It turned out as Mr. Grey had anticipated. In the afternoon a message came to Mr. Carlton from his brother practitioner, Mr. Lycett, and he hastened to the broker's house. There he found Mrs. Pepperfly in all her glory. To give that lady her due, apart from her graces of person and her proneness to a certain failing, she was a skilful, clever woman, equal to an emergency; and nothing brought out her talent like an emergency, and there was nothing she was so fond of. "A spice of danger puts me on my metal, and shows folks the stuff I'm made of," was a favourite remark of hers; and Mrs. Pepperfly might thank her stars that it was so, or she would have been allowed to sink into private life long ago.
It was not so much that a second doctor's services were then actually required, as that it was expedient one should be at hand, in case they should be; consequently, while Mr. Lycett chiefly remained with the sick woman, Mr. Carlton had an opportunity for a little chat with Mrs. Pepperfly in an adjoining room. Which, however, was enjoyed by snatches, for Mrs. Pepperfly was in and out, from one chamber to another, like a dog in a fair.
"Have you been up there, to Tupper's cottage, sir?" she asked, between whiles.
"I went there this morning. Where do they come from?"
"And ain't it a bad case, sir?" returned Mrs. Pepperfly, unmindful of the question.
"I don't think it has been well treated," remarked Mr. Carlton. "Do you know where they come from, or what brings them to South Wennock?"
"She comes from—where was it?—Scotland or Ireland, or some of them outlandish places, I think she said. What she wants in South Wennock is another matter," added Mrs. Pepperfly with a sniff.
The accent was peculiar, and Mr. Carlton looked at her.
"Have you any idea what does bring her here?" he repeated, his tone slightly authoritative.
"Well, yes, I does have my idea, sir, and I may be wrong and I may be right! Though it don't make no difference to me whether I be or whether I bain't. And I don't suppose, you'd care, sir, to hear it, neither."
"Speak on," said Mr. Carlton, half eagerly, half carelessly. "What do you suppose her business is at South Wennock?"
Mrs. Pepperfly dropped her voice to a whisper. "You remember that young lady who came to her death so awful at the widder Gould's through Mr. Stephen Grey's draught?—though indeed, sir, what with the heaps of patients you have had since, you might have forgot her long ago!"
"What of her?" asked Mr. Carlton, and there was a sound in his voice as though he had lost his breath.
"Well, sir, my belief is just this—that there widder up at Tupper's is appeared at South Wennock to ferret out what she can about the death, and nothing less."
Mr. Carlton did not reply, but he gazed at Mrs. Pepperfly as eagerly as he had gazed at the suffering boy, and with far more inward perplexity, though it did not show itself on his impassive face.
"How very absurd!" he uttered, after a while.
"Just what I says to myself," responded the woman. "And what good 'll it do her? If we could come at anything certain as to who the poor young lady was, and how the draught were converted into poison, 'twould be some satisfaction; but there ain't none to be gained, as it is. I telled the widder Smith so, with my own lips."
"You have talked to her, then, about it?"
"Talked to her!" ejaculated Nurse Pepperfly, "she haven't let my tongue have no holiday from talking of it, since we two met in the new omnibus."
"The new omnibus!" he repeated. "What do you mean?"
Mrs. Pepperfly liked few things better than talking, and she forthwith recounted to Mr. Carlton the history of her meeting with the widow, and the progress of the acquaintance since. Ere it was well concluded, her duties took her into the adjoining chamber.
Mr. Carlton had listened in silence, and now he stood, apparently revolving the news. He walked to the window, opened it, thrust his head out into a stifling back yard, where certainly little air could be found, if that was his motive, and after a while drew it back again.
"Have you mentioned this to any one?" he asked, as the woman re-appeared, and something sharp in his tone grated on her ear.
"Never to a blessed soul," protested Mother Pepperfly, conveniently oblivious to all recollection of Judith. "The widder charged me not, sir."
"And I would recommend you not to do so," returned Mr. Carlton. "I have not forgotten the worry and annoyance the affair caused, if you have. I was besieged with curiosity-mongers by night and by day until it had blown over. They left me no leisure to attend to my own business; and I should be exceedingly sorry to be subjected to a similar annoyance again—as I should be, were the affair raked up. So be silent, as Mrs. Smith