She left town next day in a tempest of wrath and indignation, and
something like despair. She said to herself that she would go home,
where no one would dare to insult her. Home! where, indeed, there would
be nobody to insult her, but nobody to care for her; to remark upon her
even in that contemptuous way; to say a word even of reprobation. A
strong sense of injustice was in her soul. I am strongly of opinion that
when any of us commits a great sin, it immediately becomes the most
natural, even normal thing in our own eyes; that we are convinced that
most people have done the same, only have not been found out; and that
the opinion of the world against it is either purely fictitious, a
pretence of superior virtue, or else the result of prejudice or personal
hostility. Patty had not committed any great sin. She had sought her own
aggrandisement, as most people do, but she had gained wealth and
grandeur far above her hopes by nothing that could be called wrong;
indeed, she had done her duty in the position in which Providence and
her own exertions had placed her. It was not her business to look after
the interests of the Piercey family, but to take gratefully what was
given her, which she had the best of right to, because it had been given
her. This was Patty’s argument, and it would be difficult to find fault
with it. And to think that the whole cruel world should turn upon her
for that; all those gentlefolks whom she despised with the full force of
democratic rage against people who supposed themselves her betters, yet
felt to the bottom of her heart to be the only arbiters of social
elevation and happiness, the only people about whose opinion she cared!
She came back to Greyshott in a subdued transport of almost tragic
passion. She would seek them no more, neither their approval nor their
company. She would go back to her own class, to the class from which she
had sprung, who would neither scorn her nor patronise her, but fill
Greyshott with admiring voices and adulation, and make her feel herself
the greatest lady and the most beneficent. She called for Aunt Patience
on her way from the station and carried her back to Greyshott. “You’re
going to stay this time,” she said; “I mean to live in my own way, and
have my old friends about me; and I don’t care that,” and Patty snapped
her fingers, “for what the county may say.”
“The county couldn’t say nothing against your having me with you,
Patty--only right, everybody would say, and you so young, and men coming
and going.”
“Where are the men coming and going?” said Patty; “I see none of them.
I dare say there would be plenty, though, if it wasn’t for the women,”
she added, with a self-delusion dear to every woman upon whom society
does not smile.
“You take your oath of that!” said Miss Hewitt, who was naturally of the
same mind.
“But I mean to think of them no more,” cried Patty; “the servants shall
say ‘not at home’ to any of those ladies as shows their face here! I’ll
bear it no longer! If they don’t like to call they can stay away,--what
is it to me? But I’m going to see my old friends and give dinners and
dances to them that will really enjoy it!” Patty cried.
Miss Hewitt looked very grave. “Who do you mean, Patty, by your old
friends?” she said.
“Who should I mean but the Fletchers and the Simmonses and the Pearsons
and the Smiths and the Higginbothams?” said Patty, running on till she
was out of breath.
“Lord, Patty! you’d never think of that!” cried Miss Hewitt, horrified.
“Why shouldn’t I?--they’d be thankful and they’d enjoy themselves; and
I’d have folks of my own kind about me as good as anybody.”
“Oh, Patty, Patty, has it come to that? But you’re in a temper and don’t
mean it,” Aunt Patience cried.
It would, perhaps, have been better for this disinterested relation had
she supported Patty in her new fancy, as undoubtedly it would have been
glorious and delightful to herself to have posed before her own village
associates as one of the mistresses of Greyshott. But Miss Hewitt had
been influenced all her life by that desire for the society of the
ladies and gentlemen which is so strong in the bosom of the democrat
everywhere. She could not bear that Patty should demean herself by
falling back upon “the rabble”; and many discussions ensued, in which
the elder lady had the better of the argument. Patty’s passionate desire
to be revenged upon the people who had slighted her resolved itself at
last into the heroic conception of such a fête for the tenants and
peasantry as had never been known in the county before. Indeed, the
county was not very forward in such matters; it was an old-fashioned,
easy-going district, and new ways and new education had made but small
progress in it as yet. The squires and the gentry generally had not
begun to feel that necessity for conciliating their poorer neighbours,
with whom at present they dwelt in great amity--which has now become a
habit of society. And the fame of the great proceedings at Greyshott
travelled like fire and flame across the county. No expense was spared
upon that wonderful fête. Patty knew exactly what her old friends and
companions liked in the way of entertainment. She made a little speech
at the dinner, which began the proceedings, to the effect that she had
not invited any of the fine folks to walk about and watch them as if
they were wild beasts feeding (using over again in a reverse sense the
metaphor which she had already found so effectual), but preferred that
they should feel that she was trusting them like friends and wished
them to enjoy themselves. And to see Patty and Miss Hewitt walking
about, sweeping the long trains of their dresses over the turf in the
midst of these revellers, with a graciousness and patronage which would
have made Lady Hartmore open her eyes, was a sight indeed. No Princess
Royal could have been more certain of her superior place than Patty on
this supreme occasion, when, flying from the hateful aristocrats, who
would not call upon her, she had intended to throw herself back again
into the bosom of her own class. And Miss Hewitt looked a Grand Duchess
at the least, and showed a benign interest in the villagers which no
reigning lady could have surpassed. “Seven? have you really? and such
fine children; and is this the youngest?” she said, pausing before a
family group; to the awe of the parents, who had known old Patience
Hewitt all their lives, and knew that she knew every detail of their
little history; but this will show with what gusto and fine histrionic
power she was able, though really almost an old woman, to take up and
play her part. But had it not been the ideal and hope of her life?
There was, however, one person at the Greyshott fête whom it was
difficult to identify with the heroes of the village. When Patty saw
approaching her across the greensward a well-knit manly figure in
irreproachable flannels, with a striped cap of red and white on his
head, a tie of the same colour, a fine white flannel shirt encircling
with its spotless folded-down collar a throat burnt to a brilliant
red-brown by the sun, her heart gave a jump with the sudden conviction
that “a gentleman” had come, even though uninvited, to see her in her
glory. It gave another jump, however, still more excited and tremulous,
when this figure turned out to be Roger Pearson--not a gentleman indeed,
but a famous personage all over England, the pride of the county, whose
rise in the world was now fully known to her. She had seen him before,
indeed, in this costume, but only in the dusk, when it was not so
clearly apparent. How well it became him, and what a fine fellow he
looked! handsome, free, independent, as different from all his rustic
friends as Patty was from her old school-fellows in their cotton
dresses, but in how different a way; for Roger, it was well known, was
hand-and-glove with many of the greatest people of England, and yet
quite at home in the village eleven which he had come to lead in the
match which was one of the features of the day. Patty, though she was
the lady of Greyshott, could not but feel a pang of delight and pride
when he walked by her side through the crowd. He was the only one whom
she could not patronise. She thought furtively that any one who saw them
would think he was the young squire; that was what he looked like--the
master, as she was the lady. He had no need to put on those airs which
Patty assumed. Nobody disputed his superiority, or even looked as if
they felt themselves as good as him. And it seemed to be natural, as the
afternoon went on, that he should find himself again and again by
Patty’s side, sometimes suggesting something new, sometimes offering
his services to carry out her plans, sometimes begging that she would
rest and not wear herself out. “Go and sit down quiet a bit, and I’ll
look after ’em; I can see you’re doing too much,” he said. It was taking
a great deal upon him, Miss Hewitt thought, but Patty liked it! She gave
him commissions to do this and that for her, and looked on with the most
unaccustomed warmth at her heart while he fulfilled them. Just like the
young master! always traceable wherever he moved in the whiteness of his
dress, that dress which the gentlemen wore and looked their best in; and
nobody could have imagined that Roger Pearson was not a gentleman, to
see him. “Well! and weren’t there ways of making him one?” Patty thought
to herself.
But, notwithstanding her indignant determination to throw herself back
into the bosom of her own class, it was to Roger alone that she made any
overtures of further intercourse. He stayed behind all the others when
the troops of guests went away, and told her it was a real plucky thing
to do, and had been a first-rate success. He looked, indeed, like a
gentleman, but he had not adopted the phraseology of the Vere de Veres;
and perhaps Patty liked him all the better. She said, “Come and see me
any day; come when you like,” when he held her hand to say good-night;
and she said it in an undertone, so that Aunt Patience might not hear.
“I will indeed,” he said in the same tone, “the first vacant day I
have----” Her breast swelled to see that he was a man much sought
after, though this had not been her own fate.
But either he did not have a vacant day, or, what Patty’s judgment quite
approved, he did not mean to make himself cheap. And Patty fell into a
worse depth of solitude than ever, notwithstanding the presence of Aunt
Patience, to whom she had said in the rashness of her passion that she
should henceforth stay always at Greyshott, but whom now she felt to be
an additional burden when perpetually by her side. There had been a
little quarrel between them after luncheon one day in July, for they
were both irritable by reason of that unbroken _tête-à-tête_, and of the
fact that they had said ten or twelve times over everything they had to
say; and Miss Hewitt had flounced off upstairs to her room, where, after
her passion blew off, she had lain down on the sofa to take a nap,
leaving Patty to unmitigated solitude. It was raining, and that made it
more dreary than ever: rain in July, quiet, persistent, downpouring;
bursting the flowers to pieces; scattering the leaves of the last roses
on the ground; and injuring even those sturdy uninteresting geraniums
which are the gardener’s stand-by--is the dreariest of all rains. It is
out of season, even when it is wanted for the country, as there is
always some philosopher to tell us; and it is pitiless, pattering upon
the trees, soaking the grass, spreading about us a remorseless curtain
of grey. Patty, all alone, walked from window to window and saw nothing
but the trees under the rain, and a little yellow river pouring across
the path. She sat down and took up the work with which Aunt Patience
solaced the weary hours. It was the old-fashioned Berlin woolwork, which
only old ladies do nowadays. She contrived to put it all wrong, and then
she threw it down and went to the window again. And then she was aware
of a figure coming up the avenue, a figure clothed in a glistening white
mackintosh and under an umbrella. She could not see who it was, but
something in the walk struck her as familiar. It looked like a
gentleman, she said to herself; though to be sure, in these days of
equality, it might be only the draper’s young man with patterns, or the
lawyer’s clerk. Patty felt that she would have been glad to see even the
lawyer’s clerk.
But when it was Roger Pearson that came into the room, what a difference
that made at once! It was almost as if the sun had come out from behind
the clouds for a moment, although he was not a gentleman, but only a
professional cricketer. He was not dressed this time in his flannels,
which suited him best, but in a grey suit, which, however, was very
presentable. Patty felt that if the first lady in the county was to
choose this particular wet day to call, which was not likely, she would
not need to blush for her visitor. And she was unfeignedly glad to see
him in the desolation of her solitude. She could tell from the manner in
which he looked at her that he was admiring her, and he could tell that
she was admiring him, and what could two young people require more of
each other? Roger told her quite frankly a great deal about himself. He
acknowledged that he had been “a bit idle” in his earlier days, and
liked play better than work; but that had all come in very useful, for
such play was now his work, and he had a very pleasant life, going all
over the country to cricket matches, and seeing everything that was
going. “And all among the swells, too,” he said, “which would please
you.”
“Indeed, you’re mistaken altogether,” said Patty. “Swells! I loathe the
very name of them. Since I’ve lived among ’em I know what they are; and
a poorer, more cold, stuck-up, self-seeking set----”
“I don’t make no such objections,” said Roger, who, it has been said,
took no trouble to use the language of gentlemen. “They’re good fellows
enough. I don’t want no more of them than they’re willing to give me--so
we gets on first rate.”
“They try to crush your spirit,” cried Patty, flaming, “and then,
perhaps, when they’ve got you well under their fist, they’ll condescend
to take a little notice. But none of that sort of thing for me!”
“Well!” said Roger, looking round him, “this is a fine sort of a place,
with all these mirrors and gilt things; but I should have said you would
have been more comfortable with a smaller house, and things more in our
own way, like what we’ve been used to, both you and me.”
“I have been used to this for a long time now,” said Patty, with spirit,
“and it’s my own house.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, “and it ain’t for me to say anything, for I’m
not a swell like these as you have such a high opinion of.”
“I have no high opinion of them. I hate them!” cried Patty, with set
teeth.
“Well, I’ve often thought,” said Roger, “though I know I’ve no right
to--but just in fancy don’t you know--as Patty Hewitt of the Seven
Thorns would have been a happier woman in the nice little ’ouse as I
could give her now, and never harming nobody, than a grand lady like
Mrs. Piercey, with so much trouble as you have had, and no real
friends.”
“How do you know,” cried Patty, “that I have no friends?” and then,
after a moment’s struggle to keep her self-command, she burst into a
violent storm of tears. “Oh, don’t say anything to me!” she cried,
“don’t say anything to me! I haven’t had a kind word from a soul, nor
known what it was to have an easy heart or a bit of pleasure, not since
the night you came to the little door, Roger Pearson--no, nor long
before.”
There was a silence, broken only by her passionate sobs and the sound of
the weeping which she could not control, until Roger moved from his
chair and went up to the sofa on which she had thrown herself, hiding
her tears and flushed face upon the cushions. He laid his hand upon her
shoulder with a caressing touch, and said, softly, “Don’t now, don’t
now, Patty dear. Don’t cry, there’s a love.”
“And when you think all I’ve gone through,” said Patty, among her sobs,
“and how I’ve given up everything to do my duty! When you said to me
that night you had been at a dance--Oh! and me never seeing a soul,
never anything but waiting on them, and serving them, and nursing them,
or playing nonsense games from morning to night! And then when the old
gentleman died and left me what I never asked him for, then everybody
taking up against me as if I had committed a sin; and never one coming
near me, never, never one, but Meg in London coming to speak out of
charity, because I was alone. Yes, and I was alone,” said Patty, raising
herself up, drying her eyes hastily, with a nervous hand, “and I’ll be
alone all my life; but I’ll never take charity as if I was some poor
creature, from her or from him!”
“You needn’t be alone a moment more than you like, Patty,” said Roger.
“I was always fond of you, you well know. You jilted me to marry _'im_,
poor fellow, but I’ll not say a word about that. You’re not ’appy in
this great ’ouse, and you know it, nor you’ll never be. I’m not saying
anything one way or another about them ladies and swells: maybe they
might have been a little kinder and done no ’arm. But you’re an
interloper among them, you know you are; and I’m not one as ’olds with
putting another man’s nose out of joint, or taking his ’ouse over ’is
’ead. I wouldn’t, if it was a bit of a cottage, or your father’s old
place at the Seven Thorns; and no more would I here. There ain’t no
blessing on it, that’s my opinion.”
“I don’t know, Roger Pearson, that your opinion was ever asked,” Patty
said.
“It wasn’t asked; but you wouldn’t cry like that before anybody but me,
nor own as you were in trouble. Now, ’ere’s my ’and, if you’ll have it,
Patty; I’ll not come ’ere to sit down at another man’s fireside, but
I’ll stand by you through thick and thin; and I’m making a pretty bit of
money myself, and neither me nor you--we don’t need to be beholdin’ to
nobody. Let’s just set up a snug place of our own, and I’d like to see
the man--the biggest swell in the world--or woman either, that would put
a slight upon my wife.”
“What!” said Patty, with a smile that was meant to be satirical, “give
up Greyshott and my position and all as I’ve struggled so hard for, for
you, Roger Pearson? Why, who are you? nobody! a man as is a good
cricketer; and that’s the whole when all’s said.”
“Well,” said Roger, good-humouredly, “it’s not a great deal, perhaps,
but it’s always something; and it’s still me if I never touched a bat.
You wouldn’t marry my cricketing any more than you’d marry his
parliamenteering, or sporting, or what not, if you did get a swell; and
you take my word, Patty, you’ll never get on with a swell like you would
do with me. We’ve been brought up the same, and we understand each
other. I know how you’re feeling, just exactly, my poor little girl:
you’d like to be ’appy, and then pride comes in. You say, ‘I’ve worked
hard for it and I’ll never give it up.’”
“If you mean I’ll not give up being Mrs. Piercey of Greyshott, with the
finest house in the county, to go to a cottage with you----”
“Don’t now, don’t,” said Roger, protesting, yet without excitement; “I
never said a cottage, did I? What I said was a ’andsome ’ouse, with all
the modern improvements and furnished to your fancy, instead of this old
barrack of a place, and a spanking pair of ’osses, a deal better than
them old fat beasts, as goes along like snails; and some more in the
stable, a brougham, and a victoria, and a dogcart for me; that’s my
style. I don’t call that love in a cottage. I call it love very well to
do, with everything comfortable. Lord! if you like this better, this old
place--full of ghosts and dead folks’ pictures, I don’t agree with your
taste, my dear, and that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Patty looked at her matter-of-fact lover, raising her head high,
preparing the sharpest speeches. She sat very upright, all the tears
over, ready, quite ready, to give him his answer. But then there
suddenly came over Patty a vision of the winter which was coming, the
winter that would be just like the last--the monotonous, dreadful days,
the long, lingering, mortal nights, with Aunt Patience for her sole
companion. And her thoughts leapt on before to the ’andsome ’ouse; for
being, as Roger said, of his kind, and understanding by nature what he
meant, her imagination represented to her in a flash as of sunshine,
that shining, brilliant, high-coloured house--with all the last
improvements and the newest fashions, plate-glass windows, shining fresh
paint which it would be a delight to keep like a new pin, everything
new, clean, delightful; carpets and curtains of her own choosing,
costing a great deal of money, and of which she could say to every
guest, “It’s the best that money could buy,” or “I gave so much a yard
for it,” or “Every window stands me in fifty pounds there as you see
it.” All this appeared to Patty in a flash of roseate colour. And the
pair of spanking horses at the door, and a crowd of cricketing men, yes,
and cricketing ladies; and meetings in her own grounds, and great
luncheon parties, and quantities of other young couples thinking of
nothing but their fun and their pleasure, the wives dressing against
each other, the young men competing in their batting and bowling, and in
their horses and turn-outs, but all in the easiest, noisiest, friendly
way, and all surrounding herself, Patty, with admiration and homage as
the richest among them. Oh, what a contrast to grey old Greyshott, with
its empty, echoing rooms and its dark solitude, and the pictures of dead
people, as Roger said, and not a lively sight or sound, nothing but
Jerningham and the other servants and Aunt Patience. To think of all
that, and Roger added to it,--Roger, who sat looking at her so kindly,
with his handsome good-humoured face, not hurrying her in her decision,
looking as if he knew beforehand that she could not resist him and his
offer of everything she liked best in the world.
All this came to Patty in a moment, as she sat with her sharp speeches
all arrested on her lips. The pause she made was not long, but it was
long enough to show him that she had begun to think, and we all know
that the woman who deliberates is lost; and it was in the nature of the
practical-minded lover, who was not given to the sentimental, as it was
also in Patty’s nature, to carry things by a _coup de main_. He sprang
up from the seat he had taken opposite to her, and suddenly, before she
was aware, gave Patty a hearty kiss which seemed to sound through all
the silent house.
“Don’t you think any more about it,” he said, holding her fast; “you
jilted me before, but you’re not going to jilt me again. I ’ave the
’ouse in my eye, and I know the jolly life we’ll live in it: lots of
company and lots of fun, and two folks that is fond of one another;
that’s better than living all alone--a little more grand, but no fun at
all.”
And to such a triumphant and convincing argument, which her heart and
every faculty acknowledged, what could Patty reply?