She did not, however, think the surmise of sufficient importance to speak about yet; but she asked Aunt Hessy to tell Philip on the first opportune occasion about her mother and his uncle. Philip ought to know about it, whether or not there was anything in her fanciful idea.
Aunt Hessy, with a little smile of approval, gave the promise, and, passing her hand affectionately over the girl’s head, added: ‘Thou’lt be a happy woman, dearie; and bring peace to sore troubled breasts. There never was ill but good lay behind it, if we would only seek and find it. That’s an old saying; but there’s a deal of comfort in most old sayings. Seems to me as if they were the cries of folk that had proved them through suffering.’
‘What did Mr Shield say in his letter to you, aunt?’
The dame shook her head, and although still smiling, looked as she felt, awkward.
‘I am not to tell thee—anyway, not now. By-and-by, when I come to understand it myself, I will tell thee; but do not thou ask again until I speak. It will be best.’
And Madge knew that whatever Aunt Hessy chose to do—whether to speak or be silent—would be best. So she said simply: ‘Very well, aunt.’
‘I am going into the oak room to wrestle with the spirit, as my father used to say when he wanted to be left quite by himself. I want to be quite by myself till I get the right end of this riddle. I have been trying it two or three times since you went out, but the answer has not come yet. I am to try again. Be not you afraid, though I do not come out till tea-time.’
She spoke as if amused at herself; but when she had closed the door of the oak room and seated herself in a big armchair beside one of the gaunt windows, the smile faded from her kindly face, and her expression became one of mingled sadness and perplexity.
But everything Dame Crawshay had to do was done sedately—with that perfect composure which can be obtained only by a mind at rest with itself and innocent of all evil intention. She put on her spectacles, and quietly took from her pocket the two letters she had received from Mr Shield. One was open, and she had studied it many times that day, for it presented the riddle she had not yet been able to solve: the other, which had been inclosed in the first, was still unopened.
She settled herself down to make one more effort to find the right thing to do.