Gervase went home still with his head bent, but no longer thinking of
the white pebbles and the brown. It is true that his accustomed eye
caught a big one here and there, which had rolled to the side of the
path, and which he felt with regret would have come in so finely for the
right or the left-hand man! but his mind was fixed on his _consigne_,
and he was saying to himself over and over the words Patty had taught
him--that he wanted to go to see London, and all the fine things there;
that he was tired (mortal tired) of staying always at home; that it was
a shame he never was trusted nor allowed to do anything (and so it was a
shame). He could not even think of the pleasure of going to London, of
meeting Patty at the station, and all that was to follow, so absorbed
were his thoughts with what he had to say in the meantime. And it would
not have been surprising had Gervase been overwhelmed by the thought of
making such a wild suggestion to his parents, who had kept him hitherto
like a child under their constant supervision. But his simple mind was
not troubled by any such reflection as this. Patty had told him what to
say, and no feeling of the impossibility of the thing, or of the strange
departure in it from all the rules which had guided his life, affected
him. If it did not succeed, all he had to do was to tell her, and she
would think of something else. Better heads than that of poor Gervase
have found this a great relief among the problems of life. As for him,
he was not aware of any problems; he had a thing to say, and the trouble
was lest he should forget it or say it wrong. To think of anything
further was not his share of the business. He, too, met his mother just
as she returned from her drive, so that he had taken a considerable time
to that exercise, walking up and down the path that led under the wall
of the park, conning his lesson. An impulse came upon him to say it off
then and there, and so free his mind from the responsibility; but he
remembered in time that Patty had said it was to be kept till after
dinner, when his father and mother were both present. He was rather
frightened, however, when the carriage suddenly drove up, and he was
called to the door. “Hallo! mamma,” he said, striding over a gorse bush
that was in his way. Lady Piercey had jumped at the conclusion, as soon
as she saw him, that there had been a meeting, as she said, “between
those two.” She called out quickly to take him by surprise, “Hi!
Gervase! have you met anybody on the road?”
Now, Gervase was not clever, as the reader knows; but just because he
was a Softy, and his brains different from other people’s, he was better
qualified to deal with such a question than a more intelligent youth
might have been. “Met anybody on the road?” he said, gazing with his
dull eyes and open mouth. “But I’ve not been on the road; I’ve only been
up and down here.”
“Oh, you----! but here is just the same as the road. Who have you been
talking to?” the mother cried.
“There was the man with the donkey from Carter’s Wells,” said Gervase;
“but I never said a word to him, nor he didn’t to me.”
“Was that the only person you saw? Tell me the truth,” said Lady Piercey
severely. Gervase put his head on one side, and seemed to reflect.
“If I’m to tell the dead truth,” he said, “but I don’t want to, mother,
for you’ll scold like old boots----”
“Tell me this instant!” cried Lady Piercey, red already with the rage
that was ready to burst forth.
“Well, then, there just was--the ratcatcher with his pockets full of
ferrets coming up from----”
“Home!” cried the lady, more angry than words could say. “Oh, you fool!”
she said, shaking her fist at her son, who stood laughing, his moist
lips glistening--no very pleasant sight for a mother’s eye.
“I thought I was to tell you the truth,” he cried after them, as the
carriage whirled away.
“Do you think it was the truth, Meg?” Lady Piercey demanded, in a gasp,
when they had swept into the avenue. A feeling of relief came as her
anger quieted down.
“Dear Aunt--do you think he could invent so quickly, without any time to
prepare?”
“You mean he couldn’t because he’s not clever? Heaven knows! They’re as
deep as the deep sea, and as cunning as----. But that ratcatcher is a
man I will not have hanging, with those beasts in his pockets, about my
house.”
The ratcatcher gave occasion for a good deal of talk that afternoon,
both in Gervase’s presence and out of it; and by good luck he had been
about, and Lady Piercey gave her orders as to his expulsion from the
premises, whenever he should appear, with real satisfaction. “He’s not
company for Gervase, and that every one knows,” she said at the dinner
table, when old Sir Giles ventured to remonstrate on behalf of the
ferrets and their owner.
“Mother always says that when it’s any fellow I like to have a chat
with,” Gervase said.
“There’s no harm in old Jerry,” said Sir Giles. “A man shouldn’t be too
squeamish, my lady. A good-natured word here and there is what’s wanted
of a country squire.”
“But not taking pleasure in low company,” retorted Lady Piercey. “And I
tell you again, I won’t have that old wretch and his beasts about my
house.”
“But father knows it’s rare fun sometimes, ain’t it, father?” said the
young man, kicking the old gentleman under the table. Fortunately, the
kick touched only Sir Giles’ stick, and he was not displeased to take
Gervase’s part for once against his wife.
“Hush, you young ass, can’t you? We don’t speak of these things before
ladies,” he said.
This little confidential aside put Sir Giles in good humour. But when
the family retired into the library, which was done by no means in the
usual order--for Sir Giles himself in his chair, wheeled by Dunning, led
the way--it was evident that an uneasy alarm in respect to Gervase was
the leading sentiment in everybody’s mind. Sir Giles announced loudly
that it was Dunning, and only Dunning, who should play with him
to-night. “I’ve got to give the fellow his revenge,” he said. “I beat
him black and blue last night. Eh, Dunning, didn’t I beat you black and
blue? You’re not a bad player, but not just up to my strength.”
“No, Sir Giles,” answered the man, setting the table in haste, and
keeping carefully between it and the heir of the house. Lady Piercey, on
her side, employed Parsons and Margaret, both of whom were in
attendance, in covering up all her silks. “Put them in the basket,” she
said, “and take out one as I want it. That’s always the best way.” Thus
defended, the parents kept a furtive watch upon the movements of their
son, but with less alarm than before, while Lady Piercey kept on a
running exhortation to Mrs. Osborne in an undertone. “Meg! get him to
play something. Meg! why don’t you take him in hand! Meg! the boy’s sure
to get into mischief for want of something to do.”
“Should you like a game of cribbage, Gervase?” said poor Margaret,
unable to resist the urgency of this appeal.
“Cribbage is the old-fashionedest game; they don’t play it
anywhere--even in the publics,” said Gervase. He had put himself in the
favourite attitude of Englishmen, with his back to the fireplace; his
coat-tails gathered over his arms in faithful adherence to custom,
though the cause for any such unseemly custom was not there.
“Or bézique?” said Margaret; “or perhaps you’ll sing a song, Gervase, if
I play it. Your mother would like to hear you sing: you haven’t sung her
a song for years.”
“Do, Gervase, there’s a dear,” said Lady Piercey. “You used to sing ‘The
north winds do blow, and we shall have snow,’ so pretty when you were
quite a little thing.”
“I ain’t a little thing now, and I’m not going to sing,” said Gervase
loudly. “I’m going to say something to father and mother. You can go
away, Meg, if you don’t want to hear.”
“What is it?” cried Lady Piercey, sitting up more bolt-upright than
usual, and taking off her spectacles to see him the better, and to cow
him with the blaze of her angry eyes.
“This is what it is,” said Gervase. “It’s mortal dull at home, now that
I’ve turned over a new leaf and don’t go out anywhere at night; and a
fellow of my age wants a little diversion, and I can’t go on sitting in
your pocket, mother, nor playing father’s game every night--and he don’t
like losing, neither, and no more don’t I.”
This preamble was quite new, struck off out of his own head from Patty’s
text. It was with a great elation and rising self-confidence that
Gervase found it so. Perhaps they’d find out that he was not such a fool
as he looked--once he had got free.
“Eh! what’s the lad saying? That’s true enough--that’s true enough,” Sir
Giles said.
“Oh, hold your tongue, papa! You don’t know what he’s aiming at,” Lady
Piercey said.
“And I’ve never seen a thing, nor gone any-place,” said Gervase. “Its
d---- d hard upon me--it’s devilish hard. Oh,” he cried, “I can speak up
when I like! It’s that dull nobody would stand it (and so it is).” He
added his old parentheses, though he had dropped the original theme. “I
mustn’t talk a moment with any person, but mother’s down upon me--even
Jerry, the ratcatcher, that every one knows.”
“That’s true, my boy,” cried Sir Giles, “your mother’s too hard on you;
that’s quite true.”
“Wait, you fool, till you know what he’s aiming at,” cried Lady Piercey,
with her eyes on fire.
“And I can’t play your game, father, nor take you for a walk, but
there’s a fright all round as if I was going to kill you; and old
Dunning after me, looking like a stuck pig.”
Here was a chance for Lady Piercey to approve, too, at her husband’s
expense; but she was magnanimous, and did not take it. “You’re well
meaning enough, Gervase,” she said, “I don’t deny it; but you’re too
strong, and you shake poor papa to bits.”
“Well, then,” said Gervase, raising his voice to talk her down, “it’s
clear as there is nothing here for me to do; and it’s dreadful dull.
Enough to kill a man of my age; and the short and the long of it is that
I can’t go on like this any more.”
He had quite thrown Patty’s carefully prepared speech away, and yet it
came breathing over him by turns, checking his natural eloquence. She
had never meant him to utter that outcry of impatience, and Gervase
would have ruined his own cause, and gone on to say, “I am going to be
married,” but for the questions that were suddenly showered upon him,
driving him back upon his lesson.
“You can’t go on like this? And how are you going on?” cried his mother.
“Everything a man can desire, and the best home in England, and
considered in every way!” She went on speaking, but her voice was
crossed by old Sir Giles’ growl. “What do you want--what do you want?”
cried the old man. “Dunning, be off to your supper, and take that woman
with you. What do you want--what do you want, you young fool?”
“But I know what you want,” Lady Piercey cried, becoming audible at the
end of this interruption; “you want what you shall never have as long as
I live, unless it’s somebody of my choosing, and not of yours.”
“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Gervase, the moisture flying from his
mouth; “I want to have a---- I want to get---- I want P----.” Then that
long-conned speech of Patty’s flew suddenly, like a cobweb, into his
mind, and stopped him on the edge of the abyss. He stopped and stared at
them for a moment, his eyes roaming round the room, and then he burst
into a loud laugh. “I want to go to London,” he said, “and see all the
fine things there. I don’t know what mother’s got in her head--some of
her whimseys--I’ve never been let go anywhere or do anything, and I want
to go to London to look about and see all the grand things there.”
“To London?” said Sir Giles with surprise. Lady Piercey had been wound
up to too great a pitch to go easily down again. She opened her mouth
with a gasp like a fish, but no sound came therefrom.
“I’ve never been let go anywhere,” said Gervase, “and up and down from
the Manor to the village ain’t enough. I want to go to London and see
the fine sights there; I want to see the Queen and all that; I want to
see a bit of life. There never was a gentleman like me that was kept so
close and never let go to see anything. I’ve not been in London since I
was a little kid, and it is a shame that I am never trusted (so it is),
and it’s mortal dull here, especially at home, and not seeing anything;
and I want to go to London and see a bit of life, and not be buried
alive here.”
“My lady,” said Sir Giles, after the pause of awe which followed this
long, consequent, and coherent speech, “there’s reason in what the lad
says.”
“There’s something underneath,” cried Lady Piercey, “a deal more than
what he says.”
“Mother always thinks that,” cried Gervase, with his big laugh; and
there could not be any question that what he said was true.
“There’s some plan underneath it all,” repeated Lady Piercey, striking
her hand on the table. “He hasn’t the sense to make up a thing like
that, that has reason in it; there’s some deep-laid plan underneath it
all.”
“Pooh, my lady! Poor lad!” said Sir Giles, shaking his head; “he hasn’t
the sense to make up a plan at all. He just says what comes into his
head, and what he says has reason in it, and more than that, I’m glad to
hear him say it. And it gives me a bit of hope,” said poor old Sir
Giles, his voice shaking a little, “that when he comes fully to man’s
estate, the boy, poor lad, will be more like other boys, Mary Ann, God
bless him! and, perhaps, for so little as we think it, a real comfort to
you and me.”
The old gentleman leaned back in his chair, and raised with a feeble
hand his handkerchief to his eyes. It was not difficult nowadays to make
Sir Giles cry. The fierce old lady had no such emotion to subdue. She
sat very upright, staring at her son, suspicious, thinking she saw
behind him the pert little defiant countenance under the parasol which
she had met on the road. But she did not see how they could have met or
communicated with each other, and she could not, on the spur of the
moment, make out what connection there could be between his desire to go
to London, and Patty of the Seven Thorns. Margaret stood behind her
uncle’s chair, patting him softly on the shoulder to soothe him and
assure him of sympathy. She looked over Sir Giles’ head at the boy who,
he was able to flatter himself, might be like other boys when he came to
man’s estate. How strangely can love and weakness be deceived! Gervase
stood there against the mantelpiece, his foot caught up awkwardly in his
hand, his slouching shoulders supported against the shelf, his big,
loose bulk filling the place. Man’s estate! The poor Softy was
eight-and-twenty and well grown, though he slouched and distorted
himself. But still the father, and even the suspicious, less-persuadable
mother, saw in him a boy, not beyond the season of growth--never beyond
that of hope.
Fortunately for Gervase, he had not time to go on in his flush of
triumph and success, for another moment of that elation might have
broken down all precautions and betrayed the plan which his mother felt,
but could not divine, underneath. In the meantime, however, it was
bedtime, and neither Sir Giles nor my lady could bear any more. Lady
Piercey sent off Parsons, and discussed the question with her niece in
her bedroom for a full hour after. “There’s something underneath, I know
there is,” Lady Piercey said, nodding her head in her big nightcap. “But
I don’t see what she can have to do with it, for she would never want to
send him away. And then, on the other hand, Meg, it would be the best
thing in the world to send him away. There’s nothing like absence for
blowing a thing like that out of a boy’s head. If there was a man we
could trust to go with him,--but all alone, by himself, in a big place
like London, and among so many temptations! Oh, Meg, Meg, I wish I knew
what was the right thing to do!”
“He is very innocent, Aunt; he would not understand the temptation,”
said Margaret.
“Oh, I’m not of that opinion at all,” cried Lady Piercey. “A man always
understands that, however silly he may be; and sometimes, the sillier he
is, the more he understands. But one nail knocks out another,” she
added thoughtfully. Though Lady Piercey was not a woman of the world,
but only a very rustic person, she was yet cynic enough for the
remorseless calculation that a little backsliding, of which so many
people were guilty, would be better than a dreadful marriage which would
bring down the family, and corrupt the very race--which was her point of
view.
Gervase roamed about the house in high excitement, immensely pleased
with himself, while this colloquy was going on. Had he met even Dunning
or Parsons, whom he did not love, the possibility was that he might have
revealed his meaning to them in sheer elation of spirits. But neither of
these persons came in his way, and in this early household most of the
other servants were already in bed. Margaret, however, met him as usual
when she came out of Lady Piercey’s room with her candle in her hand.
“What’s she been saying to you, Meg?” he asked, but burst out laughing
before she could reply. “It’s such a joke,” he said, holding his sides,
“such a joke, if you only knew! and I’ve half a mind to tell you, Meg,
for you’re a good sort.”
“Don’t tell me anything, Gervase, for Heaven’s sake, that I can’t tell
them. For, of course, I shall do so directly,” Margaret cried.
“Wouldn’t you just like to know?” he said, and laughed again, and
chucked her under the chin in convulsions of hilarity. She stood at the
door of the room, escaping hastily from the possible confidence and the
familiarity, and, trembling, saw him slide down the banisters to the
half-lighted hall below, with a childish chuckle of triumph. A slip upon
that swift descent, and all might have been over--the commotion and the
exultation, the trouble and the fear. But Gervase came back again
beaming, and kissed his hand to her as he disappeared into his own room.
He felt that he had gained the day.