Said Miss Lutwyche:--"Well, _I_ call her a plaguy old cat.... No, I don't care if she _does_ hear me." However, she lowered her voice to finish her speech, and much that followed was inaudible to old Maisie.
Who of course supposed _she_ was the plaguy old cat!
Then Mary Anne became audible again, confirming this view:--"Is that her room?" For the subject of the conversation had changed in that inaudible phase--changed from Mrs. Masham to the queer old soul her young ladyship had pitchforked down in the middle of the household.
"That's her room now. Old Mashey has been turned out. She's next door.
She's supposed to look after her and see she wants for nothing.... _I_ don't know. Perhaps she does. _I_ wash my hands." At this point the poor old listener heard no more. What she _had_ heard was a great shock to her; really almost as great a shock as the crash at Sapps Court. She found her way back to her chair and sat and cried, in the darkened room.
She was a plaguy old cat, and Miss Lutwyche, with whom she had been on very good terms in Cavendish Square, had washed her hands of her! Then, when the servants here were attentive to her--and they were all right, as far as that went--it was mere deceptiousness, and they were wishing her at Jericho.
She was conscious that the lady's-maid and Mary Anne came back, still talking. But she had closed the door, and was glad she could not hear what they were saying. A few minutes after, Mrs. Masham appeared from her own room close by, having apparently recovered her temper. But, said old Maisie to herself, all this was sheer hypocrisy; a mere timeserver's assumption of civility towards a plaguy old cat!
"You'll be feeling ready for your bit of supper, Mrs. Pilcher," said the housekeeper; who, having been snubbed by Miss Lutwyche for saying "Pilchard," had made compromise. She could not be expected to accept "Picture." The bit of supper was behind her on a tray, borne by Lupin.
"Why--you're all in the dark!" She rebuked the servant-girl because there were no matches, and on production of a box from the latter's pocket, magnanimously lit the candles with her own hands, continuing the while to reproach her subordinate for neglect of the guest entrusted to her charge. That guest's thought being, meanwhile, what a shocking hypocrite this woman was. Probably Mrs. Masham was no more a hypocrite than old Maisie was an old cat. That is to say, if the latter designation meant a termagant or scold. There must be now and again, in Nature, a person without a hall-mark of either Heaven or Hell, and Mrs.
Masham may have had none. In that recent encounter in the kitchen which old Maisie had been conscious of, she had lost her temper with Miss Lutwyche; but so might anyone, if you came to that. Cook had come to that, after Miss Lutwyche left the room, and her designation of that young lady as a provocation, and a hussy, had done much to pacify Mrs.
Masham.
Anyhow, Mrs. Masham was on even terms with herself, if not in a treacle-jar, when she sat down by the fire to do--as she thought--her duty by her young ladyship's _protegee_. She was that taken up, she said, every minute of the day, that she did not get the opportunities her heart longed for of cultivating the acquaintance of her guest. But she was thankful to hear that Mrs. Pilcher had not been any the worse for her talk with her visitor an hour since. Widow Thrale, living like she did over at Chorlton, was a sort of stranger at the Towers. But only a subacute stranger, as her husband, when living, was frequently in evidence there, in connection with the stables.
Old Maisie was interested to hear anything about her pleasant visitor.
What sort of aged woman did Mrs. Masham take her to be? Her voice, said the old lady, was that of a much younger person than she seemed, to look at.
"How old would she be?" said the housekeeper. "Well--she might be a child of twelve or thirteen when her mother came to Strides Cottage, and married Farmer Marrable there...."
"Then her name was never Marrable at all," said old Maisie.
"No. Granny Marrable, she'd been married before, in Sussex. Now what _was_ her first husband's name?... Well--I ought to be able to recollect _that_! Ruth--Ruth--Ruth what?" She was trying to remember the name by which she had known Widow Thrale in her childhood. Her effort to do so, had it succeeded, would have made a complete disclosure almost inevitable, owing to the peculiarity of Granny Marrable's first husband's name. "I _ought_ to be able to recollect, but there!--I can't.
I suppose it would be because we always heard her spoken of as Mrs.
Marrable's Ruth. I saw but very little of her; only when I was a child...." She paused a moment, arrested by old Maisie's expression, and then said:--"Yes ... why?" ... and stopped.
"Because if I had known she was Ruth I would have told her that my little girl that died was Ruth. Just a fanciful idea!" But the speaker's supper was getting cold. The housekeeper departed, telling Lupin to get some scrapwood to make a blaze under that log, and make it show what a real capacity it had as fuel, if only justice was done to its combustibility.
This chance passage of conversation between old Maisie and the housekeeper ran near to sounding the one note needed to force the truth of an incredible tale on the blank unsuspicion of its actors. A many other little things may have gone as near. If so, none left any one of its audience, or witnesses, more absolutely in the dark about it than the solitary old woman who that evening watched that log, stimulated by the scrapwood during her very perfunctory supper; first till it became a roaring flame that laughed at those two candles, then till the flame died down and left it all aglow; then till the fire reached its heart and broke it, and it fell, and flickered up again and died, and slowly resolved itself into a hillock of red ember and creeping incandescence, a treasury still of memories of the woodlands and the coming of the spring, and the growth of the leaves that perished.
At about nine o'clock, Lupin, acting officially, came to offer her services to see the old lady to bed. No!--if she might do so she would rather sit up till her ladyship came in. She could shift for herself; in fact, like most old people who have never been waited on, she greatly preferred it. Only, of course, she did not say so. But Lupin _was_ sitting up for her ladyship, with Miss Lutwyche, and would purvey hot water then, in place of this, which would be cold. She brought a couple of young loglets to keep a little life in the fire, and went away to contribute to an everlasting wrangle in the servants' hall.
The wind roared in the chimney and made old Maisie's thoughts go back to the awful sea. Think of the wrecks this wind would cause! Of course she was all wrong; one always is, indoors, with a huge chimney which is a treasure-house of sound. Gwen was just saying at that moment, to Adrian and his sister, what a delicious night it was to be out of doors! And the grey mare, in a hurry to go, was undertaking through an interpreter to be back in an hour and three-quarters easy. And then they were off, Gwen laughing to scorn Irene's reproaches to her for not staying the night. All that was part of Gwen's minimisation of her guilt in this postponement of the separation test. The stars seemed to flash the clearer in the heavens for such laughter as hers, in such a voice. But all the while old Maisie was haunted with images of a chaise blown into ditches and over bridges, and colliding with blown-down elms, in league for mischief with blown-out lamps. Be advised, and _never_ fidget about the absent!
She would rather have gone on doing so than that the recollection should come back to her of Lutwyche's odious designation that she had taken to herself, so warrantably to all appearance. A _plaguy old cat_! What had she ever done or said to Miss Lutwyche, or any of them, to deserve such a name? And then that girl who was with her had seemed to accept it so easily--certainly without any protest. She was ready to admit, though, that her vituperators had concealed their animus well, the hypocrites that they were! Look how amiable Mrs. Masham had made believe to be, an hour ago! A shade of graciousness--an infinitesimal condescension--certainly nothing worse than that! But the hypocrisy of it! She had never been quite comfortable in her ill-assigned position of guest undefined--dear, beautiful Gwen's fault! Never, since the housekeeper on first introduction had jumped at her reluctance to taint the servants' hall with Sapps Court, interpreting it as a personal desire to be alone. But she had never suspected that she was a plaguy old cat, and did not feel like her idea of one.
Conceive the position of a lonely octogenarian, injudiciously thrust into a community where she was not welcome--by a Guardian Angel surely, but one who had never known the meaning of the word "obstacle." Conceive that her poverty had never meant pauperisation, and that graciousness and condescension are always tainted with benevolence, to the indigent.
She had done nothing to deserve having anything bestowed on her, and the wing of a chicken she had supped upon would have stuck in her throat with that qualification. Understand, too, that when this thought crossed her mind, she recoiled from it and cried out upon her petty pride that would call anything in question that had been _vise_ and endorsed by that dear Guardian Angel. Use these helps towards a glimpse into her heart as she watched the new wood go the way of the old, and say if you wonder that she cried silently over it. Now if only that nice person that came to-day could have stayed on, to pass the time with her until the welcome sound should come of the chaise's homeward wheels and the grey mare's splendid pace, bringing her what she knew would come if Gwen was in it, a happy farewell interview with her idol before she went to bed. Yes--how nice it would have been to have her here! Ruth Thrale--yes, Ruth--her own little daughter's name of long ago!
This Ruth _was_ her own daughter. But how to know it!
CHAPTER VII
HOW GWEN CAME BACK, AND FOUND THE "OLD CAT" ASLEEP. AND TOOK OFF HER SABLES. A CANDLE-LIGHT JOURNEY THROUGH AN ANCIENT HOUSE, AND A TELEGRAPHIC SUMMONS. HOW GWEN RUSHED AWAY BY A NIGHT-TRAIN, BECAUSE HER COUSIN CLOTILDA SAID DON'T COME. HOW SHE LEFT A LETTER FOR WIDOW THRALE AT THE RANGER'S LODGE
Just as the watched pot never boils, so the thing one waits for never comes, so long as one waits _hard_. The harder one waits the longer it is postponed. When one sits up to open the door to the latchkeyless, there is only one sure way of bringing about his return, and that is to drop asleep _a contre coeur_, and sleep too sound for furious knocks and rings, gravel thrown at windows, and intemperate language, to arouse you. Then he will come back, and be obliged to say he has only knocked once, and you will say you had only just closed your eyes.
Old Maisie was quite sure she had just closed hers, when of a sudden the voice she longed for filled Heaven and Earth, and said:--"Oh, what a shame to come and wake you out of such a beautiful sleep! But you mustn't sleep all night in the arm-chair. Poor dear old Mrs. Picture!
What would Dave say! What would Mrs. Burr say!" And then old Maisie waked from a dream about unmanageable shrimps, to utter the correct formula with a conviction of its truth, this time. She _had_ only just closed her eyes. Only just!
Miss Lutwyche, in attendance, ventured on sympathetic familiarity. Mrs.
Picture would not get any beauty-sleep to-night, that was certain. For it is well known that only sleep in bed deserves the name, and a clock was putting its convictions about midnight on record, dogmatically.
Gwen's laugh rang out soon enough to quash its last _ipse dixits_. "Then the mischief's done, Lutwyche, and another five minutes doesn't matter.
Mrs. Picture's going to tell me all her news. Here--get this thing off!
Then you can go till I ring." The thing, or most of it, was an unanswerable challenge to the coldest wind of night--the cast-off raiment of full fifty little sables, that scoured the Russian woods in times gone by. Surely the breezes had drenched it with the very soul of the night air in that ride beneath the stars, and the foam of them was shaken out of it as it released its owner.
Then old Maisie was fully aware of her Guardian Angel, back again--no dream, like those shrimps! And her voice was saying:--"So you had company, Mrs. Picture dear. Lutwyche told me. The widow-woman from Chorlton, wasn't it? How did you find her? Nice?"
Yes, the widow-woman was very nice. She had stayed quite a long time, and had tea. "I liked her very much," said old Maisie. "She was easy."
Then--said inference--somebody is difficult. Maisie did not catch this remark, made by one of the most inaudible of speakers. "Yes," she said, "she stayed quite a long time, and had tea. She is a very good young woman"--for, naturally, eighty sees fifty-odd as youth, especially when fifty-odd seems ten years less--"and we could talk about Dave. It was like being home again." She used, without a trace of _arriere pensee_, a phrase she could not have bettered had she tried to convey to Gwen her distress at hearing she was a plaguy old cat. Then she suddenly saw its possible import, and would have liked to withdraw it. "Only I would not seek to be home again, my dear, when I am near you." She trembled in her eagerness to get this said, and not to say it wrong.
Gwen saw in an instant all she had overlooked, and indeed she _had_ overlooked many things. It was, however, much too late at night to go into the subject. She could only soothe it away now, but with intention to amend matters next day; or, rather, next daylight. So she said:--"The plaster will very soon be dry now in Sapps Court, dear Mrs. Picture, and then you shall go back to Dave and Dolly, and I will come and see you there. You must go to bed now. So must I--I suppose? I will come to you to-morrow morning, and you will tell me a great deal more. Now good-night!" That was what she said aloud. To herself she thought a thought without words, that could only have been rendered, to do it justice:--"The Devil fly away with Mrs. Masham, that she couldn't contrive to make this dear old soul comfortable for a few weeks, just long enough for some plaster to dry." She went near adding:--"And myself, too, not to have foreseen what would happen!" But she bit this into her underlip, and cancelled it.
She rang the bell for Lutwyche, now the sole survivor in the kitchen region. Who appeared, bearing hot water--some for the plaguy old cat.
Gwen said good-night again, kissing the old lady affectionately when Lutwyche was not looking. Mistress and maid then, when the cat at her own request was left to get herself into sleeping trim, started on the long journey through corridors and state-rooms through which her young ladyship's own quarters had to be reached. Corridors on whose floors one walked up and down hill; great chambers full of memories, and here and there indulging in a ghost. Tudor rooms with Holbeins between the windows, invisible to man; Jacobean rooms with Van Dycks, nearly as regrettably invisible; Lelys and Knellers, much more regrettably visible. Across the landing the great staircase, where the Reynolds hangs, which your _cicerone_ of this twentieth century will tell you was the famous beauty of her time, and the grandmother of another famous Victorian beauty, dead not a decade since. And on this staircase Gwen, half pausing to glance at her departed prototype, started suddenly, and exclaimed:--"What's that?"
For a bell had broken the silence of the night--a bell that had enjoyed doing so, and was slow to stop. Now a bell after midnight in a house that stands alone in a great Park, two miles from the nearest village, has to be accounted for, somehow. Not by Miss Lutwyche, who merely noted that the household would hear and answer the summons.
Her young ladyship was not so indifferent to human affairs as her attendant. She said:--"I must know what that is. They won't send to tell me. Come back!" She had said it, and started, before that bell gave in and retired from public life.
Past the Knellers and Lelys, among the Van Dycks, a scared figure, bearing a missive. Miss Lupin, and no ghost--as she might have been--in the farther door as her ladyship passes into the room. She has run quickly with it, and is out of breath. "A telegraph for your ladyship!"
is all she can manage. She would have said "telegram" a few years later.
A rapid vision, in Gwen's mind, of her father's remains, crushed by a locomotive, itself pulverised by another--for these days were rich in railway accidents--then a hope! It may be the fall of Sebastopol; a military cousin had promised she should know it as soon as the Queen.
Give her the paper and end the doubt!... It is neither.
It is serious, for all that. Who brought this?--that's the first question, from Gwen. Lupin gives a hurried account. It is Mr. Sandys, the station-master at Grantley Thorpe, who has galloped over himself to make sure of delivery. Is he gone? No--he has taken his horse round to Archibald at the Stables to refit for a quieter ride back. Very well.
Gwen must see him, and Tom Kettering must be stopped going to bed, and must be ready to drive her over to Grantley, if there is still a chance to catch the up-train for Euston. Lutwyche may get things ready at once, on the chance, and not lose a minute. Lupin is off, hotfoot, to the Stables, to catch Mr. Sandys, and bring him round.
White and determined, after reading the message, Gwen retraces her steps. Outside old Mrs. Picture's door comes a moment of irresolution, but she quashes it and goes on. Old Maisie is not in bed yet--has not really left that tempting fireside. She becomes conscious of a stir in the house, following on a bell that she had supposed to be only a belated absentee. She opens her door furtively and listens.
That is Gwen's voice surely, beyond the servants' quarter, speaking with a respectful man. The scraps of speech that reach the listener's ear go to show that he assents to do something out of the common, to oblige her ladyship. Something is to happen at three-fifteen, which he will abet, and be responsible for. Only it must be three-fifteen sharp, because something--probably a train--is liable to punctuality.
Then a sound of an interview wound up, a completed compact. And that is Gwen, returning. Old Maisie will not intrude on the event, whatever it be. She must wait to hear to-morrow. So she closes her door, furtively, as she opened it; and listens still, for the silences of the night to reassert themselves. No more words are audible, but she is conscious that voices continue, and that her Guardian Angel's is one. Then footsteps, and a hand on the door. Then Gwen, white and determined still, but speaking gently, to forestall alarm, and reassure misgiving.
"Dear Mrs. Picture, it's nothing--nothing to be alarmed about. But I have to go up to London by the night train. See!--I will tell you what it is. I have had this telegraphic message. Is it not wonderful that this should be sent from London, a hundred miles off, two hours ago, and that I should have it here to read now? It is from my cousin, Miss Grahame. I am afraid she is dangerously ill, and I must go to her because she is alone.... Yes--Maggie is very good, and so is Dr.
Dalrymple. But some friend should be with her or near her. So I must go." She did not read the message, or show it.
"But my dear--my dear--is it right for you to go alone, in the dark....
Oh, if I were only young!..."