"Oh, Mo—Mo—don't ye say the word! Please God, Sister Nora may live for many a long day yet!" Thus Aunt M'riar, true to the traditional attitude of Life towards Death—denial of the Arch-fear to the very threshold of the tomb.
"So she may, M'riar, and many another on to that. But there's a good plenty o' things would please us that don't please God, and He's got it all His own way."
Uncle Mo, after moving about the room in an unsettled fashion, as though weighed upon by the news he had just heard, had come to an anchor at the table opposite Gwen—obsessed by Dolly, but acquiescent. As he sat there, she saw in his grizzled head against the light; in the strong hand resting on the table, moving now and then as though keeping time to some slow tune; in the other, motionless upon his knee, an image that made her ask herself the question:—"What would Samuel Johnson have been as a prizefighter?" She was not properly shocked, but perhaps that was because she was quick-witted enough to perceive that Uncle Mo had only said, in the blunt tongue of the secular world, what would have sounded an impressive utterance, in another form, from the lips of the sage of whom he had reminded her. She felt she ought to say that the Lord would assuredly—a solemn word that!—do what He liked with His own, supplying capitals. She gave it up as out of her line, and went on to business.
"Any of us may die, at any minute, Mr. Wardle," said she. "But my cousin is twenty times as likely to die as you or I, because she's got Typhus Fever, and half the cases are fatal, more or less.... They told me how many; I've forgotten.... What's that?—is it the locksmith man?" For a knock had come at the street-door, and the sound was as the sound of an operative who had to be back in half an hour or his Governor would cut up rough. He was therefore directed to go upstairs and cast his eye on the job, and the lady would come up in five minutes to see the things took out of the drawer.
"Stop a minute, Aunt M'riar," said the lady. "He mustn't make a mistake and open it, till I come. Please tell him, to make sure!" And Aunt M'riar would have started on her errand if she had not been stopped by what followed. "Or—look here! Let Dave go. You go up, Dave, and say he mustn't touch the lock till I come. Run along, and stop there to see that he does as you tell him." Whereupon, off went Dave, shouting his instructions as soon as he got to the second landing. He felt like a Police-Inspector, or a Warden of the Marches.
As soon as Dave had left tranquillity behind, Gwen set herself to anticipate an anxiety she saw Aunt M'riar wanted to express, but was hanging fire over. "You needn't be afraid about this chick, Aunt M'riar," she said. "It isn't really infectious, only contagious. You can only get it from the patient. Dr. Dalrymple says so. Like the thing you can only buy of the maker. Besides, I've hardly been in the room; they make such a fuss, and won't allow me. And I'm not living in the house at all, but at my father's in Park Lane. And I've been there to-day since Cavendish Square, so anyhow, if I give it to Dolly, my father and mother will have it too.... Oh no—she's not rumpling me at all! I like it." It was satisfactory to know that an Earl and Countess were pledged to have Typhus if Dolly caught it. Dolly evidently thought the combination of circumstances as good as a play, and a sprightly one.
Gwen was not sorry when the young ambassador came rushing back, shouting:—"The Man says—the Man says—the Man says it wouldn't take above half a minute to do, and is the loydy a-coming up? Because—because—because if the loydy oyn't a-coming up he—has—to—get back to the shop." This last was so draconically delivered that Gwen exclaimed:—"Come along, Dolly, we've got our orders!" And she actually carried that great child up all those stairs, and she going to be four next birthday!
Upstairs, the lock-expert was apologetic. "Ye see, miss," he explained, "our governor he's the sort of man it don't do to disappynt him, not however small the job may be. I don't reckon he can wait above a half an hour for anything, 'cos it gets on his narves. So we studies not puttin' of him out, at our shop." At which Gwen interrupted him, sacrificing her own interest in the well-marked character of this governor, to the business in hand; and the prospect, for him, of an early release from his anxiety.
As for the achievement which had been postponed, it really seemed a'most ridiculous when you come to think of it. Such a fuss, and those two men standing about the best part of an hour! At least, so Mrs. Burr said afterwards.
For the operation, all told, was merely this—that the young man inserted a bent wire into the lock, thereby becoming aware of its vitals. Withdrawing it, he slightly modified the prejudices of its tip; after which its reinsertion caused the lock to spring open as by magic. He wished to know, on receipt of a consideration from Gwen, whether she hadn't anything smaller, because it only came to eighteenpence for his time and his mate's, and he had no change in his pocket. Gwen explained that none was needed owing to the proximity of Christmas, and obtained thereby the good opinion of both. They expressed their feelings and departed.