Gwen shook her head. "It's nothing to do with me," she said. "Nor with illness! It's old Mrs. Prichard at Strides Cottage."
The doctor stood a moment, latchkey in hand. "The old lady whose mind is giving way?" said he. He had knitted his brows a little; and, having spoken, he knitted his lips a little.
"We are speaking of the same person," said Gwen. She followed the doctor into his parlour, and accepted the seat he offered. He stood facing her, not relaxing his expression, which worked out as a sort of mild grimness, tempered by a tune which his thumbs in the armpits of his waistcoat enabled him to play on its top-pockets. It was a slow tune.
Gwen continued:--"But her mind is _not_ giving way."
The doctor let that expression subside into mere seriousness. He took a chair, to say:--"Your ladyship has, perhaps, not heard all particulars of the case."
"Every word."
"You surprise me. Are you aware that this poor old person is under a delusion about her own parentage? She fancies herself the daughter of Isaac Runciman, the father of old Mrs. Marrable, the mother of Widow Thrale."
"She _is_ his daughter."
The doctor nearly sprang out of his chair with surprise, but an insecure foothold made the chair jump instead.
"But it's impossible--it's _impossible_!" he cried. "How could Mrs.
Marrable have a sister alive and not know it?"
"That is what I am going to explain to you, Dr. Nash. And Sir Cropton Fuller will have to wait, as you said."
"But the thing's impossible in _itself_. Only look at this!..."
"Please consider Sir Cropton Fuller. You won't think it so impossible when you know it has happened." The doctor listened for the symptoms with perceptibly less than his normal appearance of knowing it all beforehand. Gwen proceeded, and told with creditable brevity and clearness, the succession of events the story has given, for its own reasons, by fits and starts.
It could not be accepted as it stood, consistently with male dignity.
The superior judicial powers of that estimable sex called for assertion.
First, suspension of opinion--no hasty judgments! "A most extraordinary story! A _most_ extra_or_dinary story! But scarcely to be accepted....
You'll excuse my plain speech?..."
"Please don't use any other! The matter's too serious."
"Scarcely to be accepted without a close examination of the evidence."
"Unquestionably. Does any point occur to you?"
Now Dr. Nash had nothing ready. "Well," he said, dubiously, "in such a very difficult matter it might be rash...." Then he thought of something to say, suddenly. "Well--_yes!_ It certainly does occur to me that ...
No--perhaps not--perhaps not!..."
"What were you going to say?"
"That there is no direct proof that the forged letter was ever sent to Australia." This sounded well, and appeared like a tribute to correctness and caution. It meant nothing whatever.
"Only the Australian postmark," said Gwen. "I have got it here, but it's rather alarming--the responsibility."
"If it was written, as you say, over an effaced original, it might have been done just as easily in England." The doctor was reading the direction, not opening the letter.
"Not by a forger at the Antipodes!" said Gwen.
"I meant afterwards--when--when Mrs. Prichard was in England?"
"She brought the letter with her when she came. It couldn't have been forged afterwards."
The doctor gave it up. Masculine superiority would have to stand over.
But he couldn't see his way, on human grounds, profundity apart. "What is so horribly staggering," said he, "is that after fifty years these two should actually see each other and still be in the dark. And the way it came about! The amazing coincidences!" The doctor spoke as if such unblushing coincidences ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Gwen took this to be his meaning, apparently. "_I_ can't help it, Dr.
Nash," she said. "If they had told me they were going to happen, I might have been able to do something. Besides, there was only one, if you come to think of it--the little boy being sent to Widow Thrale's to convalesce. It was my cousin, Miss Grahame, who did it.... Yes, thank you!--she is going on very well, and Dr. Dalrymple hopes she will make a very good recovery. He fussed a good deal about her lungs, but they seem all right...." The conversation fluctuated to Typhus Fever for a moment, but was soon recalled by the young lady, whose visit had a definite purpose. "Now, Dr. Nash, I have a favour to ask of you, which is what I came for. It occurred to me when I heard that you would be going to Dessington Manor this morning." The doctor professed his readiness, or eagerness, to do anything in his power to oblige Lady Gwendolen Rivers, but evidently had no idea what it could possibly be. "You will be close to Costrell's farm, where the other old lady is staying with her granddaughter?"
"I shall. But what can I do?"
"You can, perhaps, help me in the very difficult job of making the truth known to her and her sister. I say perhaps, because you may find you can do nothing. I shall not blame you if you fail. But you can at least try."
It would have been difficult to refuse anything to the animated beauty of his petitioner, even if she had been the humblest of his village patients. The doctor pledged himself to make the attempt, without hesitation, saying to himself as he did so that this would be a wonderful woman some day, with a little more experience and maturity.
"But," said he, "I never promised to do anything with a vaguer idea of what I was to do, nor how I was to set about it."
Gwen's earnestness had no pause for a smile. "It is easier than you think," she said, "if you only make up your mind to it. It is easy for you, because your medical interest in old Mrs. Prichard's case makes it possible for you to _entamer_ the conversation. You see what I mean?"
"Perfectly--I _think_. But I don't see how that will _entamer___ old Mrs. Marrable. Won't the conversation end where it began?"
"I think not--not necessarily. I will forgive you if it does. Consider that the apparent proof of delusion in my old lady's mind is that she has told things about her childhood which are either _bona-fide_ recollections, or have been derived from the little boy...."
"Dave Wardle. So I understood from Widow Thrale. She has told me all the things as they happened. In fact, I have been able to call in every day.
The case seemed very interesting as a case of delusion, because some of the common characteristics were wanting. It loses that interest now, certainly, but.... However, you were saying, when I interrupted?..."
"I was saying that unless these ideas could be traced to Dave Wardle, they must have come out of Mrs. Prichard's own head. Is it not natural that you should want to hear from Granny Marrable what she recollects having said to the child?"
The doctor cogitated a moment, then gave a short staccato nod. "I see,"
said he, in a short staccato manner. "_Yes._ That might do something for us. At any rate, I can try it.... I beg your pardon."
Gwen had just begun again, but paused as the doctor looked at his watch.
She continued:--"I cannot find anything that she might not have easily said to a small boy. I wish I could. Her recollection of _not_ having said anything won't be certainty. But even inquiring about what she _doesn't_ recollect would give an opening. Did Mrs. Prichard say nothing to you about her early life at the mill?"
"She said a good deal, because I encouraged her to talk, to convince myself of her delusion.... Could I recollect some of it? I think so. Or stay--I have my notes of the case." He produced a book. "Here we are.
'Mrs. Maisie Prichard, eighty-one. Has delusions. Thinks mill was her father's. It was Widow Thrale's grandfather's. Knows horses Pitt and Fox. Knows Muggeridge waggoner. Has names correct. Qy.:--from child Wardle last year? M. was dismissed soon after. Asked try recollect what for.' I am giving your ladyship the abbreviations as written."
"Quite right. Is there more?" For evidently there was. Gwen could see the page.
"She remembered that he was dismissed for ... irregularity."
Gwen suspected suppression. "What sort? Did he drink? Let me see the book. I won't read the other cases." And so all-powerful was beauty, or the traces of Feudalism, that this middle-aged M.R.C.S. actually surrendered his private notes of cases into these most unprofessional hands. Gwen pointed to the unread sequel, triumphantly. "There!" she exclaimed. "The very thing we want! You may be sure that neither Granny Marrable nor her daughter ever told a chick of seven years old of _that_ defect in Mr. Muggeridge's character." For what Gwen had _not_ read aloud was:--"_Mug. broke 7th: Comm:_"
The doctor was perhaps feeling that masculine profundity had not shone, and that he ought to do something to redeem its credit. For his comment, rather judicial in tone, was:--"Yes--but Widow Thrale was not able to confirm this ... blemish on Mr. Muggeridge's reputation."
"Now, my dear Dr. Nash, why _should_ she be able to confirm a thing that happened when her mother was ten years old?"
The doctor surrendered at discretion--perhaps resolved not to repeat the attempt to reinstate the male intellect. "Of course not!" said he.
"Perfectly correct. Very good! I'll try, then, to make use of that. I understand your object to be that old Granny Marrable shall come to know that she and Mrs. Prichard are sisters, as gradually as possible. I may not succeed, but I'll do my best. Ticklish job, rather! Now I suppose I ought to look after Sir Cropton Fuller."