But it was not for nothing that Patty had put on her best things:
quivering and excited as she was, she would not go in again, however
discouraged, and take them off and return to the usual occupations,
which were so very little like the occupations of the great folks of the
Manor. She went on a little way towards the village very slowly, with
all her fine feathers drooping, dragging the point of her lace-covered
parasol along the sandy road. She was genuinely frightened by old Lady
Piercey, whom all her life she had been brought up to regard as
something more terrible than the Queen herself. For Her Majesty is known
to be kind, and there are often stories in the newspapers about her
goodness and charity; whereas Lady Piercey, with her deep voice and the
tufts of hair on her chin, had an alarming aspect, and notwithstanding
her Christmas doles and official charities, was feared and not loved in
her parish and district. How was Patty to know how much or how little
that terrible old lady could do? She was much discouraged by the
interview, in which she felt that she had been cowed and overborne, and
had not stood up with her usual spirit to her adversary. Had Patty known
beforehand that Gervase’s mother was to come to her thus, she would
have proudly determined that Lady Piercey should “get as good as she
gave.” But she had been taken by surprise, and the old lady had
certainly had the best of it. She was of so candid a spirit, that she
could not deny this; certainly Lady Piercey had had the best of it.
Patty herself had felt the ground cut from under her feet; she had not
had a word to throw at a dog. She had allowed herself to be frightened
and silenced and set down. It was a very unusual experience for Patty,
and for the moment she could not overcome the feeling of having lost the
battle.
However, presently her drooping crest began to rise. If Lady Piercey had
but known the errand upon which Patty was going, the intention with
which she had dressed herself in all her Sunday clothes, taken her
gloves from their box, and her parasol out of its cover! The
consciousness of what that object had been returned to Patty’s mind in a
moment, and brought back the colour to her cheeks. “Ah, my lady! you
think it’s something far off, as you’ve got time to fight against, and
shut him up and take him away! If you but knew that it may happen
to-morrow, or day after to-morrow, and Patty Hewitt become Mrs. Gervase
Piercey in spite of you!” This thought filled Patty with new energy. It
would be still sweeter to do it thus, under their very nose, as it
were, after they had driven away triumphant, thinking they had crushed
Patty. It was perhaps natural, that in the heat of opposition and rising
pugnaciousness, the girl should have turned her bitterest thought upon
the spectator sitting by, who had not said a word, and whose sympathies
were, if not on her side, at least not at all on that of the other
belligerent. “That white-faced maypole of a thing!” Patty said to
herself with a virulence of opposition to the dependent which exists in
both extremes of society. The old lady she recognised as having a right
to make herself as disagreeable as she pleased, but the bystander, the
silent spectator looking on, the cousin, or whatever she was--what had
she to do with it? Patty clenched her hand, in which she had been limply
holding her parasol, and vowed to herself that that Mrs. Osborne should
know who was who before they had done with each other, or she, Patty,
would know the reason why. Poor Margaret! who had neither wished to be
there, nor aided and abetted in any way Patty’s momentary discomfiture;
but it frequently happens that the victim of the strife is a completely
innocent person, only accidentally concerned.
Stimulated by this corrective of despondency, Patty resumed all her
natural smartness, flung up her head, so that all her artificial flowers
thrilled again, raised and expanded her parasol, and marched along like
an army with banners, taking up with her own slim person and shadow the
whole of the road. Humbler passersby, even the new curate, who was not
yet acquainted with the parishioners, got out of her way, recognising
her importance, and that sentiment as if of everything belonging to her
that was in her walk, in her bearing, and, above all, in the parasol,
which was carried, as is done still in Eastern countries, as a symbol of
sovereignty. Mr. Tripley, the curate, stumbled aside upon the grassy
margin of the road in his awe and respect, while Patty swept on; though
there was something in her members--that love of ancient habit,
scientifically known as a survival--which made the impulse to curtsey to
him almost more than she could resist. She did get over it, however, as
wise men say we get over the use of a claw or a tail which is no longer
necessary to us. Patty went along the high-road as far as the entrance
to the village street, and then turned down to where, at the very end of
it, there stood a little house in a little garden which was one of the
ornaments of the place. It was a house to a stranger somewhat difficult
to characterise. It was not the doctor’s or even the schoolmaster’s,
still less the curate’s, unless he had happened (as was the case) to be
an unmarried young man, who might have been so lucky as to attain to
lodgings in that well-cared-for dwelling. But, no; it was to well cared
for to take lodgers, or entertain any extraneous element; it was, in
short, not to be diffuse, the house of Miss Hewitt, the sister of
Richard Hewitt of the Seven Thorns, and aunt to Patty; the very Miss
Hewitt in her own person, who had sat at the window upstairs making the
vandyke in tape for her new petticoat, and to whom Sir Giles, in the
days of his youth, and all the gentlemen had taken off their hats. Those
had been the palmy days of the Seven Thorns, and the Hewitt of those
times had been able to leave something to his daughter, which, along
with a bit of money which she was supposed to have inherited from her
mother, had enabled Miss Hewitt to establish herself in great comfort,
not to say luxury, in Rose Cottage. It was a small slice of a house,
which looked as if it had been cut off from a row and set down alone
there. Its bricks were redder than any other bricks in the village,
indeed they were reddened with paint as high up as the parlour window;
the steps were whiter, being carefully whitened every day; the door was
very shiny and polished, almost like the panel of a carriage, in green;
the window of the parlour, at the side of the door, was shielded by
hangings of spotless starched muslin, and had a small muslin blind
secured across the lower half of it by a band of brass polished like
gold. The door had a brass handle and a brass knocker. There was not a
weed in the garden, which presented a brilliant border of flowers,
concealing the more profitable wealth of a kitchen garden behind.
Several great rose bushes were there, justifying the name of the
cottage; but Miss Hewitt had taken down those which clustered once upon
the walls, as untidy things which could not be kept in order. Rose
Cottage was the pride, if also in some respects the laughing-stock, of
the village; but it was the object of a certain adoration to the members
of the clan of Hewitt, who considered it a credit to them and proof of
their unblemished respectability far and near.
Patty knew too well to invade the virginal purity of the front door, the
white step, or the brass knocker; but went round through the garden to
the back, where her aunt was busy preparing fruit for the jam, for which
Miss Hewitt was famous, with the frightened little girl, who was her
maid-of-all-work, in attendance. All the little girls who succeeded
each other in Miss Hewitt’s service had a scared look; but all the same
they were lucky little girls, and competed for by all the housekeepers
round when they attained an age to be handed on to other service as
certain to be admirably trained. She was a trim old lady, a little
taller than Patty, and stouter, as became her years, but with all the
vivacity and alertness which distinguished the women of that ancient
house. She was a person of discernment also, and soon perceived that
this was not a mere visit of ceremony, but that there was matter for
advice in Patty’s eye, and not that interest in the fruit, and its exact
readiness for preserving, which would have been natural to a young woman
in Patty’s position had there been no other object in her mind. Miss
Hewitt accordingly, though with regret, suspended her important
operations, breathing a secret prayer that the delay might not injure
the colour of her jam, and led the way into the parlour. To describe
that parlour would occupy me gratefully for at least a couple of pages,
but I forbear. The reader may perhaps be able to fill up the suggestion;
if not, he (she?) will probably hear more about it later on.
“Well,” said Miss Hewitt, placing herself in her high-backed chair,
which no one else presumed to occupy, “what is to do? I could see as
you’d something to tell me of before you were up to the kitchen door.”
“I’ve more than something to tell you. I’ve something to ask you,” said
Patty.
“I dare say: the one mostly means the other; but you know as I’m not
foolish, nor even to say free with my money, if that’s it, knowing the
valley of it more than the likes of you.”
“I know that,” said Patty; “and it ain’t for anything connected with the
house or the business that I’d ever ask you, auntie; but this is for
myself, and I sha’n’t go about the bush or make any explanations till
I’ve just told you frank; it’s a matter of thirty pounds.”
“Thirty pounds! the gell is out of her senses!” Miss Hewitt cried.
“Or thereabouts. I don’t know for certain; but you, as knows a deal more
than me, may. It’s for a marriage-licence,” said Patty, looking her aunt
full in the face.
“A marriage-licence!” Miss Hewitt repeated again, in tones of
consternation; “and what does the fool want with a licence as costs
money, when you can put up the banns, as is far more respectable, and be
married the right way.”
“I don’t know as there’s anything that ain’t respectable in a licence,
and anyway it’s the only thing,” said Patty, “for him and me. If I can’t
get it, I’ll have to let it alone, that’s all. A marriage as mightn’t be
anything much for the moment, but enough to make the hair stand upright
on your head, Aunt Patience, all the same!”
“What kind of marriage would that be?” said the old lady, sceptical yet
interested; “that fine Roger of yours, maybe, as is probable to be made
a lord for his battin’ and his bowlin’. Lord! Patty, how you can be such
a fool, a niece of mine!”
“I ain’t such a fool,” said Patty, growing red, “though it might be
better for me if I was. But anyhow I am your niece, as you say, and I
can’t--be that kind of fool; maybe I’m a bigger fool, if it’s true as
that old witch at the Manor says.”
“What old witch?” cried the other old witch in the parlour, pricking up
her ears.
“Aunt Patience,” cried Patty, “you as knows: can they lock up in a
madhouse a young man as isn’t mad, no more than you or me; but is just
silly, as any one of us might be? Can they put him out of his property,
or send for the Lord Chancellor and take everything from him to his very
name? Oh, what’s the use of asking who he is? Who could he be? there
ain’t but one like that in all this county, and you know who he is as
well as I do. Mr. Gervase Piercey. Sir Giles’ son and heir! and they’ve
got neither chick nor child but him!”
“Patty,” said the elder woman, laying a grip like that of a bird with
claws upon her niece’s arm, “is it _’im_ as you want the thirty pounds
for to buy the licence? Tell me straight out, and not a word more.”
“It is _him_,” said Patty, in full possession of her h’s, and with a
gravity that became the importance of the occasion. Miss Hewitt did not
say a word. She rose from her chair, and, proceeding to the window,
pulled down the thick linen blind. She then placed a chair against the
door. Then she took from the recess near the fireplace an old workbox,
full to all appearance, when she opened it with a key which she took
out of her purse, with thread and needles of various kinds. Underneath
this, when she had taken the shelf completely out, appeared something
wrapt in a handkerchief half-hemmed, with a threaded needle stuck in
it--as if it had been a piece of work put aside--which proved to be an
old pocketbook. She held this in her hand for a moment only, gave Patty
a look, full of suspicion, scrutiny, yet subdued enthusiasm; then she
opened it and took out carefully three crisp and crackling notes,
selecting them one by one from different bundles. Then with great
deliberation she put notes, pocketbook, the covering shelf, of the
workbox, and the box itself back into the place where it had stood
before.
“Mind, now you’ve seen it, I’ll put it all into another place,” Miss
Hewitt said; “so you may tell whoever you like, they won’t find it
there.”
“Why should I tell?” said Patty; “it’s more for my interest you should
keep it safe.”
“You think you’ll get it all when I die,” said the elder woman, sitting
down opposite to her niece with the notes in her hand.
“I think, as I hope, you’ll never die, Aunt Patience! but always be
here to comfort and help a body when they’re in trouble, like me.”
“Do you call yourself in trouble? I call you as lucky as ever girl was.
I’d have given my eyes for the chance when I was like you; but his
father was too knowing a one, and never gave it to me. Here! you asked
for thirty, and I’ve give you fifty. Don’t you go and put off and
shilly-shally, but strike while the iron’s hot. And there’s a little
over to go honeymooning upon. Of course he’s got no money--the Softy:
but I know ’im; he’s no more mad than you or me.”
She ended with a long, low laugh of exultation and satisfaction which
made even Patty, excited and carried away by the tremendous step in her
life thus decided upon, feel the blood chilled in her veins.
“You think there’s no truth, then, in what Lady Piercey said: that they
could take everything from him, even to his name?” It was the hesitation
of this chill and horror which brought such a question to Patty’s lips.
Miss Hewitt laughed again. “The Manor estate is all entailed,” she said,
“and the rest they’ll never get Sir Giles to will away--never! All the
more if there’s a chance of an heir, who ought to have all his wits
about him, Patty, from one side of the house. Get along with you, girl!
You’re the luckiest girl as ever I knew!”
But, nevertheless, it was with a slower step and a chill upon all her
thoughts that Patty went back, without even putting up her parasol,
though the sun from the west shone level into her eyes, to the Seven
Thorns.