When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

"Open the letter and read!" But Ruth Thrale could not; her hand was too tremulous; her heart was beating too fast. Gwen took the letter from her, quietly, firmly; opened it before her eyes; stood by her, pointing to the words. "Now read!"—she said.

And then Ruth Thrale read as a child reads a lesson:—"My ... dear ... daughter ... Maisie.... and a few words more, her voice shaking badly, then suddenly stopped. "But my mother's name was Maisie," she said. She had wavered on some false scent caused by the married name.

"Read on!" said Gwen remorselessly. Social relation said that her ladyship must be obeyed first; madness fought against after. Ruth Thrale read on, for the moment quite mechanically. The story of the shipwreck did not seem to assume its meaning. She read on, trembling, clinging to the hand that Gwen had given her to hold.

Suddenly came an exclamation—a cry. "But what is this about Mrs. Prichard? This is not Mrs. Prichard. Why is mother's old name in this letter?" She was pointing to the word Cropredy, Phoebe's first married name; a name staggering in the force of its identity. She had not yet seen the signature.

Gwen turned the page and pointed to it:—"Isaac Runciman," clear and unmistakable. Incisiveness was a duty now. Said she, deliberately:—"Why is this forged letter signed with your grandfather's name?" A pause, with only a sort of puzzled moan in answer. "I will tell you, and you will have to hear it. Because it was forged by your father, fifty years ago." Again a pause; not so much as a moan to break the silence! Gwen made her voice even clearer, even more deliberate, to say:—"Because he forged it to deceive your mother, and it deceived her, and she believed you dead. For years she believed you and her sister dead. And when she returned to England...."

She was interrupted by a poor dumfoundered effort at speech, more seen in the face she was intently watching than heard. She waited for it, and it came at last, in gasps:—"But it is to Mrs. Prichard—the letter—Mrs. Prichard's letter—oh, why?—oh, why?..." And Ruth Thrale caught at her head with her hands, as though she felt it near to bursting.

The surgeon's knife is most merciful when most resolutely used.

"Because old Mrs. Prichard is your mother," said Gwen, all her heart so given to the task before her that she quite forgot, in a sense, her own existence. "Because she is your mother, whom you have always thought dead, and who has always thought you dead. Because she is your mother, who has been living here in England—oh, for so many years past!—and never found you out!"

Ruth Thrale's hands fell helpless in her lap, and she sat on, dumb, looking straight in front of her. Gwen would have been frightened at her look, but she caught sight of a tear running down her face, and felt that this was, for the moment, the best that might be. That tear reassured her. She might safely leave the convulsion that had caused it to subside. If only the sleeper in the next room would remain asleep a little longer!

She did right to be silent and wait. Presently the two motionless hands began moving uneasily; and, surely, those were sighs, long drawn out? That had the sound of tension relieved. Then Ruth Thrale turned her eyes full on the beautiful face that was watching hers so anxiously, and spoke suddenly.