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Old Maisie's growing wonderment was bringing back the look she had had over that mill-model. But she said nothing. Gwen's voice came at last, audibly to herself, scarcely more. "I want you I want you to tell me something...." "What, my dear?... Oh to tell you something! Yes what is it?" Was the moment at hand, at last? Gwen managed to raise her voice. "I want you to tell me this: Has Mrs.
Others might have compared notes on her report, literally given, with Dave's sporting account of the mill-model. And yet why should they? With no strong leading incident in common, each story might have been discussed without any suspicion that the flour-mill was the same in both. So that Mrs. Prichard's tale so far supplies nothing to link her with old Granny Marrable, as unsuspicious as herself.
And that the two old sisters, so long parted, still lived on apart; each in the firm belief that the other was dead a lifetime since. How near each had been to the knowledge that the other lived! Surely if Dave had described that mill-model to old Mrs. Picture, suspicions would have been excited. But Dave said little or nothing about it.
Aunt M'riar seemed greatly impressed with the old lady's excursion out of bed to get at the mill-model, especially at its having occurred before six in the morning. Also by the dog. Uncle Mo was more practically observant. When the reading came to the two mills in Essex, he turned to Aunt M'riar, saying: "She said summat about Essex you told me."
A comparison of his affection for Widow Thrale and Granny Marrable, with an undisguised leaning to the latter; a reference to the lady with the rings, her equipage, and its driver's nose; Farmer Jones's bull, and its untrustworthy temper; the rich qualities of duckweed; the mill-model on the mantelshelf, and individualities of his fellow-convalescents.
There on the dresser was the same dinner-service that had survived till breakage and neglect of its brethren had made it a rarity; and on the wall that persevering naval battle her husband's great-grandmother's needle had immortalised a century and a half ago. The only change she saw was the beadwork tablecloth wrapped over the mill-model, in its place above the hearth.
"And what she had from your sister in Australia, years ago," said the doctor, and saw her content waver. He had his clue, and resolved to act on it. "For instance, Mr. Muggeridge's gallivantings. You're sure you never told the child?" "Sure?... Merciful gracious me! That baby?" "And how you and she measured the mill-model? That must have come from your sister." She started.
Old Maisie must have waked up just as the doctor departed, for there were voices in the bedroom, and Granny Marrable was coming out. The old lady had an end in view. She was bent on getting down the mill-model from over the fireplace. "My dear sister has a great fancy to see it once more," she said. "And I would be loth to say nay to her."
Dave's other Granny's sister's misadventures seemed to have so little to do with the recent mystery of the mill-model. But a genuine bad man enthrals us all. "What did he do?" said his unconscious widow. "He forged a letter to his own wife, saying that her sister was dead, and she believed it." "But did her sister never write, to say she was alive?" "Old Mrs. Marrable?
Five-and-forty years ago. But I have never forgotten Maisie." Gwen, looking more closely at the mill-model as one bound to show interest, said: "And this is where you used to slide on the ice with her, on the mill-dam, all that time ago. Just fancy!" The reference to Maisie was the merest chat by the way; and the conversation, at this mention of the ice, harked back to Sapps Court.
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