Altogether her methods were too transparent to be successful; and since her own robust habit of body made it difficult for her to divine any subtler cause for Gabrielle's condition, she leapt at once to the physical explanation suggested to her by her own experience of the consequences of love-making in Joyce's country. She watched Gabrielle with a keen and matronly eye, collecting her evidence from day to day after the anxious manner of mothers. When she had dwelt upon the problem for a couple of months she prepared the results of her scrutinies and offered them in a complete and alarming dossier to Jocelyn. In her opinion—and on this subject at least her opinion was of value—there could be no doubt as to Gabrielle's condition.
To Biddy Joyce this seemed the most natural thing in the world, but to Jocelyn the announcement came as a tremendous surprise. He knew well enough that this sort of accident was an everyday affair, in effect the usual prelude to matrimony, among the peasantry of Connaught; but that such an ugly circumstance should intrude itself into the Hewish family—in the case of one of its female members—seemed a monstrous calamity. He was in no condition to stand another shock, and Biddy's pronouncement completely knocked him over. In a case of this kind it was idle to doubt her authority. He only wondered how he could make the best of a desperate job.
Distasteful as the business was to him, he decided to tackle Gabrielle herself. It was a very strange interview. On Jocelyn's part there were no recriminations. He was growing gentle in his old age, and in any case he regarded Gabrielle as the victim of a tragedy. All that he wanted to do was to get at the truth, and than this nothing could have been harder, for in Gabrielle he found not only an amazing ignorance—or if you prefer the word, innocence—but a flaming, passionate determination to keep silence on the subject of her intimacies with Radway. To her the story was sacred, and far too precious to be bruised by the examination of any living soul.
It is probable that Jocelyn tackled the matter with the utmost delicacy. Fundamentally, he had the instincts of a gentleman, and, as Gabrielle knew, he loved her; but on this one subject no amount of entreaties or tenderness could make her speak. In the end, when he could get nothing out of her, he compelled himself to tell her of Biddy's suspicions. It seemed to him that this might force her into a full confession of her relations with her lover. It did nothing of the sort. She simply stood clutching a tall oak chair and looking straight out of the window over the dark woods. Then she said: "Does Biddy really think I am going to have a baby?" And Jocelyn nodded his head. Then she said nothing more. She simply went out of the room like a sleep-walker, leaving poor Jocelyn overwhelmed with misery by a silence that he interpreted as an admission of guilt. For him, at any rate, the matter was settled and the acuteness of Biddy Joyce finally established.
And there one must leave it. Gabrielle herself accepted the verdict without question, but whether from her own secret knowledge or out of an innocence that is almost incredible but not, in her case, impossible, I cannot say. Naturally enough, in that other strange interview with Mrs. Payne, she did not go into details, and as far as we are concerned the truth will never be known. Not that it really matters. The only thing that concerns us is the effect upon her fortunes of this real or imaginary catastrophe. All that we can say is that when she walked out of the Roscarna dining-room after her hour with Jocelyn she was subtly and curiously changed.
From that moment she became, in fact, a person hypnotised, possessed by the contemplation of her approaching motherhood. She was no longer restless or tearful. She began to sleep again, and her sleep was no longer troubled by that recurrent dream. A strange calm descended on her, the calm of a Madonna thrilled by an angelic annunciation—a hallucinated calm that made her remote and independent, utterly unmoved by the commotion into which the household of Roscarna had been thrown.
Her acceptance of the situation crumpled up Jocelyn entirely. He could not for a moment see any way out of the difficulty. As usual he fell back on Biddy, who brought her practical knowledge to his rescue. Biddy was emphatic. In the circumstances there was only one thing to be done. Gabrielle must be married—somehow—anyhow—and the sooner the better. It was the sort of thing that happened every day of the week and the resources of civilisation had never been able to find another solution. Jocelyn shook his head. It was all very well to talk about marriage, but where, in the neighbourhood, could a bridegroom be found at such short notice? Biddy's suggestion of half a dozen available Joyces failed to satisfy him. However suitable the Joyces might be for casual relations the idea of marriage with one of them was unthinkable. After all, whatever she had done, Gabrielle was a Hewish and the heiress, whatever that might mean, of the Roscarna mortgages. Biddy, impatient of his obstinacy, gave him up.
With feelings of sore humiliation he consulted Considine. It was a hard confession for Jocelyn and the awkwardness of Considine did not make it easier. It seemed as if the two of them were up against a stone wall. Considine blushing and monosyllabic, begged for time to consider what might be done; and the fact that he did not seem to be utterly hopeless cheered Jocelyn considerably. Gabrielle, in the meantime, continued rapt and passive.
In a week the result of Considine's deliberations emerged, and, in a fortnight, Gabrielle, only daughter of Sir Jocelyn Hewish, Baronet, of Roscarna, County Galway, was married to the Rev. Marmaduke Considine at the church of Clonderriff. The Irish Times described the wedding as quiet.