A whole week, and nothing had been seen or heard of Gervase at the Seven
Thorns. Even old Hewitt remarked it, with a taunt to his daughter.
“Where’s your Softy, that was never out of the house, Miss Patty, eh?
Don’t seem to be always about at your apron string, my lass, as you
thought you was to keep him there. Them gentlemen,” said old Hewitt, “as
I’ve told you, Softy or not, they takes their own way, and there’s no
trust to be put in them. He’s found some one else as he likes better, or
maybe you’ve given him the sack, Patty, eh? And that’s a pity, for he
was a good customer,” the landlord said.
“Whether I’ve given him the sack or he’s found some one he likes better,
don’t matter much to any one as I can see. I’ll go to my work, father,
if you’ve got nothing more sensible than that to say.”
“Sensible or not, he’s gone, and a good riddance,” said her father. “I
ain’t a fine Miss, thick with the rector and the gentry, like you; but I
declare, to see that gaby laughing and gaping at the other side of the
table, turned me sick, it did. And I hopes as we’ll see no more of him,
nor none of his kind. If you will have a sweetheart, there’s plenty of
good fellows about, ’stead of a fool like that.”
Patty did not stamp her foot as she would have liked to do, or throw out
her arms, or scream with rage and disappointment. She went on knocking
her broom into all the corners, taking it out more or less in that way,
and tingling from the bunch of hair fashionably dressed on the top of
her head, to the toe of her high-heeled shoes, with suppressed passion.
She would not make an exhibition of herself. She would not give Ellen,
the maid-servant, closely observing her through the open door of the
back kitchen, nor Bob, the ostler, who had also heard every word old
Hewitt said as he bustled about with his pail outside the house, any
occasion of remark or of triumph over her as a maiden forsaken, whose
love had ridden away. They were all on the very tiptoe of expectation,
having already made many comments to each other on the subject. “You’re
all alike--every one of you,” Ellen had said to Bob. “You’d go and
forsake me just the same, if you saw some one as you liked better.”
“It’ll be a long day afore I do that,” said the gallant ostler,
preserving, however, the privilege of his sex. They were all ready to
throw the responsibility of attraction upon the woman. It was more to
her credit to keep her hold on the man by being always delightful to
him than by any bond of faithfulness on his part. Patty felt this to the
bottom of her heart. It was not so much that she blamed her Softy. She
blamed herself bitterly, and felt humiliated and ashamed that she had
not been able to hold him; that he had found anything he liked better
than her society. She swept out every corner, banging her broom as if
she were punishing the unknown rivals who had seduced him away from her,
and felt, for all her pride, as if she never could hold up her head
again before the parish, which would thus know that she had
miscalculated her powers. Roger Pearson knew it already, and triumphed.
And then Aunt Patience--but that was the most dreadful of all.
Even old Hewitt himself, the landlord of the Seven Thorns, was a little
disappointed, if truth were told. He had liked to say to the fathers of
the village, “I can’t get that young Piercey out o’ my house. Morning,
noon, and night that young fellow is about. And I can’t kick him out, ye
see, old Sir Giles bein’ the Lord o’ the Manor.” “I’d kick him out fast
enough,” the blacksmith had replied, who never had any chance that way,
“if he come sneakin’ after my gell.” “Oh, as for that, my Patty is one
that can take care of herself,” it had been Mr. Hewitt’s boast to say.
And when he was congratulated ironically by the party in the parlour
with a “Hallo, Hewitt! you’ve been and got shut of your Softy,” the
landlord did not like it. Softy as Gervase was, to have got him thus
fast in the web, old Sir Giles’ only son, was a kind of triumph to the
house.
In the afternoon, however, Patty resolved to take a walk. It was an
indulgence which she permitted to herself periodically--that her best
things and her hat with the roses, her light gloves and her parasol
might not spoil for want of use. She put on all this finery, however,
with a sinking at her heart. The last time she had worn them she had
been all in a thrill with excitement, bent upon the boldest step she had
ever taken in her life. And the high tension of her nerves and passion
of her mind had been increased by the unexpected colloquy with Lady
Piercey at the carriage-door. But that was a day of triumph all along
the line. She had baffled the old lady, and she had roused her own aunt
to a fierce enthusiasm of interest, which had reacted upon herself and
increased her determination, and the fervour of her own. When she had
walked back that evening with the fifty pounds, she had felt herself
already my lady, uplifted to a pinnacle of grandeur from which no
fathers or mothers could bring her down. But now! Gervase himself had
not seemed a very important part of that triumph a little while ago. He
had been a chattel of hers, a piece of property as much her own as her
parasol. And if he had emancipated himself, if he had escaped out of her
net, if his mother had obtained the mastery of him, or sent him away,
Patty felt as if she must die of rage and humiliation. To take back that
fifty pounds to Aunt Patience and allow that the use she had got it for
was no longer possible; to submit to be asked on all sides, by Roger in
triumph, by everybody else in scorn, what had become of him? was more
than she could bear. She would rather run away and go to service in
London. She would rather---- there was nothing in the world that Patty
did not feel herself capable of doing rather than bear the brunt of this
disappointment and shame.
It must be added that the value of Gervase individually was enormously
enhanced by this period of doubt and alarm. The prize that is on the
point of being lost is very different from that which falls naturally,
easily into your hands. Patty thought of the Softy no longer as if he
were a piece of still life; no more--indeed, not so much--a part of the
proceedings which were to end eventually in making her my lady as the
marriage-licence which would cost such a deal of money. All that was
changed now. Poor fellow! he who had never been of much importance to
anybody had become of the very greatest consequence now. She would
never, never be my lady at all, unless he took a principal part in
it--the great fool, the goose, the gaby! But though her feelings broke
out once or twice in a string of such reproaches under her breath,
Gervase was too important a factor now to be thought of or addressed by
contemptuous epithets. He could spoil it all; he could make all her
preparations useless. He could shame her in the eyes of Aunt Patience,
and even before the whole of her little world, although nobody knew how
far things had gone. Therefore it was with an anxious heart that Patty
made a turn round by the outskirts of the village as if she were going
to pay a visit to her Aunt Patience--the last place in the world where
she desired to go--and then directed her steps towards the Manor,
meaning to make a wide round past the iron gate and the beech-tree
avenue, which were visible to any passenger walking across the downs.
She gave a long look, as she passed, at the great house, with all its
windows twinkling in the afternoon sun, and the two long processions of
trees on either side. Her heart rose to her mouth at the thought that
all this might, yet might never, be her own. Might be! it had seemed
certain a week ago; and yet might never be if that fool--oh, that
imbecile, that ridiculous, vacant, gaping Softy--should take it into his
foolish head to draw back now.
The road lay close under the wall of the park beyond the iron gate.
Patty had got so anxious, so terrified, so horribly convinced that her
chances of meeting him were small, and that, except in an accidental
way, she could not hope to lay hands on him again, that her stout heart
almost failed her as she went on. It was a very warm day, and she was
flushed and heated with her walk, as well as with the suspense and alarm
of which her mind was full, so that she was aware she was not looking
her best, when suddenly, without warning, she came full upon him round
the corner, almost striking him with her outstretched parasol in the
suddenness of the encounter. Gervase did not see her at all. He was
coming on with his head bent, his under-lip hanging, his hands in his
pockets, busy with his old game--six white ones all in a heap. What a
jump for the right-hand man! and hallo, hallo! a little brown fellow
slipping along on the other side, driven by somebody’s foot! He made a
mental note of that before looking to see who the somebody was, which
was of so much less importance. And then Patty’s little cry of surprise
and “Oh! Mr. Gervase!” went through him like a shot at his ear. He gave
a shout like the inarticulate delight of a dog, and flew towards her as
if he had been Dash or Rover, roused by the ecstatic sound of their
master’s voice.
“Patty! Lord, to think of you being here! and me, that hasn’t had a
peep of you for a whole week. Patty! Oh, come now, I can’t help it. I’m
so happy, I could eat you up. Patty, Patty!” cried the poor fellow,
patting her on the shoulder, looking into her face with his dull eyes
suddenly inspired, “you’re sure it’s you!”
“And a deal you care whether it’s me or not, Mr. Gervase,” cried Patty,
tossing her head. But in that moment Patty had become herself again. Her
anxiety was over, her bosom’s lord sat lightly on his throne. The fifty
pounds in the little bag no longer felt like a blister. She was the
mistress of the situation, and all her troubled thoughts flew before the
wind as if they had never been.
“A deal I care? Oh, I do care a deal, Patty, if you only knew! Never you
do it again--to make me stay away like this. I’ve made a mull of it, as
I knew I should, without you to back me up. Father turns his back on me.
He won’t say a word. And even mother, that was always my stand-by, she
says she can’t abide to see me there.”
Again Gervase looked as if he would cry; but brightening up suddenly, “I
don’t mind a bit as long as I can see you, and you’ll tell me what to
do.”
“Well,” said Patty, “I could perhaps tell you if I knew what you wanted
to do. But I can’t stand still here, for I’ve come out for a walk, and
if you wish to speak to me you must come along with me. I’m going as far
as Carter’s Wells, and the afternoon’s wearing on.”
“Oh!” said Gervase, discomfited, “you’re going as far as Carter’s Wells?
I thought--I supposed--or I wanted to think, Patty--as you were coming
to look for me!”
“What should I do that for, Mr. Gervase?” said Patty, demurely.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the poor Softy. “I just thought so. You
might have had something you wanted to tell me, or--to say I might come
back, or----”
“What should I have to tell you, Mr. Gervase?”
He looked piteously at her, all astray, and took off his cap, and
pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m sure I don’t know; and yet
there was something that I wanted badly to hear. Patty, don’t you make a
fool of me like all the rest! If I don’t know what it is, having such a
dreadful memory, you do.”
“It’s a wonder as you remembered me at all, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty,
giving him a little sting in passing.
“You! I’d never forget you if I lived to be a hundred. I’d forget myself
sooner, far sooner, than I’d forget you.”
“But it’s a long time since you’ve seen me, and you’ve forgotten all you
wanted of me,” Patty said, with a sharp tone of curiosity in her voice.
“No, I don’t forget; I do know what I want--I want to marry you, Patty.
I’ve been obeying all your orders, and trying to please the old folks
for nothing but that. But it don’t seem to succeed, somehow,” he said,
shaking his head; “somehow it don’t seem to succeed.”
“They will never give their consent to that, Mr. Gervase!”
“No?” he said, doubtfully. “Well, of course you must be right, Patty.
They don’t seem to like it when I tell them it’s because of you I’m
trying to please them and staying like this at home.”
“You should never have said that,” she cried quickly; “you should have
made them think it was all because you were so fond of them, and liked
best being at home.”
“But it would be a lie,” said Gervase, simply, “and mother’s awful
sharp; she always finds out when you tell her a crammer. Say I may come
to-night; do now, Patty,--I can’t bear it any more.”
“But you must bear it, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty; “that is, if you
really, really, want _that_ to come true.”
“What’s that, Patty?” cried the young man.
“Oh, you----!”--it was only a breath, and ended in nothing. Patty saw
that mincing matters was of no use. “I mean about us being married,” she
said, turning her head away.
“If I want it!” he cried, “when you know there is nothing in the world
I want but that. Nobody would ever put upon me if I had only you to
stand by me, Patty. Tell me what I am to do.”
She unfolded her scheme to him after this with little hesitation. He was
to continue his attendance at home for a little longer, and to propound
to his parents his desire to go to London and see the fine sights there.
It took Patty a considerable time to put all this into her lover’s
head--what he was to say, which she repeated over to him several times;
and what he was to do afterwards, and the extreme importance of not
forgetting, of never mentioning her nor the Seven Thorns, nor anything
that could recall her to their minds. He was to say that the country was
dull (“And so it is--especially at home, and when I can’t see you,” said
Gervase), and that he had never seen London since he was a child, and it
was a shame he never was trusted to go anywhere or see anything. (“And
so it is a great shame.”) When all this was well grafted into his mind,
or, at least Patty hoped so, she announced that she had changed her
intention and would go no more to Carter’s Wells, but straight home to
complete her preparations. And he was allowed to accompany her back
almost as far as the high road, then dismissed to return home another
way. Patty did not say that she was afraid of meeting Lady Piercey’s
carriage; but this was in her mind as she proceeded towards the Seven
Thorns, with her head and her parasol high, like an army with banners,
not at all afraid now, rather wishing for that encounter. It did take
place according to her prevision when she was almost in sight of the
group of stunted and aged trees which gave their name to her father’s
house. Why Lady Piercey should be passing that way, she herself,
perhaps, could scarcely have told. She wanted, it might be, with that
attraction of dislike which is as strong as love, to see again the girl
who had so much power over Gervase, and of whom he said in his fatuous
way, that it was she who was the occasion of his present home-keeping
mood; or she wanted, as the angry and suspicious mind always hopes to
do, to “catch” Patty and be able to report some flirtation or malicious
anecdote of her in the hearing of Gervase. The old lady had strained her
neck looking back at the Seven Thorns, which lay all vacant in the
westering sunshine, the door open and void, nobody on the outside bench,
nobody at the window--a perfectly harmless uninteresting house, piquing
the curiosity more than if there had been people about. “I declare,
Meg,” Lady Piercey was saying, “that horrid house gets emptier and
poorer every day. The man must be going all to ruin, with not so much as
a tramp to call for a glass of beer; and serves him right, to bring up
that daughter as he has, all show and finery, and good for nothing about
such a place.” “The Rector has a great opinion of her,” said Margaret;
“they say she is so active and such a good manager.” “Oh! stuff and
nonsense,” cried Lady Piercey, “you saw her with your own eyes in light
gloves and a parasol, trailing her gown along the road; a girl out of a
beershop, a girl----” But here Lady Piercey stopped short with a gasp,
for close to the side of the carriage, and almost within hearing, was
the same resplendent figure; the hat nodding with its roses; the gown a
little too long, and trailing, as was the absurd fashion of that time;
the light gloves firmly grasping the parasol, which was held high like
an ensign, leaving the girl’s determined and triumphant face fully
visible. Patty marched past, giving but one glance to the inmates of the
carriage, her colour high and her attitude martial; while the great lady
almost fell back upon her cushions, overwhelmed with the suddenness of
the encounter. Fortunately Lady Piercey did not see the tremendous nudge
which John on the box gave to the coachman. She was too much moved by
this startling incident to note any other demonstration of feeling.
“Did you see that?” she asked in a low tone, almost with awe, when that
apparition had passed.
“Yes--I saw her. She is too fine for her station, but Aunt----”
“Don’t put any of your buts to me, Meg! Do you think she could hear what
we were saying? The bold, brazen creature! passing me by without a bend
of her knee, as if she were as good as we are. What is this world coming
to when a girl bred up in my own school, in my own parish, that has
dropped curtseys to me since ever she was a baby, should dare to pass me
by like that?” Lady Piercey, who had grown very red in sudden passion,
now grew pale with horror at a state of affairs so terrible. “She looked
as if she felt herself the lady, and us nobodies. Meg! do you think
Gervase has it in him to marry that girl, and give her my name when your
uncle dies! If I thought that, I think it would kill me! at least,” she
cried, sitting up with fire in her watery eyes--“it would put me on my
mettle, and I’d mince matters no more, but get the doctor’s advice and
lock him up.”
“My uncle would never consent to that.”
“Your uncle---- would just do what I wish. There’s not many things he’s
ever crossed me in; and all he has have turned out badly. If I could
make up my mind to it, it wouldn’t be your uncle that would stop me. I
have a great mind to send for the doctor to-night.”
“But Aunt, is it not more likely they have quarrelled,” said Margaret,
“since he has been staying at home so faithfully, and never been absent
day or night?”
“Do you think that’s it, Meg? or do you think it’s only policy to throw
dust in our eyes? Oh, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. Oh, Meg, that I
should say it! I feel as if I’d rather he should go out even to that
horrible Seven Thorns, than drive us all frantic with staying at home.
If he goes on like that another night, I don’t think I can bear it. Oh,
it’s all very well for you, sitting patient and smiling! If you were to
see your only child sitting there like an idiot, and showing the very
page-boy what a fool he is, and gabbling and grinning till you can
hardly endure yourself, I wonder--I wonder what you’d say.”