This was why he suspected her. The question remained, What did he suspect her of? And this was still more difficult to answer. Such a woman, of course, would live by sowing mischief in a family; by hurting in the most effectual way the superiors who kept her down, and were so little considerate of her. And their son was the way in which she could most effectively do this. Gerald Piercey had various thoughts rising in his mind about this young man, who probably was not at all fit to hold the family property and succeed Sir Giles in its honours. There was one point of view from which Colonel Piercey could not forget that he himself was the next-of-kin – that which made him, in his own eyes, the champion of Gervase – his determined defender against every assault. Perhaps the very strength of this feeling might push him beyond what was right and just; but it would be in the way of supporting and protecting his weak-minded cousin. That was a point upon which, naturally, he could have no doubt. If Meg Piercey was against him, it was Gerald Piercey’s part to defend him. But the means were a little doubtful. He was not clear whether Meg was helping Gervase to marry unsuitably, to spite his parents, or whether her intention was to prevent this marriage, in order to deprive him of his happiness and the natural protection which the support of a clever wife might afford to the half-witted young man. Thus, he had a difficult part to play; having first to find out what Margaret’s scope and meaning was, and then to set himself to defeat it. He had been but three days in the house, and what a tangled web he was involved in! – to be the Providence of all these people, old and young, whom he knew so little, yet was so closely connected with; and to defeat the evil genius, the enemy in the guise of a friend, whom he alone was clear-sighted enough to divine. But she puzzled him all the same. She had looks that were not those of a deceiver; and when she had raised her head and told him that at another moment she would demand an explanation of what his tone meant, something like a shade of alarm passed through the soldier’s mind. He would not have been alarmed, you may be sure, if Margaret had threatened him with a champion, as in the older days. Bois-Guilbert was not afraid of Ivanhoe. But, when it is the woman herself who asks an explanation, and his objections have to be stated in full words, to her alone, facing him for herself, that is a different matter. It may well make a man look pale.
CHAPTER XVIII
The next morning after this, Gerald Piercey found himself in the front of the Seven Thorns. He had not known what it was: whether a hamlet, or a farm, or what he actually found it to be, a roadside inn. The aspect of the place was more attractive than usual. It was lying full in the morning sunshine; a great country waggon, with its white covering, and fine, heavily-built, but well-groomed horses, standing before the door, concentrating the light in its great hood. One of the horses was white, which made it a still more shining object in the midst of the red-brown road. The old thorns were full in the sunshine, which softened their shabby antiquity, and made the gnarled roots and twisted branches picturesque. The long, low fabric of the house was bathed in the same light, which pervaded the whole atmosphere with a purifying and embellishing touch. The west side, looking over the walled garden, which extended for some distance along the road, though in the shade, showed a row of open windows, at which white curtains fluttered, giving an air of inhabitation to that usually-closed-up portion of the place. The visitor felt, as he looked at it, that it was not a mere village public-house, that its decadence might have a story, and that it was possible that the daughter of such a house might not, after all, be a mere rustic coquette, or, perhaps, so bad a match for the half-witted Gervase. Colonel Piercey had never once thought of himself as the possible heir of Greyshott; he did not feel that he had any interest in keeping Gervase from marrying, and though it was intolerable that the heir of the Pierceys should marry a barmaid, his feelings softened as he looked at the old country inn, with its look of long-establishment. Probably there was a farm connected with it; perhaps there was a certain pride of family here, too, and the daughter of the house was kept apart from the drinking and the wayside guests. Meg Piercey might have divined that the young woman was really the best match that Gervase could hope for, and this might be the cause of her opposition. (He forgot that he had supposed it likely that Meg might be bringing the match about for her own private ends, one hypothesis being just as likely as another.) With this idea he approached slowly, and took his seat upon the bench that stood under the window of the parlour. The roads between Greyshott and the Seven Thorns were dry and dusty, and his boots were white enough to warrant the idea that he was a pedestrian reposing himself, naturally, at the place of refreshment on the roadside.
The landlord came to the door with the waggoner, when Colonel Piercey had established himself there, and his aspect could not be said to be quite equal to that of his house. Hewitt had a red nose and a watery eye. His appearance did not inspire respect. He was holding the waggoner by the breast of his smock, and holding forth, duly emphasising his discourse by the gesture of the other hand, in which he held a pipe.
“You just ’old by me,” he was saying, “look’ee, Jack; and I’ll ’old by you, I will. The ’ay’s a good crop; nobody can’t say nothing again that. But there’s rain a-coming, and Providence, ’e knows what’ll come of it all in the end. It ain’t what’s grow’d in the fields as is to be trusted to, but what’s safe in the stacks; and there’s a deal o’ difference between one and the other. Look’ee here! you ’old by me, and I’ll ’old by you. And I can’t speak no fairer. I’ve calcilated all round, I ’ave – me and Patty, my girl, as is that good at figures; and if it’s got in safe, all as I’ve got to say is, that this ’ere will be a dashed uncommon yeer.”
“It’s mostly the way,” said the waggoner, “I’ll allow, with them dry Junes. The weather can’t ’old up not for ever.”
“Nor won’t,” said old Hewitt, with assurance; “it stands to reason. Ain’t this a variable climate or ain’t it not? And a drop o’ rain we ’aven’t seen not for three weeks and more. Then we’ll ’ave a wet July. You see yourself when I knocked the glass ’ow it went down. And that,” he added, triumphantly, waving his pipe in the air, “is what settles the price of the ’ay.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you was right, master,” said the waggoner, getting under weigh.
Gerald Piercey sat and watched the big horses straining their great flanks to the work, setting the heavy waggon in motion, with pleasure in the sight which diverted him for a moment from his chief object of interest. Coming straight from India and the fine and slender-limbed creatures which are the patricians of their kind, the great, patient, phlegmatic English cart-horse filled him with admiration. The big feathered hoofs, the immense strain of those gigantic hind-quarters, the steady calm of the rustic, reflected with a greater and more dignified impassiveness in the face of his beast, was very attractive and interesting to him.
“Fine horses, these,” he said, half to Hewitt at the door, half to the waggoner, who grinned with a slow shamefacedness, as if it were himself who was being praised.
“Ay, sir,” said Hewitt, “and well took care of, as ever beasts was. Jack Mason there – though I say it as shouldn’t – is awfull good to his team.”
“And why shouldn’t you say it?” said Colonel Piercey. “It’s clear enough.”
“He’s a relation, that young man is, and it’s a country saying, sir, as you shouldn’t speak up for your own. But I ain’t one as pays much ’eed to that, for, says I, you knows them that belong to you better nor any one else does. There’s my girl Patty, now; there ain’t one like her betwixt Guildford and Portsmouth, and who knows it as well as me?”
“That’s a very satisfactory state of things,” said the visitor, “and, of course, you must know best. But I fear you won’t be able to keep Miss Patty long to yourself if she’s like that.”
At this Patty’s father began to laugh a slow, inward laugh. “There’s ’eaps o’ fellows after ’er, like bees after a ’oney ’ive. But, Lord bless you! she don’t think nothing o’ them. She’s not one as would take up with a country ’Odge. She’s blood in her veins, has my girl. We’ve been at the Seven Thorns, off and on, for I don’t know ’ow many ’undred years: more time,” said Hewitt, waving his pipe vaguely towards Greyshott, “than them folks ’as been at the ’All.”
“Ah, indeed! That’s the Pierceys, I suppose?”
“And a proud set they be. But ’Ewitts was ’ere before ’em, only they won’t acknowledge it. I’ve ’eard my sister Patience, ’as ’ad a terrible tongue of ’er own, tell Sir Giles so to his face. ’E was young then, and father couldn’t keep ’im out o’ this ’ouse. After Patience, to be sure; but he was a terrible cautious one, was Sir Giles, and it never come to nought.” The landlord laughed with a sharp hee-hee-hee. “I reckon,” he said, “it runs in the blood.”
“What runs in the blood?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the innkeeper, pausing suddenly, “if you’ve called for anything? I can’t trust neither to maid nor man to attend to the customers now Patty’s away.”
“If you have cider, I should like a bottle, and perhaps you’ll help me to drink it,” said Colonel Piercey. “I’m sorry to hear that Miss Patty’s away.”
“In London,” said Hewitt; “but only for a bit. She ’as a ’ead, that chit ’as! Them rooms along there, end o’ the ’ouse, ’asn’t been lived in not for years and years. She says to me, she does, ‘Father, let’s clear ’em out, and maybe we’ll find a lodger.’ I was agin it at first. ‘What’ll you do with a lodger? There ain’t but very little to be made o’ that,’ I says. ‘They don’t come down to the parlour to drink, that sort doesn’t, and they’re more trouble nor they’re worth.’ ‘You leave it to me, father,’ she says. And, if you’ll believe it, she’s found folks for them rooms already! New-married folks, she says, as will spend their money free. And coming in a week, for the rest of the summer or more. That’s Patty’s way!” cried the landlord, smiting his thigh. “Strike while it’s ’ot, that’s ’er way! Your good ’ealth, sir, and many of ’em. It ain’t my brewing, that cider. I gets it from Devonshire, and I think, begging your pardon, sir, as it’s ’eady stuff.”
“But how,” said Colonel Piercey, “will you manage with your visitors, when your daughter is away?”
“Oh, bless you, sir, she’s a-coming with ’em, she says in her letter, if not before. Patty knows well I ain’t the one for lodgers. I sits in my own parlour, and I don’t mind a drop to drink friendly-like with e’er a man as is thirsty, or to see a set of ’orses put up in my stables, or that; but Richard ’Ewitt of the Seven Thorns ain’t one to beck and bow afore folks as thinks themselves gentry, and maybe ain’t not ’alf as good as ’er and me. No, sir; I wasn’t made, nor was my father afore me made, for the likes of that.”
“It is very good of you, I’m sure, Mr. Hewitt, to sit for half an hour with me, who may be nobody, as you say.”
“Don’t mention it, sir,” said Hewitt, with a wave of the pipe which he still carried like a banner in his hand: “I ’ope I knows a gentleman when I sees one; and as I said, I sits at my own door and I takes a friendly drop with any man as is thirsty. That ain’t the same as bowing and scraping, and taking folks’s orders, as is nothing to me.”
“And Miss Patty, you say, is in London? London’s a big word: is she east or west, or – ”
“It’s funny,” said Hewitt, “the interest that’s took in my Patty since she’s been away. There’s been Sally Ferrett, the nurse up at Greyshott, asking and asking, where is she, and when did she go, and when she’s coming back? I caught her getting it all out of ’Lizabeth the girl. What day did she go, and what train, and so forth? ’Lizabeth’s a gaby. She just says ‘Yes, Miss,’ and ‘No, Miss,’ to a wench like that, as is only a servant like herself. I give it ’em well, and I give Miss her answer. ‘What’s their concern up at Greyshott with where my Patty is?”
“That’s true,” said Colonel Piercey, “and what is my concern? You are quite right, Mr. Hewitt.”
“Oh, yours, sir? that’s different: you ask out o’ pure idleness, you do, to make conversation; I understand that. But between you and me I couldn’t answer ’em, not if I wanted to. For my Patty is one as can take very good care of ’erself, and she don’t give me no address. She’ll be back with them young folks, or maybe, afore ’em, next week, and that’s all as I want to know. I wants her then, for I’ll not have nothing to do with ’em, and ’Lizabeth, she’s a gaby, and not to be trusted. Lodgers in my opinion is more trouble than they’re any good. So Patty will manage them herself, or they don’t come here.”
“The family at Greyshott takes an interest in your daughter, I presume, from what you say,” said Colonel Piercey.
Upon this Hewitt laughed low and long, and winked over and over again with his watery eye. “There’s one of ’em as does,” he said. “Oh, there’s one of ’em as does! If so be as you know the family, sir, you’ll know the young gentleman. Don’t you know Mr. Gervase? – eh, not the young ’un, sir, as is Sir Giles’s heir? Oh, Lord, if you don’t know him you don’t know Greyshott Manor, nor what’s going on there.”
“I have never seen the young gentleman,” said Gerald; “I believe he is not very often at home.”
“I don’t know about ’ome, but ’e’s ’ere as often as ’e can be. ’E’d be ’ere mornin’, noon, and night if I’d ’a put up with it; but I see ’im, what ’e was after, and I’ll not ’ave my girl talked about, not for the best Piercey as ever trod in shoe-leather. And ’e ain’t the best, oh, not by a long chalk ’e ain’t. Sir Giles is dreadful pulled down with the rheumatics and that, but ’e was a man as was something like a man. Lord bless you, sir, this poor creature, ’e’s a Softy, and ’e’ll never be no more.”
“What do you mean by a Softy?” said Gerald, quickly; then he added with a sensation of shame, “Never mind, I don’t want you to tell me. Don’t you think you should be a little more careful what you say, when a young man like this comes to your house?”
“What should I be careful for?” said Hewitt; “I ain’t noways beholdin’ to the Pierceys. They ain’t my landlords, ain’t the Piercey’s, though they give themselves airs with their Lords o’ the Manor, and all that. Hewitts of the Seven Thorns is as good as the Pierceys, and not beholdin’ to them, not for the worth of a brass fardin – oh, no! And I wouldn’t have the Softy about my house, a fool as opens ’is mouth and laughs in your face if you say a sensible word to ’im; not for me! Richard Hewitt’s not a-going to think twice what he says for a fool like ’im. Softy’s ’is name and Softy’s ’is nature: ask any man in the village who the Softy is, and they’ll soon tell you. Lord, it don’t matter a bit what I say.”
“Still, I suppose,” said Colonel Piercey, feeling a little nettled in spite of himself, “it is, after all, the first family in the neighbourhood.”
“First family be dashed,” cried Hewitt; “I’m as good a family as any of ’em. And I don’t care that, no, not that,” he cried, snapping his fingers, “for the Pierceys, if they was kings and queens, which they ain’t, nor no such big folks after all. Old Sir Giles, he’s most gone off his head with rheumatics and things; and my lady, they do say, she ’ave ’ad a stroke, and serve her right for her pride and her pryin’. And Mr. Gervase, he’s a Softy, and that’s all that’s to be said. They ain’t much for a first family when you knows all the rights and the wrongs of it,” Hewitt said.
CHAPTER XIX
The poet’s wish that we might see ourselves as others see us was, though he did not so intend it, a cruel wish. It might save us some ridicule to the outside world, but it would turn ourselves and our pretensions into such piteous ridicule to ourselves, that life would be furnished with new pangs. Colonel Piercey went back to Greyshott with a sense of this keen truth piercing through all appearances, which was half ludicrous and half painful, though it was not himself, but his relations, that had been exhibited to him in the light of an old rustic’s observations. He had come upon this visit with a sense of the greatness of the head of his own family, which had, perhaps, a little self-esteem in it; for if the younger branches of the house were what he knew them in his own person, and his father’s, what ought not the head of the house, Sir Giles, the lineal descendant of so many Sir Gileses, and young Gervase, the heir of those long-unbroken honours, to be? He had expected, perhaps a little solemn stupidity, such as the younger is apt to associate with the elder branch. But he had also expected something of greatness – evidence that the house was of that reigning race which is cosmopolitan, and recognises its kind everywhere from English meads to Styrian mountains, and even among the chiefs of the East. It was ludicrous to see, through the eyes of a clown, how poor, after all, these pretences were. Yet he could not help it. Poor old Sir Giles, helpless and querulous, broken down by sickness, and, perhaps, disappointment and trouble; the poor old lady, not much at any time of the rural princess she might have been, lying speechless in that lingering agony of imprisoned consciousness; and the son, the heir, the future head of the house! Was not that a revelation to stir the blood in the veins of Gerald Piercey, the next-of-kin? He was a man of many faults, but he was full both of pride and generosity. The humiliation for his race struck him more than any possible elevation for himself. Indeed, that possible elevation was far enough off, if he had ever thought of it. A half-witted rustic youth, taken hold of by a pert barmaid, with a numerous progeny to follow, worthy of both sides – was that what the Pierceys were to come to in the next generation? He had never thought, having so many other things to occupy him in his life, of that succession, though probably he began to think, his father had, who had so much insisted on this visit. But what a succession it would be now! He was walking along, turning these things over in his mind, going slowly, and not much observant (though this was not at all his habit) of what was about him, when he was sensible of a sudden touch, which was, indeed, only upon his hand, yet which felt as if it had been direct upon his heart, rousing all kinds of strange sensations there. It was a thing which is apt to touch every one susceptible of feeling, with quick and unexpected sensations when it comes unawares. It was a little hand – very small, very soft, very warm, yet with a grasp in it which held fast, suddenly put into his hand. Colonel Piercey stopped, touched, as I have said, on his very heart, which, underneath all kinds of actual and conventional coverings, was soft and open to emotion. He looked down and saw a little figure at his foot, a little glowing face looking up at him. “May I tum and walk with you, Cousin Colonel?” a small voice said. “Sally, do away.”
“Certainly you shall come and walk with me, Osy,” said the Colonel. “What are you doing, little man, so far from home?”
“It’s not far from home. I walks far – far – further than that. Sally, do away! I’m doing to walk home with a gemplemans. I’m a gemplemans myself, but Movver will send a woman wif me wherever I do. Sally, do away!”
“I’ll take care of him,” said Colonel Piercey, with a nod to the maid. “And so you think you’re too big for a nurse, Master Osy. How old are you?”
“Seven,” said the boy; “at least I’m more than six-and-three-quarters, Cousin Colonel. Little Joey at the farm is only five, and he does miles, all by hisself. Joey is better than me many ways,” he added, thoughtfully; “he dets up on the big hay-cart, and he wides on the big horse, and his faver sits him up high! on his so’lder. But I only have a pony and sometimes I does with Jacob in the dog-cart, and sometimes – ”
“Would you like to ride on my shoulder, Osy?”
Osy looked up to the high altitude of that shoulder with a look full of deliberation, weighing various things. “I s’ould like it,” he said, “but I felled off once when Cousin Gervase put me up, and I promised Movver: but I tan’t help it when he takes me by my arms behind me. Sometimes I’m fwightened myself. A gemplemans oughtn’t to be fwightened, s’ould he, Cousin Colonel?”
“That depends,” said Gerald. “I am a great deal bigger than you, but sometimes I have been frightened, too.”
Osy looked at the tall figure by his side with certain glimmerings in his eyes of contempt. That size! and afraid! – but he would not make any remark. One does not talk of the deficiencies of others when one is of truly gentle spirit. One passes them over. He apologised like a prince to Gerald for himself. “That would be,” he said, “when it was a big, big giant. There’s giants in India, I know, like Goliath. If I do to India when I’m a man, I’ll be fwightened, too.”
“But David wasn’t, you know, Osy.”
“That’s what I was finking, Cousin Colonel, but he flinged the stone at him before he tummed up to him. Movver says it was quite fair, but – ”
“I think it was quite fair. Don’t you see, he had his armour on, and his shield, and all that; if he had had his wits about him, he might have put up his shield to ward off the stone. When you are little you must be very sharp.”
Osy looked at his big cousin again, reflectively. “I don’t fink I could kill you, Cousin Colonel, even if I was very sharp.”
“I hope not, Osy, and I trust you will never want to, my little man.”
“I would if we was fighting,” said Osy, with spirit; “but I’ll do on detting bigger and bigger till I’m a man: and you are a man now, and you tan’t gwow no more.”
“You bloodthirsty little beggar! You’ll go on getting bigger and bigger while I shall grow an old man like Uncle Giles.”
“I never,” cried Osy, flushing very red, “would stwike an old gemplemans like Uncle Giles. Never! I wouldn’t let nobody touch him. When Cousin Gervase runned away with his chair, I helped old Dunning to stop him. You might kill me, but I would fight for Uncle Giles!”
“It appears you are going to be a soldier, anyhow, Osy.”
“My faver was a soldier,” said Osy. “Movver’s got his sword hanging up in our room; all the rest of the fings belongs to Uncle Giles, but the sword, it belongs to Movver and me.”
The Colonel gave the little hand which was in his an involuntary pressure, and a little moisture came into the corner of his eye. “Do you remember your father,” he said, “my little man?”
Osy shook his head. “I don’t remember nobody but Movver,” the child said.
What a curious thing it was! To hear of the dead father and his sword brought that wetness to Colonel Piercey’s eye; but the name of the mother, which filled all the child’s firmament, dried the half-tear like magic. The poor fellow who had died went to the Colonel’s heart. The lonely woman with the little boy, so much more usual an occasion of sentiment, did not touch him at all. He did not want to hear anything of “Movver”: and, indeed, Osy was by no means a sentimental child, and had no inclination to enlarge on the theme. His mother was a matter of course to him, as to most healthy little boys: to enlarge upon her love or her excellencies was not at all in his way.
“You walk very fast, Cousin Colonel,” was the little fellow’s next remark.
“Do I, my little shaver? What a beast I am, forgetting your small legs. Come, jump and get up on my shoulder, Osy.”
Osy looked up with mingled pleasure and alarm. “I promised Movver: but if you holded me very fast – ”
“Oh, I’ll hold you. You mustn’t be frightened, Osy.”
“Me fwightened! But I felled down and hurted my side, and fwightened Movver. Huwah! huwah!” shouted the child. “I’m not fwightened a bit, Cousin Colonel! You holds me and I holds you, and you may canter, or gallop, or anyfing. I’ll never be afwaid.”
“Here goes, then,” said the grave soldier. And with shouts and laughter the pair rushed on, Colonel Piercey enjoying the race as much as the child on his shoulder, who urged him with imaginary spurs, very dusty if not very dangerous, holding fast with one hand by the collar of his coat. He had not much experience of children, and the confidence and audacity of this little creature, his glee, his warm grip, in which there was a touch of terror, and his wild enjoyment at once of the movement and the danger, aroused a new sentiment in the heart of the mature man, who had known none of the emotions of paternity. Suddenly, however, a change came over his spirit: he reduced his pace, he ceased to laugh, he sank all at once – though with the child still shouting on his shoulder, endeavouring, with his little kicks upon his breast, to rouse him to further exertions – into the ordinary gravity of his aspect and demeanour. There had appeared suddenly out of the little gate of the beech avenue, a figure, which took all the fun out of Gerald Piercey, though he could not have told why.
“Movver, movver! look here: I’m up upon my horse. But you needn’t be fwightened, for he’s not like Cousin Gervase. He’s holded me fast, fast all the way.”
“Oh! Osy,” cried Margaret, holding her breath – for, indeed, it was a remarkable sight to see the unutterable gravity of Colonel Piercey endeavouring solemnly to take off his hat to her, with the child, flushed and delighted, upon his shoulder. There was something comic in the extreme seriousness which had suddenly fallen upon Osy’s bearer. “You are making yourself a bore to Colonel Piercey,” she said.
“Not at all; we have been enjoying ourselves very much. He is a delightful companion,” said Gerald, but in a tone which suggested a severe despair. “Will you get down, Osy, or would you rather I should carry you home?”
“I would wather – ” said the child, and then he paused. “I tan’t see your face,” he said, pettishly, “but you feels twite different, as if you was tired. I fink I’ll get down.”
Colonel Piercey’s comment to himself was that the child was frightened for his mother, but, naturally, he did not express this sentiment. He lifted Osy down and set him on the ground. “Where’s the nurse now?” he said; “a long way behind. You see, Osy, it’s good to have a basis to fall back upon when new operations are ordered by the ruling powers.”
Could the man not refrain from a gibe at her, even to her child, Margaret thought, with wonder? But she was surprised to see that he stood still, as if with the intention of speaking to her.
“You are going out?” he said, in his solemn tones. “Is Lady Piercey better?”
“She is no better; but I must attempt, in some way, to get the news conveyed to Gervase. Her eyes turn constantly to the door. They are still quite living, though not so strong. She must see him, if it is possible. She must see him, if there is any way – her only child.”
“But not, from all I hear, a child that does her much credit,” he said.
“What does that matter? He is all she has,” she added hastily. “Don’t let me detain you, Colonel Piercey. I must not be gone long; and I must try if anything can be done.”
“You mean that I am detaining you,” he said, turning with her. “And I have something to tell you, if I may walk with you. I have been talking to old Hewitt, of the Seven Thorns. He says he has no address to communicate with his daughter; but there is a newly-married couple coming to occupy his rooms, and that she is returning with them next week.”
“A newly-married couple!” cried Margaret, aghast. “Can it be they? Can it be Patty? Is it possible?”
“I thought it might be so, if it was he and she whom I saw.”
“Oh, his mother! his mother! And this was what she was most afraid of. Why, why did she let him go.”
“Yes, why did she let him go, if she were so much afraid to this, as you think? But, perhaps you are alarming yourself unnecessarily? Lady Piercey must have known tolerably well at his age what her son was likely to do?”
“Yes, I am perhaps alarming myself unnecessarily. The chances are she will not live to see it. It is only she who would feel it much. Poor Aunt Piercey! Why should one wish her to live to hear this?” Margaret paused a little, wringing her hands, uncertain whether to turn back or to proceed. At last she said to herself, “Anyhow, she wants him – she wants him. If it is possible, she must see her boy;” and went on again quickly, scarcely noticing the dark figure at her side. But he did not choose to be overlooked.
“I should like,” he said, “to have a few things explained. You say nobody would mind this marriage – if it is a marriage – except Lady Piercey?”
“I said nobody would mind it much. My uncle would get used to it, and he could be talked over: and Patty Hewitt is a clever girl. But Aunt Piercey – !”
“Why should she stand out?”
“If you do not understand,” cried Margaret, “how can I tell you? His mother! and a woman that has always hoped better things, and thought still, if he married well, – You forget,” she cried vehemently, “that poor Gervase was not to her what he was to us. He was her only child! A mother may see everything even more keenly than others; but you hope, you always hope – ”
“I presume, then, you did not think so? You did not object to this marriage.”
“What does it matter whether I objected or not? Of what consequence is my opinion? None of us can like it. A girl like Patty to be at the head of Greyshott! Oh! who could like that? But,” said Margaret more calmly, “my poor aunt deceives herself; for what nice girl, unless she were forced, as girls are sometimes, would marry Gervase? Poor Gervase! It is not his fault. She deceives herself. But I don’t think she will live to see it. I don’t think she will live to hear of it. If she could only have him by her before she dies. Patty could not oppose herself to that. She could not prevent that.”