Part 115 (1/2)
”I shouldn't want it till then, probably. And if I did, I could afford sixpence for Prussic acid. Fancy being able to kill oneself, or one's friends, for sixpence! It must have come to a lot more than that in the Middle Ages. We have every reason to be thankful we are Modern....”
”Don't go from the point. Will you give up the little bottle of Indian poison, or not?”
”Not. At least, not now! If I hand it to you at the altar, when you have led me there won't that do?”
Gwen considered, judicially, and appeared to be in favour of accepting the compromise. ”Only remember!” said she, ”if you don't produce that bottle at the altar--with the poison in it still; no cheating!--I shall cry off, in the very jaws of matrimony.” She paused a moment, lest she should have left a flaw in the contract, then added:--”Whether I have led you there or not, you know! Very likely you will walk up the aisle by yourself.”
If Adrian had really determined to conceal the Miss Scatcherd incident from Gwen, so as not to foster false hopes, he should have worded his reply differently. For no sooner had he said:--”Well--we are all hoping so,” than Gwen exclaimed:--”_Then_ there has been more Septimius Severus.” Adrian accepted this without protest, as ordinary human speech; and the story feels confident that if its reader will be on the watch, he will very soon chance across something quite as unlike book-talk in Nature. Adrian merely said:--”How on earth did you guess that?” Gwen replied:--”Because you said, 'We are all hoping so'--not 'We hope so.' Can't you see the difference?”
Anyway, Gwen's guess was an accomplished fact, and it was no use pretending it was wrong. Said Adrian therefore:--”Yes--there _was_ a little more Septimius Severus. I had rather made up my mind not to talk about it, in case you should think too much of it.” He then narrated the Miss Scatcherd incident, checked and corrected by Irene from afar. The narrator minimised the points in favour of his flash of vision, while his commentator's corrections showed an opposite bias.
Gwen was, strange to say, really uneasy about that little bottle of Indian poison. Whether there was anything prophetic in this uneasiness, it is difficult to determine. The decision of common sense will probably be that she knew that Poets were not to be trusted, and she wished to be on the safe side. By ”common sense” we mean the faculty which instinctively selects the common prejudices of its age as oriflammes to follow on Life's battlefield. Hopkins the witch-finder's common sense suggested p.r.i.c.king all over to find an insensible flesh-patch, in which case the p.r.i.c.kee was a witch. We prefer to keep an open mind about Lady Gwendolen Rivers' foreboding anent that little bottle of Indian poison, until vivisection has shown us, more plainly than at present, how brain secretes Man's soul. We are aware that this language is Browning's.
Gwen remained at Pensham until the end of the week. Events occurred, no doubt, but, with one exception, they are outside the story. That exception was a visit to Chorlton, in order that Adrian should not remain a stranger to the interesting old twins. His interest would have been stronger no doubt could he have really seen them. Even as it was he was keenly alive to the way in which old Mrs. Prichard seemed to have fascinated Gwen, and was eager to make as much acquaintance with her as his limitations left possible to him.
Gwen contrived to arrange that she should receive every day from Chorlton not only a line from Ruth Thrale, but an official bulletin from Dr. Nash.
The first of these despatches arrived on the Tuesday afternoon, she having told her correspondents that that would be soon enough. It disappointed her. She had left the old lady so much revived by the small quant.i.ty of provisions that did duty for a Sunday dinner, that she had jumped to the conclusion that another day would see her sitting up before the fire as she had seen her in the celebrated chair with cus.h.i.+ons at Sapps Court. It was therefore rather a damper to be told by Dr. Nash that he had felt that absolute rest continued necessary, and that he had not been able to sanction any attempt to get Mrs. Prichard up for any length of time.
Gwen turned for consolation to Widow Thrale's letter. It was a model of reserve--would not say too much. ”My mother” had talked a good deal with herself and ”mother” till late, but had slept fairly well, and if she was tired this morning it was no more than Dr. Nash said we were to expect. She had had a ”peaceful day” yesterday, talking constantly with ”mother” of their childhood, but never referring to ”my father” nor Australia. Dr. Nash had said the improvement would be slow. No reference was made to any possibility of getting her into her clothes and a return to normal life.
Gwen recognised the bearer of the letters, a young native of Chorlton, when she gave him the reply she had written, with a special letter she had ready for ”dear old Mrs. Picture.” ”I know you,” said she. ”How's your Bull? I hope he won't kill Farmer Jones or anyone while you're not there to whistle to him.” To which the youth answered:--”Who-ap not!
Sarve they roi-ut, if they dwoan't let un bid in a's stall. A penned un in afower a coomed away.” Gwen thought to herself that life at Jones's farm must be painfully volcanic, and despatched the Bull's guardian genius on his cob with the largest sum of money in his pocket that he had ever possessed in his life, after learning his name, which was Onesimus.
When Onesimus reappeared with a second despatch on the afternoon of the next day, Wednesday, Gwen opened it with a beating heart in a hurry for its contents. She did as one does with letters containing news, reading persistently through to the end and taking no notice at all of Irene's interrogatory ”Well?” which of course was uttered long before the quickest reader could master the shortest letter's contents. When the end came, she said with evident relief:--”Oh yes, _that's_ all _right_!
Now if we drive over to-morrow, she will probably be up.”
”Is that what the letter says?” Adrian spoke, and Gwen, saying ”He won't believe my report, you see! You read it!”--threw the letter over to Irene, who read it aloud to her brother, while Gwen looked at the other letter, from Widow Thrale.
What Irene read did not seem so very conclusive. Mrs. Prichard had had a better night, having slept six hours without a break. But the great weakness continued. If she could take a very little stimulant it would be an a.s.sistance, as it might enable her to eat more. But she had an unconquerable aversion to wine and spirits in any form, and Dr. Nash was very reluctant to force her against her will.
So said Adrian:--”What she wants is real turtle soup and champagne. _I_ know.” Whereupon his father, who was behind the _Times_--meaning, not the Age, but the ”Jupiter” of our boyhood, looked over its t.i.tle, and said:--”Champagne--champagne? There's plenty in the bin--end of the cellar--Tweedie knows. You'll find my keys on the desk there”--and went back to an absorbing leader, denouncing the defective Commissariat in the Crimea. A moment later, he remembered a thing he had forgotten--his son's blindness. ”Stop a minute,” he said. ”I have to go, myself, later, and I may as well go now.” And presently was heard discussing cellar-economics, afar, with Tweedie the butler.
The lady of the house wanted the carriage and pair next day to drive over to Foxbourne in the afternoon and wait to bring her back after the meeting. The story merely gives the bold wording used to notify the fact: it does not know what Foxbourne was, nor why there was a meeting.
Its only reason for referring to them is that the party for Chorlton had to change its plans and go by the up-train from St. Everall's to Grantley Thorpe, and make it stop there specially. St. Everall's, you may remember, is the horrible new place about two miles from Pensham.
The carriage could take them there and be back in plenty of time, and there was always a groggy old concern to be had at the Crown at Grantley that would run them over to Strides Cottage in half an hour. If it had been favourable weather, no doubt the long drive would have been much pleasanter; but with the chance of a heavy downfall of snow making the roads difficult, the short drives and short railway journey had advantages.
Therefore when the groggy old concern, which had seen better days--early Georgian days, probably--pulled up at Strides Cottage in the afternoon, with a black pall of cloud, whose white heralds were already coming thick and fast ahead of it, hanging over Chorlton Down, two at least of the travellers who alighted from it had misgivings that if their visit was a prolonged one, its grogginess and antiquity might stand in its way on a thick-snowed track in the dark, and might end in their being late for the down-train at six. The third of their number saw nothing, and only said:--”Hullo--snowing!” when on getting free of the concern one of the heralds aforesaid perished to convince him of its veracity; gave up the ghost between his s.h.i.+rt-collar and his epidermis. ”Yes,” he continued, addressing the first inhabitant of the cottage who greeted him. ”You are quite right. I am the owner of a dog, and you do perfectly right to inquire about him. His nose is singularly unlike yours. He will detect your flavour when I return, and I shall have to allay his jealousy. It is his fault. We are none of us perfect.” The dog gave a short bark which might have meant that Adrian had better hold his tongue, as anything he said might be used against him.
”Now you are in the kitchen and sitting-room I've told you of, because it's both,” said Gwen. ”And here is Granny Marrable herself.”
”Give me hold of your hand, Granny. Because I can't see you, more's the pity! I shall hope to see you some day--like people when they want you not to call. At present my looks don't flatter me. People think I'm humbugging when I say I can't see them. I _can't_!”
”'Tis a small wonder, sir,” said Granny Marrable, ”people should be hard of belief. I would not have thought you could not, myself. But being your eyes are spared, by G.o.d's mercy, they be ready for the sight to return, when His will is.”
”That's all, Granny. It's only the sight that's wanting. The eyes are as good as any in the kingdom, in themselves.” This made Gwen feel dreadfully afraid Granny Marrable would think the gentleman was laughing at her. But Adrian had taken a better measure of the Granny's childlike simplicity and directness than hers. He ran on, as though it was all quite right. ”Anyhow, don't run away from us to Kingdom Come just yet a while, Granny, and see if I don't come to see you and your sister--real eyesight, you know; not this make-believe! I hope she's picking up.”