Gwen sat in the front-room and read her mother's remonstrance with her for absenting herself in this way and leaving her ladyship alone to contend with the arduous duty of entertaining her guests. "I think," it ran, "that you might at least remember that you are your father's daughter, even if you forget that Sir Spencer and Lady Derrick have come all the way from Nettisham in Shropshire." What followed was a good deal emphasized. "Understand, my dear, that what I say is not intended to hold good if this old lady is actually dying, but for anything short of that it does appear to me that your behaviour is at least inconsiderate. Do let me entreat you to fix a reasonable hour for your return to-morrow, if you adhere to your resolution not to come to-night. Pray tell Kettering when he is to call for you before twelve to-morrow, so that you may be in time for lunch." This last was a three-lined whip.
In order that Gwen should not suppose that there had been too flattering a hiatus owing to her absence, the letter wound up:—"We have had some very nice music. It turns out that Emily and Fanny sing 'I would that my love' quite charmingly." Gwen's remark to herself:—"Of course!" may be intelligible to old stagers who remember the fifties, and the popularity of this Mendelssohn duet at that time—notably the intrepidity of the singers over the soft word the merry breezes wafted away in sport. Emily and Fanny were two ingénues, come of a remote poor relation, who were destined never to forget the week they were spending at the Towers in Rocestershire. The letter was scribbled across to the effect that General Rawnsley had said he should ride over to Chorlton to-morrow to see if he could be of any use. "The dear old man," said Gwen to herself. "And eighty-four years old! Oh, why—why—could not my old darling Mrs. Picture live only three years more?... Only three years!"
Ten o'clock. The time was again at hand for those last arrangements we all know so well, when one watcher is chosen to remain by the sick man's couch, that others may sleep; each one to be roused from forgetfulness and peace to the sickening foreknowledge of the hour of release for all, when the life he has it at heart to prolong, if only for a day, shall have become a memory to perish in its turn, as one by one its survivors grow few and fewer and follow in its track.
A night comes always when Oblivion becomes a terror, and we dare not sleep, from fear of what our ears may hear on waking. It had come at Strides Cottage for Granny Marrable and Gwen, and even Ruth was conscious of a creeping dread of Death at hand, waiting on the threshold. But she imagined herself alone in her anticipations—fancied that "mother" and her ladyship were cherishing false hopes. She would not allow her own to die lest she should betray fears that might after all be just as false. Why should her mother—her new-found real mother—be sinking, because her limbs were cold, when her speech was still articulate, and her soft grey eyes so full of tenderness and light?
Gwen held a little aloof, not to take more than her fair share of what she feared was an ebbing life, although it kept so strangely its powers of communion with the world it was leaving behind. She could hear all the old voice said, as she had heard it before. What was that she was saying now?
"When the baby comes you will bring it here to show to me? I may not be up by then, to go and see it."
"The minute my daughter is strong enough to bring it, mother dear."
"She must take her time.... Is there not a little boy already?"
"Yes. He's Peter. He's a year old. He's very strong and wilful, and gets very angry when things are not given to him."