went up his

ladder into the belfry, and I was frightened because it jumped?"

Old Phoebe remembered. "Yes, indeed! And old Jacob saying if he could

clamber up at ninety-four, we could at fourteen. Then we pulled the

bells. After that he would let us ring the curfew."

Just at that moment the last jerk cut off the last thrill of the chimes

at Chorlton, and the big bell started thoughtfully to say it was eleven

o'clock. Old Maisie seemed suddenly disquieted. "Phoebe darling!" she

said. And then, touching her sister's hand, with a frightened

voice:--"This _is_ Phoebe, is it not?... No, it is not my eyes--it is my

head goes!" For Gwen had said:--"Yes, this is your sister. Do you not

see her?" She then went on:--"My dear--my dear!--I am keeping you from

church. I want not to. I want _not_ to."