“Well, your father is a trial,” Miss Hewitt allowed candidly. “I don’t wonder, Patty, as you were hurt; but so was he, and he won’t come back no more, won’t Richard. You can’t, anyhow, my pet, have the same objections to me.”
Miss Hewitt held her head aloft, and her golden flowers nodded and rustled. The complacency of hersmile, and the confidence that in her there was nothing to find fault with, was too much even for Patty. She could not say the words that came to her lips.
“Well, Aunt Patience,” she said, in subdued tones, “I am treating you just the same as if you were Lady Hartmore.”
“And no more than is my due, Patty. I might have been my lady many and many’s the year if I’d had an Aunt Patience as would have done for me as I’ve done for you. Has she been to call already? She’s one as always respects the rising sun.”
“No,” said Patty, still more subdued, “she has not been yet—but that’s easy explained, where there’s been so lately a death in the house.”
“And a good thing for you, too! If ever there was a tyrant of a woman—— But I see you’re in deep crape, Patty, to show your grief.”
“I hope I know better than to show any want of respect to my mother-in-law. And I think, Aunt Patience, you might have known better than to come to a house that’s in such mourning with all these colours on your head.”
“My bonnet!” cried Miss Hewitt. She caught sight of herself in a glass, and bridled and smiled at herself, instinctively arranging the bow of red ribbon that was tied under her chin. “I never had such a becoming bonnet in my life; and as for mourning, there’s nobody could expect me to put on black for her.”
“No,” said Patty, “and that’s why I hadn’t expected even a call from you, Aunt Patience, during the mourning—not being in any way a real connection of the house.”
Miss Hewitt fixed her eyes very wide open upon those of her niece, and the two maintained a silent combat by that method for at least a minute. It was the elder who gave in the first. “If that’s how you’re going to treat your own relations,” she said, “Patty, you’ll not see much of me. And I can tell you, as well as if it had happened already, you won’t see much of other folks. There’s none of the grand people as you’re looking for that will come near the place. The rector’ll call because he’s bound to, and because you was once his show girl at the Sunday School; and the new curate will call to see if he can get a subscription for something, but, mark you my words: nobody else—no, not a soul! and when you’ve bundled everybody belonging to you out of your doors, then you’ll see who you’ll have to speak to. I’m sorry for you, Patty, I am indeed.”
“Are you, Aunt Patience?” cried Patty, with defiance. “When it comes to that, I’ll send for you back.”
“It’s a deal easier,” said Miss Hewitt sententiously, “to whistle folks away than to bring them back.”
But after this there was a cessation of hostilities, and in the end Miss Hewitt was taken over the house to see all its splendours, which, as much as possible, she depreciated. She was the only witness of her elevation whom Patty had as yet had, and though some sacrifice of pride and spirit was necessary, a natural longing to impress and dazzle her world, through themeans of some spectator, was still stronger. Patty went so far as to offer her aunt some of those pairs of silk stockings which Parsons had been counting when her new mistress fell upon her. “They’re such good stockings,” Patty said, “but miles too big for me.” “If you think I’ll wear her old cast-off things!” cried Miss Hewitt, purple with rage, flinging them back into the drawers from which Patty had taken them. “And my foot, if anything, is a little smaller than yours,” she added, with angry satisfaction. But when the visitor lingered and at last betrayed her desire to be asked to stay for “dinner”—a word which came out unadvisedly, and which she immediately corrected, with a blush—“Lunch, I suppose you call it,”—Patty assumed very high ground.
“My dear Aunt! if we were by ourselves of course it would not matter; but dear papa always takes his luncheon along with us.”
“And who’s dear papa?” asked Miss Hewitt, with natural derision.
“I mean Sir Giles, of course; he’s in very delicate health, and we have to be very careful.”
“Sir Giles,” said Miss Hewitt grimly, “has seen me before.”
“Yes—he said so when he heard my name—he said, Where have I heard that name before?”
“Patty, you’re a little devil; he knows a deal more than that of me.”
“Ah, well, perhaps once, Aunt; but his memory’s gone now; and to bring in a stranger to the luncheontable! Perhaps you don’t remember,” said Patty severely, “that my poor dear mother-in-law has not yet been a fortnight in her grave.”
Miss Hewitt was thus got rid of, though not without trouble; but Patty did not find it easy to forget what she had said, especially when it came true to the letter; for week after week went by and not a step, except that of the doctor, crossed the threshold of Greyshott. Patty took her place in the drawing-room every afternoon, with everything arranged very cleverly, and looking as like as an imitation could be to the littlemise en scèneof a young lady waiting for her guests; but no guests ever came. At length, after much waiting, there appeared—exactly as Aunt Patience had said—the rector! accompanied by his young daughter, for he was a widower. The rector called her Patty in the first moment of meeting, and though he amended that in a confused manner, and gave her finally her full honours as Mrs. Piercey, it was difficult to get over that beginning, which threw his young companion into utter discomfiture. And then, to make matters worse, he delivered a little lecture upon the responsibilities of her new position and the difficulty of the duties that would come upon her. “You must not let your mind dwell on your disadvantages,” he said kindly; “everybody, after a while, will make allowances for you.” “You are quite mistaken if you think I want to have allowances made for me,” said Patty, provoked. And what could the rector reply? He said, “Oh!” thus showing the poverty of the English language, and how little aman in such a predicament can find to say for himself; and then he began hurriedly to talk parish talk, and ask Mrs. Piercey’s patronage for various charities—charities by which Patty Hewitt might almost have been in a position to benefit so short a time ago. “That’s well over,” he said to his daughter, wiping his forehead, when they went out of the gates of Greyshott. And he did not come again, nor she—not even the girl. And nobody came; and of all the difficult things in the world Mrs. Gervase Piercey found nothing so difficult as to explain to her grand maid how it was that no visitor was ever seen at Greyshott. The thing itself was bad enough, but to explain it to Jerningham was still worse. “You see we are still in deep mourning,” Mrs. Piercey said. “Yes, ma’am,” said Jerningham, with a sniff of polite scepticism. For a lady who, however deep her mourning might be, had not a single friend to come to see her, was more than Jerningham could understand. And Patty sat alone in her fine drawing-room, and walked about her great house, and spoke to nobody but old Sir Giles and her own Softy; and thought many times, with a kind of alarm, of what Aunt Patience had said. Had it not already come true?
This, however, was after all but a small matter; it was not actual misfortune. Patty, indeed, felt it much, partly on account of Jerningham and the other servants, who she felt must triumph in this non-recognition of her claims; and also a little for herself, for it was an extraordinary change from the perpetual coming and going of the Seven Thorns, and all the admiration and respect which she had there, the jokes, and the laughter and the talk, which if not refined, were good enough for Patty Hewitt—to the condition of having no one to speak to, not a soul—except old Sir Giles and her own Softy, whose conversation clever Patty could not be said to have enjoyed at any time. It was very dull work going on from day to day with nothing better than poor old Sir Giles’ broken talk, which was about himself and his affairs—not about her, naturally the most interesting subject to Patty. Many times she was tempted to go upstairs and sit with Jerningham to unbosom herself and relieve her mind of all the unspoken talk, and make a companion andconfidanteof her maid. Jerningham was a person muchbetter trained and educated than Patty. She could have instructed her in many of the ways of the fine ladies which Mrs. Piercey could only guess at, or painfully copy out of novels; but perhaps, if her mistress had yielded to this impulse it would have been Jerningham who would have held back, knowing her place and desiring no confidences. Patty, however, also knew her place, and that to confide in a servant was a fatal thing, so that she never yielded to this temptation. But how dull it was! It is a fine thing to be the mistress of a great house, to have a large household under your orders, to be served hand and foot, as Patty herself would have said; but never to have a gossip, never a jest with any one, she for whom every passer-by had once had a cheerful word, to have nobody to admire either herself or her dresses, to envy her good fortune, to wonder at her grandeur! that takes the glory out of any victory. Would Cæsar have cared to come back with all the joy and splendour of a triumphal procession had there been nobody to look at him? Patty had succeeded to the extent of her highest dreams, but, alas! there was nobody to see.
That, however, was merely negative, and there was always the hope that it might not last. She took her seat in the drawing-room every day with perennial expectation, still believing that somebody must come; and, no doubt, in the long run, her expectation would have come true. But Patty soon had actual trouble far more important than any mere deprivation. She had been afraid of Sir Giles, over whom her victoryhad been easy, and she had been afraid of the servants, whom she had now completely under her foot; but she never had any fear about the Softy, her husband, who had been her dog—a slave delighted with his chains—who had desired nothing better than to do what she told him, and to follow her about wherever she went. That Gervase should become the only rebel against her, that he should escape her authority and influence, and take his own way in opposition to hers, was a thing which had not entered into any of her calculations—Gervase, whose devotion had been too much, who had wearied her out with his slavish dependence on her, how had he emancipated himself? It was inconceivable to Patty. She had felt sure that whatever happened she could always control him, always keep him in subjection, guide him with a look, be absolute mistress of his mind and all his wishes. The first revelation of something more in Softy which she had not calculated upon had come when she first found the difficulty of amusing him in the long evenings (lit with so many wax candles, surrounded with so many glories!). Then it was revealed to Patty that she was not enough even for that fool. Then it began to dawn upon her faintly that the Seven Thorns itself had something to do with the attraction, and the excitement of the suspense, and the restraint and expectation in which she had held him: all these adjuncts were over now; he had Patty all his own, and he did not find Patty enough. Was that possible? could it be true?
Perhaps there was something in the very ease of Patty’s triumph that had to do with this. Had his mother lived, and had Gervase experienced that protection of having a wife to stand by him, which he had anticipated, it is very likely that this result would have been long delayed, if, indeed, it had ever appeared at all. But there was nobody now against whom Gervase required to be protected. His father had never opposed him, and now that Sir Giles was, like everybody else in the house, under Patty’s sway, not even the faint excitement of a momentary struggle with him chequered the Softy’s well-being. The consequence was that he, as well as Patty, found it dull. He had no one to play with him, he longed for the movement of the alehouse, the sound of the carts and carriages, the slow jokes in the parlour, the smoke and the fun—also the beer; and perhaps that most of all. It was hard work even when Patty was devoted to his constant amusement, for the Softy had no intervals; he wanted to be entertained all the time: and when she flagged for a moment, he became sullen and tugged at his chain. But when Sir Giles came on the scene, and Patty’s attention was distracted and her cares given to the old man, offence and sullen disgust arose in the mind of Gervase. He would not join in the game, as Patty called him to do; neither father nor son indeed wanted a third in the game: and Gervase, duller than ever and angry too, went to sleep for a night or two, tried to amuse himself another evening or two with cat’s cradle or the solitaire board—then flung theseexpedients aside in impatience, and finally strolled off, through the soft, warm darkness of the night, to the Seven Thorns. The Seven Thorns! it was poetic justice upon Patty, but that made it only the harder to bear.
Then there came upon Patty one of those curses of life which fall upon women with a bitterness and horror of which probably the inflictors of the pain are never fully aware. It would have been bad enough if this had befallen her in her natural position as the wife of a country tradesman or small farmer. Domestic misery is the same in one class as in another; yet it would be vain to deny the aggravations that a higher position adds to primitive anguish of this kind. The cottager is not so much ashamed of her husband’s backslidings. In many cases they are the subject of the long monologue of complaint that runs through her life. They cannot be hid, and they become a sort of possession, the readiest excuse for every failing of her own. But that the young master should stumble night after night up to Greyshott; that he should be seen by all the neighbourhood drinking among the dull rustics at the Seven Thorns; that a crowd of servants should listen and peep to hear his unsteady step, and his boisterous laugh, and the stammerings of excuse or explanations, or worse still, of noisy mirth, bursting from him in the middle of the quiet night—was something more terrible still. Patty—on that first occasion, when, long after every one else was in bed, she stole downstairs to admit him by that little door near the beech avenue, to which his unsteady footsteps naturally turned—was horrified and angry beyond description; but she did not doubt she could put a stop to it. Not for a moment did she hesitate as to her power. It should never happen again, she said to herself. Once was nothing. Henceforward she would be on her guard. He should not escape from her another time. She did not even upbraid Gervase—it was her own fault, who had never thought of that, taken no precautions; but it should never, never, she said to herself, with, perhaps unnecessary asseverations, happen again.
Gervase, upbraided as in sport by his laughing wife for forsaking her, as if he had been a naughty child, did nothing but laugh and triumph in reply. “Weren’t they just astonished to see me!” he said: “your father opened his mouth like this,” opening his own large mouth with the moist hanging under-lip. “You should ha’ seen him, you should ha’ seen him, Patty—like I was a ghost! ‘Hallo!’ said he, and ‘Hallo!’ said I, ‘here I am, you see.’ There wasn’t one of them could say a word; but afterwards I stood treat, and we had a jolly night.”
“And, oh, how you did smell of beer, you naughty fellow, when you came in!”
“Did I? Well, not without reason, neither,” said Gervase, with his loud laugh; “a set of jolly old cocks when you set them going. We only wanted you there in your old blue dress and your apron.”
“That you will never see again, I can tell you; and it isn’t very nice of you, Gervase, wishing your wife in such a place.”
“It’s a good enough place, and it’s where you came from,” said Gervase. “But I told ’em,” he said, nodding his head, “what an awful swell you have grown—nothing good enough for you. Didn’t the old fellows laugh and nod their old heads. Ho, ho! He, he!”
“Gervase, dear,” said his wife, “you won’t go there again? you won’t go and leave me all by myself, longing and wondering when you’d come back? I thought you’d gone and fallen asleep somewhere. I thought every minute you’d come into the room. You won’t go again, Gervase, dear, and leave your poor Patty alone?”
“Why, you had father,” Gervase said.
“Oh, papa; yes, dear, and I kept on playing to amuse him, dear old gentleman, and to keep it from him that you had gone out. If he had known where you were, it would have vexed him sadly, you know it would.”
“It vexed them both,” said Gervase, “when I went there after you; but I didn’t mind—nor you either, Patty.”
“A young single man has to have his liberty,” said Patty, “but when he’s married—— You wouldn’t have gone off and left me—your Patty, whom you said you were so fond of—in those days?”
“Ah,” said the Softy, with the wisdom of his kind, “but I’ve got you now fast, Patty, at home waiting for me; so I can take my pleasure a bit, and have you all the same.” He looked at her with a cynical lightin his dull eyes. He, and she also, felt the strength of the argument. No need to please her now, and conciliate her in her own ideas about beer and the parlour of the Seven Thorns. She could no longer cast him off, or leave him in the lurch. Consequently, Gervase felt himself free to indulge his tastes in his own way, whatever Patty might think. She was struck silent by that new light in his eyes. He was not capable of argument, or of anything but sticking to what he had once said, with all the force of his folly. She looked at him, and, for the first time, saw what was before her. It had never occurred to her before that he had the strength to resist her, or that she could not call him to her like a dog when her better sense saw it to be necessary. A docile fool is sometimes contemptible enough; but a fool resistant, a being whom reason cannot teach, who has no power of being convinced! Patty felt a cold dew come over her forehead. She saw what was before her with momentary giddiness, as if she had looked over the edge of a precipice. But she did not lose hope. She sent next day an imperative note to her father requiring his attendance: that he either should resist or refuse her call did not come into her mind. “Come up to Greyshott,” she wrote, “at once, for I have something to say to you;” as she might have written to one of her servants. But Richard Hewitt was not a man who could be defied with impunity. He never appeared in obedience to her summons; he took no notice of it. He replied only by that silence which is the mostterrible of all kinds of resistance. And it was not long before Gervase disappeared again. After the second catastrophe, Patty swept down upon the Seven Thorns in her carriage—an imposing figure in her silk and crape. But Hewitt was not impressed even by the sight of her grandeur. “I’ll not refuse no customer for you—there! and you needn’t think you can come over me,” he cried. “By George! to order me about—what I’m to do and whom I’m to have in this house. It’s like your impudence; but I tell you, Miss, I’ll see you d——d first,” the angry man roared, bringing his clenched fist down upon the table, and making all the glasses ring. Patty was cowed, and had not a word to say.
And then there began for the triumphant young woman an ordeal enough to daunt the stoutest heart. It was true that she had not, like many a wife in such circumstances, the anguish of love to give a sting to everything. Patty had used the Softy partly as the instrument of her own elevation; but his folly had not disgusted or pained her as it might have done under other circumstances. She had a sober affection for him even, as her own property, a thing that belonged to her, and felt strongly the impulse of protecting him from scandal and injury: more, he was so involved still in all her hopes of advancement, that she was as much alarmed for the betrayal of his bad behaviour, as if (like so many) she had feared the loss of a situation or work which brought in the living of the family. And it must be added for Patty that she didher very best to keep all knowledge of Gervase’s conduct from his father. She sat and played his game of backgammon, inventing almost every evening a new excuse. “Isn’t he a lazy boy? He’s gone to sleep again,” was at first the easiest explanation. But Patty felt that would not do always. “What do you think, dear papa? Gervase has taken to reading,” she said; “I gave him a nice novel, all hunting and horses, and he got so interested in it.” “He never was any good outside a horse himself,” Sir Giles said, with a little grumble. But he was easily satisfied. He asked nothing more than to have his mind relieved from that care for Gervase which Lady Piercey had always insisted he should share. “He’s got his wife to look after him, now,” Sir Giles said, when Dunning hinted a doubt that Mr. Gervase was sometimes out of an evening. He was thankful to wash his hands of all responsibility. That apparent selfishness of old age, which consists very much of weariness and conscious inability to bear the burden, came over him more and more every day. Had such a thing been possible as that Gervase should have married a girl in his own position, and made her miserable, the good in Sir Giles would have been roused to support and uphold the victim. But Patty knew very well what she was doing. Patty had accepted all the responsibilities. She was able to take care of herself. He had his wife to take care of him, and to keep him off his father. Patty accepted her share of that tacit bargain honestly; and, as for Sir Giles, it must be said that he was easily satisfied—received her explanations, and gave her as little trouble as possible. He nodded his head, and went on with his game. Perhaps, if truth had been told, it was a relief to the old man when the Softy—strolling about restlessly from place to place, interfering with the play, calling off his wife’s attention, always troublesome and always ungainly—was not there.
Pattyhad been married only about four months, when an incident happened that brought this period of humiliation and trouble after her triumph to a climax. The summer had gone, the dark days and long nights of early winter had come back, and Gervase’s almost nightly visits to the Seven Thorns were complicated by the storms and rains of the season, which, however, were rarely bad enough to keep him indoors. Had Patty been free to keep a constant watch upon him, it was her opinion that she could have prevented his continual escape into the night. She could have made him so comfortable at home. By moments she had visions of what she could do to reclaim her husband and satisfy him, if the dreadful restraint of the old man and his nightly game were withdrawn. Once or twice, when Sir Giles was indisposed, she had, indeed, managed to do this. She had brewed him hot and fragrant drinks to take the place of the beer, and exhausted herself in talk to amuse him. Poor Patty! she thought to herself that surely she must, at least, be as amusing as the old fellows in the parlour at the Seven Thorns.Many a woman has thought the same: a brilliant young creature, full of knowledge and spirit, and wit and pleasantness, might not she think herself as attractive as the dull gossip of the club? But it is a dangerous conflict to enter into, and the race is certainly not to the swift nor the battle to the strong in this respect. And Patty was not an amusing conversationalist. She knew the methods of rustic flirtation, and how to hold off and call on a provoked and tantalised lover; and she could be very lively in talk about herself and what she meant to do; but the first was no longer a method to be employed with Gervase, who was now brutally conscious of being Patty’s proprietor; and he was not even so much interested in what she meant to do as he once had been. He much preferred the heavy jokes, the great guffaw, the half-mocking attention that was paid to himself in the parlour at the Seven Thorns. He was not in the least aware that the big laugh that went round, and in which he himself joined with a sensation of truly enjoying himself, was chiefly at him and his folly. And his freedom to do what he liked, to drink as much as he liked, and babble and maunder at his pleasure, was very sweet to Gervase: he liked it better than anything else in the world; perhaps not better than Patty if there had been a conflict between the two—but then, as he said, he had Patty all the same whatever he might do, and why shouldn’t he enjoy himself when it was so entirely in his power?
But when Patty sat the whole evening through playing backgammon with Sir Giles, her ears on thealert for every sound, her hopes sometimes raised by a footstep on the stairs to imagine that he had not gone out after all, or her fears excited by some noise to the terror of believing that he had come back earlier than usual, and was coming in—like the fool he was, to betray himself to his father! it was not wonderful if she looked sometimes with a suppressed bitterness at her old father-in-law fumbling at his game. What good was his life to that old man? He could not walk a step without assistance. He was bound to that chair whatever happened. He had nobody of his own age to speak to, no one except people of another generation, whom he was keeping out of what Patty called “their own.” “Oh, if the old man were out of the way, how soon I could put everything right!” Patty said to herself. Though she had indeed failed, and received a grievous defeat, her confidence in herself was not shaken. It was only circumstances, she thought, that were to blame. If she had things in her own hands, if her evenings were unencumbered, if she could devote herself to her husband as she had intended to do, let us see how long the Seven Thorns would have stood against her! And, oh, what good was his life to that old man! If he were to die, what a blessed relief it would be! Full of aches and pains, his nerves shattered, unable to keep from crying when he talked, unable to think of anything except his walk (walk! in his chair driven by Dunning), and his dinner, which was chiefly slops, and his cups of beef tea, and his drops, and his game at night, which he was allowedto win to please him! Poor Sir Giles! It was not, indeed, a very pleasing programme: but it is to be supposed that it did not seem so miserable to him as to Patty, for Sir Giles showed no inclination whatever to die. He might have thought, if he had been an unselfish old man, that he was a burden, that he kept the young people from enjoying their lives, while getting so little good out of his own—that if he were but out of the way Patty would be my lady, and free to look after her own husband and keep him straight; but he did not do so. She sat all the evening through, and said: “Yes, dear papa,” and “How capitally you play!” and “What luck you have!” and “I am nowhere beside you, dear papa,” smiling and beaming upon him, and, to do her justice, exerting all her powers to amuse him; but all the time saying to herself, “Oh, what good is his life to him! Oh, how can he go on like this, keeping Gervase out of his right place, and keeping me that I can’t do anything for my own husband! Oh, that we had the house to ourselves and I were free to keep Gervase straight!”
One evening, Patty had been feeling more keenly than usual this keen contrariety and hindrance of everything. Sir Giles had sat longer than he generally did, sending off Dunning when he appeared, demanding an hour’s grace and another game. He was in higher spirits than usual. “Come, Patty,” he said, “you’re not tired. Have your revenge and give me a good beating. I’m in high feather to-night. I don’t care that! for Dunning. Come back in an hour, and perhaps I’ll go to bed.”
“ ‘Alf an hour, Sir Giles: and that’s too long,” Dunning said.
“Half an hour, dear papa—you must not really tempt Providence by staying any longer,” said Mrs. Gervase. “Have my revenge? Oh, no! but I’ll give you another chance of beating me all to atoms. Isn’t Sir Giles well to-night, Dunning? He looks ten years younger.”
“He’s excited with all that play,” said Dunning. “I don’t ’old with so much backgammon. If he’s ill in the morning I wash my hands of it. He knows well enough hisself he didn’t ought to be so late.”
“The white for me as usual,” said Sir Giles. “I’m a sad, selfish, old fellow, always appropriating the winning colour, eh, Patty? Never mind, you are coming on beautifully—you play a very pretty little game. I’m training you to beat myself, my dear, if not to-night, well, some other night. Come along, don’t let’s waste any time if that old curmudgeon gives us only half an hour.”
Patty drew her chair to the table again with her most smiling aspect. “Here I am, dear papa,” she said. The renovated drawing-room, if it was, perhaps, in the taste of a past time and a little heavy and ungraceful, was a handsome room, abundantly lighted, with an atmosphere of warmth and luxurious comfort; and Patty in her black silk, with her hair carefully dressedà laJerningham, and her dress from a fashionable mantua-maker, recommended by that accomplished attendant—was as good an imitation of what a ladyat home ought to be, as it would be easy to find; and as she sat there ministering to her old father-in-law, keeping him in comfort and good humour, giving up her time and her attention to play over again the same monotonous unending game—the picture, both moral and physical, was one that would have gained the admiration of any spectator. But as she drew her chair again towards the table, there flashed across Patty’s mind a remembrance of another scene: the parlour at the Seven Thorns full of a cloud of smoke and a smell of beer; the rustic customers, with their slow talk, holding forth each to his neighbour, calling with knocks upon the floor and table for further supplies; while she, Patty, the same girl, hastened to see what was wanted, and to bring them what they called for—she, Mrs. Piercey, the wife of the heir of Greyshott, the mistress of all this great house! And it was only four months ago. How clearly she saw that scene! The same thing would be going on to-night while she played backgammon with Sir Giles, and smiled, and talked to her dear papa—and with a thrill of mingled rage, vexation, and anxiety, Patty felt herself deserted and her husband there! It gave her a pang which was all the more keen from her confidence in what she could do, and her sense of the bondage which prevented her from doing it. Oh, why should this old man go on with his cackle and his dice, and his life which was no good to any one? Why, why couldn’t he die and set her free? “Here I am, dear papa,” she said.
“Perhaps that sleepy fellow, Gervase, will wake up and appear before we’ve done,” said Sir Giles. “I wouldn’t humour him too much, my dear. It’s one thing to be devoted to your husband, and another thing to let him muddle his brains away. He sleeps a great deal too much, that’s my opinion. He’s not too bright at the best of times, and if you let him drowse about like this it’ll do him harm—it’ll do him harm. I don’t see that he gets up any earlier in the morning for sleeping like this at night. His poor mother would never have permitted it. Sixes, my dear. No, no, you mustn’t humour him too much.”
“What luck you have, dear papa! Oh, yes, I know, I know, he’s humoured too much. But some need more sleep than others: and don’t you think, on the whole, it does him good? His mind comes out so much; he’s so sensible when you talk to him. I couldn’t wish for better advice than Gervase gives.”
“I’m very glad to hear you say so, my dear; there’s a great deal in him, poor boy; I always said so; more than anybody knows. But I wouldn’t let him sleep like that. What, Dunning, you old rascal, here again already? It can’t be half an hour yet.”
“Oh, yes, dear papa,” said Patty, “it is the half-hour; and that last throw has quite made an end of me. Good-night, and I hope you’ll sleep well. And I’ll go, as you say, and wake up that lazy boy. Heisa lazy boy. But I’ll try and break him of it now you’ve told me. I thought it was best to humour him. But I’ll break him of it, now I know what you think.”
“Do, my dear, do!” said Sir Giles, nodding his head at her as he was wheeled away. Dunning gave Mrs. Gervase a look behind his master’s chair. Ah, you may keep such a secret from those whom it affects most, but to keep it from the servants is more than any one can do! Dunning knew well enough where Gervase was. He knew how Gervase returned home, at what hour, and in what condition. Dunning, in addition, thought he knew that it was Patty’s doing, part of some deep-laid scheme of hers, and could not divine that the poor young woman’s heart was beating under that fine gown with terror and anxiety. She gave a little gasp of relief when the sound of Sir Giles’ chair died away, and his door was closed audibly. And then she rang to have the lights put out, telling the butler that Sir Giles and Mr. Piercey had both gone to bed; and then Patty, heroic as any martyr, placed herself under Jerningham’s hands to have her hair brushed, going through all the routine that nobody might think from her demeanour that anything was wrong. She was quivering with anxiety in every limb when she sent the maid away; and then, in her dressing-gown, stole downstairs to open the side door, and strain her ears for the heavy footstep stumbling through the blackness of the night.
Poor Patty! what thoughts went through her mind as she kept that vigil! Fury and determination to do something desperate, to stop it at all hazards—and that this should be the last time, the very last! She would take him by the shoulder and shake the very life outof him rather than that this should go on. She would fling herself at his feet and implore him—alas, Patty knew very well that to implore and to threaten were alike useless, and that the fool would only open his moist mouth and laugh in her face. What could she do? what could she do? She would make an appeal to her father, she would threaten him with the loss of his licence, she would bribe him with all the money she could scrape together, she did not know what she would not do—but to bear this longer was impossible! And then she fell into a dreary calm, and thought over all that had happened, her wonderful triumph, the change in everything, the contrast. And yet what advance had she made if she never, never could separate herself from the Seven Thorns? Whether it was she who was there or her husband, what did it matter? Who would ever acknowledge them or give them their own place if this were to go on? Oh, if these county people had but done as they ought, if they had but shown themselves friendly and taken some notice of the young pair, people who had known Gervase all his life, and ought to have felt for him! Patty shed a few hot tears over the unkindness of the world, and then, as is so natural, her mind went back upon her own hopes, and the ideal she had formed of her life which, as yet, was so little realised. She had thought of herself as driving about the country, paying visits at those grand houses which had been to her as the abodes of the blest; her husband at her side, well-dressed and well set up, with everybody saying how much he hadimproved! And invitations raining upon them, and fortune smiling everywhere. Sir Gervase and Lady Piercey! how delightfully it had seemed to sound in her fortunate ears! To be sure all this could not be realised until poor old Sir Giles had been fully convinced that it was not for his advantage to live any longer; but that might have happened any day. Oh, if he could but be convinced of it now, and leave her free to care for her husband! Was not Gervase her first duty? Why should this old man go on living, keeping his son out of his own?
And then Patty’s mind went back to the Seven Thorns, that place from which it appeared she could not get free. She saw herself there before anything was yet settled, while all her life was before her. As she sat alone and shivered and listened, the image of Patty, light-hearted and free, came up before her like a picture. How busy she had been, how everybody had admired her, even the old fellows in the parlour! And the young ones, how they had watched for a word with her, and some had almost come to blows! Roger, for instance, who had made so much fun of the Softy, who had looked such a gallant fellow in his brown velveteen coat and his red tie! She remembered how he had appealed to her not to do it, not to bind herself to a fool. The impudent fellow! to talk so of Gervase—Sir Gervase Piercey that was soon to be! Oh, poor Gervase, poor Gervase! he was not, perhaps, very wise, but he could still be set right again and kept straight if she were but free to give herself upaltogether to the care of him. Roger Pearson could never have been anything but a country fellow living in a cottage. It was true that he was handsome, and all that. Patty seemed to see him, too, though she did not wish it, with the light in his eyes, looking at her with his air of mastery, the Adonis of the village. Every girl in the place had wanted Roger, but he had eyes for only her. Why did he come before her now? She did not want to see him or to think of him—far from that. There was not a fibre of the wanton in Patty’s nature. She had no understanding of the women who, with husbands of their own, could think of any other man. And if she had the choice to make over again, she knew that she would do the same; but still she could not help thinking of Roger Pearson, though she had no idea why.
This effect, however, was shortly after explained to her in the most trying way. The night grew darker and darker, and colder and colder. The Seven Thorns must have been closed long ago, and all its revellers dispersed to their homes. What could have happened to Gervase? where could he have gone? Could he have taken so much that he was made to stay there, as unable to take care of himself, a thing which Patty could remember to have happened in her time? She became afraid to look at her watch or to listen to a clock, in the sickness of her heart. It was impossible but that he must have reached home long ago had he left the Seven Thorns in the natural way. Oh, where was he? where was he? Where had he gone? whathad happened to him? Patty dared not go upstairs to bed, even when she was convinced that he could not be coming now; for her father, she was sure, would turn him out in the early morning if this was what had happened. Yet how could she remain up, and on the watch, when the servants would be stirring, revealing what had happened to the whole household? Patty is, perhaps, not a person for whom to appeal to the reader’s sympathies, but she was very unhappy, very anxious, not knowing what to think.
At last, in the blackest hour of the night, about three o’clock or so in the morning, her anxious ear heard, or seemed to hear, a faint sound. Steps, and then a pause, and then steps again, and the sound of the little side gate in the beech avenue pushed open. Patty was immediately on the alert, with unspeakable relief in her mind. But the sounds were not those of one man stumbling home. Sometimes there was a noise as of something being tugged along the grass, then another stop, and the steps again making the gravel fly, and then the sound as of a fall. In her terror she stole out into the darkness, fearing she knew not what, and at last, by faint perception through the gloom, by sound, and by almost contact in the stifling dark, perceived how it was—her husband, scarcely conscious, being dragged and hustled along through the dark by another man.
“Is it you, Gervase? oh, is it you, Gervase?” she cried.
Oh, poor Patty! is there any one so hard-heartedas to refuse to pity her in her misery? The voice that answered her out of the blackness of the night was not that of Gervase. He uttered no sound but that of heavy breath. Yet it was a well-known voice, a voice that made her heart jump to her throat with intolerable horror, anger, and shame—to hear how sober, manful, energetic, and capable it was.
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” it said, clearly and quickly, “except that he’s drunk. Show a light and I’ll get him in. I’ve had such a job, but I’ll manage now; only for goodness’ sake look sharp and show a light.”
It was the voice of Roger Pearson, whom she had been thinking of, whose presence had sent some subtle intimation through the air to bring him to her thoughts.
Patty hurried back to the open door and brought out the candle, which burned steadily in the motionless blackness of the air. She said not a word. Of the pang it gave her to see the man whom she had rejected bringing back the man whom she had married she gave no sign. If she could have covered her face that he might not see her, she would have done so; but that being impossible, Patty never flinched. She held the light to direct him, while now and then roused to take a step of his own accord, but generally dragged by the other, Gervase was got in. She led the way to the library, which was on the same level, stepping with precaution not to be heard, shading the light with her hand, with all her wits about her. There was not a tinge of colour on Patty’s face. She wascold, shivering with excitement and distress. It was not till Gervase had been laid upon the sofa that she spoke.
“I am sorry you have had this trouble,” she said. “I hope you have not over-strained yourself with such a weight. Can I get you anything?” She looked at him courageously in the face. It was right to offer a man something who had brought, even were it only a strayed dog, home.
And he, too, looked at her, and for a moment said nothing. He stretched his arms to relax them.
“I’m not a man that cares for the stuff,” he said, “but perhaps I’d be none the worse for a drop of brandy to take off the strain. He’s safe enough there,” he added. “You needn’t be anxious. He’ll wake up before the daylight, and then you can get him upstairs.”
Patty did not say a word, but led the way to the dining-room, where there was brandy to be got. It was a thing any lady might have done, she said to herself, even through the wild beating of her heart, and the passion in her breast—the passion of rage, and exasperation, and shame. He was cool enough, thinking more of stretching and twisting himself to ease his muscles than of the silent anguish in which she was. When he had swallowed the brandy he advised her, with rough friendliness, “Take a little yourself. It’s hard on you; you want something to give you a little strength!”
“Will you take any more?” said Patty, sharply.
“No, I don’t want no more. It’s awful good stuff;it runs through a man like fire. I’d been at a bit of an ’op over there by Coulter’s Mill, and I nigh fell over him lying out on the moor. He might have got his death; so when I saw who it was, I thought I’d best bring him home. But he’ll take no harm; the drink that’s in him will keep the cold out.”
“I am much obliged to you,” said Patty. “If there’s any reward you’d take——”
“Meaning money?” he said, with a suppressed roar of a laugh. “No, I won’t take no money. I might say something nasty to you after that, but I won’t neither. It ain’t very nice for you, poor girl, to have your man brought home in that state by your old sweetheart. I feel for you; but you always had a sharp tongue, and you never would give in. I advise you to take more care of the Softy now you’ve got him back,” he said as he went away.
Patty shut and locked the door with an energy of rage and humiliation which almost overcame the horror of being heard. And then she went into the library and sat beside her husband till he had sufficiently recovered from his stupor to be taken upstairs. What hours of vigil! All the sins of her triumph might have been expiated while she sat there and shivered through the miserable night.
Pattyhad thoughts enough, surely, to occupy her that night, but it is doubtful whether there were any that came into her mind with the same reality—repeated again and again, as if by accident the recollection had been blown back upon her by a sudden wind—as those careless words uttered by Pearson when he had described how he had found Gervase: “I had been at a little hop at Coulter’s Mill;” he said ’op, but though Patty had never used that manner of speech herself it did not hurt her. A little hop at Coulter’s Mill. Such things were going on while she was shut up in the dismal grandeur of Greyshott. Girls were whirling round with their partners, receiving their attentions, which, though they might be rough and not very refined, were all that Patty knew of those delights of youth; while she, Patty, whom they all envied, who was now so far above them, sat and played backgammon with an old dotard, or watched half the night for her Softy’s return. There were still such things, and Roger Pearson went to them! Patty had a soft place in her heart for Roger; she wished him no harm,and it might very well have been, had not Gervase and ambition come across her path, that she should have been his wife; and though she wished him nothing but good, Patty did hope that she had more or less broken his heart. She thought he would never have wished to go to those sort of places again, where every tune that was played and every dance would remind him of her. His careless speech took her, therefore, full in the breast, with a stupefying surprise. And he did not say it as if it was anything wonderful, but only as the calm ordinary of life, “I’d been at a little ’op at Coulter’s Mill.” And he was returning about two o’clock in the morning, which showed that he had amused himself well. Could such things be, and she out of them all? Every time this thought crossed her mind it gave her a new shock. It seemed almost impossible that such things could be.
But at all events, it was a comfort that Gervase at last was roused and got safely to his room before the servants were stirring, which it had been Patty’s fear would not be possible. She had made up her story what to say in case she had been surprised by the early housemaid. She meant to keep the door closed, and to say that Mr. Piercey had been ill in the night and could not sleep, and now had fallen asleep on the sofa, and must not be disturbed. Happily, however, it was not necessary to burden her conscience with this additional fib. She got him upstairs safely, and to bed, and lay down herself upon the sofa with great relief. What a night! while all the girls whohad been at the dance at Coulter’s Mill would still be sleeping soundly, and if they ever thought of Patty, would think of her with such envy! Poor Patty, she was very brave. She snatched a little sleep, and was refreshed before Jerningham came to the door with that early cup of tea, which Patty understood all the fine ladies took in the morning. For once she was glad of that unnecessary refreshment. She told Jerningham that Mr. Piercey had been ill, and that she feared he had taken a bad cold; and then Patty closed the door upon the maid, who guessed, if she did not already know exactly, the character of the illness, and began to think steadily what she should do. She would tell Gervase that another night, if it happened again, he would be brought in dead, not alive. He would die, she would tell him, on the roadside like a dog. His was not a mind that could take in milder imaginations, but he would understandthat. And Patty made up her mind to have another conversation with her father equally trenchant. She would tell him that if anything happened to Gervase she would have him tried for manslaughter. There would be abundant evidence, which she would not hesitate to bring forth, that the victim was half-witted, that he had been taken advantage of, and that the man who plied him with drink and then turned him out, his poor brain more clouded than ever, to find his way home, was his murderer and nothing else. Patty said to herself that she did not mind what scandals she would raise in such circumstances. If Richard Hewitt were broughtto the scaffold she would not mind, though he was her father. She would tell him that she would drag him there with her own hands. She set here fierce little teeth, and vowed to herself that she would ruin him were he ten times her father, rather than letthisgo on. She would frighten Gervase to death; but before she was done she would set her foot on the ruins of the Seven Thorns.
Gervase, however, was too ill to be threatened the day after that dreadful vigil. He had caught cold lying out upon the moor, and he was very ill and in a high fever, quite unable to get up, or to have anything but nursing and kindness. Patty had the confidence of a woman well acquainted with the consequences of a debauch, that this would wear off in a short time and leave no particular results. She gave him beef-tea and gruel and kept him quiet, and told him, like a child, that he would be better to-morrow. “Gervase has caught a bad cold,” she told Sir Giles, “but you must not be anxious, dear papa. I am keeping him in his warm bed, and he’ll be all right to-morrow.” “Right, right, my dear,” said Sir Giles. “Bed is the best place. There is nothing like taking a cold in time, nothing like it. And we must remember he was always delicate. There’s no stamina in him, no stamina.” “He’ll be all right to-morrow,” Patty said, and she kept running up and down between the games to see if he was asleep, if he was comfortable, if he wanted anything. “Good creature!” said Sir Giles, half to himself, half to Dunning, whosilently but consistently refused to appreciate Mrs. Piercey. “Now, what would you and I have done with the poor boy if he had been ill, and no wife on the spot to look after him?” “Maybe he wouldn’t have had the same thing the matter with him,” said Dunning, significantly. “Eh, what do you mean? What’s the matter with him? He’s got a bad cold,” cried Sir Giles. “There are colds and colds,” said the enigmatical Dunning. But Patty came back at the moment, saying that Gervase was quite quiet and asleep, and resumed her place for the second game. It was a longer game than usual, and Patty played badly, wishing her dear papa we will not venture to say how far off. But it came to an end at last, as everything does. “I hope you’ll have a good night, my dear, and not be disturbed with him,” the old gentleman said kindly. “Oh, I feel sure,” cried Patty, “he’ll be better to-morrow.” But, as a matter of fact, she was not at all sure. The fumes of the drink ought to have died off by that time, but the fever had not died off. He was ill, and she was frightened and did not know what to do. And instead of being better in the morning, poor Gervase was worse, and the doctor had to be sent for, to whom, after various prevarications, poor Patty was obliged to confess the truth. Impossible to look more grave than the doctor did when he heard of this. “It was enough to kill him,” he said. Patty understood (with a private reserve of vengeance against her father, who had been the cause of it) that Gervase was really ill and had escaped something still worse. But shewas confident in her own powers of nursing, and did not take fright. She was really an excellent nurse, having a great deal of sense, and the habit of activity, and no fear of giving herself trouble. She devoted herself to her husband quite cheerfully, and even during the two first nights went down in a very pretty dressing-gown to play his game with Sir Giles. “We must not look for any change just yet, the doctor says, but he’ll soon be well, he’ll soon be well,” she said; and believed it so thoroughly that Sir Giles, too, was quite cheerful, notwithstanding that Dunning, in the background, shook his head. Dunning would have shaken his head whatever had been the circumstances. It was part of his position to take always the worst view. And the household in general also took the worst view. Nobody had said anything about that fatal lying out on the moor. Mrs. Gervase certainly had not said a word (except to the doctor), and Roger Pearson had resisted every temptation to betray his share in the matter; yet everybody knew. How did they know? It is impossible to tell. The butler shook his head like Dunning, and so did the cook. “He have no constitution,” they said.
But it was not till some days after that Patty began to take fright. She said “He’ll be better to-morrow,” even after she saw that the doctor looked grave—and resisted the aid of a nurse as long as she could, declaring that for a day or two longer she could hold out. “For he’s not going to be long ill,” she said, cheerfully. “Perhaps not,” the doctor replied, with atone that was exasperating in its solemnity. What did he mean? “You must remember, Mrs. Piercey,” he continued, “that your husband has no constitution. Fortunately he has had no serious illness before, but he has always been delicate. It’s common in—in such cases. He never had any stamina. You cannot expect him to throw off an attack such as this like any other man.”
“Why not like any other man?” cried Patty. She was so familiar with Gervase that she had forgotten his peculiarities. Except when she thought of it as likely to serve her own purpose with her father, she had even forgotten that he was the Softy. He was her husband—part of herself, about whom, assuredly, there was no fibre of weakness. “Why shouldn’t he shake it off like any other man?” she cried angrily.
The doctor gave her a strange look. “He has no constitution,” he said.
The words and the look worked in Patty’s mind like some strange leaven, mingling with all her thoughts. She could not at first imagine what they meant. After a while, when she was relieved by the nurse and went into another room to rest, instead of going to sleep, as she had, indeed, much reason to do, she sat down and thought it all over in the quiet. No constitution—no stamina. Patty knew very well, of course, what these words meant; it was the application of them that was difficult. Gervase! He was a little loose in his limbs, not very firmly knit perhaps, with not so much colour as the rustics around—but he was young, andhealthy, and strong enough. Nobody had ever imagined that he was not strong. As for being a little soft, perhaps, in the mind, that was because people did not know him; and even if they did, the mind had nothing to do with the body, and it was all in his favour, for he did not worry and vex himself about things as others did. Like other men—why wasn’t he like other men? He was as tall as most, he was not crooked or out of proportion, he was——
Did it mean that he might die?
Patty rose from her chair and flung her arms above her head with a cry. She was not without natural affection; she liked her husband, and was not dissatisfied with him, except in that matter of going to the Seven Thorns. She did not object to him because he was a fool; she was fond of him in a way. But when it suddenly flashed upon her that this might be the meaning of what the doctor said, it was not of Gervase’s fate that she thought. Die! and deprive her of what she had made so many efforts to secure! Die! so that she never, never should be Lady Piercey, should she live a hundred years! Patty stood for a moment all quivering with emotion as she first realised this thought. It was intolerable, and not to be borne. She had married him, coaxed him, kept him in good humour, given up everything for him—only for this, that he should die before his father, and leave her nothing but Mrs. Piercey—Mrs. Piercey only, and for ever! Patty raised her hands unconsciously as if to seize him and shake him, with a long-drawn breath and a sobbing,hissing “Oh!” from the very bottom of her heart. She had it in her mind to rush to him, to seize him, to tell him he must not do it. He must make an effort; he must live, whatever happened. It was inconceivable, insupportable that he should die. He must not, should not die before his father, cheating his wife! She stood for a moment with her hands clenched, as if she had in reality grasped Gervase by his coat, and then she flung herself upon her face on the sofa in a passion of wild weeping. It could not, could not be; it must not be. She would not allow the possibility. Before his father, who was an old man—leaving all the honours to—anybody, whoever happened to be in the way, Margaret Osborne, for anything she knew—but not Patty, not she who had worked for them, struggled for them! It could not, and it must not be.
Patty did not sleep that day, though she had been up all night and wanted sleep. She bathed her face and her eyes, and changed her dress, and went back to her husband’s bedside with a kind of fierce determination to hold by him, not to let him die. There was no change in him from what there had been when she left him, and the nurse was half offended by her intrusion. “I assure you, ma’am, I know my duties,” she said, “and you’ll break down next if you don’t mind. Go, there’s a dear, and get some sleep; you can’t nurse him both by night and day. And there’s no change, nothing to make you anxious.”
“You are sure of that, nurse?”
“Quite sure. He’s quite quiet and comfortable, so far as I can see.”
“But they say he has no constitution,” said Patty, gazing into the woman’s face for comfort.
“Well, Mrs. Piercey; but most times it’s the strongest man with whom it goes hardest,” the nurse said.
And this gave Patty great consolation; it was the only comfort she had. It was one of those dicta which she had heard often both about children and men, and therefore she received it the more willingly. “It goes harder with the strong ones.” That was the very commonest thing to say, and perhaps it was true. The old women often knew better than the doctors, she said to herself. Indeed, there was in her mind a far greater confidence in such a deliverance than in anything the doctors could say.
And nothing could exceed the devotion with which poor Gervase was nursed. His wife was by his side night and day. She never tired—never wanted repose; was always ready; the most careful and anxious of nurses.
“He’s much better to-day, don’t you think?” was her greeting to the doctor when he came. And Dr. Bryant said afterwards that Mrs. Piercey looked as if she would have flown at his throat when he looked grave. She could not bear to be contradicted or checked in her hopes. And every day she went downstairs and assured Sir Giles that his son would soon be better.
“We can’t expect it to pass in a day,” she said, “for it is a very serious attack.”
“And he has no stamina, no stamina; we always knew it—we were always told that,” said the old gentleman.
Mrs. Piercey looked fiercely at her father-in-law, too. She could not bear to hear this repeated.
“Dear papa,” she said, “it comes hardest always on the strongest men.”
“God bless you, my dear!” cried old Sir Giles, falling a-sobbing, as was his wont when his mind was disturbed, “I believe that’s true.”
Oh, how could he go on living—that old man for whom nobody cared; who did nothing but keep the younger ones out of their own! What had he to live for? Patty wondered, with a wild, yet suppressed rage which no words could express; old, helpless, not able to enjoy anything except that wretched, tedious backgammon, and keeping others out of their own; yet he would live and see Gervase die! He would go on, and on, and see his only child buried, as he had seen his wife, and forget all about it after a week, and play his backgammon, and be guarded by Dunning from every wind that blew. Dunning! Was it Dunning, perhaps, that kept him alive; that knew things which the doctors don’t know? It was natural to Patty’s education and training to think this, and that some private nostrum would do more than all the drugs in the world.
“Shall I send down a nurse to you for a moment,” she said to Sir Giles suddenly, “and will you let Dunning come up and look at him?” Dunning could not refuse to go, but he looked at Patty suspiciously, as if she meant to betray him into some trap.
“I don’t know nothing about that kind of illness,” he said.
“Oh, but you don’t know what kind of illness it is till you see him,” cried Patty. She hastily led the man to her husband’s bedside, and watched his looks while he stood awkwardly, holding as far aloof as he could, looking down upon the half-sleep, half-stupor, in which the patient lay.
“Oh, Dunning, what do you think?”
“I think as he looks very bad,” Dunning said, in a subdued and troubled voice.
“That’s not what I want you to tell me. I want you to think if there is anything we could give him to rouse him up. What he wants is to be roused up, don’t you see? When you are roused to see the need of it, you can do a deal for yourself, however ill you may be. What could we give him, Dunning, to rouse him up?”
Dunning could see nothing but some unintelligible trap that was being laid for him in those words.
“I’m not a doctor,” he said, sullenly. “I know what’s good for Sir Giles, as is chronic; but I don’t know anything about the like of this. I should say there’s nothing to give him, but just wait and—trust in God,” said Dunning.
“Oh, God!” said Patty, in the unintentional profanity of her hot terror and distress. He was so far off; so difficult to get at; so impossible to tell what His meaning was! whereas she had felt that this man might have known something—some charm, some medicine which could be given at once.
“You had better go back to Sir Giles,” she said, shortly, and sat down herself by that hopeless bed. But it was not hopeless to Patty. As soon as Dunning was gone she began to take a little comfort even from what he had said: “Wait, and trust in God.” Patty knew all that could be said in words about trusting in God, and she knew many collects and prayers; but, somehow, even she felt that to ask God by any means, whatever happened, to exert His power that she might be Lady Piercey in the end—that the old man might die and the young man live for this purpose—was a thing not thought of in any collect: her mouth was stopped, and she could not find a word to say.