The Cuckoo in the Nest. Volume 2/2

She had looked, indeed, for a moment as if her eyes could give forth lightning enough to have slain any man standing defenceless before her; but then these eyes softened with hot tears. She kept looking at the man, explaining himself with such difficulty, putting forth his offer of kindness as if it were some dreadful proposition, with a gradual melting of the lines in her face. When he threw a hasty glance at her at the end of his speech, she seemed to him a woman made of fire, shedding light about her in an astonishing transfiguration such as he had never seen before.

“This,” she said, in a low voice, “is the most terrible demonstration of my poverty and helplessness that has ever been made to me – and the most awful suggestion, as of suicide and destruction.”

“Meg!”

“Don’t, don’t interrupt me! It is: I have never known how little good I was before. I don’t know now if it will kill me, or sting me to life; but all the same,” she cried, her lip quivering, “you are kind, and I thank you with all my heart! and I will promise you this: If I find, as you think, that, whatever I may do, I cannot give my Osy the education he ought to have, I will send and remind you of your offer. I hope you will have children of your own by that time, and perhaps you will have forgotten it.”

“I shall not forget it; and I am very unlikely to have children of my own.”

“Anyhow, I will trust you,” she said, “and I thank you with all my heart, though you are my enemy. And that is a bargain,” she said, holding out her hand.

Her enemy! Was he her enemy? And yet it seemed something else beside.

CHAPTER XXVII

While these scenes were going on, Mr. and Mrs. Gervase Piercey were very differently employed upstairs. When Patty had finished her tea, and when she had made the survey of the library, concerning which her conclusion was that these horrid bookcases must be cleared away, and that a full-length portrait of herself in the white satin which had not, yet ought to have been, her wedding-dress, would do a great deal for the cheerfulness of the room, she took her husband’s arm, and desired him to conduct her over the house. When Patty saw the drawing-room, which was very large, cold, and light in colour, with chairs and chandeliers in brown holland, she changed her mind about the library. She had not been aware of the existence of this drawing-room.

“This is where we shall sit, of course,” she said.

“Father can’t abide it,” said Gervase.

“Oh, your father is a very nice old gentleman. He will have to put up with it,” said the new lady of the house.

In imagination she saw herself seated there, receiving the county, and the spirit of Patty was uplifted. She felt, for the first time, without any admixture of disappointment, that here was her sphere. When she was taken upstairs, however, to Gervase’s room, she regarded it by no means with the same satisfaction. It was a large room, but sparsely furnished, in no respect like the luxurious bower she had imagined for herself.

“Take off my bonnet here!” she said: “no, indeed I sha’n’t. Why, there is not even a drapery to the toilet table. I have not come to Greyshott, I hope, to have less comfort than I had at home. There must be spare rooms. Take me to the best of the spare rooms.”

“There’s the prince’s room,” said Gervase, “but nobody sleeps there since some fellow of a prince – I can’t tell you what prince – And I haven’t got the keys; it’s Parsons that has got the keys.”

“You can call Parsons, I suppose. Ring the bell,” said Patty, seizing the opportunity to look at herself in the glass, though she surveyed the room with contempt.

“Lord!” cried Gervase. “Parsons, mother’s own woman – .” Then he threw himself down in his favourite chair with his hands in his pockets. “You can do it yourself. I’m not going to catch a scolding for you.”

“A scolding!” said Patty; “and who is going to scold you, you silly fellow, except me? I should like to see them try – Mrs. Parsons or Sir Giles, or any one. You can just say, ‘Speak to my wife.’”

“There’s mother, that you daren’t set up your face to. I say,” said Gervase; “Patty, what’s all this about mother? Mother’s – dead? She’ll never have a word to say about anything any more?”

“Dear mother!” said Patty. “You must always say dear mother, Gervase, now: I’m sure I should have loved her – but, you see, Providence never gave me the opportunity. No, she’ll never have a word to say: it’s me that will have everything to say. – Oh, you have answered the bell at last! Send Mrs. Parsons here.”

“Mrs. Parsons, ma’am – my lady?” the frightened little under-housemaid, who had been made to answer, said.

Patty gave her a gracious smile, feeling that at last she had found some one who understood what her claims were.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Ellen.”

“Well, Ellen, I like your looks, and I’ve no doubt we shall get on; but you needn’t call me my lady, not now, – for the present I am only Mrs. Gervase. Now, go and send Parsons here.”

“Oh, my lady, Mrs. Parsons! she’s in my old lady’s room. I daren’t disturb her, not for anything in the world; it would be as much as my place was worth.”

“I see you are only a little fool after all,” said Patty, with a frown. “Your place is just worth this much – whether you please me or not. Mrs. Parsons has as much power as – as that table. Goodness,” cried Patty, “what a state this house has been in, to be sure, when one servant is afraid of another! but I shall soon put an end to that. Call Parsons! let her come at once.”

The little housemaid came back while Patty still stood before the glass straightening the edge of her bonnet and arranging her veil.

“If you please, my lady, Mrs. Parsons is doing out my old lady’s drawers – and she has her head bent down, and I can’t make her hear.”

“I’ll make her hear,” cried Patty, with an impulse which belonged rather to her previous condition than to her present dignity; and she rushed along the corridor like a whirlwind, with her draperies flying. It was, doubtless, instinct or inspiration that directed her to the right door, while Gervase followed on her steps to see the fun, with a grin upon his face. He remembered only now and then, when something recalled it to him, that his mother was gone. He was not thinking of her now; nevertheless, when Patty burst into that room, he stood in the doorway dumb, the grin dying out from his face, and gave a scared look round as if looking for the familiar presence he had so often encountered there.

“You perhaps have not heard, Mrs. Parsons,” said Patty, with her sharp, decisive voice, “that I sent for you?”

Parsons had her head bent over the drawers. She said, without turning round, “That gaby, Ellen, said something about somebody wanting me”; and then began to count, – “Eight, nine, ten. Three dozen here and three dozen in the walnut wardrobe,” said Parsons; “that makes it just right.”

Patty’s curiosity overcame her resentment. She came forward and looked over Parsons’ shoulder. “Six dozen silk stockings,” she cried; “is that what you are counting? What a number for an old lady! and fine, too, and in good condition,” she said, putting her hand over the woman’s shoulder and bringing forth a handful. They were mingled white and black, and Patty looked upon them with covetous eyes.

“Who are you as takes such a liberty?” cried Parsons, springing to her feet. She found herself confronted by Patty’s very alert, firm figure and resolute countenance. Patty drew Lady Piercey’s silk stockings through her hands, looking at the size of them. She held them up by the toes to mark her sense of their enormous dimensions.

“I could put both my feet into one of them,” she said, reflectively, “so that they are no use to me. Oh, you are Parsons! Open the door, please, at once, of the best rooms. I want to settle down.”

The woman looked at the intruder with a mixture of defiance and fear. She turned to Gervase, appealing against the stranger. Many a time had Parsons put the Softy out of his mother’s room, bidding him be off and not aggravate my lady. But my lady was gone, and Gervase was the master, to do what he would; or, what was worse, it was Patty who was the mistress. Patty of the ale-house! Parsons looked at Gervase with an agonised appeal. “They’re your mother’s things,” she said; “Mr. Gervase, will you see them knock about your mother’s things?”

Patty’s eyes were in the drawer remarking everything, and those eyes sparkled and shone. What treasures were there! Not only silk stockings too big for her, but linen, and lace, and embroidered handkerchiefs, and silks, such as Patty had never seen before. She went to the drawers and closed them one after another.

“I see there are some nice things here,” she said. “We can’t have them turned over like this by a servant. Some servants expect their mistress’s things as their perquisites, but we can’t allow that in this house. Lock them up, lock them up at once, and I’ll take the keys.”

“The keys – my keys!” cried Parsons almost beside herself.

“The late Lady Piercey’s keys. I’ll take them, please, all of them. There’s a time for everything; and to go over my mother-in-law’s things the very day of her funeral is indecent – that is what it is, indecent; I can find no other word.”

“I’ll never give up my keys!” cried Parsons, “that my dear lady trusted me with – never, never!” And then she burst into tears, and flung them down on the floor at Gervase’s feet. “Take them all, then! all!” she cried; “I’ll not keep one of them! Oh, my dear old lady, what a good thing she has not lived to see this day! But it never would have happened had she been here. You never, never would have dared to lift up your little impudent face. – Oh, Mr. Gervase! oh, Mr. Gervase, save me from her! She’ll tear me to pieces!” Parsons cried. No doubt Patty’s look was fierce. The woman seized hold upon Gervase and swung herself out by him, keeping his limp person between her and his wife. “Don’t let her!” she cried, “don’t let her! in your own mother’s room.”

“Mrs. Parsons,” said Patty, over Gervase’s body as it were, “do you think I would soil my fingers by touching you? You thought you would rob the poor lady that’s dead, and that nobody would notice; but you did not know that I was here. Instead of rummaging Lady Piercey’s drawers, you had better empty your own, and get ready for leaving. Have all your accounts ready and your keys ready; you shall leave this house by twelve to-morrow,” Patty cried.

“Mr. Gervase, Mr. Gervase!” cried the unfortunate woman.

“I say, don’t you go and touch me, Parsons. I don’t mind your talking, but you sha’n’t go and finger me as if I was clothes from the wash,” said Gervase. He laughed at his own joke with enjoyment. “As if I was a basket of clothes from the wash,” he said.

“Shut the door upon her, Gervase. I don’t condescend to bandy words. – At twelve to-morrow,” Patty said.

Parsons went downstairs mad with fury, and was told the tale of the tea, and how John Simpson had got his dismissal, and was never to appear before that upstart more. “We had better all give warning afore she comes to the rest of us,” said cook. But it was a good place, with many perquisites, and as she spoke she exchanged with the butler a look of some anxiety. Perhaps they did not wish to present their accounts at a moment’s notice. Perhaps they only thought regretfully of their good place. Parsons had carried things with a high hand over the younger servants for years. She had not always even respected the susceptibilities of cook. She had been her mistress’s favourite and companion, doing, they all thought, very much what she liked with the internal economy of the house. No one had ventured to contradict, or even oppose, Lady Piercey’s factotum. It was not in human nature not to be pleased, more or less, that she had found some one to repay to her in a certain degree the little tyrannies of the past. “What would Mr. Dunning say?” was what everybody asked.

The house was, however, in great agitation as the hour of dinner approached, and the drama of the family was about to be exposed to the searching observation of that keen audience which waits at table, and which had all its faculties sharpened for this, its chief moment of spectatorship. To have this mode and period of watching the crisis of life in other human creatures, must be a great dédommagement for any ills that may pertain to domestic service in these days. It is as good as a play, nay, better, seeing that there is no simulation in the history that is worked out under our servants’ eyes. It was exciting to think, even, how many places should be laid at table; whether Patty, whose new dignity had not been formally announced to any one, and, who, for anything they knew, might shrink from appearing in the midst of the family, unsupported – might not withdraw from the ordeal of the common meal, or be too much overcome with grief to come downstairs. Patty’s mind was greatly exercised on the same subject. She had chosen from among the unoccupied rooms those which pleased her best, which were not, however, the prince’s rooms, but a suite adjoining which took her fancy, the size and the fittings of which, however, suggested innumerable new ideas to a mind open and eager to receive every indication of what was suitable to her new state. For one thing, they were lined with prodigious wardrobes: miles, Patty said to herself with awe, of old dark, gleaming, mahogany doors, behind which were pegs and shelves innumerable, to contain the dresses of the inhabitant. Patty could count hers – and only two, or at most, three of these were fit for the use of Mrs. Gervase Piercey – on one hand; and the long range of empty space at once depressed and excited her – a vacancy that must be filled. In like manner, the large dressing-table had drawers for jewellery, of which Patty had none. And in this great space, where her little figure was visible in glimpses in two or three tall mirrors, there was such evident need of a maid, that her alert spirit was overawed by the necessity. Then she had nothing that was needful for the toilet: no shoes, not even a fresh handkerchief to dry those tears, which were ready to come at the mention of her dear mother-in-law’s name. The temptation to return to that dear mother-in-law’s room, and equip herself with those articles which lay there in such abundance, and which certainly, it would harm no one to make use of, was very strong. But Patty was half-afraid, half-conscious, that on this evening, at least, it would be unwise so to compromise herself. It was not an evening, she reflected, for full dress, and her mourning would be an excuse for everything. What a wise inspiration that had been, to cover her old dress with crape! Patty undid a hook or two, and folded in the corners of her bodice at the neck. It showed the whiteness of that throat, and gave an indication that she knew what was required in polite society. And she drew on again with some difficulty, over hands which were not quite so presentable, the black gloves, which had not borne the strain of the morning, the heat, and the affliction, so well as might have been desired. Before doing this, however, she had written, by a sudden inspiration, a note to Sally Fletcher, requesting her to come to Greyshott at once with Mrs. Gervase Piercey’s “things,” and to remain as her maid till further orders. And then she took her husband’s arm, and went solemnly downstairs.

Colonel Piercey was lingering in the hall, much at a loss what to do. Margaret had not yet appeared. The butler stood at the door of the dining-room, with Robert, not John Simpson, at his side. Patty knew that it was correct and proper for the party to assemble first in the drawing-room, but she waived that ceremony for to-night. She came downstairs very audibly, describing to Gervase what she intended to do.

“I can’t bear the gloomy library,” she said. “I don’t mean to sit in it. We must have the real drawing-room made fit to live in. But all that will want a little time, and, of course, your dear papa must be consulted. I would not for the world interfere with his little ways.”

“Where’s father? ain’t he coming to dinner?” said Gervase, breaking into this speech, which the audience for which it was intended had already heard, noted, and inwardly digested.