"I am sure she is that too, my dear, or you would not say so. Only my eyesight won't always serve me nowadays as it did, not for seeing near up." The reserves about Dave's other Granny were always there, however little insisted on. Old Maisie was exaggerating about her eyesight. She had seen her rival quite clearly enough to have an opinion about her looks.
"Did you see the inside of the cottage, and the old chimney-corners? And the well out at the back?" Thus the Earl.
"We didn't go in. I wanted to get home. But what a lot you recollect of it, papa dear!"
"I ought to recollect something about it. It was Strides Cottage where your Uncle George was taken when he broke his leg, riding."
"Oh, was it there? Yes, I've heard of that. His horse threw him on a heap of stones, and bolted, and pitched into Dunsters Gap, and had to be shot."
"Yes, he shouldn't have ridden that horse. But he was always at that sort of thing, George." A sound came in here that had the same relation to a sigh that a sip has to a draught. "Well!—Mrs. Marrable nursed him up at Strides Cottage till he was fit to move—they were afraid about his back at first—and I used to ride over every morning. We used to chaff poor Georgy about his beautiful nurse.... Oh yes!—she was young enough for that. Woman well under forty, I should say."
Gwen made calculations and attested possibilities. Oh dear, yes!—Granny Marrable must have been under forty then. She surprised his lordship, first by gently smoothing aside the silver hair on the old woman's forehead, then by stooping down and kissing it. "Why, how old are you now, dear?" she said, as though she were speaking to a child. He for his part was only surprised, not dumfounded. He just felt a little glad his Countess was elsewhere; and was not sorry, on looking round, to see that no domestic was present. What a wild, ungovernable daughter it was, this one of his, and how he loved it!
So did old Mrs. Picture, to judge by the illumination of the eyes she turned up to the girl's young face above her. "How old am I now, my dear?" said she. "Eighty-one this Christmas." Thereupon said Gwen:—"You see, papa! Old Mrs. Marrable must have been quite a young woman in Uncle George's time. She's heaps younger than Mrs. Picture." She again smoothed the beautiful silver hair, adding:—"It's not unfeelingness, because Uncle George died years before I was born."
"Killed at Rangoon in twenty-four," said the Earl, with another semi-sigh. "Poor Georgy!" And then his visit was cut as short as—even shorter than—his forecast of its duration, for his next words were:—"I hear someone coming to fetch me. Your mamma is sure to start an hour before the time. Good-bye, Mrs.... Picture. I hope you are being well fed and properly attended to." To which the old lady replied:—"I thank your lordship, indeed I am," in an old-fashioned way that went well with the silver hair. And Gwen said:—"Dear old parent! Do you think I shan't see to that?" and followed him out of the room.
"She's a nice old soul," said he, in the passage. "I wanted to see what she was like. But I thought it best to say nothing about the convict."