“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.
CHAPTER XIII
The household at Greyshott was much disturbed and excited by the new idea thus thrown into the midst of them. Lady Piercey discussed it all next morning, not only with Margaret but with Parsons, whose views on the subject were very decided. She thought, but this within herself, that to get quit of the Softy, even for a few days, would be a great blessing to the house – though what she said was chiefly to agree with her mistress that a change, and to see a little of life, would be the best thing possible for Mr. Gervase.
“ ’Tisn’t good for any young man to be always at home,” said Lady Piercey. “I remember a piece of poetry, or a hymn, or something, which I used to know, that had a line about home-keeping youths, and that they had but poor wits – that is, looked as if they had poor wits, because they had never seen anything, don’t you know?”
“Yes, my lady,” said Parsons; “that’s just how it is.”
“And the dear boy has come to feel it himself,” continued the mother; “he sees all the rest of the young men rushing about from one end of the world to the other, and he’s begun to ask himself, How’s that? Don’t you see, Parsons?”
“Yes, my lady, it’s as plain as the eyes in one’s head,” said Parsons.
“Of course, it is all because of his being so delicate when he was a child,” said the old lady.
“But what a blessing it is, my lady, to see how he’s outgrown it now!”
“Yes, isn’t it a blessing, Parsons! Just as strong as any of them – and well grown – a good height, and large round the chest, and all that.”
“Yes, my lady,” Parsons replied. She did not commit herself, but she chimed in most satisfactorily with all that her lady said.
Margaret was by no means so entirely to be trusted to. She was very doubtful of the proposed expedition, and even when she assented, as it was often necessary to do to what her aunt said, did so with so uncertain and troubled a look that Lady Piercey, by force of the opposition, was more and more rooted in her view.
“It would do him all the good in the world,” she said. “I know you think he’s silly, my poor boy – not that he’s really silly, not a bit; but he does not know how to express himself; and how is he ever to learn, stuck up here at home between you and me and his poor father, Meg?”
Margaret was a little taken aback by this question, and in her confusion laughed inadvertently, which made Lady Piercey very angry.
“You think you are clever enough for anything, and could teach him – as well as the best!”
“No, indeed,” cried Margaret; “not at all. I don’t know how young men learn – to express themselves. I think, so far as I have seen, that there are a great many who know how to express themselves – much worse than Gervase,” she added hastily; for after all, it was not poor Gervase’s fault, whereas it was the fault of many other men.
The mother, in her jealousy for her son, was pacified by this, and shook her head. “Oh, yes,” she said, “there are many of them that are a poor lot. Gervase is – one in ten thousand, Meg. He is a gentleman, my poor boy. He doesn’t know how to bully or make himself disagreeable. You know I am saying no more than the truth. He would do far better in the world if he made more of himself.”
This required from Margaret only a murmur of assent – which she gave without too much strain of conscience; but she was unprepared for the swift following up of this concession. “So it’s your opinion, Meg – if your opinion were asked, which I don’t think likely – that your uncle and I should let him go?”
“Let him go! But as you say, aunt, my opinion is not likely to be asked,” Margaret said quickly, to cover her exclamation of dismay.
“I’m not too fond of asking anybody’s opinion. I like to hear what they say, just to make sure of my own; but since you’ve given yours, as you generally do, without waiting to be asked, – and you’re not so far wrong as usual this time, – he ought to have his freedom. He’s never done anything to make us suppose that he wouldn’t use it rightly. He is a boy in a thousand, Meg! He has no bad ways – he is only too innocent, suspecting nobody.”
“That might be the danger,” said Margaret.
“Yes, my dear, that is just the thing – you have hit it, though you are not so bright as you think. He suspects nobody. He would put his money or whatever he had into anybody’s hands. He thinks every one is as innocent as himself.”
It would have been hard upon the poor mother had Margaret said what she thought: that Gervase did not think at all, which was a danger greater still. Lady Piercey knew all there was to be said on that point, and she kept her eye upon her niece, waiting to surprise that judgment in her face. Oh, she knew very well not only all that could be said, but all the reason there was for saying it! Lady Piercey was not deceived on the subject of her son, nor unaware of any of his deficiencies. It is to be supposed, knowing all these, that she must have known the dangers to which he must be exposed if he were allowed to carry out this proposal; but many other things were working in her mind. She thought it was only just that he should see life; and she thought, cynically, with a woman’s half-knowledge, half-suspicion of what that meant – that life as seen in London would cure him entirely of Patty and of the dangers that were concentrated in her. Finally, there was a dreadful relief in the thought of getting rid of him for a little while, of being exempt, if even for a few days, from his presence, when he was present, which was insupportable – and from the anxiety about his home-coming and where he was, when he was absent. The thought of having him comfortably out of sight for a time, so far off that she should be no longer responsible for him, even to herself; that she should no longer require to watch and wait for him, but could go to bed when she pleased, independent of the question whether Gervase had come home – that prospect attracted her more than words could say. Oh, the rest and refreshment it would be! the exemption from care, the repose of mind! Whatever he might do in London, she, at least, would not see it. Young men, when they were seeing life, did not generally conduct themselves to the satisfaction of their parents. They acted after their kind, and nobody was very hard upon them. Gervase would be just like the others – just like others! which was what he had never been hitherto, what she had always wished and longed for him to be. She sat for a long time at her embroidery, silent, working her mouth as she did when she was turning over any great question in her mind; and Margaret was too glad to respect her aunt’s abstraction, to leave her at full liberty to think. At length Lady Piercey suddenly threw down her needle, and with a gesture more like a man than an old lady, smote her knee with her hand.
“I’ve got it!” she cried. “I’ve found just the right thing to do!”
Parsons stopped and listened at the other end of the room, and Margaret paused in her work too, and raised her eyes. Lady Piercey’s countenance was in a flush of pleasure; she went on drumming on her knee in excitement, swaying a little back and forward in her chair.
“It is the very thing,” she said. “He’ll get his freedom, and yet he’ll be well looked after. You remember Dr. Gregson, him that was at that poor little dingy chapel when we were in town? Oh! you never remember anything, Meg! Parsons, you recollect Dr. Gregson, the clergyman with the family – that was so poor?”
“Yes, my lady,” said Parsons, coming a few steps nearer; her presence made legitimate, even during the discussion of these family matters, by this demand.
“Oh, you needn’t stop work; I am talking to my niece. When I want you I’ll call you,” said Lady Piercey, ruthless, waving her away. “Meg,” she said, after watching the woman’s reluctant withdrawal, “servants are a pretty set, poking their heads into everything; but you always stand up for them. Perhaps you think I’d better have up the cook, and let the whole of ’em know?”
“No; if you ask my opinion, Aunt, I think they are better left out.”
“Oh, you think they are better left out? Perhaps you think I’d better keep it all in my own mind, and not speak of my affairs at all? But it doesn’t matter much, and that’s a satisfaction, what you think,” said Lady Piercey, grimly. Then she resumed the argument. “I see my way; I see how we can do it all! Mr. Gregson is as poor as a church mouse, and he’ll do anything to get a little money. He shall meet Gervase at the station, and he shall look after him and show him life, as the poor boy says.” She laughed a low, reverberating laugh, that seemed to roll round the room; and then she added, giving Mrs. Osborne a push with her elbow, “You don’t seem to see the fun of it, Meg.”
“I don’t think Gervase will; nor, perhaps, the poor clergyman.”
The old lady laughed with deep enjoyment, putting one hand on her side. “Gregson will like anything that puts a little money in his pocket. And as for Gervase – ” It was some utterance of deep contempt that was on Lady Piercey’s lips; but she remembered herself, and repressed it in time. During the rest of the morning she sat almost silent, with her mouth working, and, as if she were turning over an amusing thought, gave vent now and then to a chuckle of laughter. The idea of sending Gervase to see life under the auspices of the poor little Low Church incumbent of Drummond Chapel, Bloomsbury, was delightful. She felt her own cleverness in having thought of it almost as much as she felt the happy relief of being thus rid of her poor Softy without any harm – nay, with perfect safety to him. All the accessories were delightful – the astonishment of Dr. Gregson, the ludicrous disappointment of the weak young man, his probable seduction into tea-parties and Bible-classes, which would be much more wholesome for him than the other way of seeing life. It occurred to Lady Piercey, with a momentary check upon her triumph, that there had been little girls among the Gregsons who might have grown up into dangerous young persons by this time. But that gave her but a temporary alarm, for, to be sure, it would be easy enough to drop any entanglement of that kind, and a young Gregson might, in the most virtuous manner, supplant Patty, as well as the worst – and all would consequently work for good to the only person of any consequence, the only son and heir of Sir Giles Piercey, of Greyshott, for whom alone his mother was concerned.
When this brilliant idea was communicated to Sir Giles, he, too, smote his thigh and burst into such a roar of laughter, that notwithstanding her gratification in the success of this admirable practical joke of hers, Lady Piercey was afraid. He laughed till he was red, or rather crimson, with a tinge of blue in the face; his large, helpless frame heaving with the roar which resounded through the room. She was so frightened that she summoned Dunning hastily, though she had the moment before sent him away, and had entered her husband’s room alone, without any attendant on her own side, to consult him on this all-important subject. When Dunning returned, triumphant in the sense that they could not do without him, and tingling with curiosity, which he never doubted he should now have abundant means of satisfying, he found Sir Giles in a spasmodic condition in his chair, laughing by intervals, while Lady Piercey stood by his side, patting him upon the back with unaccustomed hands, and saying, “Now, my dear; now, now, my dear,” as she might have done to a restive horse. Sir Giles’ exuberance faded away at the sight of Dunning, who knew exactly what to do to make him, as they said, comfortable. And thus it happened that this old pair, who were older than the parents of Gervase had any need to be, and looked, both, much older than they were, from illness and self-indulgence, and all its attendant infirmities – were left to consult upon the fate of their only child with the servant making a third, which was very galling to Lady Piercey’s pride. Sir Giles did not pay any attention. Dunning was to him not a man, but a sort of accessory – a thing that did not count. He calmed down out of his paroxysms of laughter at Dunning’s appearance, but still kept bursting out at intervals. “What if the fellow” – and then he stopped to cough and laugh again – “what if he falls in love with Miss Brown or Miss Jones?” he said. “And then, my lady, you would be out of the frying-pan into the fire.”
“I am not afraid of Miss Smith or Miss Jones,” she cried, making a sign to him over Dunning’s head to be careful what he said. But Sir Giles was in the humour for speech, and cared nothing who was present.
“I think a deal of these ladies,” he said, in his mumbling voice. “It’s a great joke – a great joke. I should like to see old Gregson’s face when he hears of it. By Jove! and the old plotter you are, my lady, to make it all up. But it can’t be; it can’t be.”
“Why can’t it be?” cried Lady Piercey sharply, and much provoked.
“Because it wouldn’t be fair, neither to the one of them nor to the other. Not fair at all, by George. Fair play’s a jewel. What are you after, Dunning? Let my legs alone. There’s nothing the matter with my legs. And you can go and be dashed to you. Can’t I talk to my lady without you here?”
“Don’t send him away,” cried Lady Piercey hurriedly. “I can’t have you get ill, and perhaps do yourself harm, because of me.”
“Do myself fiddlesticks,” cried Sir Giles. “I’m as strong as a horse, ain’t I, Dunning? Be off with you, be off with you; don’t you hear? I’ll throw my stick at you if you don’t scuttle, you son of a – . Hey! you can tell my lady I’m as well as either you or she.”
“Yes, Sir Giles,” said Dunning, stolid and calm. But he did not go away.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” Sir Giles went on, forgetting what he had said. “I say fair play all the world over. Women don’t understand it. It’s a capital joke, and I didn’t think you had so much fun in you. But it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Don’t be a fool, Giles,” said Lady Piercey angrily. “If you don’t see it’s necessary, why, then, you can’t see an inch before your nose; and to argue with you isn’t any good.”
“No,” he said, “perhaps it isn’t. I’m an obstinate old fool, and so are you an obstinate old fool, Mary Ann. And between us both we’ve made a mess of it. It wasn’t altogether our fault, perhaps, for it was Nature that began,” said the old gentleman, with something like a whimper breaking into his voice. “Nature, the worst of all, for you cannot do anything with that. Not a thing! We’ve tried our best. Yes; I believe you tried your best, my lady, watching and worrying; and I’ve tried my best, leaving things alone. But none of us can do anything. We can’t, you know, not if we were to go on till Doomsday; and we’re two old folks, and we can’t go on much longer. It’s not altogether your fault, and neither is it mine; but we’ll go to our graves, by-and-by, and we’ll leave behind us – we’ll leave behind us – ”
Here the old gentleman, probably betrayed by the previous disturbance of his laughter, fell into a kind of nervous crying, half exclamations, half laughing, half tears.
“Don’t you be upset, my lady,” said Dunning; “Sir Giles, he do get like this sometimes when he’s flurried and frightened. But, Lord! a little glassful of water, and a few of his drops, and he’s all right again.”
Lady Piercey sat bolt upright in her chair. She, too, wanted the ministrations to which she was accustomed: the arm of Parsons to help her up, or Margaret to turn to, to upbraid her for her uncle’s state, or to consult her as to what to do. She had not the same tendency to tears, though a few iron drops came from time to time, wrung out by her great trouble. She sat and stared at her husband, and at Dunning’s services to him, till Sir Giles was quite restored. And then she rose with some stiffness and difficulty, and hobbled away. Parsons met her at the door, and took her mistress to her room; but, though Lady Piercey clung to her, the maid was not at all well received. “What were you doing at Sir Giles’ door? What do you want in this part of the house?” she cried, though she had seized and clung to the ready arm. “I’ll not have you spying about, seeing what you can pick up in the way of news, or listening at a door.”
“I never listened at a door in my life,” cried Parsons, indignant. “And nobody ever named such a thing to me, my lady, but you!”
“Oh, hold your tongue, do!” cried Lady Piercey. And she, too, like Sir Giles, was obliged to have a restorative when she had been safely conveyed to her room. She was the ruler upstairs, and he below. She had the advantage of him in being able to move about, notwithstanding her rheumatism, and the large share she had of those ills which flesh is heir to – all those which were not appropriated first by her husband – in which she took a certain satisfaction, not tempered, rather enhanced, by the attendant pain.
The letters came in at the hour of luncheon, and were taken to Lady Piercey as they are usually taken to the master of the house. She opened all the family-letters, her husband’s as well as her own, and even the occasional bill or note that came very rarely for Gervase. Among them that day came a letter stamped with the Piercey crest, at which she gazed for a moment before opening it, with an indignant, yet scared look, as if she had beheld a blasphemy, and which made her, when she opened it, almost jump from her seat. She read it over twice, with her eyes opening wider and wider, and the red flush of surprise and horror rising on her face, then flung it violently across the table to Margaret. “Then he must go, that’s flat! and to-morrow morning, not one hour later,” she cried. Gervase was in the room, paying no attention to this pantomime, and caring nothing for what letters might arrive; but he was roused by what she said. He cried, “That’s me, mother; I’m going to-morrow,” with his loud and vacant laugh.