"It doesn't matter," was her daughter's answer. "I can gobble to make up for lost time. Don't bring any arrears, Norbury. I can go on where they are. What's this--grouse? Not if it's grousey, thank you!...
Oh--well--perhaps I can endure it ... What have I been doing? Why, taking a drive!... Yes--hock. Only not in a tall glass. I hate tall glasses. They hit one's nose. Besides, you get less.... I took my old lady out for a drive--all round by Chorlton, and showed her things. We saw Farmer Jones's Bull."
"Is that the Bull that killed the man?" This was the Earl. His eyes were devouring his beautiful daughter, as they were liable to do, even at lunch, or in church.
"I believe he did. It was a man that beat his wife. So it was a good job. He's a dear Bull, but his eyes are red. He had a little boy ...
Nonsense, mamma!--why don't you wait till I've done? He had a little boy to whistle to him and keep his nerves quiet. The potatoes could have waited, Norbury." The story hopes that its economies of space by omitting explanations will not be found puzzling.
The Countess's mien indicated despair of her daughter's manners or sanity, or both. Also that attempts to remedy either would be futile.
Her husband laughed slightly to her across the table, with a sub-shrug--the word asks pardon--of his shoulders. She answered it by another, and "Well!" It was as though they had said:--"Really--our daughter!"
"And where else did you go?" said the Earl, to re-rail the conversation.
"And what else did you see?"
"Mrs. Picture was knocking up," said Gwen. "So we didn't see so much as we might have done. We left a parcel from Cousin Clo at Goody Marrable's, and then came home as fast as we could pelt. You know Goody Marrable, mamma?"
"Oh dear, yes! I went there with Clo, and she gave us her strong-tea."
Gwen nodded several times. "Same experience," said she. "Why is it they _will_?" The story fancies it referred, a long time since, to this vice of Goody Marrable's. No doubt Gurth the Swineherd would have made tea on the same lines, had he had any to make.
The Countess lost interest in the tea question, and evidently had something to say. Therefore Gwen said:--"Yes, mamma! What?" and got for answer:--"It's only a suggestion."
"But _what_ is a suggestion?" said the Earl.
"No attention will be paid to it, so it's no use," said her ladyship.
"But what _is_ it?" said the Earl. "No harm in knowing _what_ it is, that I can see!"
"My dear," said the Countess, "you are always unreasonable. But Gwen may see some sense in what I say. It's no use your looking amused, because that doesn't do any good." After which little preliminary skirmish she came to the point, speaking to Gwen in a half-aside, as to a fellow-citizen in contradistinction to an outcast, her father. "Why should not your old woman be put up at Mrs. Marrable's? They do this sort of thing there. However, perhaps Mrs. Marrable is full up."
"I didn't see anybody there but the two Goodies. I didn't go in, though.
But why is Mrs. Picture not to stop where she is?"
"Just as you please, my dear." Her ladyship abdicated with the promptitude of a malicious monarch, who seeks to throw the Constitution into disorder. "How long do you want to stop here yourself?"
"I haven't made up my mind. But _why_ is Mrs. Picture not to stop where she is?" This was put incisively.
Her ladyship deprecated truculence. "My dear Gwen!--really! _Are_ you Farmer Jones's Bull, or who?" Then, during a lull in the servants, for the moment out of hearing, she added in an undertone:--"You can ask Norbury, and see what _he_ thinks. Only wait till Thomas is out of the room." To which Gwen replied substantially that she was still in possession of her senses.
Now Norbury stood in a very peculiar relation to this noble Family.
Perhaps it is best described as that of an Unacknowledged Deity, tolerating Atheism from a respect for the Aristocracy. He was not allowed altars or incense, which might have made him vain; but it is difficult to say what questions he was not consulted on, by the Family.
Its members had a general feeling that opinions so respectful as his _must_ be right, even when they did not bear analysis.
Gwen let the door close on Thomas before she approached the Shrine of the Oracle. It must be admitted that she did so somewhat as Farmer Jones's Bull might have done. "_You've_ heard all about old Mrs.
Picture, Norbury?" said she.
Why should it have been that Mr. Norbury's "Oh _dear_, yes, my lady!"
immediately caused inferences in his hearers' minds--one of which, in the Countess's, caused her to say to Gwen, under her voice:--"I told you so!"?
But Gwen was consulting the Oracle; what did it matter to her what forecasts of its decisions the Public had made? "But you haven't _seen_ her?" said she. No--Mr. Norbury had _not_ seen her; perfect candour must admit that. She was only known to him by report, gathered from conversations in which he himself was not joining. How could he be induced to disclose that part of them that was responsible for a peculiar emphasis in his reply to her ladyship's previous question?
Not by the Countess's--"She is being well attended to, I suppose?"
spoken as by one floating at a great height above human affairs, but to a certain extent responsible if they miscarried. For this only produced a cordial testimonial from the Oracle to the assiduity, care, and skill with which every want of the old lady was being supplied. Gwen's method was likely to be much more effective, helped as it was by her absolute licence to be and to do whatever she liked, and to suffer nothing counter to her wishes, though, indeed, she always gained them by omnipotent persuasion. She had also, as we have seen, a happy faculty of going straight to the point. So had Farmer Jones's Bull, no doubt, on occasion shown.
"Which is it, Lutwyche or Mrs. Masham?" said she. What it was that was either remained indeterminate.
Mr. Norbury set himself to say which, without injustice to anyone concerned. He dropped his voice to show how unreservedly he was telling the truth, yet how reluctant he was that his words should be overheard at the other end of the Castle. "No blame attaches," said he, to clear the air. "But, if I might make so bold, the arrangement would work more satisfactory if put upon a footing."
The Countess said:--"You see, Gwen. I told you what it would be." The Earl exchanged understandings with Norbury, which partly took the form of inaudible speech. The fact was that Gwen had sprung the old lady on the household without doing anything towards what Mr. Norbury called putting matters on a footing.
CHAPTER IV
OLD MEMORIES, AGAIN. THE VOYAGE OUT, FIFTY YEARS SINCE. SAPPS COURT, AND BREAD-AND-BUTTER SPREAD ON THE LOAF. HOW GWEN CAME INTO THE DREAM SUDDENLY. HOW THEY READ DAVE'S LETTER, AND MUGGERIDGE WAS UNDECIPHERABLE. HOW IT WASN'T THE MIDDLE AGES, BUT JEALOUSIES BRED RUCTIONS. SO GWEN DINED ALONE, BUT WENT BACK. A CONTEMPTIBLE HOT-WATER BOTTLE. MISS LUTWYCHE'S SKETCH OF THE RUCTIONS, AND HER MAGNANIMITY. NAPOLeON DE SOUCHY. HIS VANITY. BUT MAISIE AND PHOEBE REMAINED UNCONSCIOUS, AS WHY SHOULD THEY NOT? INDEED, WHY NOT POSTPONE THE DISCOVERY UNTIL AFTER THE GREAT INTERRUPTION, DEATH?
The problem of where the anomalous old lady was to be lodged might have been solved by what is called an accommodating disposition, but not by the disposition incidental to the _esprit de corps_ of a large staff of domestic servants. To control them is notoriously the deuce's own delight, and old Nick's relish for it must grow in proportion as they become more and more corporate. As Mr. Norbury said--and we do not feel that we can add to the force of his words--her young ladyship had not took proper account of tempers. Two of these qualities, tendencies, attributes, or vices--or indeed virtues, if you like--had developed, or germinated, or accrued, or suppurated, as may be, in the respective bosoms of Miss Lutwyche and Mrs. Masham. It was not a fortunate circumstance that the dispositions of these two ladies, so far from being accommodating, were murderous. That is, they would have been so had it happened to be the Middle Ages, just then. But it wasn't. Tempers had ceased to find expression in the stiletto and the poison-cup, and had been curbed and stunted down to taking the other party up short, showing a proper spirit, and so on.
"What was that you were saying to Norbury, papa dear?" Gwen asked this question of her father in his own room, half an hour later, having followed him thither for a farewell chat.
"Saying at lunch?" asked the Earl, partly to avoid distraction from the mild Havana he was lighting, partly to consider his answer.
"Saying at lunch. Yes."
"Oh, Norbury! Well!--we were speaking of the same thing as you and your mother, I believe. Only it was not so very clear what that was. You didn't precisely ... formulate."
"Dear good papa! As if everything was an Act of Parliament! What did Norbury say?"
"I only remember the upshot. Miss Lutwyche has a rather uncertain temper, and Mrs. Masham has been accustomed to be consulted."
"Well--and then?"
"That's all I can recollect. It's a very extraordinary thing that it should be so, but I have certainly somehow formed an image in my mind of all my much too numerous retinue of servants taking sides with Masham and Miss Lutwyche respectively, in connection with this old lady of yours, who must be a great curiosity, and whom, by the way, I haven't seen yet." He compared his watch with a clock on the chimney-piece, whose slow pendulum said--so he alleged--"I, am, right, you, are, wrong!" all day.
"Suppose you were to come round and see her now!"
"Should I have time? Yes, I think I should. Just time to smoke this in peace and quiet, and then we'll pay her a visit. Mustn't be a long one."
The day had lost its beauty, and the wind in the trees and the chimneys was inconsolable about the loss, when Gwen said to the old woman:--"Here's my father, come to pay you a visit, Mrs. Picture."
Thereon the Earl said:--"Don't wake her up, Gwennie." But to this she said:--"She isn't really asleep. She goes off like this." And he said:--"Old people do."
Her soft hand roused the old lady as gently as anything effectual could.
And then Mrs. Picture said:--"I heard you come in, my dear." And, when Gwen repeated that her father had come, became alive to the necessity of acknowledging him, and had to give up the effort, being told to sit still.
"You had such a long drive, you see," said Gwen. "It has quite worn you out. It was my fault, and I'm sorry." Then, relying on inaudibility:--"It makes her seem so old. She was quite young when we started off this morning."