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What Phoebe would have been if she had married my husband's brother Mrs. Ralph Daverill...." "Good Lord!" exclaimed Aunt M'riar. "Ah, there now!" said the old lady. "To think I should never have told you his name!" She missed the full strength of Aunt M'riar's exclamation; accounted it mere surprise at what was either a reference to a former husband or an admission of a pseudonym.
It is rare enough for even a mother to speak explicitly to her daughter of what folk mean when they tell of the risks a girl runs who weds with a man like Thornton Daverill. But she may do so in such a way as to excite suspicion of the reality, and it is hard on motherless girls that they should not have this slender chance.
Then he said you wanted money of Mrs. Prichard...." "How the devil did he know that?" "He said it. And I told him the old lady had no money. It's little enough, if she has." "And that was all?" "All about Mrs. Prichard." "Anything else?" "He told me your name." "What name?" "Thornton Daverill." The moment Aunt M'riar had said this she was sorry for it.
She had to be silent a moment; then said hurriedly: "He was Ralph Thornton, after his father and uncle. His father was Thornton Thornton Daverill.... I'll tell you another time." Thereupon Aunt M'riar held her tongue, and Mrs. Burr came in with the fourpennyworth of crumpets. An unskilful chronicler throws unfair burdens on his reader.
And into that dream came, suddenly and unprovoked, her sister Phoebe of old, beautiful and fresh as violets in April, and ended a tale of how she would have none of Ralph Daverill, come what might, by saying, "Why, you are all in the dark, and the fire's going out!"
The paralysed man has not moved. Moreover, he cannot see the short ladder that leads to the exit. It is on his dead side. "You've a party here that's wanted, missis. Name of Wix or Daverill. Man about five-and-forty. Dark hair and light eyes. Side-draw on the mouth. Goes with a lurch. Two upper front eye-teeth missing. Carries a gold hunting-watch on a steel chain.
He had drawn it off an amputated finger, whose owner he left to bleed to death in the bush. It had already been stolen twice, and in each case had brought ill-luck to its new possessor. All this of Daverill is irrelevant to the story, except in so far as it absolves Aunt M'riar of the slightest selfish motive in her conduct throughout.
He had waited behind the door till she entered, and had then pushed it to, and was leaning against it. "Didn't expect to see me, Polly Daverill, did you now? It's me." He pulled a chair up, and, placing it against the door, sat back in it slouchingly, with a kind of lazy enjoyment of her terror that was worse than any form of intimidation. "What do you want to be scared for? I'm a lamb.
It was from "Ralph Thornton Daverill, alias Rix," which she read quite easily, for the handwriting was educated enough, and clear. "I see no date," said she. "Why did Dr. Nash say it had come from Sapps Court?" "Because, my lady, he saw the envelope. Perhaps your ladyship knows of 'Aunt Maria. She is little Dave's aunt, in London." "Oh yes I know 'Aunt M'riar. I know her, herself.
"I couldn't say, at this len'th of time." Then, she remembered a servant, at the house where her child was born, and saw safety for her own fiction in assuming this girl's identity. Invention was stimulated by despair. "She was confined of a girl, where I was in service. She gave me letters to post to her husband. R. Thornton Daverill." That was safe, anyhow.
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