When Ghost Meets Ghost Part 76

She, for her part, although her hearing was good considering her age, could not have been sure she had heard the name right, and was on the edge of asking him to repeat it when his unfortunate allusion to h.e.l.l--the merest colloquialism with him--struck her recovered equanimity amidships, and made her hesitate. Only, however, for a moment, for her curiosity about that name was uncontrollable. She found voice against a beating heart to say:--"Would you, sir, say the name again for me? My hearing is a bit old."

"Her name, same as mine, Daver-hill." He made the mistake, fatal to clear speech, of overdoing articulation. All the more that it caused a false aspirate; not a frequent error with him, in spite of his long a.s.sociation with defective speakers. It relieved her mind. Clearly a surname and a prefix. She had not got it right yet, though. She forgot she had it written down, already.

"I did not hear the first name clear, sir. Would you mind saying it again?"

He did not answer at once. He was looking fixedly ahead, as though something had caught his attention in the coppice they were approaching.

A moment later, without looking round, he answered rapidly:--"Same name as mine--you've got it written down, on the paper I gave you." And then, without another word, he turned and ran. He was so quick afoot, in spite of the halting gait he had shown in walking, that he was through the hedge he made for, across the gra.s.sland, and half-way over the stubble-field that lay between it and a plantation, before she knew the cause of his sudden scare. Then voices came from the coppice ahead--a G.o.dsend to the poor old lady, whose courage had been sorely tried by the interview--and she quickened her pace to meet them. She did not see the fugitive vanish, but pressed on.

Yes--just as she thought! One of the voices was that of Harry Costrell, her grandson-in-law; another that of a stranger to her, a respectable-looking man she was too upset to receive any other impression of, at the moment; and the third that of her granddaughter.

Such a relief it was, to hear the cheerful ring of her greeting.

"Why, Granny, we thought you strayed and we would have to look for ye in Chorlton Pound.... Why, Granny darling, whatever is the matter? There--I declare you're shaking all over!"

Old Phoebe showed splendid discipline. It was impossible to conceal her agitation, but she could make light of it. She had a motive. Remember that that great grandchild of hers had been born over a twelvemonth ago!

"My dear," she said, "I've been just fritted out of my five wits by a man with a limp, that took me for his mother and I never saw him in my life." It did not seem to her that this was "splitting upon" the man.

After all, she would have to account for him somehow, and it was safest to ascribe insanity to him.

But the respectable-looking man had suddenly become an energy with a purpose. "Which way's the man with the limp gone?" said he; adding to himself, in the moment required for indicating accurately the fugitive's vanishing-point in the plantation:--"He's my man!" Granny Marrable's pointing finger sent him off in pursuit before either of the others could ask a question or say a word. Harry, the grandson, wavered a moment between grandfilial duty and the pleasures of the chase, and chose the latter, utilising public spirit as an excuse for doing so.

Maisie junior was not going to allow her grandmother to stay to see the matter out, nor indeed did the old lady feel that her own strength could bear any further trial. On the way home to the cottage at Dessington she gave a reserved version of her strange interview, always laying stress on the insanity she confidently ascribed to her terrifying companion. As soon as he had died out of the immediate present, she began to find commiseration for him.

But then, how about the mission of the respectable man, who had, it appeared, represented himself as a police-officer on the track of an atrocious criminal, about the charges against whom he had almost kept silence, merely saying that he was a returned convict, and liable to arrest on that ground alone, but that he was "wanted" on several accounts? He had followed his quarry to Grantley Thorpe, arriving by an early train, to find that a man answering to his description had started on foot a couple of hours previously, having asked his way to Ancester Towers. He had followed him there in a hired gig; and, of course, found the connecting clue at Solmes's cottage, and followed him on to Dessington, calling at "T. Hanc.o.c.k's Old Truepenny" by the way, and being guided by T. Hanc.o.c.k's information to run the gig round by the road and intercept his man at the end of the short cut. The younger Maisie and her young brother-in-law, coming by in search of her overdue grandmother, had entered into conversation with him; and he had accompanied them as far as the other side of the coppice wood, and given them the particulars of his errand above stated.

It was all very exciting, and rather horrible. But old Phoebe kept back all her horrors, and even the man's claim to be the son of an old person who had gone to Strides Cottage. Mrs. Prichard she said never a word of, much as she longed to tell the whole story. But she was greatly consoled for this by the succulence of her year-old great-grandson, whose grip, even during sleep, was so powerful as to elicit a forecast of a distinguished future for him, as a thieftaker.

She never got that envelope out of her pocket, conceiving it to be included in her pledge of secrecy. She would look at it before she went to bed. But was it any wonder that she did not, and that her granddaughter had to undress her and put her to bed like a tired child?

The last sound of which she was conscious was the voice of Harry Costrell, returning after a long and futile chase, immensely excited and pleased, and quite ready to submit to any sort of fragmentary supper.

Then deep, deep sleep. Then an awakening to daylight, and all the memories of yestereven crowding in upon her--among them an address and a name in the pocket of the gown by the bedside. She could reach it easily.

There it was. She lay back in bed uncrumpling it, expecting nothing....

This was the f.a.g-end of a dream, surely! But no--there the words were, staring her in the face:--"Ralph Thornton Daverill!" And her mind staggered back fifty years.

CHAPTER X

A WORD FOR TYPHUS. DR. DALRYMPLE'S PECULIAR INTEREST IN THE CASE.

THE NURSE'S FRONT TOOTH. AN INVALID WHO MEANT BUSINESS. SAPPS COURT AGAIN. HOW DAVE AND DOLLY LEFT THINGS BE IN MRS. PRICHARD'S ROOM.

DOLLY JUNIOR'S LEGS. QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT. MRS. BURR'S RETURN. BUT SHE COULD GIVE AUNT M'RIAR A LIFT, IN SPITE OF HER INSTEP. HOW THE WRITING-TABLE HAD LOST A LEG. WHAT IT WOULD COME TO TO MAKE A SOUND JOB OF IT. BUT ONLY BY EMPTYING OUT THE THINGS INSIDE OF THE DRAWER. WHO WOULD ACT AS BAILEE? HOW A VISION VOLUNTEERED. HOW THE LOCK CAME OPEN QUITE EASY, AND MRS. BURR MADE A NEAT PACKET OF WHAT IT RELEASED, TO BE TOOK CHARGE OF BY THE VISION

It had got wind in Cavendish Square that Typhus had broken out at Number One-hundred-and-two. That was the first form rumour gave to the result of a challenge to gaol-fever, recklessly delivered by Miss Grahame in a top-attic in Drury Lane. It was unfair to Typhus, who, if not disqualified from saying a word on his own behalf, might have replied:--"I am within my rights. I know my place, I hope. I never break out in the homes of the Well-to-do. But if the Well-to-do come fussing round in the homes of the Ill-to-be, they must just take their chance of catching me. I wash my hands of all responsibility."

And no doubt the excuse would have been allowed by all fair-minded Nosologists. For although Typhus--many years before this--had laid sacrilegious hands on a High Court of Justice, giving rise to what came to be known as the "Black a.s.sizes," all that had happened on that occasion was in a fair way of business; good, straightforward, old-fashioned contagion. If prison-warders did not sterilise persons who had been awaiting their trial for weeks in Houses of Detention--Pest-houses of Detention--you could not expect a putrid fever to adopt new rules merely to accommodate legal prejudice. And in the same way if Cavendish Square came sniffing up pestilential effluvia in Drury Lane, it was The Square's look out, not Typhus's.

Nevertheless, the Lares and Penates of The Square, who varied as individuals but remained the same as inherent principles--its Policeman, its Milk, its Wash, its Crossing-Sweeper--even after the germ of contagion had been identified beyond a doubt as a resident in Drury Lane, held fast to a belief that Typhus had been dormant at the corner house since the days of the Regency, and had seized an opportunity when nothing antiseptic was looking, to break out and send temperatures up to 106 F. For, said they, when was the windows of that house opened last?

Just you keep your house shut up--said they--the best part of a century, and see if something don't happen! But the person addressed always admitted everything, and never entered on the suggested experiment.

Persons of Condition--all the real Residents, that is--did not allow themselves to be needlessly alarmed, and refused to rush away into the country. There was no occasion for panic, but they would take every reasonable precaution, and give the children a little citrate of magnesia, as it was just as well to be on the safe side. And they had the drains properly seen to. Also they would be very careful not to let themselves down. That was most important. They felt quite rea.s.sured when Sir Polgey Bobson, for instance, told them that there was no risk whatever three feet from the bedside of the patient. "And upwards, I presume?" said a Wag. But Sir Polgey did not see the Wag's point. He was one of your--and other people's--solemn men.

Said Dr. Dalrymple--he whose name Dave Wardle had misremembered as d.a.m.ned Tinker--to Lady Gwen, arriving at Cavendish Square in the early hours of the morning--still early, though she had been nearly four hours on the road:--"I wish now I had told you positively _not_ to come....

But stop a minute!--you can't have got my letter?"

"Never mind that now. How is she?"

"Impossible to say anything yet, except that it is unmistakable typhus, and that there is nothing specially unfavourable. The fever won't be at its height for the best part of a week. We can say nothing about a case of this sort till the fever subsides. But you _can't_ have got my letter--there has been no time."

"Exactly. It may have arrived by now. Sometimes the post comes at eight.

I came because she telegraphed. Here's the paper."

The doctor read it. "I see," said he. "She said don't come, so you came.

Creditable to your ladyship, but--excuse me!--quite mad. You are better out of the way."

"She has no friend with her."

"Well--no--she hasn't! At least--yes--she has! I shall not leave her except for special cases. They can do very well without me at the Hospital. There are plenty of young fellows at the Hospital."

Gwen appeared to apprehend something suddenly. "I see," she said. "I quite understand. I had never guessed."

He replied:--"How did you guess? I _said_ nothing. However, I won't contradict you. Only understand right. This is all on my side. Miss Grahame knows nothing about it--isn't in it."

"Oh!" said Gwen incredulously. "Now suppose you tell me what your letter said!"

"You are _sure_ you understand?"

"Oh dear, yes! It doesn't want much understanding. What did your letter say?"

Dr. Dalrymple's reply was substantially that it said what Gwen had antic.i.p.ated. The patient was in no danger whatever, at present, and with reasonable precautions would infect n.o.body. He knew that her ladyship's impulse to come to her friend would be very strong, but she could do no good by coming. The wisest course would be for her to keep away, and rely on his seeing to it that the patient received the utmost care that skill and experience could provide. "I knew that if I said I should not allow you to see her, you would come by the next train. Excuse my having taken the liberty to interpret your character on a very slight acquaintance."

"Quite correct. Your interpretation did you credit. I should have come immediately. The letter you did write _might_ have made me hesitate.

_Now_ I want to see her."

The doctor acquiesced in the inevitable. "It's rash," he said, "and unnecessary. But I suppose it's no use remonstrating?"

"Not the slightest!" said Gwen. And, indeed, the supposition was a forlorn hope, and a very spiritless one. Also, other agencies were at work. A tap at the door, that was told to come in, revealed itself as an obliging nurse whose upper front tooth was lifting her lip to look out under it at the public. Her mission was to say that Miss Grahame had heard the visitor's voice and she might speak to her through the door, but on no account come into the room. A little more nonsense of this sort, and Gwen was talking with her cousin at a respectful distance, to comply with existing prejudices; but without the slightest belief that her doing so would make any difference, one way or the other. The dreadful flavour of fever was in everything, and lemons and hothouse grapes were making believe they were cooling, and bottles that they contained sedatives, and disinfectants that they were purifying the atmosphere. It was all their gammon, and the fiend Typhus, invisible, was chuckling over their preposterous claims, and looking forward to a happy fortnight, with a favourable outcome from his point of view; or, at least, the consolation of _sequelae_, and a r.e.t.a.r.ded convalescence.

There is a stage of fever when la.s.situde and uncertainty of movement and eyesight have prostrated the patient and compelled him to surrender at discretion to his nurses and medical advisers, but before the Valkyrie of Delirium are scouring the fields of his understanding, to pounce on the corpses of ideas their Odin had slain. That time was not due for many hours yet, when Gwen got speech of her cousin. She immediately appreciated that the patient was anxious to impress bystanders that this illness was all in the way of business. Also, that she was watching the development of her own symptoms as from a height apart, in the interest of Science.

"I knew I should catch it. But somebody had to, and I thought it might as well be me. I caught it from a child. A mild case. That would not make much difference. Being a woman is good. More men die than women.

It's only within the last few years that typhus has been distinguished from typhoid...." After a few more useful particulars, she said:--"It was very bad of you to come. I telegraphed to you not to come, last week.... Wasn't it last week?... Well then--yesterday.... They ought never to have let you in.... There!--I get muddled when I talk...." She did, but it did not amount to wandering.

Gwen made very fair essays towards the correct thing to say; the usual exhortations to the patient to rely upon everything; acquiesce in periodical doses; absorb nourishment, however distasteful it might be on the palate, and place blind faith in everyone else, especially nurses.

It was very good for a beginner; indeed, her experience of this sort of thing was almost _nil_. But all she got for it was:--"Don't be irritating, Gwen dear! Sit down there, where you are. Yes, that far off, because I've something to say I want to say.... No--more in front, so that I needn't move my head to see you.... Oh no--my _head's_ all right in itself; only, when I move it, the pain won't move with it, and it drags.... Suppose I shuffle off this mortal coil?"

Gwen immediately felt it her duty to point out the improbability of anyone dying, but was a little handicapped by the circ.u.mstances attendant on Typhus Fever. She had to be concise in unreason. "Don't talk nonsense, Clo dear." The patient ignored the interruption. "Oh dear!--give me another grape to suck without having to open my eyes....

Ta!--now I can talk a little more." The obliging nurse headed Gwen off to a proper distance, and herself supplied the grape. In doing this she smiled so hard that the tooth got a good long look at Gwen, who looked another way. The patient resumed, speaking very much from her lofty position of lecturer by her own bedside.