The doctor was almost sorry, after Gwen drove away, that he had not pointed out what an unpropitious moment it was for an upsetting revelation, and suggested postponement. It was too late to do anything, by the time he thought of it. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and perceived that what was done couldn't be undone. Then he drove as fast as he could to Sir Cropton Fuller, who asked him to stay to lunch. This meant a long unemployed delay, but he compromised. He would see another patient, and return to lunch, after which he would go to Costrell's Farm. It was only a short drive from the Manor House, but if he had gone there direct, he knew the mid-day meal at the Farm would cut across what might prove a long conversation with Granny Marrable. Suppose circumstances should favour a full communication of the extraordinary disclosure he had it in his power to make to her, he would not feel any hesitation about making it. In fact, he hoped that might prove the natural order of events, although he was quite prepared to act on Lady Gwendolen's suggestion that he should merely lay the train, not fire it, if that should prove possible. But, said he to himself, that will be neither fish nor flesh. Mysterious hints--so ran his reflections--will only terrify the old body out of her seven senses and gain no end. Get the job over!--that was the sacramental word. It took him all the period of his drive to Sir Cropton's, and all the blank bars betwixt prescription and prescription, to get--as it were--to this phrase in the music.
But by the time Sir Cropton had given him lunch, it had become the dominant theme of his reflections. Get the job done--if possible! More especially because he did not want Juno Lucina's nerves to be upset at a critical moment, and that was exactly what might happen if the revelation were delayed too long. If she were told now, and disabled by the shock, there would at least be time to make sure of a capable substitute.
However, he must be guided by his prognosis on arriving at Costrell's.
It is just possible, too, that the doctor was alive to the interest of the case on its own account, and not being himself personally involved, felt a sort of scientific curiosity in the issue--What would the old lady say or do, in face of such an extraordinary revelation? What were the feelings of the family of Lazarus when he was raised from the tomb?
Or rather, what would they have been, had he been dead half a century?
The males at the farm would be away at this time of day; that was satisfactory. He wanted to talk to Granny Marrable alone, if possible.
He could easily get his patient out of the way--that was a trifle. But it would be a bore to have that young brother hanging round. In that case he would have to negotiate a private conversation with Juno Lucina, as such, and to use the opportunity professional mystery would give.
However, events smiled upon his purpose. Only Mrs. Maisie, a perfect image of roseate health, was there alone with Granny; the two of them appreciating last year's output, unconscious in his cradle, enjoying the fourteenth month of his career in this world, having postponed teething almost beyond precedent. His young mother derided her doctor's advice to go and lie down and rest, but ultimately gave way to it, backed as it was by public opinion.
"We seem to be going on very well, Mrs. Marrable," said the doctor, when this end was achieved. The doctor shared a first person plural with each of his patients. "_And_ yourself? You're not _looking_ amiss."
"No, thank God! And for all that I be eighty-one this Christmas, if I live to see the New Year in, I might be twenty-eight." She then very absurdly referred to the baby, who had waked up and made his presence felt, as to whether this was, or was not, an exaggeration, suggesting that he had roused himself to confirm it. Did he, she asked, want to say his great-Granny was as young as the best, and was he a blessed little cherub? She accommodated her pronunciation to the powers of understanding she imputed to him, calling him, _e.g._, a bessed ickle chezub. He seemed impatient of personalities; but accepted, as a pipe of peace, an elastic tube that yielded milk. Whereupon Granny Marrable made no more attempts to father opinions on him. "Indeed, doctor," said she, speaking English again, "I wish every soul over fifty felt as young as I do. We shouldn't hear such a many complaints."
"Very bad for the profession, Mrs. Marrable! This isn't a good part of the world for my trade, as it is, and if everyone was like you, I should have to put the shutters up. Well!--you see how it is? Look at Miss Grahame--Sister Nora! Goes up to London the picture of health, and gets fever! Old lady from some nasty unwholesome corner by Tottenham Court Road comes down to Chorlton, and gets younger every day!"
"I was going to ask about Sister Nora, doctor--what the latest news was saying."
"She'll make a good recovery, as things go. But that means she won't be herself again for a twelvemonth, if then!" Granny Marrable looked so unhappy over this, that the doctor took in a reef. "Less if we're lucky--less if we're lucky!" said he. "She's being very well looked after. Dalrymple's a good man."
"I'm glad you should know him to speak well of, for the lady's sake.
She's a good lady, and kind. It was through her the little boy Davy came to the Cottage. My little Davy, I always call him."
"So does t'other old lady--she your daughter's got there now. You'll scratch each other's eyes out over that young monkey when you come to meet, Mrs. Marrable."
"There now, doctor, you will always have your joke. Ruth--my daughter--is quite beside her judgment about the old soul. What like is she, doctor, to your thinking?"
"Well--your daughter's right about her." He paused a moment, and then added, meaningly:--"So far as being a very--very _taking_ sort of old person goes."
Granny Marrable, rather absorbed in her descendant's relations with his bottle, found in due course an opportunity to answer, looking up at the doctor:--"A very taking old person? But what, then, is to seek in her?
Unless she be bad of heart or dishonest." Her old misgivings about Dave's home influences, revived, had more share in the earnestness of her tone than any misgivings about her daughter. And was not there the awful background of the convict?
"Not a bit of it--not a bit of it! Right as a trivet, I should say, as far as that goes! But ..." He stopped and touched his forehead, portentously.
"Ah--the poor soul! Now is that true?"
"I think you may take it of me that is so." The doctor threw his professional manner into this. After a moment he added, as a mere human creature:--"Off her chump! Loose in the top story!" A moment after, for professional reassurance:--"But quite harmless--quite harmless!"
Granny Marrable was grave and oppressed by this news. "The poor old soul!--think of it!" said she. "Oh, but how many's the time I've thanked God in His mercy for sparing me my senses! To think we might any of us be no better off, but for Him, than the man our Lord found naked in the tombs, in the country of the Gadarenes! But she is not bad like that, this Mrs. Prichard?"
"Oh no!--that was a severe case, with complications. Not a legion of devils, this time! One or two little ones. Just simple delusions. Might have yielded to Treatment, taken younger. Too late, now, altogether.
Wastage of the brain, no doubt! She's quite happy, you know."
Although Dr. Nash had not shone as a reasoner forming square to resist evidence, he had shrewd compartments in his mind, and in one of them a clear idea that he would do ill to thrust forward the details of the supposed simple delusions. This old lady must not be led to infer that he was interested in _them_--mere scientific curiosities! She was sure to ask for them in time; he knew that. And it was much better that he should seem to attach no weight whatever to them.
Granny Marrable seemed to entertain doubts of the patient's happiness.
"I could never be happy," she said, "if I had been in a delusion."
"Not if you came to know it was a delusion. Very likely not!"
"But does not--does not--poor old Mrs. Prichard ever come to know she has been in a delusion?"
"Not she! What she fancies she just goes on fancying. Sticks to it like grim death."
"What sort of things now, doctor?"
This was a bite. But the doctor would play his fish. No hurry.
"_Perfectly_ crazy things! Oh--crack-brained! Has not your daughter told you?... Oh, by-the-by!--yes!--I did tell her she had better not.... I don't think it matters, though."
"But not if you would rather not, doctor!" This clearly meant the reverse.
"Well now--there was the first thing that happened, about that little model thing that stands on your mantelshelf at the cottage."
"What--my father's mill? Davy's mill, we call it now, because the child took to it so, and would have me tell him again and again about Muggeridge and the horses...."
"Ah--you told him about Muggeridge and the horses!"
"Yes, sure! And I lay, now, he'd told Mrs. Prichard all about _that_!"
"Trust him! Anyhow, he _did_. And she knew all about it before ever she came to Chorlton. But her mind got a queer twist over it, and she forgot it was all Master Dave's telling, and thought it had happened to herself."
"Thought what had?"
"I mean, thought _she_ had been one of those two little kiddies in violet frocks...."
"Ah, dear me--my dear sister that died out in Australia--my darling Maisie!"
"Hay--what's that? Your darling what? What name did you say?"
"Maisie."
"There we have it--Maisie!" The doctor threw his forefinger to Granny Marrable, in theory; it remained attached to his hand in practice.
"That's _her_ name. That's what it was all cooked up out of. Maisie!" He was so satisfied with this little piece of shrewd detective insight that he forgot for the moment how thoroughly he knew the contrary.
Granny Marrable seemed to demur a little, but was brought to order by the drastic argument that it _must_ have been that, _because_ it could not have been anything else. By this time the doctor had recollected that he was not in a position to indulge in the luxury of incredulity.
"At least," said he, "I should have said so, only it doesn't do to be rash. One has to look at a thing of this sort all round." He paused a moment with his eyes on the ceiling, while his fingers played on the arm of his chair the tune, possibly, of a Hymn to Circumspection. Then he looked suddenly at the old lady. "You must have told the small boy a great deal about the mill-model. _You_ told him about Muggeridge, didn't you say, and the horses? Not your daughter, I mean?"
"Sure! Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox."
"Tell him anything else about Muggeridge?"
"Well, now--did I?... No--I should say not.... I was trying to think what I would have remembered to tell. For you must bear in mind, doctor, we were but young children when Muggeridge went away, and Axtell came, after that.... No. I could _not_ speak to having said a word about Muggeridge, beyond his bare name. That I could not."
The doctor did not interrupt his witness's browsings in the pastures of memory; but when she deserted them, saying she had found nothing to crop, said suddenly:--"Didn't tell him about Muggeridge and the other lady, who wasn't Mrs. Muggeridge?"