But no recognition followed. In vain did the old lady attempt--and perfectly honestly--to detect some reminder of some face seen and hitherto forgotten, in the hard cold eyes and thick-set jaw, the mouth-disfiguring twist which flawed features, which, handsome enough in themselves, would have otherwise gone near to compensate a repellent countenance. The effort was the more hopeless from the fact that it was a face that, once seen, might have been hard to forget. After complying to the full with his suggestion of a thorough examination, she was forced to acknowledge failure. "Indeed and indeed, sir," she said, "my memory is all at fault. If ever I saw ye in my life, 'tis so long ago I've forgotten it."
"Ah--you may say long ago!" The madman--for to her he was one; some lunatic at large--seemed to choke a moment over what he had to say, and then it came. "Twenty years and more--ay!--twenty years, and five over--and most of the time in Hell! Ah--run away, if you like--run away from your own son!" He released her arm; but though the terror had come back twofold, she would not run; for the most terrible maniac is pitiful as well as terrible, and her pity for him put her thoughts on calming and conciliating him. He went on, his speech breaking through something that choked it back and made it half a cry in the end. "Fourteen years of quod--fourteen years of prison-food--fourteen years of such a life that * * * prayers, Sundays, and the * * * parson that read 'em was as good as a holiday! Why--I tell you! It was so bad the lifers would try it on again and again, to kill themselves, and were only kept off of doing it by the cat, if they missed their tip." This was all the jargon of delirium to the terror-stricken old woman; it may be clear enough to the ordinary reader, with what followed. "I tell you I saw the man that got away over the cliff, and shattered every bone in his body. I saw him carried out o' hospital and tied up and flogged, for a caution, till the blood run down and the doctor gave the word stop." He went on in a voluble and disjointed way to tell how this man was "still there! There where your son, mother, spent fourteen out of these twenty-five long years past!"
But the more he said, the more clear was it to Granny Marrable that he was an escaped lunatic. There was, however, in all this sheer raving--as she counted it--an entire absence of any note of personal danger to herself. Her horror of him, and the condition of mind that his words made plain, remained; her apprehension of violence, or intimidation to make her surrender valuables, had given place to pity for his miserable condition. His repeated use of the word "mother" had a reassuring effect almost, while she accounted that of the word "son" as sheer distemperature of the brain. But why should she not make use of it to divert his mind from the terrible current of thought, whether delusion or memory, into which he had fallen? "I never had but one son, sir," she said, "and he has been dead twenty-three years this Christmas, and lies buried beside his father in Chorlton church."
The fugitive convict--for the story need not see him any longer from old Phoebe's point of view only--face to face with such a quiet and forcible disclaimer of identity, could not but be staggered, for all that this old woman's face was his mother's; or rather, was the face he had imaged to himself as hers, all due allowance being made--so he thought--for change from sixty-five to eighty. Probably, had he seen the two old sisters side by side, he would have chosen this one as his mother. Her eighty was much nearer to her sixty than old Maisie's. She was no beautiful old shadow, with that strange plenty of perfectly white hair. Time's hand had left hers merely grey, as a set off against the lesser quantity he had spared her. As Dave Wardle had noticed, her teeth had suffered much less than his London Granny's. Altogether, she was marvellously close to what the convict's preconception of "Mrs.
Prichard" had been.
It is easy to see how this meeting came about. After he left the hospitable cottage of the Solmes's, he had walked on in a leisurely way, stopping at "The Old Truepenny, J. Hancock," to add another half-pint to the rather short allowance he had consumed at the cottage. This was a long half-pint, and took an hour; so that it was well on towards the early November sunset before he started again for Chorlton. J. Hancock had warned him not to go rowund by t' roo'ad, but to avail himself of the cross-cut over the fields to Dessington. When old Phoebe overtook him, he was beginning to wonder, as he sat on the stile, how he should introduce himself at Strides Cottage. There might be men there. Then, of a sudden, he had seen that the old woman who had disturbed his cogitations, must be his mother! How could there be another old woman so like her, so close at hand?
Her placid, resolute, convincing denial checkmated his powers of thought. As is often the case, details achieved what mere bald asseveration of fact would have failed in. The circumstantial statement that her son lay buried beside his father in Chorlton Churchyard corroborated the denial past reasonable dispute. But nothing could convince his eyesight, while his reason stood aghast at the way it was deceiving him.
"Give me hold of your fin, missus," he said. "I won't call you 'mother.'
Left-hand.... No--I'm not going for to hurt you. Don't you be frightened!" He took the hand that, not without renewed trepidation and misgiving, was stretched out to him, and did _not_ do with it what its owner expected. For her mind, following his action, was assigning it to some craze of Cheiromancy--what she would have called Fortune-telling.
It was no such thing.
He did not take his eyes from her face, but holding her hand in his, without roughness, felt over the fingers one by one, resting chiefly on the middle finger. He took his time, saying nothing. At last he relinquished the hand abruptly, and spoke. "No--missus--you're about right. You're _not_ my mother." Then he said:--"You'll excuse me--half a minute more! Same hand, please!" Then went again through the same operation of feeling, and dropped it. He seemed bewildered, and saner in bewilderment than in assurance.
Old Phoebe was greatly relieved at his recognition of his mistake. "Was it something in the hand ye knew by, master?" she said timidly. For she did not feel quite safe yet. She began walking on, tentatively.
He followed, but a pace behind--not close at her side. "Something in the hand," said he. "That was it. Belike you may have seen, one time or other, a finger cut through to the bone?"
"Yes, indeed," said she, "and the more's the pity for it! My young grandson shut his finger into his new knife. But he's in the Crimea now."
"Did the finger heal up linable, or a crotch in it?"
"It's a bit crooked still. Only they say it won't last on to old age, being so young a boy at the time."
"Ah!--that's where it was. My mother was well on to fifty when I gave her that chop, and _she_ got her hooky finger for life. All the ten years I knew it, it never gave out." Old Phoebe said nothing. Why the man should be so satisfied with this finger evidence she did not see.
But she was not going to revive his doubts. She kept moving on, gradually to reach the road, but not to run from him. He kept near her, but always hanging in the rear; so that she could not go quick without seeming to do so.
If she showed willingness to talk with him, he might follow quicker, and they would reach the road sooner. "I'm rarely puzzled, master," she said, "to think how you should take me for another person. But I would not be prying to know...."
"You would like to know who I mistook ye for, mayhap? Well--I'll tell you as soon as not. I took you for my mother--just what I told you!
She's somewhere down in these parts--goes by the name of Prichard." Old Phoebe wanted to know why she "went by" the name--was it not hers?--but she checked a mere curiosity. "Maybe you can tell me where 'Strides Cottage' is? That's where she got took in. So I understand."
"Oh no!--you have the name wrong, for certain. My house where I live is called Strides Cottage. There be no Mrs. Prichard there, to my knowledge."
"That's the name told to me, anyhow. Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps Court, London."
"Now who ever told ye such a tale as that? I know now who ye mean, master. But she's not at Strides Cottage. She's up at the Towers"--rather a hushed voice here--"by the wish and permission of her young ladyship, Lady Gwendolen, and well cared for. Ye will only be losing your time, master, to be looking for her at Strides."
The convict looked at her fixedly. "Now which on ye is telling the truth?--you or t'other old goody? That's the point." He spoke half to himself, but then raised his voice, speaking direct to her. "I was there a few hours back, nigh midday, afore I come on here. She ain't there--so they told me."
"At the Towers--the Castle?"
"I saw no Castle. My sort ain't welcome in Castles. The party at the house off the road--name of Keziah--she said Mrs. Prichard had been took off to Chorlton by her cousin, Widow--Widow Thrale."
"Yes, that is my daughter. Then Keziah Solmes knew?"
"She talked like it. She said her cousin and Mrs. Prichard had gone away better than two hours, in the carrier's cart. So it was no use me inquiring for her at the Towers." He then produced the scrap of paper on which he had scribbled the address. A little more talk showed Granny Marrable all the story knows--that this sudden translation of her old rival in the affections of Dave Wardle, from the Towers to her own home, had been prompted by the sudden departure of her young ladyship for London. The fact that the whole thing had come about at the bidding of "Gwen o' the Towers" was absolute, final, decisive as to its entire rectitude and expediency. But she could see that this strange son who had not seen his mother for so long had identified her in the first plausible octogenarian whom he chanced upon as soon as he was sure he was getting close to the object of his search, and that he was not known to her ladyship at all, while his proximity was probably unsuspected by "old Mrs. Picture" herself. Besides, her faith in her daughter's judgment was all-sufficient. She was quite satisfied about what she would find on her return home. Nevertheless, this man was of unsound mind. But he might be harmless. They often were, in spite of a terrifying manner.
His manner, however, had ceased to be terrifying by the time a short interchange of explanations and inquiries had made Granny Marrable cognisant of the facts. She was not the least alarmed that she should have that curious rolling gait alongside of her. She was uneasy, for all that, as to how a sudden visit of this man to Strides Cottage would work, and cast about in her mind how she should best dissuade him from making his presence known to his mother before she herself had had an opportunity of sounding a note of preparation. She had not intended to go home for a day or two, but she could get her son-in-law to drive her over, and return the same day. His insanity, or what she had taken for insanity, had given her such a shock that she was anxious to spare her daughter a like experience.
"I think, sir," she began diffidently, "that if I might make so bold as to say so...."
"Cut along, missis! If you was to make so bold as to say what?"
"It did come across my mind that your good mother--not being hearty like myself, but a bit frail and delicate--might easy feel your coming as an upset. Now a word beforehand...."
"What sort of a word?" said he, taking her meaning at once. "What'll you say? No palavering won't make it any better. She'll do best to see me first, and square me up after. What'll you make of the job?"
Now the fact was that the offer to prepare the way for his proposed visit which she had been on the point of making had been quite as much in her daughter's interest as in his mother's. She found his question difficult. All she could answer was:--"I could try."
He shook his head doubtfully, walking beside her in silence. Then an idea seemed to occur to him, and he said:--"Hold hard a minute!" causing her to stop, as she took him literally. He also paused. "Strike a bargain!" said he. "You do me a good turn, and I'll say yes. You give me your word--your word afore God and the Bible--not to split upon me to one other soul but the old woman herself, and I'll give you a free ticket to say whatever you please to her when no one else is eavesdropping. Afore God and the Bible!"
Granny Marrable's fear of him began to revive. He might be mad after all, with that manner on him, although his tale about Mrs. Prichard might be correct. But there could be no reason for withholding a promise to keep silence about things said to her under a false impression that she was his mother. Her doubt would rather have been as to whether she had any right to repeat them under any circumstances. "I will promise you, sir, as you wish it, to say nothing of this only to Mrs. Prichard herself. I promise."
"Afore God and the Bible? The same as if there was a Bible handy?"
"Surely, indeed! I would not tell a falsehood."
"Atop of a Testament, like enough! But how when there's none, and no Parson?" He looked at her with ugly suspicion on his face. And then an idea seemed to strike him. "Look ye here, missus!" said he. "You say Jesus Christ!"
"Say what?--Oh why?" For blind obedience seemed to her irreverent.
"No--you don't get out that way, by God! I hold you to that. You say Jesus Christ!" He seemed to congratulate himself on his idea.
Old Phoebe could not refuse. "Before Jesus Christ," she said reverently, at the same time bending slightly, as she would have done in Chorlton Church.
The convict seemed gratified. He had got his security. "That warn't bad!" said he. "The bob in partic'lar. Now I reckon you're made safe."
"Indeed, you may rely on me. But would you kindly do one thing--just this one! Give me your name and address, and wait to hear from me before you come to the Cottage. 'Tis only for a short time--a day or two at most."
"Supposin' you don't write--how then?... Ah, well!--you look sharp about it, and I'll be good for a day or two. Give you three days, if you want 'em."
"I want your mother's leave...."
"Leave for me to come? If she don't send it, it'll be took. Just you tell her that! Now here's my name di-rected on this envelope. You can tell me of a quiet pub where I can find a gaff, and you send me word there. See? Quiet pub, a bit outside the village! Or stop a bit!--I'll go to J. Hancock--the Old Truepenny, on the road I come here by. Rather better than a mile along." Of course the old lady knew the Old Truepenny. Everyone did, in those parts. She took the envelope with the name, and as the twilight was now closing in to darkness, made no attempt to read it, but slipped it carefully in her pocket. Then a thought occurred to her, and she hesitated visibly on an inquiry. He anticipated it, saying:--"Hay?--what's that?"
"If Mrs. Prichard should seem not to know--not to recognise...." She meant, suppose that Mrs. Prichard denies your claim to be her son, what proof shall I produce? For any man could assume any name.
The convict probably saw the need for some clear token of his identity.
"If the old woman kicks," said he, "just you remember this one or two little things from me to tell her, to fetch her round. Tell her, I'm her son Ralph, got away from Australia, where he's been on a visit these twenty-five years past. Tell her.... Yes, you may tell her the girl's name was Drax--Emma Drax. Got it?"
"I can remember Emma Drax."
"She'll remember Emma Drax, and something to spare. She was a little devil we had some words about. _She'll_ remember her, and she'll know me by her. Then you can tell her, just to top up--only she won't want any more--that her name ain't Prichard at all, but Daverill.... What!--Well, of course I meant making allowance for marrying again. Right you are, missus! How the Hell should I have known, out there?" For he had mistaken Granny Marrable's natural start at the too well-remembered name she had scarcely heard for fifty years, for a prompt recognition of his own rashness in assuming it had been intentionally discarded.