When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

"That's what her son says. If he don't know, nobody don't."

"Was it him told you? I never heard tell she had a son—not Mrs. Prichard."

Micky's family pugnacity preferred to accept this as a censure, or at least a challenge. He raised his voice, and fired off his speech in platoons, to say:—"Never see her son! Shouldn't know him if I was to see him. Wot—I'm telling—you—that's—wot—her—son said to the party what commoonicated it to me. Miss Wardle she'll reco'nise the party, by particklars giv'." This embodied the impression received from the convict's words, which had made no claim to old Maisie as his mother.

"Whatever shall you say to Mrs. Wardle?"

Micky picked up his cap from the ground, and used it as a nose-polisher—after slapping it on his knee to sterilise it, a use which seemed to act in relief of perplexity. "If I know, I'm blest," said he. "Couldn't tell you if you was to arsk me!"

It was impossible to resist the implied appeal for help. Mrs. Ragstroar put a large fresh potato on the table to enjoy its skin yet a little longer, and wiped the memory of its predecessors off on her apron. "Come along, Micky," she said. "I got to see Aunt M'riar; you come along after me. I'll just say a word aforehand." Micky welcomed this, and saying merely:—"Ah!—like a tip!" followed his mother down the Court to No. 7.

Someone, somewhere, must have known, clocks apart, that a day was drawing to a close; a short winter's day, and a dark and cold one at the best. But the someone was not in the Thames Valley, and the somewhere surely was not Sapps Court. There Day and Night alike had been robbed of their birthright by sheer Opacity, and humankind had to choose between submission to Egyptian darkness and an irksome leisure, or a crippled activity by candlelight, on the one hand, and ruin, on the other. Not that tallow candles were really much good—they got that yellow and streaky. Why—the very gaslamps out of doors you couldn't hardly see them, not unless you went quite up close! If it had not been that, as Micky followed his mother down the Court, a ladder-bearer had dawned suddenly, and died away after laying claim to lighting you up a bit down here, no one would never have so much as guessed illumination was afoot. But then the one gaslamp was on a bracket a great heicth up, on the wall at the end of Druitt's garden, so called. And Mrs. Ragstroar and her son had followed along the wood-palings in front of the houses, on the left.

Micky's flinching from his mission had grown on him so by the time they reached the end house, that he hung back and allowed his mother to enter first. He wanted the tip to exhaust the subject of Death, and to leave him only the task of authentication. He did not hear what his mother said in a quick undertone to Aunt M'riar, within, manifestly ironing. But he heard its effect on her hearer—a cry of pain, kept under, and an appeal to Uncle Mo, in some dark recess beyond. "Oh, Mo!—only hark at that! Our old lady—gone!" Then Uncle Mo, emerging probably from pitch darkness in the little parlour, and joining in the undertones on inquiry and information mixed—mixed soon enough with sobs. Then the struggle against them in Mo's own voice of would-be reassurance:—"Poor old M'riar! Don't ye take on so! We'll all die one day." Then more undertones. Then Aunt M'riar's broken voice:—"Yes—I know she was eighty"—and her complete collapse over:—"It's the children I'm thinking of! Our children, Mo, our children!"

Old Mo saw that point. You could hear it in his voice. "Ah—the children!" But he tried for a forlorn hope. Was it possibly a false report? Make sure about that, anyhow, before giving way to grief! "Was it only that young shaver of yours brought the news, Mrs. Ragstroar? Maybe he's put the saddle on the wrong horse!"

"He's handy to tell his own tale, Mr. Wardle. Here, young Micky! Come along in and speak for yourself." Whereupon the boy came in. He had been secretly hoping he might escape being called into council altogether.