When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

Toft had made his appearance at Strides Cottage just after dusk, earnestly entreating to be allowed to replace the glass Toby's chestnut-shot had broken, for nothing—yes, for nothing!—if Widow Thrale was not inclined to go to fourpence for it. The reply was:—"'Tis not the matter of the money, Master Toft. 'Tis because I grudge the touching of a thing my mother sets store by, when she is not here herself to overlook it." Now this was just after old Maisie had quitted the room, to lie down and rest again before supper, having been led into much talk about Dave. Toft had seen her. His answer to Widow Thrale was:—"Will not the old wife come back, if I bide a bit for her coming?" His mistake being explained to him, his comment was:—"Zookers! I'm all in the wrong. But I tell ye true, mistress, I did think her hair was gone white, against what I see on her head three months agone. And I was of the mind she'd fell away a bit." Widow Thrale in the end consented to allow the damage to be made good, she herself carefully removing the precious treasure from its case, and locking it into a cupboard while Toft replaced the broken glass. This done, under her unflagging supervision, the model was replaced; fourpence changed hands, and the glazier went his way, saying, as he made his exit:—"That was a chouse, mistress."

But Toft was the only person who saw the likeness; or, at any rate, who confessed to seeing it. It is, of course, not at loggerheads with human nature, that others saw it too, but kept the discovery to themselves. It was so out of the question that the resemblance should exist, that the fact that it did stood condemned on its merits. Therefore, silence! Another possibility is that the intensely white hair, and the seeming greater age, of old Maisie, had more than their due weight in heading off speculation. Old Phoebe's teeth, too, made a much better show than her sister's.

One thing is certain, that the person most concerned, Ruth Thrale herself, remained absolutely blind to a fact which might have struck her had she not been intensely familiar with her reputed mother's face. The features of every day were things per se, not capable of comparison with casual extramural samples. They never are, within family walls.

That this was no mere inertness of observation, but a good strong opacity of vision, was clear when, after leaving the convalescent Toby to dreams of indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and victorious encounters, she roused her old visitor to bring her into supper.

"There now!—it is strange that I should have company tonight. I never thought to have the luck, yesterday, when you were giving me my tea, Mrs...." She stopped on the name, and supplied a cup thereof—supper was a mixed meal at Strides Cottage—then continued:—"That brings to mind to ask you, whether little Davy is in the right of it when he writes your name 'Picture'?... Is he not, mayhap, calling you out of your name, childlike?"

"But of course he is, bless his little heart! My name is Prichard. P-r-i-c-h—Prich." She spelt the first syllable, to make sure no t got in. "The Lady, Gwen, has taken it of him, to humour him and Dolly, just as their young mouths speak it—Picture! But it isn't Picture; it's Prichard." Old Maisie felt quite mendacious. She seldom had to state so roundly that her assumed name was authentic. Widow Thrale made no comment, only saying:—"I thought the child had made 'Picture' out of his own head." The talk scarcely turned on the name for more than a minute, as she went on to say:—"Now you must eat some supper, Mrs. Prichard, because you hardly took anything for dinner. And see what a ride you had!" She went on to make appeals on behalf of bacon, eggs, bloaters, cold mutton and so on, with only a very small response from the old lady, who seemed to live on nothing. A compromise was effected, the latter promising to take some gruel just before going to bed.

Two influences were at work to keep the antecedents of either out of the conversation. Old Maisie fought shy of inquiries, which might have produced counter-inquiry she could scarcely have met by silence; and Mrs. Thrale shrank, with a true instinctive delicacy, from prying into a record which had the word poverty so legible on its title-page, and signs of a former well-being so visible on its subject. Besides, how about Sapps Court and Dave's uncle, the prizefighter?

She felt curiosity, all the same. However, information might come, unsought, as the ground thawed. A springlike mildness was in the atmosphere of their acquaintance, and it began to tell on the ice, very markedly, as they sat enjoying the firelight; candles blown out, and the flicker of the wood-blaze making sport with visibility on the walls and dresser—on the dominant willow-pattern of the latter, with its occurrences of polished metal, and precious incidents of Worcester or Bristol porcelain; or the pictorial wealth of the former, the portrait of Lord Nelson, and the British Lion, and all the flags of all the world in one frame; to say nothing of some rather woebegone Bible prints, doing full justice to the beards of Susannah's elders, and the biceps of Samson. On all these, and prominently on the sampler worked by Hephzibah Marrable, 1672, a ship-of-war in full sail, with cannons firing off wool in the same direction, and defeating the Dutch Fleet, presumably. Perhaps the Duke of York's flagship.

The two had talked of many things. Of the great bull-dog who was such a safeguard against thieves that they never felt insecure at night, and were very careless in consequence about bolts and bars; and who had investigated the visitor very carefully on her first arrival, suspiciously, but seemed now to have given her his complete sanction. Of the cat on the hearth and the Family at the Towers—small things and large; but with a great satisfaction for old Maisie, when the statement was made with absolute confidence that Mr. Torrens, who was said to be the man of her young ladyship's choice, would recover his eyesight. Mrs. Lamprey's version of Dr. Nash's pronouncement was conclusive, and was conscientiously repeated, without exaggeration; causing heartfelt joy to old Maisie, with a tendency to consider how far Mr. Torrens deserved his good fortune, the moment his image was endowed with eyesight. That, you remember, was the effect of Mrs. Lamprey's first communication yesterday. Then Widow Thrale had read a letter from her son on the Agamemnon, in the Black Sea, cheerfully forecasting an early collapse of Russia before the prowess of the Allies, and an early triumphant return of the Fleet with unlimited prize-money. Old Maisie had to envy perforce this mother's pride in this son, his daring and his chivalry, his invincibility by foes, his generosity to the poor and weak. Her envy was forced from her—how could it have been otherwise?—but her love came with it. All her heart went out to the sweet, proud, contented face as the firelight played on it, and made the treasured letter visible to its reader. Then she had listened to particulars of the other son, in the Baltic, of whom his mother was temperately proud, not rising to her previous enthusiasm. He had, however, been in action; that was his strong point, at present. By that time Mrs. Thrale's domestic record only needed a word or two about her daughter, Mrs. Costrell, to be complete for its purpose, a tentative enlightenment of its hearer, which might induce counter-revelation. But the old lady did not respond, clinging rather to inquiry about her informant's affairs. For which the latter did not blame her, for who could say what reasons she might have for her reticence. At any rate, she would not try to break through it.

All this talk, by the comfortable fireside, was nourishment to the growing germ of old Maisie's affection for this chance acquaintance of a day. Her faith in all her surroundings—her Guardian Angel apart—had been sadly shaken by the expression "plaguy old cat." This woman could be relied upon, she was sure. She could not be disappointed in her—how could she doubt it? Whether their unknown kinship was a mysterious help to this confidence is a question easy to ask. The story makes no attempt to answer it.