Old Maisie's voice was getting faint as she said:--"Old Martha Prichard ... the name I go by now, Phoebe darling.... I took it to ... to keep a memory...."
She was speaking in such a dying voice that Gwen struck in to put an end to her exerting it. "I see what you mean," she said. "You mean you took the name to bring back old times. Now be quiet and rest, dear! You are talking more than is good for you. Indeed you are!"
Thereon Granny Marrable, though she had never felt clear about the reason of this change of name, and now thought she saw enlightenment ahead, followed in compliance with what she conceived to be Lady Gwendolen's wishes. "Now you rest quiet, Maisie dearest, as her ladyship says. What would Dr. Nash think of such a talking?"
Ruth might not be back till very late, and as she had not reappeared it might be taken for granted she had stayed to sup with her daughter. Gwen suggested rather timidly--for it was going outside her beat--that the grandchild might have chosen its birthday. The Granny said, with a curious certainty, that there was no likelihood of that for a day or two yet, and went to summon Elizabeth from next door, to help with their own supper. She herself was rather old and slow, she said, in matters of house-service.
Gwen was not sorry to be left for a while to her own reflections before the smouldering red log on the kitchen fire.
The great bulldog from the lobby without, as though his courtesy could not tolerate such a distinguished guest being left alone, paid her a visit in her hostess's absence. He showed his consciousness of her identity by licking her hand at once. He would have smelt a stranger carefully all round before bestowing such an honour. Gwen addressed a few words to him of appreciation, and expressed her confidence in his integrity. He seemed pleased, and discovered a suitable attitude at her feet, after consideration of several. He looked up from his forepaws, on which his chin rested, with an expression that might have meant anything respectful, from civility to adoration. The cat, with her usual hypocrisy, came outside her fender to profess that she had been on Gwen's side all along, whatever the issue. Her method of explaining this was the sort that trips you up--that curls round your ankles and purrs.
The cricket was too preoccupied to enter into the affairs of fussy, uncontinuous mortals, and the kettle was cool and detached, but ready to act when called on. The steady purpose of the clock, from which nothing but its own key could turn it, was to strike nine next, and the cloth was laid for supper. Supper was ready for incarnation, somewhere, and smelt of something that would have appealed to Dave, but had no charm for Gwen.
For she was sick at heart, and the moment that a pause left her free to admit it, heavy-eyed from an outcrop of head-oppression on the lids. It might have come away in tears, but her tissues grudged an outlet. She saw no balm in Gilead, but she could sit on a little in the silence, for rest. She could hear the voices of the two old sisters through the doors, and knew that Mrs. Picture was again awake, and talking. That was well!--leave them to each other, for all the time that might still be theirs, this side the grave.
What a whirl of strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since ... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the end of that long rainy day in July, when the sunset flamed upon the Towers, and she saw a trespasser in the Park, with a dog. She could feel again the unscrupulous paws of Achilles on her bosom, could hear his master's indignant voice calling him off, and then could see those beautiful dark eyes fixed on what their owner could not dream was his for ever, but which those eyes might never see again. She could watch the retiring figure, striding away through the bracken, and wonder that she should have stood there without a thought of the future. Why could she not have seized him and held him in her arms, and baffled all the cruelty of Fate? For was he not, even then, hers--hers--hers beyond a doubt? Could she not see now that her heart had said "I love you" even as he looked up from that peccant dog-collar, the source of all the mischief?
That was what began it. It was that which led her to stay with her cousin in Cavendish Square, and to a certain impatience with conventional "social duties," making her welcome as a change in excitements an excursion or two into unexplored regions, of which Sapps Court was to be the introductory sample. It was that which had brought into her life this sweet old woman with the glorious hair. No wonder she loved her! She never thought of her engrossing affection as strange or to be wondered at. That it should have been bestowed on the twin sister of an old villager in her father's little kingdom in Rocestershire was where the miracle came in.
And such a strange story as the one she had disinterred and brought to a climax! And then, when all might have gone so well--when a very few years of peace might have done so much to heal the lifelong wounds of the two souls so cruelly wrenched apart half a century ago, that the frail earthly tenement of the one should be too dilapidated to give its tenant shelter! So small an extension of the lease of life would have made such a difference.
But if it was hard for her to bear, what would it be to the survivor, the old sister who had borne so bravely and well what seemed to Gwen almost harder to endure than a loss; a resurrection from the tomb, or its equivalent? She had often shuddered to think what the family of Lazarus must have felt; and found no ease from the reflection that they were in the Bible and it was quite a different thing. _They_ did not know they were in the Bible.
She helped the parallel a little farther, while the cricket chirped unmoved. Suppose that Lazarus had died again in earnest from the shock--and suppose, too, please, that he was deeply beloved, which may not have been the case! How would the wife, mother, sisters, who had said one farewell to him, have borne to see him die a second time? Of course, Gwen was alive to the fact that it would be bad religious form to suggest that this contingency was not covered by some special arrangement. But put it as an hypothesis, like the lady she had ascribed Adrian's ring to!
She could hear Granny Marrable's voice and Elizabeth's afar, in conference. That was satisfactory. It made her certain that the slightest sound from old Maisie, so much nearer, would reach her. Her door stood wide, and the other door was just ajar.
But she did not hear the slightest sound. The dog did, for he flashed into sudden vitality and attention, and was out of the room in an instant. He was unable to say to Granny Marrable:--"I heard your invalid move in the bedroom, and I think you had better go and see if she wants you," but he must have gone very near it. For Gwen heard the old lady's step come quicker than her wont along the passage, and she reached the kitchen-door just in time to see her pass into the room opposite. "Is she all right?" she said.
"I hope she is still asleep, my lady," said old Phoebe.
But she was not asleep, and said so. Her voice was clear, and the hand Gwen took--so she thought--closed on hers with a greater strength than before. If only she had stirred in bed, it would have seemed a return of living power. But this slight vitality in the hands alone seemed to count for so little. She wanted something, evidently, and both her nurses tried to get a clue to it. It was not food; though, to please them, she promised to take some. Gwen's thought that possibly she had something for her ear alone--which she had hesitated to communicate to old Phoebe--was confirmed when the latter left the room to get the beef-tea, and so forth, which was always within reach if needed. For old Maisie said plainly:--"_Now_ I can tell you--my dear!"
"What about, dear Mrs. Picture?" said Gwen, caressing the hand she held, and smoothing back the silver locks from the grave grey eyes so earnestly fixed on hers. "Tell me what."
"My son," said old Maisie. "I have a son, have I not?"--this in a frightened way, as though again in doubt of her own sanity--"and he is bad, is he not, and has written me a letter?"
"That's all right. I've got the letter, to show to my father."
"Oh yes--do show it--to the old gentleman I saw. He is your father...."
"You would like to say something about your son, dear Mrs.
Picture--something we can do for you. Now try and tell me just what you would like."
"I want you, my dear, to find me my purse out of the other watch-pocket.
I asked my Ruth to put it there.... She is Widow Thrale ... is she not?"
Every effort at thought of her surroundings was a strain to her mind, plainly enough.
"There it is!" said Gwen. "Soon found!... Now, am I to see how much money you've got in it?"
"Yes, please!" It was an old knitted silk purse with a slip-ring. In the early fifties the leather purses with snaps, that leak at the seam and let half-sovereigns through before you find it out, were rare in the pockets of old people.
"Six new pounds, and one, two, three, four shillings in silver, and two sixpences, and one fourpence, and a halfpenny! Shall I keep it for you, to be safe?"
"No, dear! I want--I want ..."
"I hope," thought Gwen to herself, "she's not going to have it sent to her execrable son. Yes, dear, what is it you want done with it?"
"I want three of the pounds to go to Susan Burr, for her to pay eight weeks of the rent. It's seven-and-sixpence a week."
"And the rest--shall I keep it?"
"Tell me--my son Ralph's letter ... Did it not say that he wanted money?"
"Yes, it did. But I'm going to see about that--I and my father."
Old Maisie's voice became beseeching, gaining strength from earnestness.
"Oh my dear--do let me! And, after all, is it not his money? For I had nothing of my own when I came back. I might have gone to the workhouse, but for him." What followed, disjointedly, was an attempt to tell the portion of her story that related to the miscarriage of her husband's will.
"Very well, dear! It shall all be done as you wish it. I'll see to that.
The money shall be sent to Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court, to give to him."
"Why is it Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court? I know Aunt M'riar." Do what she would, she could not grapple with these relativities. And, indeed, this one was a mystery she could not have solved in any case.
CHAPTER XXVIII
HOW A BOOMER GOT AWAY. GRANNY MARRABLE'S THEISM. COLD FEET. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE LOST HER HEAD. ADRIAN ON RESIGNATION. THE SHOP OPPOSITE. HOW MAISIE HEARD HER SON'S LETTER, AND WISHED HIM TO KNOW HE WAS POSSESSED. LADY ANCESTER'S REMONSTRANCE. HOW EMILY AND FANNY WOULDED THAT THEIR LOVE. HOW MAISIE WANTED PETER, AND DOLLY MIGHT NOT BE FRIGHTENED OF LAMBS. HOW SUSAN BURR WAS TO HAVE THE FURNITURE. LAST MESSAGE TO DAVE AND DOLLY. MAISIE'S DEATH. HOW GRANNY MARRABLE WENT AWAY TO SEE TO A NEWCOMER. HOW GWEN SLEPT, AND WAKED, AND HOW THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE EMPTY ROOM WHERE MRS.
PICTURE HAD BEEN, ON THE BED. HOW THE CONVICT CALLED TO INTRODUCE HIMSELF. A DOG WHO HAD KILLED A MAN, WORTH FORTY POUNDS. HOW THE CONVICT SAW WHAT WAS ON THE BED. THE CUT FINGER. INSPECTOR THOMPSON. HOW RUTH HAD PASSED A TRAMP, ON THE ROAD
"Has she not talked at all about Australia, Granny?... No, thanks! I'm sure it's a beautiful ham--but I shall do very nicely with this. One very big lump of sugar, please, and plenty of milk, or I shall lie awake." Thus Gwen, and the influence of Strides Cottage is visible in her speech.
Old Maisie was again asleep, and they had left her and gone into the front-room; as much to speak together without disturbing her as to get their own suppers. They were doing this last, however, in a grudging sort of fashion; for the pleasures of the table are no match for a heartache. Gwen found it a solace to make her own toast with a long toasting-fork, an experience which her career as an Earl's daughter had denied to her.
"Maisie has talked many times of Australia, my lady. She talks on, so I could not repeat much."
"You mean she jumps from one thing to another?"
"Yes, so I cannot always follow her. But she has told me a many things of her life there. How at first she would never see a soul at the farm from week's end to week's end, and her husband got to own all the land about."
"Do you think she is really alive to her husband's villainy? _I_ sometimes think she forgets all about it."
"Please God she does so! 'Tis better for her she should. I would have felt happier if she could have known me, and Ruth, and never had the tale of his wickedness."
"But that was impossible, Granny. She _must_ have known, in the end."