"Not unless," he exclaimed, "not unless you are meaning that this old la-ady is Widow Thrale's mother!"
"You've gotten hold of it now, Master Costrell."
"But 'tis impossible--'tis _impossible_! If she were she would be my wife's grandmother!--her grandmother that died in Australia.... Well, Keziah Solmes, ye may nod and look wise--but ..."
"But that is th' vairy thing she is, safe and sure, John Costrell. I told ye--Australia. Australia be the Colonies."
John gave the longest whistle a single breath would support. Why he was ready to accept the relation of old Phoebe and Maisie, and revolt against his wife's inevitable granddaughtership, Heaven only knows! "But I'm not to say a word of it to the mistress," said he, meaning his wife.
"The Gra-anny said so, and she'll be right.... Was that her voice?..." A sound had come from the cottage. Keziah might be wanted. She wished the farmer good-night; and he drove off, no longer mystified, but dumfoundered with what had removed his mystification.
Old Phoebe had passed on into the house. She was satisfied that her message would account quite reasonably for the vacant seat in the returning cart. Besides, medical sanction--Dr. Nash's--had been given for her absence.
Now that the moment was close, a great terror came upon her, and she trembled. She knew that Ruth, her daughter for so long, was beyond that closed door across the passage, with ... With whom? With what?
Who can say except he be a twin that has lost a twin, what more of soul-stress had to be borne by these two than would have been his lot, or ours, in their place? And the severance of Death itself could not have been more complete than theirs for forty-odd years past; nor the reunion beyond the grave, that Gwen had likened theirs to, be stranger.
Indeed, one is tempted to imagine that inconceivable palliations may attend conditions of which our ignorance can form no image. On this side one only knows that such a meeting is all the sadder for the shadow of Decay.
She could hardly believe herself the same as when, so few days since, she quitted this old room, that still remained unchanged; so intensely the same as when she, and her memories in it were left alone with a Past that seemed unchangeable, but for the ever-growing cloud of Time. There was the old clock, ticking by the dresser, not missing its record of the short life of every second that would never come again. There on the hearth was the log that might seem cold, but always treasured a spark to be rekindled; and the indomitable bellows, time-defying, that never failed to find it out and make it grow to flame. There was the old iron kettle, all blackness without and crystal purity within, singing the same song that it began a long lifetime since, and showing the same impatience under neglect. There on the dresser was the same dinner-service that had survived till breakage and neglect of its brethren had made it a rarity; and on the wall that persevering naval battle her husband's great-grandmother's needle had immortalised a century and a half ago. The only change she saw was the beadwork tablecloth wrapped over the mill-model, in its place above the hearth.
Otherwise there was no change.
And here was she, face to face with resurrection--that was how she thought of it--all her brain in a whirl, unfit to allot its proper place to the most insignificant fact; all her heart stunned by a cataclysm she had no wits to give a name to. She had come with a rare courage and endurance to be at close quarters with this mystery, whatever it was, at once. On the very verge of full knowledge of it, this terror had come upon her, and she stood trembling, sick with dread undefined, glad she need not speak or call out. It would pass, and then she would call to Ruth, whose voice she could hear in the room beyond. There was another voice, too, a musical one, and low. Whose could it be? Not her lost sister's--not Maisie's! Her voice was never like that.
The cat came purring round her to welcome her back. The great bulldog trotted in from the yard behind, considered her a moment, and passed out to the front, attracted by the voices of Keziah and John Costrell.
Having weighed them, duly and carefully, he trotted back past Granny Marrable, to give one short bark at the bedroom door, and return to the yard behind, his usual headquarters. Then Ruth came from the bedroom, hearing the movement and speech without.
She was terribly taken aback. "Oh, mother dearest," she said, betrayed into speaking her inner thought, "you have come too soon. You cannot know."
"_I_ know," said Granny Marrable. "I will tell you presently. Now take me to her."
Ruth saw she meant that she could not trust her feet. What wonder at that? If she really knew the truth, what wonder at anything? She gave the support of her arm to the door, across the passage. Then the need for it seemed to cease, and the Granny, becoming her strong old self again, said with her own voice:--"That will do, dear child! Leave me to go on." She seemed to mean:--"Go on alone." That was what Ruth took her speech for. She herself held back; so none saw the first meeting between the twins.
Presently, as she stood there in suspense, she heard the words:--"Who is it outside, Ruth?" in Mrs. Prichard's voice, weak but controlled. Then the reply, through a breath that caught:--"Ruth is outside." Then the weaker voice, questioning:--"Then who?... then who?..." But no answer was given.
For, to Ruth's great wonderment, Granny Marrable came back in extreme trepidation, crying out through sobs:--"Oh, how can this be Maisie? Oh, how can this be Maisie?" To which Ruth's reply was:--"Oh, mother dear, who can she be if she is not my mother?" And though the wording was at fault, it is hard to see how she could have framed her question otherwise.
But old Phoebe had cried out loud enough to be heard by Keziah, speaking with John Costrell out in front, and it was quite audible in the room she had just left. That was easy to understand. But it was less so that old Maisie should have risen unassisted from the bed where she had lain since morning, and followed her.
"Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe darling, do not say that! Do not look at me to deny me, dearest. I know that this is you, and that we are here, together.
Wait--wait and _it will come_!" This was what Keziah remembered hearing as she came back into the house. She crossed the kitchen, and saw, beyond Widow Thrale in the passage, that the two old sisters were in each other's arms.
Old Phoebe, strong in self-command and moral fortitude, and at the same time unable to stand against the overwhelming evidence of an almost incredible fact, had nevertheless been unprepared, by any distinct image of what the beautiful young creature of fifty years ago had become, to accept the reality that encountered her when at last she met it face to face.
Old Maisie's position was different. She had already fought and won her battle against the changes Time had brought about, and her mind no longer recoiled from the ruinous discolorations of decay. She had been helped in this battle by a strong ally, the love engendered for her own daughter while she was still ignorant of her identity. She had found her outward seeming a stepping-stone to a true conception of the octogenarian, last seen in the early summer of a glorious womanhood.
Ruth Thrale's autumn, however much she still retained of a comely maturity, had been in those days the budding springtime of a child of four. Come what come might of the ravages of Time and Change, old Maisie was prepared for it, after accepting such a change as that. Did she know, and acknowledge to herself the advantage this had been to her, that time when she had said to Gwen:--"How I wish you could stay, to tell her that this is me!"
But the momentary unexpected strength that had enabled old Maisie to rise from the bed could not last. She had only just power left to say:--"I _am_ Maisie! I _am_ Maisie!" before speech failed; and her daughter had to be prompt, close at hand though she was, to prevent her falling. They got her back to the bed, frightened by what seemed unconsciousness, but relieved a moment after by her saying:--"I was only dizzy. Is this Phoebe's hand?" They were not seriously alarmed about her then.
She remained very still, a hand of her sister and daughter in each of hers, and the twilight grew, but none spoke a word. Keziah, at a hint from Ruth, attended to the preparation of supper in the front-room. This living unfed through hours of tension had to come to an end sometime.
They knew that _her_ silence was by choice, from a pressure of the hand of either from time to time. It seemed to repeat her last words:--"I _am_ Maisie. I _am_ Maisie."
That silence was welcome to them, for neither would have said a word by choice. They could but sit speechless, stunned by the Past. Would they ever be able to talk of it at all? A short parting gives those who travel together on the road through Life a good spell of cheerful chat, and each is overbrimming with the tale of adventure, grave or gay, of the folk they have chanced upon, the inns they have slept at, a many trifles with a leaven of seriousness not too weighty for speech. How is it when the ways divided half a century ago, and no tidings came to hand of either for the most part of a lifetime? How when either has believed the other dead, through all those years? Neither old Phoebe nor Ruth could possibly have felt the thing otherwise. But, that apart, silence was easiest.
Presently, it was evident that she was sleeping, peacefully enough, still holding her sister and daughter by the hand. As soon as Ruth felt the fingers slacken, she spoke, under her breath:
"How came you to know of it?"
"Dr. Nash. I spoke with her ladyship on the way, and she said it was true."
"What did she say was true?"
Granny Marrable had to think. What was it Gwen had said? She continued, feeling for her memories:--"I said to Gwen o' the Towers 'twas my dead sister come from the grave, and Dr. Nash had spoken to it. And John Costrell would have me unsay my word, but her ladyship bore me out, though 'twas but a way of speech." She paused a moment; then, before Ruth could frame an inquiry as to how much she knew of the story from either Dr. Nash or Gwen, went on, her eyes fixed, with a look that had terror in it, on the figure on the bed:--"If this be Maisie, was she not dead to me--my sister? Oh, how can this be Maisie?" Her mind was still in a turmoil of bewilderment and doubt.
Then Ruth's speech was again at fault, and yet she saw nothing strange in it. "Oh, mother dearest, this _must_ be my mother. How else could she know? Had you but heard her talk as I did, of the old mill!--and there she was a-knowing of it all, and I could think her mad! Oh, mother dear, the fool that I was not to see she _must_ be my mother!"
"It comes and goes, child," said Granny Marrable tremulously, "that she is your mother, not dead as I have known her. But it is all your life. I mind how the letter came that told it. After your grandfather's death.
And all a lie!"
"Her ladyship will tell you that, mother, as she told it to me. I have not the heart to think it, but it was my father's work. God have mercy on him!"
"God have mercy on him, for his sin! But how had he the cruelty? What wrong had I done him?"
"Mother, I pray that I may one day see the light upon it. God spare us a while, just for to know the meaning of it all." It was a confession of the hopelessness of any attempt to grapple with it then.
Keziah Solmes, while preparing some supper, looked in once, twice, at the watchers beside the still sleeping figure on the bed. They were not speaking, and never took their eyes from the placid, colourless face and snow-white hair loose on the pillow; but they gave her the idea of dazed bewilderment, waiting for the mists to clear and let them dare to move again. The fog-bound steamer on the ocean stands still, or barely cuts the water. It is known, on board, that the path will reopen--but when?
The third time Keziah looked in at them, the room being all dark but for a wood-flicker from an unreplenished grate, she gathered courage to say that supper was ready. Ruth Thrale started up from where she half sat, half lay, beside the sleeper, exclaiming:--"She's eaten nothing since the morning. Mother, she'll sink for want of food."
"Now, the Lord forgive me!" said Granny Marrable. "To think I've had my dinner to-day, and she's been starving!" For, of course, the midday meal was all over at Costrell's, in normal peace, when Dr. Nash came in laden with the strange news, and at a loss to tell it.
The withdrawal of her daughter's hand waked the sleeper with a start. "I was dreaming so nicely," said she. "But I'm cold. Oh dear--what is it?... I thought I was in Sapps Court, with my little Dave and Dolly...." She seemed slow to catch again the thread of the life she had fallen asleep on. Vitality was very low, evidently, and she met an admonition that she must eat something with:--"Nothing but milk, please!" It refreshed her, for though she fell back on the pillow with her eyes closed, she spoke again a moment after.
The thing happened thus. Keziah, authoritatively, insistent, would have Ruth eat, or try to eat, some supper. Old Phoebe was in no need of it, and sat on beside old Maisie, who must have dreamed again--one of those sudden long experiences a few seconds will give to a momentary sleep.
For she opened her eyes to say, with a much greater strength in her voice:--"I was dreaming of Dolly again, but Dolly wasn't Dolly this time ... only, she _was_ Dolly, somehow!..." Then it was clear that she was quite in the dark, for the time being, about the events of the past few hours. For she continued:--"She was Dolly and my sister Phoebe--both at once--when Phoebe was a little girl--my Phoebe that was drowned. But Phoebe was older than that when she drew my tooth, as Dolly did in my dream."
Old Phoebe, it must be borne in mind, although intellectually convinced that this could be none other than her sister, had never experienced the conviction that only the revival of joint memories could bring. This reference to an incident only known to themselves, long forgotten by her and now flashed suddenly on her out of the past, made her faith that this was Maisie, in very truth, a reality. But she could not speak.
The dream-gods kept their hold on the half-awakened mind, too old for any alacrity in shaking them off. The old voice wandered on, every word telling on its hearer and rousing a memory. "We must have been eight then. Phoebe tied a thread of silk round the tooth, and the other end to the drawer-knob ... it was such a little tooth ... long and long before you were born, my dear...." Her knowledge of the present was on its way back, and she thought the hand that held hers was her new-found daughter's. "It was the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept."
If you who read this are old, can you not remember among the surroundings of your childhood things too trivial for the maturities of that date to give a passing thought to, that nevertheless bulked large to you then, and have never quite lost their impressiveness since? Such a one, to old Phoebe, was "the drawer where the knitting-wool was kept."
Some trifle of the sort was sure to strike home its proof of her sister's identity. Chance lighted on this one, and it served its turn.
Ruth heard her cry out--a cry cut short by her mother's:--"Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe, I know it all now, and you'll know me." She started up from a hurried compliance with her Cousin Keziah's wish that she should eat, and went back quickly to the bedroom, to see the two old sisters again locked in each other's arms.
They may have been but dimly alive to how it all had come about, but they knew themselves and each other--twins wrenched asunder half a century since, each of whom had thought the other dead for over forty years.