Margaret found Gervase waiting for her in the darkness of the corridor,
when she left his mother. Lady Piercey was a righteous woman, who would
not keep her maid out of bed after ten o’clock; but her niece was a
different matter. He caught his cousin by the arm, almost bringing from
her a cry of alarm. “Meg,” he said in her ear, “do you think it’s all
true?”
“Oh, Gervase, you gave me such a fright!”
“Is it all true?”
“How can I tell you? I don’t know anything about the law,” she said,
with a sense of disloyalty to the poor fellow who was so ignorant; but
she could not contradict her aunt, and if that was supposed to be for
his good----
“If it should be,” said Gervase, with a deep sigh: and then he added, “I
couldn’t let her marry me if it wasn’t to be for her good.”
“Oh, Gervase, why can’t you show yourself like that to _them_?” his
cousin said.
“I don’t know what you mean. I make no difference,” he answered dully,
as he turned away.
Then there came another disturbance. The door of Sir Giles’ room further
on opened cautiously, and his servant, who was also his nurse, looked
out with great precaution and beckoned to her. Sir Giles was in bed; an
old man with a red face and white hair; his under lip dropped like that
of Gervase, though there was still a great deal of animation in his
little bright blue eyes. He called her to come to him close to his
bedside, as if Dunning, his man, did not know exactly what his master
was going to ask.
“Has Gervase come in?” he said.
“Yes, uncle.”
“Is he drunk?”
“Oh, no,” said Margaret eagerly, “nothing of the sort!”
“That’s all right,” said the old gentleman with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Now I’ll go to sleep.”
Thus the whole household, though it was not to be called a sensitive or
a loving household, held its watch over the poor lad who, in his patent
stupidity, was its only hope.
Margaret Osborne went away to the end of the corridor to her own room
where her little boy was sleeping. She was a few years over thirty, as I
have said, and therefore was one of those whose day is supposed to be
over. She would have said so herself from other reasons, with complete
good faith. For was she not a widow, thrown back as wrecks are upon the
shore, out of the storms and hurricanes of life? She might have added
that she was cast upon a desert island, after a very brief yet sharp
acquaintance with all those stirring adventures and hair-breadth escapes
which sometimes make life a stormy voyage. She had married a soldier,
and gone with him from place to place during a course of troubled years.
They had been poor, and their marriage was what is called an imprudent
one; but it was so much worse than that, that Captain Osborne had by no
means intended it to be imprudent, but had remained convinced till the
last moment that Sir Giles Piercey’s niece must bring something
substantial with her to the common stock. He had been warned over and
over again, but he had not believed the warning; and when he found
himself with a wife on his hands, whose utmost endowment was a very
small allowance; enough, with economy, to dress her in the simplest
manner, but no more--while he himself had little more than his pay to
depend on, the disappointment was grievous. Captain Osborne was a
gentleman, though not a very high-minded one, and he did his best to
keep the knowledge of this shock from his wife, and to look as if he
shared that joy in life and intoxicating delight of freedom with which
Margaret, the unconsidered orphan of Greyshott, stepped forth into the
fulness of existence with the man she loved. He was able to keep that up
quite a long time, his despondencies and occasional irritabilities being
attributed by Margaret to anything but the real cause of them; but at
the last, in an unguarded moment, the secret slipped from him. Not
anything to leave an indelible mark on her memory; not that he had
married her with the intention of increasing his income, which would not
have been true; but only an unintentional revelation of the
disappointment which had been in his mind from the very day of their
marriage--the failure of a prospect upon which his thoughts were bent.
“I thought I should have been able to do you more justice, Meg; but if
we’ve grubbed on in a poor way, you must remember it’s that old
curmudgeon of an uncle of yours that’s to blame.” She had asked what he
meant, with a startled look, and gradually had elicited the story of his
disappointment, which sunk into her heart like a stone. Not that she
misjudged him or believed that he had married her for that only. Oh! no,
no; but to think, when you have supposed your husband to be satisfied
with your society as you with his; to find in you the fulfilment of all
his hopes of happiness as you in him; and then to discover that from
your very marriage day he has gone forth with a disappointment, with a
grudge; with an unsaid reflection, “If I had but known!”--Margaret
forgot it ’mid the many events that filled her existence, forgot even
the bitter thought that, had he known, he need not have been subjected
to those slights and scorns and forced self-denials that befall the
poor; forgot everything but love and sorrow in those last sad scenes
which have this one compensation--that they obliterate all that is not
love from the mourner’s heart. But, nevertheless, the mark that had been
made on her life was always there. We may have forgotten when, and how,
and even by whose hand we got the wound, but the scar remains, and the
smoothness of the injured surface can never be restored.
But she had her little boy, who was her estate, her endowment, her
dowry, whatever else might be lacking; and who had come to be the
delight of the house in which she was received after her widowhood--oh!
not unkindly--with a quite genuine compassion and friendliness, if not
love. They were not a family of delicate mind; they did not think it
necessary to spare a dependent any of those snubs or small humiliations
which belong to her lot. They took her in frankly because she had
nowhere else to go to, with an occasional complaint of their hard fate
in having to receive and support other people’s children, and an
occasional gibe at the poor relations who were always a drag upon the
head of the family. I do not say that she had not felt this, for she had
a high spirit; and, perhaps, if she had been a woman educated as women
are beginning to be now, she might have felt herself capable of
achieving independence and throwing off the sore weight of charity which
is so good for those who give, but generally so hard upon those who
receive. But after many a weary thought she had given up the hope of
this. She had not boldness enough to venture on any great and unusual
undertaking, and there were no means for a woman of earning her living
then, except in the way of teaching (which, at all times, must be the
chief standby), for which she was not capable, having had no education
herself. So that she had to accept the humiliations, to hear herself
described as “my niece, you know, who has had to come back, poor thing,
left without a penny. If she had not had her uncle’s house to come back
to, Heaven knows what would have become of her”; and to witness the
visitor’s pressure of Lady Piercey’s hand, and admiring exclamation,
“How good you are!” And it was true--they were very good. She had not a
moment she could call her own, but was running their errands the whole
day. She was sick-nurse, lady’s maid, secretary, and reader, all in one.
Sir Giles had moments when he remembered that to have such an invalid
master was hard upon Dunning, and that so valuable a servant must have,
now and then, an afternoon to himself; and Lady Piercey was very
considerate of her maid, Parsons, and insisted, as we have seen, that
she should always get to bed by ten o’clock. But to both of these good
people it seemed quite natural that Meg should take the place thus
vacated, and support the gouty old gentleman, and put the old lady to
bed. Their own flesh and blood! like the daughter of the house! of
course, it was she who came in naturally to fulfil all their needs. And
Margaret never made an objection--scarcely felt one; was glad to be
always busy, always at their service; but now and then, perhaps, in an
idle moment, wondered, with a smile, how they could get on without her;
felt a little indignation against Dunning and Parsons, who never showed
any gratitude to her for the many fatigues she spared them--and thought
within herself that the story of the niece, poor thing, who had come
back without a penny, might be less frequently told.
But there had come into her life a great revenge--a thing which no one
had thought of, unintentional, indeed undesired. The little boy, the
baby, whom every one had called poor little thing!--as of the most
unprotected and defenceless of God’s creation--that little boy, Osy,
such a burden on the poor niece who had not a penny! had become the king
of the house! It was such a revolution as had never entered into any
mind to conceive. Osy, who understood nothing about his proper place or
his position, as entirely dependent on Sir Giles’ charity, but did
understand very well that everybody smiled upon him, delighted even in
his very naughtiness, obeyed his lightest wish, fulfilled all his little
caprices, took his little place as prince, as if it had been the most
natural thing in the world. From old Sir Giles, by whom he sat on his
little stool, patting the old gentleman’s gouty foot, with the softest
feather-touch of his little hand, and babbling with all manner of baby
talk profound questions that could have no answer, and shrills of little
laughter, while even Dunning, on the other side of the old man’s chair,
smiled indulgent, and declared that nothing do amuse master or take him
out of himself like that child; and Lady Piercey, to whom he would run,
hiding among her ample robes with full connivance on her part, when it
was time to put him to bed--while Parsons stood delighted by, alleging
that children was allays so when they was happy, and that the little ’un
was fond of her ladyship, to be sure--there was but one thought little
of Osy. He was a darling, he was, the housekeeper said, who was grim to
Mrs. Osborne, and resented much being obliged occasionally to take my
lady’s orders from the poor niece without a penny. Gervase was the only
one in the family who did not idolise Osy. He had liked him well enough
at first, when he mounted the little thing on his shoulder to Margaret’s
terror, holding the child, who had twice his energy and spirit, with a
limp arm in which there was no security. But after the time when Osy,
with a fling, threw himself from his cousin’s nervous hold, and broke
his little head and plunged the house into a panic of alarm, all such
pranks had been forbidden, and Gervase took no more notice of the child,
who had already begun to share the contempt of the household for him.
“Why doesn’t Cousin Gervase ’list for a soldier?” Osy had asked one day
as he sat by Sir Giles. “Why should he ’list for a soldier?” asked the
old gentleman; though Dunning grew pale, and Lady Piercey looked up with
a sharp “Eh?” not knowing what treason was to follow. Dunning knew what
had been said on that subject in the servants’ hall, and divined that
the child had heard and would state his authorities without hesitation.
“Because----” said Osy--but then he made a pause--his mother’s eye was
upon him, and, perhaps, though he had not the least idea what she feared
and probably in childish defiance would have done that precisely had he
known, yet this glance did give him pause; and he remembered that he had
been told not to repeat what the servants said. The processes in a
child’s mind are no less swift than those of a more calculating age.
“Because,” said the boy, lingering, beginning to enjoy the suspense on
all these faces, “because--it would make his back straight. Mamma says
my back’s straight because the sergeant drilled me when I was a lickle,
lickle boy.”
“And the dear child is as straight as a rush, my lady,” said Parsons,
who was, as so often, arranging Lady Piercey’s work. She, too, was
grateful beyond measure to little Osy for not repeating the talk of the
servants’ hall.
“And what are you now, Osy,” cried Sir Giles, with a great laugh, “if
you’re no longer a lickle, lickle boy?”
“I’m the king of the castle,” said Osy, tilting at Dunning with the old
gentleman’s stick. “Bedone, you dirty rascal; let’s play at you being
the castle, Uncle Giles, and I’ll drive off the enemy. Bedone, you dirty
rascal;--det away from my castle. I’ll be the sentry on the walls,” said
the child, marching round and round with the stick over his shoulder for
a gun, “and I’ll call out ‘Who does there?’ and ‘What’s the word’--and
I’ll drive off all the enemy. But there must be a flag flying.” He
called it a flap, but that did not matter. “Mamma, fix a flap upon my
big tower. Here,” he cried, producing from his little pocket a crumpled
rag of uncertain colour, “this hankechif will do.”
“But that’s a flag of truce, Osy; are you going to give me up then?”
said the old gentleman.
“We’ll not have no flaps of truce,” said Osy, seizing Sir Giles’ red
bandana, “for I means fightin’--and they sha’n’t come near you, but over
my body. Here! Tome on, you enemy!” Osy’s thrusts at Dunning, who
retreated outside a wider and a wider circle as the little soldier made
his rounds, amused the old gentleman beyond measure. He laughed till,
which was not very difficult, the water came to his eyes.
“I do believe that mite would stand up for his old uncle if there was
any occasion,” said Sir Giles, nodding his old head across at his wife,
and trying in vain to recover the bandana to dry his old eyes.
These were the sort of games that went on in the afternoon, especially
in winter, when the hours were long between lunch and tea. When the
weather was fine, Osy marched by Sir Giles’ garden chair, and made him
the confidant of all his wonderings. “What do the leaves fall off for,
and where do they tome from when they tome again? Does gardener go to
the market to buy the new ones like mamma goes to buy clothes for me?
How do the snowdrops know when it’s time to come up out of the told,
told ground?” Fortunately, he had so many things to ask that he seldom
paused for an answer. Sir Giles laid up these questions in his heart,
and reported them to my lady. “He asked me to-day if it hurt the field
when the farmers ploughed it up? I declare I never thought how strange
things were before, and the posers that little ’un asks me!” cried the
old man. Lady Piercey smiled with a superior certainty, based upon
Mangnall’s Questions and other instructive works, that she was not so
easily posed by Osy. She had instructed him as to where tea and coffee
came from, and taught him to say, “Thank you, pretty cow,” thus
accounting for his breakfast to the inquisitive intelligence. But there
was one thing that brought a spasm to Lady Piercey’s face, especially
when, as now and then happened, she hid the little truant from his
mother, and saved Osy from a scolding, as he nestled down amid her
voluminous skirts and lifted up a smiling, rosy little face, in great
enjoyment of the joke and the hiding place. Sometimes as she laid her
hand upon his curly head with that sensation of half-malicious delight
in coming between the little sinner and his natural governor, which is
common to the grand-parent, there would come a sudden contraction to her
face, and a bitter salt tear would spring to her eye. If Gervase had a
child like that to be his father’s heir! Why was not that delightful
child the child of Gervase, instead of being born to those who had
nothing to give him? It was upon Margaret, who had not a penny, that
this immeasurable gift was bestowed. And no woman that could be the
mother of such a boy would ever marry Gervase! Oh! no, no--a barmaid, to
give him a vulgar brat, who, perhaps----. But the thoughts of angry love
and longing are not to be put into words.
Margaret went to the end of the gallery to her own room, where her
child’s soft breath was just audible as he slept. She went and looked at
him in his little crib, a little head like an angel’s, upon the little
white pillow. But it was not only in a mother’s tender adoration that
she stood and looked at her child. To hurt any one was not in Margaret
Osborne’s heart, but there had come into it for some time back a dart of
ambition, a gleam of hope: little Osy, too, was of the Piercey blood.
She herself was a Piercey, much more a Piercey than Gervase, poor
fellow. If an heir was wanted, who so fit as her boy? Far more fit than
old General Piercey, whom nobody knew. Oh! not for worlds, not for
anything that life could give, would she harm poor Gervase, or any man.
But the barmaid and her possible progeny were as odious to Margaret as
to Lady Piercey: and where, where could any one find an heir like Osy,
the little prince, who had conquered and taken possession of the great
house?