GREYSHOTT MANOR, to which Gervase directed his steps after the interview above recorded, was a large red brick mansion, no earlier than the reign of Anne; though there were traces in various parts of the house of a much older lineage. The front, however, which you could see through the wonderful avenue of beeches, which was the pride of the place, bore a pediment and twinkled with rows of windows, two long lines above the porticoed and pillared door, which also had a small pediment of its own. It looked old-fashioned, but not old, and was in perfect repair. When the sun shone down the beech avenue, which faced to the west, it turned the old bricks of the house into a sort of glorified ruddiness, blended of all the warmest tones—red and russet, and brown and orange, with a touch of black relieving it here and there. The effect in autumn, when all those warm tints which, by the alchemy of nature, bring beauty out of the chilly frost and unlovely decay—was as if all the colours in the rainbow had been poured forth; but all so toned and subdued by infinite gradation that the most violent notes of colour were chastened into harmony. It was not autumn, however, at this moment, but full summer,—the trees in clouds and billows of full foliage, dark on either side of that glory of the moon, which poured down like a silver river between, and made all the windows white with the whiteness of her light. The avenue was a wonderful feature at Greyshott, and even the mere passer-by had the good of it, since it was closed only by a great gate of wrought iron, which would also have been worth looking at had the spectator been a connoisseur. The fault of the avenue was that it was a short one—not above a quarter of a mile long—and it was now used only by foot-passengers, who had a right of way through the little postern that flanked the big gate. Important visitors drove up on the other side, through what was called the Avenue, which was just like other avenues; but the Beeches were the pride of Greyshott. To think that the one slim shadow that came into the moonlight in the midst of them, with a wavering gait and stooping shoulders, should be the future lord and master of all those princely older inhabitants, with the power of life and death in his hands! A few years hence, when old Sir Giles had come to the end of his existence, his son could cut them down if he pleased. He could obliterate the very name of the great trees, so much more dignified and splendid members of society than himself, which stood in close ranks on either side of the path: he so little and they so great, and yet this confused and bewildered mortal the master of all!
If Gervase walked with a wavering gait, it was not because of the beer against which Patty had made so strong a remonstrance. He had, indeed, had quite enough of that; but his uncertain step was natural to the Softy, as all the country called him. He went along with his head stooping, his hands in his pockets, his eyes traversing the path as well as his feet, keeping up an inane calculation of the white pebbles, or the brown ones, among the gravel. He had long been in the habit of playing a sort of game with himself in the vacancy of his mind, the brown against the white, counting them all along the level of the road, occasionally cheating himself in the interests of the right side or the left. This occupation had beguiled him over many a mile of road. But it had palled upon him since he had known Patty, or rather, since she had surprised him into that admiration and enthusiasm which had made him determine to marry her, whatever difficulties might be in the way. It was, perhaps, because of the rebuff she had given him that Gervase had again taken to his game with the brown and white pebbles in the road, which, indeed, it was not too easy to distinguish in the whiteness of the moon. He walked along with his head down, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders up to his ears, and the moon was very unhandsome in the matter of shadow, and threw a villainous blotch behind him upon that clear white line of way. There was a light in the front of the house to which Gervase was bound; a sort of querulous light, which shone keen in the expanse of windows, all black and white in the moon, like the eyes of an angry watcher looking out for the return of the prodigal, but not like the father in the parable. It was, indeed, exactly so: the light was in his mother’s window, who would not go to bed till Gervase had come home. It was not late, but it was late for the rural household, which was all closed and shut up by ten o’clock. Sir Giles was an invalid, his wife old, and accustomed to take great care of herself. She sat up in her dressing-gown, angry, though anxious, with all the reproachful dignity of a woman kept up and deprived of her natural rest, ready to step into bed the moment her vigil was over; a large watch ticking noisily and also reproachfully on the table beside her, with a sort of stare in its large white face, seeming to say, late! late! instead of tick, tick—to the young man’s guilty ear.
At least, it had once done so; but Gervase by this time was quite hardened to the watch that said late! and the mother whose tongue in the tschick, tschick! of angry remonstrance, hailed him for want of better welcome when he went in.
He directed himself to a little side door in the shadow, which was often left open for him by the old butler, who had less fear of his plate than of getting the boy, whom, Softy as he was, he loved, into trouble. But sometimes it was not left open; sometimes an emissary from above, his mother’s maid, who loved him not, one of her satellites, turned the key, and Gervase had to ring, waking all the echoes of the house. He thought it was going to be so on this particular night, for when he pushed, it did not yield. Next moment, however, it opened softly, showing a tall shadow in the dimly-lighted passage. “O, Gervase, how late you are!” said a low voice.
“Why, it’s you!” he said.
“Yes, it’s me. My aunt is angry, I don’t know why. And she says you are to go to her before you go to bed.”
“I sha’n’t!” said Gervase.
“Do, there’s a dear boy. She has got something in her head. She will imagine worse than the truth if you don’t go. Oh! why should you be so undutiful? They would be so good to you if you would but let them. Go to your mother, Gervase, and let her see——”
She paused, looking at him by the faint light as if she were not very sure that Gervase’s mother would see anything satisfactory. There was not, indeed, anything exhilarating to see. His light eyes, which had shone with a certain brightness upon Patty, were opaque now, and had no speculation in them. His under lip hung a little, and was always moist. The sullen look was habitual to his face. “What does she want o’ me?” he said in his throat, running his words into each other.
“She wants of you—— what I’m afraid she’ll never get,” said the cousin with a tone of exasperation; “but at least go and say good-night to her, Gervase, and be as pleasant as you can. You may always do that.”
“You’re not one that thinks much o’ my pleasantness, Meg.”
“I’ve always been grateful for it when you’ve showed me any,” she said with a smile. She was a tall woman, older than Gervase, a few years over thirty, at the age which should be the very glory and flush of prime, but which in a woman is usually scoffed at as if it were old age. Gervase frankly thought his cousin an elderly woman who did not count any longer in life. She was very plainly dressed in black, being a widow and poor, and had something of the air of one who is on sufferance in a house to which she does not naturally belong. She kept at a slight distance from her cousin, taking half a step back when he took one in advance: but her voice to him was soft and her meaning kind. She had no great affection, beyond the habitual bond of having known him all his life, for Gervase; but she was a bystander seeing both sides of the question, and she did not think that the treatment adopted in his home was judicious, which made her more or less, as a dependent may be, the partizan of the poor fellow, for whom nobody had any respect, and few people cared at all.
“Come,” she said, in a persuasive tone; “I’ll go with you, Gervase.”
“What good’ll that do?” he said, sullenly.
“Well, not much, perhaps: but you always liked when you were little to have somebody to stand by you: and if my aunt thinks I’m intruding, it will be all the better for you.”
So saying, she led the way upstairs, and knocked lightly at a door on the gallery which went round the hall. “Here he is, aunt,” she said, “quite safe and sound; and now you can get to bed.”
“Who is quite safe and sound? and was there any doubt on that subject?” said a voice within. Lady Piercey sat very upright in an old-fashioned chair of the square high-backed kind, with walls like a house. The candle that looked so querulous in the window had inside a sharp, self-assertive light, as if it had known all about it all the time. She was in a dressing-gown of a large shawl pattern, warm and wadded, and had a muslin cap with goffered frills tied closely round her face. It is a kind of head-dress which makes a benign face still more benign, and a sweet complexion sweeter, and which also stiffens and starches a different kind of countenance. Lady Piercey was high featured, of that type of the human visage which resembles a horse, and her frills quivered with the indignation in her soul.
“I thought you were anxious about Gervase, aunt.”
Mrs. Osborne interfered in this obviously injudicious way, with the object of drawing aside the lightnings upon herself, as it was generally easy to do.
“I don’t know what you had to do with it,” said Lady Piercey, roughly. “If I’m anxious about Gervase, it’s not about life or limb. I’m not a fool, I hope. What did you give her, you block, to make her come and put herself before you like this?”
“I’ve got nothing to give,” said the lout. There had been a trace of manhood, a gleam even of the gentleman in him when he was with Patty. Here, in his mother’s room, he became a mere lump of clay. He pulled out his pockets as he spoke, which shed a number of small articles upon the floor, but not a coin. “I have a deal to give—to her or any one,” he said.
“Where do you spend it all?” said the mother; “five shillings I gave you on Monday, and what expenses have you? Kept in luxury, and never needing to put your hand in your pocket. Goodness, Meg, what a smell! Is it a barrel of beer you’ve rolled into my room, or is it—is it my only boy?”
“By—Gosh!” said Gervase. He could not be gentlemanly even in his oaths. He would have said “By George!” or perhaps “By Jove!” even if he had been with Patty, but nothing but this vulgar expletive would come to his lips here.
“I’ve heard of you, sir,” said Lady Piercey; “I’ve heard where you spend your time, and who you spend it with. A common beerhouse, and the woman that serves the beer. Oh, good gracious! good gracious! and to think that should be my son, and that he’s the heir to an old estate and will be Sir Gervase if he lives!”
“Ay,” said Gervase, with a laugh, “and you can’t stop that, old lady, not if you should burst.”
“Don’t you be too sure I can’t stop it,” she cried. “Your father is not much good, but he is more good than you think; and if you suppose there’s no way of putting an idiot out of the line, you’re mistaken. There are plenty of asylums for fools, I can tell you; and if you are such a double-dyed fool as that——”
Gervase stared and grew pale; but then he took courage and laughed a weak laugh. “I may be a fool,” he said, “you’re always that nice to me, mamma: but there’s them in the world that will stand up for me, and cleverer than you.”
Lady Piercey stared also for a moment; and then turning to Mrs. Osborne, asked, “Meg! what does the ass mean?”
“Oh, have a little patience, aunt! He means—nothing, probably. He has been doing no harm, and he’s vexed to be blamed. Why should he be blamed when he has been doing no harm?”
“Do you call it no harm to bring the smell of an alehouse into my room?” cried Lady Piercey; “you will have to open all the windows to get rid of it, and probably I shall get my death of cold—which is what he would like, no doubt.”
Gervase laughed again, his lower lip more watery than ever. “Trust you for taking care of yourself,” he said. “If that’s all you have got to say, slanging a fellow for nothing, I’ll go to bed.”
“Stop here, when I tell you! and let me know this instant about that woman. Who is she that will have anything to say to you? Perhaps she thinks she will be my lady, and get my place after me—a girl that draws beer for all the ploughmen in the parish!”
“I don’t know who you’re speaking of,” said Gervase. His face grew a dull red, and he clenched his fist. “By Gosh! and if she marries me, so she will, and nobody can stop it,” he said.
“You had better banish this illusion from your mind,” said Lady Piercey, with solemnity. “A woman like that shall never be my lady, and come after me. It’s against—against the laws of this house; it’s against the law of the land. Your father can leave every penny away from you! And as for the name, it’s—it’s forbidden to a common person. The Lord Chancellor will not allow it!—the Queen will not have it! You might as well try to—to bring down St. Paul’s to Greyshott! Do you hear, you fool, what I say?”
Gervase stood with his mouth open: he was confounded with these big names. The Queen and the Lord Chancellor and St. Paul’s! They mingled together in a something stupendous, an authority before which even Patty, with all her cleverness, must fail. He gazed at his mother with the stupid alarm which all his life her denunciations had inspired. St. Paul’s and the Queen! The one an awful shadow, coming down on the moors; the other at the head of her army, as in a fairy story. And the Lord Chancellor! something more alarming still, because Gervase could form no idea of him unless by the incarnation of the police, which even in Greyshott was a name of fear.
“Look here,” said Lady Piercey, “this is what it would mean; you wouldn’t have a penny; you’d have to draw the beer yourself to get your living; you’d be cut off from your father’s will like—like a turnip top. The Lord Chancellor would grant an injunction to change your name; for they won’t have good old names degraded, the great officers won’t. You might think yourself lucky if you kept the Gervase, for that’s your christened name; but it would be Gervase Brown, or Green, or something;—or they might let you for a favour take her name—the beerhouse woman’s; which would suit you very well, for you would be the beerhouse man.”
Gervase’s lip dropped more and more, his face grew paler and paler. Lady Piercey by long experience had grown versed in this kind of argument. She was aware that she could reduce him to absolute vacuity and silence every plea he might bring forth. He had no plea, poor fellow. He was so ignorant that, often as he had been thus threatened, he never had found out the absurdity of these threats. He fell upon himself like a ruined wall, as he stood before her limp and terrified. There was a grim sort of humour in the woman which enjoyed this too, as well as the sense of absolute power she had over him; and when she had dismissed him, which she did with the slight touch of a kiss upon his cheek, but again a grimace at the smell of beer, she burst into a wild but suppressed laugh. “Was there ever such a fool, to believe all I say?” she said to her niece who removed her dressing-gown, and helped her into bed; and then—for this fierce old lady was but an old woman after all—she fell a-whimpering and crying. “And that’s my son! oh Lord! my only child; all that I’ve got in the world.”