Her father continued:--"Each of them has dreamed the other was dead, for half a century. _Now_ they are awake. But I suspect, from what Gwen says, that the discovery of the dream has thrown a doubt on all the rest of the fifty years."
"That's it," said Gwen. "If the whole story of the two deaths is false, why should Van Diemen's Land be true? Why should the convict and the forgery be true?"
"Husbands and families are hard nuts to crack," said the General. "Can't be forgotten or disbelieved in, try 'em any side up!"
At this point a remonstrance from the drawing-room at the delay of the appearance of the males caused a stampede and ended the discussion. Gwen rejoined her own sex unabashed, and the company adjourned to the scene of the household festivity. It is not certain that the presence of his lordship and his Countess, and the remainder of the party _in esse_ at the Towers really added to the hilarity of the occasion. But it was an ancient usage, and the sky might have fallen if it had been rashly discontinued. The compromise in use at this date under which the magnates, after walking through a quadrille, melted away imperceptibly to their normal quarters, was no doubt the result of a belief on their part that the household would begin to enjoy itself as soon as formalities had been complied with, and it was left to do so at its own free-will and pleasure. Nevertheless, a hint at abolition would have been blasphemy, and however eager the rank and file of the establishment may have been for the disappearance of the bigwigs, not one of them--and still more not one of their many invited neighbours--ever breathed a hint of it to another.
Shortly after ten Gwen and some of the younger members of the party wound up a fairly successful attempt to make the materials at their disposal dance the Lancers, and got away without advertising their departure. It was a great satisfaction to overhear the outbreak of unchecked roystering that followed. Said Gwen to Miss Dickenson and Mr.
Pellew, who had entered into the spirit of the thing and co-operated with her efforts to the last:--"They will be at bear-garden point in half an hour. Poor respectable Masham!" To which Aunt Constance replied:--"I suppose they won't go on into Sunday?" The answer was:--"Oh no--not till Sunday! But Sunday is a _day_, after all, not a night." Mr.
Pellew said:--"Sunrise at eight," and Gwen said:--"I think Masham will make it Sunday about two o'clock. We shan't have breakfast till eleven.
You'll see!"
They were in the great gallery with the Van Dycks when Gwen stopped, as one stops who thinks suddenly of an omission, and said, as to herself, more than to her hearers:--"I wonder whether she meant me."
"Whether who meant you?" said both, sharing the question.
"Nothing.... Very likely I was mistaken.... No--it was this. You saw that rather _piquante_, dry young woman? You know which I mean?"
"Danced with that good-looking young groom?..."
"Yes--my Tom--Tom Kettering. It was what I heard her say to Lutwyche ...
some time ago.... 'Remember she's not to have it till to-morrow morning.' It just crossed my mind, did she mean me? I dare say it was nothing."
"I heard that. It was a letter." Mr. Pellew said this.
"Had you any impression about it?"
"I thought it was some joke among the servants."
Gwen was disquieted, evidently. "I wish I hadn't heard it," said she, "if it isn't to be delivered till to-morrow. That young woman is Dr.
Nash's housekeeper--Dr. Nash at Chorlton." She was speaking to ears that had heard all about the twin sisters. She interrupted any answer that meant to follow "Oh!" and "H'm!" by saying abruptly:--"I must see Lutwyche and find out."
They turned with her, and retraced their steps, remarking that no doubt it was nothing, but these things made one uncomfortable. Much better to find out, and know!
A casual just entering to rejoin the revels stood aside to allow them to pass, but was captured and utilised. "Go in and tell Miss Lutwyche I want to speak to her out here." Gwen knew all about local class distinctions, and was aware her maid would not be "Lutwyche" to a village baker's daughter. The girl, awed into some qualification of mere assent, which might have been presumptuous, said:--"Yes, my lady, if you please."
Lutwyche was captured and came out. "What was it I was not to have till to-morrow morning, Lutwyche? You know quite well what I mean. What was the letter?"
The waiting-woman had a blank stare in preparation, to prevaricate with, but had to give up using it. "Oh yes--there _was_ a _note_," she said.
"It was only a note. Mrs. Lamprey brought it from Dr. Nash. He wished your ladyship to have it to-morrow."
"I will have it at once, thank you! Have you got it there? Just get it, and bring it to me at once."
"I hope your ladyship does not blame me. I was only obeying orders."
"Get it, please, and don't talk." Her ladyship was rather incensed with the young woman, but not for obeying orders. It was because of the attempt to minimise the letter. It was just like Lutwyche. Nothing would make that woman _really_ truthful!
Lutwyche caught up the party, which had not stopped for the finding of the letter, at the drawing-room door. Gwen opened it as she entered the room, saying, to anyone within hearing:--"Excuse my reading this." She dropped on a sofa at hand, close to a chandelier rich with wax lights in the lampless drawing-room. Percy Pellew and his _fiancee_ stood waiting to share the letter's contents, if permitted.
The world, engaged with its own affairs, took no notice. The Earl and the General were listening to tales of Canada from Sir Spencer Derrick.
The Countess was pretending to listen to other versions of the same tales from that gentleman's wife. The others were talking about the war, or Louis Napoleon, or Florence Nightingale, or hoping the frost would continue, because nothing was more odious than a thaw in the country.
One guest became very unpopular by maintaining that a thaw had already set in, alleging infallible instincts needing no confirmation from thermometers.
The Countess had said, speaking at her daughter across the room:--"I hope we are going to have some music;" and the Colonel had said:--"Ah, give us a song, Gwen;" without eliciting any notice from their beautiful hearer, before anyone but Miss Dickenson and Mr. Pellew noticed the effect this letter was producing. Then the Earl, glancing at the reader's face, saw, even from where he sat, how white it had become, and how tense was its expression. He caught Mr. Pellew's attention. "Do you know what it is, Percy?" said he. Mr. Pellew crossed the room quickly, to reply under his breath:--"I am afraid it is some bad news of her old lady at Chorlton.... Oh no--not _that_"--for the Earl had made the syllable _dead_ with his lips, inaudibly--"but an alarm of some sort. The doctor's housekeeper there brought the letter."
The Earl left Mr. Pellew, reiterating what he had said to the General, and went over to his daughter. "Let me have it to see," said he, and took the letter from her. He read little scraps, half-aloud, "'Was much better all yesterday, but improvement has not continued.' ... 'Am taking advantage of my housekeeper's visit to the Towers to send this.' ...
'Not to have it till to-morrow.' ... How was that?" Gwen explained briefly, and he said:--"Looks as if the doctor took it for granted you would come at once."
"Yes," said Gwen, "on receipt of the letter."
The Countess said, as one whose patience is sorely and undeservedly tried:--"What _is_ it all about? I suppose we are to know." The war and Louis Napoleon and Florence Nightingale lulled, and each asked his neighbour what it was, and was answered:--"Don't know." The Colonel, a man of the fewest possible words, said to the General:--"Rum! Not young Torrens, I suppose?" And the General replied:--"No, no! Old lady of eighty." Which the Colonel seemed to think was all right, and didn't matter.
"I think, if I were you, I should see the woman who brought it," said the Earl, after reading the letter twice; once quickly and once slowly.
Gwen answered:--"Yes, I think so,"--and left the room abruptly. Her father took the letter, which he had retained, to show to her mother, who read it once and handed it back to him. "I cannot advise," said she, speaking a little from Olympus. She came down the mountain, however, to say:--"See that she doesn't do anything mad. You have some influence with her," and left the case--one of _dementia_--to her husband.
"I think," said he, "if you will excuse me, my dear, I will speak to this woman myself."
Her ladyship demurred. "Isn't it almost making the matter of too much importance?" said she, looking at her finger-diamonds as though to protest against any idea that she was giving her mind to the case of _dementia_.
"I think not, my dear," said the Earl, meekly but firmly, and followed his daughter out of the room.
Very late that night, or rather very early next day, in the smoking-room to which such males as it pleased to do so retired for a last cigar, sundry of the younger members of the vanishing shooting-party, and one or two unexplained nondescripts, came to the knowledge of a fact that made one of them say--"Hookey!"; another--"Crikey!"; and a third and fourth that they were blowed. All considered, more or less, that Mr.
Norbury, their informant, who had come to see the lights out, didn't mean to say what he had said. He, however, adhered to his statement, which was that Lady Gwendolen had had alarming news about an old lady whom she was much interested in, and had been driven away in the closed brougham by Tom Kettering to Chorlton, more than two hours ago. "I thought it looked queer, when she didn't come back," said one of the gentlemen who was blowed.
CHAPTER XXVI
HOW GWEN AND MRS. LAMPREY RODE TO STRIDES COTTAGE, AND FOUND DR.
NASH THERE. OF A LETTER FROM MAISIE'S SON, AND HOW IT HAD THROWN HER BACK. AN ANXIOUS NIGHT WATCH. IMAGINATIONS OF SAPPS COURT.
PETER JACKSON'S NAMESAKE. HOW GWEN DREAMED OF DOLLY ON GENERAL RAWNSLEY'S KNEE, AND WAS WAKED BY A SCREAM. READ ME ALOUD WHAT MY SON SAYS! WHAT IS CALLED SNEERING. A MAG. A FLIMSY. HOW GWEN WAS GOT TO BED, HALF ASLEEP. OLD MAISIE'S WILL. NOT UPSTAIRS OUT OF A CARRIAGE, DOWNSTAIRS INTO A CARRIAGE. TWO STEPS BACK AND ONE FORWARD. BEFORE THAT CLOCK STRIKES. _THEIR_ DAUGHTER
Whoever detected a thaw outside the house, by instinct at work within, was an accurate weather-gauge. A wet, despairing moon was watching a soaking world from a misty heaven; and chilly avalanches of undisguised slush, that had been snow when the sun went down, were slipping on acclivities and roofs, and clinging in vain to overhanging boughs, to vanish utterly in pools and gutters and increasing rivulets. The carriage-lamps of Gwen's conveyance, a closed brougham her father had made a _sine qua non_ of her departure, shone on a highway that had seen little traffic since the thaw set in, and that still had on it a memory of fallen snow, and on either side of it the yielding shroud that had made the land so white and would soon leave it so black. Never mind!--the road was a better road, for all that it was heavier. No risk now of a stumble on the ice, with the contingencies of a broken knee for the horse, and an hour's tramp for its quorum!
The yew-tree in the little churchyard at Chorlton had still some _coagulum_ of thaw-frost on it when the brougham plashed past the closed lichgate, and left its ingrained melancholy to make the most of its loneliness. Strides Cottage was just on ahead--five minutes at the most, even on such a road. "They will be sure to be up, I suppose--one of them at least," said Gwen to the woman in the carriage with her. It was Mrs.
Lamprey, whom Tom Kettering was to have driven back in any case, but not in the brougham. Gwen had overruled her attempt to ride on the box, and was sorry when she had done so. For she could not say afterwards:--"I'm sure you would rather be up there, with Tom."
"I doubt they'll have gone to bed, my lady, either of them. Nor yet I won't be quite sure we shan't find the doctor there." Thus Mrs. Lamprey, making Gwen's heart sink. For what but very critical circumstances could have kept Dr. Nash at the Cottage till past one in the morning? But then, these circumstances must be recent. Else he could never have wished the letter kept back till to-morrow. She said something to this effect to her companion, who replied:--"No doubt your ladyship knows!"
There was a light in the front-room, and someone was moving about. The arrival of the carriage caused the dog to bark, once but not more, as though for recognition or warning; not as a dog who resented it--merely as a janitor, officially. The doorbell, in response to a temperate pull, grated on the silence of the night, overdoing its duty and suggesting that the puller's want of restraint was to blame. Then came a footstep, but no noise of bolt or bar withdrawn. Then Ruth Thrale's voice, wondering who this could be. And then her surprise when she saw her visitor, whose words to her were:--"I thought it best to come at once!"
"Oh, but she is better! Indeed we think she is better. Dr. Nash was to write and tell you, so you should know--not to hurry to come too soon."
Thus Ruth, much distressed at this result of the doctor's despatch.