When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

"It is them," said Miss Dickenson, referring to a half-recognised barouche that had turned the corner below. "But who on earth have they got with them? I can't see for my eyes."

"Only some friend they've picked up," said Mr. Pellew. But he rubbed his own eyes, to get rid of the sun. Recovered sight made him exclaim:—"But what are the people stopping for?... I say, something's up! Come along!" For, over and above a mysterious impression of the unusual that could hardly be set down to the bird's-eye view as its sole cause, it was clear that every passer-by was stopping, to look at the carriage. Moreover, there was confusion of voices—Gwen's dominant. Mr. Pellew did not wait to distinguish speech. He only repeated:—"Come along!" and was off downstairs as fast as he could go. Aunt Constance kept close behind him.

She was too bewildered to be quite sure, offhand, why Gwen looked so more than dishevelled, as she met them at the stairfoot, earnest with excitement. Not panic-struck at all—that was not her way—but at highest tension of word and look, as she made the decision of her voice heard:—"Oh, there you are, Mr. Pellew. Make yourself useful. Go out and bring her in. Never mind who! Make haste. And Maggie's to fetch the doctor." Mr. Pellew went promptly out, and Miss Dickenson was beginning:—"Why—what?..." But she had to stand inquiry over. For nothing was possible against Gwen's:—"Now, Aunt Connie dear, don't ask questions. You shall be told the whole story, all in good time! Let's get her upstairs and get the doctor." They both followed Mr. Pellew into the street, where a perceptible crowd, sprung from nowhere, was already offering services it was not qualified to give, in ignorance of the nature of the emergency that had to be met, and in defiance of a policeman.

Mr. Pellew had taken his instructions so quickly from Miss Grahame, still in the carriage, that he was already carrying the doctor's patient, whoever and whatever she was, but carefully as directed, into the house. At any rate it was not Miss Grahame herself, for that lady's voice was saying, collectedly:—"I don't think it's any use Maggie going, Gwen, because she doesn't know London. James must fetch him, in the carriage. Dr. Dalrymple, 65, Weymouth Street, James! Tell him he must come, at once! Say I said so." It was then that Aunt Constance perceived in the clear light of the street, that not only was the person Mr. Pellew was carrying into the house—whom she could only identify otherwise as having snow-white hair—covered with dust and soiled, but that Gwen and Miss Grahame were in a like plight, the latter in addition being embarrassed by a rent skirt, which she was fain to hold together as she crossed the doorstep. Once in the house she made short work of it, finishing the rip, and acquiescing in the publicity of a petticoat. It added to Aunt Constance's perplexity that the carriage and James appeared in as trim order as when they left the door three hours since. These hours had been eventful to her, and she was really feeling as if the whole thing must be a strange dream.

She got no explanation worth the name at the time of the incident. For Gwen's scattered information after the old snow-white head was safe on her own pillow—she insisted on this—and its owner had been guaranteed by Dr. Dalrymple, was really good for very little. The old lady was Cousin Clo's little boy's old Mrs. Picture, and she was the dearest old thing. There had been an accident at the house while they were there, and a man and a woman had been hurt, but no fatality. The man had not been taken to the Hospital, as his family had opposed his going on the ground of his invulnerability. The old prizefighter was uninjured, as well as those two nice children. They might have been killed. But as to the nature of the accident, it remained obscure, or perhaps the ever-present consciousness of her own experience prevented Aunt Constance getting a full grasp of its details. The communication, moreover, was crossed by that lady's exclamation:—"Oh dear, the events of this afternoon!" just at the point where the particulars of the mishap were due, to make things intelligible.

At which exclamation Gwen, suddenly alive to a restless conscious manner of Aunt Constance's, pointed at her as one she could convict without appeal, saying remorselessly:—"Mr. Pellew has proposed and you have accepted him while we were away, Aunt Connie! Don't deny it. You're engaged!"

"My dear Gwen," said Miss Dickenson, "if what you suggest were true, I should not dream for one moment of concealing it from you. But as for any engagement between us, I assure you there is no such thing. Beyond showing unequivocal signs of an attachment which...."

Gwen clapped the beautiful hands, still soiled with the dirt of Sapps Court, and shook its visible dust from her sleeve. Her laugh rang all through the House. "That's all right!" she cried. "He's shown unequivocal signs of an attachment which. Well—what more do you want? Oh, Aunt Connie, I'm so glad!"

All that followed had for Miss Dickenson the same dream-world character, but of a dream in which she retained presence of mind. It was needed to maintain the pretext of unruffled custom in her communications with her male visitor; the claim to be, before all things, normal, on the part of both, in the presence of at least one friend who certainly knew all about it, and another who may have known. Because there was no trusting Gwen. However, she got through it very well.

Regrets were expressed that Sir Somebody Something had not got his Quarterly after all; but it would do another time. Hence consolation. After Mr. Pellew had taken a farewell, which may easily have been a tender one, as nobody saw it, she heard particulars of the accident, which shall be told here also, in due course.