GERVASE went up the steps and into his father’s house without waiting either for Sir Giles, whose disembarkation was a troublesome business, or his newly-made wife. For the moment he had forgotten all about Patty. She had to scramble out of the high old-fashioned chariot, which had been Sir Giles’ state equipage for long, and which had been got out expressly for this high and solemn ceremony, nobody taking any notice or extending a finger to her—even the footman turning his back. Patty was too anxious and too determined on making her own entry to be much disturbed by this. To get her feet within the house was the great thing she had to consider; but—it need not be said that John Simpson, the footman, had his fate decided from that day, if indeed Mrs. Gervase established, as she intended to do, her footing in her husband’s home.
Gervase stood on the threshold, carelessly overlooking the group, the men about Sir Giles’ chair putting him back into it, and Patty not very gracefully getting down the steps of the carriage. His tall hat, wound with the heavy band, was placed on the back of his head, his hands were in his pockets, his eyes wandering, catching one detail after another, understanding no special significance in the scene. The other carriages coming up behind, waiting till the first should move on, aroused the Softy. He had forgotten why they were there, as he had forgotten that he had any duty towards his wife, who, in her hurry, had twisted herself in her long veil and draperies, and whom no one attempted to help. Patty was not the kind of figure to attract sentimental sympathy, as does the neglected dependant of fiction, the young wife of low degree in presence of a proud and haughty family. She was briskness and energy itself, notwithstanding that complication with the long veil, at which Gervase was just about to burst into a loud laugh when a sudden glance from her eyes paralysed him with his mouth open. As it took a long time to arrange Sir Giles, Patty had the situation before her and time to grasp it. She saw her opportunity at once. She passed the group of men about the chair, touching Dunning’s arm sharply as she passed, bidding him to “take care, take care!” Then, stepping on, took the arm of Gervase, and stood with him on the threshold, like (she fondly hoped) the lady of the house receiving her guests. Dunning had nearly dropped his master’s chair altogether at that insolent injunction and touch, and looked up at her with a countenance crimson with rage and enmity. But when Dunning saw the energetic figure in the doorway, holding Gervase’s limp arm, and unconsciously pushing him to one side in so doing, placing herself in the centre, standing there like the mistress of the house, a cold shiver ran over him. “You could ’a knocked me down with a straw,” he said afterwards confidentially to Parsons, in the mutual review they made later of all the exciting incidents of the day.
But this was not all: the opportunity comes to those who are capable of seizing upon it. Patty stood there with a heart beating so loudly that it sounded like a drum in her own ears, but with so full a sense of the importance of every act and look, that her excited nerves, instead of mastering her, gave support and stimulation to her whole being. She might have known, she said to herself, that Gervase would have been of no use to her, a thing which she resented, being now in possession of him, though she had fully calculated upon it before. “Stand by your wife, can’t you!” she whispered fiercely, as she took hold of his arm and thrust him towards the wall. He grinned at her, though he dared not laugh aloud.
“Lord, you did look ridiculous, Patty, with that long thing twisting round you.”
“If you laugh, you fool,” said Patty, between her closed teeth, “you’ll be turned out of the house.”
When she had warned him she turned, bland but anxious, to the group below. “Oh, carry him gently, carry him gently!” she cried. When Sir Giles was set down on the level of the hall, she was the first to perceive his exhausted state. “I hope you have a cordial or something to give him, after all this fatigue?” she said. “You have nothing with you? Let the butler get it instantly—instantly!” She was quite right, and Dunning knew it, and made a sign that this unexpected order should be obeyed, with bitter anger in his heart. The old gentleman was very nearly fainting, after all the exertion and emotion. Patty had salts in her hand and eau de Cologne in her pocket ready for any emergency. She flew to him, while Dunning in his rage and pain called to the butler to make haste. And when the rest of the party followed, Patty was found in charge of Sir Giles, leaning over him, fanning him with her handkerchief impregnated with eau de Cologne, applying from time to time her salts to his nose. When the butler came hurrying back with the medicine, the first thing the surrounding spectators were conscious of was her voice sharply addressing Dunning, “You ought to have had the drops ready; you ought to have carried them with you; you ought never to be without something to give in case of faintness—and after such a dreadful day.”
The woman, the creature, the alehouse girl (these were the names by which Dunning overwhelmed her in his private discourses), was quite right! He ought to have carried his master’s drops with him. He ought to have been ready for the emergency. Margaret, who had come in in the midst of this scene, after one glimpse of Mrs. Gervase standing in the doorway, which had filled her with consternation, stood by helplessly for the moment, not doing anything. Mrs. Osborne would not have ventured to interfere with Dunning at any period of her residence at Greyshott. His authority with the family had been supreme. They had grown to think that Sir Giles’ life depended upon him; that he knew better than the very doctor. To see Dunning thus assailed took away her breath, as it did that of all the servants, standing helplessly gaping at their master in his almost faint. And it was evident from Dunning’s silence, and his hurried proceedings, that this audacious intruder was right—astounding discovery! Dunning did not say a word for himself. His hand trembled so, that Patty seized the bottle from him, and dropped the liquid herself with a steady hand. “Now, drink this,” she said authoritatively, putting it to Sir Giles’ lips, who obeyed her, though in his half-unconsciousness he had been feebly pushing Dunning away. This astonishing scene kept back all the other funeral guests who were alighting at the door, and among whom the most dreadful anticipations were beginning to breathe to the effect that it had been “too much” for Sir Giles. To see Margaret Osborne standing there helpless, doing nothing, gave force to their suppositions, for she must have been occupied with her uncle had there been anything to do for him, everybody thought. Patty’s shorter figure, all black, was not distinguishable from below as she leant over Sir Giles’ chair.
Gervase, who had been hanging in the doorway, reduced to complete silence by his wife’s threats, pulled Margaret by her dress. “I say, Meg! she’s one, ain’t she? She’s got ’em all down, even Dunning. Lord! just look at her going it!” the admiring husband said. He dared not laugh, but his wide-open mouth grinned from ear to ear. He did not know who the tall fellow was by Margaret’s side, who stood looking on with such a solemn air, but he poked that dignitary with his elbow all the same. “Ain’t she as good as a play?” Gervase said.
Colonel Piercey was in no very genial frame of mind. He was angry to see Mrs. Osborne superseded, and angry with her that she did not step forward and take the direction of everything. And when this fool, this Softy, as the country people called him, addressed himself with elbow and voice, his disgust was almost beyond bounds. It was not decorous of the next-of-kin: he turned away from the grinning idiot with a sharp exclamation, forgetting altogether that he was, more or less, the master of the house.
“Oh, hush, Gervase,” said Mrs. Osborne. “Don’t laugh: you will shock all the people. She is—— very serviceable. She shows—— great sense—— Gervase, why is she here?”
He was on the point of laughter again, but was frightened this time by Margaret. “Why, here’s just where she ought to be,” he said, with a suppressed chuckle. “I told you, but you didn’t understand. I almost told—— mother.”
Here the half-witted young man paused a little with a sudden air of trouble. “Mother; what’s all this about mother?” he said.
“Oh, Gervase! she wanted you so!”
“Well,” he cried, “but how could I come when I didn’t know? Ask her. We never heard a word. I remember now. We only came back last night. I thought after all we might find her all right when we came back. Is it—is it true, Meg?”
He spoke with a sort of timidity behind Patty’s back, still pulling his cousin’s dress, the grin disappearing from his face, but his hat still on the back of his head, and his fatuous eyes wandering. His attention was only half arrested even by a question of such importance. It moved the surface of his consciousness, and no more; his eye, even while he was speaking, was caught by the unruly action of the horses in one of the carriages far down the avenue, which put a movement of interest into his dull face.
“I cannot speak to you about it all here. Come in, and I will tell you everything,” Margaret said.
He made a step after her, and then looked back; but Patty was still busily engaged with Sir Giles, and her husband escaped, putting his cousin’s tall figure between himself and her.
“I say, are all this lot of people coming here? What are they coming here for? Have I got to talk to all these people, Meg?”
He went after her into the library, where already some of the guests were, and where Margaret was immediately occupied, receiving the solemn leave-takings of the county gentry, who had driven so far for this ceremony, but who looked strangely at Gervase, still with his hat on, and who, in presence of such a chief mourner, and of the illness of poor Sir Giles, were eager to get away. A vague story about the marriage had already flashed through the neighbourhood, but the gentlemen were more desirous even of keeping clear of any embarrassment that might arise from it, than of getting “the rights of the story” to carry back to their wives—though that also was a strong motive. Gervase gave a large grip of welcome to several who spoke to him, and laughed, and said it was a fine day, with an apparent indifference to the object of their visit, which chilled the blood of the kindly neighbours. And still more potent than any foolishness he might utter was the sign of the hat on his head, which produced the profoundest impression upon the small solemn assembly, though even Margaret, in the excitement of the crisis altogether, did not notice it for some time.
“We feel that the only kindness we can do you, dear Mrs. Osborne, is to leave you alone as quickly as possible,” said Lord Hartmore, who was a very dignified person, and generally took the lead—and he was followed by the other potentates, who withdrew almost hurriedly, avoiding Gervase as much as possible, as he stood swaying from one foot to another, with a half laugh of mingled vacuity and embarrassment. Gervase was rather disappointed that they should all go away. It was rarely that he had seen so many people gathered together under his father’s roof. He tried to detain one or two of them who gave him a second grasp of the hand as they passed him.
“You’re going very soon. Won’t you stay and have something?” Gervase said.
Colonel Piercey was standing outside the door of the library as they began to come out, and Lord Hartmore gave him a very significant look, and a still more significant grasp of the hand.
“That,” he said with emphasis, with a backward movement of his head to indicate the room he had just quitted, “is the saddest sight of all,”—and there was a little pause of the gentlemen about the door, a group closed up the entrance to the room, all full of something to say, which none of them ventured to put into words; all relieving themselves with shaking of heads and meaning looks.
“Poor Sir Giles! I have the sincerest sympathy with him,” said Lord Hartmore, “the partner of his life gone, and so little comfort in the poor son.”
They grasped Gerald Piercey’s hand, one by one, in a sort of chorus, grouping round the open door.
It was at this moment that Patty found herself free, Sir Giles having been wheeled away to his own rooms to escape the agitating encounter of so many strangers. She walked towards them with the heroic confidence of a Joan of Arc. Probably nothing but the habits of her previous life, her custom of facing unruly men in various stages of difficulty, dissatisfied customers, and those of too convivial a turn, drunkards, whom she had to master by sheer coolness and strength of mind, could have armed her for such an extraordinary emergency. She knew most of the men by sight, but had hitherto looked at them from a distance as beings unapproachable, not likely ever to come within touch of herself or her life; and they all looked towards her, more or less severely,—some with surprise, some with concealed amusement, some with the sternest disapproval. So many men of might and dignity, personages in the county, not one among them sympathetic; and one small young woman, in a place the very external features of which were unknown to her, where every individual was an enemy, yet which she meant to take possession of and conquer by her bow and her spear, turning out every dissident! The gentlemen stood and stared, rather in astonishment than in curiosity, as she advanced alone, her long veil hanging behind her, her crape sweeping the carpet. They did not make way for her, which was scarcely so much from incivility as from surprise, but stood staring, blocking up the door of a room which Patty saw must be the first stronghold to be taken, from the mere fact of the group that stood before it. She came up quite close to them without saying a word, holding her head high. And then she raised her high, rather sharp voice:—
“Will you please to make room for me to pass? I want to join my husband,” she said.
And then there was a start as simultaneous as the stare had been. Patty’s voice gave the gentlemen of the county a shock as if a cannon had been fired into the midst of them. It was a challenge and an accusation in one. To accuse men of their class of a breach of civility is worse than firing a gun among them. They separated quickly with a sense of shame. “I beg your pardon” came from at least two voices. It would be difficult to explain what they thought they could have done to resist the intruder: but they were horrified by the suggestion of interference—as if they had anything to do with it! so that in fact Patty entered triumphantly through a lane formed by two lines of men dividing to make way for her. A princess could not have done more.
She walked in thus with flags flying, pale with the effort, which was advantageous to her appearance, and found herself in the great room, with its bookcases on the one hand and the tall portraits on the other. But Patty found here, against her expectations, a far more difficult scene before her. Two or three ladies had come to give Margaret Osborne the support of their presence, on what they called “this trying day,” without in the least realising how trying it was to be. One of them, an old lady, sat in a great chair facing the door, with her eyes fixed upon it. Two others, younger, but scarcely less alarming, were talking to Mrs. Osborne, who in her own sole person had been supposed by Patty with natural enmity to be the chief of her adversaries. They stopped their conversation and stared at Patty, as with a sudden faltering, she came in. Gervase stood against the end window, fully outlined against the light, with his hands in his pockets, and his hat on his head, swaying from one foot to another, his lower lip hanging a little and very moist, his wandering eyes turned towards the door. Patty entering alone under the eyes of these ladies, with a consciousness that much had passed since she had last looked at herself in a glass, and that veil and mantle might easily have got awry—and with the additional excitement of surprise in finding them there when she had looked at the worst only for the presence of Mrs. Osborne—might well have called forth a sympathetic movement in any bosom. And when it is added to this that Gervase, standing there against the light, had probably never in all his life looked so idiotic before, and that he had his hat on his head, last and most dreadful climax of all, it may be dimly imagined what were the sensations of his bride. But there are circumstances in which an unusual exaggeration of trouble brings support. Patty looked for a moment and then rushed upon her husband in horror. “Oh, Gervase! do you know you have got your hat on, and ladies in the room?” she cried, with an almost shriek of dismay.
Gervase put up his hand to his head, took off the hat, and then carefully examined it, as if to find the reason of offence there. “Have I?” he said, with a laugh; “then I never knew it. You should stick by me if you mean me to behave. I don’t think of such things.”
“Then you ought,” she cried, breathless, taking the hat from him with a wife’s familiarity, “and you ought to beg pardon.” She took him by the arm quickly and led him forward a step or two. “Ladies,” she said, “I am sure me and my husband are very glad to see you. He meant no rudeness, I’m sure. He doesn’t think about such little things. I am still,” she added, “a sort of a stranger”—with an insinuating smile which, however, was very tremulous, for Patty’s nerves were strained to the utmost. She paused a moment for breath. “A bride has the feeling that the friends of the family know her husband better than she does; and it’s such a sad occasion to begin. But I’m sure I may say both for him and for me that we are pleased, and will always be pleased, to see old friends here.”
The ladies sat and stared at her speechless. What reply could be made to a woman so manifestly within her rights?