The agreement that another topic should be resorted to was sufficiently complied with by a short pause before resuming the antecedent one. Gwen did this by saying:—"You will be all right without me for a few days, because Sir Spencer Derrick and his wife are due to-night, and the Openshaws, and the Pellews will be here on Monday."
"Gwendolen!" In a shocked tone of voice.
"Well—Aunt C. and Cousin Percy, then. If they are not the Pellews, they very soon will be. They are coming on Monday, anyhow."
"But not by the same train!"
"I should come by the same train, if I were they. And in the same carriage. And tip the guard to keep everybody else out. Much better do it candidly than pretend they've met by accident. I should."
The Countess thought she really had better change to another subject. She dropped this one as far off as possible. "When do you expect to see your two old interesting twins again?" said she conciliatorily. For she felt that reasoning with her beautiful but irregular daughter was hopeless. The young lady explained that her next visit to Chorlton would be by way of an expedition from Pensham. Adrian and Irene would drive her over. It was not morally much farther from Pensham than from the Towers, although some arithmetical appearances were against it. And she particularly wanted Adrian to see old Mrs. Picture. And then, like a sudden sad cadence in music, came the thought:—"But he cannot see old Mrs. Picture."
Keziah Solmes did not come back till quite late in the evening. Her report of the state of things at Strides Cottage was manifestly vitiated by an unrestrained optimism. If she was to be believed, the sudden revelation to each other of the old twin sisters had had no specially perturbing effect on either. Gwen spent much of the evening writing a long letter to her father at Bath, giving a full account of her day's work, and ending:—"I do hope the dear old soul will bear it. Mrs. Solmes has just given me a most promising report of her. I cannot suppose her constant references to the Benevolence of Providence to be altogether euphemisms in the interest of the Almighty. I am borrowing Adrian's language—you will see that. I think Keziah is convinced that Mrs. Prichard will rally, and that the twins may live to be nonagenarians together. I must confess to being very anxious about her myself. She looked to me as if a breath of air might blow her away. I shall not see her again for a day or two, but I know they will send for me if I am wanted. Dr. Nash is to see to that. What a serviceable man he is!" She went on to say, after a few more particulars of Keziah's report, that she was going to Pensham on Monday, and should not come back before the Earl's own return to the Towers. Mamma would do perfectly well without her, and it was only fair, considering her own concessions.
But Gwen did not go to church next day.
Dr. Nash had been sent for to Strides Cottage at a very early hour, having been prevented from fulfilling a promise to go overnight. He must have seen some new cause for uneasiness, although he disclaimed any grounds of alarm. For he wrote off at once to her young ladyship, after a careful examination of his patient:—"Mrs. Prichard certainly is very feeble. I think it only right that you should know this at once. But you need not be frightened. Probably it is no more than was to be expected." That was the wording of his letter, received by Gwen as she sat at breakfast with some new arrivals and the Colonel, and the dregs of the shooting-party. She was not at all sorry to get a complete change of ideas and associations, although the subjects of conversation were painful enough, turning on the reports of mixed disaster and success in the Crimea that were making the close of '54 lurid and memorable for future history. Gwen glanced at Dr. Nash's letter, gave hurried directions to the servant to tell Tom Kettering to be in readiness to drive her at once to Chorlton, and made short work of breakfast and her adieux to the assembled company.