It is possible.
For, it is well within the bounds of rational probability that what Mr. Abington said to some person or persons unknown (assuming that he ever said anything whatever) was not that his wife “had writ the Letter,” but that his wife “knew, or thought she knew, who had writ the Letter.”
The way in which to test the matter is this: Supposing, for the sake of argument, that my hypothesis be true, and that Father Oldcorne did actually pen that Letter which was the instrument, not only of the temporal salvation of Mrs. Abington’s brother, the Lord Mounteagle, but also of her father, the Lord Morley, together with many others of her kinsfolk, friends, and acquaintance, as well as of her lawful Sovereign and His Royal Consort, is it, or is it not, probable that Mrs. Abington would guess, in some way or another, the mighty secret?
It is probable.
For let it be remembered who and what Mrs. Abington was.
The Honourable Mary Parker, the daughter of Edward Parker Lord Morley and the Honourable Elizabeth Stanley, was the mother of William Abington, the well-known poet[118] of that name, who was born, in fact, on or about the 5th of November, 1605.
Therefore Mrs. Abington was the mother of a son who was a man of distinguished intellectual parts.
Moreover, seeing that usually it is from the mother that a son’s capabilities are derived rather than from the father, it is more, rather than less, likely that Mrs. Abington herself was a naturally clear-minded, acute, discerning woman, gifted with that marvellous faculty which constitutes cleverness in a woman — sympathetic, imaginative insight.
Now if this were so, Mrs. Abington’s native perspicacity would be surely potent enough to enable her to form a judgment, at once penetrating and accurate, in reference to such a thing as the penmanship of the great Letter — a document which had come home, as events had proved, with such peculiar closeness to her own “business and bosom.”[119]