"Oh, God be good to us!" cried Widow Thrale. "That such wickedness should be!"
"He was a monster--a human devil! And _why_ he did it Heaven only knows.
My father can think of nothing but that his wife wanted to return to her family, and he wanted her to stay. Now, Widow Thrale, you will see why I want you to help me. I think you will agree with me that it would be right that the dear old lady should be undeceived."
Mrs. Thrale fidgeted uneasily. "Your ladyship knows best," she said.
"You think, perhaps," said Gwen, "that it would only give her needless pain to know it now, when she has nothing to gain by it?"
"Yes--that is right." That was said as though Gwen's question had worded a thought the speaker herself had found hard to express.
"_Has_ she nothing to gain by it? I do so want you to think over this quietly.... I wish you would sit down...." Mrs. Thrale did so. "Thank you!--that _is_ comfortabler. Now, just consider this! There is no evidence at all that the young daughter whom she left behind with her sister is not still living, though of course the chances are that the sister herself is dead. This daughter may be.... What's that?"
"I thought I heard her waking up. Will your ladyship excuse me one moment?..." She rose and went to the bedroom. But the old lady was, it seemed, still sleeping soundly, and she came back and resumed her seat.
Of all the clues Gwen had thrown out to arouse suspicion of the truth, and make full announcement possible, not one had entered the unreceptive mind. Was this to go on until the sleeper really waked? Gwen felt, during that one moment alone, how painfully this would add to the embarrassment, and resolved on an act of desperation.
"I think," said she, speaking very slowly, and fighting hard to hide the effort speech cost her. "I think I should like you to see this horrible forged letter. I brought it on purpose.... Oh--here it is!... By-the-by, I ought to have told you. Prichard is not her real name." A look like disappointment came on Widow Thrale's face. An _alias_ is always an uncomfortable thing. Gwen interpreted this look rightly. "It's no blame to her, you know," she said hastily. "Remember that her proper name--that on the direction there--belonged to a convict! You or I might have done the same."
And then, as the eyes of the daughter turned unsuspicious to her mother's name--forged by her father, to imitate the handwriting of her grandfather--Gwen sat and waited as he who has fired a train that leads to a mine awaits the crash of the rifted rock and its pillar of dust and smoke against the heavens.
"But _my_ name was Daverill--Ruth Daverill!" Was the train ill-laid then, that this woman should be able to sit quite still, content to fix a puzzled look upon the wicked penmanship of fifty years ago?
"And your mother's, Ruth Daverill? What was hers?"
"Maisie Daverill." She answered mechanically, with an implication of "And why not?" unspoken. She was still dwelling on the direction, the first name in which was not over-legible, no doubt owing to the accommodation due to the non-erasure of the first syllable by the falsifier. Gwen saw this, and said, quietly but distinctly:--"Thornton."
The end was gained, for better, for worse. Ruth Thrale gave a sudden start and cry, uttering almost her mother's words at first sight of the mill:--"What can this be? What can this be? Tell me, oh, tell me!"
Gwen, hard put to it during suspense, now cool and self-possessed at the first gunshot, rose and stood by the panic-stricken woman. Nothing could soften the shock of her amazement now. Pull her through!--that was the only chance. And the sooner she knew the whole now, the better!
It might have been cruelty to a bad end that made such beauty so pale and resolute as Gwen's, as she said without faltering:--"The name is your mother's name--Mrs. Thornton Daverill. Your father's name was Thornton. Now open the letter and read!"
"Oh--my lady--it makes me afraid!... What can it be?"
"Open the letter and read!" But Ruth Thrale _could_ not; her hand was too tremulous; her heart was beating too fast. Gwen took the letter from her, quietly, firmly; opened it before her eyes; stood by her, pointing to the words. "Now read!"--she said.
And then Ruth Thrale read as a child reads a lesson:--"My ... dear ...
daughter ... Maisie ..." and a few words more, her voice shaking badly, then suddenly stopped. "But my mother's name was Maisie," she said. She had wavered on some false scent caused by the married name.
"Read on!" said Gwen remorselessly. Social relation said that her ladyship _must_ be obeyed first; madness fought against after. Ruth Thrale read on, for the moment quite mechanically. The story of the shipwreck did not seem to assume its meaning. She read on, trembling, clinging to the hand that Gwen had given her to hold.
Suddenly came an exclamation--a cry. "But what is this about Mrs.
Prichard? This is _not_ Mrs. Prichard. Why is mother's old name in this letter?" She was pointing to the word Cropredy, Phoebe's first married name; a name staggering in the force of its identity. She had not yet seen the signature.
Gwen turned the page and pointed to it:--"Isaac Runciman," clear and unmistakable. Incisiveness was a duty now. Said she, deliberately:--"Why is this forged letter signed with your grandfather's name?" A pause, with only a sort of puzzled moan in answer. "I will tell you, and you will have to hear it. Because it was forged by your father, fifty years ago." Again a pause; not so much as a moan to break the silence! Gwen made her voice even clearer, even more deliberate, to say:--"Because he forged it to deceive your mother, and it deceived her, and she believed you dead. For years she believed you and her sister dead. And when she returned to England...."
She was interrupted by a poor dumfoundered effort at speech, more seen in the face she was intently watching than heard. She waited for it, and it came at last, in gasps:--"But it is to Mrs. Prichard--the letter--Mrs. Prichard's letter--oh, why?--oh, why?..." And Ruth Thrale caught at her head with her hands, as though she felt it near to bursting.
The surgeon's knife is most merciful when most resolutely used.
"Because old Mrs. Prichard _is_ your mother," said Gwen, all her heart so given to the task before her that she quite forgot, in a sense, her own existence. "Because she _is_ your mother, whom you have always thought dead, and who has always thought you dead. Because she _is_ your mother, who has been living here in England--oh, for so many years past!--and never found you out!"
Ruth Thrale's hands fell helpless in her lap, and she sat on, dumb, looking straight in front of her. Gwen would have been frightened at her look, but she caught sight of a tear running down her face, and felt that this was, for the moment, the best that might be. That tear reassured her. She might safely leave the convulsion that had caused it to subside. If only the sleeper in the next room would remain asleep a little longer!
She did right to be silent and wait. Presently the two motionless hands began moving uneasily; and, surely, those were sighs, long drawn out?
That had the sound of tension relieved. Then Ruth Thrale turned her eyes full on the beautiful face that was watching hers so anxiously, and spoke suddenly.
"I must go to her at once."
"But think!--is it well to do so? She knows nothing."
"My lady--is there need she should? Nor I cannot tell her now, for I barely know, myself. But I _want_ her--oh, I want her! Oh, all these cruel years! Poor Mrs. Prichard! But who will tell mother?" She was stopped by a new bewilderment, perhaps a worse one.
"_I_ will tell mother." Gwen took the task upon herself, recklessly.
Well!--it had to be gone through with, by someone. And she would do anything to spare this poor mother and daughter. _She_ would tell Granny Marrable! She did, however, hope that Dr. Nash had broken the ice for her.
A sound came from the other room. The old lady had awaked and was moving. Mrs. Thrale said in a frightened whisper:--"She will come in here. She always does. She likes to move about a little by herself. But she is soon tired."
Said Gwen:--"Will she come in here? Let me see her alone! Do! It will only be for a few minutes. Run in next door, and leave me to talk to her. I have a reason for asking you." She heard the bedroom door open, beyond the passage.
"When shall I come back, my lady?" This reluctance to go seemed passing strange to Gwen. But it yielded to persuasion, or to feudal inheritance.
Gwen watched her vanish slowly into Elizabeth-next-door's; and then, perceiving that the mare had sighted the transaction, and was bearing down towards her, she delayed a moment to say:--"Not yet, Tom!
Wait!"--and returned into the house.
"My dear, God has been good to let you come. Oh, how I have prayed to see your face again, and hear your dear voice!" Thus old Mrs. Picture, crying with joy. She could not cling close enough to that beautiful hand, nor kiss it quite to her heart's content.
Gwen left her in possession of it. "But, dear Mrs. Picture," she said, "I thought your letter said you were so comfortable, and that Mrs.
Thrale was so kind?"
"What, my Ruth!--that is how I've got to call her--my Ruth is more than kind. No daughter could be kinder to a mother. You know--I told you--my child was Ruth. Long ago--long, long ago! She was asleep when I kissed her. I can feel it still." Gwen fancied her speech sounded wandering, as she sat down in Granny Marrable's vacant chair.
This story often feels that the pen that writes it must resent the improbabilities it is called on to chronicle. That old Maisie should call her own child by the name she gave her, and think her someone else!
"Tell me, dear, what it was--all about it!" Thus Gwen, getting the old lady comfortably settled, and finding a footstool for herself, as in Francis Quarles at the Towers. She had made up her mind to tell all if she possibly could. But it had to be all or nothing. It would be better not to speak till she saw her way. Let Mrs. Picture tell her own tale first!
"I want to tell you." She possessed herself again of the precious hand, surrendered to assist in resettling a strayed head-cushion.
"Only, tell me first--did you know...?"--She paused and dropped her voice--" ... Did you know that they thought me...?"
"Thought you what?"
"Did you know that they thought me _mad_?"
"They were wrong if they did. But Mrs. Thrale does not think you mad now. I know she does not."
"Oh, I am glad." Gwen's white and strained look then caught her attention, and she paused for reassurance. It was nothing, Gwen was tired. It was the jolting of a quick drive, and so on. Mrs. Prichard got back to her topic. "They _did_ think me mad, though. Do you know, my dear"--she dropped her voice almost to a whisper--"I went near to thinking myself mad. It was so strange! It was the mill-model. I wish she had let me see it again. That might have set it all to rights. But thinking like she did, maybe she was in the right. For see what it is when the head goes wrong! I was calling to mind, all next day, when I found out what they thought...."
"But they did not tell you they thought you mad. How did you know?"