HOW GWEN CAME BACK, AND FOUND THE "OLD CAT" ASLEEP. AND TOOK OFF HER SABLES. A CANDLE-LIGHT JOURNEY THROUGH AN ANCIENT HOUSE, AND A TELEGRAPHIC SUMMONS. HOW GWEN RUSHED AWAY BY A NIGHT-TRAIN, BECAUSE HER COUSIN CLOTILDA SAID DON'T COME. HOW SHE LEFT A LETTER FOR WIDOW THRALE AT THE RANGER'S LODGE

Just as the watched pot never boils, so the thing one waits for never comes, so long as one waits hard. The harder one waits the longer it is postponed. When one sits up to open the door to the latchkeyless, there is only one sure way of bringing about his return, and that is to drop asleep À contre coeur, and sleep too sound for furious knocks and rings, gravel thrown at windows, and intemperate language, to arouse you. Then he will come back, and be obliged to say he has only knocked once, and you will say you had only just closed your eyes.

Old Maisie was quite sure she had just closed hers, when of a sudden the voice she longed for filled Heaven and Earth, and said:—"Oh, what a shame to come and wake you out of such a beautiful sleep! But you mustn't sleep all night in the arm-chair. Poor dear old Mrs. Picture! What would Dave say! What would Mrs. Burr say!" And then old Maisie waked from a dream about unmanageable shrimps, to utter the correct formula with a conviction of its truth, this time. She had only just closed her eyes. Only just!

Miss Lutwyche, in attendance, ventured on sympathetic familiarity. Mrs. Picture would not get any beauty-sleep to-night, that was certain. For it is well known that only sleep in bed deserves the name, and a clock was putting its convictions about midnight on record, dogmatically.

Gwen's laugh rang out soon enough to quash its last ipse dixits. "Then the mischief's done, Lutwyche, and another five minutes doesn't matter. Mrs. Picture's going to tell me all her news. Here—get this thing off! Then you can go till I ring." The thing, or most of it, was an unanswerable challenge to the coldest wind of night—the cast-off raiment of full fifty little sables, that scoured the Russian woods in times gone by. Surely the breezes had drenched it with the very soul of the night air in that ride beneath the stars, and the foam of them was shaken out of it as it released its owner.

Then old Maisie was fully aware of her Guardian Angel, back again—no dream, like those shrimps! And her voice was saying:—"So you had company, Mrs. Picture dear. Lutwyche told me. The widow-woman from Chorlton, wasn't it? How did you find her? Nice?"

Yes, the widow-woman was very nice. She had stayed quite a long time, and had tea. "I liked her very much," said old Maisie. "She was easy." Then—said inference—somebody is difficult. Maisie did not catch this remark, made by one of the most inaudible of speakers. "Yes," she said, "she stayed quite a long time, and had tea. She is a very good young woman"—for, naturally, eighty sees fifty-odd as youth, especially when fifty-odd seems ten years less—"and we could talk about Dave. It was like being home again." She used, without a trace of arriÈre pensÉe, a phrase she could not have bettered had she tried to convey to Gwen her distress at hearing she was a plaguy old cat. Then she suddenly saw its possible import, and would have liked to withdraw it. "Only I would not seek to be home again, my dear, when I am near you." She trembled in her eagerness to get this said, and not to say it wrong.

Gwen saw in an instant all she had overlooked, and indeed she had overlooked many things. It was, however, much too late at night to go into the subject. She could only soothe it away now, but with intention to amend matters next day; or, rather, next daylight. So she said:—"The plaster will very soon be dry now in Sapps Court, dear Mrs. Picture, and then you shall go back to Dave and Dolly, and I will come and see you there. You must go to bed now. So must I—I suppose? I will come to you to-morrow morning, and you will tell me a great deal more. Now good-night!" That was what she said aloud. To herself she thought a thought without words, that could only have been rendered, to do it justice:—"The Devil fly away with Mrs. Masham, that she couldn't contrive to make this dear old soul comfortable for a few weeks, just long enough for some plaster to dry." She went near adding:—"And myself, too, not to have foreseen what would happen!" But she bit this into her underlip, and cancelled it.

She rang the bell for Lutwyche, now the sole survivor in the kitchen region. Who appeared, bearing hot water—some for the plaguy old cat. Gwen said good-night again, kissing the old lady affectionately when Lutwyche was not looking. Mistress and maid then, when the cat at her own request was left to get herself into sleeping trim, started on the long journey through corridors and state-rooms through which her young ladyship's own quarters had to be reached. Corridors on whose floors one walked up and down hill; great chambers full of memories, and here and there indulging in a ghost. Tudor rooms with Holbeins between the windows, invisible to man; Jacobean rooms with Van Dycks, nearly as regrettably invisible; Lelys and Knellers, much more regrettably visible. Across the landing the great staircase, where the Reynolds hangs, which your cicerone of this twentieth century will tell you was the famous beauty of her time, and the grandmother of another famous Victorian beauty, dead not a decade since. And on this staircase Gwen, half pausing to glance at her departed prototype, started suddenly, and exclaimed:—"What's that?"

For a bell had broken the silence of the night—a bell that had enjoyed doing so, and was slow to stop. Now a bell after midnight in a house that stands alone in a great Park, two miles from the nearest village, has to be accounted for, somehow. Not by Miss Lutwyche, who merely noted that the household would hear and answer the summons.

Her young ladyship was not so indifferent to human affairs as her attendant. She said:—"I must know what that is. They won't send to tell me. Come back!" She had said it, and started, before that bell gave in and retired from public life.

Past the Knellers and Lelys, among the Van Dycks, a scared figure, bearing a missive. Miss Lupin, and no ghost—as she might have been—in the farther door as her ladyship passes into the room. She has run quickly with it, and is out of breath. "A telegraph for your ladyship!" is all she can manage. She would have said "telegram" a few years later.

A rapid vision, in Gwen's mind, of her father's remains, crushed by a locomotive, itself pulverised by another—for these days were rich in railway accidents—then a hope! It may be the fall of Sebastopol; a military cousin had promised she should know it as soon as the Queen. Give her the paper and end the doubt!... It is neither.

It is serious, for all that. Who brought this?—that's the first question, from Gwen. Lupin gives a hurried account. It is Mr. Sandys, the station-master at Grantley Thorpe, who has galloped over himself to make sure of delivery. Is he gone? No—he has taken his horse round to Archibald at the Stables to refit for a quieter ride back. Very well. Gwen must see him, and Tom Kettering must be stopped going to bed, and must be ready to drive her over to Grantley, if there is still a chance to catch the up-train for Euston. Lutwyche may get things ready at once, on the chance, and not lose a minute. Lupin is off, hotfoot, to the Stables, to catch Mr. Sandys, and bring him round.

White and determined, after reading the message, Gwen retraces her steps. Outside old Mrs. Picture's door comes a moment of irresolution, but she quashes it and goes on. Old Maisie is not in bed yet—has not really left that tempting fireside. She becomes conscious of a stir in the house, following on a bell that she had supposed to be only a belated absentee. She opens her door furtively and listens.

That is Gwen's voice surely, beyond the servants' quarter, speaking with a respectful man. The scraps of speech that reach the listener's ear go to show that he assents to do something out of the common, to oblige her ladyship. Something is to happen at three-fifteen, which he will abet, and be responsible for. Only it must be three-fifteen sharp, because something—probably a train—is liable to punctuality.

Then a sound of an interview wound up, a completed compact. And that is Gwen, returning. Old Maisie will not intrude on the event, whatever it be. She must wait to hear to-morrow. So she closes her door, furtively, as she opened it; and listens still, for the silences of the night to reassert themselves. No more words are audible, but she is conscious that voices continue, and that her Guardian Angel's is one. Then footsteps, and a hand on the door. Then Gwen, white and determined still, but speaking gently, to forestall alarm, and reassure misgiving.

"Dear Mrs. Picture, it's nothing—nothing to be alarmed about. But I have to go up to London by the night train. See!—I will tell you what it is. I have had this telegraphic message. Is it not wonderful that this should be sent from London, a hundred miles off, two hours ago, and that I should have it here to read now? It is from my cousin, Miss Grahame. I am afraid she is dangerously ill, and I must go to her because she is alone.... Yes—Maggie is very good, and so is Dr. Dalrymple. But some friend should be with her or near her. So I must go." She did not read the message, or show it.

"But my dear—my dear—is it right for you to go alone, in the dark.... Oh, if I were only young!..."

"I shall be all right. I shall have Lutwyche, you know. Don't trouble about me. It is you I am thinking of—leaving you here. I am afraid I may be away some days, and you may not be comfortable.... No—I can't possibly take you with me. I have to get ready to go at once. The trap will only just take me and Lutwyche, and our boxes. It must be Tom Kettering and the trap. The carriage could not do it in the time. The Scotch express passes Grantley Thorpe at three-fifteen—the station-master can stop it for me.... What!—go beside the driver! Dear old Mrs. Picture, the boxes have to go beside the driver, and Lutwyche and I have to hold tight behind.... No, no!—you must stay here a day or two—at least till we know the plaster's dry in Sapps Court. As soon as I have been to see myself, one of the maids shall bring you back, and you shall have Dave and Dolly—there! Now go to bed, that's an old dear, and don't fret about me. I shall be all right. Now, go I must! Good-bye!" She was hurrying from the room, leaving the old lady in a great bewilderment, when she paused a moment to say:—"Stop a minute!—I've an idea.... No, I haven't.... Yes, I have.... All right!—nothing—never mind!" Then she was gone, and old Maisie felt dreadfully alone.

Arrived in her own room, where Lutwyche, rather gratified with her own importance in this new freak of Circumstance, was endeavouring to make a portmanteau hold double its contents, Gwen immediately sat down to write a letter. It required five minutes for thought and eight minutes to write; so that in thirteen minutes it was ready for its envelope. Gwen re-read it, considered it, crossed a t and dotted an i, folded it, directed it, took it out to re-re-read, said thoughtfully:—"Can't do any possible harm," concluded it past recall, and added "By bearer" on the outside. It ran thus:

"Widow Thrale,

"I want you to do something for me, and I know you will do it. To-morrow morning go to my old Mrs. Picture whom you saw to-day, and make her go back with you and your boy to Strides Cottage, and keep her there and take great care of her, till you hear from me. She is a dear old thing and will give no trouble at all. Ask anyone for anything you want for her—money or things—and I will settle all the bills. Show this letter. She knows my address in London. I am going there by the night express.

"Gwendolen Rivers."

She slipped this letter into her pocket, and made a descent on Miss Lutwyche for her packing, which she criticized severely. But packing, unlike controversy, always ends; and in less than half an hour, both were in their places behind Tom Kettering and the grey mare, who had accepted the prospect of another fifteen miles without emotion; and Mrs. Masham and Lupin were watching them off, and thinking how nice it would be when they could get to bed.

"Now you think the mare can do it, Tom Kettering?"

"Twice and again, my lady, and a little over. And never be any the worse to-morrow!" Thus Tom Kettering, with immovable confidence. The mare as good as endorsed his words, swinging her head round to see, and striking the crust of the earth a heavy blow with her off hind-hoof.

"And we shall have time for you to get down at your Aunt Solmes's to leave my letter?"

"I count upon it, my lady, quite easy. We'll be at the Thorpe by three, all told, without stepping out." And then the mare is on the road again, doing her forty-first mile, quite happily.

They stopped at the bridle-path to the Ranger's Cottage, and Tom walked across with the letter—an unearthly hour for a visit!—and came back within ten minutes. All right! Her ladyship's wishes should be attended to! Then on through the starlight night, with the cold crisp air growing colder and crisper towards morning. Then the railway-station where Feudal tradition could still stop a train by signal, but only one or two in the day ever stopped of their own accord, in the fifties. Now, as you know, every train stops, and Spiers and Pond are there, and you can lunch and have Bovril and Oxo. Then, the shoddy-mills were undreamed of, where your old clothes are carefully sterilised before they are turned into new wool; and the small-arms factory, where Cain buys an outfit cheap; and the colour-works, that makes aniline dyes that last, if you settle monthly, until you pay for them. Nothing was there then, and the train that stopped by signal came through a smokeless night, with red eyes and green that gazed up or down the line to please the Company; and started surlily, in protest at the stoppage, but picked its spirits slowly up, and got quite exhilarated before it was out of hearing, perhaps because it was carrying Gwen to London.

The dejection of its first start might have persevered and made its full-fledged rapidity joyless, had it known the errand of its beautiful first-class passenger. For the telegram Gwen had received, that had sent her off on this wild journey to London in the small hours of the morning, was this that follows, neither more nor less:

"On no account come. Why run risks? You will not be admitted. Never mind what Dr. Dalrymple says.—Clotilda."

Just conceive this young lady off in such a mad way when it was perfectly clear what had happened! She might at least have waited until she received the letter this message had so manifestly outraced; Dr. Dalrymple's letter, certain to come by the first post in the morning. And she would have waited, no doubt, if she had not been Gwen. Being Gwen, her first instinct was to get away before that letter came, enjoining caution, and deprecating panic, and laying stress on this, that, and the other—a parcel of nonsense all with one object, to counsel pusillanimousness, to inspire trepidation. She knew that would be the upshot. She knew also that Dr. Dalrymple would play double, frightening her from coming, while assuring the patient that he had vouched for the entire absence of danger and the mildness of the type of the disorder, whatever it was. It would never do for Clotilda to know that she—Gwen—was being kept away, for safety's sake. That was the sum and substance of her reflections. And the inference was clear:—Push her way on to Cavendish Square, and push her way in, if necessary!

A thought crossed her mind as the train whirled away from Grantley Station. Suppose it was smallpox, and she should catch it and have her beauty spoiled! Well—in that case an ill wind would blow somebody good! Her darling blind man would never see it. Let us be grateful for middle-sized mercies!