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The Cuckoo in the Nest. Volume 2/2

“Not that I know of; but she may have made a hurried run to see her uncle. If Meg told him – ” said Lady Hartmore, in subdued tones. She added after a pause, “I shall think more of her if Meg is her confidante.”

Thus on the whole the impression was favourable to Patty, even though the grounds upon which it was formed were false.

After this visit Patty took her first active step towards the accomplishment of her desires. Sir Giles, who had been pleased with the Hartmore visit and augured great things from it, opened the way by asking if she had not liked Lady Hartmore and found her kind? “A nice woman, a good-hearted woman,” he said.

“Yes, dear papa; but one thing she said gave me a great deal of pain; for she seemed to think I should go back to my family, and leave you,” she said, putting her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Leave me? nonsense!” said Sir Giles, “I sha’n’t let you leave me, my dear. I shouldn’t have sent you away, anyhow, you may be sure; no, no, I shouldn’t have sent you away; but in present circumstances, my dear – Why, you’re all our hope at Greyshott, you’re all our stand-by, you’re – you’re our sheet-anchor.”

“How kind, how kind you are, dear papa! I try to do my best to keep everything straight, though I never could pretend to be of so much consequence as that. But people feel free to speak,” said Patty, with a sigh, “because they know I have no ground to stand on. I wasn’t dear Gervase’s equal when he married me, and there were no settlements or anything, you know; and I am quite dependent, quite dependent, as much as a servant – but without any wages,” Patty added, with a faint laugh.

It was at one of the rare moments when Dunning was absent, intervals of which Patty eagerly took advantage. Dunning was, indeed, a thorn in her flesh, though after mature deliberation she had decided that it was wiser to retain him, that he might take the responsibility of Sir Giles’ health.

“Dependent!” cried Sir Giles, “nonsense, nonsense! A servant, my dear? Don’t let me hear such a word again. No, no; no, no; never could have been so, for you’ve been quite a daughter, quite a daughter. But, in the present circumstances – ”

“Ah, dear papa, don’t let us think of that. I love to be with you – it’s the only comfort I have; but still I can’t forget that I have no provision. I might have to go away and work for my living, if somebody were to over-persuade you, or if you were – ill or anything. A Mrs. Piercey having to work for her living – or perhaps take a situation! I shouldn’t mind it for myself, but when I think, dear papa, of your name.”

“Good Lord!” cried Sir Giles, “you must be out of your mind, my dear, to think of such a thing. My poor boy’s wife, and a good wife to him, too, if he had but lived to profit by it. That’s all nonsense, all nonsense, my dear.”

“Ah, dear papa! but it would not be nonsense if I had not you to trust to,” cried Patty, laying her hand upon his arm. “It is you who are my sheet-anchor. I have not a penny of my own, not even to pay for my mourning; and I can’t earn any for myself, don’t you know, because of dear Gervase and your name – the first in the county. I couldn’t take in needlework, could I, in Greyshott? and a woman, you know, has always little expenses – ”

“My dear,” said Sir Giles, “have all the fal-lals you can set your face to, and send in the bills to me; you’ve nothing to do but send in the bills to me.”

“Dear papa! as if I ever doubted your kindness. It is not fal-lals I am thinking of; this,” cried Patty, holding up her crape, “is not much of a fal-lal, is it? But what I am thinking of is the time to come, when I shall require to have a little provision or income or salary of my own.”

“Do you mean,” cried the old man, in the half-sobbing tone into which he was betrayed by any emotion, “when – when – I’m no more; when I’m dead? Is that what you mean?”

Patty stooped down and laid her face against the large old limp hand, which reposed on the arm of Sir Giles’ chair. “I hope I’ll be dead, too, before that,” she said; “for what should I have to live for then?”

This, it need not be pointed out, was no answer to his question; but it seemed so, and Sir Giles was much affected and sobbed, which Patty echoed with a deep sigh or two which seemed to give a more refined expression to his feeling. He put his other hand upon her head.

“Please God, we’ll see better days before that,” he said.

And then Dunning came back, and a new game was begun.

CHAPTER XXXIX

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.