Fora few days after Patty’s visit to her aunt, that young lady looked out with some eagerness for the reappearance of Gervase at the Seven Thorns, but looked in vain. At first she scarcely remarked his absence, having many things to think of, for it was not without excitement that she planned out the steps by which she was to enter into a new life. The first evening was filled, indeed, with the events of the day; the mental commotion called forth by the visit of Lady Piercey, and the excitement, almost overwhelming, of her unexpected, enthusiastic reception by Miss Hewitt, and the sudden supply so much above her most daring hopes. Fifty pounds! it was more to Patty than as many thousands would have been to minds more accustomed—much more. For the possession of a great deal of money means only income, and an unknown treasure in somebody else’s hands, whereas fifty pounds is absolute money, which you can change, and spend, and realise, and enjoy down to the last farthing. It gave her a great deal of anxiety how to dispose of it at first. The Seven Thorns was not a place where any thief was likely to come for money; it was not a house worth robbing, which was a point, as Patty with her excellent sense was aware, on which burglars are very particular, taking every care to obtain accurate information. But then, again, money is a thing that betrays itself—a secret that is carried by the birds of the air. Had there been any of these gentry about, he might have divined from the way in which she carried herself, that she had fifty pounds in her pocket. There was a little faint lightness about it, she thought, when she put it in her drawer—a sort of undeveloped halo, showing that something precious was in the old pocketbook which she had found to enshrine it in. Then she took it out of that formal receptacle, and placed it with scientific carelessness in an old envelope. But, immediately, that torn paper covering seemed to become important, too, among the pocket-handkerchiefs and cherished trumpery, beads and brooches in her “locked drawer.” The “girl,” who was the only servant, except the ostler, at the Seven Thorns, had always manifested a great curiosity (taken rather as a compliment to her treasures than as an offence by Patty) concerning the contents of that locked drawer. She had often asked to be shown the “jewellery,” which Patty, indeed, had no objection to show. What if she would be tempted this night of all others to break open the drawer, to refresh her soul with gazing at them, and perhaps to throw the old dirty envelope away? It was highly improbable that poor Ellen, an honest creature, would break open the drawer. But still, everything is possible when you have fifty pounds to take care of. Patty took it out again and placed it first in her pocket—but she soon felt that to be quite too insecure—and then in her bosom under her trim little bodice. She felt it there, while she went about her usual occupations, carrying beer to her father’s customers. Fancy carrying pots of beer to labourers that were not worth so much as the price of them, and thanking the clowns for twopence—a girl who had fifty pounds under the bodice of her cotton frock! She was glad to see that Gervase had obeyed her orders, and did not appear in the parlour among the dull drinkers there.
Next day Patty was much occupied in rummaging out the empty part of the house, the best rooms, once occupied by important guests, when the Seven Thorns was a great coaching establishment, but now vacant, tapestried with dust and cobwebs, rarely opened from one year’s end to the other, except at the spring-cleaning, when it is the duty of every housekeeper to clear out all the corners. She got up very early in the summer mornings, before any one was stirring (and it may be imagined how early that was, for the Seven Thorns was all alert and in movement by six o’clock), and went in to make an inspection while she was secure from any disturbance. The best rooms were in the western end of the long house, quite removed from the bar and the parlour, the chief windows looking out upon the garden, and at a distance upon the retreating line of the high road, and the slope of the heathery downs. Patty’s heart swelled with pleasure as she carefully opened the shutters and looked round at the old faded furniture. There was a good-sized sitting-room, and two or three other rooms communicating with each other, and separated by a long passage from the other part of the house. “A suite of apartments,” she said to herself! for Patty had read novels, and was acquainted with many fine terms of expression. The early sunshine flooded all the silent country, showing a dewy glimmer in the neglected garden, and sweeping along the broad and vacant road, where as yet there was nothing stirring. A few cows in a field, one of which got slowly up to crop a morsel before breakfast, as fine ladies (and fine gentlemen, too) have a cup of tea in bed, startled Patty as by the movement of some one spying upon her unusual operations and wondering what they meant. But there was no other spectator, nothing else awake, except the early birds who were chattering about their own businesses in every tree, talking over their own suites of apartments, and the repairs wanted, before the professional occupations of the day began, and the pipes were tuned up. They were far too busy to pay any attention to Patty, nor did she mind them. Besides, they were all sober, married folks, with the care of their families upon their heads; while she was a young person all thrilling with the excitement of the unknown, and making a secret survey of the possible future nest.
Patty inspected these rooms with a careful and a practised eye. Any young couple in the land, she felt, might be proud to possess this suite of apartments. She examined the carpets to see whether they would do, whether they would bear a thorough beating, which they required, and whether by judicious application of gall, or other restoring fluid, the colour might be brought back to the part which had been most trodden; or whether it would be better to buy one of those new-fashioned rugs which were spread upon the matting in the Rectory—a poor sort of substitute for a carpet, Patty had always thought—but as it was the fashion, it might be adopted to cover deficiencies; or a nice round table with a cover might be placed upon that weak spot. Curtains would be necessary, but thin white muslin is cheap and could be easily supplied. Patty pulled the old furniture about, as the rector’s wife had done on her first arrival, to give it a careless look, which does not suit the stern angles of early Victorian mahogany and haircloth; but Patty had great confidence in crochet and frilled muslin to cover a multitude of sins. She stood at the window and looked out upon the garden which was quite retired and genteel—as refined a view as could have been had in the Manor itself. The cow in the field had lain down again to finish her night’s rest after that early cup of tea. It was so quiet: the morning’s sunshine almost level in long rays on the grass, the sleek coat of the brown cow glistening, nobody stirring. It almost overawed Patty to look out upon that wonderful silence before the world was awake. There was no telling what might happen in that new day; there was no telling what might come to her in the new life upon the margin of which she stood. She did not, I need scarcely say, think of the ideal excellencies of her future husband, or of love, or any of the usual enchantments that brighten the beginning of life. She thought of the Manor; of the old people who would soon die and be out of the way; of Lady Piercey’s carriage, which would be hers; of the coachman and John on the box, whom she had been at school with (John at least), and whom she would make to tremble before her when her turn came to be my lady. My lady! Patty’s head turned round and round. She put her head upon the window-frame to support herself, turning giddy with the thought. Your ladyship! She could hear people say it reverentially who had called, as if she had been their servant, for Patty at the Seven Thorns.
This was the thought that filled her mind with something of that ineffable elation and delight in her own happiness which is supposed to be peculiar to people who are in love. Patty was in love; but it would be putting a scorn upon her intelligence to suppose that she was in love with Gervase. Poor Gervase, the Softy! Patty was resolved to be very good to him—she had even a kind of affection for him as being her own to do what she pleased with. He should never have any reason to regret her ownership. She would be good to him in every way, deny him nothing, consider all his silly tastes as well as his serious interests. But what Patty was in love with was the Manor, and the carriage, and the rents, and the ladyship. Lady Piercey! The thought of that tingled to her very feet; it turned her head like wine. The old people, of course, would make themselves very disagreeable. It would be their part to do so. Patty felt that she would think no worse of them for fighting against her, tooth and nail. But they would have to give in at the end; or still better, they would die and get out of her way, which was the most probable thing. Young people generally think of the death of old people without compunction; it is their business to die, just as it is the business of their successors to live. It is the course of nature. Patty no more doubted they would die than that Christmas would come in six months, whatever happened. What she would have chosen for pleasure and to enhance her triumph to the utmost, was that old Sir Giles should die, and the old lady survive to be called the Dowager, and to see Patty bearing the title of Lady Piercey. This was what would be most sweet; and it was very likely to come to pass, for everybody knew that Sir Giles was a great invalid, whereas nobody knew that Lady Piercey had been attacked last year by a little, very little premonitory “stroke”—nobody, at least, except Parsons and Margaret Osborne and the doctor, with none of whom Patty had any communication. The greatest triumph she could think of was to see the Dowager bundled off to her dower-house, while she, Patty, the regnant Lady Piercey, took her place. She was not an ill-natured person on the whole, but she felt that there was here awaiting her a poignant joy.
In the meantime, however, this glory was still at a distance, and the first thing to do was to prepare a shelter for the young couple who would have to inhabit, for lack of other habitation, these rooms in the west end of the Seven Thorns. Patty interviewed her father on the subject as soon as he had eaten his breakfast. She told him that to leave these beautiful rooms unoccupied was a sin and shame, and that it was his plain duty to do them up and look out for a lodger for next summer. “Indeed, I’m not sure but we might hear of somebody this season still, if they were ready,” she said. She showed him all the capabilities of the place, and how a disused garden door might be arranged so as to form a separate entrance, “for gentry won’t come in by a public-house door. It ain’t likely,” she explained. “What do I care about gentry, and what do you know about ’em?” said her father. “I’ll never spend my money on such nonsense.” “But you like to see the colour of theirs,” said Patty, “and it would be good for trade, too. For suppose you gave them their board for a fixed rate, there would always be a good profit. It would keep us going and them, too, so as we should pay nothing for our living, and that in addition to the rent: don’t you see, father?” “I don’t believe in them profits,” said the old man; “gentry, as you call ’em, don’t eat the same things as I likes.” “But they’d have to, father,” said Patty, softly, “if they couldn’t get nothing else.” This struck Mr. Hewitt’s sense of humour, and he allowed that it might be possible so, with a chuckle of democratic enjoyment. “I’d like to see ’em sit down with their mincin’ ways to beans and fat bacon,” he confessed. Patty was very sure that it was not on beans and fat bacon that she would feed the future Sir Gervase and Lady Piercey; but she made no remark on this point, and ere the week was over, she had all her plans in operation—the new entrance by the garden, the rods put up for the new muslin curtains, the old rooms scrubbed and polished, and dusted till they shone again. “I think I’ll take a run up to London, and buy two or three little things out of my own little bit of money,” she said cautiously. And though her father demanded what little bit of money she had to spend, he made no objection to the expedition. Patty was very well to be trusted to look after herself, as well as the interests of the family. And thus she prepared, in every respect, the way.
But Gervase never appeared. Morning and night she looked out for him, pleased and half-amused, at first, with the faithfulness with which he obeyed her. But after a time Patty became a little anxious. She had, indeed, forbidden him to come to the Seven Thorns. But she had not intended this self-sacrifice to be of such long duration. What if his mother had got hold of him? What if he had been frightened into giving up his love? The old lady had looked very masterful, very full of power to do mischief. What if they had shut him up? Patty grew more and more anxious as day followed day. The fifty pounds which she had sewn up in a little bag, and wore suspended by a ribbon round her neck, began to lie like a blister upon her pretty white skin underneath her bodice. What would Aunt Patience say if all her plans came to nothing, if no licence was necessary, and no bridegroom forthcoming? Patty felt her heart sink, sink into unimaginable depths. The old woman would reclaim her money with a sneer enough to drive any girl mad. She would laugh out at the fool that had fancied the Softy was in love with her. His father, as had all his wits about him, might take a person in; but Lord bless us, the Softy! Patty knew exactly what her aunt would say. Miss Hewitt had given her the money, not for love of her, but that she might triumph over the great people, and avenge the wrongs of the other Patty who had gone before her. Patty grew hot and grew cold, as she stood at the door looking out along the road, and seeing nobody; her heart sickened at every footstep, and leaped at every shadow on the way. One night, when she stood there with her face turned persistently in one direction, just as the soft summer twilight was stealing over the landscape, and everything was growing indistinct, a voice close to her made Patty jump. She had not even observed—so great was her preoccupation—another figure coming round the other corner. Roger Pearson had seated himself on the bench under the parlour window, and yet she had taken no notice. He broke the silence by a laugh of mockery, that seemed to Patty the beginning of the ridicule and scorn of the whole parish. “Looking out for some one, eh?” said the voice; “but he ain’t coming, not to-night.”
“Who is not coming, Mr. Pearson?” said Patty, commanding herself with a great effort; “some one you were expecting to meet?”
“You can’t come over me like that, Patty,” said Roger. “Lord, a nice lass like you that might have the best fellow in the village—a-straining and a-wearing your eyes looking after a Softy! and him not coming neither—not a step! They knows better than that.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Pearson,” said Patty, feeling herself enveloped from head to foot in a flush of rage and shame. “I don’t know as I ever was known as one that looked after Softies—meaning poor folks that have lost their wits, I suppose. You’re one of them, anyhow, that speaks like that to me.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said the young man, in his deep voice—“a fellow that’s not fit to tie your shoe, though he may be the squire’s son. Don’t you think that’ll ever come to any good. They’ll never let you be my lady; don’t you think it. They’ll turn him out o’ doors, and they’ll cut him off with a shilling; and then you’ll find yourself without a penny and a fool on your hands instead of a man.”
“Is this something out of a story book, or is it out of his own head?” said Patty looking round her as if consulting an impartial audience,—“anyway, it has nothing to say to me. I’ll send Ellen to you for your orders, Mr. Pearson, for I’ve got a lot to do to-night, and I can’t stand here to listen to your romancing. Ellen,” she cried, “just see to that gentleman.” She went off with all the honours of war, but Patty’s heart was likely to burst. She marched upstairs with a candle to the rooms she had been arranging so carefully, and locked the door, and sat down upon the sofa and gave way to a torrent of tears. Was it all to come to nothing, after all her splendid dreams? She knew as well as any one that he was a fool and could be persuaded into anything. How did she know that his mother, if she tried, could not turn him round her little finger, as she, Patty, had been certain she could do? How could she tell, in the battle between Lady Piercey of Greyshott and Patty of the Seven Thorns, that it was she who would triumph and not the great lady? It was all Patty could do not to shriek out her exasperation, her misery and rage; not to pull down the curtains and dash the furniture to pieces. She caught her handkerchief with her teeth and tore it to keep herself quiet—and the fifty pounds in the bag burnt her breast like a blister. What if it was to come to nothing, after all?
Theweek had been a very long week to Gervase. To him, poor fellow, there was no limit of time; no thought that his obedience was intended, nay, desired to stop at a certain point. He went on dully, keeping at home, keeping indoors, trying in his fatuous way to please his parents. It was a very dull round to him who had known the livelier joys of the Seven Thorns, the beer and the tobacco in the parlour, and Patty flitting about, throwing him a word from time to time. It seemed but a poor sort of paradise to sit among the slow old topers in the smoky room and imbibe the heavy beer; but it is unfortunately a kind of enjoyment which many young men prefer to the fireside at home, even without any addition of a Patty; and the poor Softy was not in this respect so very much inferior to the best and cleverest. The fireside at home, it must be allowed, was not very exciting. To be sure, the room itself was a very different room from that of the Seven Thorns. It was not the drawing-room in which the Piercey family usually sat in the evening, for the drawing-room was upstairs, and Sir Giles could not be taken up without great difficulty in his wheeled chair. It was the library, a large long room, clothed with the mellow tones and subdued gilding of old books, making a background which would have been quite beautiful to an artist. There was a row of windows on one side veiled in long curtains, and between these windows a series of family portraits almost as long as the windows, full length, not very visible in the dim light, affording a little glimpse of colour, and a face here and there looking out from that height upon the little knot of living people below; but the Pierceys of the past were not remarkable any more than the present Pierceys. A shaded lamp was suspended by a very long chain from the high roof, which was scarcely discernible going up so far, with those glimmers of bookcases and tall old portraits leading towards the vague height above; beneath it was a small round table, at which Lady Piercey sat in a great chair with her bright-coloured work; on the other side was Sir Giles among his cushions, with his backgammon board on a stand beside him, where sometimes Margaret, sometimes Dunning played with him till bedtime. Parsons, on the other hand, was so frequently in attendance on her mistress that the two old servants might be taken as part of the family circle. When Margaret took her place at the backgammon board, Dunning had an hour’s holiday, and retired to the much brighter atmosphere of the servants’ hall or the housekeeper’s room. And when Dunning played with Sir Giles, Margaret attended upon Lady Piercey to thread her needles, and select the shades of the silk, and Parsons was set free. The one who was never set free was Mrs. Osborne, whose evenings in this dim room between the two old people were passed in an endless monotony which sometimes made her giddy. The dull wheel of life went round and round for her, and never stopped or had any difference in it. From year to year the routine was the same.
Now, whether this scene, or the parlour at the Seven Thorns, where the sages of the village opened their mouths every five minutes or so to emit a remark or a mouthful of smoke, or to take in a draught of beer, was the most—or rather the least—enlivening, it would be hard to say. The sages of the village are sometimes dull and sometimes wise in a book. They were full of humour and character in George Eliot’s representation of them, and they are very quaint in Mr. Hardy’s. But I doubt much if they ever say such fine things in reality, and I am sure, if they did, that Gervase Piercey was not capable of understanding them. The beer and the tobacco and the sense of freedom and of pleasing himself—also of being entirely above his company, and vaguely respected by them—made up the charms of the humbler place to Gervase. And Patty—Patty had got by degrees to be the soul of all; but even before Patty’s reign began he had escaped with delight from these home evenings to the Seven Thorns. Why? For Sir Giles, even in his enfeebled state, was better company than old Hewitt and his cronies; and Lady Piercey’s sharp monologue on things in general was more piquant than anything the old labourers found to say; and Mrs. Osborne was a great deal handsomer than Patty, and would willingly have exerted herself for the amusement of her cousin. But this is a problem to which there is no answer. Far better and cleverer young men than Gervase make this same choice every day, or rather every evening; and no one can tell why.
But Gervase had turned over a new leaf. He went out to the door and took a few whiffs of his pipe, turning his back to the road which led to the Seven Thorns, that the temptation might not be too much for him, and repeating dully to himself what Patty had said to him. And then he went into the library, where they were all assembled, and pushed Dunning away, who was just arranging the board for Sir Giles’ game. “Here! look out; I’m going to play with you, father,” Gervase said. The old gentleman had been delighted the first night, pleased more or less the second, fretful the third. “You don’t understand my play, Gervase,” he said.
“Oh! yes, I understand your play, father: Dunning lets you win, and that’s why you like Dunning to play with you; but I’m better, for I wake you up, and you’ve got to fight for it when it’s me.”
“Dunning does nothing of the sort,” cried Sir Giles, angrily, “Dunning plays a great deal better than you, you booby. Do you let me win, Dunning? It’s all he knows!”
“I ought to be good, Sir Giles, playin’ with a fine player like you; but I never come up to you, and never will, for I haven’t the eddication you have, Sir Giles, which stands to reason, as I’m only a servant,” Dunning said.
“There! You hear him: go and play something with Meg; you’re never still with those long legs of yours, and I like a quiet game.”
“I’ll keep as quiet as pussy,” said Gervase. “Which’ll you have, father, black or white? and let’s toss for the first move.”
Now, everybody knew that Sir Giles always played with the white men and always had the first move. Once again the old gentleman had to resign himself to the noisy moves and shouts of his son over every new combination, and to the unconscious kicks which the restlessness of Gervase’s long limp legs inflicted right and left. Dunning stood behind his master’s chair, with a stern face of disapproval, yet trying hard by winks and nods to indicate the course which ought to be pursued, until Gervase threw himself back in his chair, almost kicking over the table with the corresponding movement of his legs, and bursting into a loud laugh. “What d’ye mean, ye old fool, making faces at me over father’s shoulder? Do you mean I’m to give him the game, like you do? Come on, father, let’s fight it out.”
“I never said a word, Sir Giles! I hope as I knows my place,” cried Dunning, alarmed.
“Hold your tongue, you big gaby,” cried Sir Giles; but presently the old gentleman thrust the board away, overturning it upon his son’s long legs. “I’ll not play any more,” he said: “I’ve had enough of it. I think I was never so tired in my life. Backgammon’s a fine game, but one can’t go on for ever. Fetch me my drink, Dunning; I think I’ll go to bed.”
“It’s all because he’s losing his game,” cried Gervase, with a loud ha! ha! He had something like the manners of a gentleman at the Seven Thorns, but at home his manners were those of the public-house. “The old man don’t like to be beaten; he likes to have everything his own way. And Dunning’s an old humbug, and lets you have it. But it ain’t good for you to have too much of your own way. I’ve been toldthatsince I was a little kid like Osy; and what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, father, don’t you know.”
“Gervase, how dare you speak so to your papa? Come over here, sir, and leave him a little in peace. Where did you learn to laugh so loud, and make such a noise? Come here, you riotous boy. You always were a noisy fellow, making one’s head ache to hear you. Sit down, for goodness’ sake, and be quiet. Meg, can’t you find something to amuse him? I dare say he’d like a game at cards. How can I tell you what game? If you can’t, at your time of life, find something that will occupy him and keep him quiet——! Here, Gervase, hold this skein of silk while Parsons winds it, and Meg will go and get the cards, and perhaps you’d like a round game.”
“I don’t want a game, mother, not for Meg’s sake, who doesn’t count. I want to be pleasant to you—— and to father, too,” said Gervase, standing up against the fireplace, which, of course, was vacant this summer night.
Sir Giles was so far from appreciating the effort of his son, that he sat fuming in his chair, while Dunning collected the scattered “men,” muttering indistinct thunders, and pettishly putting away with his stick the pieces of the game. “Make haste! can’t you make haste, man?” he mumbled; “I want my drink, and I’m going to bed. And I won’t have my evening spoiled like this again. I won’t, by George, not for anything you can say. Four nights I’ve been a martyr to that cub, and I don’t see that you’ve done much to keep him in order, my lady! It all falls upon me, as everything does, and, by George, I won’t have it again. Can’t you make haste, you old fool, and have done with your groping? You’re losing your eyesight, I believe. Have one of the women in to find them, and get me my drink, for I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll find them, father,” cried Gervase cheerfully, plunging down upon the carpet on his hands and knees, and pushing the old gentleman’s stick back into his face.
“For goodness’ sake, Meg, find something for him to do! and take that boy off his father, or Sir Giles will have a fit,” cried Lady Piercey in Mrs. Osborne’s ear.
“Get out o’ my way, you young ass!” Sir Giles thundered, raising the stick and bestowing an angry blow upon his son’s shoulders. Gervase sat up on his knees like a dog, and stared for a moment angrily, with his hand lifted as if he would have returned the blow. Then he opened his mouth wide and gave forth a great laugh. Poor old Sir Giles caught at Dunning’s arm, clutching him in an ecstasy of exasperation. “Get me off, man, can’t you? Get me out of sight of him; take me to bed,” the old father cried, in that wretchedness of miserable perception which only parents know. His son—his only son! His heir, the last of the Piercey’s!—this Softy sitting up like a dog upon the floor!
Lady Piercey fell back also in her chair, and whimpered a little piteously, like the poor old woman she was, as Sir Giles was wheeled out of the room. The backgammon board, overturned, lay on the floor, with the pieces scattered over the carpet, and Gervase scrambling after them, for Dunning had been too tremulous and frightened to pick more than half of them up. “Oh! my poor, silly boy! oh! you dreadful, dreadful fool!” the old lady cried. “Will you never learn any better? Can’t you wake up and be a man?” She cried over this, for a little, very bitterly, with that terrible sense of the incurable which turns the poor soul back upon itself—and then she flung round in her big chair towards her niece, who stood silent and troubled, not knowing what part to take. “It’s all your fault,” she cried in a fierce whisper, “for not finding something for him to do. Why didn’t you find something for him to do? You might have played something to him, or sung something with him, or got him to look at pictures, or—— anything! And now you’ve let your poor uncle go off in a rage, which may bring on a fit as likely as not, and me worse, for I can’t give in like him. Oh, Meg, what an ungrateful, selfish thing you are to stand there and never interfere when you might have found him something to do!”
When Lady Piercey’s procession streamed off afterwards to bed, my lady leaning heavily on Parsons’ arm and Margaret following with the work, Gervase was left still picking up the pieces, sprawling over the carpet and laughing as he followed the little round pieces of ivory and wood into the corners where they had rolled. Margaret went back to the library after being released by her aunt, and found him still there making a childish game of this for his own amusement, and chuckling to himself as he raced them over the carpet. He scrambled up, however, a little ashamed when he heard her voice asking, “What are you doing, Gervase?” “Oh, nothing,” he said with his foolish laugh, stuffing the “men” into his pockets. She put her hand upon his shoulder kindly.
“Gervase, dear, you’re quite grown up, don’t you know; quite a man now. You mustn’t be so mischievous, just like a boy. Poor Uncle Giles, you must not play tricks upon him; he likes a quiet game.”
“Don’t you be a fool, Meg. Why, that was what I was doing all the night, playing his quiet game. Poor old father, he got into a temper, but bless you ’twasn’t my fault. It’s that old ass, Dunning, that’s always getting in everybody’s way.”
“Of course he would like you best, Gervase,—but Dunning knows all his ways. Your game might be better fun——”
“I should think so,” said the poor Softy. “My gameisthe game, and Dunning spoils everything. It ain’t my fault, though every one of you gets into a wax with me,”—Gervase’s lip quivered a little as if he might have cried,—“and me giving up everything only to please them!” he said.
“I am sure they are pleased to see you always indoors and not spending your time in that dreadful place.”
“What dreadful place? That is all you know—I’d never have come home any more but for them that’s there. It wasshethat sent me to please the old folks. But I shan’t go on much longer if you all treat me like this. I’ve tried my best to make the time pass for them, Meg, to give them a laugh and that. And they huff me and cuff me as if I was a fool. Why do they always call me a fool,” cried the poor fellow with a passing cloud of trouble, “whatever I do?”
“Oh, Gervase!” cried Margaret, full of pity. “But why did she want you so particularly to please them just now?”
He stared at her for a moment, then laughed and nodded his head. “You’d just like to know!” he said, “but she didn’t mean me to be nice toyou, Meg; for she’s always afraid I’ll be driven to marry you—though a man must not marry his grandmother, you know.”
Margaret repented in a moment of the flush of anger that flew over her. “You can make her mind easy on that point,” she said gravely; “but oh, Gervase, I am afraid it will make them very unhappy if you go on with this fancy; they would never let you bring her here.”
“Fancy!” he cried, “I’m going to marry her. You can’t call that a fancy; and if you think you can put me off it, or the whole world!—Get along Meg,Idon’t want to talk to you any more.”
“But I want very much to talk to you, Gervase.”
Gervase looked at her with a smile of foolish complacency. “I dare say you think me silly,” he cried, “but here’s two of you after me. Get along, Meg; whatever I do I’m not going to take your way.”
“You must do as you please, then,” said Margaret in despair; “but remember, Gervase,” she said, turning back before she reached the door, “your father is old, and you might drive him into a fit if you go on as you did to-night—and where would you be then?” she added, with an appeal to the better feeling in which she still believed.
“Why, I’d be in his place, and she’d be my lady,” cried the young man, with a gleam of cruel cunning, “and nobody could stop me any more, whatever I liked to do.”
But next evening there seemed to be in his mind some lingering regard for what she had said. Gervase left his father alone, and devoted himself to his mother, who was more able to take care of herself. He offered to wind her silks, and entangled them hopelessly with delighted peals of laughter. He took her scissors to snip off the ends for her, and put the sharp points through the canvas, until Lady Piercey, in her exasperation, gave him a sudden cuff on his cheek.
“You great fool!” she cried—“you malicious wretch! Do you want to spoil my work as well as everything else? I wish you were little enough to be whipped, I do; and I wish I had whipped you when you were little, when it might have done you some good. Margaret, what do you mean sitting quiet there, enjoying yourself with a book and me driven out of my senses? That’s what he wants to do, I believe—to drive us mad and get his own way; to make us crazy, both his poor father and me.”
“No, I don’t,” cried Gervase, “and you oughtn’t to hit me—I’ll hit back again if you do it again. It hurts—you’ve got a fist like a butcher, though you’re such an old lady.” He rubbed his cheek for a moment dolefully, and then again burst out laughing. “You look like old Judy in the show, mamma, when she hits her baby: only you’re so fat you could never get into it, and your voice is gruff like the old showman’s—not squeaky, like Mrs. Punch. I’ve cut all the silks into nice lengths for you to work with—ain’t you obliged to me? Look here,” he said, holding out his work. Poor Lady Piercey clapped her fat hands together loudly in sheer incapacity of expression. It made a loud report like a gun fired off to relieve her feelings, and Sir Giles looked up from his quiet game with Dunning, not without a subdued amusement that she should now be getting her share.
“What’s the matter, what’s the matter, my lady? Is that cub of yours playing some of his pranks? It’s your turn to-night, it appears, and serves you right, for you always back him up.”
“Oh, you fool, you fool, you fool!” cried the old lady in her passion. And then she turned her fiery eyes on her husband with a look of contempt and fury too great for words. “Meg!” she cried, putting out her hand across the table and grasping Mrs. Osborne’s arm, “If you’re ever driven wild like me, never you look for sympathy to a man! when they see you nearly mad with trouble they give you a look, and chuckle! that’s what they always do. Put down the scissors, you, you, you——”
“Oh, and to think,” she cried wildly, “that that’s my only son! Oh, Giles, how can you play your silly games, and sit and see him—the only one we have between us, and he’s a born fool! And me, that was so thankful to see him stay at home, and give up going out to his low company! And now I can’t abide him. I can’t abide to see him here!”
This happened on the night when Patty, frightened and dejected, shut herself up in the room which she had meant for her bridal bower, and cried her eyes out because of Gervase’s absence. The poor Softy was thus of as much importance as any hero, turning houses and hearts upside down.
A wholeweek, and nothing had been seen or heard of Gervase at the Seven Thorns. Even old Hewitt remarked it, with a taunt to his daughter. “Where’s your Softy, that was never out of the house, Miss Patty, eh? Don’t seem to be always about at your apron string, my lass, as you thought you was to keep him there. Them gentlemen,” said old Hewitt, “as I’ve told you, Softy or not, they takes their own way, and there’s no trust to be put in them. He’s found some one else as he likes better, or maybe you’ve given him the sack, Patty, eh? And that’s a pity, for he was a good customer,” the landlord said.
“Whether I’ve given him the sack or he’s found some one he likes better, don’t matter much to any one as I can see. I’ll go to my work, father, if you’ve got nothing more sensible than that to say.”
“Sensible or not, he’s gone, and a good riddance,” said her father. “I ain’t a fine Miss, thick with the rector and the gentry, like you; but I declare, to see that gaby laughing and gaping at the other side of the table, turned me sick, it did. And I hopes as we’ll see no more of him, nor none of his kind. If you will have a sweetheart, there’s plenty of good fellows about, ’stead of a fool like that.”
Patty did not stamp her foot as she would have liked to do, or throw out her arms, or scream with rage and disappointment. She went on knocking her broom into all the corners, taking it out more or less in that way, and tingling from the bunch of hair fashionably dressed on the top of her head, to the toe of her high-heeled shoes, with suppressed passion. She would not make an exhibition of herself. She would not give Ellen, the maid-servant, closely observing her through the open door of the back kitchen, nor Bob, the ostler, who had also heard every word old Hewitt said as he bustled about with his pail outside the house, any occasion of remark or of triumph over her as a maiden forsaken, whose love had ridden away. They were all on the very tiptoe of expectation, having already made many comments to each other on the subject. “You’re all alike—every one of you,” Ellen had said to Bob. “You’d go and forsake me just the same, if you saw some one as you liked better.” “It’ll be a long day afore I do that,” said the gallant ostler, preserving, however, the privilege of his sex. They were all ready to throw the responsibility of attraction upon the woman. It was more to her credit to keep her hold on the man by being always delightful to him than by any bond of faithfulness on his part. Patty felt this to the bottom of her heart. It was not so much that she blamed her Softy. She blamed herself bitterly, and felt humiliated and ashamed that she had not been able to hold him; that he had found anything he liked better than her society. She swept out every corner, banging her broom as if she were punishing the unknown rivals who had seduced him away from her, and felt, for all her pride, as if she never could hold up her head again before the parish, which would thus know that she had miscalculated her powers. Roger Pearson knew it already, and triumphed. And then Aunt Patience—but that was the most dreadful of all.
Even old Hewitt himself, the landlord of the Seven Thorns, was a little disappointed, if truth were told. He had liked to say to the fathers of the village, “I can’t get that young Piercey out o’ my house. Morning, noon, and night that young fellow is about. And I can’t kick him out, ye see, old Sir Giles bein’ the Lord o’ the Manor.” “I’d kick him out fast enough,” the blacksmith had replied, who never had any chance that way, “if he come sneakin’ after my gell.” “Oh, as for that, my Patty is one that can take care of herself,” it had been Mr. Hewitt’s boast to say. And when he was congratulated ironically by the party in the parlour with a “Hallo, Hewitt! you’ve been and got shut of your Softy,” the landlord did not like it. Softy as Gervase was, to have got him thus fast in the web, old Sir Giles’ only son, was a kind of triumph to the house.
In the afternoon, however, Patty resolved to take a walk. It was an indulgence which she permitted to herself periodically—that her best things and her hat with the roses, her light gloves and her parasol might not spoil for want of use. She put on all this finery, however, with a sinking at her heart. The last time she had worn them she had been all in a thrill with excitement, bent upon the boldest step she had ever taken in her life. And the high tension of her nerves and passion of her mind had been increased by the unexpected colloquy with Lady Piercey at the carriage-door. But that was a day of triumph all along the line. She had baffled the old lady, and she had roused her own aunt to a fierce enthusiasm of interest, which had reacted upon herself and increased her determination, and the fervour of her own. When she had walked back that evening with the fifty pounds, she had felt herself already my lady, uplifted to a pinnacle of grandeur from which no fathers or mothers could bring her down. But now! Gervase himself had not seemed a very important part of that triumph a little while ago. He had been a chattel of hers, a piece of property as much her own as her parasol. And if he had emancipated himself, if he had escaped out of her net, if his mother had obtained the mastery of him, or sent him away, Patty felt as if she must die of rage and humiliation. To take back that fifty pounds to Aunt Patience and allow that the use she had got it for was no longer possible; to submit to be asked on all sides, by Roger in triumph, by everybody else in scorn, what had become of him? was more than she could bear. She would rather run away and go to service in London. She would rather—— there was nothing in the world that Patty did not feel herself capable of doing rather than bear the brunt of this disappointment and shame.
It must be added that the value of Gervase individually was enormously enhanced by this period of doubt and alarm. The prize that is on the point of being lost is very different from that which falls naturally, easily into your hands. Patty thought of the Softy no longer as if he were a piece of still life; no more—indeed, not so much—a part of the proceedings which were to end eventually in making her my lady as the marriage-licence which would cost such a deal of money. All that was changed now. Poor fellow! he who had never been of much importance to anybody had become of the very greatest consequence now. She would never, never be my lady at all, unless he took a principal part in it—the great fool, the goose, the gaby! But though her feelings broke out once or twice in a string of such reproaches under her breath, Gervase was too important a factor now to be thought of or addressed by contemptuous epithets. He could spoil it all; he could make all her preparations useless. He could shame her in the eyes of Aunt Patience, and even before the whole of her little world, although nobody knew how far things had gone. Therefore it was with an anxious heart that Patty made a turn round by the outskirts of the village as if she were going to pay a visit to her Aunt Patience—the last place in the world where she desired to go—and then directed her steps towards the Manor, meaning to make a wide round past the iron gate and the beech-tree avenue, which were visible to any passenger walking across the downs. She gave a long look, as she passed, at the great house, with all its windows twinkling in the afternoon sun, and the two long processions of trees on either side. Her heart rose to her mouth at the thought that all this might, yet might never, be her own. Might be! it had seemed certain a week ago; and yet might never be if that fool—oh, that imbecile, that ridiculous, vacant, gaping Softy—should take it into his foolish head to draw back now.
The road lay close under the wall of the park beyond the iron gate. Patty had got so anxious, so terrified, so horribly convinced that her chances of meeting him were small, and that, except in an accidental way, she could not hope to lay hands on him again, that her stout heart almost failed her as she went on. It was a very warm day, and she was flushed and heated with her walk, as well as with the suspense and alarm of which her mind was full, so that she was aware she was not looking her best, when suddenly, without warning, she came full upon him round the corner, almost striking him with her outstretched parasol in the suddenness of the encounter. Gervase did not see her at all. He was coming on with his head bent, his under-lip hanging, his hands in his pockets, busy with his old game—six white ones all in a heap. What a jump for the right-hand man! and hallo, hallo! a little brown fellow slipping along on the other side, driven by somebody’s foot! He made a mental note of that before looking to see who the somebody was, which was of so much less importance. And then Patty’s little cry of surprise and “Oh! Mr. Gervase!” went through him like a shot at his ear. He gave a shout like the inarticulate delight of a dog, and flew towards her as if he had been Dash or Rover, roused by the ecstatic sound of their master’s voice.
“Patty! Lord, to think of you being here! and me, that hasn’t had a peep of you for a whole week. Patty! Oh, come now, I can’t help it. I’m so happy, I could eat you up. Patty, Patty!” cried the poor fellow, patting her on the shoulder, looking into her face with his dull eyes suddenly inspired, “you’re sure it’s you!”
“And a deal you care whether it’s me or not, Mr. Gervase,” cried Patty, tossing her head. But in that moment Patty had become herself again. Her anxiety was over, her bosom’s lord sat lightly on his throne. The fifty pounds in the little bag no longer felt like a blister. She was the mistress of the situation, and all her troubled thoughts flew before the wind as if they had never been.
“A deal I care? Oh, I do care a deal, Patty, if you only knew! Never you do it again—to make me stay away like this. I’ve made a mull of it, as I knew I should, without you to back me up. Father turns his back on me. He won’t say a word. And even mother, that was always my stand-by, she says she can’t abide to see me there.”
Again Gervase looked as if he would cry; but brightening up suddenly, “I don’t mind a bit as long as I can see you, and you’ll tell me what to do.”
“Well,” said Patty, “I could perhaps tell you if I knew what you wanted to do. But I can’t stand still here, for I’ve come out for a walk, and if you wish to speak to me you must come along with me. I’m going as far as Carter’s Wells, and the afternoon’s wearing on.”
“Oh!” said Gervase, discomfited, “you’re going as far as Carter’s Wells? I thought—I supposed—or I wanted to think, Patty—as you were coming to look for me!”
“What should I do that for, Mr. Gervase?” said Patty, demurely.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the poor Softy. “I just thought so. You might have had something you wanted to tell me, or—to say I might come back, or——”
“What should I have to tell you, Mr. Gervase?”
He looked piteously at her, all astray, and took off his cap, and pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m sure I don’t know; and yet there was something that I wanted badly to hear. Patty, don’t you make a fool of me like all the rest! If I don’t know what it is, having such a dreadful memory, you do.”
“It’s a wonder as you remembered me at all, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty, giving him a little sting in passing.
“You! I’d never forget you if I lived to be a hundred. I’d forget myself sooner, far sooner, than I’d forget you.”
“But it’s a long time since you’ve seen me, and you’ve forgotten all you wanted of me,” Patty said, with a sharp tone of curiosity in her voice.
“No, I don’t forget; I do know what I want—I want to marry you, Patty. I’ve been obeying all your orders, and trying to please the old folks for nothing but that. But it don’t seem to succeed, somehow,” he said, shaking his head; “somehow it don’t seem to succeed.”
“They will never give their consent to that, Mr. Gervase!”
“No?” he said, doubtfully. “Well, of course you must be right, Patty. They don’t seem to like it when I tell them it’s because of you I’m trying to please them and staying like this at home.”
“You should never have said that,” she cried quickly; “you should have made them think it was all because you were so fond of them, and liked best being at home.”
“But it would be a lie,” said Gervase, simply, “and mother’s awful sharp; she always finds out when you tell her a crammer. Say I may come to-night; do now, Patty,—I can’t bear it any more.”
“But you must bear it, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty; “that is, if you really, really, wantthatto come true.”
“What’s that, Patty?” cried the young man.
“Oh, you——!”—it was only a breath, and ended in nothing. Patty saw that mincing matters was of no use. “I mean about us being married,” she said, turning her head away.
“If I want it!” he cried, “when you know there is nothing in the world I want but that. Nobody would ever put upon me if I had only you to stand by me, Patty. Tell me what I am to do.”
She unfolded her scheme to him after this with little hesitation. He was to continue his attendance at home for a little longer, and to propound to his parents his desire to go to London and see the fine sights there. It took Patty a considerable time to put all this into her lover’s head—what he was to say, which she repeated over to him several times; and what he was to do afterwards, and the extreme importance of not forgetting, of never mentioning her nor the Seven Thorns, nor anything that could recall her to their minds. He was to say that the country was dull (“And so it is—especially at home, and when I can’t see you,” said Gervase), and that he had never seen London since he was a child, and it was a shame he never was trusted to go anywhere or see anything. (“And so it is a great shame.”) When all this was well grafted into his mind, or, at least Patty hoped so, she announced that she had changed her intention and would go no more to Carter’s Wells, but straight home to complete her preparations. And he was allowed to accompany her back almost as far as the high road, then dismissed to return home another way. Patty did not say that she was afraid of meeting Lady Piercey’s carriage; but this was in her mind as she proceeded towards the Seven Thorns, with her head and her parasol high, like an army with banners, not at all afraid now, rather wishing for that encounter. It did take place according to her prevision when she was almost in sight of the group of stunted and aged trees which gave their name to her father’s house. Why Lady Piercey should be passing that way, she herself, perhaps, could scarcely have told. She wanted, it might be, with that attraction of dislike which is as strong as love, to see again the girl who had so much power over Gervase, and of whom he said in his fatuous way, that it was she who was the occasion of his present home-keeping mood; or she wanted, as the angry and suspicious mind always hopes to do, to “catch” Patty and be able to report some flirtation or malicious anecdote of her in the hearing of Gervase. The old lady had strained her neck looking back at the Seven Thorns, which lay all vacant in the westering sunshine, the door open and void, nobody on the outside bench, nobody at the window—a perfectly harmless uninteresting house, piquing the curiosity more than if there had been people about. “I declare, Meg,” Lady Piercey was saying, “that horrid house gets emptier and poorer every day. The man must be going all to ruin, with not so much as a tramp to call for a glass of beer; and serves him right, to bring up that daughter as he has, all show and finery, and good for nothing about such a place.” “The Rector has a great opinion of her,” said Margaret; “they say she is so active and such a good manager.” “Oh! stuff and nonsense,” cried Lady Piercey, “you saw her with your own eyes in light gloves and a parasol, trailing her gown along the road; a girl out of a beershop, a girl——” But here Lady Piercey stopped short with a gasp, for close to the side of the carriage, and almost within hearing, was the same resplendent figure; the hat nodding with its roses; the gown a little too long, and trailing, as was the absurd fashion of that time; the light gloves firmly grasping the parasol, which was held high like an ensign, leaving the girl’s determined and triumphant face fully visible. Patty marched past, giving but one glance to the inmates of the carriage, her colour high and her attitude martial; while the great lady almost fell back upon her cushions, overwhelmed with the suddenness of the encounter. Fortunately Lady Piercey did not see the tremendous nudge which John on the box gave to the coachman. She was too much moved by this startling incident to note any other demonstration of feeling.
“Did you see that?” she asked in a low tone, almost with awe, when that apparition had passed.
“Yes—I saw her. She is too fine for her station, but Aunt——”
“Don’t put any of your buts to me, Meg! Do you think she could hear what we were saying? The bold, brazen creature! passing me by without a bend of her knee, as if she were as good as we are. What is this world coming to when a girl bred up in my own school, in my own parish, that has dropped curtseys to me since ever she was a baby, should dare to pass me by like that?” Lady Piercey, who had grown very red in sudden passion, now grew pale with horror at a state of affairs so terrible. “She looked as if she felt herself the lady, and us nobodies. Meg! do you think Gervase has it in him to marry that girl, and give her my name when your uncle dies! If I thought that, I think it would kill me! at least,” she cried, sitting up with fire in her watery eyes—“it would put me on my mettle, and I’d mince matters no more, but get the doctor’s advice and lock him up.”
“My uncle would never consent to that.”
“Your uncle—— would just do what I wish. There’s not many things he’s ever crossed me in; and all he has have turned out badly. If I could make up my mind to it, it wouldn’t be your uncle that would stop me. I have a great mind to send for the doctor to-night.”
“But Aunt, is it not more likely they have quarrelled,” said Margaret, “since he has been staying at home so faithfully, and never been absent day or night?”
“Do you think that’s it, Meg? or do you think it’s only policy to throw dust in our eyes? Oh, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. Oh, Meg, that I should say it! I feel as if I’d rather he should go out even to that horrible Seven Thorns, than drive us all frantic with staying at home. If he goes on like that another night, I don’t think I can bear it. Oh, it’s all very well for you, sitting patient and smiling! If you were to see your only child sitting there like an idiot, and showing the very page-boy what a fool he is, and gabbling and grinning till you can hardly endure yourself, I wonder—I wonder what you’d say.”
Gervasewent home still with his head bent, but no longer thinking of the white pebbles and the brown. It is true that his accustomed eye caught a big one here and there, which had rolled to the side of the path, and which he felt with regret would have come in so finely for the right or the left-hand man! but his mind was fixed on hisconsigne, and he was saying to himself over and over the words Patty had taught him—that he wanted to go to see London, and all the fine things there; that he was tired (mortal tired) of staying always at home; that it was a shame he never was trusted nor allowed to do anything (and so it was a shame). He could not even think of the pleasure of going to London, of meeting Patty at the station, and all that was to follow, so absorbed were his thoughts with what he had to say in the meantime. And it would not have been surprising had Gervase been overwhelmed by the thought of making such a wild suggestion to his parents, who had kept him hitherto like a child under their constant supervision. But his simple mind was not troubled by any such reflection as this. Patty had told him what to say, and no feeling of the impossibility of the thing, or of the strange departure in it from all the rules which had guided his life, affected him. If it did not succeed, all he had to do was to tell her, and she would think of something else. Better heads than that of poor Gervase have found this a great relief among the problems of life. As for him, he was not aware of any problems; he had a thing to say, and the trouble was lest he should forget it or say it wrong. To think of anything further was not his share of the business. He, too, met his mother just as she returned from her drive, so that he had taken a considerable time to that exercise, walking up and down the path that led under the wall of the park, conning his lesson. An impulse came upon him to say it off then and there, and so free his mind from the responsibility; but he remembered in time that Patty had said it was to be kept till after dinner, when his father and mother were both present. He was rather frightened, however, when the carriage suddenly drove up, and he was called to the door. “Hallo! mamma,” he said, striding over a gorse bush that was in his way. Lady Piercey had jumped at the conclusion, as soon as she saw him, that there had been a meeting, as she said, “between those two.” She called out quickly to take him by surprise, “Hi! Gervase! have you met anybody on the road?”
Now, Gervase was not clever, as the reader knows; but just because he was a Softy, and his brains different from other people’s, he was better qualified to deal with such a question than a more intelligent youth might have been. “Met anybody on the road?” he said, gazing with his dull eyes and open mouth. “But I’ve not been on the road; I’ve only been up and down here.”
“Oh, you——! but here is just the same as the road. Who have you been talking to?” the mother cried.
“There was the man with the donkey from Carter’s Wells,” said Gervase; “but I never said a word to him, nor he didn’t to me.”
“Was that the only person you saw? Tell me the truth,” said Lady Piercey severely. Gervase put his head on one side, and seemed to reflect.
“If I’m to tell the dead truth,” he said, “but I don’t want to, mother, for you’ll scold like old boots——”
“Tell me this instant!” cried Lady Piercey, red already with the rage that was ready to burst forth.
“Well, then, there just was—the ratcatcher with his pockets full of ferrets coming up from——”
“Home!” cried the lady, more angry than words could say. “Oh, you fool!” she said, shaking her fist at her son, who stood laughing, his moist lips glistening—no very pleasant sight for a mother’s eye.
“I thought I was to tell you the truth,” he cried after them, as the carriage whirled away.
“Do you think it was the truth, Meg?” Lady Piercey demanded, in a gasp, when they had swept into the avenue. A feeling of relief came as her anger quieted down.
“Dear Aunt—do you think he could invent so quickly, without any time to prepare?”
“You mean he couldn’t because he’s not clever? Heaven knows! They’re as deep as the deep sea, and as cunning as——. But that ratcatcher is a man I will not have hanging, with those beasts in his pockets, about my house.”
The ratcatcher gave occasion for a good deal of talk that afternoon, both in Gervase’s presence and out of it; and by good luck he had been about, and Lady Piercey gave her orders as to his expulsion from the premises, whenever he should appear, with real satisfaction. “He’s not company for Gervase, and that every one knows,” she said at the dinner table, when old Sir Giles ventured to remonstrate on behalf of the ferrets and their owner.
“Mother always says that when it’s any fellow I like to have a chat with,” Gervase said.
“There’s no harm in old Jerry,” said Sir Giles. “A man shouldn’t be too squeamish, my lady. A good-natured word here and there is what’s wanted of a country squire.”
“But not taking pleasure in low company,” retorted Lady Piercey. “And I tell you again, I won’t have that old wretch and his beasts about my house.”
“But father knows it’s rare fun sometimes, ain’t it, father?” said the young man, kicking the old gentleman under the table. Fortunately, the kick touched only Sir Giles’ stick, and he was not displeased to take Gervase’s part for once against his wife.
“Hush, you young ass, can’t you? We don’t speak of these things before ladies,” he said.
This little confidential aside put Sir Giles in good humour. But when the family retired into the library, which was done by no means in the usual order—for Sir Giles himself in his chair, wheeled by Dunning, led the way—it was evident that an uneasy alarm in respect to Gervase was the leading sentiment in everybody’s mind. Sir Giles announced loudly that it was Dunning, and only Dunning, who should play with him to-night. “I’ve got to give the fellow his revenge,” he said. “I beat him black and blue last night. Eh, Dunning, didn’t I beat you black and blue? You’re not a bad player, but not just up to my strength.”
“No, Sir Giles,” answered the man, setting the table in haste, and keeping carefully between it and the heir of the house. Lady Piercey, on her side, employed Parsons and Margaret, both of whom were in attendance, in covering up all her silks. “Put them in the basket,” she said, “and take out one as I want it. That’s always the best way.” Thus defended, the parents kept a furtive watch upon the movements of their son, but with less alarm than before, while Lady Piercey kept on a running exhortation to Mrs. Osborne in an undertone. “Meg! get him to play something. Meg! why don’t you take him in hand! Meg! the boy’s sure to get into mischief for want of something to do.”
“Should you like a game of cribbage, Gervase?” said poor Margaret, unable to resist the urgency of this appeal.
“Cribbage is the old-fashionedest game; they don’t play it anywhere—even in the publics,” said Gervase. He had put himself in the favourite attitude of Englishmen, with his back to the fireplace; his coat-tails gathered over his arms in faithful adherence to custom, though the cause for any such unseemly custom was not there.
“Or bézique?” said Margaret; “or perhaps you’ll sing a song, Gervase, if I play it. Your mother would like to hear you sing: you haven’t sung her a song for years.”
“Do, Gervase, there’s a dear,” said Lady Piercey. “You used to sing ‘The north winds do blow, and we shall have snow,’ so pretty when you were quite a little thing.”
“I ain’t a little thing now, and I’m not going to sing,” said Gervase loudly. “I’m going to say something to father and mother. You can go away, Meg, if you don’t want to hear.”
“What is it?” cried Lady Piercey, sitting up more bolt-upright than usual, and taking off her spectacles to see him the better, and to cow him with the blaze of her angry eyes.
“This is what it is,” said Gervase. “It’s mortal dull at home, now that I’ve turned over a new leaf and don’t go out anywhere at night; and a fellow of my age wants a little diversion, and I can’t go on sitting in your pocket, mother, nor playing father’s game every night—and he don’t like losing, neither, and no more don’t I.”
This preamble was quite new, struck off out of his own head from Patty’s text. It was with a great elation and rising self-confidence that Gervase found it so. Perhaps they’d find out that he was not such a fool as he looked—once he had got free.
“Eh! what’s the lad saying? That’s true enough—that’s true enough,” Sir Giles said.
“Oh, hold your tongue, papa! You don’t know what he’s aiming at,” Lady Piercey said.
“And I’ve never seen a thing, nor gone any-place,” said Gervase. “Its d—— d hard upon me—it’s devilish hard. Oh,” he cried, “I can speak up when I like! It’s that dull nobody would stand it (and so it is).” He added his old parentheses, though he had dropped the original theme. “I mustn’t talk a moment with any person, but mother’s down upon me—even Jerry, the ratcatcher, that every one knows.”
“That’s true, my boy,” cried Sir Giles, “your mother’s too hard on you; that’s quite true.”
“Wait, you fool, till you know what he’s aiming at,” cried Lady Piercey, with her eyes on fire.
“And I can’t play your game, father, nor take you for a walk, but there’s a fright all round as if I was going to kill you; and old Dunning after me, looking like a stuck pig.”
Here was a chance for Lady Piercey to approve, too, at her husband’s expense; but she was magnanimous, and did not take it. “You’re well meaning enough, Gervase,” she said, “I don’t deny it; but you’re too strong, and you shake poor papa to bits.”
“Well, then,” said Gervase, raising his voice to talk her down, “it’s clear as there is nothing here for me to do; and it’s dreadful dull. Enough to kill a man of my age; and the short and the long of it is that I can’t go on like this any more.”
He had quite thrown Patty’s carefully prepared speech away, and yet it came breathing over him by turns, checking his natural eloquence. She had never meant him to utter that outcry of impatience, and Gervase would have ruined his own cause, and gone on to say, “I am going to be married,” but for the questions that were suddenly showered upon him, driving him back upon his lesson.
“You can’t go on like this? And how are you going on?” cried his mother. “Everything a man can desire, and the best home in England, and considered in every way!” She went on speaking, but her voice was crossed by old Sir Giles’ growl. “What do you want—what do you want?” cried the old man. “Dunning, be off to your supper, and take that woman with you. What do you want—what do you want, you young fool?”
“But I know what you want,” Lady Piercey cried, becoming audible at the end of this interruption; “you want what you shall never have as long as I live, unless it’s somebody of my choosing, and not of yours.”
“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Gervase, the moisture flying from his mouth; “I want to have a—— I want to get—— I want P——.” Then that long-conned speech of Patty’s flew suddenly, like a cobweb, into his mind, and stopped him on the edge of the abyss. He stopped and stared at them for a moment, his eyes roaming round the room, and then he burst into a loud laugh. “I want to go to London,” he said, “and see all the fine things there. I don’t know what mother’s got in her head—some of her whimseys—I’ve never been let go anywhere or do anything, and I want to go to London to look about and see all the grand things there.”
“To London?” said Sir Giles with surprise. Lady Piercey had been wound up to too great a pitch to go easily down again. She opened her mouth with a gasp like a fish, but no sound came therefrom.
“I’ve never been let go anywhere,” said Gervase, “and up and down from the Manor to the village ain’t enough. I want to go to London and see the fine sights there; I want to see the Queen and all that; I want to see a bit of life. There never was a gentleman like me that was kept so close and never let go to see anything. I’ve not been in London since I was a little kid, and it is a shame that I am never trusted (so it is), and it’s mortal dull here, especially at home, and not seeing anything; and I want to go to London and see a bit of life, and not be buried alive here.”
“My lady,” said Sir Giles, after the pause of awe which followed this long, consequent, and coherent speech, “there’s reason in what the lad says.”
“There’s something underneath,” cried Lady Piercey, “a deal more than what he says.”
“Mother always thinks that,” cried Gervase, with his big laugh; and there could not be any question that what he said was true.
“There’s some plan underneath it all,” repeated Lady Piercey, striking her hand on the table. “He hasn’t the sense to make up a thing like that, that has reason in it; there’s some deep-laid plan underneath it all.”
“Pooh, my lady! Poor lad!” said Sir Giles, shaking his head; “he hasn’t the sense to make up a plan at all. He just says what comes into his head, and what he says has reason in it, and more than that, I’m glad to hear him say it. And it gives me a bit of hope,” said poor old Sir Giles, his voice shaking a little, “that when he comes fully to man’s estate, the boy, poor lad, will be more like other boys, Mary Ann, God bless him! and, perhaps, for so little as we think it, a real comfort to you and me.”
The old gentleman leaned back in his chair, and raised with a feeble hand his handkerchief to his eyes. It was not difficult nowadays to make Sir Giles cry. The fierce old lady had no such emotion to subdue. She sat very upright, staring at her son, suspicious, thinking she saw behind him the pert little defiant countenance under the parasol which she had met on the road. But she did not see how they could have met or communicated with each other, and she could not, on the spur of the moment, make out what connection there could be between his desire to go to London, and Patty of the Seven Thorns. Margaret stood behind her uncle’s chair, patting him softly on the shoulder to soothe him and assure him of sympathy. She looked over Sir Giles’ head at the boy who, he was able to flatter himself, might be like other boys when he came to man’s estate. How strangely can love and weakness be deceived! Gervase stood there against the mantelpiece, his foot caught up awkwardly in his hand, his slouching shoulders supported against the shelf, his big, loose bulk filling the place. Man’s estate! The poor Softy was eight-and-twenty and well grown, though he slouched and distorted himself. But still the father, and even the suspicious, less-persuadable mother, saw in him a boy, not beyond the season of growth—never beyond that of hope.
Fortunately for Gervase, he had not time to go on in his flush of triumph and success, for another moment of that elation might have broken down all precautions and betrayed the plan which his mother felt, but could not divine, underneath. In the meantime, however, it was bedtime, and neither Sir Giles nor my lady could bear any more. Lady Piercey sent off Parsons, and discussed the question with her niece in her bedroom for a full hour after. “There’s something underneath, I know there is,” Lady Piercey said, nodding her head in her big nightcap. “But I don’t see what she can have to do with it, for she would never want to send him away. And then, on the other hand, Meg, it would be the best thing in the world to send him away. There’s nothing like absence for blowing a thing like that out of a boy’s head. If there was a man we could trust to go with him,—but all alone, by himself, in a big place like London, and among so many temptations! Oh, Meg, Meg, I wish I knew what was the right thing to do!”
“He is very innocent, Aunt; he would not understand the temptation,” said Margaret.
“Oh, I’m not of that opinion at all,” cried Lady Piercey. “A man always understands that, however silly he may be; and sometimes, the sillier he is, the more he understands. But one nail knocks out another,” she added thoughtfully. Though Lady Piercey was not a woman of the world, but only a very rustic person, she was yet cynic enough for the remorseless calculation that a little backsliding, of which so many people were guilty, would be better than a dreadful marriage which would bring down the family, and corrupt the very race—which was her point of view.
Gervase roamed about the house in high excitement, immensely pleased with himself, while this colloquy was going on. Had he met even Dunning or Parsons, whom he did not love, the possibility was that he might have revealed his meaning to them in sheer elation of spirits. But neither of these persons came in his way, and in this early household most of the other servants were already in bed. Margaret, however, met him as usual when she came out of Lady Piercey’s room with her candle in her hand.
“What’s she been saying to you, Meg?” he asked, but burst out laughing before she could reply. “It’s such a joke,” he said, holding his sides, “such a joke, if you only knew! and I’ve half a mind to tell you, Meg, for you’re a good sort.”
“Don’t tell me anything, Gervase, for Heaven’s sake, that I can’t tell them. For, of course, I shall do so directly,” Margaret cried.
“Wouldn’t you just like to know?” he said, and laughed again, and chucked her under the chin in convulsions of hilarity. She stood at the door of the room, escaping hastily from the possible confidence and the familiarity, and, trembling, saw him slide down the banisters to the half-lighted hall below, with a childish chuckle of triumph. A slip upon that swift descent, and all might have been over—the commotion and the exultation, the trouble and the fear. But Gervase came back again beaming, and kissed his hand to her as he disappeared into his own room. He felt that he had gained the day.