"You went to Pensham, mamma?" said Gwen to her mother, the next day, as soon as an opportunity came for quiet talk.
"On my way to Poynders," said the Countess yawnfully. "But it was unlucky. Lady Torrens was keeping her room. Some sort of nervous attack.
I didn't get any particulars."
Gwen suspected reticence. "You didn't see her, then?"
"Oh dear no! How should I? She was in bed, I believe."
"You saw _somebody_?"
"Only Sir Hamilton, for a few minutes. He doesn't seem uneasy. I don't suppose it's anything serious."
"Did you see 'Re?"
"Miss Torrens and her brother were out. Didn't come back." Her ladyship here perceived that reticence, overdone, would excite suspicion, and provoke exhaustive inquiry. "I had a short chat with Sir Hamilton. Who gave me a very good cup of tea." The excellence of the tea was, so to speak, a red herring.
Gwen refused to be thrown off the scent. "He's an old friend of yours, isn't he?" said she suggestively.
"Oh dear yes! Ages ago. He told me about some people I haven't heard of for years. I must try and call on that Mrs. What's-her-name. Do you know where Tavistock Square is?"
"Of course I do. Everybody does. Who is it lives there?"
The Countess had consulted the undersized tablets, and was repocketing them. "Mrs. Enniscorthy Hopkins," said she, in the most collateral way possible to humanity. "_You_ wouldn't know anything about her."
"This tea has been standing," said Gwen. She refused to rise to Mrs.
Enniscorthy Hopkins, whom she suspected of red-herringhood.
The Countess was compelled to be less collateral. "She was Kathleen Tyrawley," said she. "But I quite lost sight of her. One does."
"Was she interesting?"
"Ye-es.... N-no ... not very. Pretty--of that sort!"
"What sort?"
"Well--very fond of horses."
"So am I--the darlings!"
"Yes--but a girl may be very fond of horses, and yet not marry a ...
Don't put milk in--only cream...."
"Marry a what?"
"Marry her riding-master." Her ladyship softened down Miss Tyrawley's groom to presentability. "But it was before you were born, child.
However, no doubt it is the same, in principle."
"Hope so! Is that tea right?"
"The tea? Oh yes, the tea ... will do. No, I only saw Sir Hamilton. The son and daughter were away."
"Now, mamma, that is being unkind, and you know it. 'The son and daughter!' As if they were people!"
"Well--and what are they?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean."
As the Countess did, she averted discussion. "We won't rake the subject up, my dear Gwendolen," she said, in a manner which embodied moderation, while asserting dignity. "You know my feelings on the matter, which would, I am sure, be those of any parent--of any _mother_, certainly.
And I may mention to you--only, _please_ no discussion!--that Sir Hamilton _entirely shares_ my views. He expressed himself quite clearly on the subject yesterday."
"You must have seen him for more than a few minutes to get as far as _that_." This was a shell in the enemy's powder-magazine.
The Countess had to adopt retrocessive strategy. "I think, my dear," she said, with dignity at a maximum, "that I have made it sufficiently clear that I do not wish to rediscuss your engagement, as your father persists in calling it. We must retain our opinions. If at the end of six months--_if_--it turns out that I am entirely mistaken, why, then you and your father must just settle it your own way. Now let us talk no more about it."
This conversation took place in the late afternoon of the day following Gwen's visit to Strides Cottage, and the Countess's to Pensham. All through the morning of that day her young ladyship had been feeling the effects of the strain of the previous one, followed by a night of despairing sleeplessness due to excitement. An afternoon nap, a most unusual thing with her, had rallied her to the point of sending a special invitation to her mother to join her at tea in her own private apartment; which was reasonable, as all the guests were away killing innocent birds, or hares. The Countess was aware of her daughter's fatigue and upset, but persisted in regarding its cause as over-estimated--a great deal too much made of a very simple matter.
"Then that is satisfactorily settled, and there need be no further fuss." These were her words of comment on her daughter's detailed account of her day's adventures, which made themselves of use to keep hostilities in abeyance.
"I think you are unfeeling, mamma; that's flat!" was Gwen's unceremonious rejoinder.
The Countess repeated the last word impassively. It was rather as though she said to Space:--"Here is an expression. If you are by way of containing any Intelligences capable of supplying an explanation, I will hear them impartially." Receiving no reply from any Point of the Compass, she continued:--"I really cannot see what these two old ...
persons have to complain of. They have every reason to be thankful that they have been spared so long. The death of either would have made all your exertions on their behalf useless. Why they cannot settle down on each side of that big fireplace at Strides Cottage, and talk it all over, I cannot imagine. It has been engraved in the _Illustrated London News_." This was marginal, not in the text. "They will have plenty to tell each other after such a long time."
"Mamma dear, you are hopeless!"
"Well, my dear, ask any sensible person. They have had the narrowest escape of finding it all out after each other's death, and then I suppose we should never have heard the end of it.... Yes, perhaps the way I put it _was_ a little confused. But really the subject is so complex." Gwen complicated it still more by introducing its relations to Immortality; to which her mother took exception:--"If they were both ghosts, we should probably know nothing of them. No ghost appears to a perfect stranger--no authenticated ghost! Besides, one hopes they would be at peace in their graves."
"Oh, ah, yes, by-the-by!" said Gwen, "there wasn't to be anything till the Day of Judgment."
"I wish you wouldn't drag in Religion," said her mother. "You pick up these dreadful Freethinking ways of speech from ..."
"From Adrian? Of course I do. But _you_ began it, by talking about Death and Ghosts."
"My dear, neither Death nor Ghosts are Religion, but the Day of Judgment is. Ask anybody!"
"Very well, then! Cut the Day of Judgment out, and go on with Death and Ghosts."
"We will talk," said the Countess coldly, "of something else. I do not like the tone of the conversation. What are your plans for to-morrow?"
"I don't think I shall go to Chorlton to-morrow. I shall leave the old ladies alone for a while. I think it's the best way. Don't you?"
"I don't think it can matter much, either way." The Countess was not going to come down from Olympus, for trifles. "But what _are_ you going to do to-morrow? Go to church, I _suppose_?"
"Is it necessary to settle?"
"By no means. Perhaps I was wrong in taking it for granted. No doubt I should have done well--in your case--to ask for information. _Are_ you going to church?"
"Possibly. I can settle when the time comes." Her mother made no reply, but she made it so ostentatiously that to skip off to another subject would have been to accept a wager of battle. Gwen was prepared to be conciliatory. "Is anything coming off?" she asked irreverently. "Any Bishop or anything?"