It was not till some days after this, that Sir Giles referred to the
subject again. Patty thought it had entirely failed to make any
impression on his mind, and that she must herself renew the
conversation, when he surprised her by saying suddenly, as if there had
been no interval, “It won’t be necessary, my dear, it won’t be
necessary. As his mother, everything will be in your hands.”
“Dear papa!” she cried, with a quite natural start; “how you frightened
me!”
“I don’t want to frighten you, my dear; anything but that--anything but
that! But you must see that any little arrangements we might make would
be all needless, quite needless. Of course, everything will go to the
natural heir. There will probably be a long minority, for you know, my
dear, with the best intentions in the world, an old fellow like me----
though I would give half my kingdom to see him come of age--half my
kingdom! But no, no, that’s a selfish thought; for I should wish him to
have the property unimpaired, if not added to--if not added to. You’ll
take great care of it, I am sure. You’re quite a woman of brains.” Sir
Giles spoke very fast, to get through this long effort of thought and
consideration before Dunning came back. Then he added, with his usual
mingled outburst of laughing and sobbing, patting her arm with his large
old nerveless hand, “So you see it’s needless, needless, my dear, for
everything will be in your hands.”
“Dear papa!” cried Patty. She was silent for some time in confusion and
embarrassment. Then, “There’s nothing certain in this world,” she said.
“What, what?” cried Sir Giles. “Nothing’s happened--nothing’s happened,
my dear? I hope you don’t mean to tell me that?”
“Nothing has happened, dear papa,” cried Patty, with a painful flush
upon her face. She had not meant to deceive him, and certainly not in
this way. It was indeed hard upon her that she had, without any fault of
hers, this fiction to keep up. “But there’s nothing certain in this
world,” she said. “Who would have thought five months ago that I should
need to be thinking of a little provision for myself--I, that was
Gervase’s wife, and had no need to think of anything? I married him
without a thought of having anything settled on me, or even wanting a
penny but what he gave me.” Patty put her handkerchief to her eyes to
absorb some real tears, for though her grief for poor Gervase could
scarcely be expected to be very profound, her pity for herself was
sincere and lasting. “Dearest papa! I can’t bear to ask for myself.
I’ve always been used to work, and I could get my own living at any
time. It is just that I can’t bear, being Mrs. Piercey, that I should
have to do it in that way--Gervase’s widow, with _your_ name.”
“Don’t, my dear, don’t! For goodness’ sake don’t agitate yourself! Don’t
cry, my dear, don’t cry!” said Sir Giles, anxiously.
“Oh, I wouldn’t cry if--if I could help it. I would do nothing to vex
you, dear papa. But when I think of all that has happened--oh, who
should know so well as I that there’s nothing certain in this world!”
“My dear, my dear, I’ll send for Pownceby to-morrow. You must not upset
yourself--you mustn’t, indeed. What should I do, and everybody, if--if
anything was to happen?” Sir Giles cried. And he became so excited in
his anxiety to calm her, that Patty was compelled to conquer herself and
regain her self-command. She looked up with a mournful smile from her
pocket-handkerchief. “Dear papa,” she said, “we are two of us that
mustn’t do that. If you get upset it will upset me, and that will upset
you still more; so we must each hold up for the sake of the other.
Suppose we have another game?”
“You always know exactly what I want,” said the old gentleman, his sob
turning into a laugh, as his laugh so often turned into a sob. There was
not, in fact, much difference between the two; and the rest of the
evening was passed as usual in admiring exclamations on Patty’s part as
to his wonderful play and wonderful luck, so that even Dunning did not
suspect that there had been anything more.
Patty reminded her father-in-law next morning when she went to him, as
she had begun to make a practice of doing, to see if he wanted any
letters written, that he had spoken of some Mr. Pownceby who was to be
written to. “I don’t know who Mr. Pownceby is, but you said something
about him, dear papa!” And the result was that in a day or two Mr.
Pownceby came, the family solicitor, whom Patty indeed did not know, but
of whose faculties and position in the matter she had a shrewd guess.
She had to entertain the little gentleman to luncheon after he had been
closeted with Sir Giles all the morning; and Mr. Pownceby was much
impressed by Mrs. Piercey’s dignified air, and her crape and her widow’s
cap. “I suppose it’s within the range of possibilities that a girl in
that position might be fond even of a poor fellow like Gervase Piercey,”
he said to himself doubtfully; and he made himself very agreeable to the
young widow. He informed her that he had received instructions to charge
the estate with an annuity of a thousand pounds a year for her, of which
the payments were to begin at once. “A very proper arrangement,” he
said, and he was impressed by the composure with which Patty received
the information. She was not indeed at all elated by it. A thousand
pounds a year was a great thing for Patty Hewitt of the Seven Thorns.
She would have thought it a princely revenue when she became Gervase
Piercey’s wife; but a few months’ familiarity with the expenditure of
Greyshott had made a great change in Patty’s views. To descend into a
small house like the Rectory, for instance (she had once thought the
Rectory a palace), and to do without a carriage, was far from an
agreeable prospect. “How shall I ever do without a carriage?” Patty said
to herself, and she thought with scorn of the little basket-work
pony-chaise which was all the rector could afford. Was it possible that
she should ever come down to that? Mr. Pownceby, when he went away, held
her hand for a moment, and asked whether a very old friend of the
family, who had known poor dear Gervase from his birth, might be
permitted to say how pleased and thankful he was that there were
hopes----? which made Sir Giles so very happy, poor old gentleman? “And
I fear, I fear, my dear old friend has not many days before him,” the
lawyer said; “he’s quite clear in his mind, but it was not to be
expected that a worn-out constitution could bear all those shocks one
after another. We’ll not have him long, Mrs. Piercey, we’ll not have him
long!”
“Does the doctor say so?” asked Patty.
“My dear lady, the doctor says he has the best of nursing; and
everything so much the better for a lady in the house.” It was with this
_douceur_ that the solicitor took his leave, being a man that liked to
please everybody. And there can be no doubt that a softened feeling
arose in the whole neighbourhood about Patty, who was said to be such a
good daughter to Sir Giles. “Thrown over her own people altogether--no
crowd of barbarians about the house, as one used to fear; and quite
gives herself up to her father-in-law; plays backgammon with him half
the day, which can’t be lively for a young woman; and expects----” These
last were the most potent words of all.
Patty was, indeed, very good to her father-in-law, and that not
altogether for policy, but partly from feeling; for he had been kind to
her, and she was grateful. The winter was dreary and long, and there
were sometimes weeks together when Sir Giles could not get out, even
into the garden, for that forlorn little drive of his in the wheeled
chair. Patty gave herself up to his service with a devotion which was
above all praise. She bore his fretfulness when weakness and suffering
made the old man querulous. She was always at hand, whatever he wanted.
She looked after his food and his comfort, often in despite of Dunning
and to the great offence of the cook, but both these functionaries had
to submit to Patty’s will. Had she not carried everything with a very
high hand, it is possible that her footing might not have been so sure;
for the women soon penetrated the fiction, which was not indeed of
Patty’s creation, and Dunning even ventured upon hints to Sir Giles that
all was not as he thought. The old gentleman, however, got weaker day by
day; one little indulgence after another dropped from him. March was
unusually blustery, and April very wet. These were good reasons why he
should not go out; that he was more comfortable in his chair by the
fire. Then he got indifferent to the paper, which Dunning always read to
him in the morning, and only took an interest in the scraps of news
which Patty repeated to him later on.
“Why did not Dunning read me that, if it is in the paper? The fellow
gets lazier and lazier; he never reads the paper to me now! He thinks I
forget!” When Dunning would have remonstrated Patty checked him with a
look.
“You must never contradict Sir Giles!” she said to him aside.
“And he says I’m never to contradict _her_!” Dunning said indignantly in
the housekeeper’s room, where he went for consolation; “between them a
man ain’t allowed to say a word!”
The women all cried out with scorn that Sir Giles would find out
different from _that_ one o’ these days.
“Then he’ll just die,” said Dunning. Things had come to a very mournful
pass in the old melancholy house.
By degrees the backgammon, too, fell out of use. Patty sat with him
still in the evening, but it was in his own room, often by his bedside,
and many, many conversations took place between them, unheard by any
one. Dunning would catch a word now and then, as he went and came, and
gathered that Sir Giles was sometimes telling her of things he would
like to have done, and that sometimes she was telling him of things she
would wish to be done.
“As if she had aught to do with it!” Dunning said with indignation.
Dunning, observing everything, imagined, too, that Sir Giles began to
grow anxious about those expectations which were so long delayed. His
attendant sometimes heard mutterings of calculation and broken
questioning with himself from the old gentleman.
“It’s a long time to wait--a long time--a long time!” he said.
“What is a long time, Sir Giles?” Dunning ventured to ask--but was told
to hold his tongue for a fool.
One day, towards the end of April, he suddenly roused from a long muse
or doze by the fire, and called to Dunning to send a telegram for
Pownceby.
“Tell him to come directly. I mayn’t be here to-morrow,” Sir Giles said.
“Are you thinking of changing the air, Sir Giles?” said the astonished
servant.
The rain was pouring in a white blast across the park, bending all the
young trees one way, and pattering among the foliage.
“Air!” said the old man; “it’s nothing but water; but I’m soon going to
move, Dunning, as you say.”
“Well, it might do you good, Sir Giles, a little later--when the
weather’s better.”
Sir Giles made no reply, but Dunning heard him muttering: “She always
says there’s nothing certain in this world.”
Mr. Pownceby came as quick as the railway could bring him.
“Is there anything wrong?” he asked of Mrs. Piercey, who met him at the
door.
“Oh, I am afraid he’s very bad,” said Patty; “I am afraid he’s not long
for this world.”
“Why does he want me? Does he want to change his will?”
“I don’t know--I don’t know. Oh, Mr. Pownceby, I don’t know how to say
it. I am afraid he is disappointed: that--that you said to me last
time----”
“Was not true, I suppose?” said the father of a family, who was not
without his experiences, and he looked somewhat sternly at Patty, who
was trembling.
“I never said it was,” she said. “It was not I. He took it into his
head, and I did not know how to contradict him. Oh, don’t say to him
it’s not true! rather, rather let him believe it now. Let him die happy,
Mr. Pownceby! Oh, he has been so good to me! Say anything to make him
die happy!” Patty cried.
The lawyer was angry and disappointed, too; but Patty’s feeling was
evidently genuine, and he could not help feeling a certain sympathy with
her. Sir Giles was sitting up in bed, ashy white with that pallor of old
age which is scarcely increased by death.
“I’m glad you’re come in time, Pownceby--very glad you’re come in time.
I’m--I’m going to make a move; for change of air, don’t you know, as
Dunning says. Poor Dunning! he won’t get such an easy berth again. My
will--that’s it. I want to change--my will. Clear it all away,
Pownceby--all away, except the little legacies--the servants and
that----”
“But not Mrs. Piercey, Sir Giles? If--if she’s been the cause of
any--disappointment; it isn’t her fault.”
“Disappointment!” said the old man. “Quite the contrary. She’s been just
the reverse. It was a good day for me when she came to the house. No, I
don’t mean that it was a good day, for it was my poor wife’s funeral;
but if anybody could have made a man of Gervase she would have done it.
She would have done it, Pownceby. Yes, yes; sweep her away! sweep
everybody away! I give and bequeath Greyshott and all I have--all I
have, don’t you know? Gerald Piercey can have the pictures if he likes;
she won’t care for them to----”
The old man was seized with a fit of coughing, which interrupted him at
this interesting moment. Mr. Pownceby sat with his pen in his hand and
many speculations in his mind. To cut off his daughter-in-law’s little
income even while he praised her so! And who was the person to whom it
was all to be left without regard for the rest? Meg Piercey, perhaps,
who was one of the nearest, though she had never been supposed to have
any chance. The lawyer sat with his eyes under his spectacles intently
fixed upon Sir Giles, and with many remonstrances in his mind. Mrs.
Gervase might be wrong to have filled the poor man with false hopes; but
to leave her to the tender mercies of Meg Piercey, whom she had
virtually turned out of the house, would be cruel. Sir Giles began to
speak before his coughing fit was over.
“She says, poor thing,” and here he coughed, “she s--says that there’s
nothing--nothing certain in this world. She’s right, Pownceby--she’s
right. She--generally is.”
“There’s not much risk in saying that, Sir Giles.”
“No, it’s true enough--it’s true enough. It might grow up like its
father. God grant it otherwise. You remember our first boy, Pownceby?
Wasn’t that a fellow! as bold as a lion and yet so sweet. His poor
mother never got over it--never; nor I neither, nor I neither--though I
never made any fuss.”
Was the old man wandering in his mind?
“I hoped it would have been like him,” said Sir Giles, with a sob. “I
had set my heart on that. But none of us can tell. There’s nothing
certain, as she says. It might grow up like its father. I’ll make all
safe, anyhow, Pownceby. Put it down, put it down--everything to----”
“Sir Giles! to whom? Everything to----?”
“Why, Pownceby, old fellow! Ah, to be sure he doesn’t know the first
name. Sounds droll a little, those two names together. Quick! I want it
signed and done with, in case I should, as Dunning says--don’t you know,
change the air.”
“But, Sir Giles!” cried the lawyer, in consternation: “Sir Giles!” he
added, “you don’t mean, I hope, to leave the property away from the
family and the natural heir?”
“What a muddlehead you are, Pownceby!” said Sir Giles, radiant. “Why, It
will be the natural heir. It will be the head of the family. And it will
grow up like our first boy, please God. But nothing is certain; and
supposing it was to turn out like its father? My poor boy, my poor
Gervase! It wasn’t as if we weren’t fond of him, you know, Pownceby. His
poor mother worshipped the very ground he trod on. But one can’t help
hoping everything that’s good for It, and none of the drawbacks--none of
the drawbacks. Make haste, Pownceby; draw it out quick! You’re quicker
than any clerk you have, when you’ll take trouble. Nothing’s certain in
this world; let’s make it all safe, Pownceby, however things may turn
out.”
“I’ll take your instructions, Sir Giles--though I don’t like the job.
But it’s a serious matter, you know, a very serious matter. Hadn’t you
better think it over again? I’ll have the will drawn out in proper form,
and come back to-morrow to have it signed.”
“And how can you tell that you’ll find me to-morrow? I may have moved on
and got a change of air, as Dunning says. No, Pownceby, draw up
something as simple as you like, and I’ll sign it to-day.”
The solicitor met Mrs. Piercey again in the hall as he went out. He had
not been so kind on his arrival as she had found him before; but now he
had a gloomy countenance, almost a scowl on his face, and would have
pushed past her without speaking, with a murmur about the train which
would wait for no man. Patty, however, was not the woman to be pushed
aside. She insisted upon hearing his opinion how Sir Giles was.
“I think with you that he is very ill,” he replied, gloomily, “and in
mind as well as in body----”
“Oh no,” cried Patty, “not that, not that! as clear in his head, Mr.
Pownceby, as you or me.”
He gave her a dark look, which Patty did not understand. “Anyhow,” he
said, “he’s an old man, Mrs. Piercey, and I don’t think life has many
charms for him. We have no right to repine.”
Mr. Pownceby had known Sir Giles Piercey all his life, and liked him
perhaps as well as he liked any one out of his own family. But to
repine--why should he repine, or Patty any more, who stood anxiously
reading his face, and only more anxious not to betray her anxiety than
she was to hear what, perhaps, he might tell? But he did not do this.
Nor would he continue the conversation, nor be persuaded to sit down. He
asked that he might be sent for, at any moment, if Sir Giles expressed a
wish to see him again. “I will come at a moment’s notice--by telegraph,”
he said, with a gloomy face, that intended no jest. And he added still
more gloomily, “I believe it will be for your advantage, too.”
“I am thinking of my father-in-law and not of my advantage,” Patty said
with indignation. The anxiety in her mind was great, and she could not
divine what he meant.