“And how there looked him in the faceAn angel, beautiful and bright;And how he knew it was a fiend,That miserable knight.”
“And how there looked him in the faceAn angel, beautiful and bright;And how he knew it was a fiend,That miserable knight.”
“And how there looked him in the faceAn angel, beautiful and bright;And how he knew it was a fiend,That miserable knight.”
—This was what Margaret said.
“What do you mean?” he cried; “is it I that am the fiend, offering the best I can think of?”
“Oh, the angel,” said Margaret; “and is it my own heart that is the fiend, that makes the other picture? Oh, God help me! I don’t know. My child is my life. But there are things better than life, and that might be given up. Yet, he is my duty, too, and not yours, Gerald. Prosperity and comfort, and your great warm-hearted, honourable kindness; or poverty and nature, and a poor mother—and love? Which would be the best for him? We cannot see a step before us; and the issues are of life and death.”
“It is better not to exaggerate,” he said, with an almost angry impatience. “There need be no cutting off. You should, of course, see the child when you liked, for his holidays and that sort of thing. There’s no question of life or death, but of a man’s career for the boy, under men’s influence, or—— I know, I know! You would teach him everything that is good, and put the best principles into him, and sacrifice yourself, and all that. In short, you would make a perfect woman of him, had Osy been a girl; but, as he is a boy——!”
“Don’t you think you’re a little sharp, Gerald,” she cried, “bidding me cut out my heart and give it you, and showing me all the advantages!” She laughed,with her lips quivering, holding her hands clasped, fiercely determined, whatever she did, not to cry, which is a woman’s weakness.
“Meg, you are a sensible woman: not a girl, to know no better.”
This was his honest thought: a girl, young and tender, is to be spared, though her youth has the elasticity of a flower, and springs up again to-morrow; but the woman who has passed that chapter, whose first susceptibilities are over, is a different matter. He was honestly bewildered when Margaret left him hurriedly with a choked “Thank you. Good-bye. I shall write”; and thus broke off the conversation, leaving him there astonished in the hall, with his coat over his arm, and his travelling bag in his hand: for this was how they had held their last consultation, the library and dining-room being both full of Patty, whose presence seemed to occupy the whole house, and who now came forth, with all the airs of the mistress of the house, to take leave of her guest.
“Well, Colonel Piercey, so you are going? I hope it is not because of the circumstances, though, of course, with a death and a marriage both in the house, it isn’t very suitable for strangers, is it? But I’m not one that would ever wish to be rude to my husband’s friends. I’m told you were going, anyhow, and I hope that’s the case. And I’m sure you must feel I’m very thoughtful,” said Patty, with a little laugh, “never to disturb you in your tender good-byes! Oh, I can sympathise with that sort of thing! I told Gervase, ‘Don’t disturbthose poor things; there isn’t a place where they can have a word quiet before they part.’ But I hope you’ll soon come and fetch her, Colonel Piercey. You and her, you are not like Gervase and me: you haven’t any time to lose.”
“I have not the honour of understanding you, Mrs. Piercey,” said the Colonel, very stiffly. “I must leave with you my farewells to my cousin Gervase.”
“Oh, you needn’t; he’s here, he’s coming—he wouldn’t be so wanting as not to see you off himself, though you’re only a third or fourth cousin, I hear. But as for not understanding me, Colonel Piercey, I hope you understand Meg Osborne, which is more to the purpose, and that you’ve named the day. Marriage is catching, I’ve always heard, and you ain’t going to treat a relation badly, I hope, in my house. I’m sure, after all the philandering and talking in corners, and——”
“I wish you good-day, Mrs. Piercey,” the Colonel said. He jumped into the dog-cart with an energy which even the quiet fat horse of Greyshott training could scarcely withstand, and, seizing the reins from the groom’s hands, drove that comfortable animal down the avenue at a pace to which it was entirely unaccustomed. To describe the ferment of mind into which he was thrown by Patty’s last words would be impossible. He heard the loud, vacant laugh of Gervase, and a cry of “Hi! Hallo! Where are you off to?” sounding after him, but took no notice. He was a man of considerable temper, as has not been concealed,and there could be no doubt that it would have afforded him considerable satisfaction to take Patty by the arms and shake her, had that been a possible way of expressing his sentiments. He was furious, first, he said to himself, at the insult to Meg; but it is doubtful whether this really was so much the cause of his indignation as he believed. The causes were complicated, but chiefly had reference to himself, who was more interesting to him at present than Meg or any one else in the world. That he should be accused of philandering and talking in corners, or of treating a woman “badly,” even by the most vulgar voice in the world, had something so exasperatingly inappropriate and unlikely in it that he said to himself it was laughable. Laughable, and nothing else! Yet he did not laugh; he felt himself possessed by the most furious gravity instead—ready to kill anybody who should so much as smile. Philandering—and with a middle-aged woman! This, no doubt, gave it a double sting. It had never occurred to Colonel Piercey, though he was forty, to think of himself as on an elderly level, or to imagine any connection of his name with that of any woman who was not young and fair, and in the first chapter of life. I have always been of opinion that men and women about the same age, when that age has passed the boundaries of youth, are each other’s natural enemies rather than friends. They have fully learned that they are on opposite sides. There is a natural hostility between them. If some chance has not made them friends, and inclined to forget orpardon the difference of their sides, they are instinctively in opposition. To marry each other is the last thing that would occur to them. Of course, I am considering natural tendencies only, and not those of the fortune-hunter of either sex, or persons in quest of an establishment. The man of forty seeks a young bride; the woman of that age, or near it, finds devotion in a young man. (I don’t say seeks it—for all women feel this question of age to be fantastically important.) Gerald Piercey had reached the Greyshott station, and flung himself and his bags and wraps into a carriage, before he had begun to get over the sting of the suggestion that he had been philandering (Heavens, what a word!), and that not with a girl—an imputation which he might have smiled at and pardoned—but with a widow, a mother, a middle-aged woman! Indignity could not go further. The little barmaid, the wretched little tavern flirt who had seized possession of the home of the Pierceys, had caught him full in the centre of his shield.
It was not till long after, when that heat had died away, that he recurred to what he had at first tried to persuade himself was the occasion of his wrath—the insult to Meg. Poor Meg! whose growing old he had himself so deeply and absurdly resented, as if it had been her own fault—how would she fare, left in the power of that little demon? She could not go off at a moment’s notice, as he could. She would have to wait, he remembered with a horrified realisation, perhaps for her quarter-day, for the payment of herpension, before she would be able to budge at all. And, then, where would she go?—a woman who had been accustomed to Greyshott, which, though it was not very luxurious or refined, was still, in its way, a great house. Where would she go, with her hundred or two hundred, or some such nominal sum, a year? And, perhaps, not money enough in the meantime even to pay her journey, even to carry her away! She was a hot-headed, self-willed, argumentative woman; determined in her own opinions, caring not a straw for other people’s; refusing, in the most unaccountable way, an advantageous suggestion—a proposal that would have left her free, without encumbrance, to get as much comfort as possible for herself out of her very small income; an entirely impracticable, unmanageable woman! but yet—to think of that little barmaid flouting her, insulting her, was too much for the Colonel. His wrath rose again, not so hot, but full of indignation—a creature not worthy to tie her shoe! He seemed to see her standing there, against the dark panelling of the wall, in her black dress. And, somehow, it occurred to him all at once that the slim, tall figure did not present the usual signs which distinguish middle age. How old was Meg Piercey, after all? A dozen years ago, when he had been at Greyshott last, she was a girl in her teens. Twelve years do not make a girl of nineteen middle-aged. She had married at four or five-and-twenty—not earlier; and Osy was seven or thereabouts. Gerald found himself unconsciously calculating like an old woman. If she had married attwenty-four, and if Osy were seven, that did not make her more than two-and-thirty at the outside. At thirty-two one is not middle-aged; the Colonel did not feel himself so at forty. To be sure, a woman is different; but even for a woman, though it may not be so romantic as eighteen, it is not a great age—thirty-two. And to be turned out of her home; and to be left with next to nothing to live on; and to be insulted by that vulgar little village girl; and to be set down, even by a man, a relation, one bound to make the best of her, as almost an old woman—at thirty-two! Poor Meg Piercey! Poor Margaret Osborne! The home of her childhood gone, and the protection of her married life gone. And her child! What was the difficulty about her child? Something more, perhaps, when one came to think of it, than merely being left without encumbrance, freed from responsibility! When one came to think of it, and to think how other women were, with their children about them, perhaps, after all, it meant more than that. Poor Meg! poor Meg!
Mrs. Osbornerealised very fully all the weight of the trouble which had fallen upon her, but it is to be doubted whether she would have liked that compassionate apostrophe to “poor Meg!” any more than other things which had fallen from Gerald Piercey’s lips; or, indeed, whether she felt herself so much to be pitied as he did. Nobody knows like ourselves how hard and how heavy our troubles are; and yet, at the same time, our own case is generally less miserable to us than it is to the benevolent onlooker. The moment it becomes our own case it somehow becomes natural, and finds alleviations, or, if not alleviations, circumstances which prove it to be no such extraordinary thing. We change our position according to our lot, and even in the self-consciousness of crime become immediately aware of a whole world of people who are as badly off, or perhaps worse, than we are, without the same explanations of their conduct which exist in our case. Margaret, seeing what had befallen her, and what was about to befall her, instinctively changed her own point of view, and felt,along with the necessity, a new rising of life and courage. The long consideration of what she was to do, though perhaps a painful and discouraging deliberation, yet roused all her faculties and occupied her mind. At thirty-two (since we have arrived through Gerald Piercey’s calculations at something like her exact age), the thought of a new beginning can never be wholly painful. None of the possibilities of life are exhausted; the world is still before us where to choose. Nevertheless it was a confusing and not encouraging subject of thought. Margaret’s education, such as it was, had been completed before any new views about the education of women were prevalent; indeed, it would not have mattered much whether these ideas had been prevalent or not, for certainly it never would have entered into the minds of Sir Giles or Lady Piercey to send their niece to Girton, or even to any humbler place preparatory to Girton. They gave Margaret as little education as was indispensable, entertained reluctantly a governess for her for some years, and had her taught to play the piano a little, and to draw a little, and to have an awkward, not speaking acquaintance with the French verbs, which was all they knew or thought of as needful. What could she do with that amount of knowledge, even now, when she had supplemented it with a great deal of reading, and much thinking of her own? Nothing. No school would have her as a teacher, no sensible parent would trust her, all unaware of the technique of teaching as she was, with the education of their children. And whatwas there else that a woman, a lady, with all her wits about her, and the use of all her faculties, could do? That was the dreadful question. Margaret did not fall back with indignation on the thought that its chief difficulty arose from the fact that she was a woman; for she knew enough of life to be aware that a man of her own class in the same position, trained to nothing in particular, would be almost as badly off. There were “appointments” to be had, she knew, for men certainly, for woman too, occasionally, but she was perfectly vague about them, what they were. And the idea of going out to an office daily, which was her sole conception, and on the whole a just one, of what an “appointment” might mean, filled Margaret with a bewildering sense of inappropriateness and impossibility. It would not be she who could fill any such place. It would be something different from herself, a shadow or outward appearance of her, impossible for herself to realise. Impossible—impossible! She knew nothing but how to read, to think, to discharge the duties of a mother to her child, to live as English ladies live, concerned with small domestic offices, keeping life more or less in harmony, giving orders to the servants, and smoothing over the tempests and troubles which arose from the imperfect execution of these orders—and looking after the poor. To do all these things is to be a not unimportant servant to the commonwealth. Life would go far more roughly, with less advantage on both sides, were it not for functionaries of this kind: but then their services are generally tobe had for nothing, and are not worth money; besides—which makes the matter more difficult still—these services lose a great part of their real value when they are done, not for love but for money, in which case the house lady of nature changes her place altogether and goes over to another and far less pleasing kind.
These thoughts had passed through Margaret’s mind vaguely, and without any pressure of an immediate emergency, many times already in the course of her speculations as to the future for Osy and for herself. She had often said to herself that she could not remain at Greyshott for ever; that the time must come when she would have to decide upon something; that the old couple who were her protectors could not live for ever; and that the house of Gervase, poor Gervase, however it might turn out, would probably be no home for her. She had gone over all those suggestions of what she could do to increase her small income, and to educate her child, with a ceaseless interest, but yet without any sharpness or urgency, as of a thing that might happen at any moment. And there was always a vague ground of probability behind—that either one or other of the old people, who were so fond of Osy, might leave him something to make his first steps easier, that they would not go out of the world without making some provision even for herself, who had served them like their own child, and knew no home but under their wing. There would be that, whatever it was, to make everything more possible. She had not calculated on it, and yet she had felt assured thatsome such thing would be. But now all those prospects had come to an end in a moment. Lady Piercey had left no will at all, and Sir Giles was no longer a free agent, or would not be so any longer. The prospect was cut off before her eyes, all that shadowy margin gone, nothing left but the bare certainty. Two hundred a year! There are very different ways of looking at two hundred pounds a year. It is not very long since the papers were full of letters demonstrating the impossibility of supporting life with honesty and gentility on seven hundred a year. The calculations looked so very convincing, that one rubbed one’s bewildered eyes if one had been accustomed to believe (as I confess I had) that there was a great deal of pleasant spending for two young people in seven hundred a year. On the other hand, I have just read a novel, and a very clever novel, in which it is considered quite justifiable for a young man to marry and take upon him the charge of his wife’s mother and sister on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Clearly there is a very great difference between these estimates, and I think it very likely that the author of the latter is more practically instructed as to what she is speaking of than the gentleman who made the other calculations. Who shall decide upon the fact that lies between these two statements? I can only say that Margaret Osborne’s conclusion was not to waste her time in efforts to get work which she probably could not do well, and which would be quite inappropriate to her, but to try what could be done upon her two hundred pounds ayear. Ah! how many, many millions of people would be thankful to have two hundred a year! How many honest, good, well-conditioned families, “buirdly chiels and clever hizzies,” have been brought up on the half of it! But yet there are differences which cannot be ignored. The working man has many advantages over the gentleman, with his host of artificial wants—but, alas! we cannot go back easily to the rule of nature. Margaret was not so utterly unprovided for as her cousin Gerald had remorsefully imagined. She was not destitute, as she said. She had laid a little money aside for this always-threatening emergency; and she had spoken to Sarah, Osy’s maid, who, though reluctantly and on a very distant and far-off possibility, had declared it possible that she might undertake to do the work of a small house. “But, oh! I wouldn’t, ma’am,” Sarah had said, “not if I was you; you would miss Greyshott and the nice big rooms, and nothing to do but ring the bell.” Margaret had laughed at this conception of life, and laughed now as she recalled it. But no doubt it was true. She was not very apt at ringing of bells, nor did she require much personal service—still it would not be without a regret, a sense of the difference—but that was of too little real importance to be thought of now.
Indeed, all these thoughts were as nothing to the other which Gerald Piercey, in his desire to help her, had flung into her mind like an arrow of fire. To carry Osy away to that cottage, to deprive him of all those “advantages” which, even at his age, a child canunderstand—Osy would know very well what that sacrifice meant when he had no pony to ride on, no great rooms to run about in, no obsequious court of flatterers ready to carry him on their shoulders, to give him drives and rides on nobler animals, to bring him dainties, and all kinds of indulgences. Osy had been the favourite of the house, as well as of old Sir Giles and my lady. He had been as free of the housekeeper’s room as of the library. There was nobody who had not bowed down before him and sought to please him. The child, though he was only a child, would understand what it was to relinquish all these, to have a small cottage, a little garden, nothing outside of them, and only a mother within. At seven years old to have this brought home to him, was early, very early. He would not understand how it was. If he heard, even at that early age, that he might have had another pony, another household to conquer by his pretty ways, and all the usual indulgences and pleasant things, but for his mother, would Osy’s childish affection bear that test? Would he like her better than his pony? And, oh! still deeper, more penetrating question, was she better than the pony, better than the larger upbringing, the position of one who is born to command, the freedom of life, the influence of men, the “every advantage” of which Gerald Piercey had spoken? Would she, a woman not very cheerful, and who must in future be very full of cares and calculations how to make both ends meet, would she be better for him than all that? She? What question could be more penetrating?“It would be better for the child.” Would it be better for him? Sometimes it comes about that in the very midst of the happiness of life, with every sail full, and the sun shining, and the horizon clear, there comes a sudden catastrophe, and some young woman whose life has been that of the group of children at her knee, has suddenly to stop and stand by with dumb anguish, and see one and another taken away from her by kind friends, kindest friends! benefactors only to be blessed and praised! while all around her other friends congratulate her, bid her feel that she must not stand in the way of the children, of their real advantage! Is it to their real advantage? Is it better to be the children of kindness or the children of love? to be brought up in your own home or in another’s? Oh, poor little mother; often you have to smile out of your broken heart and bear it! Margaret Osborne had but one thing in the world; but she would have done like the others, and smiled and endured even to be severed from that only possession, had she been sure. Who can be sure? She said to herself that love, and his own home, and the ties of nature were best. And then Gerald Piercey’s words came back and stung her like fiery serpents: “A man’s career, under men’s influence, or——” Or what? A poor woman’s influence, a woman who was herself a failure, whom nobody cared much for under the sun. Which—which would be the best for Osy? This is the kind of argument that tears the heart in two. It is full of anguish while it is going on: and after thedecision is made, it lays up poignant and dreadful recollections. If I had not done that, but the other—if I had not sent away my child into the careless hands of strangers; or, on the other hand, if I had not been so confident of myself; if I could but have seen how much better for him would have been the man’s influence, the man’s career!
This was the war that Margaret was waging with herself while she had to meet the immediate troubles of the day. It was inconceivable how soon the great house was filled with Patty’s presence, how soon it became hers, from roof to basement, how she pervaded it in all the rooms at once, so to speak, so that nothing was out of her sharp sight for more than two minutes. Mrs. Osborne had retired upstairs with her heart full when she left Colonel Piercey in the hall; but in the restlessness of a disturbed mind she came down again about an hour afterwards, partly to put a stop, for a time, to that endless argument, partly to write a letter which she had promised, to inform Lady Hartmore of what had happened, and partly, perhaps, out of that curiosity and painful inclination to hasten a catastrophe which comes to the mind in the storms of existence. It is true that she had made up her mind to leave Greyshott, but she could not do so as Gerald, a visitor, did, nor was she sure how she could best arrange her retirement with dignity and composure. She felt that there must be no semblance of a quarrel, nor would she make matters worse for Gervase’s wife by allowing it to appear to the county that her firstact had been to drive Gervase’s cousin out of the house. She had decided to wait a little, to endure the newrégimeuntil she could quietly detach herself without any shock to her old uncle or commotion in the house. Yet it cannot be denied that Margaret’s nerves were very much disturbed, and that she was conscious of Patty’s entrance while she sat writing her letter, and felt her heart jump when that active, bustling little step became again and again audible. Margaret was seated with her back to the door, but the sound of this step, returning and returning, betrayed to her very clearly the impatience with which her presence was regarded. And her letter did not make much progress. She foresaw the coming attack, and she did not forestall it as she might have done by going away. At last a voice as sharp as the step broke the listening silence of the room.
“Margaret Osborne! how long are you going to be writing that letter? The housemaids are waiting, and I must have this room thoroughly done out. It wants it, I am sure! Oh, take your time! but if you will let me know about when you are likely to be done——”
“I can finish my letter upstairs, if it is necessary,” Margaret said, turning round.
“Well, I think generally that is the best way. The library’s generally supposed to be the gentlemen’s room in a house. I mean to have the drawing-room put in order, and to use that, as it ought to be used. But not just this week, and poor mother so lately buried.I don’t know what your feelings may be, but I can’t sit in a dingy place like this,” Patty said. “Oh, take your time,” she added, with fine irony; “but if you could tell me within half an hour or so when you are likely to have done——”
“I will finish my letter in my own room.”
“If I was you,” said Patty, “I’d write them all there in future. New folks make new ways. I am very particular about my house. I like everything kept in its proper place—and every person,” she added significantly. “The servants can’t serve two masters. That is in the Bible, you know, so it must be true.”
“I do not think,” said Margaret, with a faint smile, “that you will be troubled by their devotion to me.”
“No; I suppose you have let yourself be put upon,” said Patty; “because, though you think yourself one of the family, you ain’t exactly one of the family, and, of course, they see that. It’s not good for a houseful of servants to have a sort of a lady, neither one thing nor another, neither a mistress nor a servant, in the house. It teaches them to be disrespectful to their betters, because they know you can’t do anything to them. I would rather pension poor relations off than have them about the house putting everything out.”
“It will not be necessary in my case,” cried Margaret, with a sudden flame of anger and shame enveloping her all over. “I had fully intended to leave Greyshott, but wished to avoid any appearance of—— any shock to my uncle.”
“Oh, take your time!” cried Patty, with a toss of her head; and she called to the housemaids, who appeared timorous and undecided at the door. “Come here, and I’ll show how I wish you to settle all this in future,” she said. “Oh, Mrs. Osborne’s going! You needn’t mind for her.”
Itwas not worth while to be angry. She had known, of course, all along, how it must be. There had been no thought in her mind of resistance, of remaining in Greyshott as Patty’s companion, of appealing to her uncle against the new mistress of the house. It had not been a very happy home for Margaret at any time; though, while Lady Piercey lived, it was a sure one, as well as habitual,—the only place that seemed natural to her, and to which she belonged. Perhaps, she said to herself, as she went hurriedly upstairs, with that sense of the intolerable which a little insult brings almost more keenly than a great sorrow, it was better that the knot should thus be cut for her by an alert and decisive hand, and no uncertainty left on the subject. She went into her room quickly, with a “wind in her going,” a sweep of her skirts, an action and movement about her which was unlike her usual composure. Sarah was alone in her room, not seated quietly at work as was her wont, but standing at the window looking out upon some scene below. There was a corner of the stable yard visible from one windowof Margaret’s rooms, which were far from being the best rooms in the house.
“Where is Master Osy?” Mrs. Osborne said.
“He is with Sir Giles, ma’am. I—I was just taking a glance from the window before I began my work——”
“Sarah,” said Margaret, “we shall have to begin our packing immediately. We are going away.” How difficult it was not to say a little more—not to relieve the burden of her indignation with a word or two! for, indeed, there was nobody whom she could speak to except this round-faced girl, who looked up half frightened, half sympathetic, into her face.
“Oh, ma’am, to leave Greyshott! Where are you a-going to?” Sarah said; and her open mouth and eyes repeated with dismay the same question, fixed upon Margaret’s face.
“Shall you be so sorry to leave Greyshott?” said Mrs. Osborne.
Sarah hung her head. She took her handkerchief from her pocket, and twisted it into a knot; finally the quick-coming tears rolled over her round cheeks. “Oh, ma’am!” she cried, and could say no more. A nurserymaid’s tears do not seem a very tragic addition to any trouble, and yet they came upon Margaret with all the force of a new misfortune.
“What is it, Sarah? Is it leaving Jim? is that why you cry?”
“Oh, we was to be married at Christmas,” the girl cried, in a passion of tears.
“Then you meant to leave me, Sarah? Why didn’t you tell me so? Well, of course, I should not hinder your marriage, my good girl; but Christmas is six months off, and you will stay with Master Osy, won’t you, till that time comes?”
Sarah became inarticulate with crying, but shook her head, though she could not speak.
“No!—do you mean no? I thought you were fond of us,” said poor Margaret, quite broken down by this unexpected desertion. It was of no importance, no importance! she said to herself; but, nevertheless, it gave her a sting.
“Oh, don’t ask me, ma’am, don’t ask me! So I am, fond: there never was a nicer lady. But how do I know as Jim—— they changes so, they changes so, does men!” Sarah cried, among her tears.
“Well, well; you will pack for me, at least,” said Margaret, with a faint laugh, “if that is how we are to part, Sarah,—but you must begin at once; no more looking out of the window, for a little while, at least. But Jim is a good fellow. He will be faithful—till Christmas.” She laughed again; was it as the usual alternative to crying? or was it because there are junctures of utter forlornness and solitude to which a laugh responds better than any crying? not less sadly, one may be sure.
Sarah dried her streaming eyes, but continued to shake her head. “It’s out o’ sight out of mind with most of ’em,” she said. “I’ll have to go and get the boxes, ma’am, and I don’t know who there is to fetch’em up, unless I might call Jim—and the others, they don’t like to see a groom a-coming into the house.”
“Then let the others do it, Sarah.”
“Oh, Mrs. Osborne! they won’t go agin the—— the new lady, as they calls her. Oh, they calls her just Patty and nasty names among themselves, but if you asks them to do a thing, they says, ‘We wasn’t hired to work for the likes of you and your Missus, Sal.’ Not a better word from one o’ them men,” cried Sarah, “not one of ’em! They’re as frightened of her already as if she was the devil, and she isn’t far short. I’ll call him, ma’am, when they’re at their dinners; and, perhaps, you’d give him a word, just a word, to say as how you think he’s a lucky fellow to have got me, and that kind of thing—as a true friend.”
“Is that the office of a true friend?” said Margaret. It is a great thing in this life, which has so many hard passages, when you are able to be amused. Sarah’s petition and the words which she kindly put into her mistress’s mouth, did Margaret more good than a great deal of philosophy. She went away after a time to look for her boy and to tell her uncle of the decision she had come to. They were out, as usual, in the avenue, Sir Giles being wheeled along by a very glum Dunning, and Osy babbling and making his little excursions round and about the old gentleman’s chair.
“When I am a man,” Osy was saying, “I s’all be far, far away from here. I s’all be a soldier leading my tompany. I s’an’t do what nobody tells me—not you, Uncle Giles, nor Movver, nobody but the Queen.”
“And I sha’n’t be here at all, Osy,” said the old man. “When you come back a great Captain like your cousin Gerald, there will be no old Uncle Giles to tell you what you said when you were a little boy.”
“Why?” said the child, coming up close to the chair. “Will they put you down in the black hole with Aunt Piercey, Uncle Giles?”
“Master Osy, don’t you speak of no such drefful things,” said Dunning.
“But Parsons said, ‘She have don to heaven,’ ” said the child. “I like Parsons’ way the best, for heaven’s a beau’ful place. I’d like to go and see you there, Uncle Giles. You wouldn’t want Dunning, you’d have an angel to dwive you about.”
“Oh, my little man!” said Sir Giles, “I don’t think I am worthy of an angel. I’m more frightened for the angel than for the black hole, Osy. I don’t think I want any better angel than you are, my nice little boy. I hope God will let me go on a little just quietly with Dunning, and you to talk to your old uncle. Tell me a little more about what you will do when you are a man. That amuses me most.”
“Uncle Giles, Cousin Gervase doesn’t do very much though he’s a man. He’s only don and dot marrwed. I’m glad he’s dot marrwed. I dave him my big silver penny for a marrwage present. If he hadn’t been marrwed he would have tooked it, and a gemplemans s’ouldn’t never do that. So I’m glad. Are you glad, Uncle Giles?”
“Never mind, never mind, my boy. Are you sureyou’ll go to India, Osy, and fight all the Queen’s battles? She doesn’t know what a great, grand champion she’s going to have, like Goliath,” said the old man with his rumbling laugh.
“Goliaf,” said Osy, gravely, “wasn’t a nice soldier. He was more big nor anybody and he bragged of it. It’s grander to be the littlest and win. I am not very big, Uncle Giles, not at pwesent.”
“No, Osy. That’s true, my dear,” said the old gentleman.
“But I’ll twy!” cried the boy. “I’m not fwightened of big men. They’re generwally,” he added, half apologetically and with a struggle over the word, “nice to little boys. Cousin Colonel, he is wather like Goliaf. He dave me a wide upon his s’oulder; but when he sawed Movver tomin, he—— Are big men ever fwightened of ladies, Uncle Giles?”
“Sometimes, Osy,” said Sir Giles, with a delighted laugh.
“Then it was that!” cried Osy. “I touldn’t understand. Oh, wait, Uncle Giles; just wait till I tatch that butterfly. I’ll tatch him; I’ll tatch him in a moment! I’m a great one,” the child sang, running off—“for tatching butterflies, for tatching—— Movver, movver, you sended it away.”
“What did the little shaver mean by giving a wedding present?” said Sir Giles. “Where’s my money, Dunning? have I got any money? If he gave my boy a wedding present, it was the—the only one. They’ll come in now, perhaps, when it gets known;but I’ll not forget Osy for that, I’ll not forget Osy for that. Did you ever see a child like him, Dunning? I never saw a child like him, except our first one that we lost,” said the old man with a sob. “Did I ever tell you of our first that we lost? Just such a child; just such a child! And my poor Gervase was the dearest little thing when he was a baby, before——. Children are very different from men—very different, very different, Dunning. You never know how the most promising is to grow up. Sometimes they’re a—— a great disappointment. They’re always a disappointment, I should say from what I’ve seen, comparing the little thing with the big man, as Osy says. But, please God, we’ll make a man of that boy, whatever happens. Ah, Meg! is it you? I was just saying we must make a man of Osy—we must make a man of him—whatever happens.”
“I hope he will turn out a good man, Uncle Giles.”
“Oh, we shall make a man of him, Meg! not but what, as I was saying, they’re always disappointments more or less. Your poor aunt would never let me say that, when she was breaking her poor heart for our first boy that we lost. I used to say he might have grown up to rend our hearts—but she would never hear me, never let me speak. It broke her heart, that baby’s going, Meg.” This had happened a quarter of a century before, but the old gentleman spoke as if it had been yesterday. “You may think she did not show it, and looked as if she had forgotten; but she never forgot. I saw it in her eyes when she sawGerald Piercey first. She gave me a look as if to say, this might be him coming home, a distinguished man. For he was a delightful child—he might have grown to be anything, that boy!”
“Dear Uncle Giles! You must try to look to the future—to think that there may be perhaps other children to love.” Margaret laid her hand tenderly upon the old man’s shoulder, which was heaving with those harmless sobs—which meant so little, and yet were so pitiful to the beholder. “I wanted to speak to you—about Osy, Uncle Giles.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man, cheering up. “Did you hear that he gave my poor Gervase a wedding present? that little chap! and the only one—the only one! I’ll never forget that, Meg, if I should live to be a hundred. And, please God, we’ll pay it back to him, and make a man of him, Meg.”
“It was precisely of that, Uncle, I wanted to speak.” But how was she to speak? What was she to say to this old man so full of affection and of generous purpose? Margaret went on patting the old gentleman on the shoulder unconsciously, soothing him as if he had been a child. “Dear Uncle Giles, you know that now Gervase is married, they—he will want to live, perhaps, rather a different way.”
“What different way?” said Sir Giles, aroused and holding up his head.
“I mean, they are young people, you know, and will want to, perhaps—see more company, have visitors, enjoy their life.”
Sir Giles gave her an anxious, deprecating look.
“Do you think then, Meg, that—that she will do? that she will know how to manage? that she will be able to keep Gervase up to the mark?”
“I think,” said Margaret, pausing to find the best words, “I think—that she is really clever, and very, very quick, and will adapt herself and learn, and—yes—I believe she will keep him up to the mark.”
“God bless you for saying so, my dear! that is what I began to hope. We could not have expected him to make a great match, Meg.”
“No, Uncle.”
“His poor mother, you know, always had hopes. She thought some nice girl might have taken a fancy to him. But it was not to be expected, Meg.”
“No, Uncle. I don’t think it was to be expected.”
“In that case,” said Sir Giles—he was so much aroused and interested that there was a certain clearness in his thoughts—“in that case, it is perhaps the best thing that could have happened after all.”
“Dear Uncle, yes, perhaps. But to give them every chance, to make them feel quite at ease and unhampered, I think they should be left to themselves.”
“I will not interfere with them,” he cried; “I will not meddle between them. Once I have accepted a thing, Meg, I accept it fully. You might know me enough for that.”
“I never doubted you, Uncle; but there is more: I think, dear Uncle Giles, I must go away.”
“You—go away!” he said, looking up at her, hisloose lips beginning to quiver; “you—go away! Why, Meg, you can be of more use here than ever. You can show her how to—how to—why, bless us, we all know, after all, that though she’s Mrs. Piercey, she was only, only—well, nobody, Meg! you know—don’t bother me with names. She is nobody. She can’t know how to—to behave herself even. I looked to you to—— Dunning, be off with you: look after Master Osy. I know it’s wrong to speak before servants, Meg, but Dunning’s not exactly a servant, he knows everything; he has heard everything discussed.”
“Too much, I fear,” said Margaret half to herself. “Dear Uncle, perhaps you have not considered that mine has always been rather a doubtful position. I am your niece, and you have always been like my father, but Gervase’s wife thinks me only a dependant. One can’t wonder at it—neither mistress nor servant. She thinks a little as the servants do. I am only here as a dependant. She will not take a hint from me. She will be better without me here. For one thing, she would think I was watching her, and making unkind remarks, however innocent I might be. It is best, indeed it is best, dear Uncle, that I should go.”
“Go! away from Greyshott, Meg!—why, why! Greyshott—you have always been at Greyshott.”
“Yes, Uncle Giles, thanks to you; dear Uncle Giles, when I was an orphan, and had no one, you have done everything for me; but now the best thing I can do for you is to go away. Oh, I know it, and am sure of it; everything will go better without me.You may imagine I don’t like to think that, but it is true.”
There was an interval, during which the old man was quite broken down, and Dunning, rushing to his master’s side, shot reproachful speeches, as well as glances, at Mrs. Osborne. “It appears,” said Dunning, “that I’m never believed to know nothink, not even my own dooty to my master; but those as comes to him with disagreeable stories and complaints, and that just at this critical moment in the middle of his trouble, poor gentleman, knows less than me. Come, Sir Giles. Compose yourself, Sir Giles. I’ll have to give you some of your drops, and you know as you don’t like ’em, if you don’t take things more easy, Sir Giles.”
“I’m better,” said the old gentleman, feebly; “better, better. But, Meg, you’ve got no money—how are you to live without money, Meg?”
“I have my pension, uncle.”
“A pension! what is a pension? It isn’t enough for anything. Even your poor aunt always allowed that.”
“It is enough to live on, Uncle—for Osy and me.”
“Osy, too,” he cried—“Osy, that I was just saying we must make a man of! You are very, very hard upon me, Meg. I never thought you would be hard upon me.” But already Sir Giles was wearied of his emotions, and was calming down.
“I hope there will be other children to make up to you, Uncle Giles.”
“What!” cried the old man, “is there a prospectof that? Are there thoughts of that already, Meg? Now, that is news, that is news! Now you make up for everything. Whew!” Sir Giles uttered a feeble whistle, and then he gave a feeble cheer. “Hurrah—then there may be an heir to the old house still. Hurrah! Hurrah?”
“Shall I say it for you, Uncle Giles?” said Osy. “Stand out of the way, Movver, and let Uncle Giles and me do it. Hurrah!” cried the little fellow, waving his hat upon Sir Giles’ stick. “Now, Uncle Giles, hip, hip, as the men do—hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”
Thiswas about Osy’s last performance in the house which was the only home he had ever known. He did not know what he was cheering for, but only that it was delightful to make a noise, and that his old uncle’s tremulous bass, soon lost in an access of sobs and laughter, was very funny. Osy would willingly have gone on for half an hour with this novel amusement; but it must be allowed that when he found the great boxes standing about in the room that had been his nursery, and began to watch the mysteries of the packing, his healthy little soul was disturbed by no trouble of parting, but jumped forward to the intoxicating thought of a journey and a new place with eager satisfaction and wonder. Everything was good to Osy, whether it was doing exactly the same thing to-day as he had done every day since he was born, or playing with something that he had never done or known before. He was much more perplexed to be kept upstairs after dinner, and not allowed to go down to the library, than he was by the removal from everything he had ever known. And when next morning he was drivenaway in the big carriage to the railway station, he was as ready to cheer for the delight of the outset as he had been, without knowing why, for Uncle Giles’ mysterious burst of self-gratulation. All things were joyful to the little new soul setting out upon the world.
Patty, however, was by no means delighted with Margaret’s prompt withdrawal. She felt herself forestalled, which was painful, and the power of the initiative taken from her. She had intended to play for a little, as the cat plays with the mouse, with this fine lady, who had once been so far above Patty Hewitt, and to whom, in her schoolgirl days, she had been expected to curtsey as to the Queen. Patty’s heart had swelled with the thought of bringing down pride (a moral process, as everybody knows), and teaching the woman who had no money, and therefore no right to set herself up above others, her proper place; and it vexed her that this finerôleshould be taken from her.
“Oh, you are going, are you?” she said. “I hope it isn’t on my account. When I married Gervase I knew all that there was to put up with, and more than has turned out. I knew I shouldn’t have my house to myself, like most new married ladies, and I had made up my mind to all that. I wouldn’t have turned you out, not for the world—however you might have been in my way.”
“I am afraid I have a strong objection,” said Margaret, “to be in anybody’s way.”
“Ah, that’s your pride,” said Patty, “which I must say I wonder at in a person of your age, and thatknows she has nothing to keep it up on. You’ve got a pension, haven’t you, that’s enough to live on? It’s a fine thing having money out of all our pockets to spend as you please; but I never heard that a pension was much to trust to, and if you were to marry again you would lose it all. And your boy to bring up, too. My father-in-law has a tremendous idea of your boy. I think it’s good for him, in one way, that you are taking him away; for it’s ridiculous to bring up a poor child like that, who hasn’t a penny, to think that he’s as good as the heir, and treated by everybody as if he was really a gentleman’s son, you know, with a good fortune at his back.”
Margaret smothered with difficulty the indignation that rose to her lips, but she said quietly, “You must disabuse your mind of any such idea. Osy never could be my uncle’s heir. The heir of Greyshott after Gervase—and, of course, Gervase’s children—is not Osy, but Gerald Piercey, our cousin who has just gone away.”
Though this was precious information to Patty, she received it with a toss of her head.
“I hope,” she said, “I know a little about the family I’ve married into; but I can tell you something more, and that is, that it’ll never be your fine Colonel’s, for all so grand as he thinks himself; for it’s all in father-in-law’s power, and rather than let him have it he’ll leave it all away. I wouldn’t see a penny go to that man that gives himself such airs, not if I were to make the will myself to take it away.”
“I hope,” said Margaret, with an effort, “that there will be natural heirs, and that there need be no question on that point.”
“Oh, you will stand up for him, of course!” cried Patty; “but I’d like you to know, if you’re making up the match on that score, that it’ll never come to pass. Me and Gervase is both against him, and father-in-law won’t go against us both, not when he gets used to me. I’d rather see it all go to an ’ospital than to that man. I can’t bear that man, looking down upon those that are better than himself, as if he was on stilts!” Patty grew red and hot in her indignation. Then she shook out her dress airily, as if shaking away the subject and the objectionable person. “Oh yes,” she said, “natural heirs!” with a conscious giggle. “It’s you that has gone and put that in father-in-law’s old head. But I told him it was early days. Dear old man. It’s a pity he is silly. I don’t think he ever can have been much in his head, any more than——. Do you?”
“My uncle is in very bad health. He is ill, and his nerves are much affected. But he has always been a man quite—quite able to manage his own affairs. A man,” cried Margaret, faltering a little with indignation and distress, “of very good sense and energy, not at all like—not at all——”
“Well, well,” said Patty, “time shows everything, you know, and he’s quite safe with me and Gervase; at all events, whatever comes after, his only son comes first, don’t he? And me and Gervase will see thatthe dear old man isn’t made a cat’s-paw of, but kept quite square.”
It was with a sensation half of disappointment, yet more than half of satisfaction, that Patty found herself next morning alone in what she called so confidently her own house. Alone, for Sir Giles, of course, was in his own room, and was much better there, she felt, and Gervase, so long as he was kept in good humour, was not very troublesome. To be sure, it cost a good deal of exertion on her part to keep him in good humour. He felt, as so many a wooer of his simple mind has done, the want of the employment of courtship, which had so long amused and occupied him. He could no longer go to the Seven Thorns in the evening, a resource which was entirely cut off from his vacant life, from the fact of having Patty always with him, without the exercise of any endeavour on his own part. The excitement of keeping free of his mother’s scrutiny; the still greater excitement of fishing furtively for Patty’s attention, making her see that he was there, persuading her by all the simple wiles of which he was master to grant him an interview; the alarm of getting home, with all the devices which had to be practised in order to get in safely, without being called to account and made to say where he had been—and inspected, to see what he had been doing: all this took a great deal of the salt out of poor Gervase’s life. He did not know, now that he had settled down again at home, and all the annoying sensations of the crises were over, what to do with himself in the evenings.Patty and he alone were rather less lively than it had used to be when Sir Giles and Lady Piercey sat in their great chairs, and the game of backgammon was going on, and Meg about, and the child rampaging in all the corners. Even to have so many more people in the room gave it to him an air of additional animation. Patty told him it was the library that looked so dull. “Such a room for you all to sit in,” she said, “so gloomy and dark, with these horrid old pictures, and miles of books. Wait till I have the drawing-room in order.” But it didn’t amuse Gervase to watch all the alterations Mrs. Patty was making, nor how she was having the white and gold of the great drawing-room furbished up. The first night they sat in that huge room, with all the lamps lit, and the two figures lost among all the gilding and the damask, and reflected over and over again, till they were tired of seeing themselves in the big mirrors, Gervase felt more lonely than ever. Never had Patty found so hard a task before her,—not when she had to attend to all the customers alone, and keep their accounts separate in her head, and to chalk up as much as was safe to the score of one toper, and cleverly avoid hearing the call of another who had exceeded the utmost range of possible solvability. Never, when she had all that to do, had she found it so heavy upon her as it was to amuse Gervase. She invented noisy games for him, she plied him with caresses when other methods failed, she endeavoured to revive the old teasings and elusions of the courtship; but as Gervase’s imaginationhad never had much to do with his love-making, these attempts to return to an earlier stage were generally futile. He could not be played with—made miserable by a frown, brought back again by a smile, as had once been the case. And Patty had more than the labours of a Hercules in keeping her Softy in order. There was no one to defend him from now, no tyrannical mother to be defied, to make him feel the force of the wife’s protection. When Sir Giles was well enough to come to the drawing-room after dinner, the task was quite beyond the powers of any woman; for it was needful to please the old gentleman, to give up everything for him, to represent to him that his company was always a delight to his children. Poor old Sir Giles had winked and blinked in the many lights of the great drawing-room. He had been dazzled, but he had not been ill-pleased.
“We never used this, you know, in your mother’s time but for company,” he said. It was Gervase whom he seemed to address, but it was Patty who replied.
“I thought it would be a little change for you,” she said. “A change is always good, and there’s more light and more air. You should always have plenty of air, and not the associations that are in the other room.”
“Perhaps you are right, my dear,” the old gentleman said with a sigh. It was she who was “my dear” now; and, indeed, she was very attentive to Sir Giles, never neglecting him, doing everything she could think of for his pleasure. It was on one of the evenings when she was devoting herself to him, playing thegame he loved, and allowing him to win in the cleverest way, that Gervase, who was strolling about the room with his hands in his pockets, half jealous of his father, calling her, now in whispers, now loudly, to leave that and come to him, at last disappeared before the game was finished. Patty went on hurriedly with the backgammon, but she was on thorns all the while. She had established the habit of sending off Dunning, whom she was slowly undermining, less for any serious reason than because he was a relic of the pastrégime; and, therefore, she was now helpless; could not leave Sir Giles; could not interrupt the process of amusing and entertaining him. Where had the Softy gone? to prowl about the house looking for something that might amuse him; to fling himself dissatisfied upon his bed and fall asleep in the utter vacancy of his soul? An uneasy sense that something worse than this was possible oppressed Patty as she sat and played out the game of backgammon. Then there ensued another dreadful interval, during which Sir Giles talked and wondered what had become of his son. “He has gone to sleep somewhere, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Patty; “the nights are growing long, and poor dear Gervase wants a little amusement. I was thinking of suggesting, dear papa (this was the name she had fixed upon Sir Giles, who had resisted at first, then laughed, and finally accepted the title with the obedience of habit), that we should both play, he and I, against you. You are worth more than the two of us, you know.”
“Nonsense, you little flatterer. You’ve a very pretty notion of the game. I had to fight for it that last round. I had, indeed. I had to fight for my life.”
“Ah, dear papa!” said Patty, shaking her head at him. “You are worth far more than the two of us! but it would keep us all together, all the family together.”
“I don’t like Gervase to play with me,” said Sir Giles fretfully. “He’s too noisy, and he has no sense; he can’t understand a refined game. I shouldn’t wonder if he had gone out to some of his old haunts that his poor mother couldn’t bear. The Seven——. I beg your pardon, my dear, I am sure,” the old gentleman cried, colouring up to his eyes.
“Dear papa, why should you beg my pardon? But oh, no! Gervase has not gone to the Seven Thorns. He went there for me. That makes all the difference. Why should he go back now?”
“My dear,” said Sir Giles again, “I must beg your pardon. I didn’t intend to make any insinuation. Of course it was for you. But it’s a dangerous thing to acquire a habit, especially for one that—for one that doesn’t, don’t you know, take in many ideas at a time.”
“I know him better than that. I know where he is, the lazy boy. But, dear papa, fancy, it is ten o’clock; your bedtime. Oh, how soon ten comes when we have a pleasant game, and in such good company! I suppose I must ring for Dunning now.”
“Yes, you had better ring for Dunning. If I am a little bit late, and should have a headache or anything,he throws it in my teeth. We have had a very pleasant game, and I must say that for you, my dear, that you know how to make the time pass. Well, Dunning, here I am, ready you see, ready to the minute, thanks to Mrs. Gervase, who is a great deal more careful of me than you are, you surly old beggar. Good night, my dear; but tell Gervase from me that it isn’t good manners to break up the party; but he never was renowned for good manners, poor boy,” the old gentleman said, shaking his head as he was wheeled away.
And then Patty had a bitter moment. She went to the library, where he sometimes took refuge, falling asleep upon the old sofa, where he had lain and kicked his heels as a child; and then to his room, where he sometimes went when he was dull, to throw himself upon his bed. But Gervase was not to be found in either place. He came stumbling to the old door which opened on the yew avenue, late at night, and she herself ran downstairs to admit him—angry, yet subduing herself. He had resumed his old habit, as his father had guessed: the habit which had been formed for Patty, and which she had so sharply shaken him out of with a power and mastery which she no longer possessed. Patty felt in that moment the first drawback of that unexampled elevation which she had attained with such unexpected ease. Had she married in her own class, the publican’s daughter would not have been very deeply wounded by her husband’s return on an occasion in such a plight. But when shestole down through the sleeping house and admitted the future master of Greyshott, and led him upstairs, hushing his broken speech and stumbling gait, that nobody might hear, Patty learned something which no other manner of instruction could have conveyed to her. She found that there were things that were harder upon a lady (such as she flattered herself she had become) than on a village woman. She coaxed and soothed him to bed, like a nurse with a child, that nobody should suspect what had happened; and she ground her teeth and vowed vengeance upon her father, who had dared to take the Softy in and treat him like this. And thus there arose before Patty a prospect which appalled even her brisk and courageous spirit. What if she should not be able to put this down summarily and with the strong hand? Then what would become of her hopes of winning a place in the county, and being acknowledged by all the great people as worthy to make her entrance among them? After the first unexpected triumph of becoming mistress of a great house and a number of servants, her ambition had risen to higher flights; and this was what that over-vaulting ambition aimed at. But what would become of that hope, or of many others, if the Softy, startled out of himself for a moment by his marriage, should fall back into the beerhouse society which suited him best? Patty fell from the height of her dreams when she saw that sight which is always a pitiful one for a young wife. She felt the burden of “the honour unto which she was not born” come down for the first time witha crushing weight upon her. Oh, it was not so simple after all—so easy, so pleasant to be a lady! She had begun already to forget that it was to Gervase she owed her advancement, and to feel the burden of keeping him amused and employed. Now she felt that the Softy had it in his power to mar that advancement still. She had cleared every hostile influence out of the house; she had got rid of every rival. She had conquered Sir Giles, and gained possession of the keys, and become the acknowledged mistress of Greyshott. What a great thing, what a wonderful thing, for Patty Hewitt! And yet she felt, in the bitterness of her heart, that it might be better to be still Patty Hewitt, with all the world before her, than to be Mrs. Piercey, of Greyshott, with that Softy to drag her down.
This was the first big thorn that pierced Patty’s foot, and reminded her that she was mortal, as she was marching on in her victorious way.
Pattyhad been triumphantly successful in the first chapter of her career. She had an easy victory over her father-in-law. She had cleared the house of everybody whom she disliked or feared. First, Mrs. Osborne, and with her—not least in Patty’s estimation—Sarah, Osy’s maid, who had been at school with her, and whom she was still more anxious to get rid of than her mistress. Then Parsons, who knew a great deal too much of the family to be endurable for a moment; then the one servant in the house who had ventured to be rude to Gervase’s wife, John the footman: a dreadful example, whose sudden fate had exercised the most salutary influence over the rest of the household. It is true that Dunning still remained Sir Giles’ attendant, against whom there were the same objections as against Parsons; but for the moment, at least, Dunning was indispensable, and had to be borne with. She stood, however, after the first month of her sway on the very top-gallant of success, supreme in the house, her word a law, the oldest and most secure arrangements falling to pieces at her will, the entireorder of affairs changed to please her. Everything had gone as she desired, and no head had been lifted up in rebellion. The great wardrobes were full of fine clothes. She had shuffled off Miss Fletcher, the village dressmaker, and procured the finest and most highly cultivated maid that ever advertised in theTimes. Lady Piercey’s stores of lace and linen, and even her old-fashioned jewellery, which was much more valuable than beautiful, were in Patty’s hands. She had realised all her dreams, and more than all. But there is nothing perfect in human affairs, and now the reverse of her good fortune began to rise out of the mists before Patty’s eyes.
The first trouble of all was, perhaps, the cutting off of her connection with her home and origin. Her father had come to see her very early in her story, had been received in the half-dismantled library for a short angry conference, and left with a crimson countenance and a volley of muttered oaths, and had never come again. But there was another member of the family who was less easy to get rid of. Miss Hewitt made a call in state, in her most splendid costume, with a bonnet still more exuberant in red and yellow than that in which she had witnessed the funeral of Lady Piercey. She descended upon Patty at an early hour, when Mrs. Gervase was still profoundly occupied with the restoration of the great drawing-room, and made her way there, regardless of the opposition of the polite butler. “Perhaps you are not aware that I am Mrs. Piercey’s own aunt,” that lady said fiercely;“I shall go to my niece wherever she is. I have no fear of not being welcome.” The butler knew, also, too well who the visitor was, and he trembled for the consequences of his weakness as she pushed her way before him into the room where the carpenter and his apprentice and a couple of housemaids were executing Patty’s orders, under her close superintendence. The men were on ladders cleaning the long mirrors, the maids were busy with the furniture, while Patty, seated in a gilt and brocaded chair sat in state looking on. “Place that table in the corner, there, and these two chairs beside it. Not that, you stupid; the deep gentleman’s chair on one side, and this one without arms on the other—let me see. Yes, that will do, with a palm or a great fern behind.” Patty held her head on one side to contemplate the effect, while the two housemaids stood looking on, not yet so much accustomed to the new sway that they did not exchange a glance, a “la! much she knows about it,” when her attention was called away.
It was, indeed, with no small start and sensation that Patty’s attention was called away. She was sitting thus, with her head on one side, contemplating the group of furniture, perhaps imagining herself in the chair without arms, with a silken train arranged about her feet (when her mourning should be over, for Patty was, in all things, a stickler for propriety), while some grand gentleman, a viscount at least, leant over the table entertaining her from the depths of the “gentleman’s chair”: when there suddenly burst upon her consciousness a bustle at the door, a quick throwing open, and a voice which was harsh and jarring, but alas, how well known and familiar!
“Patty, my pet, here I am! That man of yours wanted to put me in a waiting-room, but I said, Where she is there I’ll go; and here I am, my little lovey, and a happy woman to see you in your own house.”
“Oh!” cried Patty, rising quickly from her chair. Her wits were so much about her, even in this great and sudden shock, that she refrained from saying aunt in the hearing of that excited audience—which was foolish, indeed, since all the housemaids and all the carpenters in Greyshott parish knew very well that Miss Hewitt, of Rose Cottage, was Mrs. Piercey’s aunt, and far the richest, consequently the most respectable of her kindred. Patty could not say much more, for she was enfolded in the heavy drapery of Miss Hewitt’s Paisley shawl, and almost stifled in her close embrace. “And bless you, all’s ended as I said it would; and ain’t I glad I was the one to help you to it?” Miss Hewitt said in her enthusiasm, bestowing a large audible kiss on Patty’s face.
“Oh, dear!” said Patty, as soon as she could speak. “This isn’t the place to receive any one in. Jervis, why didn’t you show the lady into the morning-room? I can’t talk to you here, with all the servants about.”
“Don’t blame the man,” said Miss Hewitt; “I wanted to see you free, without stopping whatever you were doing. It’s not as if I were a mere visitor as couldn’t make allowances. I just like to see everything,and what it was like before, and what you’re doing. I know you, Patty. They won’t know it for the same ’ouse afore you’re done with it. Well, this is a nice room! but none too big for what you’ll want when you get things your own way. Greyshott won’t know itself with all the doings there’ll be.”
“Oh, but I can’t receive any lady here,” said Patty. “Let me take you into the morning-room; it’s where I always sit in the morning. I couldn’t possibly sit and talk with a caller before lunch in any other place. If you don’t mind I’ll show you the way.”
The butler held the door open with an obsequious air in which there was, as that functionary was well aware, an over-acting of his part—but that did not occur to the ladies who swept out, Patty in advance, and to whom it would scarcely have seemed too much if Jervis had walked backwards before them. He stayed behind to make his comment with uplifted hands and eyes upon the spectacle. “Lord, ain’t she a-going it!” said Jervis. It was, perhaps, not dignified for a person in his position to unbosom himself to the housemaids and the carpenter; but how could mortal man keep silent in circumstances so exciting? The ladies went to the morning-room in another frame of mind, both of them putting on silently their armour for the inevitable battle. When they had reached the room which was to be the scene of it, Miss Hewitt flung herself at once heavily into an easy chair. “Well! I call this a poky little place,” she cried. “You might have sent the servants away, Patty. I liked that other place muchbetter. Morning-room! why it’s no better than my parlour,” she cried.
“It would only hold the whole of your house, kitchen and all,” cried Patty; “and it’s where I choose people to come,” she added decisively, “when they’ve that little sense as to come in the morning, whennolady receives.”
“Oh, that’s how I am to be met, is it?” said Miss Hewitt, “you little ungrateful wretch! It was nothing but dear aunt, and how good I was, when you came to me to help you. Ah! you had to come to me to help to secure him at the last—and him nothing but a Softy. If I had had somebody to stand for me like I did for you, Miss Patty, Greyshott would have been a very different place, and you’d never have got your nose in here!”
“Well, Aunt,” said Patty, “if those are your ideas, you can’t wonder that I shouldn’t want you. For if you had married Sir Giles, which I suppose is what you mean, and would never have let me get my nose in, you’ll understand that I don’t want your nose in. I wouldn’t have said it so plump if you hadn’t begun. Though I don’t believe Sir Giles ever thought of such a thing, now I know him well.”
“He’s not a Softy, you see,” said the angry old lady, with a snort.
“No,” said Patty, sedately; “he’s not a Softy. I should think he’d had a good deal of common-sense in his day. But I don’t want to quarrel,” she added; “whatever you may do. No doubt you’ve come about your money, which is quite natural. You shall haveyour money, Aunt Patience. It wasn’t so needful as I thought it would be, for Mr. Piercey had plenty for what was wanted; but, of course, I’m much obliged to you all the same.”
“Oh, Mr. Piercey: that’s what you call the Softy now!” cried Miss Hewitt, in high scorn.
“It’s what I always called him, and it’s his name and mine too. I’m Mrs. Piercey, as the heir’s wife, and not Mrs. Gervase. My father-in-law says so, and he ought to know.”
“Oh, your father-in-law,” cried Miss Hewitt, with extreme bitterness; “you’ve changed all your relations, I see. When it comes to a person to disown their debts and their folks——”
“I do neither the one nor the other,” cried Patty. “You shall have every penny of your fifty pounds—and interest, if you like, with that. And everybody knows my folks,” she cried, with a toss of her head. “Oh, no fear that they’ll ever be forgotten. Father’s been here with the smell of beer about him like to knock you down, and when I told him I couldn’t bear it, what does he do but fling out of the house cursing and swearing, and letting everybody see.”