"Because when I say, may I do this or may I say that, you always say, 'Yes if your mother,' etcetera, and then mamma quotes you to squash me.
I don't think it's playing the game."
"I think I gather from your statement, which is a little obscure, that your mamma and I are like the two proctors in Dickens's novel.
Well!--it's a time-honoured arrangement as between parents, though I admit it may be exasperating to their young. What's the other letter?"
"I want to tell you about it first," said Gwen. She then told, without obscurity this time, the events which had followed the Earl's departure from the Towers a week since. "And then comes this letter," she concluded. "Isn't it terrible?"
"Let's see the letter," said the Earl. She handed it to him; and then, going behind his high chair, looked over him as he read. No one ever waits really patiently for another to read what he or she has already read. So Gwen did not. She changed the elbow she leaned on, restlessly; bit her lips, turn and turn about; pulled her bracelets round and round, and watched keenly for any chance of interposing an abbreviated _precis_ of the text, to expedite the reading. Her father preferred to understand the letter, rather than to get through it in a hurry and try back; so he went deliberately on with it, reading it half aloud, with comments:
"AT STRIDES COTTAGE, "CHORLTON-UNDER-BRADBURY, "_November 22, 1854_.
"MY LADY,
"I have followed your instructions, and brought the old Mrs.
Prichard here to stay until you may please to make another arrangement. My mother will gladly remain at my daughter's at her husband's farm, near Dessington, till such time as may be suitable for Mrs. Prichard to return. This I do not wish to say because I want to lose this old lady, for if your ladyship will pardon the liberty I take in saying so, she is a dear old person, and I do in truth love her, and am glad to have charge of her."
"She seems always to make conquests," said the Earl. "I acknowledge to having been _epris_ myself."
"Yes, she really is an old darling. But go on and don't talk. It's what comes next." She pointed out the place over his shoulder, and he took the opportunity to rub his cheek against her arm, which she requited by kissing the top of his head. He read on:
"Nor yet would my mother's return make any difference, for we could accommodate, and I would take no other children just yet a while.
Toby goes home to-morrow. But I will tell you there is something, and it is this, only your ladyship may be aware of it, that the old lady has delusions and a strange turn to them, in which Dr. Nash agrees with me it is more than old age, and recommends my mother, being old too, not to come back till she goes, for it would not be good for her, for anything of this sort is most trying to the nerves, and my mother is eighty-one this Christmas, just old Mrs.
Prichard's own age."
"I think that's the end of the sentence," said the Earl. "I take it that Nash, who's a very sharp fellow in his own line, is quite alive to the influence of insanity on some temperaments, and knows old Mrs. Marrable well enough to say she ought not to be in the way of a lunatic....
What's that?"
"A lunatic!" For Gwen had started and shuddered at the word.
"I see no use in mincing matters. That's what the good woman is driving at. What comes next?" He read on:
"I will tell all what happened, my lady, from when she first entered the house, asking pardon for my length. It began when I was showing the toy water-mill on our mantel-shelf, which your ladyship saw with Miss Grahame. I noticed she was very agitated, but did not put it down to the sight of this toy till she said how ever could it have been _my_ grandfather's mill, and then I only took it for so many words, and got her away to bed, and would have thought it only an upset, but for next morning, when I found her out of bed before six, no one else being up but me, measuring over the toy with her hands where it stood on the shelf, and I should not have seen her only for our dog calling attention, though a dumb animal, being as I was in the yard outside."
"I think I follow that," said the Earl. "The dog pulled her skirts, and had a lot to say and couldn't say it."
"That was it," said Gwen. "Just like Adrian's Achilles. I don't mean he's like Achilles personally. The most awful bulldog, to look at, with turn-up tusks and a nose like a cup. But go on and you'll see. 'Yard outside.'"
"I would have thought her sleep-walking, but she saw me and spoke clear, saying she could not sleep for thinking of a model of her father's mill in Essex as like this as two peas, and thought it must be the same model, only now she had laid her hands on it again she could see how small it was. She seemed so reasonable that I was in a fright directly, particularly it frightened me she should say Essex, because my grandfather's mill was in Essex, showing it was all an idea of her own...."
"I can't exactly follow that," said the Earl, and re-read the words deliberately.
"Oh, can't you see?" said Gwen. "_I_ see. If she had said the other mill was in Lancashire, it would have seemed _possible_. But--both in Essex!"
"I suppose that's it. Two models of mills exactly alike, and both in Essex, is too great a tax on human credulity. On we go again! Where are we? Oh--'idea of her own.'"
"But I got her back to bed, and got her some breakfast an hour later, begging she would not talk, and she was very good and said no more. After this I moved the model out of the way, that nothing might remind her, and she was quiet and happy. So I did not send for Dr. Nash then. But when it came to afternoon, I saw it coming back. She got restless to see the model I had put by out of sight, saying she could not make out this and that, particular the two little girls. And then it was she gave me a great fright, for when I told her the two little girls was my mother and my aunt, being children under ten, over seventy years ago, and twins, she had quite a bad attack, such as I have never seen, shaking all over, and crying out, 'What is it?--What is it?' So then I sent Elizabeth next door for Dr. Nash, who came and was most kind, and Mrs. Nash after. He gave her a sedative, and said not to let her talk. He said, too, not to write to you just yet, for she might get quite right in a little while, and then he would tell you himself."
"Poor darling old Mrs. Picture!" said Gwen. "Fancy her going off like this! But I think I can see what has done it. You know, she has told me how she was one of twins, and how her father had a flour-mill in Essex."
"Did she say the name?"
"No--she's very odd about that. She never tells any names, except that her sister was Phoebe. She told me _that_.... Oh yes--she told me her little girl's name was Ruth." Gwen did not know the christened name of either Granny Marrable or Widow Thrale, when she said this.
"Phoebe and Ruth," said the Earl. "Pretty names! But _what_ has done it?
What can you see?... You said just now?..."
"Oh, I understand. Of course, it's the twins and the flour-mill in Essex. Such a coincidence! Enough to upset anybody's reason, let alone an old woman of eighty! Poor dear old Mrs. Picture!--she's as sane as you or I."
"Suppose we finish the letter. Where were we? 'Tell you himself'--is that it? All right!"
"Then she was quiet again, quite a long time. But when we was sitting together in the firelight after supper, she had it come on again, and I fear by my own fault, for Dr. Nash says I was in the wrong to say a word to her of any bygones. And yet it was but to clear her mind of the mixing together of Darenth Mill and this mill she remembers. For I had but just said the name of ours, and that my grandfather's name was Isaac Runciman when I saw it was coming on, she shaking and trembling and crying out like before, 'Oh, what is it? Only tell me what it _is_!' And then 'Our mill was Darenth Mill,' and 'Isaac Runciman was my father.' And other things she could not have known that had been no word of mine, only Dr.
Nash found out why, all these things having been told to little Dave Wardle last year, and doubtless repeated childlike. And yet, my lady, though I know well where the dear old soul has gotten all these histories, seeing there is no other way possible, it is I do assure you enough to turn my own reason to hear her go on telling and telling of one thing and another all what our little boy we had here has made into tales for his amusement, such-like as Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox our horses, and she had just remembered the foreman's name Muggeridge when she saw the model; it makes my head fairly spin to hear. Only I take this for my comfort, that I can see behind her words to know the tale is not of her making, but only Dave, like when she said Dave must have meant Muggeridge in his last letter, and would I find it to show her, only I could not. And like when she talked of her old piano at her father's, there I could see was our old piano my mother bought at a sale, now stood in a corner here where I had talked of it the evening I had the old lady here first. I am naming all these things that your ladyship may see I do right to keep my mother away from Strides till Mrs.
Prichard goes. But I do wish to say again that that day when it comes will be a sad one for me, for I do love her dearly and that is the truth, though it is but a week and a day, and Dr. Nash does not wonder at this."
"If I remember right," said the Earl, stopping, "Nash has made some study of Insanity--written about it. He knows how very charming lunatics can be. You know your Great-Aunt Eileen fairly bewitched the Lord Chancellor when he interviewed her...."
"Did he see the lunatics himself?..."
"When they were fascinating and female--yes!... Well, what happened was that she waited to be sure he had refused to issue the Commission, and then went straight for Lady Lostwithiel's throat--her sister-in-law, you know...."
"Did that show she was mad?"
"Let us keep to the point. What does 'Muggeridge' mean?"
"I was thinking. 'Muggeridge'! But _I've_ got Dave's last letter. I'll get it." And she was off before the Earl could say that to-morrow would do as well.
He went on smoking the bitter--and bitten--end of his cigar, which had gone slowly, owing to the reading. Instead of finishing up the letter, he went back, carefully re-reading the whole with absorbed attention. So absorbed, that Gwen, coming in quietly with a fresh handful of letters, was behind his chair unobserved, and had said:--"Well, and what do you make of it?" before he looked up at her.
"Verdict in accordance with the medical opinion, I _think_. But let's see Dave's letter." He took and read to himself. "_I_ see," said he.
"The cross stood for Dolly's love. A mere proxy. But _he_ sends the real article. I like the 'homliburst,' too. Why did Dolly's lady want to _towel_ Mrs. Spicture?... Oh, I see, it's the name of our house ...
h'm--h'm--h'm!... Now where do we come to Muggeridge?... Oh, here we are! I've got it. Well--that's plain enough. Muggeridge. M, U, one G, E, R, I, J for D, G, E. That's quite plain. Can't see what you want more."
"Oh yes, it's all very easy for you, now you've been told. _I_ couldn't make head or tail of it. And I don't wonder dear old Mrs. Picture couldn't...."
The Earl looked up suddenly. "Stop a bit!" said he. "Now where was it in Mrs. Thrale's letter. I had it just now ... here it is! 'The old lady had just remembered the foreman's name when she saw the model.' Got _that_?"
"Yes--but I don't see...."
"No--but listen! Dr. Nash found out that all these particulars were of Dave's communicating. Got that?"
"Yes--but still I don't see...."
"Don't chatterbox! Listen to your father. Keep those two points in mind, and then consider that when you read her Dave's letter she could not identify his misspelt name, which seems perfectly obvious and easy to me, now I know it. How _could_ she forget it so as not to be reminded of it by a misspelt version? Can you conceive that she should fail, if she had heard the name from the child so clearly as to have it on the tip of her tongue the moment she saw the mill she only knew from Dave's description?"
"No--it certainly does seem very funny!"
"Very funny. Now let's see what the rest of the letter says." He went on reading: