FOR a few days after Patty’s visit to her aunt, that young lady looked out with some eagerness for the reappearance of Gervase at the Seven Thorns, but looked in vain. At first she scarcely remarked his absence, having many things to think of, for it was not without excitement that she planned out the steps by which she was to enter into a new life. The first evening was filled, indeed, with the events of the day; the mental commotion called forth by the visit of Lady Piercey, and the excitement, almost overwhelming, of her unexpected, enthusiastic reception by Miss Hewitt, and the sudden supply so much above her most daring hopes. Fifty pounds! it was more to Patty than as many thousands would have been to minds more accustomed—much more. For the possession of a great deal of money means only income, and an unknown treasure in somebody else’s hands, whereas fifty pounds is absolute money, which you can change, and spend, and realise, and enjoy down to the last farthing. It gave her a great deal of anxiety how to dispose of it at first. The Seven Thorns was not a place where any thief was likely to come for money; it was not a house worth robbing, which was a point, as Patty with her excellent sense was aware, on which burglars are very particular, taking every care to obtain accurate information. But then, again, money is a thing that betrays itself—a secret that is carried by the birds of the air. Had there been any of these gentry about, he might have divined from the way in which she carried herself, that she had fifty pounds in her pocket. There was a little faint lightness about it, she thought, when she put it in her drawer—a sort of undeveloped halo, showing that something precious was in the old pocketbook which she had found to enshrine it in. Then she took it out of that formal receptacle, and placed it with scientific carelessness in an old envelope. But, immediately, that torn paper covering seemed to become important, too, among the pocket-handkerchiefs and cherished trumpery, beads and brooches in her “locked drawer.” The “girl,” who was the only servant, except the ostler, at the Seven Thorns, had always manifested a great curiosity (taken rather as a compliment to her treasures than as an offence by Patty) concerning the contents of that locked drawer. She had often asked to be shown the “jewellery,” which Patty, indeed, had no objection to show. What if she would be tempted this night of all others to break open the drawer, to refresh her soul with gazing at them, and perhaps to throw the old dirty envelope away? It was highly improbable that poor Ellen, an honest creature, would break open the drawer. But still, everything is possible when you have fifty pounds to take care of. Patty took it out again and placed it first in her pocket—but she soon felt that to be quite too insecure—and then in her bosom under her trim little bodice. She felt it there, while she went about her usual occupations, carrying beer to her father’s customers. Fancy carrying pots of beer to labourers that were not worth so much as the price of them, and thanking the clowns for twopence—a girl who had fifty pounds under the bodice of her cotton frock! She was glad to see that Gervase had obeyed her orders, and did not appear in the parlour among the dull drinkers there.
Next day Patty was much occupied in rummaging out the empty part of the house, the best rooms, once occupied by important guests, when the Seven Thorns was a great coaching establishment, but now vacant, tapestried with dust and cobwebs, rarely opened from one year’s end to the other, except at the spring-cleaning, when it is the duty of every housekeeper to clear out all the corners. She got up very early in the summer mornings, before any one was stirring (and it may be imagined how early that was, for the Seven Thorns was all alert and in movement by six o’clock), and went in to make an inspection while she was secure from any disturbance. The best rooms were in the western end of the long house, quite removed from the bar and the parlour, the chief windows looking out upon the garden, and at a distance upon the retreating line of the high road, and the slope of the heathery downs. Patty’s heart swelled with pleasure as she carefully opened the shutters and looked round at the old faded furniture. There was a good-sized sitting-room, and two or three other rooms communicating with each other, and separated by a long passage from the other part of the house. “A suite of apartments,” she said to herself! for Patty had read novels, and was acquainted with many fine terms of expression. The early sunshine flooded all the silent country, showing a dewy glimmer in the neglected garden, and sweeping along the broad and vacant road, where as yet there was nothing stirring. A few cows in a field, one of which got slowly up to crop a morsel before breakfast, as fine ladies (and fine gentlemen, too) have a cup of tea in bed, startled Patty as by the movement of some one spying upon her unusual operations and wondering what they meant. But there was no other spectator, nothing else awake, except the early birds who were chattering about their own businesses in every tree, talking over their own suites of apartments, and the repairs wanted, before the professional occupations of the day began, and the pipes were tuned up. They were far too busy to pay any attention to Patty, nor did she mind them. Besides, they were all sober, married folks, with the care of their families upon their heads; while she was a young person all thrilling with the excitement of the unknown, and making a secret survey of the possible future nest.
Patty inspected these rooms with a careful and a practised eye. Any young couple in the land, she felt, might be proud to possess this suite of apartments. She examined the carpets to see whether they would do, whether they would bear a thorough beating, which they required, and whether by judicious application of gall, or other restoring fluid, the colour might be brought back to the part which had been most trodden; or whether it would be better to buy one of those new-fashioned rugs which were spread upon the matting in the Rectory—a poor sort of substitute for a carpet, Patty had always thought—but as it was the fashion, it might be adopted to cover deficiencies; or a nice round table with a cover might be placed upon that weak spot. Curtains would be necessary, but thin white muslin is cheap and could be easily supplied. Patty pulled the old furniture about, as the rector’s wife had done on her first arrival, to give it a careless look, which does not suit the stern angles of early Victorian mahogany and haircloth; but Patty had great confidence in crochet and frilled muslin to cover a multitude of sins. She stood at the window and looked out upon the garden which was quite retired and genteel—as refined a view as could have been had in the Manor itself. The cow in the field had lain down again to finish her night’s rest after that early cup of tea. It was so quiet: the morning’s sunshine almost level in long rays on the grass, the sleek coat of the brown cow glistening, nobody stirring. It almost overawed Patty to look out upon that wonderful silence before the world was awake. There was no telling what might happen in that new day; there was no telling what might come to her in the new life upon the margin of which she stood. She did not, I need scarcely say, think of the ideal excellencies of her future husband, or of love, or any of the usual enchantments that brighten the beginning of life. She thought of the Manor; of the old people who would soon die and be out of the way; of Lady Piercey’s carriage, which would be hers; of the coachman and John on the box, whom she had been at school with (John at least), and whom she would make to tremble before her when her turn came to be my lady. My lady! Patty’s head turned round and round. She put her head upon the window-frame to support herself, turning giddy with the thought. Your ladyship! She could hear people say it reverentially who had called, as if she had been their servant, for Patty at the Seven Thorns.
This was the thought that filled her mind with something of that ineffable elation and delight in her own happiness which is supposed to be peculiar to people who are in love. Patty was in love; but it would be putting a scorn upon her intelligence to suppose that she was in love with Gervase. Poor Gervase, the Softy! Patty was resolved to be very good to him—she had even a kind of affection for him as being her own to do what she pleased with. He should never have any reason to regret her ownership. She would be good to him in every way, deny him nothing, consider all his silly tastes as well as his serious interests. But what Patty was in love with was the Manor, and the carriage, and the rents, and the ladyship. Lady Piercey! The thought of that tingled to her very feet; it turned her head like wine. The old people, of course, would make themselves very disagreeable. It would be their part to do so. Patty felt that she would think no worse of them for fighting against her, tooth and nail. But they would have to give in at the end; or still better, they would die and get out of her way, which was the most probable thing. Young people generally think of the death of old people without compunction; it is their business to die, just as it is the business of their successors to live. It is the course of nature. Patty no more doubted they would die than that Christmas would come in six months, whatever happened. What she would have chosen for pleasure and to enhance her triumph to the utmost, was that old Sir Giles should die, and the old lady survive to be called the Dowager, and to see Patty bearing the title of Lady Piercey. This was what would be most sweet; and it was very likely to come to pass, for everybody knew that Sir Giles was a great invalid, whereas nobody knew that Lady Piercey had been attacked last year by a little, very little premonitory “stroke”—nobody, at least, except Parsons and Margaret Osborne and the doctor, with none of whom Patty had any communication. The greatest triumph she could think of was to see the Dowager bundled off to her dower-house, while she, Patty, the regnant Lady Piercey, took her place. She was not an ill-natured person on the whole, but she felt that there was here awaiting her a poignant joy.
In the meantime, however, this glory was still at a distance, and the first thing to do was to prepare a shelter for the young couple who would have to inhabit, for lack of other habitation, these rooms in the west end of the Seven Thorns. Patty interviewed her father on the subject as soon as he had eaten his breakfast. She told him that to leave these beautiful rooms unoccupied was a sin and shame, and that it was his plain duty to do them up and look out for a lodger for next summer. “Indeed, I’m not sure but we might hear of somebody this season still, if they were ready,” she said. She showed him all the capabilities of the place, and how a disused garden door might be arranged so as to form a separate entrance, “for gentry won’t come in by a public-house door. It ain’t likely,” she explained. “What do I care about gentry, and what do you know about ’em?” said her father. “I’ll never spend my money on such nonsense.” “But you like to see the colour of theirs,” said Patty, “and it would be good for trade, too. For suppose you gave them their board for a fixed rate, there would always be a good profit. It would keep us going and them, too, so as we should pay nothing for our living, and that in addition to the rent: don’t you see, father?” “I don’t believe in them profits,” said the old man; “gentry, as you call ’em, don’t eat the same things as I likes.” “But they’d have to, father,” said Patty, softly, “if they couldn’t get nothing else.” This struck Mr. Hewitt’s sense of humour, and he allowed that it might be possible so, with a chuckle of democratic enjoyment. “I’d like to see ’em sit down with their mincin’ ways to beans and fat bacon,” he confessed. Patty was very sure that it was not on beans and fat bacon that she would feed the future Sir Gervase and Lady Piercey; but she made no remark on this point, and ere the week was over, she had all her plans in operation—the new entrance by the garden, the rods put up for the new muslin curtains, the old rooms scrubbed and polished, and dusted till they shone again. “I think I’ll take a run up to London, and buy two or three little things out of my own little bit of money,” she said cautiously. And though her father demanded what little bit of money she had to spend, he made no objection to the expedition. Patty was very well to be trusted to look after herself, as well as the interests of the family. And thus she prepared, in every respect, the way.
But Gervase never appeared. Morning and night she looked out for him, pleased and half-amused, at first, with the faithfulness with which he obeyed her. But after a time Patty became a little anxious. She had, indeed, forbidden him to come to the Seven Thorns. But she had not intended this self-sacrifice to be of such long duration. What if his mother had got hold of him? What if he had been frightened into giving up his love? The old lady had looked very masterful, very full of power to do mischief. What if they had shut him up? Patty grew more and more anxious as day followed day. The fifty pounds which she had sewn up in a little bag, and wore suspended by a ribbon round her neck, began to lie like a blister upon her pretty white skin underneath her bodice. What would Aunt Patience say if all her plans came to nothing, if no licence was necessary, and no bridegroom forthcoming? Patty felt her heart sink, sink into unimaginable depths. The old woman would reclaim her money with a sneer enough to drive any girl mad. She would laugh out at the fool that had fancied the Softy was in love with her. His father, as had all his wits about him, might take a person in; but Lord bless us, the Softy! Patty knew exactly what her aunt would say. Miss Hewitt had given her the money, not for love of her, but that she might triumph over the great people, and avenge the wrongs of the other Patty who had gone before her. Patty grew hot and grew cold, as she stood at the door looking out along the road, and seeing nobody; her heart sickened at every footstep, and leaped at every shadow on the way. One night, when she stood there with her face turned persistently in one direction, just as the soft summer twilight was stealing over the landscape, and everything was growing indistinct, a voice close to her made Patty jump. She had not even observed—so great was her preoccupation—another figure coming round the other corner. Roger Pearson had seated himself on the bench under the parlour window, and yet she had taken no notice. He broke the silence by a laugh of mockery, that seemed to Patty the beginning of the ridicule and scorn of the whole parish. “Looking out for some one, eh?” said the voice; “but he ain’t coming, not to-night.”
“Who is not coming, Mr. Pearson?” said Patty, commanding herself with a great effort; “some one you were expecting to meet?”
“You can’t come over me like that, Patty,” said Roger. “Lord, a nice lass like you that might have the best fellow in the village—a-straining and a-wearing your eyes looking after a Softy! and him not coming neither—not a step! They knows better than that.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Pearson,” said Patty, feeling herself enveloped from head to foot in a flush of rage and shame. “I don’t know as I ever was known as one that looked after Softies—meaning poor folks that have lost their wits, I suppose. You’re one of them, anyhow, that speaks like that to me.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said the young man, in his deep voice—“a fellow that’s not fit to tie your shoe, though he may be the squire’s son. Don’t you think that’ll ever come to any good. They’ll never let you be my lady; don’t you think it. They’ll turn him out o’ doors, and they’ll cut him off with a shilling; and then you’ll find yourself without a penny and a fool on your hands instead of a man.”
“Is this something out of a story book, or is it out of his own head?” said Patty looking round her as if consulting an impartial audience,—“anyway, it has nothing to say to me. I’ll send Ellen to you for your orders, Mr. Pearson, for I’ve got a lot to do to-night, and I can’t stand here to listen to your romancing. Ellen,” she cried, “just see to that gentleman.” She went off with all the honours of war, but Patty’s heart was likely to burst. She marched upstairs with a candle to the rooms she had been arranging so carefully, and locked the door, and sat down upon the sofa and gave way to a torrent of tears. Was it all to come to nothing, after all her splendid dreams? She knew as well as any one that he was a fool and could be persuaded into anything. How did she know that his mother, if she tried, could not turn him round her little finger, as she, Patty, had been certain she could do? How could she tell, in the battle between Lady Piercey of Greyshott and Patty of the Seven Thorns, that it was she who would triumph and not the great lady? It was all Patty could do not to shriek out her exasperation, her misery and rage; not to pull down the curtains and dash the furniture to pieces. She caught her handkerchief with her teeth and tore it to keep herself quiet—and the fifty pounds in the bag burnt her breast like a blister. What if it was to come to nothing, after all?