“It was yesterday. You might remember the day you were married, I think, without asking me,” said Patty, with spirit. “Well, then, you parted from her that day. She wasn’t ill then, was she, dear?”
Upon which Gervase laughed. “Mother’s always ill,” he said. “She has such health you never know when she’s well, or, at least, so she says. It’s in her head, or her liver, or her big toe. No!” he cried, with another great laugh, “it’s father as has the devil in his big toe.”
“Gervase, do be serious for a moment. Your mother has been very ill, dreadful bad, and we never knew——”
“I told you,” he said calmly, “she’s always bad; and you can never tell from one day to another, trust herself, when she mayn’t die.”
“Oh, Gervase,” cried Patty, holding his arm with both her hands: “you are fond of her a little bit, ain’t you, dear? She’s your mother, though she hasn’t been very nice to me.”
“Lord,” cried Gervase, “how she will jump when she knows that I’m here, and on my own hook, and have got a wife of my own! Mind, it is you that have got to tell her, and not me.”
“A wife that will always try to be a comfort to you,” said Patty. “Oh, my poor dear boy! Gervase, your poor mother (remember that I’m here to take care of you whatever happens),—Gervase, your mother will never need to be told. She’s dead and gone, poor lady, she’s dead and gone!”
Gervase stared at her, and again opened his mouth in a great laugh. “That’s one of your dashed stories,” he said.
“It isn’t a story at all, it’s quite true. She had a stroke that very day. Fancy, just the very day when we—— And we never heard a word. If we had heard I should have been the very first to bring you home.”
“What good would that have done?” Gervase said sullenly, “we were better where we were.”
“Not and her dying, and wanting her son.”
Gervase was cowed and troubled by the news, which gave him a shock which he could not understand. It made him sullen and difficult to manage. “You’re playing off one of your jokes upon me,” he said.
“I playing a joke! I’d have found something better than a funeral to joke about. Gervase, we have just come back in time. The funeral’s to-morrow, and oh! I’m so thankful we came home. I’m going to send for Sally Fletcher to make me up some nice deep mourning with crape, like a lady wears for her own mother.”
“She was no mother of yours,” said Gervase, with a frown.
“No; nor she didn’t behave like one: but being her son’s wife and one that is to succeed her, I must get my mourning deep; and you and me, we’ll go. We’ll walk next to Sir Giles, as chief mourners,” she said.
Gervase gave a lowering look at her, and then he turned away to the open window, to count as he had been doing before, but in changing tones, the white horses and the brown.
Pattysat up half the night with Sally Fletcher, arranging as rapidly and efficiently as possible her newmise en scène. To work all night at mourning was by no means a novel performance for Miss Fletcher, the lame girl who was the village dressmaker; and she felt herself amply repaid by the news, as yet almost unknown to the neighbours, of the Softy’s marriage and Patty’s new pretentions. It is true that it had a little leaked out in the evening symposium in Hewitt’s parlour; but what the men said when they came home from their dull, long booze was not received with that faith which ladies put in the utterances of the clubs. The wives of the village had always a conviction that the men had “heard wrong”—that it would turn out something quite different from the story told in the watches of the night, or dully recalled next day, confused by the fumes of last night’s beer. But Sally Fletcher knew that her tale would meet with full credence, and that her cottage next morning would be crowded with inquirers; so that her night’s work was not the matter of hardship it might have been supposed. She was comforted with cups of tea during the course of the night, and Patty spent at least half of it with her, helping on the work in a resplendent blue dressing-gown, which she had bought in London, trimmed with lace and ribbons, and dazzling to Sally’s eyes. The dressmaker had brought with her the entire stock of crape which was to be had in “the shop,” a material kept for emergencies, and not, it may be supposed, of the very freshest or finest—which Patty laid on with a liberal hand, covering with it the old black dress, which she decided would do in the urgency of the moment. It was still more difficult to plaster that panoply of mourning over the smart new cape, also purchased in town: but this, too, was finished, and a large hatband, as deep as his hat, procured for Gervase, before the air began to thrill with the tolling, lugubrious and long drawn out, of the village bells, which announced that the procession was within sight.
It was a great funeral. All the important people of that side of the county—or their carriages—were there. An hour before thecortègearrived, Sir Giles’ chair, an object of curiosity to all the village boys, was brought down to the gate of the churchyard, that he might follow his wife to the grave’s side. And a great excitement had arisen in the village itself. Under any circumstances, Lady Piercey’s funeral, the carriages and the flowers, and the mutes and the black horses, would have produced an impression; but that impression was increased now by the excitement of a very different kind which mingled with it. Patty Hewitt, of the Seven Thorns, now Mrs. Gervase Piercey, would be there; and there was not a house, from the Rectory downwards, in which the question was not discussed—what would happen? Would Patty receive the tacit recognition of being allowed to take her place along with her husband. Her husband! could he be anybody’s husband, the Softy? Would the marriage stand? Would Sir Giles allow it? The fact that it was Sir Giles gave the eager spectators their only doubt—or hope. Had it been Lady Piercey, she would never have allowed it. She would have thrown back the pretender from the very church-door. She would have rejected Patty, thrust her out of the way, seized her son, and dragged him from the girl who had entrapped him. At the very church-door! Everybody, from the rector down to the sexton’s wife, felt perfectly convinced of that.
But it would not be Lady Piercey she would have to deal with. Lady Piercey, though she filled so great a position in the ceremonial, would have nothing to say on the subject; and it was part of the irony of fate, felt by everybody, though none were sufficiently instructed to call it by that name, that she should be there, incapable of taking any share in what would have moved her so deeply—triumphed over in her coffin by the adversary with whom, living, she would have made such short work. There was something tragic about this situation which made the bystanders hold their breath. And no one knew what Patty was about to do. That she would claim her share in the celebration, and, somehow, manage to take a part in it, no one doubted; but how she was to accomplish this was the exciting uncertainty that filled all minds. It troubled the rector as he put on his surplice to meet the silent new-comer, approaching with even more pomp than was her wont the familiar doors of her parish church. There was not much more sentiment than is inseparable from that last solemnity in the minds of her neighbours towards Lady Piercey. She had not been without kindness of a practical kind. Doles had been made and presents given in the conventional way without any failure; but nobody had loved the grim old lady. There was nothing, therefore, to take off the interest in the other more exciting crisis.
“Rattle her bonesOver the stones,She’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.”
“Rattle her bonesOver the stones,She’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.”
“Rattle her bonesOver the stones,She’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.”
Far from a pauper was the Lady Piercey of Greyshott; but the effect was the same. There are many equalising circumstances in death.
It was imposing to witness the black procession coming slowly along the sunshiny road. Old Miss Hewitt from Rose Cottage came out to view it, taking up a conspicuous position on the churchyard wall. So far from wearing decorous black in reverence of the funeral, Miss Hewitt was dressed in all that was most remarkable in her wardrobe in the way of colour. She wore a green dress; she had a large Paisley shawl of many colours—an article with which the present generation is virtually unacquainted—on her shoulders, and her bonnet was trimmed with gold lace and flowers. She had a conviction that Sir Giles would see her, and that he would perceive the difference between her still handsome face, and unbroken height and carriage, and the old ugly wife whom he was burying—poor old Sir Giles, entirely broken down by weakness and the breach of all his habits and ways, as well as by the feeling, not very elevated perhaps, but grievous enough, of loss, in one who had managed everything for him, and taken all trouble from his shoulders! There might be some emotion deeper still in the poor old gentleman’s mind; but these at least were there, enough to make his dull eyes, always moist with slow-coming tears, quite incapable of the vision or contrast in which that fierce old woman hoped.
The interest of the moment concentrated round the lych-gate, where a great deal was to take place. Already conspicuous among the crowd assembled there to meet the funeral were two figures, the chief of whom was veiled from head to foot in crape, and leant upon the arm of her husband heavily, as if overcome with grief. Patty had a deep crape veil, behind which was visible a white handkerchief often pressed to her eyes, and in the other hand, a large wreath. Gervase stood beside her, in black clothes to be sure, and with a deep hatband covering his hat, but with no such monumental aspect of woe. His light and wandering eyes strayed over the scene, arresting themselves upon nothing, not even on the approaching procession. Sometimes Patty almost bent him down on the side on which she leant, by a new access of grief. Her shoulders heaved, her sobs were audible, when the head of the doleful procession arrived. She moved her husband forward to lay the wreath upon the coffin and then lifting her great veil for a moment looked on with an air of agonising anxiety, while Sir Giles was lifted out of the carriage and placed in his chair, with little starts of anxious feeling as if he were being touched roughly by the attendants, and she could scarcely restrain herself from taking him out of their hands. It was a pity that poor old Sir Giles, entirely absorbed in his own sensations, did not observe this at all, any more than he observed the airs of Miss Hewitt equally intended for his notice. But when Sir Giles had been placed in his chair, Patty recovering her energy in a moment, dragged her husband forward and dexterously slid and pushed him immediately behind his father’s chair, coming sharply in contact as she did so with Colonel Piercey, who was about to take that place. “I beg your pardon, we are the chief mourners,” she said sharply, and with decision. And then Patty relapsed all at once into her grief. She walked slowly forward half-leading, half-pushing Gervase, her shoulders heaving with sobs, a murmur of half-audible affliction coming in as a sort of half-refrain to the words read by the clergyman. The village crowding round, watched with bated breath. It was difficult for these spectators to refuse a murmur of applause. How beautifully she did it? What a mourner she made, far better than any one else there! As for that Mrs. Osborne, her veil was only gauze, and through it you could see that she was not crying at all! She walked by Colonel Piercey’s side, but she did not lean upon him as if she required support. There was no heaving in her shoulders. The mind of the village approved the demeanour of Patty with enthusiasm. It was something like! Even Miss Hewitt, flaunting her red and yellow bonnet on the churchyard wall, was impressed by the appearance of Patty, and acknowledged that it was deeply appropriate, and just exactly what she ought to have done.
But though Patty was thus overcome with grief, her vigilant eyes noted everything through the white handkerchief and the crape. When poor Sir Giles broke down and began to sob at the grave it was she who, with an energetic push and pressure, placed Gervase by his side.
“Speak to him,” she whispered in his ear, with a voice which though so low was imperative as any order. She leaned herself over the other side of the chair, almost pushing Dunning out of the way, while still maintaining her pressure on Gervase’s arm.
“Father,” he said, putting his hand upon the old man’s; he was not to say too much, she had instructed him! Only his name, or a kind word. Gervase, poor fellow, did not know how to say a kind word, but his dull imagination had been stirred and the contagion of his father’s feeble distress moved him. He began to sob, too, leaning heavily upon Sir Giles’ chair. Not that he knew very well what was the cause. The great shining oaken chest that was being lowered down into that hole had no association for him. He had not seen his mother placed there. But the gloomy ceremonial affected Gervase in spite of himself. Happily it did not move him to laugh, which was on the cards, as Patty felt. It made him cry, which was everything that could be desired.
And Sir Giles did not push away his son’s hand, which was what might have happened also. The old gentleman was in precisely the state of mind to feel that touch and the sound of the wavering voice. It was a return of the prodigal when the poor old father’s heart was very forlorn, and the sensation of having some one still who belonged to him most welcome. To be sure there was Colonel Piercey—but he would go away, and was not in any sense a son of the house. And Meg—but she was a dependant, perhaps pleased to think she would have nobody over her now. Gervase was his father’s own, come back; equally feeble, not shaming his father by undue self-control. To hear his boy sob was sweet to the old man; it did him more good than Dunning’s whispered adjurations not to fret, to “think of your own ’ealth,” to “ ’old up, Sir Giles!” When he felt the hand of Gervase and heard his helpless son sob, a flash of force came to the old man.
“It’s you and me now, Gervase, only you and me, my boy,” he said loud out, interrupting the voice of the rector. It was a dreadful thing to do, and yet it had a great effect, the voice of nature breaking in, into the midst of all that ceremony and solemnity. Old Sir Giles’ bare, bowed head, and the exclamation loud, broken with a sob, which everybody could hear, moved many people to tears. Even the rector paused a moment before he pronounced the final benediction, and the mourners began to disperse and turn away.
One other moment of intense anxiety followed for Patty. She had to keep her Softy up to the mark. All had gone well so far, but to keep him in the same humour for a long time together was well nigh an impossible achievement. When Sir Giles’ chair was turned round, Patty almost pushed it herself in her anxiety to keep close, and it was no small exertion to keep Gervase steadily behind, yet not to hustle Dunning, who looked round at her fiercely. If there should happen to come into the Softy’s mind the idea of rushing off with his father, which was his usual idea when he stood behind Sir Giles’ chair! But some benevolent influence watched over Patty on that critical day. Gervase, occupied in watching the equipages, of which no man had ever seen so many at Greyshott, walked on quietly to the carriage door. He got in after Sir Giles as if that were quite natural, forgetting the “manners” she had tried to teach him; but Patty minded nothing at that moment of fate. She scrambled in after him, her heart beating wildly, and no one venturing to oppose. Dunning, indeed, who followed, looked unutterable things. He said: “Sir Giles, is it your meaning as this—this lady——?”
But Sir Giles said never a word. He kept patting his son’s hand, saying, “Only you and me, my boy.” He took no notice of the intruder into the carriage, and who else dared to speak? As for Patty’s sentiments, they were altogether indescribable. They were complicated by personal sensations which were not agreeable. The carriage went slowly, the windows were closed on account of Sir Giles, though the day was warm. And she was placed on the front seat, beside Dunning, which was a position which gave her nausea, and made her head swim, as well as being highly inappropriate to her dignified position. But anything was to be borne in the circumstances, for the glory of being seen to drive “home” in the carriage with Sir Giles, and the chance of thus getting a surreptitious but undeniable entrance into the house. She said nothing, partly from policy, partly from discomfort, during that prolonged and tedious drive. And Gervase behaved himself with incredible discretion. Gervase, too, was glad to be going “home.” He was pleased after all that had passed to be sitting by his father again. And he did Sir Giles good even by his foolishness, the poor Softy. After keeping quite quiet for half of the way, suffering his father to pat his hand, and repeat that little formula of words, saying “Don’t cry, father, don’t cry,” softly, from time to time, he suddenly burst forth: “I say! look at those fellows riding over the copses. You don’t let them ride over our copses, do you, father?”
“Never mind, never mind, my boy,” said Sir Giles. But he was roused to look up, and his sobbing ceased.
“I wish you’d stop the carriage and let me get at them. They shouldn’t ride that way again, I promise you,” Gervase cried.
“You can’t interfere to-day, Mr. Gervase,” Dunning presumed to say. “Not the day of my lady’s funeral, Sir Giles. You can’t have the carriage stopped to-day.”
“Mind your own business, Dunning,” said Sir Giles, sharply. “No, my boy, never mind, never mind. We must just put up with it for a day. It don’t matter, it don’t matter, Gervase, what happens now——”
“But that isn’t my opinion at all,” said Gervase; “it matters a deal, and they shall see it does. Job Woodley, isn’t it, and young George? They think it won’t be noticed, but I’ll notice it. I’ll take care they sha’n’t put upon you, father, now that you have nobody but me.”
“God bless you, Gervase, you only want to be roused; that’s what your poor dear mother used always to say.”
“And now you’ll find him thoroughly roused, Sir Giles, and you can depend upon him that he will always look after your interests,” Patty said.
The old gentleman looked at her with bewildered eyes, gazing heavily across the carriage, only half aware of what she was saying, or who she was. And then they all drove on to Greyshott in solemn silence. They had come up by this time to the great gates, and entered the avenue. Patty’s heart beat more and more with suspense and excitement. Everything now seemed to hang upon what took place in the next hour.
Gervasewent up the steps and into his father’s house without waiting either for Sir Giles, whose disembarkation was a troublesome business, or his newly-made wife. For the moment he had forgotten all about Patty. She had to scramble out of the high old-fashioned chariot, which had been Sir Giles’ state equipage for long, and which had been got out expressly for this high and solemn ceremony, nobody taking any notice or extending a finger to her—even the footman turning his back. Patty was too anxious and too determined on making her own entry to be much disturbed by this. To get her feet within the house was the great thing she had to consider;but—it need not be said that John Simpson, the footman, had his fate decided from that day, if indeed Mrs. Gervase established, as she intended to do, her footing in her husband’s home.
Gervase stood on the threshold, carelessly overlooking the group, the men about Sir Giles’ chair putting him back into it, and Patty not very gracefully getting down the steps of the carriage. His tall hat, wound with the heavy band, was placed on the back of his head, his hands were in his pockets, his eyes wandering, catching one detail after another, understanding no special significance in the scene. The other carriages coming up behind, waiting till the first should move on, aroused the Softy. He had forgotten why they were there, as he had forgotten that he had any duty towards his wife, who, in her hurry, had twisted herself in her long veil and draperies, and whom no one attempted to help. Patty was not the kind of figure to attract sentimental sympathy, as does the neglected dependant of fiction, the young wife of low degree in presence of a proud and haughty family. She was briskness and energy itself, notwithstanding that complication with the long veil, at which Gervase was just about to burst into a loud laugh when a sudden glance from her eyes paralysed him with his mouth open. As it took a long time to arrange Sir Giles, Patty had the situation before her and time to grasp it. She saw her opportunity at once. She passed the group of men about the chair, touching Dunning’s arm sharply as she passed, bidding him to “take care, take care!” Then, stepping on, took the arm of Gervase, and stood with him on the threshold, like (she fondly hoped) the lady of the house receiving her guests. Dunning had nearly dropped his master’s chair altogether at that insolent injunction and touch, and looked up at her with a countenance crimson with rage and enmity. But when Dunning saw the energetic figure in the doorway, holding Gervase’s limp arm, and unconsciously pushing him to one side in so doing, placing herself in the centre, standing there like the mistress of the house, a cold shiver ran over him. “You could ’a knocked me down with a straw,” he said afterwards confidentially to Parsons, in the mutual review they made later of all the exciting incidents of the day.
But this was not all: the opportunity comes to those who are capable of seizing upon it. Patty stood there with a heart beating so loudly that it sounded like a drum in her own ears, but with so full a sense of the importance of every act and look, that her excited nerves, instead of mastering her, gave support and stimulation to her whole being. She might have known, she said to herself, that Gervase would have been of no use to her, a thing which she resented, being now in possession of him, though she had fully calculated upon it before. “Stand by your wife, can’t you!” she whispered fiercely, as she took hold of his arm and thrust him towards the wall. He grinned at her, though he dared not laugh aloud.
“Lord, you did look ridiculous, Patty, with that long thing twisting round you.”
“If you laugh, you fool,” said Patty, between her closed teeth, “you’ll be turned out of the house.”
When she had warned him she turned, bland but anxious, to the group below. “Oh, carry him gently, carry him gently!” she cried. When Sir Giles was set down on the level of the hall, she was the first to perceive his exhausted state. “I hope you have a cordial or something to give him, after all this fatigue?” she said. “You have nothing with you? Let the butler get it instantly—instantly!” She was quite right, and Dunning knew it, and made a sign that this unexpected order should be obeyed, with bitter anger in his heart. The old gentleman was very nearly fainting, after all the exertion and emotion. Patty had salts in her hand and eau de Cologne in her pocket ready for any emergency. She flew to him, while Dunning in his rage and pain called to the butler to make haste. And when the rest of the party followed, Patty was found in charge of Sir Giles, leaning over him, fanning him with her handkerchief impregnated with eau de Cologne, applying from time to time her salts to his nose. When the butler came hurrying back with the medicine, the first thing the surrounding spectators were conscious of was her voice sharply addressing Dunning, “You ought to have had the drops ready; you ought to have carried them with you; you ought never to be without something to give in case of faintness—and after such a dreadful day.”
The woman, the creature, the alehouse girl (these were the names by which Dunning overwhelmed her in his private discourses), was quite right! He ought to have carried his master’s drops with him. He ought to have been ready for the emergency. Margaret, who had come in in the midst of this scene, after one glimpse of Mrs. Gervase standing in the doorway, which had filled her with consternation, stood by helplessly for the moment, not doing anything. Mrs. Osborne would not have ventured to interfere with Dunning at any period of her residence at Greyshott. His authority with the family had been supreme. They had grown to think that Sir Giles’ life depended upon him; that he knew better than the very doctor. To see Dunning thus assailed took away her breath, as it did that of all the servants, standing helplessly gaping at their master in his almost faint. And it was evident from Dunning’s silence, and his hurried proceedings, that this audacious intruder was right—astounding discovery! Dunning did not say a word for himself. His hand trembled so, that Patty seized the bottle from him, and dropped the liquid herself with a steady hand. “Now, drink this,” she said authoritatively, putting it to Sir Giles’ lips, who obeyed her, though in his half-unconsciousness he had been feebly pushing Dunning away. This astonishing scene kept back all the other funeral guests who were alighting at the door, and among whom the most dreadful anticipations were beginning to breathe to the effect that it had been “too much” for Sir Giles. To see Margaret Osborne standing there helpless, doing nothing, gave force to their suppositions, for she must have been occupied with her uncle had there been anything to do for him, everybody thought. Patty’s shorter figure, all black, was not distinguishable from below as she leant over Sir Giles’ chair.
Gervase, who had been hanging in the doorway, reduced to complete silence by his wife’s threats, pulled Margaret by her dress. “I say, Meg! she’s one, ain’t she? She’s got ’em all down, even Dunning. Lord! just look at her going it!” the admiring husband said. He dared not laugh, but his wide-open mouth grinned from ear to ear. He did not know who the tall fellow was by Margaret’s side, who stood looking on with such a solemn air, but he poked that dignitary with his elbow all the same. “Ain’t she as good as a play?” Gervase said.
Colonel Piercey was in no very genial frame of mind. He was angry to see Mrs. Osborne superseded, and angry with her that she did not step forward and take the direction of everything. And when this fool, this Softy, as the country people called him, addressed himself with elbow and voice, his disgust was almost beyond bounds. It was not decorous of the next-of-kin: he turned away from the grinning idiot with a sharp exclamation, forgetting altogether that he was, more or less, the master of the house.
“Oh, hush, Gervase,” said Mrs. Osborne. “Don’t laugh: you will shock all the people. She is—— very serviceable. She shows—— great sense—— Gervase, why is she here?”
He was on the point of laughter again, but was frightened this time by Margaret. “Why, here’s just where she ought to be,” he said, with a suppressed chuckle. “I told you, but you didn’t understand. I almost told—— mother.”
Here the half-witted young man paused a little with a sudden air of trouble. “Mother; what’s all this about mother?” he said.
“Oh, Gervase! she wanted you so!”
“Well,” he cried, “but how could I come when I didn’t know? Ask her. We never heard a word. I remember now. We only came back last night. I thought after all we might find her all right when we came back. Is it—is it true, Meg?”
He spoke with a sort of timidity behind Patty’s back, still pulling his cousin’s dress, the grin disappearing from his face, but his hat still on the back of his head, and his fatuous eyes wandering. His attention was only half arrested even by a question of such importance. It moved the surface of his consciousness, and no more; his eye, even while he was speaking, was caught by the unruly action of the horses in one of the carriages far down the avenue, which put a movement of interest into his dull face.
“I cannot speak to you about it all here. Come in, and I will tell you everything,” Margaret said.
He made a step after her, and then looked back; but Patty was still busily engaged with Sir Giles, and her husband escaped, putting his cousin’s tall figure between himself and her.
“I say, are all this lot of people coming here? What are they coming here for? Have I got to talk to all these people, Meg?”
He went after her into the library, where already some of the guests were, and where Margaret was immediately occupied, receiving the solemn leave-takings of the county gentry, who had driven so far for this ceremony, but who looked strangely at Gervase, still with his hat on, and who, in presence of such a chief mourner, and of the illness of poor Sir Giles, were eager to get away. A vague story about the marriage had already flashed through the neighbourhood, but the gentlemen were more desirous even of keeping clear of any embarrassment that might arise from it, than of getting “the rights of the story” to carry back to their wives—though that also was a strong motive. Gervase gave a large grip of welcome to several who spoke to him, and laughed, and said it was a fine day, with an apparent indifference to the object of their visit, which chilled the blood of the kindly neighbours. And still more potent than any foolishness he might utter was the sign of the hat on his head, which produced the profoundest impression upon the small solemn assembly, though even Margaret, in the excitement of the crisis altogether, did not notice it for some time.
“We feel that the only kindness we can do you, dear Mrs. Osborne, is to leave you alone as quickly as possible,” said Lord Hartmore, who was a very dignified person, and generally took the lead—and he was followed by the other potentates, who withdrew almost hurriedly, avoiding Gervase as much as possible, as he stood swaying from one foot to another, with a half laugh of mingled vacuity and embarrassment. Gervase was rather disappointed that they should all go away. It was rarely that he had seen so many people gathered together under his father’s roof. He tried to detain one or two of them who gave him a second grasp of the hand as they passed him.
“You’re going very soon. Won’t you stay and have something?” Gervase said.
Colonel Piercey was standing outside the door of the library as they began to come out, and Lord Hartmore gave him a very significant look, and a still more significant grasp of the hand.
“That,” he said with emphasis, with a backward movement of his head to indicate the room he had just quitted, “is the saddest sight of all,”—and there was a little pause of the gentlemen about the door, a group closed up the entrance to the room, all full of something to say, which none of them ventured to put into words; all relieving themselves with shaking of heads and meaning looks.
“Poor Sir Giles! I have the sincerest sympathy with him,” said Lord Hartmore, “the partner of his life gone, and so little comfort in the poor son.”
They grasped Gerald Piercey’s hand, one by one, in a sort of chorus, grouping round the open door.
It was at this moment that Patty found herself free, Sir Giles having been wheeled away to his own rooms to escape the agitating encounter of so many strangers. She walked towards them with the heroic confidence of a Joan of Arc. Probably nothing but the habits of her previous life, her custom of facing unruly men in various stages of difficulty, dissatisfied customers, and those of too convivial a turn, drunkards, whom she had to master by sheer coolness and strength of mind, could have armed her for such an extraordinary emergency. She knew most of the men by sight, but had hitherto looked at them from a distance as beings unapproachable, not likely ever to come within touch of herself or her life; and they all looked towards her, more or less severely,—some with surprise, some with concealed amusement, some with the sternest disapproval. So many men of might and dignity, personages in the county, not one among them sympathetic; and one small young woman, in a place the very external features of which were unknown to her, where every individual was an enemy, yet which she meant to take possession of and conquer by her bow and her spear, turning out every dissident! The gentlemen stood and stared, rather in astonishment than in curiosity, as she advanced alone, her long veil hanging behind her, her crape sweeping the carpet. They did not make way for her, which was scarcely so much from incivility as from surprise, but stood staring, blocking up the door of a room which Patty saw must be the first stronghold to be taken, from the mere fact of the group that stood before it. She came up quite close to them without saying a word, holding her head high. And then she raised her high, rather sharp voice:—
“Will you please to make room for me to pass? I want to join my husband,” she said.
And then there was a start as simultaneous as the stare had been. Patty’s voice gave the gentlemen of the county a shock as if a cannon had been fired into the midst of them. It was a challenge and an accusation in one. To accuse men of their class of a breach of civility is worse than firing a gun among them. They separated quickly with a sense of shame. “I beg your pardon” came from at least two voices. It would be difficult to explain what they thought they could have done to resist the intruder: but they were horrified by the suggestion of interference—as if they had anything to do with it! so that in fact Patty entered triumphantly through a lane formed by two lines of men dividing to make way for her. A princess could not have done more.
She walked in thus with flags flying, pale with the effort, which was advantageous to her appearance, and found herself in the great room, with its bookcases on the one hand and the tall portraits on the other. But Patty found here, against her expectations, a far more difficult scene before her. Two or three ladies had come to give Margaret Osborne the support of their presence, on what they called “this trying day,” without in the least realising how trying it was to be. One of them, an old lady, sat in a great chair facing the door, with her eyes fixed upon it. Two others, younger, but scarcely less alarming, were talking to Mrs. Osborne, who in her own sole person had been supposed by Patty with natural enmity to be the chief of her adversaries. They stopped their conversation and stared at Patty, as with a sudden faltering, she came in. Gervase stood against the end window, fully outlined against the light, with his hands in his pockets, and his hat on his head, swaying from one foot to another, his lower lip hanging a little and very moist, his wandering eyes turned towards the door. Patty entering alone under the eyes of these ladies, with a consciousness that much had passed since she had last looked at herself in a glass, and that veil and mantle might easily have got awry—and with the additional excitement of surprise in finding them there when she had looked at the worst only for the presence of Mrs. Osborne—might well have called forth a sympathetic movement in any bosom. And when it is added to this that Gervase, standing there against the light, had probably never in all his life looked so idiotic before, and thathe had his hat on his head, last and most dreadful climax of all, it may be dimly imagined what were the sensations of his bride. But there are circumstances in which an unusual exaggeration of trouble brings support. Patty looked for a moment and then rushed upon her husband in horror. “Oh, Gervase! do you know you have got your hat on, and ladies in the room?” she cried, with an almost shriek of dismay.
Gervase put up his hand to his head, took off the hat, and then carefully examined it, as if to find the reason of offence there. “Have I?” he said, with a laugh; “then I never knew it. You should stick by me if you mean me to behave.Idon’t think of such things.”
“Then you ought,” she cried, breathless, taking the hat from him with a wife’s familiarity, “and you ought to beg pardon.” She took him by the arm quickly and led him forward a step or two. “Ladies,” she said, “I am sure me and my husband are very glad to see you. He meant no rudeness, I’m sure. He doesn’t think about such little things. I am still,” she added, “a sort of a stranger”—with an insinuating smile which, however, was very tremulous, for Patty’s nerves were strained to the utmost. She paused a moment for breath. “A bride has the feeling that the friends of the family know her husband better than she does; and it’s such a sad occasion to begin. But I’m sure I may say both for him and for me that we are pleased, and will always be pleased, to see old friends here.”
The ladies sat and stared at her speechless. What reply could be made to a woman so manifestly within her rights?
Pattyfelt, which was surely very natural, that the worst of her troubles were over after this scene; and when Mrs. Osborne went out with the ladies, going with them from sheer inability to know what to do—she threw herself into a great chair, which seemed to embrace and support her, with a sense at once of having earned and fully deserved the repose, and also of having been successful all along the line. She had encountered almost all who were likely to be her adversaries, and they had all given way before her. To be sure, there had not been much said to her: the gentlemen had stood aside to let her in, the ladies had stared and said nothing, only one of them had turned with a little compunction of civility to bow to her as she went away. The old lady, whom Patty knew to be Lady Hartmore, had waddled out, saying: “Well, Meg, we shall say all we have to say another time,” and had not so much as looked again at Patty. Meg Osborne, as Patty had begun to call her, had kept her eyes on the ground, and had accompanied her friends to the door without a word. But still it was Patty who had driven them away, not they who had interfered with Patty. When one of the armies in an engagement encamps upon the field of battle, that belligerent is generally admitted to have won the day. And here was Mrs. Gervase resting in that large deep chair, which was such an one as Patty Hewitt had never seen before, enjoying a moment of well-earned repose in her own house. Was it her own house? Her pulses were all throbbing with the excitement of conflict and the pride of victory; but she was aware that her triumph was not yet assured. Nevertheless, everything was in her favour. This grand house into which she had made her way, and which was even grander than Patty had supposed, was certainly her husband’s home, and she was his wife as legally, as irrevocably as if she had been married with the consent of all the parents in the world. Nothing could part her from her husband, neither force nor law, and though her heart still owned a thrill of alarm and insecurity, she became more at ease as she thought the matter over. Who dared turn her out of the house into which she had so bravely fought her way? Nobody but Sir Giles, who was not equal to the effort, who would not wish to do it, she felt sure. Patty had a conviction in her mind that she only required to be let alone and allowed access to him for a single day to get wholly the upper hand of Sir Giles. And who else had any right to interfere? Not Meg Osborne, who had herself no right to be at Greyshott, except as a humble companion and hanger-on. A niece! what was a niece in the house? Patty herself had a poor cousin who had been taken in at the Seven Thorns, as a sort of inferior servant, out of charity, as everybody said, and whose life Patty well knew had been a very undesirable one. What was Meg Osborne more than Mary Thorne? She had no right to say a word. Neither had the tall gentleman, of whom she was, however, more frightened, whom she had already discovered to be Colonel Piercey, the nearest relation. How persons like Patty do make such discoveries is wonderful, a science which cannot be elucidated or formulated in mere words. She knew by instinct, and she knew also that he could not interfere. The servants were more in Patty’s way, and her hatred of them was sharp and keen—but she had already managed to discredit Dunning, and she was not afraid of the servants. What could they do? What would they venture to do against the son’s wife? All these thoughts were passing through her mind as she rested in the great chair. And yet that repose was not without thorns. Gervase, though he stood still and stared while the ladies withdrew, did not rest as she was doing. He walked to the window, to look out, and stood there fidgetting, and eager to take part in all the commotion outside. “Lord!” he cried, “Hartmore’s carriage is sent round to the stables, and my lord has got to wait, and Stubbins, the little parson, is offering his fly. Oh, I can’t stay here, Patty, I must be in the fun. You can get on very well by yourself without me.”
“What do you want with fun the day of your mother’s funeral?” she said severely. “They’ll all think a deal more of you if you stay quiet here.”
Gervase’s countenance fell at the suggestion of his mother’s funeral. No doubt, had he been at home, had his dull mind acquainted itself with the preliminaries, he would have been more or less moved. But it was too great an effort of mind for him to connect the ceremony in the churchyard, the grave and the flowers, with Lady Piercey, whom he had left in her usual health, deciding everything in her usual peremptory way. He had a strong impression that she would presently appear on the scene as usual and settle everything; and a sort of alarm came over his face, and his spirit was overawed for a moment by the mention of her name. There succeeded accordingly, for about a minute, silence in the room, which left Patty time to go over the question again. Who could interfere with her? Nobody! Not Meg Osborne, not Colonel Piercey, not a mere housekeeper or butler. Oh dear no! Nobody but Sir Giles himself! Patty settled herself more and more comfortably in her chair. The funeral had been at an unusually late hour, and it was now almost evening. She thought that after a little interval she would ring the bell for tea. If any one had need of refreshment after the labour of the day, it was she. And after that there were many things to think of, both small things and great things. What should she do about dinner, for instance? Meg Osborne, no doubt, had got a full wardrobe of mourning, day dress and evening dress (at her, Patty’s, expense!), while Mrs. Gervase Piercey had only the gown which she had on, an old dress plastered with crape. Should she wear this for dinner? The thought of going down to dinner, sitting down with a footman behind her chair, and all the etiquette involved, was almost too much for Patty, and took away her breath. Should she brush the skirt, and smarten up the neck and wear this? Or should she send down to the Seven Thorns for her black silk, and explain that she had not had time to get proper mourning? Gervase had begun to fidget again while she carried on this severe course of thought. She could hear him laughing to himself at the window, making occasional exclamations. “Oh, by Jove!” he called out at last. “There’s lots more coming, one on the top of another. I’m going to see after them.” She was so deep in her meditations, that he was gone before she could interfere. And thus she was left in the great silent library, a room such as she had never seen before, overawing her with the sight of the bookcases, the white marble faces looking down upon her of the busts that stood high up here and there, the full-length portraits that stared upon her from the other side. Many people, quite as little educated as Patty—or less so, for the sixth standard necessarily includes many things—had come and gone lightly enough, and thought nothing of the books or the ancestors. I doubt much whether Margaret Osborne had half so much general information as Patty had; but, then, their habits of mind were very different. Mrs. Gervase, when she was left alone, could not help being a little overawed by all she saw. Her husband was not much to hold on by, but yet he “belonged there,” and she did not. Patty had felt increasingly, ever since the day on which she married him, how very little her husband was to be depended upon. She had fully recognised that before the marriage, and had decided that she should not mind. But now it seemed a grievance to Patty that he could not defend her and advise her; that she had nobody but herself to look to; that quite possibly he might even abandon her at the most critical moment. “There is never any calculating,” she said to herself bitterly, “what a fool may do;” in which sentiment Patty echoed, without knowing it, all the philosophies of the subject. Who could have thought he would have slid away from her, on her first entrance into a house where she would have to fight her way step by step, for nothing at all—for the first novelty that caught his wandering eye?
Patty was tired, and she cried a little at this crisis, feeling that her fate was hard. To acquire a husband with so much trouble, and to find out at once how little help to her he was. He was very fond of her, she knew. Still, now he was used to her, and took her for granted as a part of the order of things, he could not keep his mind fixed even on his wife. He was only a Softy after all, nothing more! Patty roused herself briskly, however, from this line of thought, which was evidently not one to encourage, and rang the bell. It remained a long time unanswered; and then she rang again. This time the footman who had turned his back upon her at the carriage-door, came, looked in, said “Oh!” when he saw her sitting alone, and went away. Patty’s fury was indescribable. Oh that dolt John Simpson, what a fate he was making for himself! While she waited, growing more and more angry, Mrs. Osborne came in again, with hesitation. She was still in her outdoor dress, and looked disturbed and embarrassed.
“The servants—— have told me—— that you had rung the bell,” she said, faltering considerably. “Is there—— anything—— I can order for you?”
Margaret was very little prepared for herrôle, and was as profoundly aware of her own want of power as Patty could be.
“Order for me!” said Patty. “I rang for tea, as a proper servant would have known; and I wish you to know, Mrs. Osborne—if you are Mrs. Osborne, as I suppose, for no one has had the decency to introduce you—that it is my place to give the orders, and not yours.”
Margaret was so much taken by surprise that she had no weapon with which to defend herself. She said mildly:—
“I do not often give orders; but the housekeeper, who was my aunt’s favourite maid, is much overcome. I will tell them—what you want.”
“Thank you, I can tell them myself,” said Patty, ringing another, a louder, and more violent peal. It brought up the butler himself in great haste, and it startled the still lingering visitors, who again thought nothing less than that Sir Giles must be taken ill. “Bring up tea directly,” cried Mrs. Gervase. “This is the third time I have rung. I pass over it now, owing to the confusion of the house, but it had better not occur again.”
The butler stared open-mouthed at the new-comer. Patty Hewitt, of the Seven Thorns! He knew her as well as he knew his own sister. Then he looked at Mrs. Osborne, who made him a slight sign—and then disappeared, to carry astonishment and dismay into the servants’ hall.
“Mrs. Osborne give me a nod,” said the angry dignitary, “as I had better do it. Lord! saucing me as have known her since she wasthathigh, setting up for my lady, as grand as grand, and the family giving in to her!”
“The family!” said the cook, tossing her head; “call Mrs. Osborne the family, that is no better nor you and me. Far worse! A companion as is nobody, eating dirt to make her bread.”
“Oh, if my poor lady had been here!” said Parsons, “that creature would soon have been put to the door! She was too soft-hearted over Mr. Gervase, was my poor lady—but not to stand that. As for Miss Meg, she hasn’t got the spirit of a mouse!”
“But what am I to do?” said Stevens, the butler. “Me, an old servant, ordered about and sauced like that! What am I to do, I ask you? Take up the tea—or what? Mrs. Osborne, she give me a nod—but Mrs. Osborne she’s not like Sir Giles’ daughter, and nobody has no authority. What am I to do?”
It was finally resolved in that anxious conclave that John should be sent up with the tea, much to John’s mortification and alarm, who began to feel that, perhaps, it might have been better to be civil to Patty Hewitt. He went, but returned in a minute, flying along the passages, his face crimson, his eyes staring out of his head. “She says as I’m never to show in her sight again!” he cried. “She says as how Mr. Stevens is to come hisself and do his duty: nor she didn’t sayMr.Stevens either,” cried John, with momentary satisfaction, “but Stevens, short; and wouldn’t let me so much as put down the tray!”
“Robert can take it,” said the butler; but he was bewildered and hesitated. Presently he followed with a sheepish air. “I’ll just go and see what comes of it,” he said.
Patty was sitting up very erect in her chair, a flame of battle on her cheeks. She allowed herself, however, to show a dignified relief when Stevens came in following his inferior, who carried the tray. It was not to be supposed that so great a man could bear that burden for himself: Patty recognised this fact with instant sympathy. She nodded her head with dignity.
“Stevens,” she said, with the air of a duchess, “you will see that that man never comes into my sight again.”
Stevens did not, indeed, make any reply, but a sound of consternation burst from him, a suspiration of forced breath, which Patty accepted as assent. Margaret was standing at a little distance speechless, an image of confusion and embarrassment. She knew no more than the servants what to do. Gervase’s wife—as there was no reason to doubt this woman was—how could Gervase’s cousin oppose her? Margaret had no rights—no position in the household; but the wife of Gervase had certainly rights, however inopportune might be the moment at which she chose to assert them. Mrs. Osborne, however, started violently when she herself was addressed with engaging friendliness.
“Won’t you come and have some tea? No? are you going? Then, will you please tell Gervase that tea is here, and I am waiting for him?” Patty said.
Margaret withdrew from the room as if a shot had been fired at her. Her confusion and helplessness were so great that they went beyond anything like resentment. She was almost overawed by the boldness of the intruder and the impossibility of the situation. Gervase stood in the doorway, excited and pleased, shouting for the carriages, talking about the horses to whoever would talk with him. She was glad of some excuse for calling him, taking him by the arm. Certainly he would be better anywhere than there.
“Gervase,” she said, “tell me, is that your wife who is in the library?”
“Eh? What do you say, Meg? Patty? Why, of course! What did you think she could be? Patty! look here, you come and tell Meg——”
“Hush, Gervase, she wants you to go to her. Tea is ready, and she is waiting for you. Now go, Gervase, go—do go!”
“She’s come over Meg, too!” said Gervase to himself with a chuckle; and, fortunately, his amusement in that, and the impulse of his cousin’s touch on his arm, and the new suggestion which, whatever it happened to be, was always powerful with him, made him obey the call which now came out shrilly over the other noises from the library door.
“Gervase! Gervase! I’m waiting for you for tea.”
Margaret crossed the hall into the morning-room, with a grave face. The consternation which was in her whole aspect moved Colonel Piercey, who followed her, to a short laugh. “What is to be done?” he said.
“Oh, nothing, nothing that I know of! Of course she is Gervase’s wife—she has a right to be here. I don’t know what my poor uncle will say—but I told you before he would be talked over.”
“She showed herself very ready and with all her wits about her, at the door.”
“Yes,” said Margaret. “She has a great deal of sense, I have always heard. It may not be a bad thing after all.”
“It frightens you, however,” Colonel Piercey said.
“Not frightens but startles me—very much: and then, poor Aunt Piercey! Poor Aunt Piercey! her only child, and on her funeral day.”
“She was not a wise mother, I should imagine.”
“What does that matter?” cried Margaret. “And who is wise? We do what we think is the best, and it turns out the worst. How can we tell? I am glad she is gone, at least, and did not see it,” she cried with a few hot tears.
Colonel Piercey looked at her coldly, as he always did. It was on his lips to say, “She was not very good to you, that you should shed tears for her,” but he refrained. He could not refrain, however, from saying—which was perhaps worse—“I am afraid it is a thing which will much affect you.”
“Oh, me!” she cried, with a sort of proud disdain, and turned and left him without a word. Whatever happened he was always her hardest and coldest judge, suggesting meanness in her conduct and thoughts even to herself.
Nohouse could be more agitated and disturbed than was Greyshott on the night of Lady Piercey’s funeral. That event, indeed, was enough to throw a heavy cloud over the dwelling, where the imperious old lady had filled so large a place, that the mere emptiness, where her distinct and imposing figure was withdrawn, touched the imagination, even if it did not touch the heart. The impression, however, on such an occasion is generally one of subdued quiet and gloom—an arrest of life; whereas the great house was quivering with fears and suppositions, with the excitement of a struggle which nobody could see the end of, or divine how it should turn. The servants were in a ferment, some of them expecting dismissal; others agreed that under new sway, such as seemed to threaten, Greyshott would not be a place for them. The scene in the housekeeper’s room, where the heads of the female department sat together dismayed, and exchanged presentiments and resolutions, was tragic in its intensity of alarm and wrath. The cook had not given more than a passing thought to the dinner, which an eager kitchen-maid on her promotion had the charge of; and Parsons sat arranging her lists of linen with a proud but melancholy certainty that all would be found right, however hastily her reign might be brought to an end.
“I never thought as I should have to give them up to the likes of her,” Parsons said, among her tears. “Oh, my lady, my poor lady! She’s been took away from the evil to come.”
“She’d never have let the likes of her step within our doors,” said cook, indignant, “if it had only been poor Sir Giles, as is no better than a baby, that had been took, and my lady left to keep things straight.”
“Oh, don’t say that, cook, don’t say that,” cried Parsons, “for thenhe’dhave been Sir Gervase, andsheLady Piercey, and my lady would have—bursted; that’s what she would have done.”
“Lord!” cried the cook, “Lady Piercey! But the Colonel or somebody would have stopped that.”
“There’s nobody as could have stopped it,” said Parsons, better informed. “They might say as he hadn’t his wits, and couldn’t manage his property, or that—but to stop him from being Sir Gervase, and her Lady Piercey, is what nobody can do; no, not the Queen, nor the Parliament: for he was born to that: Softy or not it don’t make no difference.”
“Lord!” said the cook again: and she took an opportunity shortly after of going into the kitchen and giving a look at the dinner, of which that ambitious, pushing kitchen-maid was making achef-d’œuvre. The same information filtering through the house made several persons nervous. Simpson, the footman, for one, gave himself up for lost; and any other member of the household who had ever entered familiarly at the Seven Thorns, or given a careless order for a pot of beer to Patty, now shook in his shoes. The general sentiments at first had been those of indignation and scorn; but a great change soon came over the household—a universal thrill of alarm, a sense of insecurity. No one ventured now to mention the name of Patty.She, they called her with awe—and in the case of some far-seeing persons, like that kitchen-maid, the intruder had already received her proper name of Mrs. Gervase, or even Lady Gervase, from those whose education was less complete.
The sensation of dismay which thus pervaded the house attained, perhaps, its climax in the rooms which Margaret Osborne shared with her boy, and where she had withdrawn after her brief intercourse with Patty. These rooms were little invaded by the rest of the household, the nurse who took care of Osy, doing everything that was needed for her mistress, and the little apartment making a sort of sanctuary for the mother and the child. She was sure of quiet there if nowhere else; and when she had closed the door she seemed for a moment to leave behind her all the agitations which convulsed and changed the course of life. The two rooms, opening into one another, in which Margaret’s life had been spent for years, which were almost the only home that Osy had ever known, were still hers, though she could not tell for how short a time: the sword hanging over the mantelpiece, which Osy had described as the only thing which belonged to his mother and himself, hung there still, their symbol of individual possession. For years past, Margaret had felt herself safe when she closed that door. She held it, as it now appeared, on but a precarious footing; but she had not thought so up to this time. She had felt that she had a right to her shelter, that her place was one which nobody could take from her; not the right of inheritance, it is true, but of nature. It was the home of her fathers, though she was only Sir Giles’ niece, and bore another name. She had been a dependant indeed, but not as a stranger would be. It was the home of her childhood, and it was hers as long as the old rule continued—the natural state of affairs which she had not thought of as coming to an end. Even Lady Piercey’s death had not appeared to her to make an end. Sir Giles would need her more: there would be still more occasion for her presence in the house when the imperious, but not unkind, mistress went away. The old lady had been sharp in speech, and careless of her feelings, but she had never forgotten that Meg Piercey had a right to her shelter as well as duties to discharge there. There had been, indeed, a scare about Gervase, but it was a proof of the slightness of reality in that scare that Margaret had scarcely thought of it as affecting herself. She had been eager to bring back Gervase to his mother, if by no other means, by the help of Patty, thus recognising her position; but after Lady Piercey’s death, when the necessity was no longer pressing, Margaret had thought of it no more. And, certainly, of all days in the world, it was not upon the day of the funeral that she had looked for any disturbance in her life.
But now in a moment—in the time that sufficed to open a door, to ring a bell, to give an order—Mrs. Osborne recognised that this life was over. It had seemed as if it must never come to an end, as all established and settled existence does; and now in a moment it had come to an end. At many moments, when her patience was strained to the utmost, Margaret had come up here and composed herself, and felt herself safe within these walls. As long as she had this refuge she could bear anything, and there had been no likelihood that it would be taken from her. But now, whatever she might have to bear, it seemed certain that it was not here she could retire to reconcile herself to it. It seemed scarcely possible to believe that the old order of affairs was over; and yet she felt convinced that it was over and could return no more. She did not as yet ask herself what she should do. She had never acted for herself, never inquired into the possibilities of life. Captain Osborne’s widow had come back to her home as the only natural thing to do. She had been brought up to do Lady Piercey’s commands, to be the natural, superfluous, yet necessary, person who had no duty save to do duty for everybody; and she had fallen back into that position as if it were the only one in life. Margaret did not enter into any questions with herself even now, much less come to any decision. It was enough for one day to have faced the startling, incomprehensible fact that her life was over, the only life—except that brief episode of her marriage—which she had ever known. Where was she to go with her little pension, her husband’s sword, and her boy? But she could not tell, or even think, as yet, of any step to take. All that she was capable of was to feel that the present existence, the familiar life, was at an end.
Osy had been left in a secluded corner of the garden while the funeral took place, to be out of the way. It had not seemed necessary to his mother to envelop him in mourning, and take him with her through that strange ceremonial, so mysterious to childish thoughts; and while she sat alone, the sound of his little voice and step became audible to her coming up the stairs. Osy, who was willing on ordinary occasions to spend the whole of his time out-of-doors, had been impatient to-day, touched by the prevailing agitation, though he did not know what it meant. He came in, stamping with his little feet, making up for the quiet which had been exacted from him for a few days past, and threw himself against Margaret’s knee.
“Movver,” he said, breathless, “there’s a lady down in the libery.”
“Yes, Osy, I know.”
“Oh, movver knows,” he said, turning to his attendant, “I told you movver alvays knows. Very queer fings,” said Osy, reflectively, “have tummed to pass to-day.”
“What things, Osy?”
“Fings about Aunt Piercey,” said the little boy, counting upon his fingers; “somefing I don’t understand. You said, movver, she had don to heaven, but Parsons, she said you had all don to put her somewhere else, but I believe you best; and then there were all the carriages and the gemplemans, and the horse that runned away. But most strangest of all, the lady in the libery.” He paused to think. “I fought she wasn’t a lady at all, but a dressmaker or somefing.”
“And then? you changed your mind?”
“No,” said the little boy, doubtfully, “not me. But she looked out of the window, and then she called, ‘Gervase! Gervase!’—she touldn’t say, Gervase, Gervase, if she were one of the maids. I fink it’s the lady Cousin Gervase went to London to marrwy. And I’m glad,” Osy said, making another pause. He resumed, “I’m glad, because now I know that my big silver piece was a marrwage present, movver. He tooked it, but I dave it him all the same; and as it was a marrwage present, I don’t mind scarcely at all. But that is not the funniest fing yet,” said Osy, putting up his hand to his mother’s face to secure her attention; “there’s somefing more, movver. She tummed to the window, and she said, ‘Gervase, Gervase, who is that ickle boy?’ ”
“Well, Osy, there was nothing very wonderful in that,” said Margaret, trying to smile.
“Yes, mower, there was two fings wonderful.” He held out the small dirty forefinger again, and tapped upon it with the forefinger of his other little fat hand. “First—there touldn’t any lady tum to Greyshott and not know me. I’m not an ickle boy, I’m Osy; and another fing, she knows me already quite well; for she isn’t a beau’ful lady from London, like that one that singed songs, you know. She is the woman at the Seven Thorns. Sally, tum here and tell movver. We knowed her quite well, bof Sally and me.”
“It’s quite true, ma’am, as Mr. Osy says, it’s quite, quite——”
“That will do,” said Margaret, “I want no information on the subject. Make haste, Sally, and get Master Osy’s tea.”
Osy stood looking up somewhat anxiously in his mother’s face, leaning against her. He put one hand into hers, and put the other to her chin to make her look at him, with a way he had. “Movver, why don’t you want in—in—formashun?” he said.
“Osy, my little boy, you know you mustn’t talk before Sally of your Cousin Gervase or the family; you must tell me whatever happens, but not any of the servants. That lady is perhaps going to be the lady of the house, now. She is Mrs. Gervase, and she has a better right to be here than you or me. Perhaps we shall have to go away. You must be a very good, very thoughtful little boy; and polite, like a gentleman, to every one.”
“I am never not a gemplemans, movver,” said the child, with an air of offended dignity; then he suddenly grew red, and cried out, “Oh, I fordot! Cousin Colonel met me in the hall, and he said would I tell you to tum, please, and speak to him in the rose-garden, because he touldn’t tum upstairs. Will you do and speak to Cousin Colonel in the garden, movver? He said, wouldn’t I tum with him to his house?”
“Osy! but you wouldn’t go with any one, would you, away from your mother?”
“Oh, not for always,” cried the child, “but for a day, two days, to ride upon his s’oulder. He’s not like Cousin Gervase. He holds fast—fast; and I likes him. Movver, run into the rose-garden; for I fordot, and he is there waiting, and he will fink I’ve broke my word. And I doesn’t want you now,” said Osy, waving his hand, “for I’m doin’ to have my tea.”
Thus dismissed, Margaret rose slowly and with reluctance. She did not run to the rose-garden as her son had bidden her. A cloud had come over her face. It was quite reasonable that Colonel Piercey should ask to speak with her in her changed position of affairs. It would be quite reasonable, indeed, that he should offer her advice, or even help. He was her nearest relation, and though he had not been either just or kind to herself, he had fallen under the charm of her little boy. It might be that, distasteful as it was, for Osy’s sake she would have to accept, even to seek, Gerald Piercey’s advice. Probably it was true kindness on his part to offer it in the first place, to put himself at her disposal. For herself there could be no such question; somehow, so far as she was concerned, she could struggle and live or die: what would it matter? But Osy must grow up, must be educated, must become a man. Margaret had been of opinion that she knew something already of the bitterness of dependence; it seemed to her now, however, that she had not tasted it until this day.
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTED BY F. A. BROCKHAUS, LEIPZIG.