She is feverish now, and that makes her wander. People are always worse in the morning. Dr. Nash says so. I thought yesterday she seemed so clear--almost understood it all." Thus Gwen, not over-sure of her facts.
"She was worse," said Ruth, thinking back into the recent events, "that evening I showed her the mill. That was her bad time. Who knows but that has made it easier for her now? I shouldn't wonder.... And to think that I thought her mad, and never guessed who I was, myself, all that time."
"Was that the model?" said Gwen, thinking that anything the mind could rest on might make the thing more real for Ruth. "Do you know I have only half seen it? I should so like to see it again. Why have you covered it up?" A few words explained this, and the mill was again put on the table. If the little dolly figures had only possessed faculties, they would have wondered why, after all these years, they were awakening such an interest among the big movable creatures outside the glass. How they would have wondered at Gwen's next words:--"And those two have lived to be eighty years old and are in the next room!"
Then she was not sure she had not made matters worse. "Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale, "it is all impossible--_impossible_! This was old when I was a child."
Gwen was not prepared to submit to Time's tyranny. "What does it matter?" said she intrepidly. "There is no need for _possibility_, that I can see. She _is_ here, and the thing to think of now is--how can we keep her? It will all seem natural in three weeks. See now, how they know one another, and talk of old times already. She may live another five--ten--fifteen years. Who can say?"
"She _is_ talking to mother now, I think," said Widow Thrale, listening.
For the voices of the twins came from the bedroom. "Suppose we go back!"
"Yes--and you look at the two faces together, this time."
"I will look," was the reply, with a shade of doubt in it that added:--"I may not see the resemblance."
Gwen went first. The two old faces were close together as they entered, and she could see, more plainly than she had ever seen it yet, their amazing similarity. She could see how much thinner old Maisie was of the two. It was very visible in the hand that touched her sister's, which was strong and substantial by comparison.
The monotonous bells at Chorlton Church had said all they could to convince its congregation that the time had come for praise and prayer; and had broken into impatient thrills and jerks that seemed to say:--"If you don't come for this, nothing will fetch you!" The wicked man who had been waiting to go for a brisk walk as soon as the others had turned away from their wickedness, and were safe in their pews making the responses, was getting on his thickest overcoat and choosing which stick he would have, or had already decided that the coast was clear, and had started. Old Maisie's face on the pillow was attentive to the bells. She looked less feverish, and they were giving her pleasure.
What was that she was saying, about some bells? "Old Keturah's husband the sexton used to ring them. You remember him, Phoebe darling?--him and his wart. We thought it would slice off with a knife, like the topnoddy on a new loaf if one was greedy.... And you remember how we went up his ladder into the belfry, and I was frightened because it jumped?"
Old Phoebe remembered. "Yes, indeed! And old Jacob saying if he could clamber up at ninety-four, we could at fourteen. Then we pulled the bells. After that he would let us ring the curfew."
Just at that moment the last jerk cut off the last thrill of the chimes at Chorlton, and the big bell started thoughtfully to say it was eleven o'clock. Old Maisie seemed suddenly disquieted. "Phoebe darling!" she said. And then, touching her sister's hand, with a frightened voice:--"This _is_ Phoebe, is it not?... No, it is not my eyes--it is my head goes!" For Gwen had said:--"Yes, this is your sister. Do you not see her?" She then went on:--"My dear--my dear!--I am keeping you from church. I want not to. I want _not_ to."
"Never mind church for one day, dear," said Granny Marrable. "Parson he won't blame me, stopping away this once. More by token, if he does miss seeing me, he'll just think I'm at Denby's."
"But, Phoebe--Phoebe!--think of long ago, how I would try to persuade you to stop away just once, to please me--just only once! And now ..."
She seemed to have set her heart on her sister's going; a sort of not very explicable tribute to "auld lang syne."
Gwen caught what seemed a clue to her meaning. "I see," said she. "You want to make up for it now. Isn't that it?"
"Yes--yes--yes! And Ruth must go with her to take care of her.... Oh, Phoebe, why should you be so much stronger than me?" She meant perhaps, why should her sister's strength be taken for granted?
Gwen looked at Granny Marrable, who was hesitating. Her look meant:--"Yes--go! Why not?" A nod thrown in meant:--"Better go!" She looked round for Ruth, to get her sanction or support, but Ruth was no longer in the room. "What has become of Mrs. Thrale?" said Gwen.
Ruth had vanished into the front-room, and there Gwen found her, looking white. "I saw it," said she. "And it frightened me. I am a fool--why have I not seen it before?"
Gwen said:--"Oh, I see! You mean the likeness? Yes--it's--it's startling!" Then she told of old Maisie's sudden whim about the service at Chorlton Church. "As your ladyship thinks best!" said Ruth. Her ladyship did think it best, on the whole. It would be best to comply with every whim--could only have a sedative effect. She herself would remain beside "your mother" while the two were away. Would they not be very late? Oh, that didn't matter! Besides, everyone was late. Granny Marrable and Ruth were soon in trim for a hasty departure. But as they went away Ruth slipped into Lady Gwen's hand the accursed letter, as promised. She had brought it out into the daylight again, unwillingly enough.
That was how it came about that Gwen found herself alone with old Maisie that morning.
"My dear--my dear!" said the old lady, as soon as Gwen was settled down beside her, "if it had not been for you, I should have died and never seen them--my sister and my Ruth.... I think I am sure that it is they, come back.... It is--oh, it is--my Phoebe and my little girl.... Oh, _say_ it is. I like you to say it." She caught Gwen by the arm, speaking low and quickly, almost whispering.
"Of course it is. And they have gone to church. They will be back to dinner at one. Perhaps you will be strong enough to sit up at table....
Oh no!--that certainly is not them back again. I think it is Elizabeth--from next door; I don't know her name--putting the meat down to roast.... Yes--she has her own Sunday dinner to attend to, but she says she can be in both houses at once. I heard her say so to your sister." Gwen felt it desirable to dwell on the relationship, when chances occurred.
"Elizabeth-next-door. I remember her when Ruth was Widow Thrale--it seems so long ago now!... Yes--I wished Phoebe to go to church, because she always wished to go. Besides, it made it like _then_."
"'Made it like then?'" Gwen was not sure she followed this.
"Yes--like then, when the mill was, and our father. Only before I married and went away he made us go with him, always. He was very strict. It was after that I would persuade Phoebe to leave me behind when she went on Sunday. It was when she was married to Uncle Nicholas who was drowned. We always called him Uncle Nicholas, because of my little Ruth."
Gwen thought a moment whether anything would be gained by clearing up this confusion. Old Maisie's belief in "Uncle Nicholas's" death by drowning, fifty years ago, clung to her mind, as a portion of a chaotic past no visible surrounding challenged. It was quite negligible--that was Gwen's decision. She held her tongue.
But nothing of the Chaos was negligible. Every memory was entangled with another. A sort of affright seemed to seize upon old Maisie, making her hand tighten suddenly on Gwen's arm. "Oh, how was that--how was that?"
she cried. "They were together--all together!"
"It was only what the letter said," answered Gwen. "It was all a made-up story. Uncle Nicholas was not drowned, any more than your sister, or your child."
"Oh dear!" Old Maisie's hand went to her forehead, as though it stunned her to think.
"They will tell you when he died, soon, when you have got more settled.
_I_ don't know."
"He must be dead, because Phoebe is a widow."
"She is the widow of the husband she married after his death. That is why her name is Marrable, not ... Cropworthy--was it?"
"Not Cropworthy--Cropredy. Such a funny name we thought it.... But then--Phoebe must think...."
"Think what?"
"Must think _I_ married again. Because I am Mrs. Prichard."
"Perhaps she does think so. Why are you Mrs. Prichard? Don't tell me now if it tires you to talk."
"It does not tire me. It is easier to talk than to think. I took the name of Prichard because I wanted it all forgotten."
"About your husband having been--in prison?"
"Oh no, no! I was not ashamed about that. He was wrong, but it was only money. It was my son.... Oh yes--he was transported too--but that was after.... It was only a theft. I cannot talk about my son." Gwen felt that she shuddered, and that danger lay that way. The fever might return. She cast about for anything that would divert the conversation from that terrible son. Dave and Dolly, naturally.
"Stop a minute," said she. "You have never seen Dave's letter that he wrote to say he knew all about it." And she went away to the front room to get it.
A peaceful joint was turning both ways at the right speed by itself. The cat, uninterested, was consulting her own comfort, and the cricket was persevering for ever in his original statement. Saucepans were simmering in conformity, with perfect faith in the reappearance of the human disposer of their events, in due course. Dave's letter lay where Gwen had left it, between the flower-pots on the window-shelf. She picked it up and went back with it to the bedside.
"You must have your spectacles and read it yourself. Can you? Where shall I find them?"
"I think my Ruth has put them in the watch-pocket with my watch, over my head here." She could make no effort to reach them, but Gwen drew out both watch and glasses. "What a pretty old watch!" said she.
It pleased the old lady to hear her watch admired. "I had it when I went out to my husband." She added inexplicably:--"The man brought it back to me for the reward. He had not sold it." Then she told, clearly enough, the tale you may remember her telling to Aunt M'riar; about the convict at Chatham, who brought her a letter from her husband on the river hulk.
"Over fifty years ago now, and it still goes. Only it loses--and gains.... But show me my boy's letter." She got her glasses on, with Gwen's help, and read. The word "cistern" was obscure. She quite understood what followed, saying:--"Oh, yes--so much longer ago than Dolly's birthday! And we did--we did--think we were dead and buried. The darling boy!"
"He means each thought the other was. I told him." Gwen saw that the old face looked happy, and was pleased. She began to think she would be easy in her mind at Pensham, to-morrow, about old Mrs. Picture, and able to tell the story to her blind lover with a light heart.
Old Maisie had come to the postscript. "What is this at the end?" said she. "'The tea is stood ready' for me. And for Granny Marrowbone too."
Gwen saw the old face looking happier than she had seen it yet, and was glad to answer:--"Yes--I saw the tea 'stood ready' by your chair. All but the real sugar and milk. Dolly sits beside it on the floor--all her leisure time I believe--and dreams of bliss to come. Dave sympathizes at heart, but affects superiority. It's his manhood." Old Maisie said again:--"The darling children!" and kept on looking at the letter.