CHAPTER XIII
HOW UNCLE MO WAS JUST TOO LATE. THE SHINY LADY. THE TURN THE MAN HAD GIVEN AUNT M'RIAR, AND HER APOLOGIES. DOLLY'S INTENDED HOSPITALITY TO MRS. PRICHARD ON HER RETURN. DOLLY'S DOLLY'S NEW NAME. AN ARRANGEMENT, COMMITTING NEITHER PARTY. GUINEVERE, LANCELOT, AND THE CAKE. MRS. PRICHARD INSANE?--THE IDEA! HOW GWEN READ THE LETTER ALL BUT THE POSTSCRIPT. NOTHING FOR IT BUT TO TELL!
BUT HOW? FUN, TELLING THE CHILDREN. ANOTHER RECHRISTENING OF DOLLY.
GWEN'S LAST EXIT FROM MRS. PRICHARD'S APARTMENTS. JOAN OF ARC'S SWORD'S SOUL. THE POSTSCRIPT. WIDOW THRALE'S DOG. WHAT THE CONVICT HAD SAID. HOW LONG DOES BONA-FIDE OMNIPOTENCE TAKE OVER A JOB?
Gwen, leaving her convoy to wait for her in the antechamber of Sapps Court, and approach No. 7 alone, heard as she knocked at the door an altercation within; Aunt M'riar's voice and a strange one, with terror in the former and threat in the latter. Had all sounded peaceful, she might have held back, to allow the interview to terminate. But catching the sound of fear in the woman's voice, and having none in her own composition, she immediately delivered a double-knock of the most unflinching sort, and followed it by pushing open the door.
She could hear Dave above, at the top window, recognising her as "The Lady." As she entered, a man who was coming out flinched before her meanly for a moment, then brushed past brutally. Aunt M'riar's face was visible where she stood back near the staircase; it was white with terror. She gasped out:--"Let him go; I'll come directly!" and ran upstairs. Gwen heard her call to the children, more collectedly, to come down, as the lady was there, and then apparently retreat into her room, shutting the door. Thereon the children came rushing down, and before she could get attention to her inquiry as to who that hideous man was, Uncle Mo had pushed the door open. He had not asked that pill-box to explain itself, but had gone straight on to No. 7. Dave met him on the threshold, in a tempest of excitement, exclaiming: --"Oy say, Uncle Mo!--the lady's here. The shoyny one. And oy say, Uncle Mo, the Man's been." The last words were in a tone to themselves, quite unlike what came before. It was as though Dave had said:--"The millennium has come, but the crops are spoiled." He added:--"Oy saw the Man, out of the top window, going away."
Uncle Mo let the millennium stand over. "Which man, old Peppermint Drops?" said he, improvising a name to express an aroma he had detected in his nephew, when he stooped to make sure he was getting his last words right.
"Whoy, the Man," Dave continued, in an undertone that might have related to the Man with the Iron Mask, "the Man me and Micky we sore in Hoyde Park, and said he was a-going to rip Micky up, and Micky he said he should call the Police-Orficers, and the gentleman said...."
"That'll do prime!" said Uncle Mo. For Dave's torrent of identification was superfluous. "I would have laid a guinea I knew his game," added he to himself. Then to Gwen, inside the house with Dolly on her knee:--"You'll excuse me, miss, my lady, these young customers they do insert theirselves--it's none so easy to find a way round 'em, as I say to M'riar.... M'riar gone out?" For it was a surprise to find the children alone entertaining company--and such company!
"There, Dolly, you hear?" said Gwen. "You're not to insert yourself between me and your uncle. Suppose we sit quiet for five minutes!" Dolly subsided. "How do you do, Mr. Wardle!... No, Aunt Maria isn't here, and I'm afraid that man coming worried her. Dave's man.... Oh yes--I saw him. He came out as I came in, three minutes ago. What _is_ the man?
Didn't I hear Dave telling how Micky said he should give him to the Police? I wish Micky had, and the Police had found out who he's murdered. Because he's murdered somebody, that man! I saw it in his eyes."
"He's a bad character," said Mo. "If he don't get locked up, it won't be any fault of mine. On'y that'll be after I've squared a little account I have against him--private affair of my own. If you'll excuse me half a minute, I'll go up and see what's got M'riar." But Uncle Mo was stopped at the stair-foot by the reappearance of Aunt M'riar at the stair-top.
As they met halfway up, both paused, and Gwen heard what it was easy to guess was Aunt M'riar's tale of "the Man's" visit, and Uncle Mo's indignation. They must have conversed thus in earnest undertones for full five minutes, before Aunt M'riar said audibly:--"Now we mustn't keep the lady waiting no longer, Mo"; and both returned, making profuse apologies. The interval of their absence had been successfully and profitably filled in by an account of how Mrs. Picture had been taken to see Jones's Bull, with a rough sketch of the Bull's demeanour in her company.
Aunt M'riar made amends to the best of her abilities for her desertion.
Perhaps the young lady knew what she meant when she said she had been giv' rather a turn? The young lady did indeed. Aunt M'riar hoped she had not been alarmed by her exit. Nor by the person who had gone out?
No--Gwen's nerves had survived both, though certainly the person wasn't a beauty. She went on to hope that the effects of the turn he had given Aunt M'riar would not be permanent. These being pooh-poohed by both Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar, became negligible and lapsed.
"The children came running down directly after you went, Aunt Maria,"
said Gwen. "So I can assure you I didn't lose my temper at being left alone. I wasn't alone two minutes!" Then she gave, in reply to a general inquiry after the fever patient, inaugurated by Dave with:--"Oy say, how's Sister Nora?"--the very favourable report she had just received from Dr. Dalrymple.
Then Mrs. Prichard was rushed into the conversation by a sudden inexplicable statement of Dolly's. "When Mrs. Spicture comes back," said she, "Granny Marrowbone is to pour out Mrs. Spicture's tea. And real Cake. And stoast cut in sloyces wiv real butter."
"Don't get excited, Dolly dear," said Gwen, protesting against the amount of leg-action that accompanied this ukase. "Tell us again! _Why_ is Granny Marrable to make tea? Granny Marrable's at her house in the country. She's not coming here with Mrs. Spicture."
"There, now, Dolly!" said Aunt M'riar. "Why don't you tell clear, a bit at a time, and get yourself understood? Granny Marrowbone's the new name, my lady, she's christened her doll, Dolly. So she should be known apart, Dolly being, as you might say, Dolly herself. Because her uncle he pointed out to her, 'Dolly,' he said, 'you're in for thinkin' out some new name for this here baby of yours, to say which is which. Or 'us you'll get that mixed up, nobody'll know!'"
"I put my oar in," said Uncle Mo, "for to avoid what they call coarmplications nowadays." He never lost an opportunity of hinting at the fallings off of the Age. "So she and Dave they turns to and thinks one out. I should have felt more like Sally or Sooky or Martilda myself.
Or Queen Wictoria." The last was a gracious concession to Her Majesty; who, in the eyes of Uncle Mo, had recently come to the throne.
"No!" said Dolly firmly. "Gwanny Mawwowbone!" This was very articulately delivered, the previous, or slipshod, pronunciation having been more nearly Granny Mallowbone.
"Certainly!" said Gwen, assenting. "Dolly's dolly Dolly shall be Granny Marrowbone. Only it makes Dolly out rather old."
Dolly seemed to take exception to this. "I _was_ four on my birfday,"
said she. "I shan't be five not till my _next_ birfday, such a long, long, long, long time."
"And you'll stop four till you're five," said Gwen. "Won't you, Dolly dear? What very blue eyes the little person has!" They were fixed on the speaker with all the solemnity the contemplation of a geological period of Time inspires. The little person nodded gravely--about the Time, not about her eyes--and said:--"Ass!"
Dave thrust himself forward as an interpreter of Dolly's secret wishes, saying, to the astonishment of his aunt and uncle:--"Dorly wants to take _her_ upstairs to show _her_ where the tea's to be set out when Mrs.
Spicture comes back."
Remonstrance was absolutely necessary, but what form could it take? Aunt M'riar was forced back on her usual resource, her lack of previous experience of a similar enormity:--"Well, I'm sure, a big boy like you to call a lady _her_! I never did, in all my born days!" Uncle Mo meanly threw the responsibility of the terms of an absolutely necessary amendment on the culprit himself, saying:--"You're a nice young monkey!
Where's your manners? Is that what they larn you to say at school?
What's a lady's name when you speak to her?" He had no one but himself to thank for the consequences. Dave, who, jointly with Dolly, was just then on the most intimate footing with the young lady, responded point-blank:--"Well--_Gwen_, then! _She_ said so. Sister Gwen."
Her young ladyship's laugh rang out with such musical cordiality that the two horror-stricken faces relaxed, and Uncle Mo's got so far as the beginning of a smile. "It's all quite right," said Gwen. "I told Dave I was Gwen just this minute when you were upstairs. He's made it 'sister'--so we shan't be compromised, either of us." Whereupon Dave, quite in the dark, assented from sheer courtesy.
Aunt M'riar seemed to think it a reasonable arrangement, and Uncle Mo, with a twinkle in his eye, said:--"It's better than hollerin' out 'she'
and 'her,' like a porter at a railway-station."
But her ladyship had not come solely to have a symposium with Dave and Dolly. So she suggested that both should go upstairs and rehearse the slaughter of the fatted calf; that is to say, distribute the apparatus of the banquet that was to welcome Mrs. Picture back. Dave demurred at first, on the score of his maturity, but gave way when an appeal was made to some equivalent of patriotism whose existence was taken for granted; and consented, as it were, to act on the Committee.
"Now, don't you come running down to say it's ready, not till I give leave," said Aunt M'riar, having misgivings that the apparatus might not be sufficiently--suppose we affect a knowledge of Horace, and say "Persian"--to keep the Committee employed.
"They'll be quiet enough for a bit," said Uncle Mo. Who showed insight by adding:--"They won't agree about where the things are to be put, nor what's to be the cake." For a proxy had to be found, to represent the cake. Even so Lancelot stood at the altar with Guinevere, as Arthur's understudy for the part of bridegroom.
"Do please now all sit down and be comfortable," said Gwen, as soon as tranquillity reigned. "Because I want to talk a great deal....
Yes--about Mrs. Prichard. I really should be comfortabler if you sat down.... Well--Mr. Wardle can sit on the table if he likes." So that compromise was made, and Gwen got to business. "I really hardly know how to begin telling you," she said. "What has happened is so very _odd_....
Oh no--I have seen to _that_. The woman she is with will take every care of her.... You know--Widow Thrale, Dave's Granny's daughter, who had charge of Dave--Strides Cottage, of course! I'm sure she'll be all right as far as that goes. But the whole thing is so _odd_.... Stop a minute!--perhaps the best way would be for me to read you Mrs. Thrale's letter that she has written me. She must be very nice." This throwing of the burden of disclosure on her correspondent seemed to Gwen to be on the line of least resistance. She was feeling bewildered already as to how on earth the two old sisters could be revealed to one another, and her mind was casting about for any and every guidance from any quarter that could lead her to the revelation naturally. There _was_ no quarter but Sapps Court. So try it, at least!
She read straight on without interruption, except for expressions of approval or concurrence from her hearers when they heard the writer's declaration of how _impressionnee_ she had been by the old lady, until she came to the first reference to the gist of the letter, her mental soundness. Then both broke into protest. "Delusions!" they exclaimed at once. Old Mrs. Prichard subject to delusions? Not she! Never was a saner woman, of her years, than old Mrs. Prichard!
"I only wish," said Uncle Mo, "that I may never be no madder than Goody Prichard. Why, it's enough to convince you she's in her senses only to hear her say good-arternoon!" This meant that Uncle Mo's visits upstairs had always been late in the day, and that her greeting to him would have impressed him with her sanity, had it ever been called in question.
"On'y fancy!" said Aunt M'riar indignantly. "To say Mrs. Prichard's deluded, and her living upstairs with Mrs. Burr this three years past, and Skillicks for more than that, afore ever she come here!" This only wanted the addition that Mrs. Burr had seen no sign of insanity in all these years, to be logical and intelligible.
Gwen found no fault, because she saw what was meant. But there was need for a caution. "You won't say anything of this till I tell you," said she. "Not even to Mrs. Burr. It would only make her uncomfortable." For why should all the old lady's belongings be put on the alert to discover flaws in her understanding? Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar gave the pledge asked for, and Gwen went on reading. They just recognised the water-mill as an acquaintance of last year--not as a subject of frequent conversation with Dave. Aunt M'riar seemed greatly impressed with the old lady's excursion out of bed to get at the mill-model, especially at its having occurred before six in the morning. Also by the dog.
Uncle Mo was more practically observant. When the reading came to the two mills in Essex, he turned to Aunt M'riar, saying:--"She said summat about Essex--you told me." Aunt M'riar said:--"Well, now, I couldn't say!" in the true manner of a disappointing witness. But when, some sentences later, the reference came to the two little girl twins, Uncle Mo suddenly broke in with:--"Hullo!... Never mind!--go on"; as apologizing for his interruption. Later still, unable to constrain himself any longer:--"Didn't--you--tell--me, M'riar, that Mrs. P. she told you her father lived at Darenth in Essex?"
"No, Mo, that's not the name. _Durrant_ was the name she said." Aunt M'riar was straining at a gnat. However, solemn bigwigs have done that before now.
"Nigh enough for most folks," said Uncle Mo. "Just you think a bit and see what she said her father's name was."
"She never said his name, Mo. She never said a single name to me, not that I can call to mind, not except it was Durrant."
"Very well, then, M'riar! Now I come to my point.
Didn't--you--tell--me--a'most the very first time you did anything--didn't you tell me Mrs. P. she said she was a _twin_. And Dave he made enquiries."
"She _was_ a twin."
"I'm stumped," said Uncle Mo. "I was always groggy over the guessing of co-nundrums. Now, miss--my lady--what does your ladyship make of it?"
"Let me read to the end," said Gwen. "It's not very long now. Then I'll tell you." She read on and finished the letter, all but the postscript.
She was saying to herself:--"If I stick so over telling these good people now, what will it be when the crisis comes?" It would be good practice, anyhow, to drive it home to Aunt M'riar. When she had quite finished what she meant to read, she went straight on, as she had promised, ignoring obstacles:--"The explanation is that Mrs. Marrable and Mrs. Prichard are twin sisters, who parted fifty years ago. About five years later Mrs. Prichard was deceived by a forged letter, telling her that her sister was drowned. My father and I found it among her papers, and read it. This Mrs. Thrale who writes to me is her own daughter, whom she left in England nearly fifty years since--a baby!...
And now she thinks her mother mad--her own mother!... Oh dear!--how will they ever know? Who will tell them?"
A low whistle and a gasp respectively were all that Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar were good for. A reissue of the gasp might have become "Merciful Gracious!" or some equivalent, if Uncle Mo had not nipped it in the bud, thereby to provide a fulcrum for his own speech. "'Arf a minute, M'riar!